Chapter 5
(2023 - A relatively short chapter. I note that both this outline and the one from J. Sidlow Baxter, run across the "chapter boundaries". This section started at 4:14 and goes through 7. Today's reading, then, is a subset of this one major point - that Jesus is higher than Aaron in Baxter's outline. See above for just how broken up it is in that outline. Perhaps the reason I get into trouble through here is that the continuity gets chopped up badly. So this year I am going back to 4:14 and going through 5:10, but I will read on to the end of the chapter, and then tomorrow I will start "in earnest" with 5:11 and go through 6:20 to at least try and maintain some continuity with the outline.)
2023 - It seems like the writer just "jumps" to the priest analogy in 4:14. I do not see how what came earlier in chapter 4 sets that up at all. It is like a clean break from Joshua to the priesthood.
But...He has been talking about the Law, and how it was possible to have entered into rest through the Law - or more accurately through the Old Covenant. But there is now, in Christ, a New Covenant, a new "route to rest", and as the Old Covenant had a high priest, so does the new. But rather than a whole system of priests, there is only one, a high priest who is flesh like us but who came from heaven itself.
The purpose of a priesthood:
1 For every high priest chosen from among men is appointed to act on behalf of men in relation to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. [Heb 5:1 ESV]
A priest stands between God and men. A priest offers gifts and sacrifices to elicit forgiveness. A priest is there because access to God is limited to those so chosen. Or that is how it was in the Old Covenant. What the Catholics do now is akin to that with their absolution and confessions and last rights. A priest is needed to intervene for man according to them. What will Hebrews say about it?
Then the case is made that such a priest is a fitting go-between, because he too is beset by weakness. The priest also sins, and so is better able to identify with those on whose behalf he intervenes. But he must also offer sacrifices for himself. This verse:
4 And no one takes this honor for himself, but only when called by God, just as Aaron was. [Heb 5:4 ESV]
Not just anyone can be a priest. It is a calling. In this case it was inherited.
2023 - The writer makes the case that there must always be a high priest, like Aaron - or he is making the case that the New Covenant stands in comparison to the Old - and that God sets this up, not man. Therefore, he sets about to show that Jesus is in fact a new and better high priest than was Aaron, and the Aaronic priesthood down through history. The approach to this seems to be first showing that Christ was God's Son, and then showing that he is an eternal priest, like Melchizedek. I am not sure why the "Son verse" is here, unless it is exactly the same construction in Hebrew as the Melchizedek verse. Perhaps the writer is making the two pronouncements of equal weight. After all, back in Chapter 1, the very first verses quoted were to show that the Messiah is the Son. It was established with these very direct quotes: "You are my Son...", and "I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son". So it is established that this is about the Messiah, and about his relationship to the Father. Now, in 5:6, we see this "position" also in Christ: "You are a priest forever...". Not an hereditary and transient office as it was with Aaron, but a position appointed by God, this time lasting forever in one and the same High Priest, as Melchizedek was. He was here from we don't know when, and will remain forever. Melchizedek had "no beginning" since we don't know about his birth, and he was never "succeeded" by another. Just as Christ now is.
Then Hebrews shows the appointment of the Messiah as not just a priest, but high priest. Two OT verses quoted, establishing that Messiah was the incarnated God, and that he was appointed to the priesthood. Melchizedek was a King-Priest. So is Christ.
2023 - In vs 7, we see the writer establishing that Jesus "functioned" as a priest while he was on earth as a man. He "offered" prayers and supplications. These are priestly duties. These were effective in that God answered, and raised him from the dead.
These two verses:
9 And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him, 10 being designated by God a high priest after the order of Melchizedek. [Heb 5:9-10 ESV]
As salvation under the Law was through the sacrifices made by the high priest, salvation is still through the high priest. But the high priest now and forever is based not on inheritance or family, but is like the Melchizedekian priesthood of Abraham's time. It's like the Law has been excised from history, and Jesus is the new Melchizedek, and will forever hold the position. Access to God has always been through the high priest - a "requirement" for the Jews to whom Hebrews is written. They couldn't get around that requirement. So the writer gives them Jesus, the source of salvation, because God has appointed Him High Priest forever.
