He Is Gentle
Mike Woody
The Heart of Christ • Sermon • Submitted
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He can have compassion on those who are ignorant and going astray, since he himself is also subject to weakness.
He is able to deal gently with those who are ignorant and are going astray, since he is also clothed with weakness.
Why Is This Important?
Why Is This Important?
When we think of Jesus in the book of Hebrews, especially, we tend to think of Him as the Perfect High Priest, and this is a central theme of the book.
We know elsewhere that Jesus is Prophet, Priest and King
The Prophet proclaimed God’s Word to His people.
The Priest represented His people to God.
The King represented God to His people.
Thinking of this another way: The king provided authority over the people; the priest provided solidarity with the people.
Parents: this is why your role is critical and can provide benefit or damage. As you exercise your authority as a parent it will affect your children’s, and other children’s, view of God.
In the Old Testament, we would see some priests who were godly men who tried to represent the people to God, but they were hindered.
Hindered by their own sin
Hindered by their physical frailty
Hindered by self-pity, Ortlund writes:
If our priest himself knew what our weakness felt like so that he was in deepest sympathy with us, yet had never himself sinned, and so his heart had never turned in on himself in self-pity or self-absorption—that would be a priest truly able to deal gently with us.
If there is an attitude that I have become quite devout against, that is a view of God that is harsh. It is the view of God presented by Legalism and it is a view of God that He is waiting to pounce on us for our sin.
This promotes a fear of God that isn’t healthy - it breeds distrust in God because we are still sinners.
This same view can make God into a God of wrath (and He is) but not a God of grace, love, and compassion (which He is).
What Does This Mean?
What Does This Mean?
Last time we looked at Hebrews 4:15
For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.
For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin.
Hebrews 4:15 tells us the what of Christ’s High Priestly role.
Hebrews 5:2 we learn the how of Christ’s High Priestly role.
The Greek word underlying “have compassion” in 5:2 shares a common root with “sympathize” in 4:15, and the original hearers and readers of Hebrews would likely have picked up on this in a way that is missed in English.
We also find in both texts the repeated Greek verb dunamai, even in the same verbal form; this is that word ‘able.’
4:15 dunamenon sunpathesai tois (“able to sympathize with the . . .”)
Remember that Heb. 4:15 used a double-negative to reinforce the strength of His ability to sympathize.
We could render Heb. 4:15, For we DO have a High Priest who IS able to sympathize with our weaknesses, He was tempted in every way as we are, but WITHOUT sin.
5:2 metriopathein dunamenon tois (“He can deal gently with the . . .”)
Allow me some liberty in rendering Hebrews 5:2 for the sake of impact.
This same high priest is able to deal gently with those who are ignorant and are going astray.
This common word, dunamenon, which means “one who is able to” or “one who has the capability to,” note the common root to the key verb in each verse.
We noted last time in 4:15 that sunpathesai means to “cosuffer” in the sense of feeling out of his full solidarity with us. While you can see the way this Greek word gives us our English word sympathy, the meaning is richer than sympathy tends to denote to our minds.
Now in 5:2, as the writer continues to lay out how Jesus is our great high priest, we find the word metriopathein.
This is the only use of this verb in the New Testament. It means ‘to deal gently.’
The prefix metrio- has the sense of restraint or moderation, and the root patheo refers to passion or suffering.
The idea here in 5:2 is that Jesus does not throw his hands up in the air when he engages sinners. He is calm, tender, soothing, restrained. He deals with us gently.
Now we need to deal with these two instances mentioned of what He deals gently with.
The NKJV uses the words ignorant and going astray - the CSB uses the same words; the ESV says, those who are ignorant and wayward.
These are fine translations but we are still missing the point that the Hebrew readers would have understood.
Read Numbers 15:27-31 - what are the two classes of sins here?
‘And if a person sins unintentionally, then he shall bring a female goat in its first year as a sin offering. So the priest shall make atonement for the person who sins unintentionally, when he sins unintentionally before the Lord, to make atonement for him; and it shall be forgiven him. You shall have one law for him who sins unintentionally, for him who is native-born among the children of Israel and for the stranger who dwells among them.
