We Have a Great High Priest (Hebrews 4:14-5:10)
This sermon was preached by Samuel Ho.
The sermon outline can be found here in the ministry guide.
In the introduction to his book, Gentle and Lowly, author Dane Ortlund describes the group of people for whom he wrote his book. I quote him because I think our text today speaks to the exact same group of people. It is for
“the discouraged, the frustrated, the weary, the disenchanted, the cynical, the empty. Those running on fumes. Those whose Christian lives feel like constantly running up a descending escalator. Those of us who find ourselves thinking: “How could I mess up that bad – again?” It is for that increasing suspicion that God’s patience with us is wearing thin. For those of us who know God loves us but suspect we have deeply disappointed him. Who have told others of the love of Christ yet wonder if – as for us – he harbours mild resentment. Who wonder if we have shipwrecked our lives beyond what can be repaired. Who are convinced we’ve permanently diminished our usefulness to the Lord. Who have been swept off our feet by perplexing pain and are wondering how we can keep living under such numbing darkness…It is…in other words, for normal Christians.”
Today’s text was for normal Christians like the weak and weary readers who have been told to.
Press on! Hold fast to your confidence! God has spoken through His Son! And he is infinitely greater than the angels! So, pay attention to the message he brings! Don’t neglect the great salvation! Because if you do, like the wilderness generation, you will not enter God’s rest. Take care, lest any of you have an evil, unbelieving heart that leads you to fall away from the living God. While the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it.
Friends did last week’s text shake you up? Did it strike you hard? Did it cause you to reflect on your own unbelief and rebellion against God in your heart?
Well, if any listener was left complacent, if any listener was, in their hearts, rationalising or trying to hide their unbelief and rebellion, listen again to the author’s words at the end of our text last week in Hebrews 5:12-13:
For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.
If the readers were once a weak and weary audience, tempted to give up on their confession, they were now also…a guilty and terrified audience, fearful that they too, like their forefathers, had failed or would fail to enter God’s rest.
Friends, today’s text is for normal Christians like them. And it is for normal Christians like you and me. Normal Christians like you and me who sometimes wonder how we are going to get through life, who sometimes have no idea how to persevere, who sometimes wonder if we’re going to make it. Normal Christians like you and me who need mercy and help, but know deep down that we don’t deserve it.
And so, we might be tempted to escape reality. We might drown ourselves in work. We might drown ourselves in entertainment. We might drown ourselves in pleasure.
Or we might be tempted to help ourselves. We might rise early and go late to bed, toiling anxiously without rest, to secure our future. We might go all out to do good things, to prove to ourselves and others that we are good people. We might conform to fit in, we might flirt around with relationships, to help comfort our lonely hearts.
Or we might be tempted to despair. We might isolate. We might give up on everything. We might resign to hopelessness.
But friends, to such Christians, the author writes this in Hebrews 4:16:
“Let us with confidence, draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”
How? How can I, the complete mess that I am, with all my sins and failures, all my fears and doubts and shame and unbelief – how is it possible for me to approach the throne, where the one who sees all things and knows all things sits? Wouldn’t it be a throne of judgement instead of a throne of grace? Do I deserve mercy? How can I dare to ask for help? And you’re saying that I can do that confidently?
Friends, yes, we can. It is a throne of grace that we can draw near to with confidence. To receive mercy for all our failures – past, present, future. To find help – help for our lives, help for our hearts, help for trials, help to persevere, help to strive. That we might be those of faith who endure. Who hold fast our confession till the end. Who enter into God’s ultimate rest.
That’s what the writer wants us to know here. And I pray that today we go away knowing this as well.
Why can we draw near? Let’s look at Hebrews 4:14-16:
“Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”
We can draw near because of our Great High Priest – Jesus, the Son of God.
This text gives us our big idea for today which will guide the rest of our time: We can draw near because of our Great High Priest – Jesus, the Son of God.
