Hebrews 4 and verse 14. Seeing then that we have a great
High Priest that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of
God, let us hold fast our confession of Him and salvation by Him. We sometimes wonder who wrote
this book and sometimes you see Paul's hand in this because As
you read through the book of Hebrews, one of the things you'll
notice the writer does, he'll mention a word or he'll mention
a phrase or he'll inject a thought and then he'll continue several
chapters coming back to that and enlarging that thought. You'll
notice that here in the book of Hebrews. Here in verse 14,
he mentions four things and he enlarges upon these as we go
on through this book. He's already spoken of the first
one. I just want to look at these
four things that we find here in verse 14 and it's High Priest. He mentions these four things,
High Priest. He's already mentioned that name
twice and he goes on through the 10th chapter and enlarges
so much on the High Priest that we have. The second word here
and phrase that he uses is passed into the heavens, into the heavens. He uses that different times
in this book. And Jesus, the Son of God, that's
the third thing. And lastly, and I guess this
would be the application of all this, let us hold fast. So let's look at these things.
First of all, high priest. Seeing then that we have a high
priest, This is the third time that he's mentioned this and
it's almost in passing. But look back at the first place
he mentioned this back in chapter 2 and look in verse 17. He mentions four things here
about our high priest in chapter 2 and look in verse 17. Wherefore in all things it behooved
him to be made like unto his brethren that he might be a merciful
and faithful high priest in thanks pertaining to God to make reconciliation
for the sins of the people. He mentions four things here
about our high priest. The first time he mentioned our
high priest is here in this verse. He mentions four things about
him, first of all, and how essential this is. And this is why he's
our high priest. This is something that must take
place before he can be our high priest. He was made like unto
his brother. He was made of a woman, wasn't
he? Made under the law. The Word was made flesh and dwelt
among us. Why is that essential? because
sin entered into this world by one man. You know why you and
I are sinners? Because sin entered by one man
back in the garden. By one man's disobedience, many
were made sinners. By one man's obedience, shall
many be made righteous. So Jesus Christ, to be our High
Priest and represent us, He had to come down from heaven He had
to take our humanity to Himself and suffer and die in that humanity. I think it was Greg who told
me the other day, and I've heard this statement so often in my
Christian life, it goes something like this, God is full of merit,
but God can't suffer. God is full of worth, but He
can't die. Man can die, but he don't have
any merit. Jesus Christ in our humanity
is full of merit, and He can die. He can suffer and die. So therefore He had to be made
like unto His brother, that He might be a faithful and merciful
high priest. And that's the second thing,
not only that He was made like unto His brother, but He says
here in verse 17 that He might be a merciful high priest. And you know it's mercy we need,
isn't it? It's mercy we need. It's compassion that you and
I need. And that's why He came down from heaven, to show mercy.
I've often said this. He didn't come to solicit a sacrifice
or an offering from us. He came to show mercy, didn't
He? He said, they that are whole don't need a physician, but they
that are sick. not to call the righteous, but
sinners to repentance. And he said, go learn what that
means. Go learn you need a mercy. And
look here how he says it in chapter 5, and look in verse 1 and 2.
Every high priest taken from among men is ordained for men
in thanks pertaining to God, that he may offer both gifts
and sacrifices for sin, who can have compassion on the ignorant
and on them that are out of the way. One of the qualifications
for a high priest, he had to be able to have compassion on
the ignorant and on those who are out of the way. Isn't that
a good description of us? Aren't we ignorant? Haven't we
all gone astray? And we have a faithful high priest
who is so merciful. I will be merciful to their unrighteousness. That's what he said. I will be
merciful. I love that, don't you? I love mercy. I love mercy. I love to talk about mercy and
pity. Somebody told me one time, I
don't want your pity. Well, you may not want mine,
but do you want his? As a father pitieth his children. So we have a merciful high priest.
That's why he said here and just below our text, let us come boldly
to the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy. So our high priest is merciful.
He's made like unto his brethren and he's merciful. And he says
here thirdly that he's faithful in things pertaining to God.
