Clough Hebrews Lesson 26

The Office of High Priest – Hebrews 4:16-5:6

We’re studying Hebrews 4:14- 5:10. This follows after a warning, the warning device is put in the last part of 3, from 3:7-4:13. And the warning section that we’ve had is a very serious admonition to get with the Word of God or suffer the consequences. And the verse that some of you may have missed because of the break, Hebrews 4:12 and this deals with the warning of the sword. You’ll notice in verse 12 where it says: “The Word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword,” often that is used to indicate conviction for evangelistic purpose. That verse may be applied for conviction but it is not meant to be the… this two-edged sword in verse 12 refers to Christ’s attack on rebellious sin, and we traced that theme from Genesis 3:24 to Revelation 19:15 and everywhere you see that sword it is not used for evangelistic conviction. It is used against people who have heard the Word and turned away. So it’s a very somber warning.

Notice verse 12 begins with “For,” and verse 11 was an admonition not to do something, an admonition not to fall, an admonition not to disbelieve the promises because “The word of God is powerful. We dealt with that several weeks ago. The other concept that you should be aware of, again in Hebrews 4:14 which is our present section, from 4:14-5:10 deals with Jesus Christ as the sympathetic high priest. And verse 14, which we spent a lot of time on last week made mention that Jesus Christ has passed through the heavens, and we pointed out that in the first century it was common knowledge, though not common knowledge in our century that the Tabernacle was a model of the universe and that the Holy of Holies, which represents the presence of God, is analogous to the third heaven. And the Holy Place is analogous to the earth and the first and second heavens. The Holy Place is the place where Christ’s finished work was enacted in a picture form by the furniture so that everything having to do with Christ’s death on the cross is pictured in the Holy Place. God’s presence, however, is located beyond the curtain that separated the Holy of Holies from the Holy Place. And it says Jesus Christ went through the curtain, went into the Holy of Holies, that’s in terms of the model He did that, but He also did that in reality. So there was not only the type, it’s the reality and the reality is that Jesus Christ pierced through the heavens. This was God’s outer space probe and Jesus, in His humanity, is located at some point, the throne room of God.

And that’s the reason given in verse 14 why Christians should not give up because they’ve got a high priest beyond that curtain. And the reason why the curtain concept is important is that when Christ comes back from the Holy of Holies, back into the Holy Place, He is going to pull the sky aside, as though it’s a curtain and this is the scene in the visions of both the Old Testament and New Testament prophets. And it’s always given as though He tears the curtain aside. And it’s given just as though He were coming out of that model back in the Old Testament days, ripping the curtain once again, coming back into the Holy Place.

All right, that’s the kind of high priest we have. Why is this important? Because Hebrews is a tremendous message of emphasis that the Christians occupation ought to be with the Second Person and never with the Third Person of the Trinity. Holy Spirit this and Holy Spirit that and all the rest of it is unorthodox and it’s unbiblical. The Holy Spirit, according to John 14, John 15, John 16, according to the passages in Matthew and Mark, the Holy Spirit was given in order to draw attention, not to Himself, but to Jesus Christ.

In the morning series when we deal with the doctrine of justification you’ll see the same principle, that occupation with Christ in the throne room is the key, not occupation with Christ in your heart. The humanity of Christ doesn’t dwell in your heart anyway. It’s only a recreation by regeneration, it is not yet perfect and Christians who emphasize the internal experience are wrong in their emphasis, no matter how sincere they may be in their motive. And we’re not knocking experience but we’re simply saying that experience in the heart is a by-product of what has objectively happened in history and the central focus of this epistle is where it should be, on Christ in heaven.

Now just to give you a [can't understand word], not really intended to be so, contrast between where the apostles put the emphasis and where certain people put the emphasis today, I found two testimonies on the Christian Herald, September, 1972 of people who supposedly experienced the Holy Ghost baptism. Well, every Christians has experienced the baptism of the Holy Spirit because it’s not an experience, it happens at the point you’re regenerated. But nevertheless, this second blessing business is in vogue. I want you to listen to these two testimonies and in the light of what you now know from Hebrews see what’s wrong with them. They’re not wrong in the sense they’re heretical, they’re wrong in where they’re placing the emphasis.

A minister says, describing the feeling that he had from the Holy Ghost baptism, he said: “I felt a great sensation of peace right down to the sole of my feet,” (end quote). A Presbyterian woman said of the same event: (Quote) “All the glories of my life were blended together in one ecstatic moment; all the fun of my childhood, my first date, the moment when the man I wanted asked me to share life with him, the exultation of the finished sex longing, I had the sensation I was almost floating instead of walking,” (end quote).

Now when you read the book of Acts did Peter come out on the day of Pentecost and say folks, I feel it down to the balls of my feet? Is that what Peter says? Can you imagine Mary Magdalene going around and saying I had all of the joys of my life blended together in one ecstatic moment. But this is the emphasis and obviously when you compare it with Scripture it’s way out to lunch, way out! And nowhere in the preaching of the apostles is the emphasis ever on their subjective experience, how they felt. So Christians who are going around talking about all their feelings and how they feel and so forth are basically, sincere perhaps, but at least we can say they are very seriously misled and it is a distortion of a doctrine as basic as the Trinity.

