Hebrews 4:14–5:10

4:14 In Hebrews 2:17–18 Jesus was introduced as a “merciful and faithful high priest,” “made like his brothers in every respect,” who “suffered when tempted” so that he can help those who are likewise tempted. The reappearance of these italicized words links 4:14–16 to 2:17–18. Later, our preacher will signal the conclusion of his discussion of Jesus’ priestly office and ministry by repeating terms from 4:14–16 in 10:19–25: “Since we have a great priest . . . let us draw near. . . . Let us hold fast the confession.”

In the Hebrew OT, the expression behind our English “the high priest” is “the great priest” (hakkohen haggadol), and the LXX usually reflects this formulation (ho hiereus ho megas) (Num. 35:25–32; cf. Heb. 10:21). Here, to emphasize our High Priest’s superiority to the order of Aaron, our author adds the adjective “great” to the Greek term “high priest” (archiereus), which emerged in later Greek (Maccabees and NT). Two features show Jesus’ superior priestly status. First, he has “passed through the heavens.” This exaltation is implied in his seat at God’s right hand (Ps. 110:1, introduced in Heb. 1:3, 13). The heavenly venue Jesus entered as priest is the original sanctuary, of which the earthly tabernacle was a copy (7:26; 8:4–5; 9:11–12, 24). Second, Jesus is “the Son of God,” whom God addressed as such in Psalm 2:7 (Heb. 1:5). As Son he is the radiance of God’s glory, the agent of creation, the ruler worthy to be addressed as “God,” and the ruler over God’s house.

Earlier exhortations to “hold fast our confession” were supported by a negative motive: the spiritual peril of unbelief in the face of wilderness trials (cf. 3:6, 12–14). Now the motive is positive: our Great High Priest suffered with us and can help us. “Confession” (homologia) signals believers’ corporate responsibility to encourage each other’s perseverance, as it refers to what Christians believe and verbally affirm together (3:1; 10:23).

4:15 The arresting use of a double negative, “not . . . a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses,” implies that the Great High Priest’s identification with weak and tempted sinners is unexpected in light of his divine dignity. Earlier, the truth that the Son is “not ashamed to call them brothers” took us by surprise (2:11–12). Now his sympathy astonishes us.

The English “sympathize,” although derived from the Greek verb used here (sympatheō; also in 10:34), may mislead us. When we “sympathize” with sufferers, we attempt to identify emotionally with their distress. Jesus goes deeper, sharing his people’s experience of suffering, having been tempted when suffering (2:18) and having learned obedience from what he suffered (5:8). Greek speakers would hear the resonance of “sympathize,” “deal gently” (metriopathein; 5:2), and “suffer” (epathen; 5:8) in this section.

Our preacher previously affirmed the Son’s complete participation in human flesh and blood, becoming “like his brothers in every respect” (2:14, 17). Now he introduces the crucial exception to the similarity between Jesus and other human beings: though tempted in every way as they are, Jesus withstood every temptation “without sin.” Jesus’ complete innocence and freedom from sin is affirmed throughout the NT (Luke 23:41; John 7:18; 8:46; 14:30–31; 2 Cor. 5:21; 1 Pet. 1:19; 2:22; 3:18; 1 John 3:5). Without this difference, he could not be our perfectly “faithful high priest in the service of God” (Heb. 2:17). But in fact he is “holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners” (7:26–27). Jesus’ sinless purity sets him apart from every priest in Aaron’s line (5:2–3).

4:16 With such a High Priest, simultaneously compassionate and sinless, we can “with confidence draw near” to God’s divine throne. To those who approach through Jesus’ mediation, it is a “throne of grace.” The imagery evoked by “drawing near” is the approach of worshipers to the sanctuary (7:25; 10:1) and the high priest’s entrance into the Most Holy Place on the Day of Atonement (10:19–21). Elsewhere in the NT, “confidence” (parrēsia) characterizes fearless proclamation (Acts 4:13; 9:28; 14:3; Eph. 6:19; Phil. 1:20). In Hebrews, “confidence” entails the worshipers’ anticipation of divine favor as they draw near to God (3:6; 10:19, 35), their consciences cleansed of guilt through Jesus’ sacrifice so that the “consuming fire” (12:29) of God’s holiness no longer threatens them.

