Welcome to our program. Now today
the title of the message is Our Qualified High Priest. Last week I preached on Christ
our Great High Priest. Today, Our Qualified High Priest. And the issue here, I'm going
to be preaching from Hebrews chapter 5. The issue has to do
with two questions. Number one, what are the qualifications
of a high priest And number two, is Jesus of Nazareth, is he qualified
to be a high priest? Now that question comes from
the fact that the Old Covenant, the Law of Moses, that system
of religion which the children of Israel were under from Mount
Sinai on up to 1500 years before the coming of Christ into the
world. Under that Old Covenant, the
tribe of Levi, You know, the 12 tribes of Israel. It was the
tribe of Levi that were the priest for the people. The high priest
is the descendants of Aaron, the brother of Moses. And they
were descendants of the son of Jacob, or Israel, named Levi. And they were made the priestly
tribe, all the priests. The high priest and all the other
priests came from the tribe of Levi. Well, under that old covenant,
The only ones who were qualified to be priests were from the tribe
of Levi. Now, Jesus of Nazareth, who is
the Messiah, is he qualified to be a high priest? Now, he
was not from the tribe of Levi. He was from the tribe of Judah,
the kingly tribe. And so, to their minds, to the
Jewish mindset, Jesus of Nazareth would not have been qualified
to be a high priest under the Old Covenant. Well, they were
right. Now listen to me very carefully. According to the laws
of the Old Covenant, Jesus of Nazareth was never qualified
to be a high priest because he wasn't from the tribe of Levi.
He's from the tribe of Judah. But you see, Christ, Jesus of
Nazareth, He is not a priest after the Old Covenant. He's
a priest after a higher order. an eternal order. It's called
the Order of Melchizedek, and we'll get to that later, and
then later messages. Melchizedek was a priest and
a king in the Old Testament, before the Old Covenant, and
Abraham met Melchizedek on his way back from the slaughter of
the kings. And Melchizedek was a type of
Christ. Now, the tribe of Levi, the priestly
tribe of Levi, they were types of Christ, but Melchizedek was
a better type. Because his priesthood, he typified
more perfectly an eternal priesthood. Now, when Christ came and did
his work, he fulfilled and abolished the whole old covenant system. And he changed the priesthood.
And when that priesthood is changed, the whole law is changed. He
said, now we don't need an earthly priesthood. We have Christ, our
great high priest. Well, what are the qualifications
of a high priest? And is Jesus of Nazareth qualified? Well, look at Hebrews chapter
5 and verse 1. Now the first qualification of
a high priest is he had to be a man. Humanity. Now it says, verse 1, for every
high priest taken from among men is ordained for men. Why did he have to be taken from
among men? Because he's ordained for men. In other words, he stands as
a representative of men, and he had to be a man himself. And
he was ordained for men in things pertaining to God. The high priest,
his service was not to man. Now listen to me. The service
of the high priest was not to man. It was for men. The service
was to God. It was towards God. It had to
do with the glory of God. pertaining to God, and it says
that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins. So his humanity. Now every priest
under the Old Covenant was a man of the tribe of Levi, and he
represented the children of Israel. He stood for them towards God. And the high priest, he went
into the Holy of Holies. Remember the tabernacle had its
different areas in it, and the very innermost room of that tabernacle
was the holiest of all. And in that room you found the
Ark of the Covenant, covered with the mercy seat, which contained
the broken law. It had Aaron's rod that budded,
which symbolized life. And once a year, on the Day of
Atonement, a man from the tribe of Levi who was appointed to
be the high priest of Israel, went in to that holy place with
the blood of the Lamb, and he sprinkled it on the mercy seat.
Now all of that typified salvation, eternal salvation. Now listen
to me, there was no eternal salvation in that earthly tabernacle. There
was no eternal salvation from that earthly high priest. There
was no eternal salvation or forgiveness of sins from the blood of the
animal. The blood of bulls and goats can never take away sin.
There was no eternal salvation in that physical ark in Mercy
Seat. The only eternal salvation, the
only eternal forgiveness of sins, came from what all those things
typified and foreshadowed and pictured. The Lord Jesus Christ,
our great High Priest, So, every high priest is taken from among
men, and ordained for men. Now, is Jesus of Nazareth qualified? Well, He became a man. Remember,
He's the Word of God. In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And in John
1 and verse 14, the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.
Back here in Hebrews chapter 2 and verse 14, He's speaking
of Christ, and it says, "...for as much then as the children..."
