Sermon Tone Analysis

We are entering the time of year when Hallmark Christmas movies become very popular.

Whether or not you like them is irrelevant… but inevitably there are at least a couple of movies that are set in a “little-known country” where there is a prince or a king having to put aside their personal goals or hobbies or interests for “service to their country”.

Our passage today starts by pointing out that every high priest is chosen and appointed.

This is similar to this common setting for movies.

The difference here is that the high priests are appointed by God and their sacrifice is not only for hobbies or interests but they have to offer sacrifices.

Previously God had commanded us to draw near with confidence for we have a high priest who is able to sympathize with our weaknesses and at the same time He is perfect because He is God.

Now the author of Hebrews goes on saying that high priests were chosen and they serve as an intermediary for man.

It says:

Looking at v 1 first, it says that every high priest is chosen from among men.

This is further explained later by v 4 where it says:

V 4 clearly explains who the one is doing the choosing.

It is only God who chooses and appoints the High Priest, then it gives the example of Aaron.

When the first-century believers heard this verse, they knew exactly what the author of Hebrews was talking about.

Today we might wonder why no one takes this honor for himself.

It seems like a position of authority and blessing, and it is, but why did people throughout the centuries in the OT did not seek this honor?

When we study the OT we see that at one point they did, but that didn’t go so well… actually ended in immediate death for these individuals.

Numbers 16 describes Korah’s rebellion against Moses and Aaron.

We are probably familiar with Korah’s rebellion and how they died.

Here is a recap from Numbers 16:31-33:

“31 And as soon as he had finished speaking all these words, the ground under them split apart.

32 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.

33 So they and all that belonged to them went down alive into Sheol, and the earth closed over them, and they perished from the midst of the assembly.”

However, there is more that happened during this rebellion against Moses.

It was also a rebellion against Aaron.

“Now Korah the son of Izhar, son of Kohath, son of Levi, and Dathan and Abiram the sons of Eliab, and On the son of Peleth, sons of Reuben, took men. 2 And they rose up before Moses, with a number of the people of Israel, 250 chiefs of the congregation, chosen from the assembly, well-known men. 3 They assembled themselves together against Moses and against Aaron”

There was a time when people did seek the priest position.

They looked at Aaron and said we are as good as you, why are you exalting yourself above us?

And they were right in human terms.

Aaron and his sons were no better than anyone else in the nation.

But they forgot one big aspect… Aaron was called to that position by God.

No one takes this honor for himself, but only when called by God, just as Aaron was.

So, after Korah’s family was swallowed up by the earth, the following happens (Numb 16:35) “fire came out from the LORD and consumed the 250 men offering the incense.”

Then after that God gave a commandment on what to do with these 250 censers.

It says in Numb 16:38-40

“As for the censers of these men who have sinned at the cost of their lives, let them be made into hammered plates as a covering for the altar, for they offered them before the LORD, and they became holy.

Thus they shall be a sign to the people of Israel.”

39 So Eleazar the priest took the bronze censers, which those who were burned had offered, and they were hammered out as a covering for the altar, 40 to be a reminder to the people of Israel, so that no outsider, who is not of the descendants of Aaron, should draw near to burn incense before the LORD, lest he become like Korah and his company—as the LORD said to him through Moses.”

The Israelites knew well that no one takes this honor for himself, but only when called by God, just as Aaron was.

They had a memorial in the temple of those that did try to take this honor for themselves.

This is why the author of Hebrews will spend the whole of chapter 7 explaining how Jesus is a priest after the order of Melchizedek.

This is first mentioned here in v 6 but further developed later, so as you have come to expect we will study more later about Melchizedek when we get to chapter 7.

For now, what we need to understand is that the readers knew that the High Priest had to be called by God.

But what was the job of the high priest?

Why was it an honor?

You may remember we studied the duties of the high priest before.

But here Heb 5 v 1 gives us the perfect description of a high priest’s role.

He is: “appointed to act on behalf of men in relation to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins.”

The high priest's main duty was to represent the people to God.

