6:4 For concerning those who were once enlightened and tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Spirit, (5) and tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, (6) and then fell away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance; seeing they crucify the Son of God for themselves again, and put him to open shame.

Many within the Christian church believe the doctrine of “once saved, always saved”, but clearly the writer to the Hebrews was not among them! He piles expression upon expression to make it clear that these people were saved, but have now turned away from that salvation.

Firstly, he says they “were once enlightened.” The Bible frequently refers to those who are in sin as being in darkness, while those who have come to Christ are in the light. (e.g. John 3:19-21; Ephesians 5:8; 2 Corinthians 4:6) Paul also prays for the Christians to be enlightened to know more of their relationship with Christ (Ephesians 1:18.) Clearly, to be enlightened is to be brought out of the darkness of sin and lack of understanding of God’s ways, and into the light of Christ.

These ones have also “tasted of the heavenly gift.” What is that gift? We could say that it is the Holy Spirit, but since He is mentioned in the next breath it is unlikely that the writer was repeating himself. We could say the gift is Christ Himself, God’s greatest gift to mankind. However, I am more inclined to think he is referring to the gift spoken of by Paul in Romans 6:23 “The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” If one has tasted of the gift that is Christ, or the gift that is salvation, then that one is saved.

They were “made partakers of the Holy Ghost.” The writer doesn’t say that they had merely experienced the Holy Spirit, or been touched by Him – they are “partakers”: they have actually received Him. The only way someone can receive the Holy Spirit is by being born again.

That they “have tasted of the good word of God” does not, in itself, necessarily mean that they were believers, but piled here with the previous expressions it adds to their weight. Further, they have also tasted “of the powers of the world to come.” This suggests that they have not just experienced the effects of those powers, but have actually had them operating in their own lives.

Putting all these expressions together, it is extremely difficult to imagine that the writer is talking about people who were never truly saved. The question then arises, if salvation is only by grace, how is it possible to lose it? If nothing I could ever do could earn my salvation, and it was given to me purely as a gift of God’s grace based on the finished work of Christ, how can anything I do cause me to lose that salvation? This, of course, is the argument put forward by those who believe Once Saved Always Saved.

However, there was something we had to do: not as a work, but as an act of faith. We had to stop relying on our own works and accept God’s gift of grace. If we stop holding to that grace and return to relying on our own works, then surely we lose what we could only receive by grace. There are two ways in which this can happen, and both involve getting our eyes off the Lord and on to ourselves. Firstly, we can start to believe we are “good enough.” We begin to see the person we have become in Christ, and start to credit that growth to our own efforts rather than the power of the Holy Spirit working in our lives. We become puffed up, and begin to think that we did God a favor by coming to Him.

At the opposite extreme, we can begin to think that we are “too bad.” Maybe we have struggled with some issues and failed, and the devil begins to beat us up and tell us what a terrible Christian we are. We join the chorus of condemnation, and soon we are thinking that we are just too bad for God’s grace, that He could never forgive one such as us.

Both of these put us on the slippery slope to losing hold of God’s grace. It is not easy to let go of our salvation, but it is possible. If satan could fall from perfection, and if Adam and Eve could fall from perfection, then it is possible for us also.

God’s grace will hold us through many falls. It will even allow us to seemingly go away from God for a time and come back, if somewhere down in our heart we are still clinging to that grace. But that is a dangerous path to take, for the further we go away the more our heart becomes hardened. We need to guard our hearts and remind ourselves constantly that we stand only by grace, but by grace we do stand (even if we have some temporary stumbles.)

6:1 – Therefore leaving the teaching of the first principles of Christ, let’s press on to perfection—not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works, of faith toward God, (2) of the teaching of baptisms, of laying on of hands, of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment. (3) This will we do, if God permits.

