Hebrews 5

Heb 5:1-14.

CHRIST'S

HIGH

PRIESTHOOD;

NEEDED

QUALIFICATIONS;

MUST

BE A

MAN;

MUST

NOT

HAVE

ASSUMED THE

DIGNITY

HIMSELF, BUT

HAVE

BEEN

APPOINTED BY

GOD;

THEIR

LOW

SPIRITUAL

PERCEPTIONS A

BAR TO

PAUL'S

SAYING

ALL

HE

MIGHT ON

CHRIST'S

MELCHISEDEC-LIKE

PRIESTHOOD.

1. For--substantiating

Heb 4:15.

every--that is, every legitimate high priest; for instance, the

Levitical, as he is addressing Hebrews, among whom the Levitical

priesthood was established as the legitimate one. Whatever, reasons

Paul, is excellent in the Levitical priests, is also in Christ, and

besides excellencies which are not in the Levitical priests.

taken from among men--not from among angels, who could not have

a fellow feeling with us men. This qualification Christ has, as being,

like the Levitical priest, a man

(Heb 2:14, 16).

Being "from men," He can be "for (that is, in behalf of,

for the good of) men."

ordained--Greek, "constituted," "appointed."

both gifts--to be joined with "for sins," as "sacrifices" is

(the "both . . . and" requires this); therefore not the

Hebrew, "mincha," "unbloody offerings," but animal whole

burnt offerings, spontaneously given. "Sacrifices" are the

animal sacrifices due according to the legal ordinance [ESTIUS].

2. Who can--Greek, "being able"; not pleasing

himself

(Ro 15:3).

have compassion--Greek, "estimate mildly," "feel

leniently," or "moderately towards"; "to make allowance for"; not

showing stern rigor save to the obstinate

(Heb 10:28).

ignorant--sins not committed in resistance of light and

knowledge, but as Paul's past sin

(1Ti 1:13).

No sacrifice was appointed for wilful sin committed with a high hand;

for such were to be punished with death; all other sins, namely,

ignorances and errors, were confessed and expiated with sacrifices by

the high priest.

out of the way--not deliberately and altogether wilfully erring,

but deluded through the fraud of Satan and their own carnal frailty and

thoughtlessness.

infirmity--moral weakness which is sinful, and makes men capable

of sin, and so requires to be expiated by sacrifices. This kind of

"infirmity" Christ had not; He had the "infirmity" of body whereby He

was capable of suffering and death.

3. by reason hereof--"on account of this" infirmity.

he ought . . . also for himself, to offer for

sins--the Levitical priest ought; in this our High Priest is

superior to the Levitical. The second "for" is a different Greek

term from the first; "in behalf of the people . . .

on account of sins."

4. no man--of any other family but Aaron's, according to the

Mosaic law, can take to himself the office of high priest. This verse

is quoted by some to prove the need of an apostolic succession of

ordination in the Christian ministry; but the reference here is to the

priesthood, not the Christian ministry. The analogy in

our Christian dispensation would warn ministers, seeing that God has

separated them from the congregation of His people to bring them near

Himself, and to do the service of His house, and to minister (as He

separated the Levites, Korah with his company), that content with this,

they should beware of assuming the sacrificial priesthood also, which

belongs to Christ alone. The sin of Korah was, not content with the

ministry as a Levite, he took the sacerdotal priesthood also. No

Christian minister, as such, is ever called Hiereus, that is,

sacrificing priest. All Christians, without distinction, whether

ministers or people, have a metaphorical, not a literal, priesthood.

The sacrifices which they offer are spiritual, not literal, their

bodies and the fruit of their lips, praises continually

(Heb 13:15).

Christ alone had a proper and true sacrifice to offer. The law

sacrifices were typical, not metaphorical, as the Christian's, nor

proper and true, as Christ's. In Roman times the Mosaic restriction of

the priesthood to Aaron's family was violated.

5. glorified not himself--did not assume the glory of the

priestly office of Himself without the call of God

(Joh 8:54).

but he that said--that is, the Father glorified Him or appointed

Him to the priesthood. This appointment was involved in, and was the

result of, the Sonship of Christ, which qualified Him for it.

None but the divine Son could have fulfilled such an office

(Heb 10:5-9).

The connection of Sonship and priesthood is typified in

the Hebrew title for priests being given to David's sons

(2Sa 8:18).

Christ did not constitute Himself the Son of God, but was from

everlasting the only-begotten of the Father. On His Sonship

depended His glorification, and His being called of God

(Heb 5:10),

as Priest.

