The Great High Priest, Part 1

How great is our God? The Bible tells us, in the book of Hebrews, how great He truly is. In fact, He's called our Great High Priest. When the writer of Hebrews said that, he said it specifically for a purpose because it would draw the Jewish audience back to the greatness of God.

The Bible says that the greatness of God is unsearchable, Psalm 145. It tells us it is without investigation. In other words, it is so broad, so deep, it is incomprehensible.

So the writer of Hebrews will tell us that we have a Great High Priest. But that greatness is based on His identity, who He is. For the Bible tells us in Psalm 95, these words, Now Psalm 95 is a psalm that was quoted in the previous warning passage.

About today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as in the day of provocation in the wilderness. David will quote that psalm based on what took place in the wilderness with Israel. The writer of Hebrews would quote that psalm in his book to the Jewish audience because he doesn't want them to harden their hearts, but it's based on the greatness of God.

So he says in verse number one, That's why you're not to harden your heart. And then in chapter 96 of Psalms, it says, He is to be feared above all gods. And then over in Psalm 99, verse number one, it says, So the greatness of God is based on the identity of God because His person is great.

And then over in Psalm 66, it talks about the fact that His power is great. In Psalm 66, verse number one, Your enemies will give feigned obedience to you. All the earth will worship you and will sing praises to you.

They will sing praises to your name. So because God, His person is great. God, His power is great.

God, His priest is great. For He is a great high priest. So in writing to a Jewish audience, it would draw them back to the Old Testament about the greatness of God because never was there ever a high priest in the economy of Israel that was ever called great.

So if this Jesus, the Son of God is great, then somehow He relates to the God of the universe. And so what the writer of Hebrews tells us as he closes the warning passage in chapter four with this invitation to come boldly to the throne because we have this great high priest, he's now going to begin in chapter five, verse number one, all the way to chapter 10, verse 39, talking about this great high priest. In other words, the fact that Jesus Christ is the great high priest is the central focus of the book of Hebrews because Judaism was based around a priesthood.

Men who would mediate for man to God. Men that would somehow bring man into the presence of God. God designed it that way.

God gave prophets, kings to the nation of Israel and judges to bring the law of God down to man. He gave priests so man could then get to God. In other words, He gave prophets for the purpose of revelation.

He gave kings for the purpose of representation. He gave judges for the purpose of retribution and He gave priests for the purpose of reconciliation. Did you get all that? You see, God had a purpose in His economy to show man how He could get to God and so God designed a priesthood in the Old Testament that would draw man into God's presence because every Jew knew that God was great.

He was way beyond them. He was incomprehensible. And that this God they served was way beyond them.

In fact, when God drove Adam and Eve out of the garden way back in Genesis chapter 3, they were separated from God. They could not get into God's presence. He drove them out of the garden.

And Israel in the wilderness at Mount Sinai, it was get back, get back, get back. You cannot come near to God. And then there was the veil in the tabernacle and the veil in the temple that would keep man out of God's presence.

And by God's design, a priest would be able to go in there once a year to offer sacrifices for the sake of man's sins but it was always stay away, stay away. You cannot enter into God's presence. So God designed this priesthood so that man could be reconciled to God.

But this priest, Jesus, the Son of God, is the great high priest because what he does, all the priests who ever lived up to this time and all the sacrifices they made, hundreds of thousands of them, millions of them could not do what the one sacrifice of Jesus did do. And that was usher man into God's presence not just perpetually but permanently. That's why at the crucifixion, the veil in the temple was torn in two so that man now has access into the presence of the living God through the one sacrifice offered through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

So every man now is able to get to the Father through the Son because he is the way, the truth and the life. He is that mediator. He is that individual that allows us to get to God because he is the perfect high priest.

