11  Christ the Perfect Priest  (5:1-10)

For every high priest taken from among men is appointed on behalf of men in things pertaining to God, in order to offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins; he can deal gently with the ignorant and misguided since he himself also is beset with weakness; and because of it he is obligated to offer sacrifices for sins, as for the people, so also for himself. And no one takes the honor to himself, but he receives it when he is called by God, even as Aaron was. So also Christ did not glorify Himself so as to become a high priest, but He who said to Him, “Thou art My Son, today I have begotten Thee”; just as He says also in another passage, “Thou art a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.” In the days of His flesh, He offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the One able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His piety. Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered. And having been made perfect, He became to all those who obey Him the source of eternal salvation, being designated by God as a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek. (5:1-10)

Among the first things a Jew might have asked another person about his religion were, “Who is your high priest? Who mediates between you and God? Who offers the sacrifices to atone for your sins?” A Jew during the time of the early church may well have asked a Christian, “How are your sins going to be pardoned when you have no one offering sacrifices and no one interceding for you? How can you claim that this new covenant supersedes and is superior to the Old Covenant made through Moses when it leaves you without a high priest?”

The Christian would have replied, “But we do have a high priest, a perfect High Priest. He has offered sacrifice for our sins. He does not confine Himself to an earthly temple, nor does He have to sacrifice yearly, much less daily. He made one sacrifice that atones for all sins ever committed, from the beginning to the end of time. That is how great a high priest He is and how great His sacrifice was. Not only that, but our High Priest is seated at the right hand of God and continually intercedes for those of us who belong to Him.”

The heart of the book of Hebrews (chaps. 5-9) focuses on Jesus’ high priesthood. His superior priesthood, more than anything else, makes the New Covenant better than the Old. He has done what all the priests together of the old economy did not do and could never have done.

The priests under the Old Covenant were bridge builders to God. Men could not come directly into God’s presence, and God therefore appointed certain men to be ushers, as it were, to bring men into His presence. The way to God was opened only as the priests offered sacrifices-day in and day out, year after year—presenting the blood of animals to God. The priests were God’s mediators.

THE ONE, PERFECT GREAT HIGH PRIEST

But with the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross, need for the Temple and for the Levitical priesthood was ended. There was no longer a requirement for a high priest such as those who succeeded Aaron, or for any human priest at all. Jesus was both High Priest and sacrifice, and provided eternally for man an opening into God’s presence. At His crucifixion, the curtain of the Temple was torn in two, exposing the Holy of Holies to anyone who would come to God through the Son. In one perfect act of sacrifice, Jesus Christ accomplished what thousands upon thousands of sacrifices by a multitude of priests never accomplished. He opened the way to God permanently, so that any man at any time by faith in Christ might enter into God’s presence.

THE QUALIFICATIONS FOR PRIEST

For every high priest taken from among men is appointed on behalf of men in things pertaining to God, in order to offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins; he can deal gently with the ignorant and misguided, since he himself also is beset with weakness; and because of it he is obligated to offer sacrifices for sins, as for the people, so also for himself. And no one takes the honor to himself, but he receives it when he is called by God, even as Aaron was. (5:1-4)

These four verses state the three basic qualifications for a Jewish high priest. He was appointed by God, was sympathetic with those to whom he ministered, and offered sacrifices on their behalf. The following six verses show how Jesus Christ fulfills those qualifications.

APPOINTED BY GOD FROM AMONG MEN HE HAD

TO BE A MAN

A priest has to partake of the nature of the persons for whom he officiates. A true high priest, therefore, had to be taken from among men; that is, he had to be a man. God did not choose angels to be priests. Angels do not have the nature of men. They cannot truly understand men and they do not have open communication with men. Only a man could be subject to the temptations of men, could experience suffering like men, and thereby be able to minister to men in an understanding and merciful way. Only a man could rightly minister on behalf of men.

Remembering to whom this epistle was written, we can more easily see the importance of the point being made here about Jesus Christ. To be the perfect High Priest, in fact to be a high priest at all, He had to be a man. This much, of course, was completely clear and acceptable to Jews. Their problem was with the incarnation—God’s becoming a man. The Holy Spirit very simply answers the problem of the incarnation with the one basic point: the Messiah, who is God, could not be a true high priest unless He were a man. Unless God could feel what men feel and go through what men go through, He would have no experiential understanding of those whom He represented.

