Heb No.10 The Great High Priest (1) 4v12-16

Well, let's come to the passage before us this evening for special study. I'm going to read from the A.V., from the 14th verse of Hebrews chapter 4. Seeing then that we have a great high priest that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. For we have not an 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.

Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Now, I purposely read to you the previous two verses which we considered in a study a couple of weeks ago. Let me show you why I engaged in that little bit of repetitive Bible reading.

It is because in those verses we're told with two distinct illustrations about the power of God's Word. Look at the 12th verse. The Word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword.

Here's the idea of the gospel, double-edged, which has as its consequence in being proclaimed the ability to bring a man through to salvation, or as another result of the person not responding to the message, the ability to condemn him. The Word of God either saves or it censures. In one sense there is never a neutral reaction to God's Word.

You accept it and it saves you, you reject it and it condemns you, but either way it cuts a double-edged sword and it gets right down into the depths of the human personality. It discerns the thoughts and the intents of the heart. Now, from the illustration of the sword, just using modern words for a moment, modern concepts, you're going to the x-ray room, verse 13, and here we get the picture of the God of the Word being so discerning He reads us through and through.

Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in His sight, but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to do. God sees us. He scans our personality and there's nothing that He doesn't despise.

So, in the 12th verse, you find emphasized the power of the Word of God. In the 13th verse, the penetrating ability of the God of the Word, and for my money at any rate, both those concepts are frightening. To think that God looks down into my soul, to think that His Word exposes all that is within my personality, I don't find that a comforting thing.

I want to shrink from these verses. I wish they weren't in the Bible, in one sense, because I'm afraid of them. I'm afraid of what might be revealed.

Imagine everything I ever did, everything you ever did, known to God, the Word of the Lord revealing, unraveling every aspect of our personality. It's a terrifying thought. But our author is not going to leave us in a state of despondency.

Listen, however, before I go on to show you the teaching of the next verses. Listen to Job, because Job has got a similar problem to you and me. In front of God, he feels undone, he feels exposed.

And he has this to say in the ninth chapter of the book that bears his name. Since I am already found guilty, why should I struggle in vain? Even if I washed myself with soap and my hands with washing soda, you would plunge me into a slime pit, so that even my clothes would detest me. He, God, is not a man like me, that I might answer him, that we might confront each other in court.

If only there was someone to arbitrate between us, to lay his hand upon us both, someone to remove God's wrath from me, so that his terror would frighten me no more, then I would speak up without fear of him. But as it now stands with me, I cannot. Job's dilemma is exactly the same as mine, when I'm confronted with this bold statement from the Word of God, that he sees everything in me.

And though I wash myself with washing soda, though I use all the disinfectants in the world, I know that I can't get rid of the pollution, and therefore he's bound to condemn me. All that I had an arbitrator, all that I had a solicitor, all that I had a barrister, who would enter into the high courts and plead my case, that's what you want, that's what I want. My dear friend, that's what we've got.

Look at verse 14, seeing then that we have a great high priest that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Lord, the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession, hold tight to your confidence, maintain your trust in the Christian gospel, because this in essence is what it is saying, it's meeting the dilemma of man who needs someone to stand in between him and a holy God. It says we've got such a one, we've got a mediator, we've got someone who will plead our case before the throne of Almighty God. Now it's very convenient for me, having just criticized the way that the Bible was split up sometimes into verses and chapters, it's rather convenient that the 14th, 15th and 16th verses at any rate lend themselves to a very easy homiletical outline, because in verse 14 we're told what we have as Christian people, in verse 15 we're told what we have not, and in verse 16 we're told what we must do.

So then, with those three headings to help us, let's apply ourselves a little bit more to the concept of Jesus Christ and who He is, and what He's not, and what we ought to do because of what He is and because of what He's not. What we have, verse 14, we have a great high priest. Why did the writer say that? Well, I'll tell you the reason.

You have to go back to the first century, and it's not easy for us to appreciate what life was like in the first century. To understand it in the 20th, then you'd have to get either a slow boat to China or maybe a fast airplane to India, because in India at any rate, if not so much in China, you've got a land that's riddled with priests. You meet them at every end and corner.

