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  COMMENTARY ON HEBREWS 5-6
  by Chuck Smith
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Shall we turn now in our Bibles to Hebrews 5

At the end of chapter 4, the author of Hebrews introduced the idea of
Jesus being our great High Priest. "Seeing then that we have a great
high priest, that has passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let
us hold fast our profession" (Hebrews 4:14). That would be our
profession of faith. "For we have not a high priest which cannot be
touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points
tempted like as we are, yet without sin [or tempted apart from sin]. Let
us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain
mercy, and find grace to help" (Hebrews 4:15-16). We can come boldly to
the throne of grace because we have a great high priest.

You see, the mission of the priest was two-fold. He was to go before God
to represent the people before God. Here is a holy, righteous God. Here
is a sinful people. A sinful person could not approach the holy,
righteous God. So the priest would take the sacrifice and he would go
before God for the person, make the way, and he would represent that
person before God. Then, as he came out from the offering of the
sacrifice, he would then represent God to the people. He was a mediator.
He was a go-between between God and man.

Now we have a great high priest. This was, of course, so instilled in
the Jewish mind. They would not dare to try to approach God apart from
the sacrifices and the priest. That has changed today. That has changed
radically. For the Jews today feel that they have direct access to God
and that they need no mediator. That is why they do not believe that
they need Jesus Christ. They say, "We go directly to God." And so the
whole mental concept has been changed through the years.

At the time that Paul was writing, the mind frame of the Jew was how God
was so totally unapproachable by sinful man, that he would not dare to
approach God. And so he felt his only approach to God was through the
priest, which was the correct, through the offering of the sacrifice and
the priest coming before God for him. Now with the coming of a faith in
Jesus Christ, there was this mental problem, subconsciously, of, "I don\

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Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/chuck-smith/commentary-on-hebrews-5-6/
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