The basic teachings of the faith are essential: without them we would have no understanding of our sin and our need for a Savior, nor of how to take hold of the grace that is extended to us in Christ. These things are the foundations on which our faith is built, and the writer is not at all suggesting that we should forget about them. Even as mature Christians there are times when we need to “get back to basics”, reminding ourselves of the essentials of our faith. Even as mature Christians we need to repent of anything in our lives that is not of God; and we need to stir up our faith to new levels. We need to remain aware of the resurrection and subsequent judgment, not only for ourselves but to stir up our compassion for others.

So why is the writer saying we must “leave” these things and “go on” to perfection? All these things are important, but they are only the beginning of the things that God has for us, and that He wants to teach us. Yet it seems that many churches, then as now, focused on nothing but going over and over these same teachings. We often find this when the “pastor” is an evangelist – the church hears nothing but the salvation message, in 101 different flavors, repeated endlessly each week. Whilst it is good that the Gospel of Salvation is being preached, and often the church will see many people coming to salvation, once they are saved there is nothing to help them grow. Often such churches see a stream of mature Christians exiting to pastures where they can find food.

The word translated “perfection” here is maturity. The Gospel of Salvation – the message for baby Christians – is all about us: we are sinners who stand in danger of God’s judgment; we need someone to save us from that judgment; God provided that Savior in Christ, who died in our place paying the penalty of our sins; if we repent and receive Him we are forgiven and assured of eternal life in heaven with Him. All of that is true and wonderful; and every baby believes that the world is all about him. (Ever noticed how babies have to be the center of attention at all times, and how they make their voices heard loud and clear if they are not?)

As we go on to maturity in God, however, we learn that the Gospel is really not all about us. We learn that the grace and forgiveness that we received so freely came at an awful cost. We learn that God is not our servant, running behind us to clean up all our messes, but the King and Lord of the universe who demands our service. We learn that salvation is not just for “me” but for “the world”, and that we have a part in taking it to the world. We learn that the most important thing is not that “I get to heaven when I die”, but that the Kingdom of God is established. If we try to embrace these concepts without having laid the foundations properly, then we are in danger of moving into legalism and works; but if, having laid the foundations, we do not move on to these deeper levels of understanding, then we condemn ourselves to remain in immaturity.

An even greater danger is that a lack of growth will see our faith shrivel and die. It is a rule of nature that nothing remains constant: we are either going forward or backward, either growing or shrinking. To remain at a baby level in the faith, failing to grow to maturity, could result in us eventually falling away from the faith altogether.

5:11 About him we have many words to say, and hard to interpret, seeing you have become dull of hearing.

Once again the writer diverts from his teaching to issue a stern warning to his readers. This time it is not about falling away from the faith, but about their failure to go on to maturity. He is not rebuking them for any natural lack of intelligence, for which they could hardly be held responsible. Rather, just as the “fool” who “says in his heart, ‘There is no God'” (Psalm 14-1) is not intellectually challenged but rather chooses the foolishness of unbelief, those addressed here have chosen to be “dull of hearing”, listening to and receiving only those parts of the Gospel that they find easy and comfortable. The Greek suggests someone who walks slowly and heavily, not able to keep up – or, perhaps more to the point in this case, not willing to keep up.

v. 12 For although by this time you should be teachers, you again need to have someone teach you the rudiments of the first principles of the revelations of God. You have come to need milk, and not solid food.

We are saved to serve, and those addressed had now been Christians for long enough that they should have moved on to the place where they would be able to instruct others. Instead, the writer finds it necessary to go back over teachings that they should have fully grasped at the beginning of their Christian walk. The context suggests a turning back: once they had begun to go on to a deeper understanding of the Word, but now they have drawn back, not even fully grasping the basics. Perhaps they had shied away from the implications of a deeper understanding, knowing that “of him to whom much is given, much is expected.” Perhaps they had allowed false teaching to creep in, so that now the writer has to take them back to the foundations of the faith. Or perhaps they had simply become lazy, unwilling to apply their minds to the things of God. Whatever the case, they are now capable of receiving only the most basic of teaching (“milk”), rather than the deeper understanding that the writer wants to impart to them.

v.13 For everyone who lives on milk is not experienced in the word of righteousness, for he is a baby.