We’ll cover our text in 3 points. The 3 glorious reasons why we can and should draw near to God for mercy and help:
Draw near because Jesus has been divinely appointed for you.
Draw near because Jesus can sympathise with you fully.
Draw near because Jesus has dealt with your sin completely.
Well, if you grew up as a Jew, the fact that we draw near to the living God through a person called a high priest would not have been something new to you. But for people like us now, that might be an unfamiliar category.
What does a high priest have anything to do with me and God?
Well, here we thank God for the Old Testament. Have you ever wondered why the Old Testament is so long? Have you wondered why God let so many years pass before Jesus came? Well, I can’t answer that fully, but I know that one reason is because God was putting in place categories for us to understand Jesus and what he would do when he finally came. The Old Testament gives us the grammar and vocabulary to understand the New Testament. And so, it’s really important for us to study it well if we want to understand Jesus. The category of high priest is one example. We wouldn’t understand it if we didn’t know the Old Testament. Look at Hebrews 5:1-4, where the author gives us a short explanation of the high priests in the Old Testament.
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 honour for himself, but only when called by God, just as Aaron was.
So, there is God, who created all things, the universe and everything in it. And there is man, which God created – you and me. And He created everything perfect. As God’s creation, we were meant to live by His design and His rules because He is the Creator. He knows what’s best for what he created, and he wants what’s best for His creation. But we decided that we don’t want to honour God, we don’t want to worship him, we don’t want to live according to His good rules. We chose to rebel against God. This is what the Bible calls sin. And all of us have sinned against God.
And because sin entered the world, the perfect creation was spoiled. Everything was ruined. Man was supposed to live forever, but because of sin, death entered the world. Look around you, everything is dying. Everything is decaying and wasting away. This is the result of sin.
Since God is a holy God, altogether good and without sin, He cannot be in the presence of sinful man. Man was supposed to dwell with God, in His good presence, but because of sin, Man was cast out and separated from the good presence of God.
God as a just God is rightly angry at sin and cannot let sin go unpunished. Man was supposed to enjoy God’s good gifts and blessings, but because of sin, Man instead face God’s wrath and God’s anger.
So, there is God, there is man, and there is sin, which separates God and man, and puts man under the holy wrath of God.
But amazingly, God made a way for man to have a relationship with him again, and God made a way for His anger to be turned away from man’s sin. This was through a system of human high priests who would mediate between God and Man. God would speak to the people through the high priest. The high priest would offer sacrifices on behalf of man, animals which would die in place of man, as a substitute for man. This would deal with sin, and God’s anger would be turned away from the people.
And so, friends, you are right if you say that, with all your sins and failures, you cannot, by yourself, draw near to God. The way for us, if we want to relate to God, has not changed. God is still holy, He is still rightly angry with sin – He will always be. We are still sinful – as long as we are in this world, we will be. If we want to have a relationship with God, we will need a high priest.
The divinely appointed high priest mediates between God and man by dealing with sin, and also shares in the weakness of the people he serves so he can deal gently with them.
Can we just choose someone to be our high priest then? No, we can’t. We don’t decide the rules. God made the system. He sets the terms. Not anyone can be a high priest. Let’s look again at Hebrews 5:1-4, and consider three qualifications of a high priest:
He needs to fulfil the role of mediating between God and man by dealing with sin (Heb 5:1). This is ultimately the key role of the high priest – to act on behalf of men in relation to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sin.
He needs to share in the weakness of the people he serves, so he can deal gently with them (Heb 5:2-3). Two aspects to this. Firstly, the human high priest himself faces temptation and is prone to sin, so he is able to understand the people when they too fall into sin, and he can deal gently with them. Secondly, he also shares in the guilt and the weight of sin as the people bring their sacrifices before God for the atonement of their sin. The priest knows that the animal is taking your place to die, and if not for it, you would have to die. The high priest understands that because he is obligated to offer sacrifices for his own sins as well.
