Now last week, at the end of
chapter 4, the apostles started talking about Christ, our High
Priest. And here in the first verses of chapter 5, he gives
us a good picture of Christ, the great High Priest. He says
in verse 1, For every high priest taken from among men is ordained
for men in things pertaining to God, that he might offer both
gifts and sacrifices for sins. He tells us at the end of the
verse here, the reason that we need a high priest, the sacrifice
for sin needs to be made. We need a high priest because
men are sinners. That's the way we're born. We're
sinners. We are a sin nature. That's all
we do. That's all we can produce is sin. And sin must be punished
because God's holy and sin must be punished and it will be punished
either in us or in the sacrifice that the high priest offers in
our substitute. But sin's going to be punished
because God's holy. And the only payment that God
will accept as payment for sin is blood. Without the shedding
of blood, there's no remission. So under that old High Testament
law, the high priest was ordained to offer these sacrifices. And
he was taken from among men, from among the people he represented.
Only a man can represent another man. The priest was taken from
among Israel because only an Israelite can represent the nation
Israel. And that high priest came before
the Lord and he represented all those people that he represented
before the Lord. He came and offered sacrifices
for the people. He stood before the Lord in the
people's stead as their representative. And the Lord would only deal
with those people through that high priest. through the sacrifice
that he offered. That's the only way he'd deal
with them. He said, there I'll meet with you at the altar where
the priest would offer those sacrifices. And nobody else could
come before the Lord and represent the people. Nobody else could
bring the sacrifice on the Day of Atonement except the high
priest. Well, the Lord Jesus Christ is our great high priest. He's the mediator that stands
between God and man. He stands before God representing
his people. But in order to be our high priest,
Christ had to become a man because a man has to represent men, has
to represent his people. So he became a man. And just
like the high priest of old, he came before the Lord and offered
a sacrifice, the sacrifice of himself. He shed the blood that
actually atoned for sins. He didn't offer a picture. He
offered the actual payment, His own blood that God accepted as
payment for sin. And God will only deal with men
in mercy through this great High Priest, through His Son, our
Lord Jesus Christ. Never try to go to God except
through Christ. He's the only way to the Father.
He's the High Priest. Never expect the Father to accept
us or have mercy on us. except through the high priest,
through the sacrifice that he offers. But because believers
have such a great high priest, that's what Paul, the way he
ended in verse 16 last week, because we have this great high
priest, we can come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we
may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need because
of this great high priest. So verse two, Paul says, who
can have compassion on the ignorant? and on them they're out of the
way. For he himself also was compassed with infirmity. Now
the high priest in the Old Testament was a common, ordinary man from
the tribe of Levi. He was a man of the same weaknesses,
the same sin nature as all the rest of Israel. So he couldn't
look down on the rest of the people when they sinned because
he did too. They had the same nature, the
same weaknesses and faults that he did. Well, our Lord Jesus
Christ became a man. Now, he is God Almighty, but
he limited himself to human flesh. He limited himself to the weaknesses
and limitations of human flesh. That's what we read last week
in verse 15 of chapter 4. For we have not a high priest
which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities,
but he was in all points tempted like we are, yet without sin. He experienced all the same weaknesses
and limitations of this flesh that we do. but without sin. So because He took on our flesh,
the Lord knows our frame. He remembers that we're dust.
So He can have compassion on the ignorant. That's who He came
for. I wrote, I don't know when I did, a long time ago, above
this verse 2, Christ came for me. For the ignorant. For those
who are going out of the way. That's such a comfort to me.
For the ignorant. For those who are out of the
way. The Lord doesn't despise the ignorant and refuse to help
them, saying, well, they're so dumb. They're in this mess because
of their own fault. They're so dumb. I'm not going
to help them. No, He has compassion on the
ignorant. He has a heart that reaches out.
He came to redeem the ignorant. That's who He came for, for the
ignorant. How many times do we read through
the Gospels and see how patient our Lord was with the ignorance
of those twelve disciples. They do some dumb things. They
say some dumb things. They show the human ignorance. But He's so patient with them.
