Our Perfect High Priest

Hebrews chapter 5, Hebrews chapter 5, and we'll read the same passage as last week again, verse 5 through 11. Hebrews chapter 5, reading 5 through 11. Hebrews 5 verse 5, 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. As he also says in another place, you are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek, who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with vehement cries and tears to him, who was able to save him from death and was hurt because of his godly fear. 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. Called by God as high priest, according to the order of Melchizedek, of whom we have much to say and hard to explain since you have become dull of hearing. And so we dealt with that in the garden he wrestles with his will as a man and the will of the Father, the will of God, and he wrestles with these things until the blood vessels on his forehead burst and blood comes off his face. Now I don't want to get any more into the verse because it was quite an intense session, and so just remembering then that the issue here was his will and the will of the Father, not my will but your will be done. And so, though he was a son, verse 8, yet he learned obedience by the things which he suffered. So even though he was a son, he needed to learn obedience. I'm obviously going to explain what he means by learning obedience, but being a son did not exclude him from the need to be obedient. I think that there's a feeling sometimes that sons are entitled to some slack, and even in raising our kids we have rules for other people's kids, but our own kids we don't have those, because it's my kid after all, it's my son, so the rules apply to everybody else doesn't apply to mine. That servants obviously have rules, children don't necessarily need to have those rules and don't need to be obedient. If anyone did not need to be obedient, then Jesus didn't need to be obedient. And I'm not saying that that would have been a good thing, obviously, because the context is, the text is that it was a good thing that he was obedient. But if anyone could claim immunity from obedience, Jesus could, because he was the Son of God. He was, in fact, God in the flesh, and God is sovereign. And remember, one of the concepts of the fact that God is sovereign means that God can do whatever he wants to do. It doesn't mean that he does do anything he wants to do. If God did everything he wanted to do, well, I don't think we would exist anymore. He would have wiped the—he would have destroyed this whole globe with all of its sin and wickedness and perversion and everything. So he doesn't do what he wants to do, he does what is right, obviously. But he has the prerogative to do whatever he wants. There is no one above God. All of our actions are controlled and limited by people above us. As I mentioned earlier in our discussion, there is an insurance company, there are government departments who control us to some extent or the other. We have people in the church who are senior to us. We have people in our family that we need to obey. And you never outgrow that, really. So the issue of obedience is something which is inherent to the fact that we are all under some kind of authority, whether it's in the family or in the church or in the country. But God is under no authority. God is his own authority. So he can do whatever he—but even though he's a son, he learned obedience. Now, the point of his sonship is to obviously show us what obedience looks like. When it says that he learned obedience, again, we must pay attention to the detail when we read these passages. It does not say he learned obedient. We need to learn to be obedient. Our children need to learn to be obedient. But he did not need to learn to be obedient. We need to learn to be obedient because by nature we are rebellious. By nature we don't want to comply. And so we are born that way. And unfortunately, some people never grow out of it. And the responsibility of parents is to teach children to be obedient to those who are their seniors. That's the basis on which all of society is structured. The family is structured around that concept. The church is structured around that concept. And society at large—it doesn't matter whether you're in a democratic or in a totalitarian society—but all of society, in any place, in any culture, in any government in the world, is based on obedience. And obviously the question is to what extent, obviously, we obey the laws. We've dealt with that before. But the issue of obedience is something that we need to learn. Now Jesus does not need to learn to be obedient because he is not born a sinner. He is not born naturally rebellious. But as we saw last week, doing the will of God, even though he is not naturally rebellious, is still hard. Because even though he wants to do the right thing, there are things within his being, within his makeup, that don't want to do those things, not because he's rebellious. But going to the cross, taking our sin upon himself, and dying on that cross, being shunned by the Father—all of those things are not things that came naturally, that he just said, oh, that's great, I want to do this. Everything within him recoiled from what he was facing. But he