The Great High Priest (Part 1)
Notes
Transcript
Hook:
Hook:
This morning we start our deep dive into what makes Jesus’ Priesthood so special and so wonderful.
Recap:
Recap:
This morning we are starting our second section of Hebrews titled: The Supreme High Priest. I don’t know about you but this years Easter celebration was really awesome. 2 dedications of faith and a bunch of rededication.
What now? Getting plugged in some way shape or form, is the next step.
Introduction:
Introduction:
Jesus Christ the second Person of the Trinity, fully God and fully Man, is the Supreme High Priest. This is a wonderful truth that begins our 2nd section of Hebrews.
There is no greater High Priest who has every held this office, that stands between God and man. The implication is unbelievable: as the High Priest, He is able to sympathize.
Jesus not only meets our every need and carries us through all the hardships and difficulties of life, but he also understands what you are going through.
This morning we are going to do 2 things:
Identify the High priest.
and the benefits we receive believers receive.
The identity of the great High Priest
The identity of the great High Priest
[14] Right away there are things that the author is alluding too. Such as using the word “great.” It is being used to set Jesus apart form all others who have held the office.
There have been many that held the office of high priest. Some of them were wonderful in that position. While other were terrible, using their power for their own purposes.
Aaron, Moses’ brother, was the first high priest. For many of the Jews, considered to be the greatest.
We talked about the high priest during the time of Jesus’ earthly ministry. Annas and Caiaphas. Both men are terrible examples of what it means to be high priest. They were notorious for being cruel and abused their power.
Something to think about too is the simple fact that all who had the title of high priest, prior to Jesus, needed a sacrifice for their sins. They were sinners in need of a savior. They were not better then anyone else.
Our author gives us two simple yet profound reasons why Jesus’ priesthood was far greater than theirs.
Jesus had “passed into the heavens.” He is before the very throne of God; He is in the very presence of God Himself. An earthly high priest ministered from an earthly temple. But Christ ministers in the very presence of God.
[[Calling someone for them to be the middle man]]
Jesus Christ is the Son of God. His earthly name Jesus speaks of his nature and sympathy for man. Jesus was a man just like all the other high priest. He suffered all the trials and temptations that other men and high priest suffer, yet never gave in to sin. Meaning Jesus is perfect free from the bondage of sin, yet can still sympathize with us.
17 Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.
It is important to note that we are to be thinking about the previous verses:
12 For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. 13 And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.
Christ is the great High Priest of His people. They present Him as the great resource of His needy people, able to keep them from falling.
When we look at both passages together we see that the emphasis changed from scrutinizer to Sympathizer.
The point is when the Word has thoroughly exposed us, we can go to Him for mercy and grace.
We already looked at two reasons why Jesus is a greater high priest, let us now look at 4 excellencies of our Lord:
He really is a great High Priest. There were many high priest but none of them were ever called great!
He has passed through the atmospheric heaven and the stellar heaven to the third heaven, the dwelling place of God. (He passed through the heavens and is with the Father) This speaks, of course, of His ascension and glorification at the Father’s right hand.
He is human. Jesus was the name given to Him at His brith and it is the name that is particularly linked with His humanity.
He is divine. The Son of God, when used of Christ, speaks of His absolute equality with God the Father. His humanity qualified Him from our point of view; His deity, from God’s point of view. No wonder He is called a great High Priest.
Jesus the Son of God, divine, the very Son of God Himself. Who came to earth to deliver and save men from sin, death, and condemnation. He came to save us to the uttermost- carrying us before the very throne of God. He came to make it possible for us to live in the very presence of God Himself.
How can He do this? Because He is the Son of God. As the Son of God He has the power to save us, to make us acceptable to God. No other priest could have done this.
3 concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh 4 and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord,
9 For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily,
3 He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,
To simplify it: Let us hold fast to our confession. The confession that Jesus Christ alone can save. He alone has passed into heaven. He alone is seated at the right hand of God. If one wishes to be in heaven with God for all eternity, we must confess Christ genuinely. Holding fast to our confession.
23 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.
Benefits of Jesus being High Priest
Benefits of Jesus being High Priest
[15] The benefits of the Christ’s Priesthood is fivefold here.
Firstly Jesus sympathizes with us. The connotation in the Greek is: to sympathize and feel with a person to the point that the hurt and pain are actually felt within one’s own heart.
\What makes this so beautiful is the fact that He knows what we are going through because He has gone through it too.
As Man, Jesus has shared our experiences and can therefore understand the testings which we endure.
There is only one thing He cannot sympathize with that that is our wrongdoing because He never experienced it. But He did take the punishment for our wicked deeds.
“In every pang that rends the heart,
The Man of Sorrows had a part,
He sympathizes in our grief,
And to the sufferer sends relief”–”The Mediator”
Have you felt lonely and dejected? Christ too.
Name the trail or pain, temptation, or suffering— name the infirmity or weakness—name any and all human experiences—Jesus Christ actually knows what you have gone through.
We could ask for no greater Savior; we could crave no greater Intercessor; we could long for no greater High Priest.
1 “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me.
18 “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.
9 In all their affliction he was afflicted,
and the angel of his presence saved them;
in his love and in his pity he redeemed them;
he lifted them up and carried them all the days of old.
We have a High Priest who was tempted in all things just like we are… Yet without sin.
What a beautiful and glorious truth that we should never sleep on.It is the very basis for our salvation. You see no man, woman, or child would ever be saved unless Jesus did live a perfect sinless life.