Finally, he must be divinely appointed, appointed by God Himself (Heb 5:4). No one takes this honour for himself, but only when called by God, just as Aaron was. We think back to Numbers 16, when Korah, Dathan and Abiram led a revolt to challenge the high priesthood of Aaron, accusing him of exalting himself above the rest of them. They wanted to be the high priests. They wanted the kind of access Aaron had to God’s presence. Numbers 16 tells us what happened to them and their families and all who presumed to come before God’s presence without his authorization. It says the ground under them split apart and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, with their households and all the people who belonged to Korah and all their goods. The earth closed over them, and they perished from the midst of the assembly, and fire came out from the Lord and consumed the 250 men offering the incense. No one takes this honour for himself, but only when called by God.
Do you have a high priest? Do you have someone that meets these qualifications? Do you have someone whom you know has been appointed by God? Can he sympathise with your weakness and deal gently with your bruised heart, your troubled soul, and your tender conscience? Does he make sacrifices to deal with your sin? If you don’t, then there is no way for you to draw near to God. There is no way for you to receive mercy and help. You are separated from God now, and you will be forever, and you will face his wrath for your sin that has not been dealt with.
We have the final high priest that all the past high priests were pointing to. We have a Great High Priest. His name is Jesus, the Son of God.
But the glorious truth is that we do have one. He is far better than any human high priests that came before him. We have the final high priest that all the past high priests were pointing to. We have a Great High Priest. His name is Jesus, the Son of God.
As we look at the rest of the text, the author is going to show us how Jesus fulfils all of these qualifications. The author has walked us down three steps on one side, telling us the qualifications of a high priest, and now he’s going to walk us up the 3 steps on the other side, to prove to us first in Hebrews 5:5-6 that Jesus was divinely appointed, then prove to us in Hebrew 5:7-8 that Jesus does share in our weakness, and he will hit the pinnacle of his argument in Hebrews 5:9-10 to come to the conclusion that Jesus does fulfil the key role of mediating between God and man by dealing with our sin. He is our high priest. And we can draw near to God
Draw near because Jesus was divinely appointed for you (Heb 5:5-6)
Hebrews 5:5 quotes from Psalm 2:7, which was also quoted in Hebrews 1:5. In Hebrews 1, Pastor Eugene explained previously that “Son” is a title, hence when God says, “You are my Son”, it is a declaration of appointment, not of parentage.
The writer in Hebrews 5 also goes to Psalm 110. Here, we see another “You are…”, another declaration of appointment.
As the human high priest was appointed by God, so also, Jesus did not exalt himself to this honour, but was appointed by God.
The writer is claiming here that the same God who appointed Christ to the title of Son of God also appointed him as a High Priest here in Psalm 110. Christ is a forever High Priest, an eternal high priest, not one whose service will end because of death, but one whose priesthood is eternal. This is a big part of what it means that Christ is a priest after the order of Melchizedek. This will be further explained in Chapter 7, but I think the author’s point here is that as the human high priest was appointed by God, so also, Jesus did not exalt himself to this honour, but was appointed by God in the words of this psalm!
Two ways, we can respond to God’s word at this point. Firstly, I think just thinking about the fact that there are high priests in the first place, we should respond with gratefulness to God. God made the first move. He didn’t need to, but he put in place a way for us to be reconciled to him. Think about His sovereign power and wisdom that spans across the ages – how from all those years back He put in place a plan to bring us into relationship with Himself. And how all those years back He put in place a system that would ultimately help us understand the glorious work of the final high priest when He comes. Let’s respond to God in gratitude.
Secondly, we should respond with confidence. Draw near to the throne of grace with confidence. Confidence that we can approach the Holy God because we have a high priest mediating between us and God, a high priest that God Himself provided. Friends, I think if the fear that God’s wrath will be upon us is stopping us from coming to Him, we are kind of saying that we don’t have a high priest, isn’t it? Friends, God loves us, He wants us to draw near to Him. Of course, we should approach God with a reverent fear, but we should approach him confidently, expectantly, with joy because we know that He appointed for us a high priest.