doesn't learn to be obedient, because he is obedient. And we see that in the previous verse, how he struggles. And remember that he says, if this cup can pass from me, then that's great. But then the fine print is nevertheless not what I want, not my will, but your will be done. So even though he wants his flesh—let me just specify, in the days of his flesh, verse 7 says, his flesh does not want to go to the cross, it's not in rebellion. It's not saying, I'm not going to do it. I refuse. I have my rights. No, it's not out of rebellion. It's simply because his flesh recoiled from it. It was hard to do. So there are times when we are disobedient, because it is hard to do. Some things that God asks us to do are hard. And obviously, this applies, obviously, positively and negatively. I'm not going to dot all the i's and cross the t's. But remember that the issue of my will against the will of God is twofold. It's either negative or positive. Either I don't do what he wants me to do, or I do what he does not want me to do. So both are disobedience. Whether I'm not doing what I should be doing, or whether I'm doing what I ought not to be doing, it's still the issue of obedience. So he learns obedience. He learns what obedience is. You see, now, you can know anything academically. You can study obedience. You can study how to walk on a high wire as a tightrope walker. You can watch all the YouTubes. You can read all the books. You can speak to people who've done it. Try and understand what they feel when they step out on that wire. I can't even watch it. But until you step out on that wire, you don't know what it's about. You don't have a clue. You can understand the physics of it. You can understand the mass of the line that sags under its own weight. You can understand the aerodynamics as wind blows that line, and it begins to oscillate. You can understand the physics of the wire, of the rope, and how the thing is twisted. You can understand all of the theory. But unless you have stepped out on that line, you don't have a clue. Jesus knew everything about obedience. He knew what obedience means. He knew what it costs, because remember that by now he had had 4,000 years of human history, of kings disobeying him, of prophets obeying him, and paying the ultimate price for their obedience. The book of Hebrews is going to deal with those in chapter 11. He's seen what it took of Abraham to leave his family and his country and to go and live in tents. He's seen, he knows all these things, but he personally had never experienced what he was just experiencing in the Garden of Gethsemane, my will and the will of the Father. Now, because we are human, we all understand that, because we all have that issue. And of course, that's the point that he is now going to make, that he is a perfect high priest, because he sat where we sat. So, yet he learned obedience by the things which he suffered. Now, when it speaks about the things that he suffered, clearly he's beginning in the Garden of Gethsemane. And I'm sure it goes even way back before that, because remember that it says that he was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. So, even the three years and the 33 years before that, the cross loomed over him. All of the time there was not just his own suffering, but there was the heartache over his people, who were godless, who were empty in their religion, who were worshipping their nationality and their religion and their faith, but not worshipping the true God. All of these things broke his heart. He wept at their unbelief. Remember at Lazarus's grave, he doesn't weep because Lazarus is dead. He knows that he's going to raise Lazarus from the dead. But he weeps over the unbelief, because he's just told them, I am the resurrection and the life. If you believe in me, you will live. And yet they didn't believe, even though they were all on the side of the Pharisees and not the Sadducees. So, they believed in the resurrection. It was all theory. When it came down to the crunch, they sorrowed as those who had no hope. He wept for that. He wept for Jerusalem, as he foresaw the destruction of the city. Those were things that he suffered. But the suffering becomes intensely real in the Garden of Gethsemane. And remember that Gethsemane, the suffering is emotional. In a few hours, it would become physical, as he would be beaten and then crucified. And in all of those things, he is learning what it means to be obedient. And of course, he is the perfect example to us. You see, here's one of the problems that we have. Even the best of our spiritual leaders cannot say to us, I am perfectly obedient. I am not perfectly obedient, and there is no man who is perfectly obedient. There may be some woman, but there's no man. There is no one who is perfectly obedient. No one. So, we cannot uphold, we cannot say, there's this man, Wesley, Spurgeon, Moody, all the great names. There's this man. He was perfectly obedient. Be obedient like him. Now, we praise God that men like Paul and these names that I've just mentioned, they were pretty good at being obedient and doing the will of God. But none were perfect. But Jesus was perfectly obedient. He did not disobey for one second. There was nothing that the Father asked him to do