And so the writer of Hebrews is going to spend the middle portion of the book, Hebrews 5 verse 1 all the way to 1039 to show us how great Jesus Christ is, how great a high priest he really is because he is the only one who allows us to get into the presence of the Father. And therefore, everything about Christianity and the new covenant is better than the old covenant because the sacrifice that Christ offered was a one-time sacrifice that takes away man's sin. So this becomes a very pivotal portion of scripture when it comes to understanding Christianity as opposed to Judaism.

We told you, any religion that has a priesthood whether it be Judaism, Catholicism, or paganism diminishes the exclusivity of Jesus, the Son of God. Not only does it diminish it, it says that Christ's sacrifice as priest is not enough. Therefore, it's blasphemous.

So you must understand the priesthood of Jesus Christ our Lord. It opens up the door for us to understand the new covenant that Christ came to initiate. And so as we understand this, we come to Hebrews chapter 5 to realize the beauty of this great high priest.

Let me read it to you. Hebrews chapter 5 verse number 1. For every high priest taken from among men is appointed on behalf of men in things pertaining to God in order to offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins. He can deal gently with the ignorant and misguided since he himself also is beset with weaknesses.

And because of it, he is obliged to offer sacrifices for sins as for the people, so also for himself. And no one takes the honor to himself but receives it when he is called by God, even as Aaron was. So also Christ did not glorify himself so as to become a high priest.

But he who said to him, You are my son, today I have begotten you, just as he says also in another passage, You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek. In the days of his flesh, he offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the one who was able to save him from death. And he was heard because of his piety.

Although he was a son, he learned obedience from the things which he suffered. And having been made perfect, he became to all those who obey him the source of eternal salvation, being designated by God as a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek. Now, this is so important.

This is so rich. We're going to open up your minds today and pour in all kinds of information that will hopefully revolutionize the way you think about Christ and the sacrifice that he offered on your behalf and mine. So important.

What the writer of Hebrews does is he wants to be able to compare the Aaronic priesthood, that is the priesthood that comes from Aaron, with the Messianic priesthood, the one that comes from Christ. And so there's two points I'm going to cover with you, one this week, one next week. One is the earthly priest's requirement.

Second is the eternal priest's fulfillment. Okay? The earthly priest's requirement and the eternal priest's fulfillment. Because Jesus Christ would fulfill what was required of the Aaronic priesthood.

Because, you see, if I'm speaking to a Jewish audience and I say that Jesus is a priest, they will argue, well, wait a minute. He is not from the tribe of Levi. And they would be right.

Because he's not. And every priest would come from the tribe of Levi, a descendant of Aaron. Jesus is of the tribe of Judah.

Right? And so how do you answer a Jew that says that we have a greater high priest than any of your high priests because he's from the tribe of Judah and not the tribe of Levi, a descendant of Aaron? You have to be able to explain that to a Jewish person to help them understand that from the tribe of Judah is the kingly tribe, right? The kingly tribe. That is, Genesis 49, verse number 10, that the scepter shall not depart from Judah until Shiloh comes or until the one to whom it belongs arrives, which is the Messiah. It's a Messianic prophecy way back in Genesis 49, verse number 10.

So Jesus is a king. The Messiah is going to be a king. But how could he be a priest? And remember we told you last week, this is very important, because the Jews had a problem with two things about Christianity.

One was the Incarnation, the other was the Crucifixion. They have a hard time with the Incarnation, and they shouldn't have a hard time with the Incarnation, but they do, God becoming flesh, the enfleshment of God. But yet the Old Testament taught that the Messiah would be divine.

We told you last week that Zechariah 6, 12 and 13 tells the Jewish nation that the branch, the Messiah, will be a son of man. They understand that. The Messiah will be a son of man, and the Messiah will sit on his throne and perform priestly duties.

Say no, the Messiah is a priestly king. They also know from the book of Jeremiah, chapter 23, verses 5 and 6, that that branch, that Messiah, not just is a son of man, but he's the Lord of Righteousness. So it's hard to get around the fact that the Jewish nation didn't know that this son of man would be the Lord of Righteousness because this is the Messiah.