‘But the person who does anything presumptuously, whether he is native-born or a stranger, that one brings reproach on the Lord, and he shall be cut off from among his people. Because he has despised the word of the Lord, and has broken His commandment, that person shall be completely cut off; his guilt shall be upon him.’ ”
There is unintentional sin and there is presumptuous, or as the ESV renders it, sin with a high hand, let’s call it intentional sin.
My intention here is not to deal with Numbers 15 - and the responses to sin. I will say that this was an action done under the Theocracy, the Lord was their king, but many of these rules changed later or David would have been stoned for his sin of adultery.
The intention of this passage is that Jesus deals with the unintentional sins and the intentional sins.
The point is that Jesus deals gently and only gently with all sinners who come to him, irrespective of their particular offense and just how heinous it is.
What elicits tenderness from Jesus is not the severity of the sin but whether the sinner comes to him. Whatever our offense, he deals gently with us.
This is not the case for those who do not come to Him - they face the Lamb who has the sword coming out of His mouth.
Ortlund says,
If we do come to him, as fierce as his lion-like judgment would have been against us, so deep will be his lamb-like tenderness for us.
This is not an encouragement to sin; the words of Paul and John ring loud in this matter.
Romans 5:20 - 6:2
Moreover the law entered that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more, so that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?
1 John 1:9-2:2
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.
My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world.
How Should This Change My Life?
How Should This Change My Life?
When we sin, we are encouraged to bring our mess to Jesus because he will know just how to receive us.
Again, this is no encouragement to sin, how can we sin with impunity against one who loves us like this?
He doesn’t handle us roughly.
He doesn’t scowl and scold.
He doesn’t lash out the way perhaps our parents did.
And all this restraint on his part is not because he has a diluted view of our sinfulness. He knows our sinfulness far more deeply than we do.
Ortlund says, Hebrews is not just telling us that instead of scolding us, Jesus loves us. It’s telling us the kind of love he has: rather than dispensing grace to us from on high, he gets down with us, he puts his arm around us, he deals with us in the way that is just what we need. He deals gently with us.
Ortlund quotes what John Owen writes on this passage, [this means that he can] no more cast off poor sinners for their ignorance and wanderings than a nursing father should cast away a sucking child for its crying. . . . Thus ought it to be with a high priest, and thus is it with Jesus Christ. He is able, with all meekness and gentleness, with patience and moderation, to bear with the infirmities, sins, and provocations of his people, even as a nurse or a nursing father bears with the weakness . . . of a poor infant.
When we sin, we are encouraged we are reminded that Jesus is able to gently deal with us because He understands our weaknesses.
To get the full affect here you have to read Hebrews 4:15 and Hebrews 5:2 together.
For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.
He can have compassion on those who are ignorant and going astray, since he himself is also subject to weakness.
Same Greek word in both cases - this word speaks to capacity. To get the full flavor of what Paul was writing in Hebrews we must also read Hebrews 7:28.
For the law appoints as high priests men who have weakness, but the word of the oath, which came after the law, appoints the Son who has been perfected forever.
I do not believe this is regarding capacity to sin, what I believe Paul is writing to is His capacity to understand and to deal with us.
Jesus is not one who has the capacity to reject those who are His - He is always fully capable of understanding, loving, and redeeming those beset about by sin. You cannot disqualify yourself from Christ’s capacity to love and redeem you.
Jesus is always capable of dealing with you in your sin - He is always gentle, He cannot be any other way.
Closing with a statement by Ortlund:
As long as you fix your attention on your sin, you will fail to see how you can be safe. But as long as you look to this high priest, you will fail to see how you can be in danger. Looking inside ourselves, we can anticipate only harshness from heaven. Looking out to Christ, we can anticipate only gentleness.
Benediction
Benediction
But when the kindness of God our Savior and his love for mankind appeared, he saved us—not by works of righteousness that we had done, but according to his mercy—through the washing of regeneration and renewal by the Holy Spirit. He poured out his Spirit on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior so that, having been justified by his grace, we may become heirs with the hope of eternal life.