In fact, any Christian that prays to Jesus is actually denying the Trinity by that very act. You pray to the Father in the name of the Son by the power of the Holy Spirit and there is a theological reason and it is not nitpicking to make this point because prayer to Jesus implies that you do not need an advocate and this obviously, then, renders the Holy Spirit into the position of the second person and that leaves you without a third person and then you have to go on and historically this has been the kind of thing that has led to Mary as the mediatrix or led to the saints as the mediators, because you’ve lost it by going to Jesus in the first place. You go to the First Person, not the Second Person of the Trinity. So to survive the author of Hebrews is saying direct your attention not inwardly to your subjective experience but outwardly up to the throne room.

Now let’s look at Hebrews 4:15 and finish a few points in verse 15 which we did not cover last time. “For we have not an high priest who cannot be touched with our infirmities,” now “the feeling,” get the feeling out of this. Jesus isn’t feeling anything down to the soles of His feet either. “…touched with our infirmities , but was in all points tempted like as we, yet without sin.” And I read you the quotation of Westcott last week to show you that Jesus Christ under the concept of His impeccability can be tempted and yet pass the 100% assurance that He would never yield once to sin. Now this is hard because some people say if Christ was impeccable, that means not able to sin, there are two ways of saying it, able not to sin, and not able to sin. Now the second statement that gives everyone the problem and it gives people the problem because of a word in it which I’m going to modify, but the second statement, not the first one is the true Biblical doctrine of impeccability. Christ was not only able not to sin, but He was not able to sin, not in the sense that He wasn’t tempted, but that it was, we’ll just put it this was, it was 100% certain He wouldn’t sin. Put it that way and it relieves the pressure a little bit but states the truth, that in God’s plan, since Jesus Christ was two personalities, He had two natures, what is that doctrine, Christ has two natures in one person—the doctrine of Christ’s hypostatic union.

Now that’s in your vocabulary and you understand that the doctrine of the hypostatic union says what? Undiminished deity and true humanity united without confusion in one person forever. Now if they are united and it’s possible for the human nature to sin you can see what it does to the hypostatic union. So in God’s plan it’s 100% certain Jesus Christ wouldn’t sin, yet Jesus Christ experiences more temptation than we do. How? Again, Westcott’s quote: “Sympathy with the sinner in his trial does not depend on the experience of sin but on the experience of the strength of temptation to sin, which only the sinless can know in its full intensity. He who falls yields before the last strain.”

The picture is this, if you can visualize the pressure of temptation on a line graph and it goes up and up and up and up, what Westcott points out is that we as sinners, we always fall out before the temptation pressure has reached max. Christ was able to sustain Himself under higher pressure temptation than you or I do. Therefore, Jesus in His humanity faces greater testing, yet without sin. This is to provide hope, that Jesus Christ knows what it means to be historically tempted. And as a man He has demonstrated the fallacy of the slogan, to err is to be human, and that’s wrong because Jesus Christ is human and He did not err; so next time you hear somebody say that just say no, there’s an exception to the rule, Jesus Christ, and open a conversation that way.

Hebrews 4:16, again this shows you where the orthodox believer puts his emphasis, not on his experience but external to himself at the Father’s right hand. Hebrews was written to a group of believers who were bombing out. They were believers who were falling by the wayside and were not making it, and if there was a way of doing it you would have seen the author here say you pray for a baptism, that’s your trouble; you would have seen him say concentrate on your inner feelings, take your blood pressure every three hours, see how it’s doing. He doesn’t say any of that. Verse 16, “Let us come boldly,” and the word “come” is present tense, let us continue, moment by moment, day by day, over and over, let this be habitually, “habitually come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

Let’s look at this word by word. Let’s look first at the word “boldly,” with confidence. John Calvin said in his debate with the theological people of his time, who claimed that they believed that Jesus was mediator but nevertheless were putting the emphasis on all sorts of religious rituals and internal feelings, Calvin said, (quote), “Christ is not really known as a mediator except where all doubts as our access to God is removed.” In other words, when you have boldness to come into the presence of God Himself, and this boldness can be subjectively sensed by whether you think God is listening when you talk to Him, that’s one key to telling this, if you have the boldness to believe that while you’re talking someone’s hearing, then you are at that moment aware of Christ’s mediatorship.

Now what does it mean to “come?” Simply stated the “coming boldly” of verse 16 is believing, it’s the faith technique; it means that over and over there is an orientation to grace. The believer is constantly oriented to an object outside of himself. And therefore, because he has this grace orientation he can take it. “Let us, therefore, keep coming boldly unto the throne of grace.” Now let’s go back to the tabernacle and let’s look at the furniture of that tabernacle and then we’re going to understand the throne of grace. Here’s the Holy of Holies and here’s the Holy Place, altar of incense, here is the prayers of the saints, and in here you have the ark of the covenant, and on the ark of the covenant you have these two cherubs, angels guarding God’s holiness, and over this ark you have the presence of God, His glory. Now, that mercy seat could only be entered into once a year.