Faithful in things pertaining to God. And he said up in chapter
3 and verse 1 that he's faithful to God who appointed him. Faithful. Faithful. I wish I
could be... Don't you wish you could be 100%
faithful? Don't you wish you could? Faithful
to God, faithful to one another, faithful to your calling. Boy,
we're full of infirmities, aren't we? But you know something? He
was completely faithful. He was faithful to God. Brother
Scott Richardson used to say that before God can do anything
for us, He has to do something for Himself. And what He did
for Himself was send His Son to fulfill His law, to satisfy
His judgment, justice, to meet all the demands that He required
of us. Jesus Christ said, Lo, I come
to do thy will. Thy law is within my heart. He's
faithful, isn't He? He's a faithful and merciful
high priest. And the last thing He says here,
fourthly, about our high priest, He said, When He took our humanity
to Himself, a faithful and merciful high priest. Look at this. to make reconciliation for the
sins of the people. This word reconciliation, it
can also mean atonement or purification for sin. If I was going to write
this, I would say something like this, that he came to make reconciliation
to God by atoning for our sin. You see, brothers and sisters,
there is a great gulf between us and God. and it's sin. He said your sins have created
this gulf between me and you. Somebody came and spanned that
gulf. And that gulf was sin. Somebody
came and atoned for sin. And when the Lord Jesus atoned
for sin, He brought reconciliation. Atonement and reconciliation
is just one thing, really. It's just one thing. He made
reconciliation by the blood of His cross. We were enemies of
God and by His atonement He removed that which caused the division.
You take a man and his wife and they've fallen out and they're
ready to have a divorce and somebody says, Go to the counselor and
see if you can be reconciled. You've got to be reconciled.
Well, Jesus Christ came and upon the cross of Calvary He reconciled
us to God. that's our high priest. Seeing
then that we have a high priest like this. And he goes on to
say so many things about him in this book. Just look right
quickly at some of the things that he says about our high priest.
He goes on and enlarges about who he is. He says there in chapter
3 and verse 1, we looked at this a few weeks ago, he said, consider
the high priest of our Consider him. And that word consider,
it means fix your mind upon him. It means to examine, to think
on with care, to meditate upon. Consider this high priest. When
you see his name mentioned that he's a high priest, then stop
and say, what kind of a high priest is he? And look at some
places, just let me read these places to you. Look in chapter
5. And look in verse 4. He is speaking
of the priesthood under the law and those men who were made priests.
And he says in verse 4, And no man takes this honor unto himself,
but he that is called of God, as was Aaron. So also Christ
glorified not himself to be made an high priest, but he that said
unto him, Now art my son, today have I begotten thee." Who put
Jesus in his priesthood? The Father, didn't He? The Father
called Him to be a priest. And He said in chapter 5 in verse
10, look at this, something else about His priesthood that's so
important. In verse 10, He's called of God
and High Priest after the order of Melchizedek. Now, we'll look
at this when we get to it, but what does that mean? Well, look
in chapter 7 and look in verse 3. Here's what's said about Melchizedek. Without father, without mother,
and we'll see that, they really didn't know who his father and
mother was. Without descent, having neither beginning of days
nor end of life, but made like unto the Son of God, abideth
a priest continually. Continually. Christ is a priest
continually. Look in verse 16. He was made,
Christ is made, not after the law of a carnal commandment,
but after the power of an endless life. endless life. He ever lives, doesn't he? To
be a high priest. And look what he says in verse
25. Wherefore he is able to save them to the uttermost that come
to God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercessions
for them. He has an endless priesthood. Endless priesthood. In chapter
7, in verse 20 and verse 22 something else about his priesthood look
at this verse 20 and 22 and in as much as not without an oath
was he made a priest for those priests were made without an
oath but this man Christ Jesus with an oath by him that said
unto him the Lord swear and will not repent thou art a priest
forever after the order of Melchizedek He's not only called of God and
put in the priesthood, but God swore to him. You're a priest
forever after the order of Melchizedek. Look in chapter 9, something
else, and look in verse 11 through verse 14. This is interesting. Chapter 9, look in verse 11.
For Christ being come then high priest of good things to come,
by greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, Moses set
up that tabernacle with his hands, made them with his hands. That
is to say not of this building, neither by the blood of goats
and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy
place, having obtained eternal redemption for us. For if the
blood of bulls and of goats and the ashes of the heifer, sprinkling
the unclean, sanctified to the purifying of the flesh, How much
more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit
offered Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience
from dead works to serve the living God? And what he's telling
us here is those priests, they offered the bodies of animals. What did Christ offer? His body. His own body. Himself. They offered
blood of bulls and goats. What did He offer? His blood.
his own blood. Look what he says here in chapter
9, look in verse 26. Verse 25, said, Nor yet that
he should offer himself often as those high priests enter into
the holy place every year with blood of others. For then must
he often have suffered since the foundation of the world,
But now once in the end of the world hath He appeared to put
away sin, how? Not by the sacrifice of bulls
and goats, but by His own blood, by Himself, by the sacrifice
of Himself. In verse 28, So Christ was once
offered to bear the sins of many. On the Day of Atonement they
brought that goat, that scapegoat, and they confessed their sins
on the head of that scapegoat. put in their sins, transferring
their sins on the head of that scapegoat. But when Jesus Christ
came, He became the scapegoat. God took the sins of all His
elect people and put them on Him. And He bore them away. Just
as that scapegoat did in time. Look at another place. Look in
chapter 10. Very familiar. Look in verse
9. So then, lo, He said, lo, I come to do thy will, O God,
He taketh away the first that he may establish the second.
