Jesus, Our Perfect High Priest!
Hebrews 2:5-18
Harry Stoliker
June 18, 2006 EBC
Hopefully we can finish Chapter 2 this morning!! I will try to unwrap the
package for you, the package of what this chapter is saying. Let me start at the
last phrase in the chapter and use it as the goal toward which everything
else is headed. I’ll try to point everything else in the chapter toward that
verse. V.18 “…he is able to help those who are being tempted.” That
should capture your attention because it is where you live from day to day.
You are tempted every day, aren’t you! It’s a battle to walk with the Lord
in the holiness of His will. What is a temptation? It is a well-disguised
lie that something in this world is more satisfying and better for your soul
than Jesus Christ is. This lie of the devil is so cleverly masked and cloaked
that you have a hard time not believing it. Sometimes you swallow the lie hook, line,
and sinker and suffer the consequences of seeking your soul’s satisfaction
in things that bring death, not life. You need someone who can bring you to
God out of that temptation, someone who can come to your aid and
help you through it so that you don’t get damaged by it. You need someone
right at the moment when the devil’s lie sounds so very convincing and attractive
and your passions are running wild, to come and help you see the devastating
consequences of giving in to him.
Who is that Someone? He is Jesus Christ our Perfect High Priest!
What is a high priest? The answer is given to us in Heb. 5:1-2 “Every
high priest is selected from among men and is appointed to represent them in matters
related to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. He is able to deal
gently with those who are ignorant and are going astray, since he himself is subject
to weakness.” Do we have anyone like that to help us in our battle against
Satan’s lies and temptations? Look back at 4:14-15 “Therefore, since we
have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of
God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest
who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted
in every way, just as we are - yet was without sin.”
So, in the middle of the worst kind of temptation, the most fierce,
the most severe, the most luring, the most enticing, the most
persuading, the most powerful temptation you will ever face…you have
someone who is able to come to your aid and give you the victory!!
That is why we read in 1 Cor. 10:13 “No temptation has seized you except what
is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond
what you can bear. But with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape,
that you may be able to endure it.”
Now, think about it for a second, if you are in the most dangerous and fierce
winter snow and ice storm of history, how skilled and qualified would
you want the pilot of your commercial airliner to be? If you were
undergoing the most complex and dangerous heart or brain surgery, how qualified
or skilled would you want your surgeons to be? Would you mind
looking down a long list of their qualifications, experience, abilities, awards
and accomplishments just before surgery? I don’t think so!! You would really
like to be comforted by seeing that list and knowing that they could come
to your aid in such severe danger! If we would only realized how
dangerous the lies and temptations of Satan are to our spiritual health,
we’d love to see a long list of Jesus qualifications to be our perfect high priest
who comes to our aid in trouble!
Well, that’s how I see the content of chapter 2! It all leads up to the glorious
statement in V.18 “He is able…to help…those who are being tempted.”
What we have are: 11 Reason Why Jesus is Our Perfect High Priest! For the sake of
feeling the impact of the list as a whole unit, I won’t go as deeply
into each of them as we could.
1. V.5 He is the ruler of the world to come – We may quickly think that this
phrase is pointing to the future consummated kingdom at the end of human history.
Yet, it is a Jewish phrase that points to the state of things that
takes place under the Messiah. It is the Messianic reign that began
at the first coming of Jesus Christ. It is the era of fulfillment
that the author has been talking about since V.2 of chapter 1: “in
these last days…” We now live in the era of fulfillment, the
world to come seen from the perspective of the OT prophets. Jesus can help
us in all temptations because He rules this world in which we live.
Angels don’t.
In V.6-9 The author uses Ps. 8 to show that although Jesus became a man,
made a little lower than the angels during his incarnation, he has
now been crowned with glory and honor by God the Father. God has in fact
put everything under his feet, that is, Jesus is the supreme ruler of the
universe, even though now it doesn’t appear that way to the human
eye. V8b “Yet at present we do not see everything subject to him.”