“Mercy” and “grace” are related, but mercy may refer specifically to forgiveness while grace may refer more generally to the unmerited favor by which God strengthens struggling hearts (13:9). God’s grace brings timely help—just when temptation and suffering are most intense. The translation “in time of need” represents a single adjective, eukairos. Elsewhere in the NT this word group refers to opportune moments (Mark 6:21; 14:11; 2 Tim. 4:2).

5:1 This verse sums up the high priest’s qualifications and tasks, thereby implying how fitting Christ’s incarnation, temptation, and suffering are to his ministry as the “great high priest.” The following sentences unpack aspects of this description. “Every high priest” is “from among men,” sharing human nature and weakness with others so that he can “act on behalf of men in relation to God” (cf. 5:2–3, 9). He is “chosen” (or “taken,” lambanomenos) through God’s initiative and “appointed” (kathistēmi, see Num. 3:10 LXX) by God, not self-nominated (Heb. 5:4–5, 10). He is appointed “to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins” (cf. 5:3, 7–8).

5:2–3 The Aaronic high priest could “deal gently” with people who violated God’s commands inadvertently, in ignorance. (The law distinguished sins committed “unintentionally” from defiant rebellion: Num. 15:27–31; Lev. 4:2, 13, 22, 27.) As noted in the comment on Heb. 4:15, the Greek verb (metriopatheō) reflected in “deal gently” shares a stem (path-) with “sympathize” (4:15). But the parallel between Jesus and Aaron is not exact. Aaron’s gentle treatment of the wayward meant restraining his reaction of righteous indignation or revulsion over others’ failures. Such restraint was fitting, since Aaron was not only “beset” by weakness but was also guilty of sins, needing atonement himself. Jesus’ compassion is more outgoing and tender, not compelled by a guilty conscience (for he was “without sin”; 4:15) but moved with a pity that can spring only from pure innocence.

The rituals for the Day of Atonement demonstrated the guilt of every OT high priest. Before he could offer a sacrifice for the people’s sins, he had to offer a bull “as a sin offering for himself and . . . make atonement for himself and for his house” (Lev. 16:6–14). Then he could “kill the goat of the sin offering that is for the people” (Lev. 16:15–19). Our preacher will keep before our minds this crucial difference between Aaron’s sin-stained line and our sinless mediator (Heb. 7:27; 9:7).

5:4 The honor of approaching the sovereign Lord is not ours for the taking but can be bestowed only by God himself. The Lord called Aaron and his sons to serve as Israel’s priestly intercessors (Ex. 28:1). The Levite Korah and his Reubenite coconspirators challenged Aaron’s unique access to God’s presence (Numbers 16), but God destroyed the rebels and reaffirmed his choice of Aaron by causing Aaron’s staff alone to sprout buds and blossoms (Num. 17:8–10; Heb. 9:4).

5:5–6 “So also Christ” did not seize the glory of high priestly office for himself. The ESV “exalt” could be rendered “glorify” (doxazō). “Honor” and “glory” have appeared together in Hebrews 2:7, 9; 3:3. Our author has already used the title “Christ” (Anointed One) and spoken of his anointing (3:6, 14; cf. 1:9). Here the title brings us back to Psalm 2:7, the first of the OT series of passages addressing the Son’s superiority to angels (Heb. 1:5), in which the Lord declares to his Anointed One, “You are my Son.” The syntax of this direct address is parallel to Psalm 110:4: “You are a priest.” The grammatical parallel linking these “You are . . .” statements supports the identification drawn in Hebrews 4:14: the “great high priest” is “the Son of God.” Other features of Psalm 110:4—this priest’s “forever” tenure in office and the template provided by the ancient priest-king Melchizedek—will be unfolded in chapter 7.

5:7 The procedure by which God installed Christ as priest was neither ritualized (as was Aaron’s) nor painless. Thus, in elaborating the truth that Christ received his priestly appointment by God’s decree, our author elaborates on the suffering under testing that made Jesus the most merciful of priests. The “days of his flesh” were the period of his humble incarnate life on earth, from the moment he came to share our flesh and blood (2:14), assuming a true human body vulnerable to harm and death (10:5–10), to his resurrection from the dead.