Whose children? That's God's children. That's
the elect of God. That's the church of the Lord
Jesus Christ. That's the sheep. He said, "...all that the Father
giveth me shall come to me, and him that cometh to me I will
in no wise cast out." It's his sheep. He said, "...I lay down
my life for the sheep." It's all who come to believe in Christ.
That's who he's talking about here. Children of God, children
by election, children by redemption, children by adoption, and children
by new birth. Have you been born again by the
Spirit of God? And look to Christ for salvation,
that's the evidence, and that's the children. So he says, for
as much then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood,
he also himself likewise took part of the same, that through
death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that
is, the devil. In verse 16 it says, For verily
he took not on him the nature of angels, but he took on him
the seed of Abraham. That's Abraham's children by
faith in Christ. Spiritual seed. So is Jesus Christ
qualified? Well, he's a man. Now, he's God. My saying that he is a man does
not negate his deity. And my saying that he is God
does not negate his humanity. He is God-man, but His humanity
qualifies Him to be our Great High Priest. He is qualified.
His deity gave all that He did value, effectual power, so that
all for whom He lived and died and was buried and rose again
the third day shall be saved. Now Christ was ordained for men. He was set up for everlasting
in the covenant of grace. to be the Savior of sinful men
and women, the Savior of sinners. All the conditions of the salvation
of His people were laid upon Him. And it was for things pertaining
to God. Why did He have to be appointed
to be the Savior of men? Because God must be just when
He justifies sinners. God is gracious, but He's also
holy. God is love, but He's also righteous. God is mercy, but He's also just. He must be just and a Savior. He must be holy as well as gracious. And the only ground upon which
God can be both a holy and a righteous and a just God, as well as gracious
and loving and merciful, is the finished work of the Lord Jesus
Christ, who offered His humanity upon the altar of his deity to
satisfy law and justice, to shed his blood as payment for our
sins. He had to die. God cannot die. But this person
who is God did die, and that's his humanity. And it's that he
may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sin. What sacrifice did the
Levitical priests of the old covenant, what did they offer?
They offered the blood of goats, the blood of bulls, the blood
of lambs. What sacrifice did Christ offer?
himself, his own precious blood. You see, all that animal blood
typified and pictured him. Animal blood couldn't bring about
satisfaction, but the blood of Christ did. So he's qualified
in his humanity. The second thing is compassion.
The high priest must be one who can identify with humanity. He can identify with sinners.
He can have compassion on sinners. Now, is Jesus Christ qualified?
Look at verse 2. It says, who can, or who can
reasonably bear with, the ignorant. He can have compassion on the
ignorant and on them that are out of the way. They are gone
astray. You see, all we like sheep have
gone astray. And for that he himself also
is compassed, surrounded with infirmity, weakness, sickness,
sorrows, dejection, all of the things that bring us pain. Christ
was surrounded with that. Well, the high priest of Israel
was. He was a man. He had sorrows. He cried tears.
He got sick, and he eventually died, and another replaced him.
In fact, down through that 1,500-year period, there were many, many,
many, many high priests. It took all of them to perform
the duties of that covenant throughout those years. When Christ came,
he's one priest, not many, because he's a great high priest, and
he had one sacrifice for sins, his own blood, his own body.
And that was enough. There's nothing else to be given.
You see, there's nothing else to be sacrificed. He sacrificed
himself. And by one offering, Christ hath
perfected them forever that are sanctified. So he says he can
have compassion, and it says verse 3, and by reason hereof
he ought as for the people so also for himself to offer for
sins. Now that high priest in the old
covenant, that Levitical high priest, he himself was a sinner. He had to go into the holiest
of all with the blood of animals, not just for the people, but
for himself too. Now Christ Our high priest is
qualified because, number one, he can have compassion. He did
have compassion. He was the most compassionate
person that ever lived. He suffered weaknesses and infirmities
and sorrows. I mentioned this last week, how
in the Garden of Gethsemane, when he was sorrowing under the
weight of the sins of his people, his sheep, laid upon him, he
sweat great drops of blood. And he sorrowed and he prayed
and he wept. He had compassion on the guilty. And he suffered these things.