Turn to Hebrews 9:1 the author himself brings this out later, but let’s look at his point. He says, “the first covenant had also ordinances of divine service, and a worldly sanctuary. [2] For there was a tabernacle made; the first, wherein was the candlestick, and the table, and the showbread; which is called the sanctuary.” Now what he’s talking about “sanctuary” we call the Holy Place, same thing, the word means the same thing. [3] And after the second veil, the tabernacle, which is called the Holiest of all,” the Holy Place. [4] “Which had the golden censer, and the ark of the covenant, overlaid round about with gold, wherein was the golden pot that had manna, and Aaron’s rod that budded, and the tables of the covenant. [5] And over it the cherubim of glory shadowing the mercy seat; of which we cannot now speak further. [6] Now when these things were thus ordained, the priests wert always into the first tabernacle, accomplishing the service of God.” So the normal priest went into the first compartment but not into the second compartment.

Verse 7, “But into the second went the high priest alone once every year, but not without blood, which he offered for himself, and for the errors of the people. [8] The Holy Spirit thus signifying that the way into the holiest of all was not yet made perfect, while the first tabernacle was yet standing.” In other words, once a year on the day of atonement the high priest would go back in there and even he would be killed if he did not take with him blood of a sacrificial lamb, because he was sinful. So he had to cover himself and the sins of the people. This happened in October on the day of the atonement. By the way, that’s what’s called Yom Kipper, some of you have probably seen the term. Yom is the Hebrew word for day and Kippur, cover. Okay, day of the atonement.

Now it’s interesting in the forecast of Israel’s calendar you see the day of atonement preceded the pouring out of God’s Spirit in the latter days, and what this means is, contrary to the barrage of propaganda, God is not pouring His Spirit out today, it’s not the latter days. The pouring out of the Spirit of Joel occurs after the day of atonement, after the nation Israel has made atonement for their sins by acknowledging that Jesus, the Nazarite carpenter is truly Messiah. That will happen some day in the future and when it does that will inaugurate the next kind of thing in God’s program and then the Holy Spirit will be poured out flesh. That’s the beginning of the millennium, it doesn’t have anything to do with Pentecost. Hebrews 9 deals with the problem of the day of atonement and deals with how the high priest had to cover himself when he went in there; notice verse 8 again, very important, the Holy Spirit did this rigmarole to show that you couldn’t get into the Holy Place; this was just anticipatory. And you’ll notice that the priest carries blood in. Christ does not carry blood in because He doesn’t have to, He’s a perfect priest, perfect work, perfect access.

Now let’s go back and look at Hebrews 4 and see what really is that throne of grace. Now look what this man has done who’s written this; he presupposes that we all have about 10 or 15 years reading experience in the Old Testament so of course he would say you all know this, I’m just drawing these little inferences out here and there. Of course we all don’t know that and this is why we have to go back into the Old Testament. But if you look at verse 16 when it says, “Let us come boldly unto the throne of grace,” do you see what he has done? Can anyone explain what he’s saying here in terms of that Old Testament model. This is an address to every believer today. Do you see what he’s saying? Think in Jewish terms of this Old Testament model now. [someone answers] That’s right, now you just think what that must have meant to a Jewish people who were used to year after year after year after year after year of having only one man in the entire nation of millions of people and he could only go in there for a matter of 20 or 30 minutes once a year.

Now what do you think, after all that fourteen centuries of going through this, year after year after year, and then all of a sudden the guy in Hebrews says okay, now you just trotting on in there any time you want. Don’t you see what a revolutionary thing he’s saying, what a privilege it is to come into the Holy of Holies, any time you please, just come boldly, with confidence. To one who is caught up in the Old Testament sense of the sacred this almost appears profane and blasphemous, verse 16. I want you to understand that that “throne of grace” he’s talking about is what in reality is the Father’s throne in heaven that answers to the ark of the covenant. See, inside that Holy Place is the ark of the covenant, that was the type, the throne was the antitype or the fulfillment. So the throne of mercy is the real mercy seat, the throne of grace. Do you see what he’s done? Look at the words just a minute here: mercy seat, throne of grace. Now there’s no difference is there, in those two expressions. The seat’s the throne, mercy and grace, he just changed the thing around to get the point.

Now let me show you what the throne of grace looks like; turn to Revelation 5:6, he looks at the throne; now we don’t know exactly what he saw, we’re limited to what John tells us in his book, but do you notice something about verse 6 that reminds you of the whole Old Testament operation? And if so, what is it in Revelation 5:6, [“And I beheld, and, lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four living creatures, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as though it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent forth into all the earth.”] He’s looking at the real thing, I don’t mean Coke; we can’t even use words today without Madison Avenue fouling us up. He’s looking at the actual authentic throne. Now what does John see in his vision that reminds you of the old model? [someone answers] All right, there’s a correspondence there, between these angelic beings that are here and what John literally sees that are there. What else? [someone answers] All right, notice how Christ is standing there figuring as “a Lamb as it had been slain.”

