For 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. He can deal gently with the ignorant and wayward, since he himself is beset with weakness. Because of this he is obligated to offer sacrifice for his own sins just as he does for those of the people. And no one takes this honor for himself, but only when called by God, just as Aaron was.

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”;

as he says also in another place,

“You are a priest forever,
            after the order of Melchizedek.”

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. Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him, being designated by God a high priest after the order of Melchizedek.

Hebrews 5:1-10 ESV

Until the Son of God came to earth, Mount Sinai was the greatest meeting between God and man since the Fall. Upon that mountain, God did not reveal Himself to one person alone as He had previously done with the Patriarchs and with Moses. Instead, He descended upon the mountain in terrifying glory and summoned the entire nation of Israel to gather in to hear what He would speak to them. But even though they spent a whole year encamped at Mount Sinai, they could not dwell forever in the wilderness; rather, the LORD had a land flowing with milk and honey that He longed to give to Abraham’s children. Indeed, Moses whom Israel begged to serve as a mediator between them and God would not live forever either.

Thus, Yahweh made provisions for His people. First, He instructed them to make the tabernacle, which would essentially act as a mobile Mount Sinai where God’s presence would travel with His people. Second, He appointed Aaron and his sons to be priests, to represent Israel before God. In Exodus 29:38-46, we find the daily task of the priests within the tabernacle:

Now this is what you shall offer on the altar: two lambs a year old day by day regularly. One lamb you shall offer in the morning, and the other lamb you shall offer at twilight. And with the first lamb a tenth measure of fine flour mingled with a fourth of a hin of beaten oil, and a fourth hin of wine for a drink offering. The other lamb you shall offer at twilight, and you shall offer with it a grain offering and its drink offering, as in the morning, for a pleasing aroma, a food offering to the LORD. It shall be a regular burnt offering throughout your generations at the entrance of the tent of meeting before the LORD, where I will meet with you, to speak to you there. There I will meet with the people of Israel, and it shall be sanctified by my glory. I will consecrate the tent of meeting and the altar. Aaron also and his sons I will consecrate to serve me as priests. I will dwell among the people of Israel and will be their God. And they shall know that I am the LORD their God, who brought them out of the land of Egypt that I might dwell among them. I am the LORD their God.

THE ROLE & FUNCTION OF THE HIGH PRIEST // VERSES 1-3

In our previous passage, the author of Hebrews transitioned from his lengthy warning against being unbelieving like the exodus generation of Israelites into the largest section of this sermon-letter, which discusses Jesus’ role as our great high priest. He began in verse 14 by giving us an exhortation to hold fast to our confession of Christ as Lord and rooted our hope of holding fast in the help that Christ as secured for us from the very throne of God through His mediation as our great high priest. As I said last week, those three verses are in many ways the summary statement of chapters 5-10, and the text before us this morning begins that deeper exploration of Christ our great high priest.

For every high priest chosen from among men is appointed to act on behalf of men in relation to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices. With this first verse, the writer pulls us momentarily away from Jesus’ particular role as our high priest in order to set before us the general role and function of the high priest within the old covenant, which was to act on behalf of men in relation to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices. As we have said, this puts priests in a paired role with prophets. Prophets spoke to people on God’s behalf, while priests spoke to God on people’s behalf. Particularly, it was the role of the priests to offer gifts and sacrifices to God on the people’s behalf. Gifts probably refers to the offerings of thanksgiving that people gave in praise and worship of God, while sacrifices were made in repentance of sins. In both cases, the priest is interceding to God on behalf of God’s people.

He can deal gently with the ignorant and wayward, since he himself is beset with weakness. Because of this he is obligated to offer sacrifice for his own sins just as he does for those of the people. In these verses, the author emphasizes the necessity of the high priest’s sympathy for the people. He was not to deal harshly but gently with the people. Just as sheep are often ignorant and wayward, so too are people. A good shepherd deals gently with his sheep, since he knows their weakness. In this manner, the high priest was to resemble a shepherd. Yet notice that verse 3 clarifies exactly how the priest can sympathize: he is just as sinful as the people. He has the same weakness, the same disease of heart. The high priest is ignorant and wayward himself.