6. He is here called simply "Priest"; in

Heb 5:5,

"High Priest." He is a Priest absolutely, because He stands

alone in that character without an equal. He is "High Priest" in

respect of the Aaronic type, and also in respect to us, whom He has

made priests by throwing open to us access to God [BENGEL]. "The order of Melchisedec" is explained

in

Heb 7:15,

"the similitude of Melchisedec." The priesthood is similarly

combined with His kingly office in

Zec 6:13.

Melchisedec was at once man, priest, and king. Paul's selecting as the

type of Christ one not of the stock of Abraham, on which the Jews

prided themselves, is an intimation of Messianic universalism.

7. in the days of his flesh--

(Heb 2:14; 10:20).

Heb 5:7-10

state summarily the subject about to be handled more fully in the

seventh and eighth chapters.

when he had offered--rather, "in that He offered."

His crying and tears were part of the experimental lesson of obedience

which He submitted to learn from the Father (when God was qualifying

Him for the high priesthood). "Who" is to be construed with "learned

obedience" (or rather as Greek, "His obedience";

"the obedience" which we all know about). This all shows that

"Christ glorified not Himself to be made an High Priest"

(Heb 5:5),

but was appointed thereto by the Father.

prayers and supplications--Greek, "both prayers

and supplications." In Gethsemane, where He prayed thrice, and

on the cross, where He cried, My God, my God . . . probably

repeating inwardly all the twenty-second Psalm. "Prayers" refer

to the mind: "supplications" also to the body (namely, the suppliant

attitude)

(Mt 26:39)

[BENGEL].

with strong crying and tears--The "tears" are an additional fact

here communicated to us by the inspired apostle, not recorded in the

Gospels, though implied.

Mt 26:37,

"sorrowful and very heavy."

Mr 14:33;

Lu 22:44,

"in an agony He prayed more earnestly . . . His sweat

. . . great drops of blood falling down to the ground."

Ps 22:1

("roaring . . . cry"),

Ps 22:2, 19, 21, 24; 69:3, 10,

"I wept."

able to save him from death--

Mr 14:36,

"All things are possible unto Thee"

(Joh 12:27).

His cry showed His entire participation of man's infirmity: His

reference of His wish to the will of God, His sinless faith and

obedience.

heard in that he feared--There is no intimation in the

twenty-second Psalm, or the Gospels that Christ prayed to be saved from

the mere act of dying. What He feared was the hiding of the Father's

countenance. His holy filial love must rightly have shrunk from this

strange and bitterest of trials without the imputation of impatience.

To have been passively content at the approach of such a cloud would

have been, not faith, but sin. The cup of death He prayed to be freed

from was, not corporal, but spiritual death, that is, the (temporary)

separation of His human soul from the light of God's countenance. His

prayer was "heard" in His Father's strengthening Him so as to hold fast

His unwavering faith under the trial (My God, my God, was

still His filial cry under it, still claiming God as His, though God

hid His face), and soon removing it in answer to His cry during the

darkness on the cross, "My God, my God," &c. But see below a further

explanation of how He was heard. The Greek literally, is, "Was

heard from His fear," that is, so as to be saved from His fear.

Compare

Ps 22:21,

which well accords with this, "Save me from the lion's mouth

(His prayer): thou hast heard me from the horns of the

unicorns." Or what better accords with the strict meaning of the

Greek noun, "in consequence of His REVERENTIAL FEAR," that is, in that He shrank

from the horrors of separation from the bright presence of the

Father, yet was reverentially cautious by no thought or word of

impatience to give way to a shadow of distrust or want of perfect

filial love. In the same sense

Heb 12:28

uses the noun, and

Heb 11:7

the verb. ALFORD somewhat similarly translates,

fear." The word in derivation means the cautious handling

of some precious, yet delicate vessel, which with ruder handling might

easily be broken [TRENCH]. This fully agrees with

Jesus' spirit, "If it be possible . . . nevertheless not

My will, but Thy will be done"; and with the context,

Heb 5:5,

"Glorified not Himself to be made an High Priest," implying reverent

fear: wherein it appears He had the requisite for the office

specified

Heb 5:4,

"No man taketh this honor unto himself." ALFORD

well says, What is true in the Christian's life, that what we ask from

God, though He may not grant in the form we wish, yet He grants in His

own, and that a better form, does not hold good in Christ's case; for

Christ's real prayer, "not My will, but Thine be done," in consistency

with His reverent fear towards the Father, was granted in the very form

in which it was expressed, not in another.

