Friday 5th
Hebrews 2:10-18
NIV (vv17-18) – ‘For this reason he had to be made like them, fully human in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.’
ESV (vv17-18) – ‘Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.’
Today we come to the second part following from yesterday ‘in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people’
Jesus had to be made like his brothers, that is he had to partake of flesh and blood so that he might become a merciful and high priest who would offer himself to be the propitiation for our sin. He had to be like us to be able to die for us and to be able to represent us. Two words come from this which I used recently while speaking on a Sunday morning, Jesus became flesh so that he could become both our advocate and our atonement. As with yesterday these are two subjects which we can keep returning to glean from and learn something new. In our thinking we would consider the atonement to come first and as a result Jesus would become our high priest, yet in coming to this world he was already acting as our advocate for his humbling himself and emptying himself was to come as the one who would act between sinful humanity and the holy God. Hebrews 7:27 ‘He has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of the people, since he did this once for all when he offered up himself.’
There is a sense in which his priestly work commenced the moment Jesus agreed to come to this fallen world, for he came as the priest to offer a sacrifice for the sins of the world and he offered himself as the sacrifice, which would be the atoning sacrifice for the sin of the world, thus he become both the one who offered the sacrifice as the priest and the sacrifice itself. ‘He offered himself’. He became a merciful and a faithful high priest in the service of God, this speaks of his willing obedience to the work that God had given him to do, it was in the garden as the moment had come to offer himself, he prayed, ‘“Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.”’ (Luke 22:42)
The word merciful is a word that describes that as our high priest Jesus is full of mercy, it is said of God that he is a God who is a merciful God, ‘The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.’ (Psalm 103:8) We see also in Exodus 34:6-7 ‘. . . “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin . . .’ So in emptying himself, becoming flesh, Jesus was able to become our merciful high priest, and as such he came to bring mercy and grace, shown in his mercy toward us as sinners demonstrated by his willingness to take our place and to die on our behalf. Being a merciful high priest shows that he was on our side as a man willing to represent us before God, first at the Cross and then after his ascension at the throne of God. The word faithful means that he was faithful first in his service for God, but he is also faithful in his advocacy for mankind.
We will look at the subject of Jesus our priest again as we go through this epistle, for his priesthood comes up a few times. For now, let’s remember that we have a priest and apostle, who has gone through the curtain, he offered himself once for all time for our sin, and he now stands in the presence of God interceding as our great high priest.