Living Behind The Veil: A Different Kind of Priest Heb. 5:1-6

I. The High Priest’s Person vs. 1-3

A. Yahweh saw fit to have a man be a mediator for man in the Old Testament. This way he could know what his congregants were going through.

B. He would offer gifts for sins, that is an offering. It’s not a a bribe, but rather a gift of thanksgiving to Yahweh.

C. Offerings were for the ignorant, not the willful sinner. Num. 15:30-31

Numbers 15:30–31 NASB95

‘But the person who does anything defiantly, whether he is native or an alien, that one is blaspheming the Lord; and that person 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 will be on him.’ ”

Deuteronomy 17:12 NASB95

“The man who acts presumptuously by not listening to the priest who stands there to serve the Lord your God, nor to the judge, that man shall die; thus you shall purge the evil from Israel.

D. When we sin willfully, we are abusing grace. Heb. 10:26

Hebrews 10:26 NASB95

For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins,

E. This priest had to offer an offering for himself, because he himself was a sinner.

II. The High Priest’s Calling vs. 4

A. Yahweh called Aaron to be a priest, and the Levites to be priest. He divinely chose them to be born into it, just like we are divinely chosen to be born into the family we were born into.

B. No man in his right mind would want to be a preacher, but when God calls you, you can’t do anything else but preach. “If you can do anything else do it! If not preach!”- Charles Spurgeon.

III. The New High Priest vs. 5-6

A. Jesus wasn’t born a Levite, but a Judahite.

B. He is the Son of God, so He could be anything the Father wanted Him to be, quoting Ps. 2:7.

C. So He is a Priest after the order of Melchizedek, quoting Ps. 110:4.

D. This new High Priest is the High Priest of the New Covenant, a covenant of grace.