Now, he himself, in himself, was not, not, and never will
be a sinner. In fact, the Bible says he is
holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sins. That was
pictured in the offering of an innocent sacrifice. You know,
when they brought a lamb for the sacrifice, They were offering
that lamb for their sins. The lamb was not a sinner. That's
why during the Passover, God instructed them to bring a lamb
of the first year, a young lamb. That typifies Christ, our lamb,
who was cut down in the prime of life. He was 33, 33 and a
half years old. And it said, secondly, bring
a lamb without spot and without blemish. Christ is our Lamb without
spot and without blemish. He knew no sin, He did no sin. In His nature, He contracted
no sin. When the sins of God's people
were laid upon Christ, imputed to Him, legally accounted to
Him, and listen to me now, that's a real situation. That's not
just God pretending. When our sins, when the sins
of God's church, His sheep, were laid upon Christ, they became
His. Actually His. And it was real. And He suffered. But at no time
was He corrupted in His nature, in His mind, in His heart. At no time. So that when He went
into the holiest of all, He went in not for Himself, but only
for His people. The book of Daniel chapter 9
says that the Messiah was cut off Cut off from the presence
and the favor of God. Remember Christ said that on
the cross. He said, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani. That's the Hebrew that's recorded
in Matthew. And it means, my God, my God,
why hast thou forsaken me? He was forsaken from his father,
separated legally from his father in his heart. And he suffered and he was cut
off, but not for himself. It was for the people. So he
is qualified in that he can have compassion. He knows what you're
going through. He knows what I'm going through.
He knows it in every way. And then the next one is divine
appointment. He had to have a divine appointment. Look at verse 4. It says, And
no man taketh this honor to be a high priest unto himself. But he that is called of God,
as was Aaron." Now, when God established the Old Covenant
on Mount Sinai, the Law of Moses, or the Mosaic Law, sometimes
they call it, the Mosaic Economy, He gave them the Ten Commandments,
and He gave them the ceremonial law, and then He gave them the
laws of the priesthood included in the ceremonial law, and God
ordained that Aaron, Moses' brother, would be the high priest, and
from then on the descendants of Aaron. So they were God-ordained,
and that's the tribe of Levi. Aaron was of the tribe of Levi.
And so Aaron and his descendants were ordained, appointed of God,
to be the high priest in that earthly covenant. Now, nobody
else had any right to consider themselves a high priest. or
any other kind of priest, or to do the duties of the high
priest. The Bible talks about a king, a king in Israel, a king
in Judah, the southern kingdom after it was divided after Solomon.
And this king's name was Uzziah, King Uzziah. And Uzziah was a
popular king. He was a successful king politically,
economically. The country prospered under Uzziah. Now Uzziah being a king was from
the tribe of Judah. You see that? He was a descendant
of King David from the tribe of Judah. Uzziah one day became
proud and puffed up and self-righteous and took it upon himself to go
and burn incense in the temple. Now what's wrong with that? He
wasn't appointed to do that. He was not of the tribe of Levi.
He was not a priest. But in his pride, he thought,
well, it's okay for me to do that. And what happened is God
struck him with leprosy. Nobody can do that but he who
is appointed of God. Now, is Jesus of Nazareth qualified? Yes. He was appointed of God
in the everlasting covenant of grace to be a high priest. Not
in the old covenant now, not in that earthly covenant, but
in the eternal everlasting covenant of grace. God appointed him. And God appointed only him. He
didn't appoint anybody else. There's one God and one mediator
between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. So the divine appointment,
he says in verse 5, he says, so also Christ glorified not
himself to be made an high priest, But he that said unto him, Thou
art my son, today have I begotten thee." That's quoted from the
Psalms, that's the father speaking to the son, and he says in verse
6, as he saith also in another place, Thou art a priest forever
after the order of Melchizedek. So the answer to the question
is this, what are the qualifications of a high priest? had to be divinely
appointed of God. No man could take that upon himself.
You just couldn't wake up one morning and say, well, I just
feel moved to be a high priest. You couldn't do that. God had
to appoint you to that office. And he had that Levitical office
under the old covenant. Well, was Jesus of Nazareth?
Was he qualified? The answer is yes. Not in the
earthly covenant, but in the everlasting covenant. And he
says after the order of Melchizedek. Now, I told you who Melchizedek
was. And I'm going to go into that a little bit later when
we get up into another chapter when he goes into detail on Melchizedek. But again, Melchizedek, he was
a priest of God and a king before Moses, before the Old Covenant.
He has no recorded beginning, no recorded end, no genealogy. You see, in order for a man to
be a high priest in the Old Covenant, he had to trace his genealogy
to Levi, to Aaron. He had to have a pedigree. Melchizedek
had none. So Melchizedek, well, as Levi
and all of his descendants represent an earthly covenant, Melchizedek
was a type and a picture of an everlasting covenant. So Christ
is not a priest after the order of Levi, but he is after the
order of Melchizedek. We'll explain that more later.
