[Text: Hebrews 4:15-5:10] “Our Sympathetic Source of Eternal Salvation”

Who do you trust? Why do you trust them?

[Read Hebrews 4:15-5:10 and Pray – Father, even though you have hard words for us, to whom else can we go? You have the Words of everlasting life. Help us now to hear and trust in Christ, finding in him help during our time of need. Amen.]

I recently heard about two friends’ unique experience in the paint department of a large depot-like store for home goods and products. The salesman helping them seemed to exude confidence as he helped my friends pick out the primer and paint. And with no reason not to listen to him my friends trusted this salesman who boasted in his trustworthiness. But that trust was shattered when my friends got home and started putting paint on the wall. Everything was all wrong – wrong primer, wrong paint – and, as my friends discovered when they went back to the store, even the salesman was the wrong salesman. The real paint department expert – upon learning who had helped my friends the first time – said, “Him? He’s not allowed to help people in this area. He’s not even supposed to be in this area.”

When it comes to situations that are bigger than us and outside of our experience, when we’re confused about what to do or how to move forward, then having someone you can trust on your side is invaluable. Someone who is qualified and experienced and trustworthy is all you could hope for.

The original audience of this sermon to the Hebrews would have known their need to have something – someone – whom they could fully trust. This sermon was sent to Christians who were scared. They were confused and defenseless against what was happening to them. Ever since they confessed Jesus to be the Son of God, their Jewish brothers had made it clear that the Christians weren’t with them. And with the protection of the Jewish synagogue gone, the Christians were exposed and vulnerable to the crushing power of Rome. So, with persecution and suffering on the horizon, the Christians were hearing voices, each demanding the loyalty of these believers who had once put their hope in Christ. From the Jews, the voice said, “Come back to Moses and the Law and be saved!” From Rome the voice said, “Call Caesar ‘Lord’ and the lions will go hungry. Call Jesus ‘Lord’ and your own body will satisfy the lions’ appetites.” And added to those voices came one from their own heart saying, “Just pick one, either one; anything is better than living like this.”

Nothing exposes our weakness like fear. Nothing makes us more fearful than standing at a crossroad, not knowing which way to go, and being forced into a decision that will certainly have consequences.

In chapters 3 and 4, the pastor had just finished reminding his friends that the Israelites long ago had stood at a crossroad. Having heard the promises of God and seen His powerful works, their decision was to say, “I don’t believe you,” to the God who had rescued them from slavery in Egypt. And the pastor reminded his friends of the disastrous consequences of that unbelief.

Now he’s calling his friends to decide. And what he wants for his friends is clear. He wants them, with him, to “draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” What better way to describe their situation than being in a “time of need?” And in their time of need, the decision in front of them comes back to the issue of belief. Will they trust the voices around them or will they trust Jesus?

While our decisions aren’t about returning to Judaism or swearing loyalty to Caesar, the crossroads at which we stand every day have consequences of no less importance. It can be difficult to trust Jesus when we’re in a “time of need.” When life is confusing and painful, doubt can become the norm with fears and “what ifs” dominating our minds. What if the sickness comes back? What if I lose my job (or husband or wife)? What if this increasingly post-Christian culture just keeps going? The voices calling us away from trusting in Christ become as loud as that guy in the coffee shop, shouting into his phone when you’re just trying to read. Sometimes that’s all you can hear. The voice says of the situation you face, “This is worth freaking out about.” The voice says, “Christians aren’t supposed to suffer.” The voice says, “Maybe this means God has abandoned you. Maybe Jesus doesn’t deserve your trust.”

But the voice of Hebrews (and of the whole New Testament) calls us to endure in our belief in Jesus. And it calls us back to him consistently. Four times in Hebrews the pastor says, “…hold fast [to what you have believed].” And our belief in him is most clearly seen when we actively trust him in the face of suffering and confusion; when we say of God what Jesus said in his suffering, “I will put my trust in him” (Hebrews 2:13). In other words, trusting in Jesus is belief that is lived out in a particular circumstance.