Milk provides an infant with all he needs to establish his life: both nourishment for growth and, through the antibodies passed from his mother, protection against the attack of disease. Likewise the “milk” of the Word, the Gospel of salvation, gives us the basic spiritual food we need to start to grow in our Christian lives. It teaches us that we are saved by God’s grace, that we are forgiven and brought into His family; and it gives us a protection against the attack of the enemy.

The baby, however, does not know what to do with the milk, other than to drink what is presented to him. He cannot take that milk and offer it to another. He cannot prepare a meal for himself. He is totally dependent upon the one who feeds him.

No-one would criticize a baby for drinking milk, or for his dependency. Milk-drinking is a vital stage of his development. However, if the child were to reach physical adulthood and still be drinking nothing but milk, still unable to feed himself much less others, we would consider there to be something dreadfully wrong. Likewise, if he grew to a point where he could prepare his own meals, then reverted to the milk bottle, we would be justifiably concerned.

For believers, too, there is a time when it is appropriate to take in the “milk”. It would be a disaster for a new believer to try to grasp the deeper things of the Spirit without having the basic foundations of the faith right first. The time comes, however, when those foundations should be so firmly established in our lives that we no longer need to be constantly re-learning them: we are ready to move on to a more mature understanding, and to being able to provide spiritual food for others.

v. 14 But solid food is for those who are full grown, who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern good and evil.

Here is the crunch. Simply learning, as an intellectual exercise, will not move us from the “milk” to the “meat” stage. Just as we have physical senses, we have spiritual senses, and we are to use them to grow in the Word. We need to “see” the truths that God is revealing; to “hear” Him speaking to us in the Word and eventually in our own spirit; to “taste and see that He is good.”

The Christian faith is not a mere philosophy, and treating it as such may well place us in the position of embracing false teachings, and therefore needing to return to the “milk” to get the basics right. What is needed is discernment and action. Not every “deep” teaching that is presented to us will be rooted in the Word of God. We need to know the Word well enough to be able to determine what is true to it, and what is not. We need to live out the Word, so that it becomes an experiential reality in our lives, not just a theory. “Good” and “evil” are not determined by philosophy, but by use. It is as we pray the Word, as we live by the Word, as we allow the Word to shape us and cause us to grow in grace, that we begin to move from babyhood to maturity.

5:8 though he was a Son, yet learned obedience by the things which he suffered.

Generally when we talk about someone “learning to obey” we are implying that previously that person had been somewhat less than obedient. Here, however, that is not at all the case. Christ had to “learn obedience” because the need for obedience was never part of His experience before the incarnation. For all eternity Father, Son and Holy Spirit had lived in perfect harmony. All were equal, and the Son shared the heart of the Father. The question of obedience never arose because their wills were in perfect harmony. The Son had never known what it was like to have to choose the will of another over His own.

When He became man, whilst His essential relationship with the Father did not change, His position did. He had stepped down to become “a little lower than the angels.” In Himself, Christ always remained equal to the Father, but as our representative He now stood in a lower position, and that position required obedience. In fact, one of the reasons for His becoming man was to be able to give that obedience, and in doing so to reverse the disobedience of Adam. Even though He did not have the sin nature that so readily pulls us into disobedience, He did have a human nature and a human body, and He knew the pull of those to have their needs met. Nonetheless, it was not until the Garden of Gethsemane, when He faced the imminent reality of bearing the weight of sin for all mankind, that a real conflict arose and He had to choose between the destiny that had been planned for Him in the council of the Godhead and the cry of every fiber of His human nature to run from that destiny. In the midst of the most intense suffering ever known to man, the One to whom the obedience of all creation is due learned what it means to bow to the will of another.

Of course, there were other levels of obedience that He also learned throughout His life: obedience to His earthly parents, whom He had created; obedience to the Law, which He had written; obedience to the earthly authorities, which He had set in place (as long as they did not act against the higher law of God.) All these steps along the way gave Him a deeper experiential understanding of people, and better equipped Him as our High Priest.

v. 9. Having been made perfect, he became to all of those who obey him the author of eternal salvation, (10) named by God a high priest after the order of Melchizedek.

