Sermon Tone Analysis

*Hebrews 5:1-4…* 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; 2 he can deal gently with the ignorant and misguided, since he himself also is beset with weakness; 3 and because of it he is obligated to offer /sacrifices /for sins, as for the people, so also for himself.

4 And no one takes the honor to himself, but /receives it /when he is called by God, even as Aaron was.

*Commentary*

            In the previous context of Heb.

4:16 all Christians are exhorted to come boldly before God’s throne of grace.

In Judaism, however, no one could approach God’s throne in the Holy of holies in the Jewish temple.

That task was for the high priest alone, the descendant of Aaron.

According to Heb. 5:1 the Jewish high priest was appointed by God.

He was a man whom God selected “to offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins.”

God didn’t choose angels for this work; He chose men.

Angels cannot understand the problems humans face nor be tempted as humans are, so God appointed men to minister on behalf of men.

This is important as it relates to Jesus Christ – God Almighty – who became a man.

And He became a man so that He could experience pain, suffering, and temptations common to all people.

If God would not have become man He would never have understood the weaknesses of mankind.

Whereas God was unapproachable in the OT system (the old covenant) and was literally veiled in the temple in the Holy of holies, Jesus Christ the Son of God entered the world of humans and experienced humanity.

Now the high priest could not have just been any man.

He had to be God’s man – appointed by God.

No one aspired to be the high priest, not even Aaron the first high priest.

God chose them to serve (Ex.

28:1).

Those who sought fairness for this office and demanded democracy, like Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, paid with their lives (Num.

16).

So it was with Christ.

He was chosen by God because He was God.

No Messiah chooses to be a Messiah.

According to Heb. 5:2 the Jewish high priest, because he was a man, could sympathize with others in their weaknesses.

He could “deal gently” with others in that he could relate to their struggles with sin because he himself was a sinner too.

Now Jesus, though a man, did not sin.

He did, however, experience all the pains and struggles of being a human.

So Jesus’ priesthood, like the Jewish high priest, is one of sympathy.

But Jesus, unlike the Jewish high priest, was tempted in all things as men are yet he was without sin.

No Jewish high priest could claim that!

According to Heb. 5:1, 3 the Jewish high priest made offerings on behalf of men – both gifts and sacrifices.

The gifts were money and grain offerings (no blood) which were given for worship (Lev.

2).

Sacrifices were slain animals where the blood was poured out on the altar.

These were offered for unintentional sins, and they merely covered the offense of the offender – both on behalf of the high priest himself and the person who gave the sacrifice.

The priesthood in Israel was the gateway to God for the Jews.

Now Hebrews reveals Jesus Christ as the great High Priest who offered himself as the sacrifice and who sat down, having completed His work, at the right hand of God the Father.

This is the core message of Hebrews – Jesus, called by God, sympathetic, and offering himself as the perfect sacrifice.

*Food for Thought*

Aaron, the high priest in Israel, was but a man; Jesus Christ was God’s “Son.”

Aaron was “beset with weakness”; Jesus is the Almighty God.

Aaron was a sinner needing to make sacrifices on his own behalf; Jesus was perfect.

Aaron offered a sacrifice external to himself, but Jesus offered himself as the perfect sacrifice once and for all.

Aaron offered temporary salvation; Christ offered eternal salvation.

Aaron sacrificed for Israel; Jesus sacrificed for the entire world.

*Hebrews 5:5-10…* So also Christ did not glorify Himself so as to become a high priest, but He who said to Him, “You are My Son, Today I have begotten You”; 6 just as He says also in another /passage/, “You are a priest forever According to the order of Melchizedek.”

7 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.

8 Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered.

9 And having been made perfect, He became to all those who obey Him the source of eternal salvation, 10 being designated by God as a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek.

*Commentary*

            This context reveals how Jesus Christ met all the qualifications set forth in the OT concerning the high priest.

First, “Christ did not glorify himself so as to become a high priest.”