that he did not do. And there was nothing that the Father forbade him to do that he did. And so, he is the one that we look to. And he is, you see, the problem is when we look at men, we have an excuse. I've mentioned some of the great men. But every one of them, when you look at them, and I'm not going to do that this evening, but I can. Every one of those names I've just mentioned, I can tell you about issues in which they failed. And that's what we do say. Well, you know, Moody did this that he shouldn't have done. Spurgeon smoked a pipe. He did too. That one did that. That one did that. So, it's okay for me. Because these great guys, they didn't get it all right. So, it's okay. You know, if they got 90%, it's okay if I get 50. But they're not the standard. Jesus is the standard, and he gets 100%. And so, he learns obedience by the things he suffered. Now, here's another important lesson. We don't do very good at the carrot thing. What I mean by that is that we have two things that motivate us. Here's some deep, deep psychology. It's called the carrot and the stick. And the carrot motivates us to some extent, but we don't learn very much from the carrot. It seems that the only time we really learn is from the stick. The only time we really learn is when we suffer. Now, that's sad. It's a reflection on humanity. But that's just the reality. When things go well in our lives, we learn very little. We learn very little about faith. We learn very little about obedience. We learn very little about the Lord. We learn little about anything. But it's when we are suffering that we really begin to learn. And so, he learns obedience by the things which he suffered. And having been perfected—we dealt with this before, but let me remind you again that it does not mean that Jesus was not perfect before. And the word perfected here is unfortunate, because the Greek word either means complete or mature. We're going to see this word again in a few weeks' time when we come to chapter 6, beginning of chapter 6, or is it the end of chapter 5? We find the same word there. Mature, complete. In the context in which it is being used here, it means completely or perfectly suited for its purpose. And so we use the pulpit as an example to remind you of that example. Is this pulpit perfect? Well, having made it, I can tell you that it is not. I know all the mistakes in this pulpit. It's not perfect. But is it perfect for the job it was made for? I can also tell you, as the one who stands behind it, that it is absolutely perfect for that purpose. The height is perfect. The sturdiness is perfect. The angle of the desk is perfect. The size of the desk is perfect. The ornamentation or lack of ornamentation is perfect for the purpose it was designed. It is not perfect in the absolute sense in that there's no flaws in it. But for the purpose it was designed, it is absolutely perfect. It is complete. It needs nothing. There is nothing that I could imagine that I would want to add to this that would make it in any way better, or else I would have done it. Jesus is completely suited for the job. And what is the job in this context? Being the high priest and being the author of our salvation. And so, in what sense then would he be incomplete or imperfect as a high priest? Well, if he was not touched with the feelings of our weaknesses, if he was not touched with our infirmities, then he would not be complete as a high priest, because he would be unsympathetic to our struggles. As an example of obedience, if he had not been tested, he would be incomplete. Doesn't mean he's imperfect. He would still be perfect. He would still be sinless. But he would not be perfectly suited for the purpose of being our high priest. And so, all of these things completes him as the perfect high priest and as the author of eternal salvation. So, please remember this, because there are those who would say, who would suggest, then, that Jesus was imperfect in himself, that he had flaws, like we are imperfect. We all have flaws and weaknesses. No, Jesus was not imperfect in himself at all. He was the perfect, spotless Lamb of God. Spotless means without a flaw. There was nothing you could find in his morality, in his thinking, in his life, that you could accuse and say, he has failed in this area or that area. He once sought a wrong thought. No, he never did any of those things. He is perfect. But as a high priest, in order for him to be a perfect high priest, he had to go through the suffering. He had to go through these experiences. And so, having been perfected, he became the author of eternal salvation. So, this is interesting, because having—and the tense is important—having been perfected, in other words, that's done, he now becomes the author of salvation. He doesn't become the author of salvation before he is perfected, so he has to be perfected first. And that's why this is interesting, because it takes this up to before the cross. So, Jesus had been perfected in his obedience even before the cross, because at the cross, he becomes the author of our salvation. That's where he begins the process of buying and of making atonement, buying our salvation. So, he became the author, the originator, the designer, the source of eternal salvation. And