Hebrews 5:7-10 Who in the days of his flesh… The second proof that Christ holds the high priestly position. In vers. 1, 2 the double qualification for this is shown - a qualification Godward and rearward; he must be appointed by God, and able to sympathize with man. Both these are shown to be true of Christ, and that he is, therefore, officially "perfect" (vers. 9, 10). I. THE NECESSITY THAT THE HIGH PRIEST SHOULD HAVE PERSONAL ACQUAINTANCE WITH HUMAN EXPERIENCE. He "must be taken from among men." 1. Apart from this he could be no true representative of mankind. Human obedience to the Divine Law was required of men. Christ undertook, as their Representative, to meet all requirements; that made the Incarnation a necessity. Christ must keep the Law on the same footing on which Adam stood when he came from God's hand. So, likewise, bearing man's penalty, he must assume a nature which could be. That is, he must become man. 2. Apart from this he could not secure the confidence of the people. Christ need not pass through human experience in order to understand it; he understands it by his omniscience. But the infirmity of human faith can better confide in the sympathy of one who, it knows, has personally endured its trials. II. THE FULFILMENT OF THIS QUALIFICATION IN THE LORD JESUS CHRIST. "Who in the days of his flesh," etc. 1. An illustration of Christ's deep experience of human suffering. The reference is, evidently, to Gethsemane. What could have affected the Savior then so intensely? Not the anticipation of physical anguish, for then he would have fallen lower than the martyrs; not the dread of rejection by the people, for he had already endured that with great calmness; not the fear of the act of death, for he spoke of that with joy: "If ye loved me ye would rejoice, because," etc. It could only have been because death would be to him what it could be to none other - the bearing of the world's sin, the experience of sin's doom. But why does the writer refer to this, but because it is the culminating point of our Lord's suffering? He leads them to look at Jesus when he has reached the deepest depth of suffering possible. However deep his people's darkness, Jesus has gone deeper still. He knows the lowest, therefore also the intermediate stages. 2. An illustration of the pain involved in submitting our will to God. "He learned obedience by the things which he suffered." Obedience is submission of the will to God. That was the burden of the prayer in Gethsemane. He laid his will absolutely at the Father's feet. Christ did not learn to be obedient. He came to do God's will; that was his meat and drink. He did always (from the first) those things which please the Father. He learned obedience - came to know what it means for the flesh to submit ever to the will of Heaven; what it is to obey God amidst human frailties, pains, temptations. 3. An illustration of Christ's dependence for fidelity on heavenly helps. He prayed to be saved (not "from") "out of death;" not that death might be averted - for his prayer "was heard" - but that he might be delivered out of it. Divine support was given, and a glorious resurrection. Christ, as man, had no inherent power by reason of his Deity for what, as man, he had to do and bear. He stood on man's footing. Perhaps nothing brings him closer to us than that for all he needed he had to cling to God in trustful supplication as we have, and receive delivering and sustaining grace because thereof as we do. III. THE WORTH TO HIS PEOPLE OF CHRIST'S FULFILMENT OF THIS QUALIFICATION. He was thus "made perfect" - perfect as to his fullness for high priestly work. Then: 1. The perfection of Christ's priesthood makes every other priesthood needless. He is "a high priest after the order of Melchizedek;" not in the Aaronic order, not thus for Israel after the flesh, but "for all those who obey him," i.e. submit to him. Christ, High Priest for every sinner who yields himself to him; and for this he is perfect. Then what room for any other mediator? 2. The power of sympathy in a God who has himself suffered. For perfect repose we must have one of whose fellow-feeling we are assured by his experience of our own trials. If we only knew God in heaven, we might revere, obey, trust, love him; but we could not put our head on his bosom and weep there. But when we see that there is not a trial we experience whose counterpart we cannot find in his earthly life, we can rest in the Lord. 3. The humiliation and woe by which alone our salvation was secured. See how Christ shrank from Calvary, and yet how he advanced to it with unswerving willingness, and thus "became the Author," etc. That leaves on the mind two deep impressions: (1) the baseness of making light of what was bought at such a cost; and (2) the terror of that wrath which shall overtake the impenitent, since such was the experience of the Son of God when he stooped to the penalty of sin. - C.N. Parallel Verses KJV: Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared; |
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