Again, this is not suggesting that Christ was, in Himself, anything less than perfect. Perfection is part of His nature as God, and even though He laid aside His divine power and privilege to become man, He always retained His divine nature. To perfectly represent us, however, He had to experience what we experience: the tug-of-war between our will and the will of God. To fully bear our sin, He had to experience the effects of that sin. To undo Adam’s rebellion, He had to face a situation in which there was a real choice between comfort for the flesh and obedience to the Lord.

Fortunately for all of us, He passed that test. He chose obedience rather than comfort: “Not My will, but Yours.” That choice qualified Him as the sin-bearer. Because of that choice, He was able to pay the penalty for my sins and yours. Because of that choice, He was able to open for us the doors of eternal life with Him.

In later chapters, the writer goes on to enlarge upon the ministry of Melchisedek, how it differed from the Levitical priesthood, and why Christ was declared to be a priest of the former rather than the latter.

5:7 He, in the days of his flesh, having offered up prayers and petitions with strong crying and tears to him who was able to save him from death, and having been heard for his godly fear,

The “he” here obviously refers to Christ, who has been the subject of the preceding paragraphs. The writer makes it clear that he is talking about Christ’s time on earth (“in the days of His flesh”), not something that happened before His incarnation or after His ascension. Back in verse 2 he had laid the foundation that earthly priests, who shared the humanity of those to whom they ministered, needed to be able to have compassion on their fellow men; and that compassion was based on their own weakness. Here he sets out to demonstrate that Christ, even though He was God in the flesh, also experienced weakness, and was able to have compassion on others because he shared their experience.

He presents an increasing intensity of prayer. First, he says, Christ offered up prayers. It is interesting that He who had perfect communion with the Father still found it necessary to pray. I have heard people who, in their arrogance, say that they have such a close walk with the Lord that they no longer need to pray. Yet the One whose walk was closer than that of any other person who has ever lived, felt the need to take time for prayer. Prayer is basic communication with God, bringing our requests before Him and trusting Him for the answers.

Next the writer mentions supplications. This is much stronger than normal prayer. There is the sense of the condemned man crying out to the judge for mercy: an urgent, desperate pleading to be spared.

Then it gets even more intense – strong crying and tears. This was not the temper tantrum of an unruly child who is not getting his own way, but the anguish of One who desperately seeks release from the fate that awaits him.

We need to ask ourselves: what was it that brought such an intense, passionate plea from Christ to the Father? Most people think that it was the thought of the physical suffering that He was to endure the next day. But when He sweat blood as He cried out “let this cup pass”, I believe He was thinking of much more than physical pain, as dreadful as that was to be. I believe He was battling with the thought of the spiritual agony He would endure as the garbage of mankind’s sins was piled on Him, the sinless One.

Yet there was even more to it than that, and the key is in the last part of this verse: “having been heard for his godly fear” Now if we see the first part of the verse only in terms of Christ praying to be delivered from the necessity of dying on the Cross – whether because of the physical pain or the spiritual agony – then this part of the verse does not make sense. Jesus was not delivered from the Cross. He had to endure it’s agony to the full. He had to drink the cup.

So how can the Word of God say that He was heard? Did the Father, as one commentator suggests, hear but not answer His prayers? Such a “hearing” certainly does not offer the satisfaction that this verse implies. So how was He heard?

We know that, as He hung on the Cross, Christ was there not as Himself but as us: our substitute, bearing our sins and paying the penalty for them. We know, too, that even before He reached the Cross, as He stood in the judgment hall of Pilate, He stood not as Himself but as us: that is why He remained silent. As Himself, He could have defended His innocence. As us, He stood guilty.

In the same way, I would like to suggest that, at least in part, His prayers and supplications in the Garden were not as Himself but as us. He was looking, not just to the next day and the agony of the Cross, but to eternity and the agony of hell that was the just sentence for every person. He cried out for deliverance not just from the physical death that He was about to endure, but from the eternal death that awaited mankind. In that, He was heard. From that, He – as us – was delivered.