It looks like there are enemy forces still active and some people
who are still in rebellion against Jesus and not under his control. Don’t
be fooled. Use the eye of faith to see the reality of Christ’s Kingship!
Jesus can come to your aid in the worst temptations because He is the sovereign King.
Kings have power and resources and armies and weaponry!
2. V.9 He tasted death for us – Jesus went all the way to ‘tasting death’
for us. That is way beyond the level of any temptation we will every face.
We face a certain level of pressure from temptation A or B and we cave in.
Jesus stripped all the gears of temptation, he absorbed the greatest amount
of force the devil could bring on, and still resisted perfectly without
every sinning, not once! He exhausted the devil’s ability to tempt anyone! On top
of that he tasted the pain, suffering and agony of death. “Tasted” is a metaphor
for taking it in, experiencing it. Here we have a phrase that raises the deep
question of “For whom did Jesus die?” The text simply says:
“for everyone.” We will spend next week examining this deep question
about the nature of the death of Christ. For now, just realize that we can conquer
all temptations because Jesus tasted the full brunt of the punishment that
giving in to temptations demands.
3. V.10 He is bringing us to glory – This phrase tells us that whatever the
temptation, it is not strong enough to derail our trip to glory!
Jesus is bringing all the sons that the Father has given him ALL THE WAY
to glory. Rom. 8:29-30“For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed
to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers..
And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those
he justified he also glorified.There in no gap between God’s foreknowledge
and our glorification. Glorification or being brought to glory
is a NT way of saying that we will most certainly reach our final destination
which is heaven. Lk. 19:10 says that Jesus “came to seek and to save that
which was lost.” The reason he helps us in all our temptation is that he is blood-earnest
in his plan to bring us to glory! Our reaching heaven in the end is
the responsibility of Jesus ultimately. Be assured, it will happen!
4. V.10, 18 He was made perfect through suffering - This certainly doesn’t
mean that Jesus had some level of imperfection that had to be burned
out of him through the fires of suffering. It means rather that he became
our perfect high priest by experiencing everything we experience,
except sin. Perfect here refers to complete in every category. Jesus didn’t
suffer in heaven before the incarnation. If he was to be our high priest,
he “needed” to come to earth and experience suffering like we do. He has trusted
His Father through the worst possible suffering, the becoming of a sin offering
for His people on the Cross. That is why he can come to our aid in our minor suffering!
It is because he was sustained by the Father in his own ultimate suffering.
5. V.11 He is not ashamed of us – We are in the same family as Jesus!
He makes us holy through delivering us from deceitful temptations. He is holy
and we are holy because we are in him by faith. That makes us brothers with
whom Jesus is not ashamed to identify! We are not an embarrassment to his
holiness because we escape the corruption that would come if we fell into
the temptations. V.12 says that Jesus declares the Name of the Father
to us because we are his brothers. He shows us exactly who the Father is
in all His glory because we are his brothers! How wonderful is that! That
is the reason we want to be delivered from Satan’s lies and temptations,
so our brother Jesus will tell us more about the glory of our Father!
6. V.14, 17a He shared in our flesh and blood - He was made like us in every
way. He wasn’t a phantom, someone who looked like a human, but really wasn’t.
He was FULLY man as well as being fully God. He felt hunger, thirst, weariness, pressure,
limitations of sorts, and the effects of sin in the world. He slept
because he was weary,
he cried because his friends died and people’s hearts were hardened.
He was angry at the evil in the world and the false religion of hypocrites.
He could bleed and feel pain and die. All this made him able to come to our
aid in temptations.
7. V. 14 He destroyed the devil - The devil was destroyed by the death
of Jesus. This speaks in an ultimate sense. The devil still roams about
trying to devour believers, yet his doom is sure. His destiny is the lake
of fire. Jesus effectively dismantled the work of the devil. Truth and
grace that came in Jesus exposed the devil’s lies. Jesus destroyed
him in the sense of making him ineffective in the lives of God’s people.
We are freed from the devil’s eternal desires to take us with him to hell.
