· As we read this letter in our day, it is meant to exhort us from turning away to unreliable foundations and it is meant to exhort us to build our lives on Jesus as the only reliable foundation.
· Passages like this are meant to encourage us, that we can have an unshakable confidence to build our lives rightly on Jesus Christ. He is our Great High Priest and the only One we can trust in for eternal salvation.
· We don’t need to be uncertain. We don’t need to look elsewhere. Even when storms come. Even though the world around seems to be sliding our way, we can have great confidence in our Great High Priest, who alone is qualified to save us forever.
Main Idea:
We can have great confidence in our Great High Priest, who alone is qualified
to save us forever.
·
We are tempted to lack confidence. We are
tempted to put our confidence in other things, other places, ourselves, or
other people.· As we face living in a world fraught with problems, challenges, trials, disappointment and temptations, we need to examine where our confidence is.
· Are we living with an active confidence in our Great High Priest. Are we confident in His atonement for our sins? Are we confident in His power? Are we confident that He alone is the source of eternal salvation? And more importantly, are we living our lives built on the right kind of confidence – a confidence that rests on Jesus?
· The author of Hebrews has just finished telling us in chapter four, that since Jesus is our Great High Priest, we can hold fast to our confession and draw near to His throne to find mercy and grace in our time of need.
· Now, the author is unpacking even further why we can have confidence in our Great High Priest. And through this author, God gives us some solid reasons why everyone can and should trust in Jesus, the Son of God as our Great High Priest.
· He gives us at least five qualifications in these verses why we can have confidence in our Great High Priest to save us forever.
· The first thing we will see from these verses and where we will spend the majority of our time, is that,
1. Our Great High Priest is the appointed Son of God
“every high priest chosen from among men is
appointed to act on behalf of men in relation to God, to offer gifts and
sacrifices for sins.”
·
The purpose of the high
priest was to represent the people before God.
·
This was a very lofty
position and one that the Israelites rightly revered. Out of the entire nation,
only one man was chosen and appointed to represent the people before God. · This one man had the responsibility of acting on behalf of mankind in relating to God.
· The author is saying that every High priest had to be a man and as a High Priest, Jesus was definitely a man.
· In the previous chapter, we read that Jesus has been “tempted in every respect as we are”. In order to be tempted in every respect as we are, Jesus had to be fully and truly a man, even though He remained fully and truly God.
· In Hebrews 5:7, it refers to the time Jesus spent on earth as “the days of His flesh”. This is mean to reemphasize that Jesus was very physically a man in every way.
· And as a man, the High Priest was to carry out the central role of making sacrifices as a representative of mankind, and these sacrifices served as a covering over of the sins of God’s people.
· In addition, verse four tells us that,
“no one takes this honor for himself, but only when called by God, just as Aaron was”
·
No one was supposed to appoint
himself to be High Priest. There was to be no yearly “High Priest campaign” or
“High Priest election” by the people. There wasn’t supposed to be any seizing
of the office either.
·
Just like God called and
chose Aaron to be the High Priest, every good Jew knew that all of the High
Priests that followed were to be called by God from the line of Aaron. · But Jesus clearly was from the line of David and He had to be, in order to fulfill the prophecies about the Messiah coming from the line of David, as a King.
5 So
also Christ did not exalt himself to be made a high priest, but was appointed
by him who said to him, "You are my Son, today I have begotten
you"; 6 as he says also
in another place, "You are a priest forever, after the order of
Melchizedek."
·
So we learn that Jesus
was indeed appointed by God as was required, but He is a far superior
appointment from an entirely different order. · Jesus perfectly fulfills the qualifications in a way no other High Priest has or ever could, because He is the only High Priest who is the exalted Son of God
· The author of Hebrews is quoting in these verses from both Psalm 2:7 and Psalm 110:4.
· Psalm 2 is a declaration of God’s appointment of His chosen one, initially in David and ultimately now fulfilled in Christ. What this passage tells us as well is that the appointed one is God’s Son and He is also the exalted King.
· However, even Jesus did not glorify Himself. God the Father has given Him the glory of the Son and God the Father is the One who has appointed Him as the Great High Priest and exalted King.
· At the outset of Jesus’ public ministry, in His baptism, God declared from heaven, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased”.
· Jesus said in John 5:30 "I can do nothing on my own… I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me.
· Then, in our passage in Hebrews the author also quotes Psalm 110.