By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body
of Jesus Christ once for all. And every high priest stands
daily ministering and offering at all times the same sacrifices
which can never take away sin. after he had offered one sacrifice
for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of God, from henceforth
expecting till his enemies be made his footstool. For by one
offering he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified." And
look over in chapter 13. I've got you turning a lot, but
look over in chapter 13 in verse 11. For the bodies of those beasts
whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest
for sin are burned without the count. Wherefore Jesus also,
that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered
without the gate." So he says a lot about our high priest,
doesn't he? And we'll get to these as we... and comment on
these as we get to them. But I just wanted to show you
that he just mentions the high priest, basically, And then he
enlarges through all this book. And he does it that you and I
might consider him. Consider what kind of priest
that we have. So that's the first word here
he mentions. See him then that we have a great
high priest. That's the first statement. Now
look back in verse 14 and look what he says. The second thing
he says about our high priest. That is passed unto the heavens. He has passed unto the heavens. Our high priest is no longer
in the grave. He's no longer on this earth.
He has passed unto the heavens. You know, there's a lot of those
priests under the law. They're not in heaven. There's
a lot of them. Because some of them were rascals.
They were scoundrels. Hop 9 Finney has. I often remember
those two young fellas. Sons of Eli the priest, high
priest. Man, they took bribes. ate the
fat, threatened people. God killed them. Sent the Philistines
and killed them. Tell you another one, probably
not in heaven, Caiaphas. Remember Caiaphas, the high priest
in our Lord today? And they took the Lord Jesus
from the Garden of Gethsemane early, early in the morning,
probably still dark, to the high priest's house, Caiaphas. And
there he sat in his big armchair They brought the master there,
and I can just see his hair still wet. His coat was wet with his
sweat and his blood where he had been sweating in the garden.
And Caiaphas, the high priest, looked at him and said, I adjure
you by the living God that you tell us if you are the Christ,
the Son of God. And he said, You said it. You
said it. But hereafter, you will see the
Son of Man sitting on the right hand That sounds like this book,
doesn't it? Sitting on the right hand of
power, coming in the clouds with glory. And old Caiaphas, he jumps
up and tears his shirt and said, We've heard enough. We've heard
enough. We don't need any more witnesses.
What are you going to do with this man? They said, Kill him.
Hang him. You reckon Caiaphas is in heaven?
I tell you what, if God didn't humble his heart and bring him
to repentance and to believe on the one he accused of blasphemy,
and experienced a new birth. He's not there, is he? He's not
there. But you know, there's some good ones there. Aaron was
a good high priest in spite of his infirmity. There was a lot
of priests that's in heaven. But you know something? None
of them can help us. They can't help us, can they?
Their priesthood have passed away. But we've got one there
that can help us. He has passed unto the heavens. And the apostle mentions this
in so many places about where he is now and how he got there.
He said in chapter 6 and verse 20, listen to what he said there. He said here in verse 18 of chapter
6, that by two immutable things in which it was impossible for
God to lie, we might have a strong refuge, a strong consolation
to have fled for refuge to lay halt upon the hope set before
us, which hope we have as an anchor of our souls, sure and
steadfast, which entereth unto that within the veil," that's
heaven, "...whether the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus,
made the High Priest." Where's our High Priest? He's entered
behind the veil, the real veil, heaven itself. And he said in
verse 7 and verse 26, look what he said here in chapter 7 verse
26 about being in heaven. For such a high priest became
us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made
higher than the heavens. That is the way the Hebrews talk
sometimes. They talked about being high in the heaven. That
means He is the highest. He is exalted over all. And the
Bible says he has to humble himself to behold the things that's in
heaven. He's been exalted. He's in heaven. He's above heaven.
You know, ain't that the kind of priest we need? Those poor
priests of old, they were compassed with sinful infirmities. That's
why they always had to offer a sacrifice for themselves first.
