Christ Is Superior in His Qualification of the Priesthood - Bible Study

Christ Is Superior in His Qualification of the Priesthood

Hebrews 5:1-10

Jesus Christ Has a Superior Ordination

When I became pastor of the FAC Church on The Pike, it was necessary for me to go to Upper Marlboro, PG County and be credentialed. Otherwise, I would not have the authority to perform marriages. I had to show our “By-Laws” and ordination certificate and prove that this was a church and I was pastor at the church.

One day I received a frantic phone call from one of our members. Some friends were being married soon, by a relative outside of the state and they discovered that he was not authorized to perform the ceremony! Could I help them? The visiting pastor could read the ceremony as well as I could, and he knew the couple better than I did; but he lacked the authority to minister.

No man could appoint himself as a priest, let alone as high priest. King Saul invaded the priesthood and lost His kingdom (1 Sam 13). Korah and his fellow rebels tried to make themselves priests, and God judged them (Num 16). When King Uzziah tried to enter the temple and bum incense, God smote him with leprosy (2 Chron 26:16-21).

The qualifications for high priest are stated in these verses, Aaron serving as the model:

1.     he had to be a man (v. 1)

2.     he had to be compassionate (v. 2)

3.     he had to be chosen by God (vv. 4-6)

4.     he had to learn through suffering (vv. 7-8)

Aaron was chosen by God to be the high priest, and he was duly ordained and installed in office (Ex 28). He was chosen from men to minister for men. His main task was at the altar: to offer the sacrifices God had appointed (Heb 8:3-4; 9:14). Unless the sacrifices were offered in the right place, by the right person, they were not accepted by God.

The very existence of a priesthood and a system of sacrifices gave evidence that man is estranged from God. It was an act of grace on God's part that He instituted the whole Levitical system. Today, that system is fulfilled in the ministry of Jesus Christ. He is both the sacrifice and the High Priest who ministers to God's people on the basis of His once-for-all offering on the cross.

The subject of ordination stated in Heb 5:1 is further developed in Heb 5:5-6. Jesus Christ did not appoint Himself as High Priest. He was appointed by God the Father, the quotation in Heb 5:5 is from Ps 2:7. This psalm was already quoted in Heb 1:5 to prove that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. But the emphasis in Heb 5:5 is on the priesthood of Jesus Christ, not on His deity. What significance, then, does this quotation have for the argument?

The answer to that question is in Acts 13:33-34, where the Apostle Paul quoted Ps 2:7 and explained what it means. The phrase, "Today have I begotten Thee," does not refer to the birth of Christ at Bethlehem, but to His resurrection from the dead. The Son of God was "begotten" into a glorious new life in His resurrection! He ascended to heaven in a glorified body to become our High Priest at the throne of grace. When Aaron was ordained to the priesthood, he offered the sacrifices of animals. But Jesus Christ, to become our High Priest, offered the sacrifice of Himself - and then arose from the dead!

But God the Father not only said, "Thou art My Son" in Ps 2:7; He also said, "Thou art a Priest forever after the order of Melchizedek" (Heb 5:6, quoted from Ps 110:4). This psalm was also quoted earlier in Hebrews (1:13) to affirm Jesus Christ's final victory over all His enemies. When Aaron was ordained, God did not speak directly to him and declare His priesthood. But the Father did make this special declaration concerning His Son.

Two factors make Christ's priesthood unique and, therefore, His ordination greater. First, He is a High Priest forever. No Old Testament priest ministered forever because each priest died and relinquished the office to his successor. The word "forever" is an important one in this epistle. At least six times the writer affirms that Christ's high priesthood is forever (Heb 5:6; 6:20; 7:17,21,24,28). And, since He is a Priest forever, He gives His people salvation forever (Heb 7:23-28).

The second factor that makes Christ's ordination unique is that He belongs to a different order from the Old Testament priests. They belonged to the order of Aaron; He belongs to the order of Melchizedek. This is a key concept in Hebrews, so we must take time to examine and understand it.

Melchizedek is mentioned in only two places in the entire Old Testament-Gen 14:17-24 and Ps 110:4. His name means "King of Righteousness," and he was also "King of Salem [peace]." But the fascinating thing about Melchizedek is that he was both a priest and a king! King Uzziah wanted to be both a priest and a king, and God judged him. Only in Jesus Christ and in pre-Law Melchizedek were these two offices combined. Jesus Christ is a High Priest on a throne!

He was born of the tribe of Judah (7:14) and not the tribe of Levi. Thus, He must be associated with another order of priests, that of Melchizedek. Both Christ and Melchizedek were men (7:4; 1 Tim 2:5); both were king-priests (Gen 14:18; Zech 6:12-13); both were appointed directly by God (7:21); both were called "King of righteousness" and "King of peace" (7:2; Isa 11:1-12).

The reason Jesus Christ can be "a Priest forever" is that He belongs to the "order of Melchizedek." As far as the Old Testament record is concerned, Melchizedek did not die (Heb 7:1-3). Of course, because he was a real man, he did die at some time; but the record is not given to us. So, Melchizedek becomes a picture of our Lord Jesus Christ who is a Priest forever.