… for his godly fear

Probably better rendered “because of His fear (of God)”. Man’s lack of the fear of God lies at the root of all sin. If man had a healthy fear of God, sin would not be a problem. Christ alone had no need to fear God – as God the Son, His relationship was perfect; and as the Son of God his life was sinless. But as man – as us – He could fear, for more than any other He knew the power of God’s justice and righteousness. He could not hide under the imagination that God is just some kind of benevolent grandfather who, in the end, will just pat everyone on the head and say, “There, there, it’s ok. Your intentions were good so you don’t have to worry.” He knew the truth of what God’s judgment would bring to man, and He feared for man.

A perfect representative for us, He not only suffered Himself, but He suffered for us, as us, in our place. He truly fulfilled the requirement of priesthood.

5:4 Nobody takes this honor on himself, but he is called by God, just like Aaron was.

The false religions of the day appointed to priesthood anyone they pleased; and in fact the Jewish priesthood had itself declined to that point, with the High Priest being a secular appointment. That, however, was not the Lord’s original intention. When the people of Israel rejected God’s call to be a nation of priests, He appointed a single tribe, the Levites, as the one from which all priests would come. He then went further and appointed a single family, that of Aaron. The High Priests were to be chosen, not for any personal quality, but for their position in that family. They were part of that family because of God’s grace – it was impossible for them to have done anything to have merited being born into the line of Aaron. Thus the Old Testament priesthood foreshadowed the New Testament call to ministry, which is based not on the merits, abilities or qualifications of the individual, but on God’s grace.

Whilst the Old Testament priest could not merit his position, neither could he choose it for himself. One who was not of the family of Aaron could not simply decide to become a High Priest. The choice was completely in the hands of the Lord.

New Testament ministry is not based on family lines and inheritance, as was the Old Testament priesthood, but on a spiritual call. Nonetheless, the appointment is totally from God. No man or woman can call himself or herself to ministry. Neither can any individual, or even the church as a body, call another person to ministry. The most we can do is to recognize the call that God has already placed on the individual’s life.

That, however, is not the writer’s point here. Rather, he is demonstrating that, just as the priests of the Old Covenant held their office purely by the call of God, so did Christ.

5. So also Christ didn’t glorify himself to be made a high priest, but it was he who said to him,

“You are my Son. Today I have become your father.” (6) As he says also in another place, “You are a priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek.”

Aaron’s appointment as High Priest came directly from the Lord. For those who followed him in the office, their appointment came from God through the fact that He had caused them to be born into the family of Aaron. Christ, however, was not appointed because of His human lineage, but by a direct word from the Father. His appointment was a result of His relationship with the Father, not his natural family.

Here the writer takes the opportunity to introduce a new theme. Not only is Christ’s priesthood better than that of the Old Covenant priests, it is of an entirely different nature. He will go on in subsequent chapters to expand upon both the specifics of the Melchisedeck priesthood and the differences between it and the Aaronic priesthood.

5.2 The high priest can deal gently with those who are ignorant and going astray, because he himself is also surrounded with weakness.

Carrying on from verse 1, this verse continues the qualifications of an earthly high priest. As a human man, the priest was himself a sinner, subject to all the same weaknesses and temptations as those to whom he ministered, as well as the frailties and restrictions of a human body. Therefore the priest should be understanding of those under his care. He should be able to fully empathize with their situations, to put himself in their shoes, and to act with gentleness and compassion toward them. As one who shared the same fallen humanity as them, the priest had no reason to exalt himself above his flock, or to lord it over them.

What a stark contrast this ideal was to the reality of the priests and leaders of Jesus’ day! For the most part these men were puffed up with pride in their position, looking down their noses at the unlearned masses whom they collectively dubbed as “sinners” (implying that they, the religious leaders, were not.) Most of these men had so far removed themselves from the ordinary people, and so totally blinded themselves to their own weaknesses, that any thought of them treating the people with empathy and compassion would have been almost laughable.