Now where, then, does the Christian put his confidence? In his spiritual experience, though it may be genuine, do you put your confidence in your own spiritual experience or do you put your confidence in the finished work of Christ in the throne room? Obviously it’s got to be with the finished work of Christ in the throne room because no matter how genuine your spiritual experiences may be they are not perfect. 1 John 1:8 says the highest spiritual experience that you and I can attain to is marred by sin. Therefore there is no perfect sanctification this side of death; therefore there is no perfect basis for confidence except the perfect work of Christ.

Let’s look further at this, still in Revelation 5:8, [“And when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and four and twenty elders fell down before the Lamb, having every one of them harps, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of saints.”] What are the prayers of the saints mentioned for? Can you guess by the context? Just notice, first what in the picture there symbolizes the prayers of the saints? The incense. Why do you suppose God uses incense to picture prayer? Smoke goes up. Do you know why? To get the emphasis off the subjective psychological feeling of prayer and onto where the prayer is going; thus incense is used to point up to the place that you’re praying too, so we don’t have some sort of Oriental mysticism where we’re contemplating our navel or something and calling it prayer. This is prayer to.

Now continuing in Revelation for a moment, following this theme through, in Revelation 6:10, it’s the people, the believers who are being persecuted merciless during the Tribulation and they have died and they have made this petition. “And they cried with a lout voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, do You not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?” Obviously they haven’t heard of liberal theology, that you’re supposed to love your brother. The imprecatory psalms of the Bible, smash the babies heads against the wall, are going to be the prayers that believers literally pray during the tribulation. And they are going to pray for damnation against people and they will be authorized to do so by God the Holy Spirit. Now why is this break in the norm. Usually you say you don’t pray against people, you pray against the principalities and powers. Because during the tribulation the people of the earth reach a state totally committed and irrevocably committed to Satan, at which point they become identified with Satan and at which point they share Satan’s damnation. And so these kinds of prayers at that point are legitimate to make, bash their babies heads against the wall and destroy them and annihilate them and avenge our blood, O God. Now why this prayer can be made is because God, if He doesn’t avenge their blood, is not a God of justice. So God, if He is a God of justice and righteousness must avenge their blood.

Now the interesting thing here that in Revelation 8:3 we follow again this theme of the incense. Remember all this is going on, not in the hearts of those who pray, this is going on in the throne room where the prayers finally come to rest. In 8:2, “And I saw the seven angels who stood before God, and to them were given seven trumpets. [3] And another angel came and stood at the altar, having a golden censer; and there was given unto him much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne. [4] And the smoke of the incense came up with the prayers of the saints, and ascended up before God out of the angel’s hand. [5] And the angel took the censer, and filled it with fire from the altar, and threw it to the earth; and there were voices, and thunderings, and lightnings, and an earthquake.” And then in verse 7, “The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mixed with blood, and they were cast upon the earth; and the third part of trees were burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up” and so on and so on. This is the beginning of the judgment.

Now, seeing what you have just seen from the book of Revelation, what is it that finally triggers divine judgment upon the earth, besides God’s will, I know that’s there, but within God’s will? The prayers of believers. Now that should show you very graphically the power of prayer and these saints had complained, “How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost Thou not avenge our blood?” In other words, they complained for the delay in prayer, but when God had accumulated the prayers the angel takes the incense, fills this up with the censor and throws it to the earth. It shows you at that point those prayers are literally answered.

So again the power of the prayer addressed to the throne is something transcends your personal experience. You can’t feel what’s happening to your prayer in heaven. You will have no sensation whatever of your prayer in heaven, that’s the point.

Now let’s turn back to Hebrews 5. Are there any questions? [someone asks ?] No because you can never tell today whether people are totally committed to Satan, we do not have that information and during the Church Age, nowhere in the epistles are we ever authorized that kind of a prayer. The only prayers of that sort are the imprecatory psalms and imprecatory psalms, when they are applied in this fashion, that is, their literal fulfillment, will be when the prophets of Israel are functioning once again and it’ll be very clear from how God directs the people in the tribulation how to use those prayers. We don’t have necessary instruction available at this point in history how to use them, even if we were around in [can’t understand word] kind of situations. To use those kind of prayers requires more prophetic revelation. [someone asks ?] That’s an apostolic decree for Satan to afflict a believer by way of discipline. [something else ?] No, the apostles pray that; no because Christ I would say is the shepherd of the sheep and in the book of Revelation when you have the inspection report there he warns about the sharp two-edged sword and he says if you Christians don’t get with the Word I’m going to come against you and fight you with my sword. So obviously that was a norm for the rest of the Church Age and it means therefore that Jesus Christ is actively fighting against believers today. In other words, you don’t want to get on the wrong side. [someone else ?] fighting against Christians in the sense that He’s disciplining you, in making sure that they are whipped into shape. He does it, apparently by means of intermediaries, but the point still remains that He threatens to do so in the book of Revelation. Paul threatens to and carries out this thing about throwing believers over to Satan and it does so and it’s a physical and psychological chastening that he says is necessary to bring the person around, if necessary, sin unto death. But believers in the New Testament are threatened with very strong language. In other words, believers who have heard the Word of God and are playing games are in a very precarious position.