But Melchizedek also pictures our Lord as a heavenly High Priest. Jesus Christ could never have served as a priest when He was on earth because He did not belong to the tribe of Levi. Jesus was born of the seed of David, the tribe of Judah. He became the sacrifice on earth that He might become the High Priest in heaven. All of these truths will be developed in Heb 7-10, but they are introduced here.

Jesus Christ Reveals a Superior Sympathy

Every Old Testament high priest had to minister to people who were "ignorant, and ... out of the way [wayward]" (Heb 5:2). God made no provision but judgment for high-handed sins of rebellion (Ex 21:12-14; Num 15:27-31). But He did make provision when people sinned through ignorance or weakness. An Old Testament priest could identify with the sinners, since he himself was a sinner. In fact, on the Day of Atonement, the high priest had to offer a sacrifice for himself before he could offer me for the nation! (Lev 16; Heb 9:7)

You would think that one sinner would have compassion for another sinner, but this is not always the case. Sin makes a person selfish. Sin can blind us to the hurts of others. Sin can harden our hearts and make us judgmental instead of sympathetic. Remember how heartbroken Hannah, who was praying for a son, was accused by high priest Eli of being drunk? (1 Sam 1:9-18) And when King David was confronted with a story of a rich man's sin, he had no sympathy for him, even though David himself was a worse sinner (2 Sam 12).

It is the spiritually minded person with a clean heart who sympathizes with a sinner and seeks to help him (Gal 6:1). Because we are so sinful, we have a hard time helping other sinners; but because Jesus is perfect, He is able to meet our needs after we sin.

Our Lord was prepared for His high priestly ministry during His days of ministry on earth (Heb 5:7-8). The phrase, "In the days of His flesh," means, "In the days when He was on earth in a human body." From birth to death, our Lord experienced the sinless infirmities of human nature. He knew what it was to grow and mature (Luke 2:52). He experienced hunger and thirst, as well as weariness (John 4:6-8,31). He also faced temptations to sin (Matt 4:1-11) and persecutions from the hands of sinful men.

Hebrews 4:14-16

How could the Son of God "learn obedience"? In the same way any son must learn obedience: by the experiences of life. We must remember that our Lord, in His earthly walk, lived by faith in the Father's will. As God, He needed to learn nothing. But as the Son of God come in human flesh, He had to experience that which His people would experience, so that He might be able to minister as their High Priest. He did not need to learn how to obey because it would be impossible for God to be disobedient. Rather, as the God-Man in human flesh, He had to learn what was involved in obedience. In this way, He identified with us.

This preparation involved the experience of death. The writer of Hebrews (5:7) focuses on our Lord's experience in the Garden of Gethsemane (Matt 26:36-46). As He faced the Cross, it was not the physical suffering that burdened Jesus, but the fact that He would be made sin and separated from His Father. Other servants of God have faced death and not expressed such great emotion; but no other servant ever bore on his body the sins of the whole world.

In His Gethsemane prayer, our Lord did not oppose the Father, but prayed, "Not My will, but Thine, be done" (Luke 22:42). He was not praying to be spared from death, but to be saved out of death. He was praying for resurrection from the dead, and God answered that prayer. He had prophesied His own death and had made it clear that He was laying down His life of His own free will. This ties in with the quotation from Ps 2:7, cited in Heb 5:5, that promised His resurrection from the dead.

The writer of Hebrews states that Jesus' prayer "was heard" (Heb 5:7), that is, answered by the Father. Since He did die on the cross, this could not have been what He was praying about; for if the Father had answered, the Son would not have been crucified. He did not pray to be saved from death, but out of death; and God answered His prayer by raising Him from the dead.

No one else ever died the kind of death that Jesus died. He was made sin for us (2 Cor 5:21; 1 Peter 2:24). Men have died because of their own sins, but only Jesus died for the sins of a whole world. He experienced the ultimate in suffering and, therefore, He is able to sympathize with His people when they are suffering. The readers of this epistle were going, through difficult times, but they had "not yet resisted unto blood" (Heb 12:4). Their goods had been seized and they had been ridiculed (Heb 10:32-34), but they had not been crucified and forsaken by the Father.

No matter what trials we meet, Jesus Christ is able to understand our needs and help us. We need never doubt His ability to sympathize and strengthen. It is also worth noting that sometimes God puts us through difficulties that we might better understand the needs of others, and become able to encourage them (2 Cor 1:8).

When Charles Haddon Spurgeon was a young preacher in London, his successful ministry aroused the envy of some of the clergy; and they attacked him with various kinds of slander and gossip. His sermons were called "trashy," and he was called "an actor" and "a pulpit buffoon." Even after his ministry was established, Spurgeon was Red about in the press (including the religious press); and this was bound to discourage him.

After one particularly scurrilous report in the press, Spurgeon fell before the Lord and prayed, "O Lord Jesus, thou didst make Thyself of no reputation for me. I willingly lay my reputation down for Thy sake." From that time on, Spurgeon had peace in his heart. He knew that his Great High Priest understood his need and would give him the grace that he needed for each hour.

Immature believers do not know about or put into practice teachings of righteousness. 

Christian maturity involves:

1.     time (v. 12)

2.     growth in the knowledge of the Word of God (v. 13)

3.     experience in the use of the Word in discerning between good and evil (vv. 13-14)