But in order to trust him in reality – not just in the abstract but as I stand at the crossroads of decision – I have to know for certain that I can trust him. In order for me to actively believe in him, I need something upon which to base that belief. And it has to be more convincing than the other voices I hear.

One person put it this way, “There can be no sustained faithfulness on our part unless we are convinced that we can trust God.” And he goes on with emphasis; ”The basis for that trust is the consideration that we have a high priest who is merciful and compassionate in his relationship with us.”[1] The truth is, because of our weakness we have a hard time believing we can trust God. But the beautiful thing is that God understands our weakness and has spoken to us through His Son to relieve our doubt. He speaks to us of the faithful and trustworthy Jesus who helps us, indeed, who suffers with us. It is because Jesus is supremely trustworthy that we can draw near to him with confidence and receive from him “mercy and find grace to help us in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16).

The pastor focuses in this passage on Jesus as our high priest, while simultaneously holding Jesus up as the royal Son of God, in order to shore up our faith. That’s the context of this whole conversation. He had just finished encouraging his friends in 4:14 to “hold fast” to their faith in Jesus as the Son of God who is their great high priest. He’s already established that Jesus stands in both of those offices – Son and High Priest – back in chapters 1 and 2. He is the eternal Son who is the full and final communication of God to His people. And he became their high priest through suffering death on their behalf, sacrificing himself to atone for their sin. Now, drawing upon those earlier truths, the pastor sets up in 4:15 what he’ll meditate on in the opening of chapter 5. The fact that Jesus has suffered makes him able to help us when we suffer.

The pastor writes, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.” He uses something that you and I were taught never to use in English grammar – a double-negative. But in Greek, that was a way to emphasize the trustworthiness of a statement. Figuratively speaking, it sets this phrase off in bold, underlined, italicized script, assuring us of Jesus’ ability to identify with us. This Jesus – who, according to chapter 2, put on flesh and blood because we have flesh and blood, who suffered death because we were enslaved to death by our sin – this Jesus intimately understands what it means to stand at a crossroads and have to decide to whom he will listen.

It says he was tempted in every respect as we are and we think of him at the beginning of his ministry after his baptism. In Matthew 4, Satan tempted him to claim this world for himself by bowing down to Satan, who held this world in slavery to himself. Jesus was being offered his kingship, but it was offered to him without the cross, without suffering death. And he rejected the easy way and instead stepped into suffering because he trusted his God. God had said “it was fitting” for Jesus “in bringing many sons to glory” to be made “perfect through suffering” (Hebrews 2:10). And Jesus obeyed. And again, we think of Jesus at the end of his earthly ministry as he prayed in Gethsemane for some other way to accomplish his work. But in the face of that temptation to avoid suffering, still he trusted his Father’s will. So, he knows how to sympathize with us when other voices call us away from God.

Sympathizing here is much more than just an intellectual understanding of what someone else is feeling. I can see a stranger in grief and know something of what that feels like. But the word here speaks of an entrance into another’s sufferings and experiencing it with them. So connected is Jesus with those who believe in him, that their weakness is felt by him; their grief is grief to his heart; the lash across the back of his child makes his own scars ache. Another person framed it perfectly as he thought about how this truth would have landed on the hearts of those who first heard it. He writes,

“Were they required to renew their commitment to God everyday? That was true of (Jesus) as well! Were they asked to trust God in difficult circumstances? So was he! Were they subject to sudden arrest? That was his experience as well! Could they be unjustly condemned to a humiliating death? So was he! Jesus was exposed to the full range of human testing. In this experiential way he acquired the empathy necessary for the discharge of the high priestly ministry of helping.”[2]

This is why Jesus could say to Saul on the road to Damascus as Saul was ravaging the church, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” It’s because the suffering of his people was Jesus’ own suffering. And that makes him a compassionate high priest who is able to help us in our times of need.

