Hebrews 4:14-5:3 “Finding Sympathetic Grace”

Translation & Sermon by Nate Wilson for Christ the Redeemer Church of Manhattan, KS, 9 Dec. 2018

Introduction

• I ended my last sermon on Hebrews with 4:14 “Therefore, since we have Jesus, the Son of God, the Great High Priest who has crossed into the heavens, let us keep carrying through on our confession [of faith in Him].”

• The Scottish commentator John Brown wrote, “There is much in the peculiar circumstances of the Hebrews to make such an exhortation necessary… Paul had been in chains in Jerusalem – James slain by the sword – very possibly the Christians debarred from mingling in the sacred assemblies of the Jews. How precious in these circumstances the truths – We have a better temple, a better High Priest, a better sacrifice than these! No, we will not be tempted to purchase the continuance of the latter by the abandonment of the former. We will cleave to our High Priest at all hazards, though we should be obliged to go to Him ‘without the gate, bearing His reproach.’”

• Now, in this next exposition, we will be looking at how Jesus fulfills the qualifications for the office of high priest to reconcile mankind to God. We'll start back in at...

4:15 For we do not have a high priest who is not able to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tested in all things, in the same way, without a sin.

• “The double negation is equivalent to a very strong assertion… He not only can be touched but cannot but be touched.” ~J. Brown¹

• This statement on Jesus' qualification to be a great high priest is much like Hebrews 2:18 “for He Himself has suffered, having been tested; by such means He is able to come to the rescue with those who are being tempted.” (NAW)

• Verse 15 says that Jesus' temptations/trials/testings by evil can be compared to ours both in likeness and in quantity, but they differ from us in terms of the outcome of moral failure.

  • Jesus was tested and experienced weakness quantitatively the same as any human - “κατὰ πάντα in all things/in every way/at every point/in every respect.”

    • Have you been tempted to take the edge off of your suffering with drugs or alcohol? Jesus was offered wine mixed with gall while hanging on the cross; it was apparently common practice and acceptable socially, but He refused to go to that instead of to the thone of grace to deal with His suffering.

    • Have you been tempted to get angry at somebody who did something mean to you? If anybody ever had reason for getting angry for being unjustly treated it was Jesus! But instead of railing like the thieves hanging on the crosses on either side of Him, He said, “Father, forgive them.” He didn't fall to the temptation for veangance.

    • Have you been tempted with sexual immorality? Jesus stayed pure all through His teens, twenties, and thirties, even though He never married and even though His ministry certainly put him in situations where He could have compromised.

    • What about gluttony? Jesus resisted that temptation too when Satan suggested He break His fast in the desert prematurely by turning stones to bread when nobody was looking.

    • Any temptatation you can think of, Jesus has already overcome, so no matter what evil is facing you, Jesus knows from personal experience what it's like to face that evil, and He can totally relate to you.

    • “But,” you may say, “It's different for me because I'm not the Son of God. Sin is much harder for me as a mere human to resist. I'm not sure Jesus can really help with what I'm facing.” That's why we have the next phrase in v.15:

  • Our high priest has been tested “καθ᾿ ὁμοιότητα/in the same way/like as/just as we are.”

    • The temptations of Christ were not a farce; they were real. He experienced every reason to act out that we have.

    • This Greek word occurs in only one passage outside of Hebrews, and that is Genesis 1, where it speaks of animals reproducing “in their own likeness after their own kind.” It's not like Mary gave birth to a baby that was something other than human. No, Jesus was really one of us. He experienced fatigue, hunger, thirst, misunderstanding, insults, loss, sadness, betrayal, slander, being beat up, so He can sympathize with you when you go through some of the same experiences. He is the perfect person to go to when you experience evil because not only has He has experienced the same amount of evil you have, He has also experienced it in the same way that you have.

  • What is astounding, however, is that in all of these experiences of evil, Jesus never found excuse to sin. That is the third vital assertion of verse 15. Unlike us, He never once transgressed God's rules; He never caused a single offense against God. He overcame every temptation to side with the world in rebellion against God. He passed every testing point to go somewhere other than the throne of grace to deal with the evil He was experiencing. His suffering instead made Him mature and all-the-more well-pleasing to God.

• “The participation of Jesus in every form of human suffering—the actual stirring of His emotions, His complete fellow-feeling with our weaknesses, the reality of His actual temptation,—all have taken place without one single sinful emotion, and without ever finding in Him, as their condition, or point of contact, a single slumbering element of sin. Every thing took place with Him [χωρὶς ἁμαρτίας] 'separately from sin.'” ~Lange's commentary²

4:16 Let us therefore keep approaching the throne of grace with openness in order that we may receive mercy and find grace for the purpose of a timely rescue.