The high priest is the intermediary between God and man.

It is how they accessed God and how we still today access God, through an intermediary.

The main aspect of this intermediary is the offering of sacrifices for sins.

But as you look back at this verse you might notice that it says gifts and sacrifices.

So what is the difference between gifts and sacrifices?

Why are both terms used?

The word used for gifts here in the original language is a general reference to the sacrifices of the OT.

The word gift was a term that could be used for any type of sacrificial offering, while the term sacrifices for sin was usually used to refer to a specific sacrifice, the one that was performed once a year on the day of the atonement.

Similarly, we use the word traffic ticket to refer to all kinds of violations, while a speed ticket is a specific type of violation.

But, both traffic tickets and speed tickets refer to traffic violations.

So here gifts and sacrifices are referring to sacrifices.

The author of Hebrews expounds more about sacrifices in v3 when he says:

After the author describes in v2 that the OT high priest was imperfect, “beset with weakness” he goes on to describe that because of imperfection he had to sacrifice first for his own sin before he could offer the sacrifice for the people.

This is described in Lev 16, where it says “Aaron shall present the bull as a sin offering for himself, and shall make atonement for himself and for his house.

He shall kill the bull as a sin offering for himself.”

After Aaron offer the sacrifice for his own sin God said to him “Then he shall kill the goat of the sin offering that is for the people and bring its blood inside the veil”

It is stunning to realize that the high priest must give a bull for his sins, while the sins for all the people is satisfied by “one measly” goat.

There was a high cost for the High Priest a whole bull every year.

However, Jesus did not offer a goat, but He offered once and for all His own body.

While we only have to surrender to Him and accept His blood covering.

We only repent and surrender to Jesus to have our sins covered.

However, the OT high priest had to offer a sacrifice to atone for his own sins, that is why it says “he is obligated to offer sacrifice for his own sins just as he does for those of the people”.

This imperfection is described in v 2, where it says

This verse is talking about the OT high priest that was chosen by God and appointed to be the intermediary between God and man.

Because they like us were not perfect they could deal gently with the ignorant and wayward.

They had sympathy for the people.

Their sympathy was because the OT high priest shares in their sinfulness, while Christ’s sympathy for us is because He suffered for us.

It is out of pure and true love for us that He offered himself up for us.

Jesus as a high priest is so much greater than any human being.

No human being can even come close to what Jesus has done as our high priest.

However, this idea of Jesus as our high priest probably caused the first readers of this letter to ask “how can Jesus be a high priest since He is not a descendent of Aaron?”

They would have been afraid having learned from Korah!

The author answers this question by pointing out that Jesus was chosen and appointed by God as a high priest.

It says in v5-6:

In these two verses, the author of Hebrews is quoting Psalm 2 and Psalm 110.

Instead of quoting the Psalm, the author could have simply stated: “God, the Father appointed Jesus as the High Priest, just as Aaron was appointed by God.”

However, the author instead gives these two quotations, pointing with clear certainty that God the Father has said so.

Furthermore, the readers of this letter believed that the OT was God’s word, therefore it was necessary to point clearly to the word of God that declared Jesus being appointed and chosen by God the Father as a high priest.

What is surprising in these two quotes is that it seems to us that the first one was not necessary.

The second quote from Psalm 110 is sufficient to prove that Jesus was called by God as a priest.

We might ask why then does the author give the first quote as well?

The first quote declared that Jesus is God’s Son, which ultimately means Jesus is King.

These two quotes together point to something astonishing.

Jesus is both priest and King!

He was both called and appointed by God the Father to serve His people in this manner.

The quote from Psalm 2 says “You are my Son, today I have begotten you.”

We understand the part of Jesus being the Son, as Jesus is the second person of the Trinity, He is therefore God.

However, we might stumble on understanding the begotten part.

How was Jesus begotten since he always existed as God, even before creation came into existence?

What does this begotten mean?

A similar phrase (“this is my beloved Son listen to Him.”) was said by God the Father at Jesus' baptism and His transfiguration.

So what is the importance of the begotten?