His mastery over us is finished! We have been delivered out of his kingdom
into the kingdom of the Son of God’s love. We can resist him and he has to
flee from us puny little humans because we have the power of Jesus
Christ in us! The apostle Paul says in Rom. 16:20 “The God of peace will soon
crush Satan under your feet!” We must remember these truths when
we are fighting temptation! We must say: “Satan, I command you to flee
from me in the name and power of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! I resist you
in the power of the blood of Jesus Christ!” This is the help Jesus gives
us in our temptation.
8. V.15 He delivered us from the fear of death- The fear of death is the great
fear of the unknown. People who know the truth about reality and reject Jesus
Christ as their Savior and Lord OUGHT to fear death. Heb. 9:27
says “It is appointed for man to die once and then face judgment.” The author
of Hebrews also tells us in 12:29 “…for our God is a consuming fire.”
He also says “If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge
of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment
and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God.…it is a fearful thing to
fall into the hands of a living God” (10:26,31). But we as believers
in Jesus Christ have a wonderful and exciting future when we face God after
death! We don’t fear death and what it brings. If the temptations we face
are so severe that they even lead to death, then we will embrace them because
we have had the fear of death removed from our souls by Jesus.
9 V.17 He is merciful and faithful- Jesus helps us in our temptations in a
merciful way. He isn’t like a Marine drill sergeant who screams in our face
if we should make the less stumble from a perfect formation. This doesn’t mean that
Jesus winks at sin or says it is ok to sin. Not at all. Rather, he shows endless
patience as he continually calls us back to Himself time and time again.
Our sin isn’t cheap. When we sin, we grieve the Holy Spirit, yet Jesus
is merciful. His mercy and faithfulness should draw us quickly to repentance.
He is merciful to us and faithful to His Father’s Holiness as He helps us
battle and gain victory over our sin.
10. V.17 He is our propitiation- Here is this most wonderful word
again. Some words are empty and hollow, like “That’s nice!” But this
word is the finest of words for it contains the deepest of theology.
The reason Jesus is a Faithful High Priest to us and to His Father is that
He did in fact satisfy the demands of God’s Holy Law. To “make atonement”
in the NIV is the Greek word propitiation. It speaks of a definite, actual,
removal of God’s wrath from on the sinner. Turn to John 3:36: “Whoever
believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life,
for God’s wrath remains on him.” Now turn to
Eph. 2:3 “All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings
of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were
by nature objects of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God who is rich
in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions.”
Because the wrath of the Father has been actually removed from us,
there is no temptation to which we might fall that can bring that wrath back
on our heads. That is no reason to go out and sin, but instead it is a reason
to defeat sin and walk in the victory of the Holy Spirit.
11. V.18b He comes to our aid in temptation – Yes! Jesus comes to
our aid when we are battling the temptations that the devil throws at us.
He doesn’t stand there and watch, just rooting for us to get a punch in now
and then. He comes into our situations, our specific situations and gives us specific
help. You might be saying: “Well, I don’t see it; I don’t feel it when the
heat of temptation comes!” Well, that’s your fault, not His!
If at the very beginning of any temptation you would discipline your mind
to remember as many of these great truths about Jesus as you can, you would
be simply amazed at the help they would bring to you! I emphasize: “At
the very beginning of temptation…”
That is our normal problem; we flirt with sin and then expect to defeat
it?! We have to be VIOLENT with sin, that is, we have to fight violently against
it as soon as it presents itself. You can’t look at a dirty picture
for 2 minutes and expect to defeat lust. It won’t happen. You have to turn
away within 5 seconds or you will fall into sin.
We can’t expect to defeat bitterness or anger by brewing over an offense
for a day or two. When you are severely tempted, you must flee to the Cross
of Christ and ask Him to fill you with love and forgiveness quickly after
the person offends you.
Let these points capture your attention.
Think them over again and again this week.
Use them to fight the good fight of faith and holiness.
Use them in your prayers to thank Jesus for His victory and care.
Teach them to your children this week.
Live them out so that your life will be a powerful testimony to the
all-sufficiency and glory of our Great High Priest.
Let's pray.
H.