Jesus is not just another human high priest who is still sinful and separated from God. He is the son of God, the heir of all things, through whom God created the world, the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power.
By re-quoting Psalm 2 in Hebrews 5, the author also wants to link the Son that he had been speaking about to the high priest that God has appointed for us! Jesus is not just another human high priest who is still sinful and separated from God. He is the son of God, the heir of all things, through whom God created the world, the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. And listen to this – He is seated down at the right hand of the Majesty on high! He has passed through the heavens! I think that’s what that means. He is in the very presence of the Father! Our high priest does not access the Father through a temple or tabernacle, only at certain times of the year. He is at the Father’s right hand, right beside him. Speaking to him freely, at any time, always interceding for you and me.
We can respond to this with confidence, confidence that we can go to God anytime for mercy and help in anytime of need, and confidence that God always hears us! Because our high priest is at His right hand, always interceding on our behalf. There is no barrier between Jesus and the Father, Jesus has unrestricted access to the Father.
Go to him immediately in a time of sudden panic.
Go to him immediately when temptation arises
Go to him immediately when grief and despair starts to well up.
Go to him immediately when fear creeps into your heart.
Go to him at 3am, when your troubled mind keeps you up.
Go to him at 8am, when you’re dreading the workday ahead.
Go to him at 3pm, when you’re at home alone, feeling lonely.
Go to him at 8pm, when after a long tiring day, you struggle to love your spouse.
Draw near to God to receive mercy and grace to help in any time of need, confident that He is listening.
Draw near because Jesus can sympathise with you fully (Heb 5:7-8)
It’s almost as if the author of Hebrews knows what we might be thinking, right? “Ok, Jesus is our high priest. But he’s God’s Son, he’s high up there, he has no sin, how would he understand me and what I’m going through? How can I trust him to represent me before God?”
Do you see Jesus as someone who is watching you face temptation from high above and waiting to catch you messing up again so that he can go: “Look, fail again.”? Do you see Jesus as someone who is only near to you when life is good, and all is going well? Do you see Jesus as someone who keeps a distance from you when temptations come and says: “Ok, you ownself settle ah.” Do you see Jesus as someone who keeps a distance from you when you are in pain and suffering and says: “Gosh, I don’t wanna get into that mess”?
Friends, would you allow Scripture to change your mind about Jesus and your heart towards him?
Read Hebrews 4:15 again:
“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.”
You know, when my extended family would go for New Year’s dinners at Chinese restaurants, there would be a dish with whole abalones. And I used to keep one whole abalone in my mouth for hours past dinner, just sucking on it in my mouth. And that thing never ran out of flavour. Some verses in the Bible are like that. You can keep squeezing them and they won’t run dry. I think this verse is one of them.
The Puritan Thomas Goodwin wrote a whole book titled ‘The Heart of Christ’ just on this one verse. And he explains why he chose this verse for his book. He writes in Old English, which might be hard to understand, so let me try my best to use modern English. Essentially, he writes:
“I have chosen this text, because, above any other texts, it speaks of Jesus’ heart the most, and it sets out the form and workings of his heart towards sinners; and this text does it so well that it’s almost like it’s taking our hands, and laying them upon Christ’s breast, and letting us feel how his heart beats and how his affections yearn toward us, even now when he is in glory – And the very purpose of this text being to encourage believers against all that may discourage them, as they consider Christ’s heart toward them now in heaven.”
In other words, if you want to know the heart of Christ towards sinners and sufferers like you and me, if you want to know how He feels in his gut, in his deepest affections towards us, in our pain, our failures, our darkness – this is a verse to memorise and meditate on.
The author proves Hebrews 4:15 by reminding us of Jesus’ life on earth – “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” (Heb 5:7).