2022 - It is also important to note that the "High Priest" existed before the Law, before the Aaronic and Levitical priesthoods were established, in fact before Abraham and so before the Hebrews. The office of High Priest transcends the Law in that it existed before there was Law, and continues now in the person of Christ though the Law has passed away. So the writer establishes that the pre-Law priesthood is re-established in Christ by quoting the verse in Psalms that says so in so many words. These verses leave no doubt as to whom they refer:
4 The LORD has sworn and will not change his mind, "You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek." 5 The Lord is at your right hand; he will shatter kings on the day of his wrath. 6 He will execute judgment among the nations, filling them with corpses; he will shatter chiefs over the wide earth. [Psa 110:4-6 ESV]
Vss 5, 6 can only return to Christ at the second advent, to the events of Revelation, and the pre-Millennial battle. Note also that there won't be any "new Law". Christ is the forever Melchizedek. There is no need for any replacement.
Again, this writer has condensed so much of what the Bible, and what the plan of God is really about.
2023 - Vss 8, 9, Note that Christ learned obedience through suffering. In that he was God, Jesus could have said no to the cross. But he was flesh, and the duty and responsibility of "man" is obedience to the Father. If we could do that, we too would be made perfect. But since Adam, it has been impossible to maintain obedience. Jesus, as a man, was obedient to the Father's command that he suffer for sins - just as we as men must suffer in these corrupt bodies in a world polluted with sin - and so was made perfect in God's sight, able both to sacrifice and be sacrificed as a perfect offering. Because OBEDIENCE IS PERFECTION. Obedience in the face of suffering made him perfect, and is the correct road for us. Why would a benevolent God allow suffering? Because it makes us perfect by teaching us to obey God despite all the suffering that comes our way. What would it mean to say we are obedient when obedience is never put to the test. If God never asks us to go through anything "hard", then how strong would we be? How much like Christ would we be? Suffering is necessary if we want to grow and demonstrate obedience to the Father. It MUST be t his way.
2023 - And then this final point in vs 11, BECAUSE of Jesus' perfection, brought about by his obedience in suffering, he was made High Priest forever, as we see of Melchizedek, who was BEFORE the Law and before the Aaronic.
2022 - Beginning in vs 11, the outline says we are going to talk about commitment to Christ - based, presumably, on what has been presented so far. It begins as a severe rebuke to the readers. The writer says they should already know all this, since they have been Christians for so long, and yet, they have no clue. They're just kids in the word, and at a learning level where the very concepts they should learn next are too far over their heads. Like trying to teach Differential Equations to 1st year algebra students...in high school. They not only don't have the tools, but they don't have the maturity to assimilate such concepts. They have no "storage space" complex enough to store such knowledge. And I tell ya, I think he's talking to me here. At my age, I ought not just now be learning these things. But yet, I thank God for the opportunity, even at this late date, to grasp at least a bit of the transcendent knowledge that he sees fit to give us by his word.
2022 - One last thing today. This writer does not seem to me to "speak" like Paul. It may be that having strictly "learned" Hebrews as his audience frees him to step up the level and the language that he uses, but it is surely a complete break with his established pattern of writing. And yet, I did find that one connection to Paul's other writing a little earlier. So it could be...but it is certainly very different.
2023 - Obedience is doing what you would prefer not to do. Or. Obedience is doing something other than your first preference. If you are starving, and you are told to eat, is eating really obedience? No, because it is what you wanted to do anyway. But if you are starving, and told NOT to eat...obedience is in doing what you are told though it is NOT what you want to do.
Is there a FB post here using these verses:
8 Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. 9 And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him, [Heb 5:8-9 ESV]