Okay, Hebrews 5:1, now we’re going to expand two passages of Scripture. Hebrews 5:1-10 is an expansion of two previous passages; Hebrews 2:14-18 and 4:14-16. In other words, twice now the author has spoken of Jesus Christ as a sympathetic high priest. Twice He has urged us to come to Him; twice He has said your needs can be totally met through what Christ is doing at the throne room, not what He’s doing in your heart, at the throne room! So now he’s going to amplify those two passages and show us how Jesus Christ can be this sympathetic priest.

I’ll break the thing down very simply, Hebrews 5:1-4 deal with the Old Testament model and 5:5-10 deal with the New Testament reality. So your first four verses are taken directly, almost verbatim, out of the Old Testament, and verses 5-10 deal with that application of Jesus Christ. And the New Testament has two basic teachings, that a high priest to be qualified must meet two requirements: one, he must be appointed by God Himself. In other words, nobody just comes trotting through the curtain into the Holy of Holies without getting zapped. God has limited access and so the only people granted a ticket of admission are people who have been personally given the ticket of admission by Him. The second qualification of a priest in the Old Testament was that he had to be sympathetic to the people. This should also be a source of tremendous comfort to you, because what this is saying is that the application of the priest’s work cannot be done mechanically.

Now look at this, this is interesting, the qualifications. Suppose there was just one qualification, he’d be appointed by God but it left off that qualification of being sympathetic. That would just mean that the high priest kind of push his buttons, he’s a button pusher and that’s the way his prayers are, button pushing prayers, mechanical prayers. But isn’t it interesting that in order to be affective is it just as important for the priest to be sympathetic as it is for him to be appointed. Now it wouldn’t be any trouble for the people to conceive that the priest had to be appointed by God before he walked through that Holy of Holies or he’d get zapped. That’s kind of easy to see. It is not so easy to see why God insists the priest be sympathetic. But the interesting thing is, in the history of the Jew at this time they had a series of high priests who violated both these qualifications, because the high priests in Israel at this time were being appointed by the government, not by God, and they were not sympathetic. They could care less; Caiaphas was an example of that. So the high priest of this day and age were neither sympathetic nor appointed. So this is kind of a quick slap at the whole system. [someone asks ?] Because he’s not in Jerusalem, apparently. This wasn’t delivered in the temple; the reason we know that is he doesn’t refer to the temple, he refers to the Old Testament tabernacle which is a very interesting point. He dumps the whole Herodian temple, he doesn’t even bother with it, and he goes all the way back to the Old Testament tabernacle.

Let’s look at how in the Old Testament a man would be sympathetic. Turn to Numbers 14:5, look at Aaron. Two advantages that accrue to you by paying attention to this doctrine: first you should be encouraged because this doctrine is going to show you how Christ prays for you. In Romans 8:34 it says that Jesus Christ is constantly praying for you. Now how does He pray for you? Maybe after you study this if you haven’t done this before you will think of Christ’s prayers for you as related to point events in your life. So think of Christ not just up there praying for you, yeah, he’s under the blood Father, right; but rather that Jesus Christ is concerned with details of your life so prayers He makes for you are different He makes for the person sitting next to you. Christ makes different prayers for different believers because He is sympathetic to our individual needs. In other words, you’ve got a fantastic person praying for you.

Now in Numbers 14:5 here’s an example of a sympathetic priest in operation. Context, verse 1, “And all the congregation lifted up their voice, and cried; and the people wept that night,” that’s when panic hit the congregation. And notice the tremendously victorious mental attitude in verse 2, “Would God that we had died in the land of Egypt!” See, very contemporary. [3] “And why has God brought us into this land, to fall y the sword that our wives and our children should be a prey? Were it not better for us to return to Egypt?” Let’s make a captain and go back to Egypt. Now in that situation, this isn’t the first time, eventually Aaron and Moses both got hacked off with the whole operation and that was their undoing because Moses, remember, he got so mad he took the stick and he hit the rock twice, listen idiots, and started banging thing; now he’d had forty years of this stuff and he got tired of hearing it but Jesus doesn’t get tired of hearing it. And the response of Moses and Aaron in verse 5 would be the response of Christ when He hears you and He hears me saying such things. “Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly of the congregation of the children of Israel.” See, there’s your sympathetic high priest in action.