And they hailed him as such when he arrived in Jerusalem that Palm Monday. And so we realize that they understood something about the fact that Messiah would be divine. So they had a hard time with the Incarnation.

They had a hard time with the Crucifixion, that somehow their Messiah would die. How does the Messiah die? And that's why the cross is such a stumbling block to the Jewish nation. But yet the Old Testament taught the death of the Messiah as well.

You see, that's why it's so important to understand the Scriptures, because the Jewish people missed it. So the writer of Hebrews is speaking to Jewish people to help them understand the identity of the Messiah. He is supreme.

He is sufficient. That's the theme of Hebrews, the supremacy and sufficiency of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, over everything in the Judaistic system, and every person in Judaism, because he is the Son of God. And so as he begins to explain that to them, he wants them to grasp it.

So now what he's going to do, he's going to take them back to show them all the requirements that they would know about because they know the book of Leviticus, they know what God said about the Aaronic priesthood, and how there were certain requirements that had to be fulfilled, and then show how Jesus perfectly not only fulfilled all those requirements, but went way beyond those requirements because he was the sinless Son of God. You with me so far? So there were three requirements. Three requirements to be an earthly priest that he points out here.

One deals with a divine authorization. The second one deals with a genuine compassion, and thirdly, a sublime obligation. The first one deals with a divine authorization.

That is, you had to be selected from man by God. It was a divine authorization that God divinely selected those who would be priests. You can go back to Exodus 28, verse number 1, and show how God set aside Aaron and his sons to be the priestly order in Israel.

And so he says in chapter 5, verse number 1, for every high priest taken from among men, he's taken from among men, is appointed on behalf of men in things pertaining to God. Verse 4, and no one takes the honor to himself, but receives it when he is called by God. So God would take from among men men to serve as priests.

That was the way God did it. Now God did not choose angels to do this. Why? Because angels don't understand man.

They can't. Angels don't understand the temptations and suffering that man goes through. But a man would.

And because a man would understand it, God would choose a man from among men to offer sacrifices on behalf of men, but he had to be appointed by God. There had to be a divine authorization given that this would be the man to do this ministry. And God allowed it by His grace, by His mercy, that there would be a mediator because what were priests, they were bridge builders, right? They would build the bridge between man, who was sinful, and God, who was holy.

God is not just holy, He is holy, holy, holy, and man can't get to God, so He designed a priesthood as a bridge for man to get to God through the sacrifices that He offered. God designed it that way. And so you had this divine authorization, men called by God.

Now this is important. Why? Because if Jesus is the great high priest, He would have to be a man and have to be appointed by God Himself. That's very, very important.

See, the incarnation is crucial. It's crucial. It's essential.

Because in the incarnation, what God knew in and through His omniscience, through the incarnation, He knows experientially, right? So the incarnation becomes very, very pivotal to understanding Christ as the great high priest. These priests would know what you and I suffer. They would know because they are men, and they understand temptation, they understand suffering, they understand difficulty, they understand hardship, they understand those kind of things.

Angels don't, but men do. But Jesus is the perfect high priest, the great high priest, because He knows everything, but now He experiences the temptation that you and I experience. But He is that faithful and merciful high priest, as was said in chapter 2, verse number 17, by the writer of Hebrews, because He's been leading up to this, right? Chapter 1, verse number 3. Chapter 2, verse number 17.

Chapter 3, verse number 1. Chapter 4, verse number 14 and 16. He's leading up to this section about the priesthood of Christ and how great it really is, because what it does for us is what none of the other priests or sacrifices they offered could do. He is moving this audience to understand the beauty and the greatness of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

That's why the book of Hebrews is such an important book, to understand not just for the Jews' sake, but for all of our sakes, to understand the new covenant and all that Jesus Christ has done. Now, having said that, having said that, look at this. He says that every priest taken from among man is selected and appointed by God.