Jesus, on the other hand, fully personified the role of the compassionate priest, treating everyone with understanding and gentleness, whilst never making light of the seriousness of sin. Yet He did not share the sinful frailties of those with whom He dealt. We are reminded of the story of the woman taken in adultery. “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone,” Jesus had said, knowing full well that, as the only sinless One present, He alone had the right to cast that stone. And when all the others had left in their guilt, He threw neither stones nor condemnation at her, but simply told her to go and leave her sinful life.

5.3 Because of this, he must offer sacrifices for sins for the people, as well as for himself.

The whole of the Old Covenant sacrificial system affirmed to the priest that he was also a sinner, guilty before a holy God. He did not come just to offer sacrifices for the sin of the people. First, he must receive a covering for his own sins.

Somehow the priests of the day had managed to forget that minor detail. Perhaps they saw the sacrifice for their own sins as simply a ritual, not really related to their personal lives. Their attitude was certainly not that of sinners dependent upon God’s grace.

Again we see the contrast with Jesus. Whilst the priests, who were themselves sinners, distanced themselves from the sin of the people, Jesus, the sinless One, allowed the sin and guilt of mankind to be placed upon Him. He did not need to bring offerings for His own sin, but He became the perfect offering for ours.

5:1 For every high priest, being taken from among men, is appointed for men in things pertaining to God, that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins.

The first thing we see is that every high priest – both those of the Old Covenant and Christ, the one and only High Priest of the New Covenant – is “taken from among men”. We saw earlier in this study that part of the function of a priest is to represent man before God. Any person can only represent those with whom he has common ground: he must be part of a group before he can be its representative.

For the Old Covenant, this meant that the priests had to be Israelites: a foreigner could not represent the nation of Israel before the Lord. Christ, however, came to represent not just Israel, but the whole of mankind. Therefore He had to be fully human. For the Old Covenant priesthood this was not an issue – after all, there was nowhere other than the pool of mankind from which priests could be drawn. For the New Covenant it becomes an issue, since there were those who said that Christ never truly became human, but merely took on the appearance of humanity. The writer makes it clear that this was not the case. To simply look like a man would never have qualified Him to represent man: for that, He had to be man in the fullest possible sense, whilst never ceasing to be fully God.

… is appointed for men …

The high priest – or, for that matter, any priest – is not ordained by men, but for men. Under the original rules for the priesthood, the high priest could come only from the line of Aaron, and his ordination was for life. Thus, the appointment could only be made by God, for only He could order the man’s family line and order of birth.

By the time of Christ both these things had been lost. The high priesthood had become a kind of political appointment, and served on a rotational basis. There could even be several high priests at one time. This was not according to God’s purposes. The writer points us back to the original truth: ordination does not come from man, but from God. Likewise today, it would be good for some churches and denominations to remember that ordination to ministry is not conferred by the church or denomination: all they can do is give public recognition to the ordination that has already been given by God.

Whilst the priest was not ordained by men, he was ordained for men. God did not need a priesthood. His original purpose was that the whole nation of Israel would be as priests, representing Him to the rest of the world and the word before Him. (Exodus 19:6). Indeed, at the time of creation, the whole of mankind had been designated as God’s representatives. (Genesis 1:26-28) The priesthood was introduced as a concession to man’s need to have someone stand between him and God. The thing that created that need was man’s sin. It was sin that caused the Israelites to say to Moses, “You speak to us, and we will hear; but do not let God speak to us, lest we die” (Exodus 20:19) – their sin made the holiness of God fearful to them, rather than desirable, and they chose second-hand religion rather than have their sins exposed. At a more basic level, it was the sin of mankind that made it necessary for Christ to come as the ultimate High Priest to represent all of us before the Father.

… that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins.

