he book of Hebrews was written to Jewish Christians living in the generation which saw the dissolution of the old covenantal system of worship and the destruction of Jerusalem. The author writes in an effort to prevent these believers from apostatizing back to Judaism and thus getting caught up in the terrible judgment which was to soon fall on that city. He seeks to persuade them primarily by proving that Jesus Christ and His true religion are better than the Judaism to which they would return. Toward that end he has shown that Christ is a great High Priest, perfectly able to help sinful men obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need (Heb. 4:16). He continues this thought into chapter five, showing that our High Priest meets both the needs of men and, what is perhaps more important, the qualifications set by God. It is to these that we now turn.
For every high priest taken from among men is appointed for men in things pertaining to God, that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins (Heb. 5:1). In this short verse are three basic qualifications for the priesthood.
First, the high priest is taken from among men. In order to represent men to God the high priest must himself be a man, one who can have compassion on those who are ignorant and going astray, since he himself is also beset by weakness (Heb. 5:2). The priest is to be a compassionate help to God's people. For men who are ignorant of God's laws, God has called the priest to be a teacher of those laws (Lev. 10:11). For men who go astray from God's ways and fall into temptation and sin, the priest is appointed to mediate for them with gifts and sacrifices for sins (Lev. 9:7). The man who would teach, sacrifice, and pray for the people must understand their failings and feel for them as their representative. Under the old covenant, Aaron and his sons who were priests were able to sympathize with men on the basis of common weakness. The high priest knew the temptations and sins which are common to all men and was familiar with the failings of sin and the corresponding need to be made right with God. Because of this he is required as for the people, so also for himself, to offer for sins (Heb. 5:3).
Now our High Priest Jesus is able to sympathize with us on the basis of strength, having been in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin (Heb. 4:15). As a man Jesus was tempted, and as a man he withstood those temptations. When Satan came to the Lord in the wilderness he endeavored to cause Christ to sin by appealing to His deity: If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread. Jesus, however, responded not from His deity but from His humanity: It is written, "Man shall not live by bread alone..." (Mat. 4:3-4). Jesus the Man held firm against the devil's temptations then and throughout His ministry, including the final temptation in the garden of Gethsemane (Heb. 5:7-8, cf. 2:18). Thus Christ meets God's requirement of being able to sympathize with temptations and failings of men as a man, yet with the unique advantage of never falling to those temptations.
Second, the priest must be appointed by God to the task. And no man takes this honor to himself, but he who is called by God, just as Aaron was (Heb. 5:4). The position of high priest for the people of God was obviously one of great authority, influence, and distinction. It would have been the greatest of presumptions to grasp that position without being duly called into it. Aaron was called out of the Levites especially by God through Moses and set apart from the people by elaborate ceremonies, clothing, consecration, and sacrifice (Ex. 28, 29).
So also Christ did not glorify Himself to become High Priest, but it was He who said to Him: "You are my Son, today I have begotten you" (Heb. 5:5). Jesus was called to be High Priest forever through no human mediator but by God directly, spoken through this prophecy of His resurrection from Psalm 2 (cf. Acts 13:33, Rom. 1:4). Our High Priest's ceremony was His ascension, His clothing His resurrected body, His consecration His death, and His sacrifice Himself. It was by His resurrection and ascension into heaven that He became and remains our eternal, perfect High Priest (see last issue's "Exegetica").
Christ was also called by God in the prophecy of Psalm 110, You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek (Heb. 5:6). Because Christ was called to be High Priest by God, we can be certain that He was acceptable as High Priest to God. This priesthood He was called to was a special one, in the order of Melchizedek. Melchizedek is a mysterious figure who appears briefly in Genesis 14:18-20. His order is distinct from the order of Aaron and superior to it. But that discussion must wait for a later column.
Third, the high priest must offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins, and as the author says later, Therefore it is necessary that this one also have something to offer (Heb. 8:3). Christ was qualified to be High Priest, not because He offered bulls and goats according to the law, as Aaron did, but because He made the sacrifice of which the animal sacrifices were a picture, the sacrifice of Himself on the cross. And as the animal sacrifices were to be spotless and perfect to be accepted (Lev. 22:21), so Christ's sacrifice of Himself was required to be perfect. This perfection Jesus accomplished through perfect obedience to His Father's will, for though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered. And having been perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him (Heb. 5:8-9).
Jesus Christ is thus qualified of God to be our High Priest. As the perfect High Priest, Christ alone could offer that perfect
sacrifice which actually atones for the sins of His people, for He alone is
the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world.