Now another reason you ought to listen carefully to this is I’m afraid some of us have a very warped doctrine of eternal security which goes something like this. Well, I’m saved and my salvation is secure and so therefore I’m not going to think about the basis of my security any more, it’s behind me. Not so because active ongoing ministry of Christ is what keeps you saved. Now it’s 100% certain that… [tape turns] … for a believer regenerated that He’s going to keep you saved, but the point I’m trying to show you is that your eternal security is only a moment by moment affair that hinges on Christ’s intercession for you, on the basis of His finished work, of course. But the matter of the fact that He is constantly applying that for you and if you will get that it would temper your callousness toward personal sin in your life, if you realize that when you are doing this it causes a response upstairs.

Now let’s look somewhere else at a sympathetic high priest, Numbers 16:22, another illustration. Verse 19, they deal with the congregation in revolt; Moses is the model pastor, “Korah gathered all the congregation against them unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation: and the glory of the LORD appeared unto all the congregation. [20] And the LORD spoke unto Moses and Aaron, saying, [10] Separate yourselves from among this congregation, that I may consume them in a moment. And now watch the sympathetic high priest swing into action, verse 22, “And they fell upon their faces, and said, O God, the God of the spirits of all flesh, shall one man sin, and wilt thou be angry with all the congregation?” There is your sympathetic high priest operating.

Now what in both of these instances do you notice about the character of God that inevitably pops up in your mind every time you see the priest functioning. What particular attribute of God becomes manifest here in all these situations. God’s justice… God’s justice. Now we mustn’t forget God’s justice toward us. In all these cases the priesthood has to swing into action to cut off the flashing forth of this justice. It’s as if God has this potential justice and it can break forth and the priests are the ones who are doing the intercession.

[someone says something about I can see how Christ can do that because He’s already paid for our sins, how could the priest do this in the case of Aaron and Moses …”] Well, in this case they were borrowing on grace, and it comes out in Exodus 33 and Deuteronomy 9 how they did it. What they did was they just simply reminded God that His whole plan would fall apart if He allowed this to happen and they argued with God on the basis that God had started a work and if He didn’t finish it… dot dot dot dot would happen. And they leaned grace in order that they might have the access, then they leaned on grace in order that God might extend forgiveness to the congregation, but then they also had that concept we studied in the Psalms, remember, about “Jewing” God, giving God adequate reason for prayers. You really miss out on something if you miss our prayer meetings, we’ve had some real neat ones recently; a couple weeks ago we had one on rain, someone sat there and gave God about six or seven reasons why it should rain, and Thursday morning it was raining.

So you see then Aaron functioning as a sympathetic priest; get it in your mind concretely what he’s doing so that the word sympathetic high priest will mean something; content. Now if you turn to Exodus 32 you’ll find the failure of Aaron and this, by way of application, will show you something about Christ, something you wish He’d do to you but then upon mature reflection you’re glad He doesn’t. Exodus 32:1-6, “And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down out of the mount, the people gathered themselves together unto Aaron, and said unto him, Up, make us gods, which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we don’t know what is become of him. [2] And Aaron said unto them, Break off the golden earrings, which are in the ears of your wives, of your sons, and of your daughters, and bring them unto me. [3] And all the people brake off the golden earrings which were in their ears, and brought them unto Aaron. [4] And he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf: and they said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. [5] And when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation, and said, To morrow is a feast to the Lord.”

Then in verse 21, when Moses finally confronted his brother on it, “And Moses said unto Aaron, What did this people do unto you, that you’ve brought so great a sin upon them? [22] And Aaron said, Let not the anger of my lord was hot; you know the people, that they are set on mischief. [23] For they said unto me, Make us gods,…” Verse 24, “And I said unto them, Whosoever has any gold, let him break it, and so they gave it me: I threw it in the fire and look what came out.” Now Aaron at this point has become too sympathetic. And the reason for showing you this is to show you that we do not have a sympathetic high priest who compromises justice. In other words, Aaron at this point got so involved with the people that he loved that he was making intercession, when the same people came from an ungodly petition, he went along with that too. Now here is where the mud hits the fan as far as our personal life goes before God, is that when we want God, so to speak, go along with something of our own will, we are dictating to Him how we are going to run our lives, those petitions never get through our priest making intercession for us. They get stopped right there, because Christ is not going to make those kinds of petitions for you. So we have a sympathetic priest but we don’t have a compromising priest. And Aaron was sympathetic but eventually weakness led him to his position of compromise.

Let’s go back to Hebrews 5:1, this just summarizes the first qualification of a high priest under the Old Testament economy, “Every high priest is taken from among men,” that’s why Christ has to be real humanity, remember the doctrine of the hypostatic union, true humanity and undiminished deity. Why do you suppose that the church fathers put the word t-r-u-e, anybody remember from church history what was happening? [someone answers] Jesus Christ, the Docetism in the early church held that Christ appeared as though he was man but He wasn’t. The nearest thing to Docetism today would probably be the Jehovah’s Witnesses who claim that He’s an angel. But you have to have a real true humanity because if you don’t have a humanity He’s not a priest. It’s just as simple as that.