Under the old economy, even after the covenants with Abraham and with Moses, God was unapproachable. At the Fall, God drove Adam and Eve out of the garden and man no longer had access to the Lord’s presence. In the wilderness, the people were warned not to come too near Sinai, where God chose to manifest Himself to Moses when giving the covenant of the law. In the Tabernacle and in the Temple God was behind a veil and could be approached only throuqh the high priest.

But in sending His Son, Jesus Christ, God no longer kept Himself aloof, transcendent, and separate from men. He entered into the human world and felt everything that men will ever feel in order that He might be a sympathetic, merciful, and faithful High Priest. If God had never become man, He never could have been a high priest, a mediator, or an intercessor. He never could have offered the perfect and absolute sacrifice for the sins of His people, which divine justice required. The incarnation was not an option; it was an absolute necessity. It was an imperative if men were to be saved.

John Calvin said, “It was necessary for Christ to become a real man. For as we are very far from God, we stand in a manner before him in the person of our priest, which could not be were he not one of us. Hence, that the Son of God has a nature in common with us, does not diminish his dignity, but commends it the more to us for he is fitted to reconcile us to God because he is man.” God had to come down to where we are in order to pick us up and bring us back to Himself.

HE HAD TO BE GOD’S MAN

But a true priest could not be just any man. He had to be appointed by God. It was not an office that a man could fill simply because of his own plans or ambition. He had to be God’s man—not simply in the sense of being faithful and obedient to God but in the sense of being selected by God. He was appointed on behalf of men but by God. “No one takes the honor to himself, but receives it when he is called by God, even as Aaron was” (v. 4; cf. 8:3).

When the priesthood was first established, Moses was instructed, “Then bring near to yourself Aaron your brother, and his sons with him, from among the sons of Israel, to minister as priest to Me—Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, Eleazar and Ithamar, Aaron’s sons” (Ex. 28:1). From the beginning of the priesthood, the priests not only were to minister for God but by His appointment. When Korah, Dathan, and Abiram insisted on trying to democratize the priesthood and claimed that any Israelite could be a priest, the Lord caused the earth to swallow them up (Num. 16).

SYMPATHETIC WITH MEN

He can deal gently with the ignorant and misguided, since he himself also is beset with weakness. (5:2)

Omniscience knows everything; perfect sympathy feels everything. Christ did not need to learn any information when He came to earth. He was omniscient, all-knowing. But He chose to participate in men’s feelings personally so that he could also be sympathetic, all-feeling. A true high priest had to be sympathetic with those to whom he ministered. A true high priest would be completely involved in the human situation, completely bound up in the bundle of life. He needed to live among men as a man, to feel with them in their highs and in their lows, so He could deal gently with them.

Metriopathe, besides meaning “to deal gently,” also means to treat with mildness or moderation. In the context of Hebrews 5:2, it can carry the idea of being in the middle of things—in two ways. First is the meaning of being in the midst of, being fully involved. The other is that of taking a middle ground—of knowing and understanding, but of avoiding extremes. A person with this characteristic would, for example, show a certain balance between irritation and apathy in the face of wrongdoing. He would be patient with the wrongdoer but not condone the wrong, be understanding but not indulgent.

A better example would be in relation to grief or danger. A person who is either too sympathetic or too apathetic cannot help someone in trouble. The one who is too sympathetic will himself be engulfed by the problem, becoming too grief stricken or too scared to be of help. On the other hand, the one who is apathetic possibly will not even recognize a problem someone else is having and, in any case, will not be concerned about helping. In the middle is the person metriopathe describes. He can fully identify with the person having a problem without losing his perspective and judgment. A true high priest needed this characteristic. He had to experience the extremes of human emotions and temptations while being stronger than them. Thereby He would be able to deal gently with those to whom he ministered, without becoming victim of their misery.

The ones with whom the priest is to deal gently are those who are ignorant and misguided, that is, those who sin through ignorance. The Old Covenant provision was: “The priest shall make atonement before the Lord for the person who goes astray when he sins unintentionally, making atonement for him that he may be forgiven” (Num. 15:28). The priest ministered only in behalf of those who sinned in ignorance and thus went astray. In all of the Old Testament economy, there is absolutely no provision made for the unrepentant, deliberate, and defiant lawbreaker. There is none. “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” (Num. 15:30).