He just kept patiently teaching them. And ultimately, despite
their ignorance and their sin, He went to the cross to die for
them, to put away their sins. And He does the same for all
of His people. He bears with our ignorance.
He sends us teachers and pastors because He bears patiently with
the ignorance. And He has compassion on those
who are gone out of the way. Now, all of us have gone out
of the way. In Adam, we lost the way. We lost the way of life.
We lost the way of righteousness. We lost the way of peace. We
lost the way to God. We're all gone out of the way.
But Christ, our great High Priest, not only is He our High Priest,
He's the Good Shepherd. He goes out and He finds that
sheep, His sheep, that's gone out of the way. And what does
he do? He picks that sheep up and puts it on his shoulders,
takes it back into the way. He has compassion and he'll go
out and find those that are out of the way and bring them back.
That's what he came to do. He came for me, the ignorant
and those who are gone out of the way. Verse three, he says,
now by reason hereof, he ought, as for the people, so also for
himself to offer for sins. Now, here's a big difference
between the picture and the person between that Old Testament High
Priest and Christ. That Old Testament High Priest
was a sinner, just like every other man he represented. He
was a sinner. So before he could offer a sacrifice
for the sins of the people, he had to offer a sacrifice for
his own sins. Then the Lord would allow him
to offer the blood for the sins of the people. But our Lord Jesus
Christ never had to do that. He never had to offer sacrifice
for his own sins because he's perfect. He's perfectly holy,
perfectly righteous, completely sinless. He knew no sin. He did
no sin. Neither was any God found in
his mouth. So he never offered sin, a sacrifice for his own
sins. Look over a page in Hebrews 7.
In verse 26. For such a high priest became
us. who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made
higher than the heavens, who need if not daily as those high
priests to offer up sacrifice first for his own sins and then
for the people's. For this he did once when he
offered up himself." And Christ's perfect righteousness, his perfect
holiness as a man is what makes his priesthood effectual, is
what makes his priesthood so glorious. what makes him the
great high priest as compared to these other high priests.
So verse 4 back in our text in Hebrews 5, And no man taketh
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, Thou art my son, today have
I begotten thee. That's the one who appointed
him and made him a high priest. Now the office of high priest
without question, was a great honor. It's a great honor to
represent the Lord's people and stand before Him. That's an honor
without question. But no man took that honor upon
himself. No man would dare do that. He
had to be called of God. God had to call him and equip
him and put him in that position. And those who tried to take that
honor on themselves. Those who tried to enter in and
offer a sacrifice in the tabernacle or the temple. Those who tried
to go into the Holy of Holies and offer incense. Every one
of them was struck dead. They were drug out of that place
by their heels. No man takes this honor on himself. Even our
Lord Jesus Christ, God's own Son, did not take this honor
on Himself. The Father appointed Him the
High Priest. He didn't inherit it from an
earthly father, or because of his earthly lineage, because
of the tribe that he was in. The Lord Jesus didn't come in
the tribe of Levi, the priestly tribe. He came in the tribe of
Judah, the kingly tribe. So he didn't inherit this priesthood
because of the tribe that he was in, or any earthly lineage.
Christ was appointed by the Father to be the High Priest. And the
Father sent Him to do all the work of the High Priest. All
the work that had to be done to save His elect, that's what
Christ, our great High Priest, came to do. And Christ's priesthood
is so much better than the Old Testament High Priesthood. That's
what makes Him the great High Priest. God made Aaron the first
High Priest. That was an honor. And He made
him the first High Priest. And all Aaron's sons and grandsons,
they took the places of their fathers when they died. That's
how they became the High Priest. Christ is the Son of God. He's not Aaron's son. He's the
Son of God. That was what makes him so much
better. God never said to Aaron today,
I begotten thee, you're my son. No. He said that to Christ, the
only begotten. He said that to our high priest. That gives us confidence and
comfort in our high priest. God told him, you're my only
begotten. Today have I begotten you. And he's the one who's been appointed
our high priest. So he says in verse six is he
saith also in another place, thou art a priest forever after
the order of Melchizedek. Now look over at Psalm 110. This
is a Psalm or the Psalm of the Messiah. This is the Psalm our
Lord quoted to those Pharisees as lawyers, you're trying to
trick him and trap him. And they all knew all the old
Jews know. This is a psalm concerning the Messiah. This is a Messianic
psalm. Even they know that. So look
what it says here in verse 1. The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit
thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool.
