SUNDAY 12/11/16 Heb 5: 1-14
Christ Our High Priest Restores Us To Peace (Heb. 4: 1-16)
The Theme of Chapter 4 is A Redemptive Relationship with God Restores Us to Rest
- So if we are feeling churned up inside, it is because we are in some ways double-minded (James 4:8) and are ascribing value or importance to something that quenches the Holy Spirit’s move in us.
- Heb 5: 1 – God appoints His high priest to provide for our spiritual needs
- Why We Should Acknowledge & Appreciate What God Has Done
- Heb 5:4 Christ Catapults Above the Aaronic order of priests
- Christ is a Different Order of Priest, He’s Made after the Order of Melchizedek.
- Like Christ, We Learn To Submit To God Through the Sacrifice of Suffering
Hebrews 5:1 “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 The Role of God’s High Priest includes …
God chooses high priest from among men
God appoints His High Priest to act on behalf of men in relation to God – meaning to represent man in the way our holy God requires that we present ourselves before Him.
Do we Appreciate and Acknowledge? To appreciate Heb 5:1, we must 1) Appreciate our position of weakness and 2) acknowledge we have spiritual needs.
On behalf of men the Priest offers gifts and sacrifices for sins.”
So we Acknowledge & Appreciate that …
1) We have a sin problem that God wants to help us resolve.
2) So God appoints Christ to restore us to relationship.[bctt tweet=”So God appoints Christ to restore us to relationship!”]
The priest gets the gifts from the people which he then “presents as an expression of their honoring God.”
The Priest offers sacrifices for sins as required under the Law.
So God does not hold our sins against us, but can draw near to us. (But remember James 4:8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
As God’s High Priest, the “Gifts and Sacrifices Christ offers restores us to right relationship with God.
Heb. 5:4 Christ is not like the Aaronic order of priests, .
Heb. 5: 4 4And no one takes this honor for himself, but only when called by God, just as Aaron was.
In the OT priests had to be descended from Aaron and the Levis. Thus Heb. 5:4 is used by some to say their denomination has achieved an apostolic succession of ordination for their church’s hierarchy. But note the reference here is to the Old Testament priesthood system, and not Christian ministry.
Heb. 5:4 Christ Catapults Above the Aaronic order of priests,
In the OT priests had to descend from Aaron and the Levis.
Heb. 5:4 is used by some to say their denomination has achieved an apostolic succession of ordination for their church’s hierarchy. But note the reference here is to the Old Testament priesthood system, and not Christian ministry.
Aaron sinned by making the golden calf IDOL, and participating in Mariam’s rebellion against Moses in Numbers 12. (Miriam committed sin and got leprosy, though Ex. 15:20 says she was a prophet. We can’t let an office in Christian ministry go to our head, “cause we’ll easily slip into “My will for God,” which is not God’s will for us.
In like manner, some claim Peter as their first pope, and their priests descend from him in apostolic succession. Yet Peter sinned and denied Christ 3x, and was rebuked by Jesus who in Mt. 16:23, Mk 8:33, and Luke 4:8, told him to “Get thee behind me Satan,” disproving Peter’s and any other man’s infallibility. Ps. 116: 11, Ps 62:9, Rom 3:4
Because of Christ work on the cross we now offer our gifts, prayers and sacrifices directly to God in our own personal relationship with Him, through Christ.
The concept of “Apostolic succession is not supported by Scripture, because all believers are priests before God. (1 Pet 2:5 & 9)
1 Peter 2:5 & 9 you also, like living stones, are being built into a …you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus … But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.
Christ is a Different Order of Priest, after Melchizedek.
Heb. 5: 6 Christ is a priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek (not of Aaron, nor of the Levites).
Melchizedek appears in Scripture how many times? one.
How many times does the Bible record Melchizedek ministered bread and wine to Abraham?
One – in gen. 14:18
Jesus died on the Cross to atone for our sins? once – Heb. 10:12 Heb 10:12 But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God,
Unlike human priests who had to offer sacrifices for themselves too, Christ is sinless and did not atone for Himself, but for us.