So the emphasis here is on sympathy. The high priest was meant to have sympathy toward those who ignorantly went astray. Since the Jewish priest himself was a sinner, he had the natural capacity, and he ought to have had the sensitivity, to feel a little bit of what others were feeling.

SACRIFICING FOR MEN

In his mediatorial work, the high priest made two basic kinds of offerings: gifts and sacrifices (v. 1; cf. 8:3; 9:9).

OFFERING GIFTS

In the broadest sense, gifts included all the money, jewelry, or other such valuables people gave to the Lord through the priests. But I believe that the references in Hebrews to gifts refer specifically to the grain, or meal, offering—the only bloodless offering prescribed under the Old Covenant. It was a thanksgiving and dedication offering (see Lev. 2).

The grain offering consisted of fine flour and oil, mixed with frankincense to give a pleasant aroma, and sometimes baked or fried into a cake. Part of the offering was burned on the altar, and the remainder belonged to the priests to eat. No lemon or honey could be used, because these fermented. A small measure of salt was required, because it preserved. Restricting that which would spoil and requiring that which would preserve symbolized a dedication that was lasting. The offering represented the dedication of a person and all his possessions to God in complete thanks for what God had done.

OFFERING SACRIFICES

And because of it he is obligated to offer sacrifices for sins, as for the people, so also for himself. (5:3)

The sacrifices, however, were for the expiation of sins. They could not take away the sin tendency or the sin capacity, but were made for the forgiveness of particular sins. Consequently, they had to be continually repeated—day after day, year after year. Offering sacrifices was the main work of the priest. And since he himself sinned, he had to make sacrifices for himself as well as for the people.

THE PERFECTLY QUALIFIED PRIEST

So also Christ did not glorify Himself so as to become a high priest, but He who said to Him, “Thou art My Son, today I have begotten Thee”; just as He says also in another passage, “Thou art a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.” (5:5-6)

Verses 5-10 show how Jesus met all the qualifications for high priest mentioned in verses 1-4, and more.

APPOINTED BY GOD

First of all, Jesus was chosen, sent, and honored by God the Father. Again the writer chooses quotations from the Old Testament—Thou art My Son, today I have begotten Thee (Ps. 2:7) and Thou art a priest forever according to the order of Mechizedek (Ps. 110:4)—to support his point. The Jewish readers of Hebrews knew that both passages referred to the Messiah. They knew that the Messiah was to be a great king and priest, appointed by God. Those Old Testament passages confirmed that.

Yet even though He was the divine Son, Jesus did not take the position for Himself or give honor to Himself. He told the Jewish leaders who questioned Him, “If I glorify Myself, My glory is nothing; it is My Father who glorifies Me, of whom you say, ‘He is our God’ ” (John 8:54). God invested Jesus with the authority and honor of high priest according to the order of Melchizedek.

Mechizedek will be discussed in some detail under Hebrews 7, but a brief word here is necessary. He was a king-priest who lived in the time of Abraham, and whose ancestry is completely unknown. He was king of Salem (the ancient name for Jerusalem) and was a priest of the true God (Gen. 14:18). He lived many centuries before the Aaronic priesthood was established and his priesthood was unending (Heb. 7:3), unlike that of Aaron, which began in the time of Moses and ended in A.D. 70, when the Temple was destroyed. His priesthood, therefore, was superior to Aaron’s in two ways. Melchizedek was a king, whereas Aaron was not, and his priesthood was perpetual, whereas Aaron’s was temporary. Melchizedek’s priesthood, therefore, is a better picture of Christ’s than even that of Aaron.

SYMPATHETIC WITH MEN

In the days of His flesh, He offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the One able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His piety. Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered. (5:7-8)

Second, Jesus Christ was sympathetic with men—He was identified with them, understood them, felt with them. He was Himself a man, just as surely as any high priest that served in the Tabernacle or Temple. ”The days of His flesh” were an interlude in the life of Jesus Christ, who existed before and after His earthly life. But they were an extremely important and necessary interlude. Among other things, “He offered up both prayers and supplications,” because of the anguish He faced in be-coming sin for those who believed in Him. In the Garden of Gethsemane on the night before He went to the cross, Jesus prayed and agonized so intensely that He sweat great drops of blood. His heart was broken at the prospect of bearing sin. He felt the power of sin and He felt temptation. He cried. He shed tears. He hurt. He grieved. What He had always known in His omniscience, He learned in a new way on earth by experience. He could not have been a fully sympathetic high priest had He not experienced what we experience and felt what we feel.