While pastors today are not priests, there is some parallel to this ministry, for pastors ought also to sympathize with their fellow believers knowing that we are beset with weakness as well. This should be reflected in the qualifications that Paul gives in 1 Timothy 3:3: “not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome…” Of course, it is true that, as Calvin says, “the pastor ought to have two voice: one, for gathering the sheep; and another, for warding off and driving away wolves and thieves.” And while there certainly are plenty of pastors with a false gentleness that virtually denies the existence of wolves, there are also many who in their supposedly zeal for truth fail to deal gently with those who are ignorant and wayward.

Regarding the identity of the ignorant and wayward, Richard Phillips writes:

Surely this includes every believer. It is in our ignorance and waywardness that we sin against God. This also seems to recall the Old Testament distinction between, on one hand, those who sin in ignorance and weakness and, on the other hand, those who commit high-handed or openly rebellious sins (see Num. 15:22-31; Lev. 22:14-16; and Ps. 95:7-11). The difference today would be between believers who, despite their faith in Christ as Savior, still struggle with sin, and those who reject the gospel and sin without repentance. Sinning believer are forgiven through the saving work of Jesus. But unrepentant, unbelieving sinners have no one to bear theirs sins but themselves. How wonderful that “the ignorant and wayward” find a compassionate high priest who will gently lead them into God’s grace.[1]

Of course, as we noted last week, while sympathy is necessary, it is not sufficient for salvation. As Exodus 29 commanded, the sacrifices of the priests needed to be offered continually day after day, just as the high priest needed to make the sacrifice on the day of atonement year after year. Jesus alone is able to take away our sins because He alone did not need to have His own sins cleansed first. As Dennis Johnson says, “Jesus’ compassion is more outgoing and tender, not compelled by a guilty conscience (for he was “without sin”; 4:15) but moved with pity that can spring only from pure innocence.”[2]

NO ONE TAKES THIS HONOR FOR HIMSELF // VERSES 4-6

In verse 4, the writer goes on to note that no one takes this honor for himself, but only when called by God, just as Aaron was. This moment is recorded for us in Exodus 28 when God said, “Then bring near to you Aaron your brother, and his sons with him, from among the people of Israel, to serve me as priests—Aaron and Aaron’s sons, Nadab and Abihu, Eleazar and Ithamar” (v. 1).

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).[3]

Again, this is an important principle that goes beyond the Levitical priesthood. As Proverbs 25:27 says, “It is not good to eat much honey, nor is it glorious to seek one’s own glory.” Or Jesus, in Luke 14:7-11, told a parable with a similar lesson:

Now he told a parable to those who were invited, when he noticed how they chose the places of honor, saying to them, “When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in a place of honor, lest someone more distinguished than you be invited by him, and he who invited you both will come and say to you, ‘Give your place to this person,’ and then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place, so that when your host comes he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher.’ Then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at table with you. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

We all instinctively know this principle to be true, for there really is nothing less glorious than someone who is seeking their own glory. Nothing is less honorable than to seek your own honor. Nothing is less respectable than people who demand to be respected.

Of course, this is not to say that there is no place for crucified and resurrected ambition. If anything, present-day Christianity lacks a great deal of such ambition. The sort of ambition that Paul exhibited whenever he made it his aim to preach Christ where no one had yet heard His great name. An ambition that is fixated upon the glory of God rather than the glory of man. Even so, Paul did not appoint himself to be an apostle; instead, like the others, he was appointed “not from man nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead” (Galatians 1:1).

Of course, Jesus is our greatest example of this, for as the author goes on:

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”;

as he says also in another place,

“You are a priest forever,
           after the order of Melchizedek.”

The placement of these two quotations, the first from Psalm 2 and the second from Psalm 110, is another marker of the transition in thought that the author of Hebrews is making. In chapters 1-4, he largely focused upon Jesus as the better revelation from God, a revelation that was only possible because Jesus is the eternal Son of God who perfectly radiates God’s glory and is the exact imprint of His nature. Thus, the pronouncement of Christ’s Sonship, which the author ties to Jesus’ vindicating ascension to the right hand of the Father, is a snapshot of those first four chapters.

The second quotation, from Psalm 110, is a snapshot of chapters 5-10, which are focused upon Jesus as the greater, perfect, and final high priest. The common syntax between the two as pronouncements that Christ received from the Father makes their pairing into a kind of rhetorical passing of the baton. Indeed, just as the humility of Christ has marked His Sonship, so too does His humility mark His priesthood. He did not assert Himself to be a priest; rather, as chapters 6-7 discuss, He was sworn into His priestly duties by this oath: “You are a priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek.”