Holy men, gurus, the Hindu faith is resplendent with thousands and thousands of holy men, and you see them walking the streets of Calcutta, you see them in Bombay, they're all around India and eastern countries. Now that was a situation that was dominant in the Roman Empire, but these Christians, this was a complaint, they're not like the rest of religions. We know who the priests are of the pagan deities, but as for the Christians, they haven't got one.

They haven't got any. They don't dress up. They've got no uniform to indicate that one man is above the next as a priest.

And the writer of the Hebrew epistle, he confronts that rather ignorant criticism and he says, you people, you've got it wrong. It's true we don't have many priests, not in your sense, but we have one great high priest. In fact, the way the Greek expresses itself there is, we have a high priest, the great.

Luther points out that the writer is trying to say, there is no one quite like our priest. The Christian faith boasts of one who is the greatest priest of all time, even the Lord Jesus Christ. So great that He has done what others cannot do.

In the 17th verse of the second chapter, we read of the Lord Jesus that He was able to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. We read in the 18th verse that He's able to comfort those, to minister to those who are tempted. And in this 14th verse of the fourth chapter, we read thirdly of our Lord Jesus that He's passed into the heavenly place.

There's no one quite like Him. He is the great high priest. This is what we've got.

And because men don't dress up in uniform, because they don't wear any strange hat, because they don't move around with some censer swinging incense, because they don't engage in some magical incantation, it doesn't mean to say that we're priestless. We have a great high priest. We have the superlative high priest, even Jesus Christ.

That's what we've got. And what has He done? Well, He has entered into the heavens. That's what the author argues.

And of course, He has in mind some of the teachings of the Old Testament Scriptures. Many of you are informed, but some are not. So those of you who are, just bear with me as I explain the concept here in our writer's mind.

In the Old Testament days, they used to have a tabernacle, which was a sort of portable tent, until such time as the Hebrews came to Jerusalem, and then they built a permanent structure, which they called the temple. And the most holy place in the temple was a curtained-off square in the building. And just on one occasion, once a year, the high priest used to enter into the holy place, used to go beyond the veil, and he'd take with him some blood of an animal that had been slain.

It was the day of atonement, and the high priest would offer this blood as being a means, symbolically, by which the people in his day would have sins forgiven. The holy place, you see, was the place where God compressed, if you like, His presence. It was the most sacred spot in the whole of the Holy Land, in the whole of Palestine.

But the high priest couldn't stay there. He went once a year, and he wasn't in the holiest place of all for very long, because, you see, he was a sinner. He could not stay in the presence of the living God.

But our high priest, the superlative high priest, well, says the writer to the Hebrews, he's passed into the heavens. He's not only there on a sort of transient, temporary visit. He's there permanently.

The idea in the original is that Jesus has passed into the heavens and there, to speak colloquially, He's staying put. Because, you see, He's not just the high priest of ordinary quality and qualification. He's the unique high priest.

Even as the writer goes on to say, Jesus, the Son of God. Jesus was the name that the Lord was known by during His public ministry, during His earthly life. Jesus is the name given by the angel to Joseph, and He was told that He was to name the Son of Mary with that particular title.

Thou shalt call His name Jesus. Jesus, the boy in Nazareth. Jesus, the carpenter.

Jesus, the unqualified rabbi. Jesus, the man that they pinned eventually on the cross. It's Jesus, the human Jesus, that is passed into the heavens, our great high priest.

But not just the human Jesus is referred to here, but the divine person of Jesus, for He's human and divine. What is His divine inscription? Well, He is Jesus, the Son of God. So here's an amazing thing.

You say we haven't got a high priest. You say we're inferior to all the pagan religions. You don't understand what you're talking about.

We've got a threefold boast. We have the greatest high priest of all time. So great, He went into the holiest place of all and stayed there.

Even Jesus, the carpenter. Jesus, the one who was crucified. Jesus, the Son of God.

He is there in the glory. Therefore, hold fast your profession. Don't take up your anchorage and try to find another mooring.

Strengthen your feeble hands. Strengthen your weak knees. You Christian people to who I am writing, understand this, that we've every reason to be confident.

