Day 223, Hebrews 5 
The priestly ministry was woven into the fabric of Jewish culture,
as it was the God-ordained means under the old covenant for obtaining
forgiveness of sins through animal sacrifice. Jewish believers who stopped
participating in priestly rituals naturally came under fire from practicing
Jews. How could they abandon the means God had given Israel to find
forgiveness?
The answer, of course, is that God had appointed a superior and
perpetual high priest of the new covenant, His very own Son, of whom all the
previous priests only served to prefigure. The author of Hebrews points
out why Jesus is fully qualified to serve as a high priest and why Jesus is
superior to any before Him.
Every previous high priest was "beset with weakness," and
each was "obligated to offer sacrifices for sins, as for the people, so
also for himself" (5:3). Jesus, of course, had no such need to offer any
sacrifice for Himself, as He was sinless. He was not only the perfect and
superior high priest, but He was also the perfect and superior sacrifice. He
offered up, not an animal, but Himself for our sins.
The author makes reference to verses in Psalms 2 and 110, both
universally recognized by all Jews as messianic psalms that make reference to
the Lord's future reign over the entire world. Both contain quotations of God
speaking to God. In Psalm 2, the Father speaks to the Son---during the time
when the Father will have installed His Son to rule the earth from Mt.
Zion---saying, "Thou are My Son, today I have begotten Thee." In
Psalm 110, the Father is again speaking to the One whom He has installed on Mt.
Zion to rule the world. It begins with David prophetically saying, "The
Lord says to my Lord" (110:1), and goes on to quote what God says to God,
part of which is, "The Lord has sworn and will not change His mind, 'You
are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek'" (110:4).
So it is indisputable that God revealed in the Old Testament that He
would one day appoint the Messiah---the One who would rule over the world---to
be a priest forever. Moreover, he would not be a priest after the
order of Aaron, as were all previous priests, but after the order of a
mysterious Old Testament man named Melchizedek, of whom we will read more
about in chapter 7.
That Messiah and High Priest of whom Scripture foretold had been
revealed, and so everyone in relationship with Him had obviously not lost
anything relative to the benefits of a priesthood. And they would be foolish to
go back to an inferior priestly system, one that was actually designed to point
them to Christ.
When did Jesus offer up "both prayers and supplications with
loud crying and tears to the One able to save Him from death" (5:7)? It
must have either been when He prayed in the garden or from the cross, where we
know that our great High Priest and holy sacrifice cried out with a loud voice,
"My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" (Matt. 27:46). The author
writes that Jesus "was heard because of His piety" (5:7). Perhaps
this is a reference to Him being "saved from death" (5:7) by means of
His resurrection. Our High Priest receives what He prays for, which should fill
us with confidence.
If Jesus was sinless, why did the author write that Jesus "learned
obedience from the things which He suffered" (5:8)? The author could not have
meant that Jesus learned to become obedient by suffering the consequences of
disobedience, but rather that He learned from experience the cost that is paid
by those who are obedient to God. It cost Jesus His life. But His sufferings
resulted in His complete perfection, not making Him morally perfect (since He
already was), but making Him the perfect Savior and High Priest.
Finally, notice that Jesus "became to all those who obey Him
the source of eternal salvation" (5:9). This is just one more indication
that there is a correlation between holiness and heaven because there is a
correlation between belief and behavior.
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