“Jesus Our High Priest”

KASUMIGAOKA  
2018/01/28 
SERMON: “Jesus Our High Priest” 「我らの大祭司となられたイエス・キリスト」
TEXT: Heb. 5:1-10

I. INTRODUCTION

Considering the content of Hebrews, as well as its title, we see that one of the main themes of this letter is the superiority of Jesus Christ to all of the most respected elements of the Hebrew religion. In fact, the religion of Israel finds its purpose fulfilled by the work of Jesus Christ. Consider what the letter has already shown us. First, the angels were honored as the most glorious of God’s creatures, but Jesus is far greater than the angels (1:3-4). Jesus is God’s Son, “the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of His nature” (1:3). Secondly, Moses was revered as Israel’s greatest national leader, who united the people and brought them out of slavery in Egypt. But Jesus is a greater leader than Moses, for He leads His followers into God’s promised “rest.” In today’s passage Jesus is described as the high priest who is even greater than Aaron, the first high priest of Israel.

Chapters 5-7 proceed to show that Jesus Christ is the greatest of the high priests of Israel, and no other high priest is needed. In fact, Jesus fulfills all that the Old Testament religion of Israel shows us about man’s spiritual or religious needs. The first man Adam rebelled against his holy Creator God and brought himself and all of his descendants into the fallen, sinful condition that has ever since then marred the human race. But Jesus, our great high priest, restores us to God’s favor. Through our great high priest we can come confidently before God and, as it says in Hebrews 4:16, “find grace to help us in time of need.” Faith in Jesus, our great high priest, will restore us to the blessed relationship with our Creator that our first parent had forfeited by his disobedience. This is really the goal of the Old Testament system of priests and sacrifices: to bring us back into fellowship with the living God. And Jesus has accomplished this!

The subject of the high priest and his ministry was first raised in the passage we read last week, Hebrews 4: 14-16. We learned that Jesus Christ is our perfect great high priest. Christ is the perfect and ultimate high priest because, first, He is the Son of God who has committed no sins. But just as important is the fact that Jesus is able to “empathize with our weakness” (4:15) and “has been tempted in every way, just as we are.” In other words, Jesus understands the people He represents before God. Jesus understands both our weakness and the powerful influence of temptation and sin that we all face daily. Yet, Jesus has not rejected weak and sinful people like us. As the apostle wrote to the church in Rome, “at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly” (Rom. 5:6).

In our passage today Hebrews tells us about a high priest’s duties in vv. 1-4. This is a general description of a priest’s ministry according to the Old Testament pattern of worship. Then, in vv. 5-10 we are told why Jesus is the great and final high priest. Let’s look more closely at what Hebrews tells us in these verses.

II. THE GENERAL DUTIES OF A HIGH PRIEST IN ISRAEL (vv. 1-4)

Verse 1 tells us, first, that a high priest is one who “represents” the people. 「神に仕える事がらについて人々に代わる者として、任命を受けたのです。」The high priest was a kind of a “substitute” (身代わり) who entered into the tabernacle, or later into the temple, to plead before God for mercy and help for the people of Israel. This idea of representation is seen throughout the Old Testament religion of Israel. One effect of this idea was to resist the temptation of spiritual arrogance. Even the high priest was no “better” than the people he represented. A faithful high priest should be “selected from among the people.” Because he is one of the people himself, he “is able to deal gently with those who are ignorant and are going astray, since he himself is subject to weakness.” Unlike the honored spiritual leaders in many religions—and even in some Christian churches—the high priest in Israel should be close to the people he represented. He was not set in an unapproachable “ivory tower,” far above the “common people.” The high priest must never forget his own weakness and sinfulness. “This is why he has to offer sacrifices for his own sins, as well as for the sins of the people” (v. 3).

Secondly, we are told that a high priest is appointed “to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins.” No priest was free to enter into the presence of God without the appointed gifts and sacrifices. The offerings for sin were a constant reminder that the people of Israel were spiritually “flawed.” Every day the priest offered up morning and evening sacrifices because of the sins of the people. The gifts and sacrifices showed how serious were the sins of the people. Their sins could only be erased by the shedding of blood. Every person who sins against God must die. That was the basic rule that God had laid down. God had said to Adam, when you disobey Me, that is, “In the day when you eat the fruit of the forbidden tree, you shall surely die.” “The wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23). Every sacrificed lamb, goat, or bull, and every drop of blood shed by those daily sacrifices was a reminder of the penalty that every man has incurred by his disobedience to God. The work of a priest was designed by God to be a continual reminder of the seriousness of man’s sinful condition. No man—not even a priest—could blithely (暢気に) enter into the presence of God and ask for God’s favor. Before asking any favors from God, the priest must first confess his sins and the sins of his people, and he must offer the proper sacrifice. The “gifts and sacrifices for sin” were required as a sign of the priest’s humble and contrite heart. And, because the priest was a representative of the people, the blood of the sacrifices also was intended to show the repentant heart of the worshipers. What God seeks from His people is a humble, repentant, and obedient heart. This truth was often repeated in the messages of the prophets. As David also wrote in Psalm 51:16-17, “For Thou dost not delight in sacrifice, otherwise I would give it; Thou art not pleased with burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise.”

The third thing we are told about the high priest is that “no one takes this honor on himself, but he receives it when called by God, just as Aaron was” (v.4). God who sees the heart of every man also calls the high priest to serve Him. In other words, a man must be approved by God before he can serve as high priest. It was not an office that an ordinary priest might “earn” by his diligent efforts. It was not a position that a king like Herod could fill by royal decree (though in fact Herod did appoint high priests according to his own whim during his reign). Rather, just as Aaron, the brother of Moses, was appointed by God to serve as the first high priest, every high priest after him was likewise to be called by God, not by men, to serve in that position.