So, he is merciful and compassionate toward us because he has fully experienced suffering and temptation like us. But he is trustworthy because he came through those things very much unlike us. He came through without sin, otherwise how could we trust him to deal with our sin and doubt? How would he be any different than the priests of the old covenant under Moses?

But he is different. He is without sin.

That’s where the pastor will focus in 5:1-4. He looks at the high priesthood of Aaron and sees how well the priests of old could sympathize with those for whom they offered up prayers and sacrifices. They could be gentle and compassionate with weak and sinful people because the priests knew themselves to be weak and sinful, too. But because of sin, each of those priests had to make sacrifices for themselves before they offered sacrifices for the people.

But not Jesus. His sinless service to God while sharing in our flesh and blood means he can both atone for our sin through his own sacrifice on the cross and he can be gentle and merciful and compassionate with us. It means the sacrifice he offered once and for all was not for himself but for us.

We tend to think about the sinlessness of Jesus as something threatening to us. I’m afraid sometimes thinking, “He can’t possibly love me because I’m so weak and I give in to temptation and he – he is so perfect.” But this tells us the opposite is true. His faithfulness in every circumstance has actually made him more merciful and compassionate with us in our weakness. And so, something better than the priests of old has come, replacing their temporary service with eternal help for you and me. Jesus, the great and permanent high priest has come and he now serves as our merciful and trustworthy high priest to whom you can come with complete assurance and confidence. He won’t turn you away when you need help. You can trust him.

You can trust him because he was appointed by God to this work and God has, in the words of 5:10, “designated [Jesus] a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.” The pastor is going to spend a great deal of time talking about how Jesus is like this mysterious and seemingly eternal character from the Old Testament. We’ll go there in the coming weeks, but for now here’s the point. The high priesthood of Jesus is like and yet radically unlike the priesthood to which the voices were calling these Hebrew Christians to go back. Here, they are supposed to learn from and take hope in the similarities between Jesus and the priest of old, but believe that the differences between Jesus and those old priests make all the difference in the world. The new high priest has come and he filled up the priesthood of Aaron, fulfilling what it pictured. But he showed that his priesthood is better; it is complete and it is eternal. And so, he is always there for you to find in your time of need. He will be gentle with you in your weakness, merciful toward you in your failures, compassionate toward you in your sufferings and gracious to help you through the suffering to an “eternal salvation” (5:9).

We see how he began that work in vv.5-10. And in this we see how he still does that work.

The pastor quotes two Psalms – Psalm 2 and 110 – to show that Jesus holds two offices together at the same time. He is both royal Son (Psalm 2) and high priest (Psalm 110). He’s spent a lot of time in the first few chapters of Hebrews showing Jesus’ faithfulness as the Son of God. Now, the emphasis will begin to shift to his faithfulness as our high priest. But it is important to always trust that he is both at the same time! The Jesus who died and rose from the dead, who ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of God is both reigning King – ruling over and protecting his people as a good king ought – and he is high priest for them, too – helping and praying for them with perfect gentleness and compassion. He holds both of those offices forever. That truth is part of the foundation for your trusting him in every circumstance.

As the pastor shifts his emphasis to the high priestly work of Jesus, he writes about Jesus offering up “in the days of his flesh” (that is, during his earthly ministry), “prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears….” This was Jesus’ whole life being “offered up” (a technical word for priestly sacrifice; the same word as in 5:1) to God. But we have to understand that this priestly work of Jesus found its fullest expression in what he suffered. When Hebrews speaks of his “suffering,” it is the pastor always calling us back to the cross as the birthplace of our hope. It was through his suffering there that Jesus, our high priest, learned obedience to God; learned how to submit and trust God even in the face of death.

So, if you want to know if you can trust Jesus, if you want to know if he is worthy of your trust in any circumstance or any crossroads you face, then you need only look to the cross and see his faithfulness to God. God appointed Jesus to go there and Jesus willingly went so that he could become a faithful and compassionate high priest to take care of you. We look at the cross and see the proof of his faithfulness, but our hope is that Jesus did not remain there.