Now Christ is the ultimate priest because one party is God, the other party is man, and what is Christ? God-man, so that’s why He’s the perfect priest. But here his humanity. “Every high priest taken from men is ordained for men in things pertaining to God, that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins. [2] Who can have compassion on the ignorant, and on them that are out of the way; for he himself also is compassed about with infirmity.” This is obviously not talking about Christ, it’s talking about the Old Testament priests. Because he had “infirmity,” see, he’s been appointed by God and he also was sympathetic, but he got his sympathy from having to do battle with sin in his own life. See, that’s where he got his sympathy from. Now the point the author is going to have to make later on here, he’s going to have a theological problem. How then that Christ, not having sin in His own life, how does He get sympathy. That’s going to set up a problem for the rest of this chapter. But in the Old Testament, the Old Testament priest got sympathy by battle with his own sin; because he had a battle with this himself he could therefore have sympathy with those who had to battle with it.

“Who can have compassion,” this is a word in the Greek which was used to set one off from the Stoics, the Stoical attitude. This was antonym for a Stoical attitude, this particular verb; it’s used that way in classical writing. So therefore when it says He can have compassion it means somebody who responds to difficulty, a genuine response. “…on the ignorant and on those out of the way” has reference to sins of ignorance rather than willful defiance. For the difference, turn back to Numbers 15:22; see the people to whom Hebrews was written would have understood this; we don’t. Now this is the difference between two kinds of sin, sin type one and sin type two, and it’s going show you two different ways God has of treating this kind of sin. If you will notice these it will also solve many puzzles, perhaps, in your Christian life.

Verse 22, “If you have erred, and not observed all these commandments, which the LORD has spoken unto Moses, [23] Even all that the LORD has commanded you by the hand of Moses, from the day that the LORD commanded Moses… [24] Then it shall be, if anything be committed by ignorance without the knowledge of the congregation, that all the congregation shall offer one young bullock for a burnt offering…” etc. etc. etc. Verse 25, “The priest shall make an atonement for all the congregation of the children of Israel, and it shall be forgiven them; for it is ignorance ….” Verse 26, “And it shall be forgiven all the congregation of the children of Israel, and the stranger who sojourns among them, seeing all the people were in ignorance.” The idea here is you could have somebody fooling around and nobody knows in the congregation who it is that’s fooling around and yet the whole congregation gets blasted because of the unity principle that’s operating under this covenant. And so what he’s saying is you’re not culpable if you don’t know, then you can be forgiven as a congregation.

Now the application is that these are sins that are done in the Christian life, all sin is rebellion against God, but this is a concept of sin that God hasn’t pointed them out to you. See, of all possible sins you are probably at this point in your Christian life about that much, in other words, there are gobs and gobs and gobs and gobs and gobs and gobs and gobs of stuff in your life that are sin and don’t line up with God’s standards an He very graciously just takes care of it. This is a fallacy, by the way, that you can hold onto your security by confessing your sin? You can’t because you don’t know enough sin to confess; you only know the sin that God has made an issue.

Now when the person knows better, verse 27, “And if any soul sin through ignorance, then he shall bring a she-goat,” it still continues, [28] “And the priest shall make an atonement for the soul that sins ignorantly, when he sins by ignorance before the LORD, to make an atonement for him; and it shall be forgiven him. [29] You shall have one law for him who sins through ignorance, both for him who is born among the children of Israel, and for the stranger… But,” verse 30, “the soul that does presumptuously, whether he is born in the land of a stranger, the same reproaches the LORD, that soul shall be cut off from among his people, [31] Because he has despised the word of the LORD, and has broken His commandment, that soul shall utterly be cut off; his iniquity shall be upon him.” Now that is the severity of God’s judgment against outright defiance, when God’s will is made plain and a person rebels against it. You see the two attitudes here.

In other words God, as you go along in the Christian life, covers up a lot and tolerates a lot and if you’ll see this it’ll make your relationships with other believers a lot more relaxed. Every once in a while we have somebody around here that thinks they’re going to straighten somebody out and so we have believer A and believer B and believer B is doing all sorts of this gross stuff and believer A may be an older believer, may not have a problem and they’re going to come over and straighten out believer B because believer B is obviously out of it. Now it’s all right to be sympathetic toward another believer having trouble but this passage says that many sins can be done and God doesn’t make an issue out of it just then, and unless you have an amazing amount of wisdom, it’d be best to just pray for the person and just stay out of it. That’s been my experience, because no sooner do you stick your big foot in the mess and you wish you hadn’t because you have misjudged the whole thing, and until you have all the facts or most of the facts you’re not qualified to step in and try to straighten somebody else out. The Holy Spirit is in the straightening out business so just relax and let the Holy Spirit take care of it.