The next qualification is this. The qualifications of a high
priest. He had to be able. Had to have the ability. That
high priest under the old covenant, he had to have the ability to
perform the duties of the high priest. If he didn't have the
ability, the strength, the knowledge to do what he was sent to do
and appointed to do, he couldn't be a high priest. Well, was Jesus
of Nazareth qualified according to the order of Melchizedek?
It says in verse 7, it says, Melchizedek, now it's talking
about Melchizedek here. who in the days of his flesh,
when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong
crying and tears unto him, that was able to save him from death,
and was heard in that he feared." Now this is talking about Christ,
I said Melchizedek, but it's talking about Christ. He's talking
about Christ who's a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.
Well, is Christ able to do the duties? What were his duties?
His duties were to represent his people before God. His duties
were to stand in their place as their substitute and keep
the law. Can he do that? Is he able? His
duty was to go to the cross and suffer and bleed and die under
the penalty of their sins and drink damnation dry. Was he able? His duty was to die, be buried,
and be raised again the third day, to ascend unto the Father,
and sit down and make intercession for them. Is He able? Well, it
says here, in the days of His flesh, He offered up prayers
and supplications with strong crying and tears unto Him that
was able to save Him from death, and was heard in that He feared.
In the Garden of Gethsemane, the Lord in His humanity, suffering
under the weight of sin, He said, Lord, if it be possible, let
this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, thy will be done.
And in that hour, his father heard him. And his father delivered
him from that suffering in order to enable him to go to the cross. You see, he had to go to the
cross. He couldn't die there in Gethsemane. He had to go to
the cross for his people. He had to become a curse for
his people. He had to satisfy law and justice. And therefore,
when he was in Gethsemane, suffering under the weight of sin charged
to him, all that sin laid upon him. And he cried and he suffered
great sweat, great drops of blood. It says his father heard him
and his father saved him. His father delivered him. from
death, right then and there. If it weren't for his father,
if it weren't for his own deity, if it weren't for the Spirit,
he could have died right there. But you see, that couldn't happen,
because he had to go to the cross. And so he was able, and it says
in verse 8, though he were a son, yet learned he obedience by the
things which he suffered. What that's talking about is
this, even though Christ is the everlasting, the eternal Son
of God, the second person of the Trinity. In His humanity,
He had to learn obedience by the things which He suffered.
Now, what does that mean? It simply means this. It doesn't
mean that He came from ignorance to knowledge. It means that He
came to experience suffering which He had never experienced
before. He went through things by his obedience unto death,
even the death of the cross, that he had never gone through
before, that he never experienced as a man. And he suffered. And he experienced this, in this
he learned obedience, what it was to suffer, what it was to
die. He knew, listen, the Lord Jesus
Christ as our high priest, he knows exactly what it is to die.
Because he died. And that's the things he suffered.
And then verse 9, it says, and being made perfect. Now that
means complete. Christ in himself was always
perfect. This is not speaking of the holiness
or the perfection of his nature. The Bible says, in him dwelleth
all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and ye are complete in
him. So it's speaking of completion
here. Being made perfect, he completed
the work as our great high priest, he became Listen to this, "...he
became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that
obey him, called of God, and high priest after the order of
Melchizedek." Jesus Christ became the author of eternal salvation. Over in Hebrews chapter 12, it
says not only is he the author, that means the beginner of it,
But he's the finisher of it, the completer of it. In salvation,
Jesus Christ, our qualified high priest, our great high priest,
is everything. That's what he means. He's everything. Paul said it this way, he's my
all in all. He's all I need in Christ. You know, somebody said, what
do you lack in salvation? And I say, I lack nothing. Because I have Christ. And if
I have Christ, I have it all. Somebody says, well, what do
you know? Well, in myself, I feel ignorant about a lot of things.
But you know what? I know Christ, and He is all. If I know Him, I know it all,
in essence. You understand what I'm saying. You see, Christ,
He's qualified. He's God and man. He's compassionate. He experienced
everything that we experience, yet without sin. All that sin
laid upon Him. And then He's divinely appointed
of God. God has appointed Him to be the
heir of all things by the finished work of Christ. And then can
He? Does He have the ability to say?
Well, over in Hebrews chapter 7, let me just read this to you
in closing. It speaks of the earthly priesthood
of Levi. It says, verse 23, and they truly
were many priests, under the old covenant, many priests, because
they were not suffered or allowed to continue by reason of death.
They came and they died, and another man had to take over.
But verse 24 says, but this man, Christ, because he continueth
forever, now he did die, but he didn't stay dead. He arose
again the third day, and he continues forever, because he continues
forever hath an unchangeable priesthood, wherefore for this
reason he is able also to save them to the uttermost completely
that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession
for them." Our qualified high priest