When Jesus prayed to “the One able to save Him from death,” He was not hoping to escape either the cross or the grave. It was for this very purpose that He came to earth (John 12:27). A more accurate translation of Hebrews 5:7 is, “... save Him out of death.” Jesus was not asking to be saved from dying but to be saved out of death—that is, to be saved from remaining in death. He was not asking to avoid the cross but to be assured of the resurrection (cf. Ps. 16:8-11).

Jesus was heard by His Father because of His piety. The Greek word eulabeia, translated “piety,” can mean reverential fear or awe, as reflected in the King James. It carries the idea of being devoutly submissive. Jesus recognized God as sovereign and committed Himself to the Father.

Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered. (5:8)

Often the best, and sometimes the only, way to learn sympathy is by suffering ourselves what another is suffering. Suffering is a very skilled teacher. We can read about and hear about the pain of being burned. We can even see people being burned. But until we have been burned ourselves, we cannot completely sympathize with a burn victim. I had read about, and even seen, many automobile accidents; but only after I was involved in one that almost took my life did I realize how horrible they can be.

Jesus had to learn certain things by suffering. He was given no exemption from hardship and pain. Even though He was God’s Son, God in human flesh, He was called to suffer. He learned the full meaning of the cost of obedience, all the way to death, from the things which He suffered, and God therefore affirmed Him as a perfect High Priest.

That is the kind of high priest we need—one who knows and understands what we are going through. When we go to the Lord in prayer and fall on our knees before Him and say, “God, this problem, this loss, this pain is breaking my heart,” how wonderful to feel His arms around us and to sense in our hearts that He is saying, “I know. I know.”

SACRIFICING FOR MEN

And having been made perfect, He became to all those who obey Him the source of eternal salvation.” (5:9)

In His suffering and death, Jesus fulfilled the third requirement for high priest. He offered the sacrifice of Himself and thereby became the perfect High Priest and the source of eternal salvation. Jesus went through everything He had to go through, and accomplished all He needed to, so He could be such a perfect High Priest. He was not, of course, made perfect in the sense of having His nature improved. He was eternally perfect in righteousness, holiness, wisdom, knowledge, truth, power, and in every other virtue and capability. Neither His nature nor His person changed. He became perfect in the sense that He completed His qualification course for becoming the eternal High Priest.

In offering His sacrifice, however, Jesus differed in two very important ways from other high priests. First, He did not have to make a sacrifice for Himself before He could offer it for others. Second, His sacrifice was once-and-for-all. It did not have to be repeated every day, or even every year or every century.

By His death, Jesus opened the way of eternal salvation. All the priests of all time could not provide eternal salvation. They could only provide momentary forgiveness. But by one act, one offering, one sacrifice, Jesus Christ perfected forever those who are His. The perfect High Priest makes perfect those who accept His perfect sacrifice, those who obey Him.

The obedience mentioned here of those who obey Him is not that regarding commandments, rules, and regulations. It is not obedience to the law. It is “the obedience of faith” (Rom. 1:5). God wants us to obey Him by believing in Christ. True obedience, just as true works, is first of all true believing. “This is the work of God,” Jesus said, “that you believe in Him whom He has sent” (John 6:29). Trust in Jesus Christ is the work of faith and the obedience of faith.

Sadly and tragically, all people do not believe. And whoever does not believe does not truly obey, no matter how moral, well-meaning, religious, and sincere. In First and Second Thessalonians, Paul speaks of the two responses to the gospel—the only two possible responses. In the second letter he tells of God’s retribution on those who “do not know God” and who “do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus” (1:8). In the first letter, by contrast, he praises the missionary work of the faithful Thessa-Ionian Christians in Macedonia and Achaia (1:8). Their obedience in the faith brought others to obedience to the faith—and to the gift of eternal salvation.