Our Great High Priest

For every high priest taken from among men is appointed for men in things pertaining to God, that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins. He can have compassion on those who are ignorant and going astray, since he himself is also subject to weakness. Because of this he is required as for the people, so also for himself, to offer sacrifices for sins. And no man takes this honor to himself, but he who is called by God, just as Aaron was. So also Christ did not glorify Himself to become High Priest, but it was He who said to Him: “You are My Son, Today I have begotten You.” As He also says in another place: “You are a priest forever According to the order of Melchizedek”; who, in the days of His flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplications, with vehement cries and tears to Him who was able to save Him from death, and was heard because of His godly fear, though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered. And having been perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him, called by God as High Priest “according to the order of Melchizedek,”

Chapter 5 begins a new section in the Book of Hebrews. The first four chapters presents Jesus as the Creator, the Divine Son, and the great Davidic King. Psalms 2 and 110 formed the basic of this Kingship. This Son is greater than the angels, greater than Moses, and greater than the first Joshua (Jesus). Hebrews by saying that God had spoken in and through the Son shows Him to be a prophet, and not just a prophet, the greatest of the prophets. He is the one who offers a better rest than was afforded to the children of Israel. The Son is the exact representation of God. So, indeed, this Son who became incarnate and was born of the Virgin Mary is no mere human being. He is worthy of all honor and glory.

The Book of Hebrews constantly warns the hearers of his sermon against the dangers of unbelief. All that is spoken about Christ serves to remind the hearer of the one with whom we have to deal with. Surely, to turn away from Him is eternal ruin. The preceding text in Hebrews 4:11-16 accentuates this warning not to fail entering into His rest. The discernment of the Word of God which is sharper than any two-edged sword is meant to expose the seeds of unbelief that might be germinating in our hearts before it grows into the noxious weed which strangles life. God wants us to enter into His rest. Besides the Word of God which exposes this tendency to unbelief, Jesus is now introduced in Hebrews 4:14-16 as the great High Priest who knows our every weakness. Jesus, as High Priest stands in for us so that we might have boldness to access the throne of grace. He was tempted to the uttermost, yet He did not sin. He knows we have weaknesses because he experienced weakness. He is there to strengthen us in our temptation that we might not fall into sin, especially that of unbelief. If we start to sink as Peter did when he lost faith by looking at the surrounding waves rather than on Jesus, Jesus has His hand out to pull us up.

Chapter 5 begins with a generic treatment about the priesthood. Even though the author has the Israeli priesthood as established in the Torah in mind, it is universally true of priests in general that they are human beings. They might be a priest to a false god, but it is their duty to make intercession for others as well as to offer gifts to their god. In the Israeli faith, Yahweh is the only God. Yahweh in the wilderness instituted the Priesthood and appointed Aaron the brother of Moses as High Priest. He was called by God for this purpose. A person could not legitimately make one’s self a priest on his own authority. But when we think of Jesus, we remember that besides being perfect humanity was also the co-equal Son of God. As God, he could have made Himself Priest on his own authority. He had the right to take this honor upon Himself. But He submitted to be appointed High Priest.

Hebrews again reminds us that even His Divine Kingship was the result of appointment. It was already stated in Hebrews 1:5 which in turn is a quote from Psalm 2:7 that “Thou art My Son: This day I have begotten thee.” The Psalm is a Psalm of David and was probably originally thought to refer to Yahweh’s divine appointment of David to the throne of Israel. But what is stated here speaks far beyond the mortal King David. Even David says in Psalm 110:1 that this referred to someone whom David called “my Lord.” We understand this as Christians to be fulfilled in Jesus. The Son is ever obedient to the will of the Father.

Now Psalm 110:4 is quoted and applied to Jesus. It is interesting that Hebrews says “in another place.” This “another place” is in the same psalm that was just quoted. What we must note here is that the Kings of Israel and Judah were forbidden to serve as priests. Saul tried it and was rejected. Uzziah was struck with leprosy when he tried it. David is called a king and a prophet. But he was never “prophet, priest, and king. Some priests like Samuel were prophets as well as priest. But none of them served as king. Only Jesus can serve in all these capacities. This is how we know that Psalms 2 and 110 speak to Jesus.