Psalm 110:1-2,4 The LORD says to my Lord: "Sit
at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool." 2 The LORD sends forth from Zion
your mighty scepter. Rule in the midst of your enemies!... 4 The
LORD has sworn and will not change his mind, "You are a priest forever after the
order of Melchizedek."
·
In the Old Testament, the
offices of Priest and King were not to be confused and no one person was rightly
able to hold these offices, even though some tried.· But here in these Psalms, we have God the Father speaking and declaring that One will come in the line of David, whom God appoints, who will be both King and Priest. He will be a new kind of priest - one who reigns forever - not in the line of Aaron, but in the order of Melchizedek.
· The author of Hebrews will spend more time on Melchizedek as a type of the High Priest to come in chapter 7, but it is important for us to understand why he says that Jesus is a High Priest after the order of Melchizedek.
· We don’t know very much about Melchizedek and in fact, he is only mentioned twice in the entire Old Testament.
Genesis 14:17-22 After his return from the defeat of
Chedorlaomer and the kings who were with him, the king of Sodom went out to
meet him at the Valley of Shaveh (that is, the King's Valley). 18 And Melchizedek king of Salem brought out
bread and wine. (He was priest of God Most High.) 19 And he blessed him and said, "Blessed
be Abram by God Most High, Possessor of heaven and earth; 20 and blessed be God Most High, who has
delivered your enemies into your hand!" And Abram gave him a tenth of
everything. 21 And the king of Sodom
said to Abram, "Give me the persons, but take the goods for
yourself." 22 But Abram said to the
king of Sodom..."
·
For us today, this
interaction in Genesis may not seem remarkable but what would have stood out to
any Jew reading the account, was the incredible fact that Melchizedek, whose
name means “king of righteousness” was not a Jew and not only was he not from
the line of Aaron, because he came hundreds of years before Aaron, he wasn’t
even from the line of Abram at all.· Even more surprising is that this Melchizedek was a priest of “God Most High”, even before God had ratified the covenant with Abraham through animal sacrifice.
· Not only that, Melchizedek was from Salem, which wasn’t a part of Israel until the time of David. We never even hear about him again. We don’t know where he came from or where he went.
· Melchizedek comes out to greet Abram and gives him bread and wine, and Abram immediately recognized him as God’s chosen Priest and pays Melchizedek a tithe.
· We don’t know anything about Melchizedek’s birth or life or his death. Somehow God had raised up a man from another land and miraculously made him His priest in the land of Salem and remarkably, this is the only other time in the Old Testament that we see a Priest of God Most High who is also a king.
· This Melchizedek was of a completely different order than any other Old Testament priest or King.
· From the time of the kings of Israel, and from Aaron and the entire establishment of the priesthood through him, there was never a Levitical priest who legitimately fulfilled both the role of High Priest and Davidic King.
· So, when David prophesied of one who would come as the Heir of all things, as the Son of God, who would be both King and Priest, the Israelites longed for and looked for one who would come and redeem the people and reign forever as one appointed by God.
· No ordinary son of David could reign forever as king and priest – but these offices would be united in the person of God’s true Son
· Then Jesus comes, God’s very own Son, not just the heir of an earthly king, with a limited kingdom, but Jesus is the eternally begotten Son of God, who is the heir and rightful ruler of all things.
· Like Melchizedek, Jesus was called by God most High directly, called independently from the line of Aaron and before the line of Aaron yet existed.
· Jesus is a priest after a different order of priesthood altogether that is ordained by God, apart from the Old Covenant.
2. Our Great High Priest will deal gently with
the ignorant and wayward
·
The High Priest was not
somehow outside of the experience of mankind; since he too was a man, he was
beset with weakness. · The High Priest was to be amongst the people and have close interactions with them. He was not to be removed from the people but to have dealings with them.
· The High Priest was to deal gently, even with those who were ignorant and wayward.
· This would have been surprising to a careful reader of the Old Testament, because the Jews were not to be ignorant. They were to study God’s Word, they were called to know and understand God’s Word and to teach His Word to their children when they rose up and when they laid down. In everything they did, they were commanded to instruct and teach their children so that they would not be ignorant.
· They were supposed to learn and know the law so that they would not go astray. But the reality is that everyone goes astray. In fact, going astray was a common theme for the people of Israel and they needed someone to deal gently with them when they did go astray.