8. Though He WAS (so it ought to be

translated: a positive admitted fact: not a mere supposition as

were would imply) God's divine Son (whence, even in His agony,

He so lovingly and often cried, Father,

Mt 26:39),

yet He learned His (so the Greek) obedience, not from His

Sonship, but from His sufferings. As the Son, He was always obedient to

the Father's will; but the special obedience needed to qualify

Him as our High Priest, He learned experimentally in practical

suffering. Compare

Php 2:6-8,

"equal with God, but . . . took upon Him the form of a

servant, and became obedient unto death," &c. He was

obedient already before His passion, but He stooped to a still

more humiliating and trying form of obedience then. The

Greek adage is, "Pathemata mathemata," "sufferings,

disciplinings." Praying and obeying, as in Christ's case,

ought to go hand in hand.

9. made perfect--completed, brought to His goal of learning and

suffering through death

(Heb 2:10)

[ALFORD], namely, at His glorious resurrection and

ascension.

author--Greek, "cause."

eternal salvation--obtained for us in the short "days of

Jesus' flesh"

(Heb 5:7;

compare

Heb 5:6,

"for ever,"

Isa 45:17).

unto all . . . that obey him--As Christ obeyed

the Father, so must we obey Him by faith.

10. Greek, rather, "Addressed by God (by the

appellation) High Priest." Being formally recognized by God as High

Priest at the time of His being "made perfect"

(Heb 5:9).

He was High Priest already in the purpose of God before His

passion; but after it, when perfected, He was formally addressed

so.

11. Here he digresses to complain of the low spiritual

attainments of the Palestinian Christians and to warn them of the

danger of falling from light once enjoyed; at the same time encouraging

them by God's faithfulness to persevere. At

Heb 6:20

he resumes the comparison of Christ to Melchisedec.

hard to be uttered--rather as Greek, "hard of

interpretation to speak." Hard for me to state intelligibly to you

owing to your dulness about spiritual things. Hence, instead of

saying many things, he writes in comparatively few words

(Heb 13:22).

In the "we," Paul, as usual, includes Timothy with himself in

addressing them.

ye are--Greek, "ye have become dull" (the

Greek, by derivation, means hard to move): this implies

that once, when first "enlightened," they were earnest and

zealous, but had become dull. That the Hebrew believers

AT JERUSALEM were dull in

spiritual things, and legal in spirit, appears from

Ac 21:20-24,

where James and the elders expressly say of the "thousands of Jews

which believe," that "they are all zealous of the law"; this was

at Paul's last visit to Jerusalem, after which this Epistle seems to

have been written (see on

Heb 5:12,

on "for the time").

12. for the time--considering the long time that you have been

Christians. Therefore this Epistle was not one of those written early.

which be the first principles--Greek, "the rudiments

of the beginning of." A Pauline phrase (see on

Ga 4:3;

Ga 4:9).

Ye need not only to be taught the first elements, but also

"which they be." They are therefore enumerated

Heb 6:1, 2

[BENGEL]. ALFORD translates,

"That someone teach you the rudiments"; but the position of the

Greek, "tina," inclines me to take it interrogatively,

"which," as English Version, Syriac, Vulgate, &c.

of the oracles of God--namely, of the Old Testament: instead of

seeing Christ as the end of the Old Testament Scripture, they were

relapsing towards Judaism, so as not only not to be capable of

understanding the typical reference to Christ of such an Old Testament

personage as Melchisedec, but even much more elementary references.

are become--through indolence.

milk . . . not . . . strong meat--"Milk"

refers to such fundamental first principles as he enumerates in

Heb 6:1, 2.

The solid meat, or food, is not absolutely necessary for

preserving life, but is so for acquiring greater strength. Especially

in the case of the Hebrews, who were much given to allegorical

interpretations of their law, which they so much venerated, the

application of the Old Testament types, to Christ and His High

Priesthood, was calculated much to strengthen them in the Christian

faith [LIMBORCH].

13. useth--Greek, "partaketh," that is, taketh as his

portion. Even strong men partake of milk, but do not make milk

their chief, much less their sole, diet.

the word of righteousness--the Gospel wherein "the righteousness

of God is revealed from faith to faith"

(Ro 1:17),

and which is called "the ministration of righteousness"

(2Co 3:9).

This includes the doctrine of justification and sanctification:

the first principles, as well as the perfection, of the

doctrine of Christ: the nature of the offices and person of Christ

as the true Melchisedec, that is, "King of righteousness"

(compare

Mt 3:15).

14. strong meat--"solid food."

them . . . of full age--literally, "perfect": akin to

"perfection"

(Heb 6:1).

senses--organs of sense.

exercised--similarly connected with "righteousness" in

Heb 12:11.

to discern both good and evil--as a child no longer an infant

(Isa 7:16):

so able to distinguish between sound and unsound doctrine. The mere

child puts into its mouth things hurtful and things nutritious, without

discrimination: but not so the adult. Paul again alludes to their

tendency not to discriminate, but to be carried about by strange

doctrines, in

Heb 13:9.