Because though the Word of God exposes us, and though the God of the Word sees into our hearts and perceives all the rubbish there and all the iniquity, we've got a priest, not just a priest, the great high priest, the greatest priest of all, and He's in heaven. And what's He doing there? He's interceding for us, the great high priest. What encouragement this should be.

What stimulus it should be to us in our faith in the 20th century. We have the great high priest. That's what we've got.

Well, what have we not got? Here I bring you to verse 15, and there's a double negative. We have not a high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities. That's why I'm casting the thoughts before you that I have on this verse in terms of what we have not.

The double negative is used for emphasis. You see, the possibility is, having just given a cursory glance to the 14th verse, that you might think that Jesus is so far above us that He's not concerned. You know that ridiculous expression, someone being so heavenly minded there is no earthly use.

I say it's absurd, because if you're truly heavenly minded, then you've got a lot of earthly use. The man who is spiritual can make the greatest contribution to the human society of any being. But here's Jesus in heaven.

Suppose He's untouched with the realities here on this earth. Suppose He's so removed from us that He's got no concern for your problem and my dilemma. Well, having said where Jesus is, our author is concerned to establish the fact that He hasn't forgotten us.

He's not remote from the realities of life. What haven't we got? Well, we haven't got an unsympathetic high priest. We have not a priest which cannot be touched with the feelings of our infirmities.

The Lord Jesus Christ, when He was on earth, showed that He had tremendous compassion. You remember the occasion when He spies the widow woman who's lost a son at Cana of Galilee. He's so concerned.

He enters into the pathos, into the tragedy of the situation. When He's by the tomb of Lazarus, His heart just groans within Him as He sees the dilemma of Mary and Martha. When He stands on some high pinnacle overlooking Jerusalem and He appreciates what's going to happen to the inhabitants of that holy city, He just weeps and tears course down His cheeks.

You see, He was touched with the feelings of the infirmities of ordinary people when He was on earth. Now that's the sort of person we have in the glory. Not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feelings of our infirmities.

I give you in your notes a gem of a quote from a Puritan writer who says at this point in his work, the Son of God, had He never become incarnate, might have pitied, but He could not have sympathized with His people. The truth is, He not only can be touched, but cannot but be touched. The assertion is not, it is possible that He may sympathize, but it is impossible that He should not.

I shall be showing you something more of the qualifications of a high priest as we come to that particular passage for our study next week, but here you get it all compressed together. Our Lord Jesus Christ is touched with the feeling of our infirmity. He cannot but be touched.

So we don't have an unsympathetic high priest, and for that we thank God. We have a high priest who's concerned, a wonderful counselor. I made reference some while ago to one or two legal friends who I have here in the town, and from time to time if I'm asked advice by folks who come into my office or they phone up, what solicitor in a certain instance they should book, whose services they require, I invariably send them to one or two of these men that I know.

Why do I send them? Well, not because I'm impressed with the legal qualifications of these particular men, but I know that besides being legally qualified, they have an ability to counsel people that I send to them, and they'll put them at their ease, and they feel that they're dealing with a fellow being who understands them and to whom they can talk. Such is our Lord Jesus, only raised to an absolute level, not an unsympathetic high priest. I remember when I was a schoolboy having my first interview with the headmaster of my grammar school.

Now our headmaster combined the function of high priest and chief administrator because he either took school assembly or you saw him sitting behind a desk. You never saw him in any other posture. There were 700 lads in my school, and we were scared stiff of the headmaster, almost to a man.

And the first time that I was ushered into his study, a veritable holy of holies, my feet were shaking, my knees were knocking, and I felt terribly ill at ease, and although I'd stood before the mirror at home and rehearsed time and time again what I was to say to this superhuman intellectual figure, my mouth was as dry as anything, and I just babbled like a child or so it seemed. You see, though in one sense he was a trained headmaster, he didn't have the ability to make his pupils feel that he could understand them, and one was afraid. But Jesus Christ is not like that.

We have not an unsympathetic high priest. But it gets even more glorious listing the things that we have not. Look again at verse 15.