The Lord shall send the rod of thy strength out of Zion. Rule
thou in the midst of thine enemies. Thy people shall be willing in
the day of thy power. In the beauties of holiness,
from the womb of the morning, thou hast the due of thy youth.
The Lord has sworn and will not repent. Thou art a priest forever
after the order of Melchizedek. Now, we've seen over the past
week and some today how those Old Testament priests were pictures
of Christ. But there are also many differences.
We saw, I touched on some of these last week. They were many
high priests. Christ is one. They offered many
sacrifices, morning, noon, and night, day after day after day,
year after year after year. They offered many sacrifices.
Christ just needed one. Just one sacrifice of His was
all it took. They offered animal blood. Christ
offered His own blood, the blood of God. Their work never finished. Our Redeemer said it is finished. His work is complete. They offer
sacrifices that could never take away sin. Christ's sacrifice,
one sacrifice, separated our sins from us as far as the East
is from the West. He removed them. Their priesthood
was temporary. It just lasted until they died.
But Christ's priesthood is eternal. And that's what he's talking
about here in verse 6. His priesthood is forever. Because
Christ's priesthood is in the order of Melchizedek, not in
the order of Aaron, like those Old Testament high priests, he
comes from the order of Melchizedek. And we won't spend a lot of time
on Melchizedek today, but in chapter seven, we'll start, Paul
has a few more things to say about this man Melchizedek, but
the point is Christ's priesthood is forever, because he didn't
come in the order of Aaron. He came in the order of Melchizedek.
So verse seven, 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, when our Lord Jesus was in the days
of his flesh on the earth as a man, we have to remember he
was here as our representative, as our high priest, and he spent
time in prayer. Paul says he spent time in prayer
and supplication. That's entreaties, asking the
Father for things. And He was asking in our behalf.
And our Lord never went through the motions of prayer. He was
serious about this. Paul says He did it with strong
crying and tears. And that shows us the weight
of our sin on our Redeemer. It shows the weight of the work
of redemption that He took on Himself. His weight that would
crush any of us. But he took it on himself. It
shows the sorrow that it caused him to be made sin for us. Caused him to weep. It shows
how hard our Redeemer worked to save us from our sins. We
see him in Gethsemane's garden. His body revolted on him at the
thought of being made sin for us so that he sweat great drops
of blood. You know how earnestly he prayed
to the Father. There on Calvary he hung in agony,
not just physical agony, but spiritual agony of his soul.
When he made his soul an offering for sin, he cried strong cries
unto the Father. He said, My God, my God, why
hast Thou forsaken me? But listen, that crying in anguish
is no more. No more. Now his cry is the cry
of victory. He doesn't cry the strong crying
and tears to the Father anymore. The work's done. The sacrifice
has been accepted. And you can rest assured, you
write this down, He's not crying to you and to me, begging us
to do something. His cry is the cry of the King. And it's the cry, we'll see this
in a minute, to be obeyed. His crying is no more. But when
He cried, as our representative, the Father heard Him. Well, that's
no surprise. The Father always hears him.
He heard him, Paul says, in that he feared. And that word, in
that he feared, that phrase is for his piety. He heard him. The Father heard him because
he was perfectly obedient. He's righteous and holy in every
way. And because he was perfectly
sinless, the Father delivered him from the power of death.