Isaiah 53:6 “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have
turned every one to his own way;”
·
The High Priest was to
recognize that he himself was weak and then deal understandingly and gently
with the people, as he represented them before God.· Jesus experienced the full range of human weakness and because He was weak, He knows how to deal gently with mankind, sympathizing with man as a man.
· Better than any earthly father, or the High Priest of old, Jesus doesn’t just sympathize with the ignorant and wayward, He can actually help the ignorant and wayward because he never went astray and He always devoted Himself to God’s Word.
· We can have confidence in our Great High Priest because He is the appointed Son of God, who is also a man and knows how to deal gently with the ignorant and wayward.
· He is also qualified as our Great High Priest, because He knows what it is like to have great sorrow.
3. Our Great High Priest knows what it is like to
have great sorrow
7 In the days of
his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud
cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard
because of his reverence.· The author of Hebrews has told us already that Jesus sympathizes with our weaknesses because He experienced the same kinds of weaknesses as we do and He was tested and experienced trials of all kinds. In fact, He has been tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin.
· Verse 7 paints an even more vivid picture of Jesus’ humanity for us. He was a man of sorrows.
· Jesus experienced the full range of human emotions, He offered up prayers and supplications to God, “with loud cries and tears”.
· A High Priest who could not experience sorrow could not relate to us really. We could not have confidence in a High Priest who never cried and had never experienced anguish of soul. We couldn’t trust that they really got it, that they really understood when we have great sorrow. Because let’s face it, this life is indeed full of sorrow at times. Life is full of sorrows like loneliness, hurt, isolation, loss, despair, tragedy, pain and rejection. But our Great High Priest is not detached.
· When it says He offered prayers with loud cries and tears, this is a picture of deep anguish and sorrow. And we get a glimpse of the sorrows Jesus endured when He was praying in the Garden of Gethsemane.
· It says in Luke 22: 44, “And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground.”
· As the Greatest High Priest, not only did Jesus offer up His own body as a sacrifice for mankind, He offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears.
· However, Jesus still fully drank the cup of God’s wrath. He was forsaken and He suffered all the way to death.
· But Jesus surely was saved from death. Even though He was crucified and died, He was raised again to life and death could not hold His body as it had every other High Priest before.
· Not only can He relate, He knows how to give us the strength to endure agonizing times of trial where we feel all alone and He tells us, we are never alone. We are never praying by ourselves as He did. He prays with us and for us and on our behalf, as our Great High Priest.
· We can have confidence to come to Him, and know that our prayers and supplications will be heard before God, because our Great High Priest knows what it is like to have great sorrow.
4. Our Great High Priest knows what it is to
learn obedience through suffering
8
Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered.· It is important to see the comparison between the High Priests of the Old Covenant and Jesus, but it is also important to see how much greater than these High Priests Jesus is.
· The Aaronic High Priests could deal gently with the people but they could not really help them in their time of need.
· Jesus is able to provide timely help to us, to enable us to persevere. He gives God’s mercy and grace to us in a whole new way.
· Although He was the Son of God, He still learned obedience from what He suffered, just like all the sons of mankind do. He wasn’t exempt from needing to learn obedience through suffering.
· Jesus is able to help us obey, because He learned how to obey all the way through the most difficult, tempting, trying times. He obeyed all the way through suffering - never giving up, never failing to obey, never refusing and never turning back because it was too hard.
· We can have confidence in Jesus because He really learned what it is to obey perfectly through suffering. This doesn’t mean He was ever disobedient and then learned to become obedient. What it means is that He learned the full and complete difficulty of being obedient through all of His suffering.
· Even though He was the Son of God, He didn’t sidestep suffering. He didn’t get out of suffering and trials in some supernatural way that isn’t available to us.
· Jesus can identify with us when we struggle to obey; when we experience times of trials and suffering, because He really grasps what it is like personally to have to obey and to endure in obedience through the worst suffering imaginable.
· Again and again Jesus’ faithfulness to God and unfailing obedience to His Father were challenged but He knew what it meant to endure faithfully. He knows the full weight of enduring in obedience and trust, no matter what the cost.
· Even when the Father actually did turn His face away from Him and crushed His physical body to death, Jesus continued to obey in His trust and belief and faith in God to deliver Him from death.
· The fact that Jesus learned every type of obedience through suffering is meant to be encouragement for us in the midst of suffering. It is encouragement that we can endure through His enabling power and it is encouragement that God uses and redeems suffering to help us grow to be more like Jesus as He makes us complete in Him.
