Heritage Reformed Baptist Mission
HEBREWS
Chapter 5
Hebrews 5:1-14
Christ Better Than Aaron (continued)
v. 1 - The High Priest was ordained to offer gifts and sacrifices to God for the sin of the people.
v. 2 - The High Priest was himself a sinner, able to sympathize with the people.
*NOTE: “ignorant”, “out of the way” = astray, err, wander (weakness); not high handed rebellion
v. 3 - The High Priest had to offer sacrifices for himself, first. He could not be effective on behalf of the people until he himself was cleansed. cf. Gal 6:1; Mat 7:1-5
v. 4 - The High Priest was called of God; he could not appoint himself. cf. Korah (Num 16:8-10), who was slain with all his house for seeking the priesthood; King Saul (1 Sam 13:9- 14), who lost his kingdom for offering a sacrifice;Uzziah (2 Chron 26:16-21), who became a leper for offering incense in the Temple.
v. 5 - Christ did not appoint Himself High Priest. Rather, He was ordained by God, who declared Him to be His Son by raising Him from the dead. cf. Acts 13:33-34
v. 6 - Aaron's priesthood ended when he died.
*Christ is a priest forever by the declaration of God. (Ps 110:4)
v. 7 - “days of His flesh” = when He was on earth in a human body
* “from death” = “out of death” = that death would not hold Him. His prayer was answered in His resurrection.
v. 8 - “learned obedience” = learned (experienced) what was involved in obeying in the midst of suffering as a human being.
v. 9 - “made perfect” = completely prepared for His heavenly ministry as High Priest to save, keep, and strengthen His people.
*Aaron could not offer eternal salvation to anyone.
* “obey Him” = by first trusting in Him for salvation.
v. 10 - Melchidesec was both King and Priest.
*Aaron was High Priest ONLY.
v. 11 - “Of whom” = Melchisedec
- “hard to be uttered” = difficult to intrepret and explain, especially because they had
- “become dull of hearing” = having, for some unknown-to-us reason, deteriorated in their ability to learn spiritual things
v. 12 - They should have grown in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus enough to have been able to teach others. Instead, it seems they had gone back to their Christian babyhood
- “first principles of the oracles of God” = the very basic things a new Christian needs to be taught
- “milk” = the first principles
- “meat” = things about Melchisedec, e.g.
v. 13 - “for he is a babe” = believers who only feed on the “milk” of the Word are not able to teach others the more advanced truths and principles of Scripture
v. 14 - “strong meat' = the more advanced truths and principles of Scripture
- “full age” = no longer babes, but spiritually mature through learning, understanding and applying the more advanced truths and principles of Scripture, thus able to learn even more
- “by reason of use” = learning only takes place when what is heard is put in practice
- “senses exercised” = spiritual truths, when received into the mind and heart as food in received into the body, digested and assimilated, causes believers to be able to “discern both good and evil”.
Having not progressed spiritually as they should have, the Hebrews were not able to see that what they were tempted and proposing to do was wrong.