Now, he did die. When the sins of His people were
charged to Him, He died under the wrath of God. But the Father
raised Him from the grave. He raised Him because the blood
of Christ put those sins away. They're gone. So the Father raised
Him to die no more. And that's why our Lord said,
He that believeth on Me shall never die. When the Father delivered
Christ, our representative, our high priest, from the grave,
We were raised in Him. When He was delivered from the
power of death, we were delivered in Him. So he that believeth
in Me shall never die. And now, death cannot harm a
believer. It can't. Now you have to take
your body. This body, this flesh is a body
of sin. It's got to die. But death can't
touch you. It can't touch your soul. It
can't get to you. Death not only is not the enemy,
of the believer. It's our friend. Death is what
separates us from this flesh, this body of death, and enables
us, enables you, the real you, to go be with the Lord. You're
delivered from the power of death. Not only are you delivered from
the power of it, it's not your enemy. If you're a believer,
it's your friend. I know it's hard for us to look at that way,
but that's so. Now, verse 8. Yet learned he obedience by the
things which he suffered. And being made perfect, he became
the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obeyed him."
Now even though Christ is the Son of God, He's God Almighty,
He was not exempt from suffering as a man in His body of flesh. He suffered hunger, just like
we do thirst. He grew tired and weary, just
like we do. He suffered sorrow and pain like
we do. God's only begotten son was not
exempt from suffering as a man. Well, you know what? No adopted
son can expect to be exempt from suffering in this life either.
Matter of fact, you can expect it because you're God's son and
daughter. Back a little over a week ago,
I was talking on the phone to Andy Johnson before he found
out he had cancer. We talked a while. He told me
about an article he'd read that very day, in Spurgeon's Morning
and Evening. It was such a blessing to him.
And this was a part of that article. He said all of God's gold bars
will eventually go through the refiner's fire. Not because God
hates them, but because He loves them. To burn off that dross
and make them more precious, more valuable. God's sons can
expect suffering in this flesh, in this life, just like our Lord
did. We're not above Him, are we? So we can expect the same
thing. And Paul says he learned obedience
by the things that he suffered. Now, our Lord didn't learn things
like you and me learn them. He knows everything. What that word
means is he experienced obedience. He experienced obedience like
we never experienced it. He did it perfectly. He experienced
obedience to his parents, to his own law, He experienced obedience
to His Father. And it was perfect. He produced
that perfect obedience that's imputed to us. That obedience
that He experienced, that He wrought, is our obedience to
the Father. And when the sins of His people,
when it came time to offer that awful sacrifice for sins, our
Lord was obedient even then. Obedient even to the death of
the cross. Obedient to the death of a sacrifice,
of a substitute. And He suffered all the wrath,
all the death that the sins of His people deserve. And He made
perfect reconciliation for all those sins and put them away. His blood blotted those sins
out and put them away. So He was made perfectly free
from those sins. They were laid on Him. They were
imputed to Him. But He put them away. And we're
made perfect in Him. So that he's the author, he's
the giver of life to all his people. Well, who are his people?
All that obey him. To all that obey his voice. To
all that obey the voice of the gospel. To believe. To repent
and believe on him. To cling to him. To look to Christ
and Christ alone. God's people obey his voice. Now, verse 10. Called of God
and high priest after the order of Melchizedek, Of whom we have
many things to say, and hard to be uttered, seeing your dull
of hearing." Now, Paul had many more things to say, possibly,
about this man Melchizedek. He's a somewhat mysterious figure.
He may be, and we'll look at this here in a couple of weeks,
a pre-incarnate appearance of Christ. At the very least, he's
a type of Christ. And Paul could have gone into
a lot of detail about that, and he will here in a couple of weeks.
But mostly, I'll tell you what Paul's talking about here. He's
got many more things to say about the priesthood of Christ. The
Lord Jesus Christ is an inexhaustible subject. You'll never reach the
end of His glory. His glory is the God-man. His
glory is our high priest. His glory is our sacrifice. His
glory is our Savior. Many more things Paul could say
about this, but he says they're hard to explain to people who
are indifferent, who are dull of hearing, They're hard to explain
to someone who's not really interested in spiritual truth. They're hard
to explain to someone who's not completely taken up with the
Lord Jesus Christ. People get tired of hearing about
Christ if they're not taken up with Him. And the gospel is simple. Now, it really is. This is a
simple gospel. But it can never be understood
by the natural man. because we're dull of hearing.
We're born with a dull, dead nature. And there's a warning
here, even to those of us who believe, who have God-given faith.