remember, the book of Revelation used this concept over and over. He is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. He is the author and the finisher of our faith. He initiated it, he was the source, he was the start of it, and he's going to complete it. And so, here you have exactly the same idea. He is the beginning of our salvation. It begins with Jesus. It does not begin with Abraham, or with Adam, or with any—it begins with Jesus. He is the author, he is the source, he is the beginning. Where does it end? There is no end. Eternal salvation. And so, having been saved, eternity is opened up to us. Anything else in this world has a beginning and has an end. And so, you can say that somebody was the founder, or the originator, or the designer of an organization, or of an idea, or of a product. But all of those things have a limited life cycle. Some of them may be a few years, some of them may be decades, some of them may be centuries, but they come to an end. What Jesus began at the cross will never end, and it flows right through eternity. So, he becomes the author of eternal salvation. Folks, here again is something we must get right, and that is that so much of the church today is obsessed with the here and now, in terms of political power, in terms of financial prosperity, in terms of physical health—all sorts of things that have to do with the temporal. But he's not so concerned about what's happening in the temporal. He's concerned with eternity for us. He doesn't buy for us, he doesn't initiate for us something that's going to last a hundred years or a thousand years, but he starts something that lasts forever and forever and forever. And so, again, we've got to get this perspective that he suffers there in the Garden of Gethsemane, and it's for a while. He suffers on the cross, it's for a while, but the results are forever. Now, remember, the converse is also true, because sometimes we mess up for a moment, but the results are sometimes forever, certainly sometimes for a long time. Remember Esau, who sold his birthright. How long did that whole transaction take? A couple of minutes. Give me some of that stew. No, you've got to buy it. Okay, what's your price? I want your birthright. Okay, here it is. The Scripture says that afterwards he sought for repentance. He couldn't get it, couldn't find it. The result of that is still with us today, in the Middle East, in the war between the descendants of Esau and the descendants of Jacob, 4,000 years later, 2,000 years from then to Christ and 2,000 years from... So, 4,000 years later, the consequence of that transaction that lasted, that took a few minutes, if that, are still with us. But what he does has good consequences, and they are forever. So, he becomes the author of eternal salvation to all who obey him. Now, it's absolutely important that we understand and we read the Scripture. Now, you don't need me to interpret that last part of that verse to you. You know what it means. He does not become the author of eternal salvation to those who believe. But that's how we read it, because we've been taught that if you believe, you're saved. But here he says, to all who obey him. So, he's not the author of eternal salvation to those who live in disobedience. Now, obviously, we're not saying that we're saved by our works. That's not the truth. But you know what James says. Faith without works is dead. What works does faith produce? Oh, once you believe, you go to church, and you stop using drugs, and you do this, and you do that, and you help old ladies across the street, and so on. No. Obedience. Obedience. It's not about the rules. It's about obedience. And the obedience supersedes the rules. And the obedience really has nothing to do with the rules, because what God asks you to do and what he asks the guy next to you to do may be two different things. And you're not asked to be obedient in what he needs to be obedient in. You need to be obedient in what you need to be obedient in. And it changes, because as we are obedient in small things, he begins to ask us to be obedient in bigger things. This is a dynamic relationship. This is not rules and saying, well, there's the Ten Commandments. I just need to keep those Ten Commandments, and I'm cool. No, the things that he asks us to do is ever-increasing, and they get harder and harder. I think just like Jesus. We can talk about him growing up as a young man and working in his father's shop, making chairs and tables, or whatever he did. And his father says, well, you know, we've got this order, we've got this job, we've got to get out, and we have to work through the night to get it out. He's obedient to his earthly father, because that pleases his heavenly father. But as he goes along, it gets harder and harder and harder, until you get to Gethsemane. And if you think that was hard, he gets to the whipping post. And if you think that's hard, he comes to the cross. So the things in which he is obedient becomes more and more challenging as time goes on. And while I said at the beginning that the issue of obedience is twofold, it's not doing what we ought not to be doing, and it is doing what we ought to be doing. The Anglican Church speaks of sins of omission, things that I don't do that I