Psalm 110:4 calls Jesus a “Priest after the order of Melchizedek.” Hebrews will later elaborate more fully on the ramifications of this priesthood after a short interlude starting at Hebrews 5:11 because he knows that his hearers would lack understanding of what this means, even though they should. He would also use the interlude to again warn his hearers against unbelief and falling away. What is brought out here is how Jesus exercised this priesthood for us. It says that he spent the time of His earthly sojourn in making prayers and supplications for himself to be delivered from death, or which His prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane serves as an example. His prayer was heard. Even though He submitted Himself as the sacrifice for our sin unto death, He was delivered from death. As Peter noted in quoting the 16th Psalm in his Pentecost sermon, His body was not allowed to decay. God raised Him on the third day. So in this sense, the Resurrection became His deliverance from death. Hebrews does not elaborate on the resurrection itself and focuses upon the Son of God ascending with the blood of the atonement to present it to the Father. There He is seated at His right hand, the seating indicating that His work of atonement was complete and satisfactory.

The following text is interesting in that it says that Jesus learned obedience through the things He suffered. Was not the Son eternally obedient? He was already perfect, so how could He be made perfect? Hebrews has already told us that He was tempted in all ways like us but did not sin. Whereas all other Israeli High Priests were encompassed by sin and had to make atonement for his own sin before he could atone for the sins of the people. But Jesus had no need to make such offering for Himself. All I can say is that this is mystery to us just as the fact that Jesus is both fully divine as well as fully human. He is both because He must be both. He is the means of our reconciliation. He must be able as our intercessor to represent us before the Godhead as our Priest. But He also represents the Divine interest to us. For reconciliation to occur, he must faithfully represent both parties. This mystery should make us stand in awe of the extent that God went to save us. The Son who is fully God became flesh and lived among us. Even though He is Divine, He was able to grow in grace and knowledge with both God and man as Luke tells us. Here it says that He learned obedience through the things He suffered. This means that He personally knows and feels our weaknesses rather than seeing them afar off.

Through the sacrifice of Himself, Jesus become the author of eternal salvation for all those who obey Him. The obedience of Christ on the cross becomes the paradigm of our own obedience, Unlike Jesus, we have all fallen into disobedience. But does not this sound like work’s salvation? After all, obedience is demonstrated by what we do. Are we not in the Protestant tradition the holders of sola fidei (By faith alone)? Yet this verse clearly associates obedience to Him. How do we reconcile this?

The doctrine of Justification by Faith is laid out in Romans 1:16. Again and again in Romans reminds us as well in his other writings that we are not saved by works. But what do we do with Romans 1:5 where is says “for obedience to the faith” which is repeated in Romans 16:26. Obviously Paul does not have a problem with justification by faith alone and being obedient to the faith. The fact it occurs at the very beginning and end of Romans tells us that the entire epistle is grounded in the obedience to the faith. Acts tells us that many of the priests became obedient to the faith. So faith and obedience are linked tightly together in Scripture. James tells us that faith is not static but dynamic. The Word of God brings us to obedience. We prove our faith through obedience. Abraham was justified by faith long before He obeyed Yahweh in bringing Isaac up to Mount Moriah and preparing him for sacrifice. So Paul talks about the origin of Abraham’s justification in Genesis 15:6 and James points to the necessary fruit of justification which is demonstrated in obedience.

Let it then be said that we are called to a life of obedience. This obedience must be grounded in faith. If it is not, then one will fall into disobedience. This is the nature of Hebrew’s many warnings against unbelief. This does not mean that we don’t fall short of perfect obedience or perfect faith. We are all too guilty of this. But faith tells us to remember that God has provided Himself a sacrifice for us. Isaac was not that sacrifice even though he perfectly obeyed his father Abraham even to the point of laying himself down upon the altar. We need a greater obedience of which Christ alone is able to provide. In the 12th chapter of Hebrews we are to be encouraged that we are still being chastised for our failings and lack of faith. This proves we are still his. Even though this chastisement is sore, it will turn out to our profit. With all our weakness, it is good to know we have a friend in Jesus.

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