• The phrase “throne of grace” doesn't occur anywhere else in the Bible³, but we do know from context what that “throne” is, because it was mentioned back in chapter 1 verse 8:

  • “...concerning the Son, 'Your throne, O God, is forever and ever. [And] the scepter of Your kingdom is a scepter of integrity.'” (Heb. 1:8, NAW)

  • switch the numbers around, and in Hebrews 8:1 “...We have such a High Priest, who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens” (NKJV, cf. 12:2)

  • “Throne” and “grace” also appear in John's vision of Jesus in heaven in Revelation 1:4 “...Grace to you and peace from Him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven Spirits who are before His throne” (NKJV).

  • The “throne of grace” is God's heavenly seat of universal command with Jesus in it exercising His role of high priest to reconcile humans to God by means of His grace.

• This is the throne to which we should be coming (προσερχώμεθα οὖν):

  • Obviously, in this world, we don’t have the power to physically travel to that throne, so it must be applied spiritually in terms of trusting Jesus and praying in His name.

  • The hortatory “let us come/approach/draw near” is in the present tense in Greek, indicating it is not something we do once but something we do habitually.

  • But so often when we experience evil and feel distant from God, the throne of grace seems a little intimidating, so we go somewhere else:

    • for some, it's that carton of ice cream or cookies you keep in the kitchen for comfort food,

    • for others it's porn,

    • for others it's texting or spending time with another person in a leech-like relationship to suck comfort out of them,

    • for others it's the mind-numbing diversion of a movie or a novel or music,

    • and there's a million other ways humans avoid going to the throne of Grace to deal with the pain of sin, but, brothers and sisters, the throne of grace is the only place where there is true healing from the ravages of evil in and around us, and we can go to it any time in prayer!

  • Our approach to this throne is to be “with boldness/openness/confidence” (μετὰ παρρησίας).

    • Hebrews 3:6 “Christ... [is faithful] as Son over His administration, which administration we ourselves are, if indeed we hold on to the confirmed open practice and confident expression of THE hope until the end.” (NAW)

    • 1 John 2:28 And now, dear children, stay in Him, so that whenever He is revealed, we may have an open conversation and not be embarrassed by Him in His presence. (NAW)

    • If you play a game of capture-the-flag, half of the field belongs to your team, and you can walk wherever you want without fear of your teammates tagging you and putting you in the jail, right? In fact, in your half of the field, you might talk extra loud and walk with a bit of a swagger just to scare off your opponents who might be thinking of creeping over to your side. You have parresia/openness/boldness/confidence on your turf. But the moment you cross over the line onto your opponent's side of the field, everything is different, isn't it? On that side, you have to sneak around, hoping not to be seen, looking furtively over your shoulder because you are afraid of the other team tagging you out and putting you in their jail.

    • Coming boldly and openly before God's throne means you know you are on God's team, so you are not afraid of Him. That's because you are certain that He will offer kindness and forgiveness to you free for the asking.

      • When Jesus sees you coming to your prayer closet to talk with Him, He says, “I have been looking forward to spending this time together with you.”

      • And when He cracks the sky and returns, He will eye you in the crowd like an old friend, because “He is not ashamed to call you His brethren.”

      • This kind of openness requires faith to believe that the good news of Jesus' priestly work on our behalf is true – that He really did make propitiation for your sins – because if He didn't, then we're going to get a quick trip to a hot place the moment we come near God's presence – and I'm not talking about the Bahamas!

• Now, notice our passiveness in getting these gifts. It's not “earn mercy and qualify for grace;” it's “receive mercy and find grace.”

  • The Greek word lambanw (translated “receive/obtain”) has no implication that you did any work to get the benefit; it just focuses on the transfer to you of that mercy.

  • Likewise, the Greek verb heuriskw (translated “find”), has no implication that you have any merit to deserve what you find.

  • In fact, the Greek word for “grace” charis, also means something that is “free-of-charge.”

  • Grace is the positive converse of mercy:

    • Mercy is not getting the judgment you deserve;

    • grace is getting the blessing you don't deserve.

  • This is all rooted in the high priestly work of Jesus Christ who identified Himself with humans who were in a state of rebellion against God in order to reconcile them with God. He did that both as priest and as sacrificial victim by taking the guilt of our sin upon Himself and letting God punish Him as though He had sinned instead of us, thus pacifying God's wrath against our sin by letting the sword of justice fall upon Him, then presenting us to God as righteous and acceptable in His sight. It is simply a matter of confessing that this is true and beginning to relate to God as a friend rather than an enemy.