The same liturgical term (prospherō) that had been used to describe the high priest’s “offering” of sacrifices for sins (5:1, 3) now describes how Jesus “offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears.” The desperate pleas that Christ offered corresponded in some way to the animals sacrificed by Aaronic priests. Jesus’ prayers, shouts, and tears “to him who was able to save him from death” became intense in the garden of Gethsemane (Luke 22:41–44) and then on the cross. But even before then our Lord had drawn words from Psalm 6:3–4 to lament, “Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But for this purpose I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name” (John 12:27–28). His plea, “Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me” (Mark 14:36), was a desperate appeal to “him who was able to save him from death.”

The cup of divine wrath was not removed without the sinless Savior’s draining it to its dregs. How, then, can our preacher claim (in words drawn from Pss. 22:24; 116:1) that Jesus “was heard” by the God to whom he cried for rescue? In Scripture, for God to “hear” is for him to answer his servants’ petition in the affirmative. Some theorize that the request referenced here was not for deliverance from death but was rather “Not what I will, but what you will” (Mark 14:36) or “Glorify your name” (John 12:28). But the description of God as “him who was able to save him from death” gives us the content of Christ’s petition. Only through his resurrection was Jesus’ plea for rescue from death both heard and answered “because of his reverence.” His reverent offering of his body in accord with the Father’s will (Heb. 10:5–10) was rewarded when “the God of peace . . . brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus” (13:20; cf. Acts 2:24–28). God’s answer came “not by Jesus escaping death, or the fear of death, but by his transcending death through his resurrection and exaltation at God’s right hand.”¹

5:8 The Son’s path to priesthood passed through suffering. From the standpoint of his divine identity, his suffering is incongruous, as the concessive “although he was a son” shows. For human sons and daughters—the “many sons” whom God is bringing to glory (2:10)—suffering is to be expected as a sign of our legitimacy in the faith (12:5–8). But it is shocking that the unique Son, who is the radiance of God’s glory, would suffer and would “learn obedience” through that suffering. The author skillfully conjoins forms of the Greek verbs “learn” (manthanō) and “suffer” (paschō) that rhyme with each other: emathen . . . epathen (“he learned . . . he suffered”). A gifted rhetorician, our preacher gives attention to how his language will strike hearers’ ears.

The Son’s uniqueness in contrast to humans sets his “learning” apart from theirs. Human children “learn obedience” through correction after they disobey, whereas Jesus never disobeyed (4:15). His “learning obedience,” therefore, did not involve the painful correction that sinful children need. Instead it involved his experiential encounter, throughout his life and climaxing in his death, with the overwhelming personal cost of the commitment he embraced as he entered our world at his incarnation: “When Christ came into the world, he said, ‘. . . Behold, I have come to do your will, O God, as it is written of me in the scroll of the book’” (10:5–7).

5:9–10 Although suffering is incompatible with the Son’s deity, it was both fitting and necessary to his priestly office as our merciful High Priest for Christ to experience our weakness and the pangs of our suffering. This mission is what required him to share fully in our embodied, vulnerable humanity (2:14–18). Thus the author concludes this discussion of Jesus’ installation into priestly office in two syntactically parallel and semantically complementary ways:

• being made perfect . . .
• being designated by God a high priest . . .

As noted in the comment on 2:10, for Christ to be “made perfect” (teleioō) refers not to his transition from a state of moral defect into blamelessness but rather to his induction into priestly office, reflecting LXX usage in passages describing the consecration of OT priests (Ex. 29:9, 29, 33, 35; Lev. 4:5; 8:33; 16:32; 21:10; Num. 3:3; etc.). Here the parallel participle “being designated by God a high priest” (Heb. 5:10) confirms this interpretation of “made perfect.”

Through weakness, temptation, suffering, death, and resurrection, Jesus has been inducted into a uniquely superior high priestly order. This order is “after the order of Melchizedek,” heavenly and everlasting, a topic on which our preacher will have “much to say,” following an extensive exhortation to his hearers (5:11–6:20). Yet Jesus’ ministry is better than that of Aaron not only because of its celestial venue and longevity but also because of its purifying and reconciling effectiveness. Jesus has become “the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him” (5:9) because he entered God’s sanctuary with his own blood, “securing an eternal redemption” (9:11–14). Isaiah praised the Lord for saving Israel with “everlasting salvation” (Isa. 45:17), and the cross demonstrates the price the Son paid to “save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him” (Heb. 7:25).