There are many aspects to the character of God, but they may be broadly classed into two groups: His goodness and His justice. His justice sees Him as the righteous and holy One, the lawgiver and judge, the King and Lord of all. His justice demands that sin be punished, that a penalty be paid. Under the Old Covenant the priests offered continual sacrifices in recognition of God’s justice. They were only temporary measures, providing a short-term covering for sin, and pointing forward to Christ, Whose sacrifice alone could truly deal with sin once and for all.

His goodness presents Him as creator, sustainer, lover, giver, healer, comforter – all the things which we see as blessings in our lives. For all these, we are to give Him thanks and praise. In the Old Covenant, this was done by bringing thank offerings or freewill offerings. These were not intended to deal with sin, but simply to express the giver’s gratitude and commitment to God. We generally miss out on this aspect of Christ’s ministry. He did not have to go to the Cross. There was nothing in His own life that required sacrifice on His own behalf. His death was a sacrifice given on our behalf, to pay the penalty of our sins. But for Himself, His death was a free will offering. He could have said “no” in the garden of Gethsemane. For that matter, He could have said “no” to the incarnation. At this level, His life and death were a love gift to the Father, enabling the salvation of mankind and the restoration of the Kingdom on earth. Yet in another sense this was also given “for” us: a man, representing mankind, offering to the Father the ultimate gift of love.

4:16 Let’s therefore draw near with boldness to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and may find grace for help in time of need.

We have a high priest who has been touched by our weaknesses … therefore let us come. This is a radical departure from the understanding of the Old Covenant. Under the Old Covenant, the function of the priest was to stand between man and God. Back at Mt Sinai, when God was giving the nation of Israel His commandments through Moses, the people were afraid to come near to God. They said to Moses, “You speak to us, and we will hear. But don’t let God speak to us, or we might die.” (Exodus 20:19). From that time forward, the priests approached God in the people’s place, thus maintaining a distance between God and the people.

Christ, however, does not come to bring a separation between God and man, but to bring reconciliation. Rather than standing between man and the Father, He stands at the Father’s right hand and bids us come.

Not only that, but He bids us come boldly: not cowering in fear or guilt; not pleading or begging for the things we want; but as ones who stand in Christ, and in Him have been given full right of access.

… the throne of grace …

For sinners, it is the throne of judgment. Outside of Christ, only a fool would even contemplate coming boldly into the presence of God. But for us, the Cross has changed all that. Christ bore the judgment we deserved, and God extends His favor toward us. Grace is not about God turning a blind eye to sin, but rather that He applies Christ’s righteousness to us. Because of Christ’s righteousness, He offers us cleansing, forgiveness, restoration, healing. Because of Christ’s righteousness He sends the Holy Spirit to live in our spirits, enabling us to live as Christ lived.

… that we may receive mercy …

Every one of us needs God’s mercy, not just when we first come to Christ, but every day of our lives. How terrible it would be if God’s mercy were a “one-off” proposition: receive it once, then you’re on your own. None of us would survive. Praise God that “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9)

… and may find grace for help in time of need.

Whatever needs we may have, whether spiritual or material, God’s grace reaches out to us with help. Whether we come for our own needs or those of someone else, God is there, willing to point us to the answers. We just need to come to Him with confidence, knowing that He has invited us to come and that He has given us authority to ask whatever we will.

We do, however, need to understand that there is a difference between coming boldly, as God invites us, and coming arrogantly. I have heard people pray and demand (actually using the words, “I demand”) that God do this or that. That is not Biblical boldness, but fleshly arrogance. God is always willing to help us, but it is as a Father helping His children, or as a Master helping His servants – not as a servant to be ordered about.

4:15 For we don’t have a high priest who can’t be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but one who has been in all points tempted like we are, yet without sin.

In the preceding verse we were urged to “hold fast [our] profession.” The reason we can do this – the reason we must do this – is because we have such a high priest.

The priests of the Old Covenant, as indeed the priests of most of the world’s religions, held themselves aloof from the people. They emphasized their separateness, their holiness. In fact there are many even within the Church today who teach that leaders should hold themselves apart from their people. Far be it from them to allow anyone to see them as having any human needs or weaknesses!

