HOW JESUS QUALIFIES TO BE OUR HIGH PRIEST - HEBREWS 5:1-10.

The fifth chapter of Hebrews is crucial to a full understanding of this majestic New Testament book. The author is writing to professing Jewish Christians of the first century who have for some reason decided to revert back to their trust in the Old Covenant legal system, and especially to the Aaronic priesthood. Perhaps the impending threat to Jerusalem by the Romans has driven them to make a last ditch attempt to save their beloved Old Covenant system. The author (unknown) writes to exhort these drifting Jews to go back to the salvation they had learned and received in the Messiah Jesus Christ. He continually pushes them to recapture that confidence they once had when they first believed that Jesus Christ was the only true way to God. But now their faith was flagging. The sensual rituals of the Old Covenant were alluring. Faith in a Messiah was too theoretical and lacked a certain pizazz. They wanted their senses stimulated once again. The smells of incense and the gaudy attire of priests offered them a sensual experience they had been lacking in the dull and doctrinal Christian church. But doctrine was exactly the thing these Jews were lacking and so the author gives them a yeoman’s shot of good solid truth to convince them that the High Priesthood of the New Covenant was the only priesthood on which they could rest their souls. But, alas, the audience didn’t seem to have an appetite for this kind of thing. Despite their dullness the author would try to convince them (5:11). In order to restore their confidence in Christ he embarks on a Scripture saturated argument to prove the superiority of Christ against anything the Old Covenant had to offer, including angels. The author has one major hurdle to overcome to prove that Christ is a suitable High Priest who can empathize with and bring sinners to God. How can the Son of God really know what the people of God go through? How could so exalted a creature ever understand the frailty of lowly humanity? The author answers this in way that would convince even the most diehard skeptic. The Son of God became a man and subjected Himself to all the frailty and limitations attendant to that race. His name was Jesus. That the Son was appointed by God to be priest cannot be argued. But how in the world could this exalted Son ever show the compassion necessary to sympathize with the common strain of everyday man? And it is here that the author eloquently steps forward and demonstrates how this Jesus entered the broken world of men as a man and did so without living with the aid of His divine nature. Jesus, so he argues, entered humanity on humanity’s terms. Wow. The author goes on to show four ways that Jesus by virtue of His incarnation could identify with mankind. Little wonder that verses 7-10 of this chapter have become some of the most difficult New Testament passages to explain. They ooze mystery. Once understood, however, they become some of most comforting verses to found in all Holy Writ. In short the author describes the training regimen that Jesus must endure in order to become a suitable High Priest. Being nominated by God is one thing, actually having the qualifications to fill such an office is quite another. This training as it says in verse 7 happened ‘in the days of His flesh.’ Those thirty three years roaming the fields of Palestine was more than a mission of working miracles. It was a boot camp of sorts whereby the Son of God experienced something He had never experienced before, being a mere mortal. So in what areas did the perfect Son of God need training? It sounds almost like blasphemy to speak this way. But it’s good, rock-solid theology. First, Jesus must learn to pray to the Father from a posture of human weakness and need. The author says that in the days of His flesh he ‘offered up prayers and supplications… to Him.’ How could anyone ever aspire to be a High Priest whose function it was to represent and pray for the people who Himself had never learned to pray on his knees of flesh to the Father? In heaven the Second Person of the Trinity never (as far as we know) prayed to the Father. Why would He? He dwelled with the Father face to face. Besides, He had no needs. He was the completely self-sufficient Son. But now, as a true brother to the lower, weaker race, He must learn to wrestle with God. And not only wrestle with the aid of divine strength, but in human weakness. He must learn to talk to God as one needy and dependent on His Father. He must learn to ask for things He really needed…….or even things He wanted. This He could only learn as a Jew in Palestine who must trust God like everyone else. Second, He must learn obedience. Again, He need not learn obedience as the Son of God who always does the will of the Father. That kind of obedience was part of His ontological makeup. No he must learn obedience (vs 8) as a humble servant of God who walked upon the earth as a man among men. In order to identify with mankind, Jesus must learn to obey God as Peter and James and Nicodemus must obey Him. That is, as a creature.  And yes, He must even learn to obey God when it seemed as if God had abandoned Him. Thirdly, He must learn what it means to suffer (vs 8). Though in one sense God suffers, especially as He muses about the state of the human race. But that suffering is not the suffering of a man who lives in a fallen world. The Son of God in heaven was never pierced by the pangs of a fallen creation. When Christ came down from heaven and impacted Himself into a virgin’s womb, He entered a realm He had never experienced before, the realm of pain. In order to be a High Priest, however, Christ must understand the what it means to suffer in His own body, in HIs own mind and in His own spirit. And from reading the gospels we know that as a man Christ suffered in a myriad of ways so that the prophet would say ‘His face was marred more than any man.’ He groaned at unbelief, was shocked to sorrow by the dullness of His disciples, was injured by the false accusations of enemies, was thought insane by His family, was deprived of food for forty days, and knew keenly about aching feet and sleepless nights. He was betrayed by a good friend which nearly destroyed Him. And in the end, His life climaxed with the greatest suffering of all, the experience of dying on an instrument of torture. Truly the prophet was right to say He ‘bore our sins and carried our sorrows.’ Fourthly, the High Priest must understand the concept of creaturely progression. Being finite and subject to space and time, all men are in flux, constantly changing, constantly reacting, constantly learning, constantly progressing, constantly growing. God, of course, is eternally immutable. He changes not.  In heaven the Son of God was full and complete and needed no additions, subtractions or resolutions. But as a man He was subject to the normal process of maturation, a process inherent in every creature. The High Priest must understand what it means to be immature, and incomplete. Thus we find that Jesus could not be a priest until He was thirty, just like every other human priest. This process of growing up, or learning, could only be accomplished if the Son subjected Himself to world that is always moving and changing. The statement that Jesus had to be ‘perfected’ (vs 9) must be understood in a specific way. Jesus’ perfection had nothing to do with Him gaining an ontological perfection. He was always complete and perfect as the Son of God in every way. No, He must be perfected in the sense of growing up as a man, as progressing from incompletion to completion, not moving from rebellion to righteousness, but from untested to tested. Luke 2:52 notes that ‘Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.’ Jesus must experience growing up as a man in a hard world. He must learn his alphabet and get along with siblings, learn about hammers and pay taxes. And this for what? So that He might become one who knows the inherent difficulties of growing up, the pangs of maturation, the challenges of progressing forward. And having endured all this without ever sinning means that Jesus passed the test of being the High Priest that lowly Aaron could never pass. That is, Jesus experienced all the foibles of humanity but never sinned. He experienced everything that men and women experience but never defied God. Thus, as the perfect man, who perfectly experienced all things, He becomes the perfect High Priest. His boot camp is over; His ministry as Priest is everlasting. And so sinner, the next time life hits you by the side of the head, you can go to one who knows all about your struggles and is powerful enough to succor you, to help you and to change your circumstances if need be. That’s the High Priest we need and it brings us great confidence indeed.