But what kind of priest do we have? Holy, harmless, and undefiled. You know there is somebody in
heaven in our humanity. There is a man in heaven who
is just as holy and perfect as the Eternal God is. Do you know
that? And that is our High Priest,
Jesus, the Son of God. He has entered the heavens, entered
the heavens. In chapter 9 in verse 24, just
read this while we are reading. Look in chapter 9 verse 24. For
Christ is not entered the holy places made with hands, which
are the figures of the truth, but into heaven itself, now to
appear in the presence of God for us." And to heaven itself,
to represent us before God. Those angels that were standing
there when the Lord Jesus ascended up into heaven, remember that
in Acts chapter 1, and the apostles just standing there gazing up
into heaven. And they saw Him go up. And a cloud received Him
out of their side. And they said, Why are you standing
here gazing? This same Jesus who was received
up into heaven. And they ought to know because
they are there in heaven themselves. He shall so come in like manner
as you have seen Him go up into heaven. And you know Peter picked
up on that language and later he wrote that he has entered
into heaven. He has entered into heaven. A
man has entered into heaven. Angels and authorities and powers
are subject unto Him. This is our hope, isn't it? This is the hope of your poor
pastor as he muddles himself through this world, fell and
fallen, fighting with himself and devils and this world that
gets so appealing sometimes. This is my hope. that Jesus Christ
came into this world, made reconciliation for my sins, died on the cross,
they buried Him, He rose from the dead, and He is in heaven
Himself. He's there as our representative,
as our forerunner. And you know something? Since
He's there, that assures every believer that they'll be there
too. Because a forerunner is somebody that goes ahead of everybody
else. He's in Heaven. Our High Priest is in Heaven.
There to represent us before God. He's passed into the Heavens. Thirdly, our text says this. Who is this High Priest that
is passed into Heavens? Well, He tells us here in our
text, verse 14, look at this, Jesus, the Son of God. Jesus the Son of God. How can
we trust Him? How can we trust that He did
what He said He did? He said, This is My blood of
the new covenant which is shed for many for the remission of
their sin. How can we trust Him? He's in
there in heaven today and He says, I'll pray the Father and
He'll give you another comforter. How can we trust what He says?
Can we trust Him? He says, I'll go to prepare a
place for you. Can we trust Him? I'll come again
and receive you unto Myself. But how can we know that for
sure? You know how we can know and trust Him? Because of who
He is. He's the Son of God. And I tell
you what, if you trust your soul to Him for its salvation, and
He doesn't honor that trust, and He disappoints you at last,
then throw away your Bibles. There is no God. There is no
heaven. There is no hereafter. Go back
to your sins, eat, drink, and be merry. For when you die, it's
all over with if He can't be trusted. But He can be trusted
because He's the Son of God. Commit your way unto Him. Trust also in Him and He shall
bring it to pass. Nobody ever trusted Jesus Christ.
In their heart of hearts were all their salvation and was disappointed
in the end. What did Paul say about it? I
know whom I have believed, didn't he? Who did he believe? Jesus
Christ, the Son of God. Peter said, We believe and are
sure that thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And I tell you, you put your
trust in Him. You take Him at His Word and you'll never be
disappointed. It's impossible that you could
be disappointed. He's the Son of God. He's the
Son of God, and He's there in heaven. The last thing is this,
he says, and I guess this would be the
application, let us hold fast our profession, our confession. Seeing then that we have a great
high priest that is passed into heaven, Jesus the Son of God,
let us therefore Hold fast. Do you profess to be saved by
the grace of Jesus Christ? Do you profess that? You have
been saved by His grace. You are being saved by His grace.
And you shall be saved by His grace. Is that our profession?
Then let us hold fast to that profession because of who He
is and because of what He has done. Boy, you and I are in a
world And there's a good reason here He exhorts us to hold fast.
Hold fast, that implies some exertion, doesn't it? That implies
a purpose, strength. You get a hold of something.
And you say, Boy, I've got to hang on. And that's what this
is. Hold fast your profession of
faith in Jesus Christ. Because I tell you, we're in
these weak frames. We're in a world that's appealing
with all these temple advantages. We're in a world full of devils
that seeks to do us wrong and harm us. And we've got a ways
to go yet, haven't we? Let us hold fast our profession
of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Barnabas went down to Antioch
because he had heard that they had received the Word of God.
And he went down there and he saw evidence of God's grace that
he had called these men to Christ and they were trusting Christ
and they loved the Lord Jesus Christ. And here's what he said. He exhorted them with purpose
of heart they should cleave to the Lord. Get a hold of Him and
don't let Him go. Hold Him fast. There's just one
cord of salvation. There's one rope as it were to
heaven and that's Jesus Christ. Get a hold of Him by faith. Trust Him and don't let Him go. Hold fast. Look here what He
says again in chapter 10 and look in verse 21. This was the
conclusion of everything the Apostle Paul had been saying
in the 10th chapter. This was the conclusion of what
kind of high priest we have and how few we should trust Him. Verse 21, And having an high
priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true
heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from
an evil conscience, and our bodies washed in pure water. Let us
hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering. Don't
waver. Why? For He is faithful. There it is again, isn't it?
He's merciful and He's faithful. That promise. That's our High
Priest, brothers and sisters. And next week, Lord's willing,
we'll see how tender He is to us, that He was tried in all
points. as we are. He can feel our infirmities. We'll look at that, the Lord
willing, next week. The same page 272 in our psalm
book.