Why? First off we all agree that there is something fundamentally broken in the world and that is due to sin (Genesis 3). Sin separates us from God, because only perfection can stand before God. That is why we needed the Perfect Man to live a sinless life and secure the perfect righteousness that’ll cover our sin.
You see this is the glorious gospel, and in this verse it points out that Jesus was sinless. He was tempted in all things just like we are, but He never gave in. Think through that for a minute. He went through every experience and every trial and temptation that we go through.
Hebrews-James (King James Version) A. Christ Is the Great High Priest (Part I): The Sympathetic, Compassionate High Priest, 4:14–16
“He is like us in all things—except that He emerged from it all completely sinless.… The fact that Jesus was without sin necessarily means that He knew depths and tensions and assaults of temptation which we never know and never can know. So far from His battle being easier it was immeasurably harder. Why? For this reason—we fall to temptation long before the tempter has put out the whole of his power. We are easily vanquished; we never know temptation at its fiercest and its most terrible, because we fall long before that stage is reached. But Jesus was tempted as we are—and far beyond what we are. For in His case the tempter put everything he possessed into the assault, and Jesus withstood it. Think of it in terms of pain. There is a degree of pain which the human frame can stand—and then when that degree is reached a person faints and loses consciousness; he has reached his limit. There are agonies of pain he does not know, because there came collapse. It is so with temptation. We collapse before temptation; but Jesus went to our stage of temptation and far beyond it and still did not collapse. It is true to say that He was tempted in all things as we are; but it is also true to say that never was man tempted as He was” (The Letter to the Hebrews, p. 38)
21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
22 He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. 23 When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. 24 He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. 25 For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.
There are two fallacies when looking at Christ’s sinless nature:
You sometimes hear people say, “If Jesus was God He could not sin, therefore His temptation was meaningless.” The purpose of temptation was to demonstrate conclusively that He could not sin.
If you put gold to the test, the test is not less valid because the gold is pure. If there were impurity, the test would show it.
The second fallacy is, “If Jesus could not sin, He was not perfectly human. Sin is not an essential element in humanity; father it is a foreign intruder. Our humanity has been barred by sin; His is perfect humanity free from it.
If Jesus could have sinned as Man on earth, what is to prevent His sinning as a Man in heaven. He did not leave His humanity behind when He ascended to the Father’s right hand. He was impeccable on earth and He is impeccable in heaven.
[16] We can call upon God anytime.
God is sitting upon a throne, the seat of authority, power, honor, glory, respect, and reverence. Therefore, we are to approach Him in respect and reverence.
Also note what He is sitting upon… the “throne of grace.” Grace means God’s unmerited favor. I don’t quite understand or believe we will ever truly grasp the implications. God really loves you, and longs to shower His love and blessing upon mankind.
How could God care for mankind, care for creatures so small in comparison to the universe? Care for creatures who have cursed, denied, ignored, and rebelled against the Sovereign Lord of the universe?
Truly how great is our God. We get to boldly go before the throne because of the world of Jesus on the cross and His resurrection. No need to pray to saints. Just like when the vail was torn from top to bottom exposing the holy of holies. We are now free to go before the Father and the Son.
19 Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, 20 by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, 21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.
Through the throne of grace we have obtained the mercy of God. Mercy is not getting the righteous punishment that we deserve.
After all we have:
ignored Him
neglected Him
rebelled against Him
disobeyed Him
rejected Him
denied Him
cursed Him
God will forgive our sins; He will have mercy upon us. But we must come to the throne of grace and ask for mercy. We must acknowledge that mercy comes only through Jesus. He and HE alone knows our need for mercy; He and He alone bore our sins and paid our penalty and condemnation. He and He alone can represent us before God.
4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
5 he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit,
We can now find grace to help in time of need. It might not be apparent what the applications of this 5th point is but… What a glorious truth!
Help is now available to carry us through life. No matter what confronts us— trial, trouble, tribulation, temptation— help is available, the very help of God Himself.
It is this real help from God that we can bank on to help us through our lives. The highs and the lows of life.
13 No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.
It was different for people in the OT days, because they could not draw near to Him like we do today, through the power of the Holy Spirit. Only the high priest could approach Him and then only on one day of the year. We can go into His presence at any time of the day or night and obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
His mercy covers the things we should not have done, and His grace empowers us to do what we should do but do not have the power to do it.
“I am never tired of pointing our that the Greek phrase translated “in time of need” is a colloquialism of which “in the nick of time” is the exact equivalent. “That we many receive mercy and find grace to help in the nick of time”—grace just when and where I need it. You are attacked by temptation. At the moment of assault, you look to Him, and the grace is there to help you in the nick of time. There is no postponement of your petition until the evening hour of prayer. But there in the city street with the flaming temptation in front of you, turn to Christ with a cry fro help, and the grace will be there in the nick of time.” -G. Campbell Morgan
Up to this point, Jesus has been shown to be superior to the prophets, the angels, Moses. We now turned to the important theme of priest hood to see that Christ’s high priesthood is of a superior order to Aaron’s.
Next wee we will see the first 4 verse of chapter 5 we have a description of the Aaronic priest. Then in the following 6 verse Christ’s fitness as a priest is detailed.
17 But you must remember, beloved, the predictions of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. 18 They said to you, “In the last time there will be scoffers, following their own ungodly passions.” 19 It is these who cause divisions, worldly people, devoid of the Spirit. 20 But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, 21 keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. 22 And have mercy on those who doubt; 23 save others by snatching them out of the fire; to others show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh.
24 Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, 25 to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.