III. JESUS OUR GREAT HIGH PRIEST (vv. 5-10)

In vv. 5-10 we learn why Jesus is called our great high priest. How does He satisfy the requirements of the office? First, the writer of Hebrews tells us, “Christ did not take on Himself the glory of becoming a high priest.” In fact, God Himself called Jesus to serve Him and to represent the people who would obey Him. Two Psalm passages are quoted to prove this claim. In Psalm 2:7, “God said to Him, ‘You are My Son; today I have become Your Father.’” If we inquire at what point in time this proclamation was made, we must conclude that it was made in eternity, before the foundation of the world. For it was God’s eternal purpose that His Son should serve as the high priest and atoning sacrifice that would redeem His people. The second Psalm quoted is Psalm 110:4. “You are a priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek.” There are two matters that are declared here. The first is that Jesus, God’s Son, is the only One who can effectively serve as high priest forever, because He is the Son of God. The second matter is the category of high priesthood to which Jesus belongs. The Jews knew of only one priesthood that descended from Aaron. But this passage reminds us that there was at least one priest of the living God who was called long before Aaron and his sons. That was the priest Melchizedek. He was the mysterious priest of the Most High God who met Abraham returning from a successful military venture. Melchizedek blessed Abraham, and Abraham acknowledged his priestly service by giving a tithe of the spoils captured in battle (Gen. 14:18-20). We will hear more about Melchizedek later in chapter 7. The point that the writer makes here is that the prophetic words of these two Psalms point to Jesus Christ and demonstrate that He did not claim the honor of the high priest’s office for Himself. Rather, Jesus was called and appointed by God His Father to fill the office, not just for a brief time, but for eternity. He is a priest “forever,” according to the order of Melchizedek. So, there will be no need for another high priest after Christ! He is the perfect and final high priest.

Verses 7-8 tell us that Jesus was qualified to represent His people because He was truly a man like us. He lived the days of His life on earth as a man. He struggled with the same kinds of weakness that the rest of us must struggle with. Although He was the Son of God, He was equally a Son of man, and he learned obedience as all men must learn obedience—“from what He suffered.” I think that means He endured the same kinds of discipline (訓練) as we do, as He grew up and lived among us here on earth. He took part in all the forms of discipline by which we learn and mature as human beings. But as we read in 4:15, Jesus was different from us in that He learned the importance of obedience by suffering without yielding to sin. Above all, Jesus was obedient to His heavenly Father, without fail. In His final act of obedience He suffered more than we can imagine. He offered up His own life as our atoning sacrifice by dying upon the cross. And when He offered that sacrifice, He did so not as a “super hero” or a robot, but as a man. He was fully human and during the days of His life on earth, Jesus “offered up prayers and petitions with fervent cries and tears to the One who could save Him from death, and He was heard because of His reverent submission” (v. 7). In other words, Jesus used the same means of grace that God has provided for us all. He relied on prayer to His Father to deal with all of the challenges of His human life. And He was heard—not because He had a special “connection” to heaven, but because of His piety (reverent submission). He gave up His divine privileges, just as He had given up His heavenly glory, during the days of His life on earth. He lived as a man lives, so that He could represent us before God His Father. He lived as we live, learned obedience as we must learn obedience, suffered as we suffer, prayed as we must sometimes pray. But He did all of these things in a manner that earned the complete approval of His heavenly Father, who said of Christ on several occasions, “This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”

In all of His activities, Jesus showed that His heart was fully committed to doing the will of His heavenly Father. Jesus understood that He had been appointed high priest to offer the ultimate atoning sacrifice that would finally redeem His people from their sins. He repeatedly told His disciples that this was His Father’s purpose. The Son of man must suffer and die. On the last occasion that we are told that Jesus prayed about this great personal sacrifice, He told His disciples, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow, to the point of death” (Matt. 26:38). He prayed so earnestly that “His sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground” (Lu.22:44). But in spite of His sorrow and His fear of facing the cross, Jesus did not turn away from His determination to carry out the will of His Father in heaven. “Father,” He prayed, “if You are willing, take this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Yours be done.” Jesus had the heart of a perfect high priest: He loved His heavenly Father with perfect obedience. And He loved His disciples more than He loved His own life. As our ultimate great high priest, Jesus followed His Father’s plan of redemption perfectly. And “once made perfect,” that is, once He had carried out His Father’s perfect will, “He became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey Him” (v. 9).

IV. CONCLUSION

This is why Hebrews tells us in 4:14, “Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess.” Hebrews 7:26-27 says, “Such a high priest truly meets our need—one who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens. Unlike the other high priests, He does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for His own sins, and then for the sins of the people. He sacrificed for their sins once for all when He offered Himself.” Since we have such a great high priest who has opened the way for us into God’s eternal glory, let us draw near with confidence to God’s throne of grace!

In Romans 5:8 it says, “God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Because of His great love for God and for man, Jesus willingly accepted the office of high priest and performed the ministry of a high priest. All other high priests offered animal sacrifices to God, but Jesus our great high priest offered up the sacrifice of His own flesh and blood for our sakes. Through this great high priest alone we have been reconciled to God and our sins are forgiven. What none of us could do for ourselves, Christ has done for us. This is why we praise the blessed name of our great high priest Jesus Christ!

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