We think to Luke 19, when Jesus wept over the city of Jerusalem because of their rejection and unbelief. Have you wept for unsaved loved ones? Jesus knows what that feels like.
We think to John 11, when Jesus wept as he witnessed the grief of those he loved and as he saw his close friend lie dead in the tomb. Have you wept at the loss of a loved one? Jesus knows what that feels like.
We think to the garden of Gethsemane, when Jesus began to be sorrowful and troubled, and prayed earnestly to his Father in agony that, if possible, the cup be removed from him, his sweat becoming like great drops of blood falling to the ground. Have you felt your insides slowly being torn apart, your heart wanting to submit to God and to obey Him, but your mind and your body pulling you in the opposite direction? Jesus knows what that feels like.
We think to right after that, when Jesus finds his disciples sleeping instead of praying, even after he had told them that his soul was very sorrowful. Have you felt lonely in your suffering, deserted when you needed support the most? Jesus knows what that feels like.
We think to when Jesus hung on the cross, mocked and scorned by those he came to save, asking the Father to forgive them for they know not what they do. Have you been falsely accused? Have you been misunderstood? Jesus knows what that feels like. He was a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. Jesus stands in solidarity with you in your suffering. He knows exactly what it feels like to be weak, and helpless. And he knows what it feels like when the only thing you know to do, the only thing you can do is to just get on your knees and pray.
Notice the parallel use of the word “offer” in Hebrews 5:3 and Hebrews 5:7. The human high priests offered sacrifices for their own sin as well, so they shared in the experience of the people. Well, Jesus shares in your experience when you bring your petitions, requests, lamentations, cries before God, because He himself was completely dependent on God as He offered up prayers and supplications, “with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death” (Heb 5:7b) and Jesus was heard because of his reverence (Heb 5:7c).
I don’t think the author means that God saved Jesus from physical death here because Jesus did die physically. I think he means spiritual death, which God saved Jesus from by helping him persevere in purity till the end, helping him to be obedient from the start of his life to all the way to the point of death, even death on a cross. And we know that this is true because death could not hold Jesus, God raised him from the dead, and he is now exalted at God’s right hand.
He understands the suffering that comes with wanting to be obedient, and He can sympathize with you in that.
As we read Hebrews 5:8, I think we can agree that this doesn’t mean Jesus was sinful and needed to learn to obey God’s law. It doesn’t mean He did things wrong in his life on earth and needed correcting. But rather, I think it means that Jesus experienced the challenge of obedience, the difficulty of obedience. He faced real temptation and He really had to fight and oppose sin. We know how painful that is. Obedience entails suffering but Jesus understands that. He understands the suffering that comes with wanting to be obedient, and He can sympathize with you in that.
“Are you sure he understands us?”, you may ask. He is without sin, how would he know what that feels like?
C.S Lewis writes:
“Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is . . . A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later...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.”
There is no temptation that you’ve ever felt that Christ has not felt stronger. He understands you.
Friends, all that is to say: Go to Jesus.
He can sympathise with you fully. And he can deal with you gently.
Go to the one who when a leper begged for healing, was moved with pity, and didn’t keep his distance, but stretched out his hand to touch the leper and made him clean.
Go to the one who did not shun sinners but sat among tax collectors and ate with them.
Go to the one who said of himself: “I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”
Go to the one who described his own heart by saying: “I am gentle and lowly in heart.”
Jesus deals gently with you. Draw near to the throne of grace with confidence
Jesus deals gently with you, no matter how serious your offense, no matter how embarrassing your issue, no matter how shameful you feel, no matter how fragile you are. What causes him to respond gently to you doesn’t depend on these things, but on whether you come to Him. After all, a bruised reed He will not break and a faintly burning wick He will not quench. Draw near to the throne of grace with confidence, a confidence that you will not be ridiculed or looked down upon or ignored or cast away, because you have a high priest that will sympathise with you and deal gently with you.