Jesus was not like that. Even though He alone, of all mankind, had the right to hold Himself apart from the rest of man, He did not do so. He chose to partake fully in humanity, laying aside everything that it meant to be God and being made like us in every way. Not only that, but He chose to come as a man at the humblest level. He was born into a family that was so poor that it could not afford the regular offering for purification after the birth, but had to bring the “poor man’s alternative” of a pair of doves or two young pigeons. (Luke 2:24, Leviticus 12:8) He lived as an ordinary man among ordinary people, sharing with them all the hardships of life in the Middle Eastern world of 2000 years ago. He knew what it felt like to be human! He knew what it was like to be poor!

He knew what it was like to be part of a despised, persecuted, downtrodden race. He could have chosen to come like Paul, a Jew who could proudly say that he had been born a Roman citizen, with all the privileges that involved. Instead, He chose to be born into a family who came from Nazareth, a town considered even by the Jews to be “the pits”. Those from Nazareth were despised even by their own people.

He also knew what it was like to be subjected to temptation. It is difficult for us to get our heads around the concept that the One Who was God in the flesh could be truly tempted, but temptation is common to the human experience, therefore the One Who was representing humanity had to experience it.

In fact, temptation was essential to the fulfillment of His mission on earth. His task was to undo what had been done by Adam. God gave man free will, and our first parents used that will to chose the devil’s way rather than God’s. Therefore the Second Adam had to also have free will – there had to be a real possibility of Him choosing other than God. And He had to freely use that will to chose God’s way rather than the devil’s. We may wrestle with the question of what would have happened if He had chosen sin, but the possibility had to be real.

If we think for a moment about just the temptations in the wilderness after His baptism, we will see how real these temptations must have been. The first one invited Him to turn stones into bread. He had been fasting for 40 days. (Note, this was a true 40-day fast; nothing passed His lips for 40 days. It was not 40 1-day fasts with a meal at the end of each day, as some people do and claim to have fasted 40 days) He was hungry, weak, and very much in need of food. Most of us could have readily justified doing this. Eating would in itself not have been sinful. He had completed His fasting time, so He would not be sinning by breaking the fast. The power of the Holy Spirit within Him had been instrumental in creating the universe – surely it would not have been sinful to use that power to create the food He needed. The temptation was real, and strong.

But He knew that the sin would not lie in the act itself, but in the motivation: a desire to justify Himself, and to become his own source of supply rather than looking to the Father as His supply. If He had done this, He would have been acting as God to Himself – the very temptation to which Adam and Eve had yielded.

Then the devil tempted Him to take the rulership of the world without having to go through the cross: “All this I will give you, if you bow down and worship me.” Looking forward through the years, knowing the physical pain, the mental and emotional anguish and humiliation, and the spiritual defilement that He would have to experience, this must have been a very real temptation indeed. Who of us would not willingly take up an offer to reach our goals without any suffering?

The last temptation was to presume upon God. The devil even used Scripture to back that one! How wrong could it be for the Christ to claim the Scripture and show Himself to be God’s beloved Son? Many would see it as simply a demonstration of faith. In fact, many have done so and learned to their great loss that God has no obligation to back presumption. We presume upon God when we tear promises out of His Word and attach them to things that He has not authorized. I think, for instance, of the young girls in the Indonesian revival who thought that, because Jesus walked on water, they should do so too. They tried to walk across a flooded river and, tragically, drowned. God had not told them to do it, and did not back their presumption.

These were by no means the only temptations that came to Jesus. Even though we are not given details of others, we can be sure that the devil was constantly attacking Him throughout His life, just as he attacks us. Temptation is common to man.

The difference is that Jesus did not at any point yield to those temptations. Sin is not a natural part of man’s make-up, but the result of our choices. Jesus made the right choices every time, and remained without sin.

Sometimes we excuse our sin by saying, “Well, I’m only human after all.” Jesus was the most fully human person who has ever lived, and He did not sin. Being human does not make us sinners; making wrong choices does.