Jesus himself said in John 8:54: “If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing; it is my Father who glorifies me, of whom you say, ‘He is our God.’”

Therefore, he was appointed by God (5:1).

The writer of Hebrews then quoted two Psalms.

The first Psalm (2:7) was a well-known passage the Jews recognized as speaking of the Messiah: “You are my Son; today I have begotten you.”

This speaks of Jesus Christ being God’s Son, the rightful God and King.

Equally, the Jews expected a priestly Messiah, so the Hebrews writer quoted another Messianic Psalm: “You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek” (110:4).

This one confirms the Messiah as a priest.

So both passages together reveal the Messiah to be both a king and a priest.

Melchizedek will be examined later in Hebrews 7, but some light should be shed on this mysterious figure now.

He lived during the time of Abraham circa 2000 BC (Gen.

14), and he was both the king and priest of Salem (modern Jerusalem).

His priesthood not only preceded the Levitical priests which came 600 years later, but his priesthood was unending.

Whereas the Levitical priesthood began with Aaron (1446 BC) and ended in AD 70 when Jerusalem was destroyed, Melchizedek’s never ended.

So, he was superior to Aaron’s priesthood not only in the duration of his position but also in the fact that he was also a king; Aaron was merely a priest.

The second way that Jesus fulfilled the requirements of the Jewish high priest was that he was sympathetic (Heb.

5:2).

Hebrews 5:7 says that while Jesus was a man on the earth he prayed “with loud crying and tears.”

This may be a reference to Jesus sweating drops of blood in the Garden of Gethsemane just prior to his death (Luke 22:44).

His prayers were to be spared an eternity of death, not to forego death itself, for to die is why Jesus came in the first place.

Now it’s Jesus’ emotions and pain which prove the point about his priesthood.

He knew pain, suffering, and even death.

Therefore he is qualified as a high priest because he sympathizes with human weaknesses, and He was heard by the Father because of his piety – his respectful fear.

The final way that Jesus fulfilled the requirements of the priesthood is that he sacrificed on man’s behalf.

Contrary to the priests, however, who offered animals to atone for sins, Jesus offered /himself/ as the sacrifice.

He “learned obedience” in that he obeyed God to the point of death and endured the cost of obedience through his sufferings.

In this he became “perfect” (v.

9) because he completed his mission to become man, suffer as a man, and die on man’s behalf.

*Food for Thought*

Jesus is the source of eternal salvation – the only source!

No other person or religion even approaches Christ’s superiority.

He is King in that He rules, and He is Priest in that He intercedes.

God wants us to obey Christ as He obeyed, not through works but by simply believing in Him, for the work of God is that we believe in Christ (John 6:29).

That’s all!

*Hebrews 5:11-14…* Concerning him we have much to say, and /it is /hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing.

12 For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food.

13 For everyone who partakes /only /of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant.

*Commentary*

            After introducing the mysterious figure named Melchizedek, who was a priest and a king during the days of Abraham (Gen.

14), the author of Hebrews chides his audience about not knowing who Melchizedek was.

In v. 11 he said that there was much to say about Melchizedek, but they had become “dull of hearing.”

And because of this he could not proceed.

To do so would be like feeding an infant solid food when the infant could only take in milk.

The interesting part of this scolding is the verb tense: “You have become dull of hearing.”

The perfect tense verb speaks of a process completed in past time having present results.

In other words, they had at one time understood the gospel message of salvation and the superiority of Christ over and the Judaic system of sacrifices and works.

They had been “enlightened” (6:4), but they had become slack and failed to move forward with their faith.

Their present condition was a result of their past neglect, and as a result they had grown down, as it were, instead of growing up.

They were drifting (2:1-3) and in need of exhortation to move forward (3:7-8).

Their spiritual state had deteriorated, and their salvation was questionable.

As Ken Wuest comments: “The use of the perfect tense here tells us that the process had gone on to the point of completion, with finished results.