HE LEARNED OBEDIENCE // VERSES 7-10

Giving a chiastic structure to these verses, the author now returns to the theme of Christ’s sympathy with our weakness, which He is able to have “because he himself suffered when tempted” (2:18).

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. Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him, being designated by God a high priest after the order of Melchizedek.

The reference to Jesus’ loud cries and tears of prayer and supplication to be saved from death seems to particularly fit the account of Gethsemane. Why does the author focus upon this particular moment of Christ’s life? As verses 8-9 note, this was the chief moment of Jesus’ perfect obedience to the Father. Although His flesh revolted against the suffering that He was about to endure, He nevertheless prayed for the Father’s will to be done. Of this struggle, we rightly sing:

How in that Garden He persisted
I may never fully know
The fearful weight of true obedience
It was held by Him alone[4]

Indeed, C. S. Lewis reminds us how only Christ in His sinless perfection could have fully and completely obeyed the Father and overcome temptation:

A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is. After all, you find out the strength of the German army by fighting against it, not by giving in. You find out the strength of a wind by trying to walk against it, not by lying down. A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later. That is why bad people, in one sense, know very little about badness. They have lived a sheltered life by always giving in. We never find out the strength of the evil impulse inside us until we try to fight it: and Christ, because He was the only man who never yielded to temptation, is also the only man who knows to the full what temptation means— the only complete realist.[5]

Indeed, we must remember that our Lord was not merely dreading the physical suffering of the cross. As one hymn says, “Many hands were raised to wound Him, none would interpose to save; but the deepest stroke that pierced Him was the stroke that Justice gave.” The greatest affliction upon Christ was the divine wrath that was poured out upon Him in our place. In becoming a curse for us, Jesus received the fullness of our deserved punishment for sin. Indeed, upon the cross, He endured damnation in our place, taking the full weight of our sin upon His sinless shoulders and bearing it away.

Of course, the wonder of all wonders is that Jesus’ suffering was actually obedience to the Father. Since God is all-knowing, humanity’s fall into sin did not catch Him by surprise, nor did He simply know that it was one possible course of events. Instead, our redemption through Christ was God’s “eternal purpose” for displaying “through the church the manifold wisdom of God” (Ephesians 3:10-11). And although Jesus was eternally the exalted Son of God, He learned obedience by taking on human flesh and offering His own life in exchange for ours. Paul expresses this same reality in the great Christ hymn of Philippians 2:5-11:

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

That unwavering and unmatched obedience to the Father made Jesus perfect, as verse 9 says. As we noted back in 2:10, the author of Hebrews is not referring to moral perfection. Jesus was already morally perfect because He was without sin. His obedience to the Father in His suffering did nothing to add to His moral perfection, yet He was made perfect in this sense:

But he was willing to undergo the process that made him completely fit for the office of a Savior—that is, perfect in his obedience, perfect as a sacrifice, perfect as a mediator and substitute for his people. Being made perfect through suffering, he is able fully to discharge his office.[6]

His obedience through His suffering made Christ perfectly fit to be our Redeemer and our great High Priest. Indeed, it made Christ alone qualified to be the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him. The blessings that we read at the end of Exodus, of God dwelling with His people and them knowing Him, were dependent upon the perpetual obedience of the Levitical priests to offer their sacrifices on behalf of the people. Not being perfect themselves, they could not mediate a perfect salvation. Christ, however, offered Himself as a perfect sacrifice once for all, and so secured our eternal salvation. Never will another sacrifice be needed. Jesus has truly paid it all. Therefore, the blessings that the priesthood of Aaron could not fully offer are now ours in Christ:

I will dwell among the people of Israel and will be their God. And they shall know that I am the LORD their God, who brought them out of the land of Egypt that I might dwell among them. I am the LORD their God.

As we come to the Lord’s Supper, may the symbols laid out before us set our eyes upon Christ. Looking upon the bread, may we rejoice that Christ tabernacled among us, being tempted as we are tempted and delivering us from sin and death, the true Egypt that kept us in slavery. Looking at the cup, may we give thanks for the blood that our Lord freely sprinkled upon the heavenly altar in order to restore our communion with the Father. Let us taste and see here the goodness of our God who has brought us near to Him and made Himself known to us by His blessed Son.

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[1] Richard Phillips, Hebrews, 157.

[2] ESV Expository Commentary Vol 12, 75.

[3] Ibid., 76.

[4] “Your Will Be Done” by CityAlight

[5] C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, 142.

[6] The Spurgeon Study Bible, 1646.