Why is that important? Because I told you a couple of weeks ago, remember, any religion that has a priesthood blasphemes the name of God, because in Christianity, we are a priesthood, right? 1 Peter 2, verse number 9, we are a holy priesthood, right? Revelation 1, verses 5 to 7, we are a kingdom made up of priests. Why? Because we have complete and total access into the presence of Almighty God, perpetually and permanently. We are a priesthood, and we have been chosen and elected by God.

That's why the Bible says these words in John 15, 16, you did not choose me, I chose you. Acts 13, 48, we are appointed to eternal life. 1 Thessalonians 1, 4, knowing, brethren, His choice of you.

2 Thessalonians 2, 13, God has chosen you from the beginning. You see, to be a priest, you had to be chosen by God. To be a priest in the kingdom of God, you have to be chosen by God, and we have been.

And that's what makes Christianity so unique, is because not only do we have a high priest who can sympathize with our weaknesses, but he has ordained us, he has authorized us to be priests in his kingdom. So we have complete and total access to God at any time. That's what makes Christianity so overwhelmingly magnificent.

How great is that? That we can actually access God's holy throne. Not on anything that we have done, no merit of our own, simply by the mercy of Almighty God. So he says, at the outset, you know that every priest taken from among men has been chosen by God so that he can offer sacrifices for things pertaining to God.

So there is this divine authorization. Number two, there is this genuine compassion. It says, and this is so rich, this is what it says, for every high priest taken from among men is appointed on behalf of men in things pertaining to God in order to offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins he can deal gently with.

Gently with. Metriopathane, a very unique word. It's a word that deals with that which is in the middle.

That is, there is one end of the spectrum and the other end of the spectrum, but metriopathane is right in the middle so you can deal gently with the needs of men. One end of the spectrum is the fact that you are in total anguish. The other end of the spectrum is that you are in total apathy.

Complete indifference. You don't care. It doesn't make a difference what you're going through.

It's irrelevant to me. Totally apathetic. The other one, complete and total anguish.

I am so overwhelmed by your suffering I can hardly stand it. But right in the middle is metriopathane which makes you able to deal gently with the needs of man. It's the highest of all virtues, say the Greek, because you're able to, with balanced discern, and be a rock when man is needed.

And that's exactly what the priests were designed for. And so there was this genuine compassion. Not only was there a divine authorization, there was this genuine compassion that they would have for the needs of man so they could effectually represent man to God.

So important. Notice what he says. He can deal gently with the ignorant and misguided, since he himself also is beset with weaknesses.

So he makes the emphasis that this man who is the mediator between Israel and God is beset with the same weaknesses. The great high priest does not have that because he is the perfect individual. And we'll see that as we go through this next week.

But he is able to deal with the infirmities of man because he is beset with them. And he goes on to say that he, this man, would have to offer sacrifices for himself. So in this genuine compassion, he would truly deal with man in a compassionate kind of way.

And notice it says, with man's ignorance, man's ignorance, that would cause him to be misguided, to wander away. Listen carefully to what I'm going to say. Do you know, do you know, that atonement is only viable for sins of ignorance, never for presumptuous sins? Did you know that? I bet you didn't know that.

That he would offer sacrifices for the sins of ignorance because there was never a sacrifice that would atone for the sins of presumption. More about that in a second. You're going to learn something new today.

Your eyes are going to be, whoo, what do you mean? There's something God's, God's sacrifice isn't done for? Absolutely. Absolutely. Because God set it in order that way.

But notice, there was this divine authorization, this genuine compassion, and then thirdly, there was this sublime obligation. And that was, they would offer sacrifices, it says. And because of it, he is obligated to offer sacrifices for sins for the people.

Notice what it says. It says in verse number one, On behalf of men and things pertaining to God, in order to offer both gifts and sacrifices. What is that? To offer both gifts and sacrifices? Look at chapter eight, verse number three.