Jesus trusted God as the one who was able to save him from death. And that is what God did! Only it came not in the form of reprieve or a last-minute deliverance from the pain of suffering; the salvation of God came in the form of resurrection after suffering. And it was through his resurrection after suffering that Jesus “became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him.”

This “obedience” to Jesus is source of a great deal of misunderstanding. Some take it to be the perfect moral obedience of the law. They say, “Only if you obey the law perfectly will Jesus serve as your high priest.” But that view does such violence to this text, not to mention the entire New Testament that is meant to be good news for sinners!

No, this “obedience” to Christ is of the same root as the “obedience” Jesus learned through his suffering. Jesus learned that he could fully trust his Father even in the face of death, experientially discovering that suffering ordained by God – though painful; eliciting prayers and requests with loud cries and tears – suffering ordained by God ends not in death but in eternal life beyond death. Suffering gives way to resurrection.

To obey Christ, then, is to see his trustworthiness and believe in him; to set your hope in him alone. He is your King and high priest who is fully sympathetic to your weakness, experiencing it with you. And with your trust in him – though it may be weak and foundering and small and prone to wander – with your trust in Jesus you are found in him. With your trust in Jesus he assures you that you, too, may draw near to the throne of grace.

Do you understand that picture? It is of you, clothed with the righteousness of Jesus, walking into the very presence of God. And you go not as the high priest of old – only once per year, making atonement for your own sin and walking into the Most Holy place with a rope around your waist. The rope was there in case the high priest’s offering was not accepted by God and he dropped dead as a sinner in the presence of the Holy God. No, you children of God under the blood of Christ, in him you may walk every moment of every day into the very presence of God with bold confidence that your high priest has already atoned for your sin. You may walk into the very presence of God trusting that just as Jesus prayers work for you were heard and accepted by God in his days on earth, his prayers and work for you now are still heard and accepted by God now. And because he is the source of your eternal salvation, by faith in him, he is still there to give you mercy and grace to help you in your time of need.

I know that many of you are standing at crossroads now with decisions that are confusing and frightening. Many of you are suffering in your relationships; in marriages and in your extended families. Many of you are asking the “what if” questions and they are loud and stir up questions and doubt about God’s love, even his trustworthiness.

But consider that you have a high priest in Jesus who is perfectly merciful and compassionate toward you. There is help to be found in the throne room of heaven and there is an advocate there for you. When there are questions and doubts, to the throne of grace is where we must go. To prayer and to the Word of God we must go, asking for Christ to help us through the Spirit he has given to us.

And do not let the fact that you are suffering temptation or trials convince you that you have been abandoned. The “eternal salvation” Christ has won for you came through his own suffering. And that suffering was ordained by God to perfect him and lead him to trust his Father more perfectly than he ever had before. So, it is with us, too. Far from suffering being a thing to make us afraid or doubtful, we are to understand suffering to be a part of God treating as sons along with Christ. It gives us opportunity to live out our faith by trusting him. And that kind of trust in the face of suffering is a powerful testimony that is used by God to draw many people to himself. Your trust in the face of suffering becomes a lived-out evangelism for the world to see.

So, trust Jesus, your high priest. Offer up your own prayers and supplications you priests of God in Christ. And know that though they be offered for now with loud cries and tears, they are certainly heard by God and will be answered according to His will, resulting in your eternal salvation. And they will be heard because of Jesus, the king and high priest, who is the only one worthy of your trust. Because of him we can say,

“…we have this treasure [the Gospel of Jesus] in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.” (2 Corinthians 4:7-10)

[Pray]

[Benediction, from Hebrews 13:20-21]

“Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.”

[1] William L. Lane, Hebrews: A Call to Commitment, 74. Emphasis in the original.

[2] Lane, Hebrews, 76.