We have not a high priest who is not touched with the feeling of our infirmities. In other words, we have a high priest who understands our weaknesses because he himself has been tempted in a similar fashion. You remember how the beginning of the public ministry of Jesus commences.

He's immersed in the Jordan, and then he goes out into the wilderness, and he spends days and nights in fasting and prayer before God, and he's tempted. When physically he's weak, diabolically Satan comes along, pounces, and endeavours to dissuade Jesus from completing his life's objective. And throughout the whole of his ministry, Jesus was undergoing temptation.

The devil can come to you in a variety of forms. Not only is it seen in the case of Jesus in the wilderness, but sometimes his closest associates drew alongside him, and with what sent to them to be the best intentions, for they didn't realise that they were being diabolically used, they tried to dissuade Jesus from surrendering his life up at Jerusalem. Don't go there, Lord.

You're not to do this. You remember how when Peter came alongside him, Jesus spun round, and he said that Peter was speaking for Satan, always tempted. Even at the last moment of his life when he's pinned to the cross, when he's pinned to the cross, taunts were being thrown up at him.

If thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross and we'll believe. More temptation, always stacked on Jesus, to the extent that when he was talking to his disciples on one occasion, he commends them because of their fidelity, generally speaking, to his ministry. And he has this to say, it's a significant verse in Luke chapter 22 and verse 28.

You are they who have continued with me in my temptations. He's speaking of his life span, and he's saying that the whole of his life he has been constantly assaulted by the evil one, always tempted, and particularly when physically he felt weakest of all. Then the temptation became the most intense.

Now because he went through the full brunt of temptation, he understands you and me. You see, this is another reason why the high priest, or why, let me express that differently, why if there was going to be salvation, then God's own Son would have to become man. You see, you can pity, perhaps without being a high priest, but you can't be fully sympathetic.

You can't fully enter into another's difficulty unless you've been that way yourself. Until more recent events in my life, if I was dealing with a person who had been bereaved, I would try to send someone from the tabernacle to see them, one of our elders, perhaps who's gone through great trauma in that era, like our dear brother Mortimer. The reason for that was because in my early years in Worthing, I'd never gone through bereavement, or there were people that I knew that had died, but no one who was really dear to me, until the day came when the Lord took my father, and then one began to feel with those who were bereaved in a way that I've never felt before.

Since that occasion, every memorial service, every funeral service has been revolutionized for me. One tried to use care prior to that, and sympathy, but you could never quite enter into what other people were feeling because you hadn't gone that way yourself, and so it is with our Lord Jesus. To become a sympathetic high priest, he must take flesh and blood, and that he did.

He must endure temptation, and that he did, and he was tempted more than anyone. He knew the strain more than anyone, because at some point, we all break, and he never broke. So what have we not got? We've not got an unsympathetic high priest, neither have we got an untried high priest, neither have we got an unsuccessful high priest.

Look at the last phrase of verse 15, yet without sin. This is the remarkable thing about Jesus. He knew the full force of temptation, and never once did he deviate from his Father's will.

You and I give in at some stage. Some may hold out longer than others. Some may seem stronger than others, but it's the tragedy of man, that somewhere in the pressure, we all break, but he never broke.

However hot the flame, he never allowed himself in any way to compromise upon his testimony. He set his face to Jerusalem as a flint, and he became the unswerving Savior, the flint man. Temptation never managed to penetrate.

All the arrows of the devil were blunted by the armor of the Son of God. What have we not got? We've not got an unsympathetic high priest, thank God. We've not got an untried high priest, we've not got an unsuccessful high priest.

He felt the full force of temptation, and never capitulated. Well then, that answers the question what we have, and also what we have not. It leaves it in the remaining moments to look at the sixteenth verse.

What we must do, what we must do, and this is really exciting. What are we to do by way of response to this teaching? Well, let the writer of the Hebrew epistle spell it out for you. Draw near.

Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace. I find that's a magnificent statement. I almost would say that this statement rivals the one it was my privilege to preach on last Sunday morning, if God be for us.

I really meant it. I wasn't exaggerating. There's no sort of purple language of some pulpiteer last Sunday when I say that I'm staggered at the thought that God might be for me.