We are meant to reflect Christ towards each other … o that when we look at each other, we see Christ.
There is also something here we can learn here about how we relate to each other. How do we respond to each other’s sin? How do we come alongside each other in times of need? Are we not ourselves beset with weakness? Are we not ourselves ignorant sometimes, and wayward sometimes? Don’t we know how the struggle with sin feels like or how painful grief and anxiety and turmoil can be? How should that affect the way we respond to each other’s sin and trials? Are we interested to help? Are we humble and approachable? Are we gentle with each other? Are we kind?
Or are we content to lob generic advice at them while staying a distance away? Are we unwilling to give of our time and effort to walk alongside others? Are we judgmental and unforgiving?
We are meant to reflect Christ towards each other. He sympathises with our weaknesses; He deals gently with us. That is His heart towards sinners and sufferers. I pray that it is ours too. So that when we look at each other, we see Christ.
Draw near because Jesus deals with your sin completely (Heb 5:9-10)
We reach the pinnacle of the author’s argument in Hebrews 5:9-10. There is another reason that Jesus had to be without sin. It was so that He could be the perfect sacrifice. While the human high priests continually offered sacrifices for sin, Christ was Himself, the perfect, once and for all sacrifice for sin.
We’ve heard today about the Creator God. We’ve heard about man. We’ve heard about sin. We’ve heard that in the Old Testament, God put in place a sacrificial system that dealt temporarily with sin, but it was not perfect.
The Bible tells us that God, in His own grace and mercy, at the right time, gave His own Son to be born as a man, Jesus. Jesus lived a life of perfect obedience to God. Jesus did not sin. He had no sin and so, he did not deserve the punishment that the rest of mankind deserved. But Jesus came as a substitute, a sacrifice – the ultimate sacrifice – to take the punishment for our sin on our behalf. He faced the wrath of God by Hhimself in our place, as his blood was shed, as He died on a Roman cross.
And so, just like how the sins of the people in the Old Testament were dealt with as they brought their sacrifices in faith, believing that their sins were being atoned for, so also the Bible tells us that the sins of anyone who places their faith in Jesus are now completely and fully dealt with. They no longer face the wrath of God. God forgives them because Christ has paid for their sin. Christ was the sacrifice for sin to end all sacrifices for sin.
We can draw near to the throne of grace with confidence that we will receive mercy … because a perfect sacrifice has been made for us in Jesus, the perfect son of God…
Today, you can draw near to the throne of grace with confidence that you will receive mercy, not because you’re feeling sorry enough or guilty enough, not because the good that you’ve done outweighs the bad, but because a perfect sacrifice has been made for you. Jesus, the perfect son of God, has died in your place.
But the Bible also tells us that death could not hold Jesus. After 3 days, God raised him from the dead. And the same thing will happen for anyone who puts their faith in Jesus – they will be raised to life with him.
This Jesus has ascended to heaven, but He promised that He will return. When he does, he will bring a new creation with him – new heavens and a new earth. And in the new creation, everything will be perfect once more. God Himself will be there. And so will all who have put their faith in Christ. He will dwell with them forever. They will enjoy His presence and His blessings once more. This is the eternal salvation that Jesus brings for those who obey him.
So let us obey him. If you’re here, and you’re not a Christian, you may be asking how? Well, the first way you can do that is to repent, turn away from your unbelief in Him, and believe in what He has done. Let Him have the rightful rule over your lives. Remember, God knows what’s good for us and He wants what’s good for us. Obedience is hard, but disobedience is what ruined everything, and one man’s obedience is what restores everything.
Brothers and sisters, can you see why weak, sinful, broken, messy, fearful, weary people like us can draw near with confidence to the throne of grace to receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need?
It is because we have a Great High Priest.
His name is Jesus.
He was appointed by God for you.
He can sympathise and deal gently with you.
He became the perfect sacrifice for you.
Go to Him.
He will bring you safely home.