[someone asks ?] Just what the author of Hebrews is doing, the author of Hebrews is doing, the author of Hebrews isn’t going around the congregation picking out individual but he is teaching the Word, the principle of it and this principle can be taught. Now he’s teaching a whole group of people and he’s exhorting a group and in the situation of the spiritual gift of exhortation you can be led to… exhort can also mean encourage, encourage a person. But when you encourage a person, when you work with a person, make the Word the issue. Back in your mind that’s the only thing you can be dogmatic about is the Word because you can’t really know the persons whole heart. So you can strongly, if the Lord so leads, you can strongly give advice but you can never give it with the air that you can “this is what the Word of God” says, that you can be dogmatic on because you know that, but when it comes to the application of it you never can really be. There may be a few exceptions here where it’s very, very clear but most of the time you can’t, you just have to say this is the standard, this is the way we’re going, and either get on or get off but you can’t really pick on what they’re thinking.

[someone says something] Yeah, but Nathan to David, now in Nathan to David what did Nathan have? He had a direct revelation from God, didn’t he. Nathan to David, though, can be applied in this sense; how long did Nathan study David? How long had Nathan known David and watched this carnality thing go on? He’d watched it at least 15 months…at least that long. So by the time Nathan… even if he hadn’t had direct revelation from God Nathan was well as aware of the situation as any close friend could be. And after 15 months of watching a situation, then you can pretty well tell. I’m talking here about these people that just have somebody trot in the congregation and two months later they’re over at their house trying to straighten them out kind of thing. That’s what we’re talking about and it’s just uncalled for because you’re not qualified to do that. I’m not qualified to do that, I’m the pastor, so if I’m not, none of you are.

Turn to Hebrews 5 and we’ll finish up. There’s one more point I want to get to before we shut down for the evening, and we want to cover to 5:6 real quick; just one point. Notice up through verse 1, verse 2, we talk about the sympathy of the priest, we have verse 3, by reason he has to offer sacrifices for his own sins as well as for the people, and then verse 4, “And no man takes this honor to himself,” see, there’s the qualification you have to be appointed. Verses 1-3 is his compassion, verse 4 is His authorization. Now we reverse it. We’re going to apply the same thing to Christ; chapter 5:1-3 dealt with the first qualification which was a sympathetic high priest; 5:4 second qualification he had to be appointed. Now we start 5:5-6 and we’re going to take the second qualification, appointment, and apply it to Jesus Christ. Now right here we’ve got a problem and that’s why we want to end here with verses 5-6 together.

The problem is this: all during the days of Christ’s earthly ministry on into the first century many Judaistic groups held to a two Messiah concept. And anyone think why? What was logically coherent, apparently, about this concept. The Dead Sea scrolls, they have a lay high priest who is of the Son of David, the Messiah of Israel and they have a priestly Messiah called the Messiah of Aaron. Now why did they see there had to be two Messiahs. [someone answers] This is before Christ came, they still had the two Messiah concept. I’ll give you the terms, one was a lay Messiah and the other was a priestly Messiah, and it was pretty prevalent through a lot of Jewish circles at the time. And he’s doing battle with that concept right here. It comes out of the Old Testament, what had to be true of the king, lineage wise? What tribe? Judah. What had to be true of the priest? Aaron or the tribe of Levi. So they couldn’t figure out how could you get the two offices together when they have to come out of two tribes. All right, verses 5-6 is the early Christian answer to the Jewish objectors that Jesus Christ could hold two offices.

Hebrews 5:5, “So also Christ glorified not Himself to become a high priest,” the word is not be made but become, it’s ginomai, “but he that said unto him,” now just forget the quote a minute, just watch what it says in verse 5, “He that said unto him, dot dot dot dot…” [6] Also says in another place,” see the main sentence. “He that said unto Him,” that’s God the Father who said dot dot dot dot…, “also says in another place dot dot dot dot….” So he’s got two quotes and with this he answers the two Messiah concept. For the first one, “Thou art My Son, this day have I begotten Thee,” was a Messiah concept and where is that from, it’s quoted from a psalm; Psalm 2 and psalm 2 is what kind of a Psalm? A royal psalm that speaks of what, the lay or the priest? Judah or Levi? Judah because it speaks of the king. So Psalm 2 which was a Messianic psalm fully accepted in Jewish circles as a Messianic psalm was obviously linked to Judah. And it would have been acceptable.

But then he says, the same one who said that also said over here and where is that taken from? Psalm 110:4 and let’s turn back to Psalm 110 to see who wrote it. Who wrote it? David. And who is it addressed to, verse 4 is the verse, “The LORD said unto my Lord,” there’s the Messiah, the first Lord is Jehovah, the second one is the Messiah, and it’s the Messiah over David and since it’s the Messiah over David it’s got to be out of the tribe of Judah. He also said “You are a priest after the order of Melchizedek.” Next time we’ll deal with the order of Melchizedek but I want you to see that the answer is that Jesus Christ’s priesthood is a Gentile one. Now you can imagine how that must have sat in the early church. It is modeled after a non-Jewish priesthood. The Aaronic priesthood is completely out, it is totally preempted by a Gentile priesthood. The Aaronic priesthood doesn’t count for beans today, in spite of what Joseph Smith said. It is the priest of Melchizedek, that’s how you destroy the two Messiah concept and unify into the Son of David. Next week we’ll deal with the Melchizedekian priesthood and follow the argument further.