  • Exodus 34:9 “[Moses] said, 'If I have found grace before thee, let my Lord go with us; for the people is stiff-necked: and thou shalt take away our sins and our iniquities, and we will be thine.'” (Brenton)

• Throughout the Old Testament stories in the Greek Septuagint, the concept of “finding grace” involves not merely receiving a one-time dispensation of kindness, but a continuous welcome into the community of the other person. (Conversely, “losing grace” involved being expelled from that person's house.) For instance, it is used of:

  • Laban being allowed into Jacob's camp (Gen. 30:27),

  • Jacob being allowed to walk through the land of his estranged brother Esau (Gen. 33:8-15),

  • Ruth being allowed to glean grain to eat out of Boaz's field (Ruth 2:10),

  • The close, brotherly friendship between David and Jonathan (1 Sam 20:3),

  • David seeking to be a guest at Nabal's house on a feast day (1 Sam 25:8),

  • and of David being allowed by the Philistines to live in a Philistine city (1 Sam. 27:5).

  • It is also used of persons permanently joining a great man's household as his servants (Gen. 47:25, 1 Sam. 16:22),

  • or of a man marrying a wife (Deut. 24:1, Esther 2:17, Prov. 18:22),

  • also of two tribes uniting by means of a marriage between them (Gen. 34:11, 1 Ki. 11:19).

• In the Old Testament, what is it that “finds grace/favor” with God?

  • Proverbs 3:3-4 “Let not mercy and truth forsake thee; but bind them about thy neck: so shalt thou find favour... in the sight of the Lord, and of men.” (Brenton) Holding fast to mercy and truth is the way to find grace with God! Is that not what we see in the book of Hebrews too?

  • In the New Testament, this phrase occurs in Stephen's sermon in Acts 7, where he says that David's getting permission from God to build a temple in his new capitol city of Jerusalem so that God would dwell in a special way next to his son Solomon's palace was “finding grace” and community with God.

  • It occurs one other place in the New Testament, and that is when the angel Gabriel said, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found grace/favor with God.” (Luke 1:30, NKJV). Wow! Talk about being allowed into a special relationship of community! She got to carry God the Son in her own body for nine months! …. But is that really any different from us who carry the Spirit of Christ within our bodies even now?

• This kind of favor shows the relational nature of God's salvation. It's not fire insurance, it's serious community.

  • Verse 16 ends with the Greek noun βοήθειαν, which most English versions translate “help.” We ran across the verb form of this word back in Hebrews 2:18, where it is translated “aid/rescue,” “...He Himself has suffered, having been tested; by such means He is able to come to the rescue with those who are being tempted.” (NAW)

  • The word “rescue” implies that we have a need (even though the word “need” isn't actually there in Greek); we are unable to overcome evil.

  • When we come to the throne of grace to deal with the pain or shame of evil, we will be rescued; we will receive help, and it will be timely. If we don't approach the throne in a timely way ourselves, the rescue might not feel so timely. Nevertheless, Jesus promised in John 6 that He would not lose anybody that the Father called to Him, so His rescue will be in time, and He will preserve us in community with Himself.

• Now, moving into chapter five, our author turns to review the characteristics and office of a high priest so that he can draw the connections between what the Old Testament high priests did and what Jesus did - and show that Jesus makes a better high priest than them.

5:1 For every high-priest taken from among men is made to stand in their stead on behalf of men regarding their issues before God in order that he might offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins,

Three basic things about high priests are listed in this verse:

1. First, they are humans. They are “taken from among men.” (ἐξ ἀνθρώπων λαμβανόμενος)

• Moses didn't take a dog or a squirrel or an alien to be high priest for the people of Israel. It had to be a human to reconcile humans to God.

• Thus Jesus became a man to fulfill the office of high priest. Hebrews 2:17 “...it was necessary to be made like His brothers concerning all things, in order that He might be a merciful and faithful high-priest concerning these things in front of God for the purpose of the propitiation of the sins of the people” (NAW).

2. Second, priests were installed as a go-between on behalf of humans to represent humans before God (ὑπὲρ ἀνθρώπων καθίσταται).

• Aaron and the high priests after him who carried the blood alone into the holy of holies to sprinkle it on the mercy seat of the ark to fulfill God's instructions for forgiving the sin of His people were, in a sense, “standing in the stead” of the worshippers to make things right with God - on behalf of all the people waiting outside on that somber Day of Atonement each year.

• So Jesus, when He made atonement for our sins on the cross, was standing between us and God, representing us as the holy and perfect man and offering His own body as a sacrifice to pay for our guilty selves. He explained it as, “This is my body broken for you/on behalf of you/ instead of you.”

3. Third, the manner in which a priest dealt with the human issues of sin before God was to offer food and animal sacrifices (προσφέρῃ δῶρά τε καὶ θυσίας).

• “For every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices...” (Heb. 8:3a, NKJ)

• The Greek words for “gifts” and “sacrifices” are commonly used throughout the Greek translation of the Pentateuch to describe the Levitical food offerings and animal sacrifices⁴.

• That's what priests are supposed to do because that's what God revealed as the means to deal with sin.