When I think of my life, when I think of my inconsistencies, even during these last three or four days since we met, to contemplate that God being for me, it humbles me beyond measure. But listen, here is another astonishing statement, which is almost a corollary of that one in Romans 8. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace. You see what would appear to be an illogical piece of reasoning when you move to the twelfth verses and the thirteenth, the twelfth and thirteenth verses of this chapter.

We're afraid. This Word of God, it penetrates. This God of the Word, He perceives.

And the last thing that I want to do is to come before that God, because quite frankly I'm scared stiff of Him. And if that seems strong language, it's no stronger than the language of this epistle, because later on you read, ah, God is a consuming fire. Then how can it be that the writer can speak with logic, let alone spirit inspiration, about you coming boldly unto the throne of grace? When He scared us to death with what He said in the twelfth and the thirteenth verses, well the answer is the high priest.

All my iniquity on Him was laid. He bore them all to the tree. God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself.

Jesus, He took my sin and my sorrow. He made them His very own. He bore the burden to Calvary.

He suffered and died alone. There was no other good enough to pay the price of sin. He only could unlock the gate of heaven and let us in.

These are not just the mouthings of sentimental people who sing gospel hymns on a Sunday. This is biblical theology distilled into verses that can be sung. This is what Jesus has done.

And because we have such a high priest who became not only priest but victim, then we can come into the presence of the Holy God, not timidly, not reluctantly, but boldly. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace. Draw near.

Draw near for what? What is the reason for this injunction which this inspired writer sets down here? Draw near that you may obtain mercy. You see, that's the amazing thing. One could go before the judgment seat of God and find that in His anger one was condemned eternally.

But one can opt to go before the throne of grace and find their mercy and pardon for the sin of deepest die. Come boldly unto the throne of grace, you who are sinners, you who have no qualification at all to enter into the presence of the living God, you who are afraid of His judgment seat. Come boldly before the throne and find their mercy, mercy to cover your sin, grace to deal with the blackest manifestation of human iniquity and sinfulness.

Come to the throne of grace and obtain mercy, grace to help in time of need, blessing fitting and suitable for sinners such as you and me. I preach with feeling, and if the feeling was too intense, I apologize. But God is my judge when I tell you that this sort of teaching in the scripture, it moves me to my very being.

I find it hard to discover words in the English vernacular to register publicly what my reaction is to the God of glory who has done great things such as this for a sinner like me. From His word I would shrink. From His presence I would run away.

But for the fact, I have a great High Priest, one who feels for me, one who entered into my situation, one who preserved His sinlessness intact, and then, wonder of all wonders, one remarkable day on Calvary's cross, He passed out His righteousness to those who would claim it and took upon Himself for His dress the sinful rags of a person like me. Well might Luther say in one of his commentaries, having assessed the way to verses 12 and 13, after terrifying us, the Apostle now comforts us. After pouring wine into our wound, He now pours in oil.

Thank God for His word. Thank God for His discerning eye. But praise God, we're not just left with the word that exposes and the eye which perceives.

We are directed to a priest, the great High Priest who makes it possible for our iniquities to be forgiven. All my iniquities, I say it again, on Him were laid. He bore them all to the tree.

And now that holy, perfect, immaculate God receives me as a son, receives you. And the invitation comes from Calvary, come boldly unto the throne of grace. Don't stand back like the Hebrews had to do at Sinai.

Come up, come to Calvary, go beyond Calvary into the holiest place of all and find there a welcome, because the veil's been rent in two. Jesus has opened up a new and living way whereby sinners can be reconciled eternally to a holy God. Thanks be to God.

Amen. Father God, we just thank you again for all your goodness to us. We praise you for your word.

So often we read a passage and we think we've plumbed its depth and then it's opened up again and we see that there was a lot, lot more to it. And even this evening, Father, you know the gold that is still to be mined from those three verses of Scripture. Give us an earnestness, a desire to dig deep into your word and to profit thereby.

Send us on our way rejoicing. And again, we thank you for our fellowship together in the name of Jesus. Amen.