It says, For every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices. So it is necessary that this high priest also have something to offer. Okay, so what are the gifts? And what are the sacrifices? That's a great question, right? The gifts were meal offerings.

The sacrifices were blood sacrifices. The meal offering was given, okay, to the priest as an act of dedication, commitment, and thanksgiving. That was given to the priest and the priest would offer that to God on behalf of man because he was grateful, he was thankful, he was committed to the Lord God of Israel.

And then there were sacrifices, the blood sacrifice that he would give. Now isn't it interesting that if Jesus is going to be the perfect high priest, he must also offer the gift and the blood sacrifice. The gift sacrifice was himself because he is the gift of God, right? And he is the gift that is totally committed with thanksgiving to his father.

And so he is given as a gift because he is a gift offering as well as a sacrificial offering, a blood sacrifice that would atone for the sins of man. Isn't that great? You can give a holy run if you want to, that's good because it's great. That's why he's called the great high priest because he could do what no one else could do.

So he offers gifts and sacrifices because this was the sublime obligation. This is what the priest was designed to do so that you were able to understand the beauty and mercy of a compassionate God who would forgive the sins of man. This is what he did.

And so he offered sacrifice for sins, not sacrifice for sin, sacrifice for sins because this was a repeated act. It was a repeated act daily. It was a repeated act yearly with the day of atonement.

This was something that had to happen all the time because it was all a foreshadowing of the one sacrifice that would soon come and obliterate and atone for all sins. Very important. But notice this, the sacrifice would only deal with sins of ignorance, never with the sins of presumption.

Remember what David said in Psalm 19 verse number 13? Oh Lord, keep me from presumptuous sins. Remember that? You guys remember that? I'm sure you remember that. Okay, some of you, three of you do.

David said in Psalm 19 verse 13, Lord, keep me from presumptuous sins. Why? Why? Because there was no atonement for presumptuous sin, only for sins of ignorance. Let me show you how this happens.

Go back with me, if you would, to the book of Numbers. Book of Numbers. The book of Numbers, they're called Unintentional and Intentional Sins.

Okay? Verse 27. Also, if one person sins unintentionally or ignorantly, then he shall offer a one-year-old female goat for a sin offering. The priest shall make atonement before the Lord for that person who goes astray when he sins unintentionally or ignorantly.

Make an atonement for him that he may be forgiven. You shall have one law for him who does anything unintentionally or presumptuously. For him who is native among the sons of Israel and for the alien who sojourns among them, but the person who does anything defiantly, whether he is a native or an alien, that one is blaspheming to the Lord, and that person shall be cut off from among his people because he has despised the word of the Lord and has broken his commandment.

That person shall be completely cut off. His guilt will be on him. Okay? So listen carefully.

God designed from the very beginning that there would be sins of ignorance and sins of presumption. Sins done unintentionally and sins done intentionally. You say, well, wait a minute.

If I sin, isn't that an intentional sin? If I sin, isn't that rebellion against God? If I sin, don't I blaspheme the name of God? I mean, what's the difference between an ignorant sin and a presumptuous sin? The presumptuous sin is defined for us in the book of Numbers. It's the one sin that defies the will of God and disobeys the word of God. Who defies the will of God and disobeys the word of God.

So wait a minute. Isn't all sin disobedience to God? Yes, but in the Hebrew, it means to raise the hand against or to shake your fist in the face of God. That is a presumptuous sin.

To shake your fist in the face of God because you defy his will and you will disobey his word no matter what he says. And it goes on to give an illustration in the book of Numbers about a man who went to pick up sticks on the Sabbath and he was killed because he sinned presumptuously. He sinned blaspheming the name of the Lord.

You see, what is the difference between a sin of ignorance and a sin of presumption? The difference is the sins of ignorance are repented of and the sins of presumption are not. And haven't we told you that there's no forgiveness for the unrepentant? There's only forgiveness for the repentant. Now this isn't something that was just an Old Testament principle.