should have done, and sins of commission, things that I do that I should not have done. Now, here's the thing. In the next section that we get to next week, Lord willing, he's going to speak about maturity and immaturity, those who are babes and those who are mature or perfect or in the faith. If you are still struggling with things that you ought not to be doing, in other words, if your walk with God is one filled with negatives, I mustn't do this, I mustn't go there, I mustn't think that, I mustn't respond in this way, then you are yet immature. We need to grow beyond the question of, can I do this? I got an email from somebody the other day, may I go to movies? If those are the things that you're struggling with—and I'm not casting aspersions on you, I'm not saying—but it's a sign that you have some ways to go. Because once we get past struggling with not doing what we should not be doing, we now begin to struggle with the things that we ought to be doing. It becomes a positive thing, in a sense. God says, I want you to do this, I want you to do that. And that's where it really gets hard. See, even people in the world, there are monks in Buddhism and in Hinduism and Sikhism and all of these things who live up in mountains and live in caves and stuff, and they live this very ascetic lifestyle, they don't do anything that may be wrong, but they're still not—and obviously they're not saved, you know—but it still doesn't help, because they're still not doing the will of God. They may be not doing what he doesn't want them to do, and I'm not suggesting, obviously, that you can be saved through them, but you get the idea. We need to get beyond just not sinning. We need to get to the point where we're doing the will of the Father. And that's going to be the issue in the next weeks. So he becomes the author of eternal salvation to all who obey him. And obviously, if we believe, Jesus says, if you love me, you will keep my commandments. James says, show me your faith by your works. And so this is the problem that we have today, is that there are so many Christians, so-called Christians, and I dare say probably the majority of those who fill evangelical and Pentecostal and charismatic churches today in America, in the West, who say, I'm a Christian. They say, well, why do you say you're a Christian? Because I believe in Jesus. But are you obeying him? And most of the time, they're not. So what is the conclusion? You didn't believe, because faith without works is dead. So according to James, if you're not implying it here, if you're not obeying, you didn't believe. You see, it's not a matter of saying, well, I better get my obedience straight now. No, you need to get the foundation right. And that's what he's going to come to in chapter 6. We'll get there in a few weeks' time. He talks about that foundation. If that foundation of my faith, repentance from dead works, faith towards God, if those things are not in place, you can work your backside off to try and be obedient, and it's never going to work, because you simply become a slave. As much as you were a slave to disobedience or to the world, you now simply become a slave of religion. Remember the older son? We spoke about the prodigal son and his brother not so long ago. That was quite a while now. We were still outside. The older brother was in the house, never left the house, but he's a servant. Father, I've kept all your commandments. I've done everything you told me to do, but he was never a son. We must begin by faith, obviously, but faith must result in obedience. All right, I'm going to rush through. Now, I want to just go back very quickly, and I'm going to move faster. But, and having been perfected, this idea of perfected is an important idea in the book of Hebrews, and it comes, it's there 13 times, and four times come from the Old Testament, and those are the ones I'm going to quickly show you. Chapter 7, verse 19. For the law, Old Testament, made nothing perfect. Now remember, see the contrast. He was perfected, and he becomes the author of salvation. The law made nothing perfect. Hebrews 9.9, it was symbolic for the present time in which both gifts and sacrifices, Old Testament, were offered, which cannot make him who performed the service perfect in regard to the conscience. Jesus perfects us. He's the author of eternal salvation. Hebrews 10.1, for the law, having a shadow of the good things to come and not the very image of the things, can never, with these same sacrifices which they offer continually year by year, make those who approach perfect. And obviously, we're going to deal with that when we get to chapter 10. Hebrews 11.40, God having provided something better for us in the New Testament, that they, in the Old Testament, should not be made perfect apart from us. And so, obviously, this is one of the themes of Hebrews, not just perfection, but this concept that the Old Testament could not save. The Old Testament could not perfect, but Jesus, having become a perfect high priest, becomes the author of an eternal and, in fact, a perfect salvation. All right, the last few verses, because I want to finish off and start on verse 12 next week. So, verse 9, and having been perfected, he became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey him, called by God as high priest. So, that's verse 10. So, Jesus is called, remember, last week, I think it was, the week before, he speaks about the fact that no man takes this honor to himself, but he who is called by God. So, nobody could step up and say, I'm going to be the next high priest. Only those who had been called by God, and obviously, God had called through Aaron and so on. And so, he, Jesus, was called by God as high priest, and remember that he is not a high priest according to the Aaronic priesthood, according to the Levitical priesthood, but he is a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek. And now, what we have is a parenthesis from verse 12 to the end of chapter 6, because he's now going to pick up this idea of Melchizedek in chapter 7. Now, it's going to take us a long time—I'm just warning you—before we get to chapter 7. Chapter 6 is going to take us quite a while. So, he becomes the author of eternal salvation of—sorry, he's—let me get back—called of God a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek. He's now speaking about Melchizedek, of whom we have much to say, and hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. In other words, he is saying there's a lot to Melchizedek, which he's going to try and deal with in chapter 7. But he says it's hard to speak about Melchizedek, because you are hard of hearing. And then he's going to deal with immaturity, which we'll get to in verse 12 next week. But when I looked at this again, I just pondered this idea that, yes, Melchizedek is a difficult character to understand, because we don't get a lot of information. There is just a little bit in the book of Genesis, and then there's a little bit here in Hebrews. But if Melchizedek—if we don't understand Melchizedek, then how will we understand Jesus? And I really would have thought that this verse deals with Jesus rather than Melchizedek, but it doesn't. It deals with Melchizedek, because you'll see that if you read the passage, you'll see then, why are you dull of hearing? Because you're yet immature, and so on. And then he picks it up in chapter 6, verse 20, where the forerunners entered for us, even Jesus, having become high priest forever, according to all of Melchizedek, for this Melchizedek, king of Salem. So now he's going to try again and explain Melchizedek. So, may God help us that we not become dull or slow of hearing. Some translations use the word slow of hearing. But that we may understand. How do we understand? By being mature. And that's what he's going to deal with in the next verses. Father, we thank you for the Lord Jesus, that he was a perfect high priest. Lord, every high priest that came before him had many, many flaws, many areas in which they were not just morally not that good, but even in their office as a high priest, not one of them was a perfect high priest. But we thank you that the Lord Jesus, even though he was perfect in himself, becomes the perfect high priest, fully equipped to sympathize with us in our weaknesses, fully equipped to intercede for us in the times that we struggle, and fully equipped to represent us before the Father as he ever lives to make intercession for us. And Lord, we pray that you would help us to learn to be obedient. We thank you that he didn't have to learn to be obedient because he was obedient, but he now knows the cost. And Father, I thank you that Jesus does not ask us to do things, that he doesn't understand what it costs to do those things. Lord, there are many things that you ask us to do that are hard, and yet that's just the nature of the Christian walk. Lord, you ask many to lay down their lives for the gospel, both in the Old Testament and in the New Testament, and ever since then, there have been thousands and thousands of martyrs who've laid down their lives for the gospel. Lord, you're not asking us to do that, not yet in this country, but Lord, you're asking us to obey you. Lord, it's hard. And I pray, Lord, that we may overcome the weakness of the flesh, Lord, that we may not just do our will whenever we wish, but Lord, that we may do your will, that we may be perfected just like he was perfected. Lord, I pray that you'd help us. We struggle, Lord, because it's easy, again, just to talk about these things and the comfort and the safety of these four walls. But Lord, when we get out into the world, and the pressures of the world is upon us, and life gets on top of us, it becomes hard to do your will. Lord, help us to be those who will wrestle and not just give in, that we may overcome even as he overcame and has sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high. Help us, we pray in Jesus' name. We pray that you would be with Simon and his family. Pray, Lord, that you would protect the rest of the family from infection, and Lord, that you'd bring him through this safely and without too much discomfort. Lord, I pray that you would continue to keep your hand upon our church, Lord, that there may not be others that are infected, and Lord, that we may be able to come through this thing, not just surviving, but Lord, that we become stronger in our faith and in our walk with you. We ask these things in Jesus' name. Go with us now, Lord, we pray in Jesus' name.