• When we studied the sacrifices in the book of Leviticus, we noted how the food represented the person and all he had, and how the death of a sacrifice was a common denominator because God says “the wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23).

• Heb.9:22 summarized it saying, “Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin.”

• And so Jesus offered His own blood and body as a sacrifice for us on the cross.

• Two more characteristics of high priests follow in v.2

5:2 He is able to be moderate toward the ignorant ones and erring ones since He Himself is also surrounded with weakness,

• Moderation – also translated “compassion/dealing gently” with those who are "ignorant and wandering astray" is a unique Greek word: μετριοπαθεῖν, a compound of the Greek word for “measure” and the word for “passion.”

  • Classic Greek scholar Marvin Vincent explained in his Word Studies of the New Testament that “this denotes a state of feeling... which is neither too severe nor too tolerant. The high priest must not be betrayed into irritation at sin and ignorance, neither must he be weakly indulgent.”

  • Another commentator by the name of Dods⁵ put it well: “If the priest is cordially to plead with God for the sinner, he must bridle his natural disgust at the loathsomeness of sensuality, his impatience at the frequently recurring fall, his hopeless alienation from the hypocrite and the superficial, his indignation at any confession he hears from the penitent.”

  • Jesus has this ability. From the cross, He could say, “Father forgive them, for they know not what they are doing.”

• The other characteristic of the high priest is that he is “surrounded with weakness.” Our human flesh is pictured by the Greek word περίκειται as a weakness wrapped around the soul like a garment wrapped around a body, and chapter 4 of Hebrews went into depth already about the weakness of the humanity which Jesus took on in His incarnation in order to be qualified to serve as our high priest.

• Now, it should be noted that just because Jesus can deal gently with ignorance and waywardness⁶ doesn't mean these things aren't terribly dangerous.

  • 2 Peter 2:12 affirms that “...these, like irrational animals... blaspheming about matters of which they are ignorant, will also be destroyed in their destruction” (ESV)

  • It reminds me of a slogan used about 30 years ago by the Frontiers mission organization: “Ignorance isn't bliss... it's hell!”

  • But, Jesus will rescue some of those ignorant people. The same Greek word ἀγνοοῦσι is used to describe the 12 disciples (Mark 9:32) and Paul (1 Tim 1:13) - as well as some of the Jews (Acts 13:27) and Gentiles (Acts 17:23) to whom they preached, many of whom were saved.

  • Likewise with the πλανωμένοις/wayward/errant:

  • Hebrews 3:10-11 asserted that the wandering hearts of the Israelites is what led to their carcasses dropping in the wilderness: “Therefore I was angry with that generation, And said,`They always go astray in their heart, And they have not known My ways.' So I swore in My wrath,`They shall not enter My rest.'”

  • But in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus said “...he is seeking the one that has been wandering astray!” (Matt. 18:12, NAW)

  • And the Apostle Paul affirmed Jesus' ability to save such ones, among whom he numbered himself: Titus 3:3-5 “For we ourselves were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived/ wandering astray, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another. But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared... He saved us...” (NKJV)

5:3 and on account of this, just as he makes offering for sins for the people he also has to do so for Himself.

• The word “this/it” in Greek is feminine and singular, referring to the feminine singular word for “weakness” which ended verse 2.

• This weakness is the reason that the high priests in the Levitical system had to make offerings for themselves first to get atonement for their own sin before they could offer sacrifices for the people to get their sin forgiven (Lev. 9:7ff).

• Weakness is a synonym here for sin. This form of weakness, however is denied of Christ in Hebrews 4:15 – He is “without sin” so Jesus didn't have to offer a sacrifice for Himself; He just offered one sacrifice for His people.

• Notice, however, that the verb relating this weakness of sin to the high priest in Hebrews 5:2 is the verb “surrounded” - which was true both of the Levitical high priests and of Jesus, and it doesn't implicate Jesus with actual participation in sin, which was a problem for the Levitical priests.

CONCLUSION: Jesus fulfilled every qualification of the Biblical high priesthood:

• He experienced weakness quantitatively the same as any human

• He has been tested in every way just the same as we have been.

• But Jesus passed every test to go somewhere other than the throne of grace to deal with the evil He experienced; He was without sin.

• Jesus was nevertheless surrounded by human weakness and sin,

• Yet he proved Himself moderate and gentle toward sinners.

• Jesus became a man to fulfill the office of high priest.

• He has represented humans well before God.

• Jesus offered a sacrifice of His own body and blood to successfully deal with our sin.

• Therefore, let us keep approaching the throne of grace with openness in order that we may receive mercy and find grace for the purpose of a timely rescue - not merely receiving a one-time dispensation of kindness, but a continuous welcome into the community of God through our great high priest Jesus Christ!

APPENDIX: Side-by side Greek Text and English Versions of Hebrews 4:14-5:3