This was also given by the writer of Hebrews in the book of Hebrews in the 10th chapter as he begins to close out this whole section on the priestly ministry of Christ. He says this in verse 26, listen carefully. For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins.

No sacrifice for sins for those who sin willfully for those who sin presumptuously for those who raise their hand against God defy His will and disobey His word. There's no forgiveness but a terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries. Anyone who set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses.

How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled underfoot the Son of God and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified and has insulted the spirit of grace. For we know him who said vengeance is mine, I will repay and again the Lord will judge His people. It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

See that? The priest would offer sacrifice for sins of ignorance only not sins of presumption because those who sin presumptuously number one, don't bring gifts the meal offering and a dedication and commitment and loyalty to the living God and are not seeking repentance or forgiveness from God because they're unrepentant. They're not doing that. Those who sin ignorantly do do that.

That's the difference. So the writer of Hebrews brings it all back around in the end of this section about the high priestly ministry of the Messiah that if you go on sinning willfully this is called the willful sin of rejection that defies the will of God and disobeys the word of God in the face of overwhelming evidence because you know the truth and will not obey. That's why there was the previous section on today if you hear his voice do not harden your hearts as in the day of provocation of others.

Don't do that because if you do you're in danger of sinning presumptuously and therefore there remains no sacrifice for your sins. Do you understand that? Very important to be able to grasp that. Now notice this.

Remember what it says in 1 Timothy chapter 1 about the apostle Paul my time is running short must go quickly Paul says in verse 12 I thank Christ Jesus our Lord who has strengthened me because he considered me faithful put me into service even though I was formerly a blasphemer a persecutor and a violent aggressor yet I was shown mercy because I acted what's the next phrase ignorantly in unbelief ah sins of ignorance here was a man who was formerly a blasphemer here was a man who was a persecutor of the church here was a man who had sinned against the living God he did it all ignorantly what does that mean I just don't know no he knew everything about Judaism he knew a lot about Judaism okay but listen when he was confronted by the living God on the road to Damascus what happened he truly fell down and repented of his sin listen any sin any sin whether it be presumptuous or ignorant if repented of becomes a sin of ignorance and not presumption make sense any sin of presumption repented of becomes a sin of ignorance not a sin of presumption and that's what the apostle Paul did he sinned ignorantly in unbelief but when faced with the truth what did he do he fell down and repented of his sins because he knew he had defied the living God the presumptuous sinner does not want to do that the presumptuous sinner in the face of overwhelming evidence says you know what I'm just going to continue on the way I'm going to continue on I'm going to shake my fist in the face of God I don't care about God I don't care about what he does it's irrelevant to me I'm going to keep on doing my thing there remains no more sacrifice for sin isn't it interesting that on Mount Calvary Jesus said in Luke chapter 23 Father forgive them for they know not what they are doing they are committing sins of ignorance and so in the scriptures it says in Acts chapter 3 verse number 17 Peter says this he affirmed that when you crucified the Messiah you acted ignorantly didn't say you acted presumptuously you acted ignorantly in unbelief and that's why they repented see they understood sins of ignorance versus sins of presumption they grasped that and so the writer of Hebrews is trying to help you understand that priests under the Judaic system were chosen from among men by God there was a divine authorization who could deal gently with man there was a genuine compassion because they were obligated to offer sacrifices not just for themselves but for the sins of the people who had committed sins in ignorance and there was this total sublime obligation that they had to bridge the gap between a holy God and a sinful man and yet Jesus Christ is greater than all those priests in all their sacrifices that's why he's called the great high priest because he fulfills all these requirements and much more as we will see next week let's pray together Father we thank you for today and a chance to be in your word what a joy we have to be able to understand more about who you are and what you've done may we rejoice in the beauty of all that you are and all that you have done we pray for everyone in the room that there be one among us who does not know you that today would be the day of their salvation we ask in Jesus name Amen