Thus Christ abolishes the need for human priests! God expects each of us to come to Him directly through Christ. In the Lord’s prayer we are not told to find a mediator to pray. Each of us are to go directly to God and offer our prayers, gifts and sacrifices. We each are being held by God personally responsible for maintaining our relationship with Him. The real depth of our love of God is evident by how we keep HIs Commandments.
Heb. 5:5 Christ Is The Incarnated Yet Invincible Son.
Christ became human and was “beset with weakness.”
His human condition makes Him sympathetic to deal gently with the ignorant and wayward.
Gently means — “to bear gently with in compassion, by treating others with mildness, or moderation, Compassion is sympathy and concern for the sufferings or misfortunes of others:
Ignorant means — unwitting error. Making mistakes
Weakness/infirmity means — inability to produce Godly results.
If we are making the same mistakes, committing the same sins year after year, we need to ask God to work in us, because God expects the weak to be empowered with His strength.
God expects the unwittingly ignorant to gain knowledge (know how) and wisdom (the understanding of when, how and in what way to apply knowledge). Prov. 1:20 20Wisdom crieth without; she uttereth her voice in the streets: 21She crieth in the chief place of concourse, in the openings of the gates
W.E. Vine says,” A believer guilty of a sin of “ignorance” needs the efficacy of the expiatory sacrifice of Christ, and finds “grace to help.” Yet, as the conscience of the believer receives enlightenment, what formerly may have been done in “ignorance” becomes a sin against the light and demands a special confession, to receive forgiveness, 1 John 1:8,9.”
Proverbs: 4 stages of Moral Deficiency.
Proverbs says get knowledge or know how; get wisdom = how to use knowledge. Get discernment = when to use wisdom.
- Simpleton = the young ignorant, lacking education, experience and basic understanding
- Fool = have right and wrong confused. Keep making same mistake because they can’t tell the difference. God must liberate us from the foolishness of the flesh. There is more hope for a fool than a mocker.
- Mocker rejects truth knowingly. These people slip over to a reprobate mind.
- Sluggered = the end state of all who reject truth because they neglect the responsibility of making the good moral choices the Holy Spirit certainly prompts in us. People who are stiff-necked and rebellious, or who exercise their Adamic carnal rights will see those actions destroy them, as their bad habits become their character, the consequences destroy all relationships. The perpetrators reap what they sow.
God warns us of the end result of tis process in Heb. 10: 26-31
Heb. 10: 26 – 26For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, 27but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. 28Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses. 29How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace? 30For we know him who said, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay.” And again, “The Lord will judge his people.” 31It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
BUT … Though our High Priest Christ became human flesh, a condition beset with weakness, which made Him vulnerable to be tempted in every way we are, Christ did not succumb to sin! He is our role model and example we should be following. We can’t blame shift and say, “I am sinning because this person did this.”
We Submit To God Through the Sacrifice of Suffering Heb. 5: 7-14 
Heb. 4:15-16 Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
Christ learned/experienced obedience from what He suffered.
We too learn obedience from what we suffer by sacrificing to let go of our willfulness to do what we know God wants us to do, instead of stubbornly going our own way.
Learn means — to understand (experience) by use and practice, it becomes our habit and custom.
Obedience means— 1) fulfilling what God wants us to do; 2) complying with God’s orders and requests, and 3) submitting to God authority.
Suffer means— experience something unpleasant either 1) at the hands of men, 2) buffeted by our passions, 3) from the antagonism of the evil one/Satan, the tempter, accuser
God’s goal is we mature to reach an advanced stage of mental, emotional and spiritual development, which is Emotional Intelligence with God, so we think like He thinks, feel like He feels and do what He does as disciples under His order of Melchizedek, where the submitted are fed solid food and have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice [of obedience as our essential characteristic of life] to distinguish good from evil.
Let’s Pray:
May God fill and empower us with more love for Him, so we obtain the capacity to obey Him and let go of self – meaning the things we tell ourselves we have to have, be to do to be us.
To view the recorded message, go to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7tkRfAr8Zo