Now, don't become sluggish about this matter of the Gospel and
about Christ. Don't get dull of hearing where
you hear the words that are being said. Yeah, I don't believe that. And you don't really hear what's
being said. That you don't claim to the message of Christ. Don't
fall into the habit of being sluggish and just come to the
service out of habit. And don't come to truly worship,
to truly feed on the Lord Jesus Christ. That's being dull of
hearing. He says in verse 12, for when for the time you ought
to be teachers, you have need that one teach you again, which
be the first principles of the oracles of God and have become
such as have need of milk and not of strong meat. Now, there's
a time. for us to be babes in Christ.
Just like, naturally speaking, there's a time for us to go to
kindergarten. But don't stay there. Move on
to elementary school, middle school, and high school, and
college, and then you can become a teacher. There's a time when
we don't need to be taught the multiplication tables anymore. You use it every day. I use my
multiplication tables every single day. But I don't have to relearn
them in the morning before I go to work. You've been taught those
things. You know that. You don't have
to relearn it. Well, there's a time when believers
don't need to be retaught the basic, simplest truths of the
Gospel anymore. I'm not saying you move on from
those things. You don't graduate from those things. You use them
every day. They're still what you love. But you're able to
digest more, handle more, understand them more fully. It's not a difference.
I don't know how to explain this. It's not a different message.
It's not necessarily different between meat and milk. It's just
you drink more fully, more deeply of it. When I was born, all I
had to eat was milk. That's all my body could handle
was milk. And I've moved on. I've added other things to my
diet. Now, I love meat. I have a good friend, Jeff Vandal,
in Cottagefield, West Virginia. He says if you're going to have
a good meal, meat must be involved. And I couldn't agree more. I
mean, I love meat. But you know, if you're going
to have a good meal, milk's got to be involved too. I love milk. I have it every day. I haven't
graduated from that. I just drink, eat more fully,
more deeply now. And as a believer grows, we don't
give up the milk of the gospel. We don't give up those three
R's. Ruined by the fall. Redeemed by the blood. Regenerated
by the Spirit. No, you don't give those things
up. You love them. You love them more. You drink of them more
fully, more deeply. You can never move on from the
Lord Jesus Christ. It's just learning more of Him.
Depending on Him more. Resting in Him more. So Paul
says in verse 13, For everyone that uses milk is unskillful
in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. But strong
meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even to those who
by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good
and evil. Believers grow in grace. Scripture talks about babes in
Christ. Young men and young women in Christ and old men in Christ. We grow, but we don't look down
our noses at the babies. Just like we don't look down
our noses at our babies and our toddlers. You don't look down
your nose at that. You love them. Tenderly take
care of them. You feed them. You watch out
for them so they can grow. And the same is true with a baby
in Christ. But wouldn't it be a shame if
that baby stayed a baby and didn't grow? If they didn't grow because
they neglected the means of growth, which is the Word. They're unskillful
in the Word. They're untaught. They'll have
experience in it. And the way you gain that experience
is by being taught the Word, by God sending you a pastor to
teach you the Word. And we rejoice when a baby's
born. Here we're going to have two new babies for a long. We're
going to rejoice. We're going to have showers.
We're going to be, everybody's going to be so happy. They're going to
bring that baby to church for the first time. It's going to
be swamped, all of us. We're just all going to be so happy.
Well, that's the way we are when a new baby is born, when a baby
in Christ is born. But we want it to grow. I notice
every week, Grant carries Kendon down the stairs. He'd carry him.
And that's such a sweet time. He's little and sweet. You can
carry him this close. Oh, it's sweet. And you just
wrap your arm around him and cling to you. It's sweet. But
he don't want to be doing that ten years from now. He wants
him to grow. You don't want to be mashing
up their food on their plate on their high chair forever.
You want them to grow. And that's what we want these
babes in Christ to grow. And they will eventually. It's
a slow process, but they'll grow. And they'll grow so eventually
they can tell the difference between good and evil. What's
good for their souls and what's not. And they can feed themselves
a little bit. Maybe they'll grow enough where
they can be a teacher. So they can teach others. All right.
Well, I hope that's a blessing.