· We can have assurance that God the Father, who brought Jesus out of suffering, will also bring us, His many sons and daughters, to glory if we persevere to the end.
· We can have confidence in our Great High Priest, because he is the Son of God, He will deal gently with the wayward and weak, He know what it is like to have great sorrow and He learned obedience through suffering. But it doesn’t end there.
· If this is where we ended, it wouldn’t be enough. We don’t just need a qualified, sympathetic High Priest – although it is absolutely necessary that our Great High Priest be all of this. We also need a High Priest who can save us like no other. And thanks be to God, this is what we have.
5. Our Great High Priest is completely able to
save like no other
9 And being made
perfect, He became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey Him, 10
being designated by God a high priest after the order of Melchizedek.· We are all weak, ignorant and wayward at times. All of us have gone astray as Isaiah has said. But the good news is that Jesus perfectly took on all of our sins and was punished completely for us.
Isaiah 53:6-7 “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have
turned every one to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of
us all. 7 He was oppressed, and he was
afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the
slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened
not his mouth.”
·
The High Priests of the
Old Covenant would slaughter a young bull and a goat to temporarily appease God
and cover over the sins of the people.
After that, they would pray and lay the sins of the people on a
scapegoat and send it outside of the camp to die.· Unlike all of the High Priests before Him though, Jesus didn’t just cover over our sins. He didn’t just symbolically take the sins of the people and go away. Jesus went outside of the city Himself and took our sins on His own body on the Cross, so that by His stripes, we might be healed and He was slaughtered for our sins, like a lamb, in our place.
· Jesus was made perfect or complete through suffering to the end. And it is because of this that He became the source not only of sympathy but eternal salvation to all who obey Him.
· The perfect, Great High Priest who reigns forever, has been made perfect through suffering as a man in our place and He forever secures our redemption.
· Our forever Great High Priest has forever nail-scarred hands and a forever-scarred side that give evidence for all eternity of His forever-sacrifice and forever-salvation.
· Now, when it says that He is the source of eternal salvation to all who obey Him, it doesn’t mean that our salvation comes through works. Instead, in the context of what the author has been saying for the past two chapters of Hebrews, it is saying that if we are those who obey Him, in belief, in trusting in Him, in resting in Him and if we are those who are obedient in our holding onto our profession of faith, then we surely have eternal salvation through our Great High Priest.
· This world we live in is ever-changing. This life we live can be unstable at times. But we are called to trust in and have complete confidence in Jesus Christ and let nothing shake our confidence in Him.
· No matter what changes may or may not come in political systems, no matter what storms may rage, what trials may come, what difficulties we may encounter. Even if we lose everything and everyone else, there is one place, one person, one person that we can have unshakable confidence in and that is in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who is our Great High Priest.
· So, let us take confidence not in an earthly High Priest like the High Priest from Aaron onwards, let us have an unfailing confidence in our unfailing, unshakable Great High Priest, Jesus the Son of God, who is a High priest of an entirely different and far superior order.
· We can indeed have great confidence in our Great High Priest, who alone is qualified to save us forever.
Potential
Application Questions:
1.
Where are we tempted to place our hope for
salvation?2. Why do we need a Great High Priest? Why is it good news for us that Jesus Christ, the Son of God is our Great High Priest?
3. How does understanding God’s divine appointment of His begotten Son as both a King and Priest forever help us trust in Him more?
4. When are we ignorant and wayward? How does it personally give you hope to know that our Great High Priest deals gently with the ignorant and wayward?
5. When we experience deep sorrows, it can feel like no one else can relate. What areas in your life do you feel like no one else can relate? How does understanding that our Great High Priest knows what it is like to have great sorrow encourage you?
6. Jesus empathizes with our every temptation and weakness, but He doesn’t just empathize with us. He is able to help us not be tempted and strengthen us when we are weak. Share with your small group areas where you feel weak or are tempted that you need Jesus’ help and strength and take a few moments to encourage and pray for each other.
7. Is there anywhere that you are currently experiencing some form of suffering? (relational, physical, etc.). How does it change your perspective on your own suffering to know that our Great High Priest knows what it is to learn obedience through suffering?
8. Is there anywhere we are tempted to subtly look as a source for salvation? (different job, a spouse, relational relief, end of conflict, more money, more strength, more power, etc?)
9. How can we practically look to Jesus as the only source of our eternal salvation?
10. What does it look like to obey Jesus through trusting in Him in our own lives?
