Qualities of a High Priest (Hebrews 5:1-4)

Kootenai Church

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And with your Bibles open to Hebrews chapter 5, let's go to the Lord in prayer. Our Father, it is the desire of our heart to hear you speak to us in the pages of Scripture.

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We thank you that you have spoken, that you have preserved this word for us. And we thank you that it is true.

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Every word of God is true. And we pray today that as we focus our hearts and our meditation upon your word, that you would be glorified through our study and through our time here.

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Speak to us, we pray. May your word be our guide, your Holy Spirit our teacher, and your glory our everlasting concern.

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We ask this in the name of Christ our Lord. Amen. I need to clarify something

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I said last week. I made a mistake and I had said in last week's message that Moses put the broken tablets of the law of God inside the

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Ark. How many of you caught that? A couple, three or four. Well, somebody came up to me afterwards and pointed out it wasn't the broken tablets that Moses put inside the

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Ark of the Covenant. It was the new set of tablets that Moses cut out of stone and God wrote on.

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Those were put inside the Ark of the Covenant. And as soon as I was questioned about that, I thought, that's exactly right. I don't know what in my head was thinking the broken tablets were in there.

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It still holds true that that law, which we have broken, was in the Ark of the Covenant, but it wasn't the broken tablets.

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So that wasn't the most memorable faux pas I made last week, but it is the only one that I want to talk about today. So we're in Hebrews chapter 5, talking about high priests.

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If you were a Jew in the first century, having a high priest was a big, big deal. Every Jew understood that God could not be approached flippantly or individually or on his own terms or on his own merit or according to however it is that he wanted to approach

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God. Every Jew understood that because of his sin, God was separate and distinct and set apart.

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He was transcendent, high and holy and lifted up. And no Jew would have ever thought that he could ever have the boldness, the temerity, and the audacity to approach

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God's throne and just simply to march into the Holy of Holies himself and offer a sacrifice or burn incense or perform any kind of religious worship.

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And for 16 centuries, the Jews had always had their relationship with Yahweh mediated through a high priest.

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Everything was done in and around and through the ministry of a high priest. The sacrifices were offered, the incense was burned, everything was done through a priesthood, everything in and around the tabernacle, everything relating to the

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Jewish nation, the believing Jewish nation's approach to a holy God, all of that was done through a high priest.

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For 16 centuries, that had been the way it was done.

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For 16 centuries, God taught his people, I am holy and you are not, and you cannot simply approach me without a mediator.

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For 16 centuries, they understood that even that mediator could only approach God on the basis of a sacrifice whose blood was shed on behalf of those who wanted to approach

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God. That was the lesson that was taught for 16 centuries. That is a long, long time. Now into that scene and into that mindset stepped

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Jesus of Nazareth, who was born of a virgin, who was declared to be the king of Israel.

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He performed mighty deeds. He claimed to be divine. He claimed to be the son of God and to share the same nature as God the

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Father. He gave evidence that those claims were true by performing miracles, by healing the sick and making the lame to walk and raising the dead and performing other miracles, multiplying bread and fish, etc.

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He gave evidence that those claims were true and then because he claimed to be God, he was crucified on a

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Roman cross at the request of the Jewish nation and then he was buried and three days later he rose again and ascended to heaven and then the

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Christians started to proclaim, he is our high priest. Jesus is our high priest. Now the only question that a first century

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Jew would want to ask, well I shouldn't say the only question, the first question that a first century Jew would want to ask is, is this one whom you claim to be a high priest qualified to serve as a high priest?

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Does he meet the qualifications? You say Jesus is our high priest, or your high priest, and yet does he meet the qualifications of a high priest?

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That would have been the very first thing that a Jewish worshipper would have wanted to know.

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You claim Jesus is this and think of the absurdity of the claim on the face of it from the perspective of a first century

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Jew. This Jesus of Nazareth, the Nazarene, the one who comes from the city out of which nothing good comes, that son of a carpenter who died under the curse of God on a

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Roman cross, that one rejected by the entire religion establishment, that one rejected by all of the priests and the priesthood and crucified at the behest of the high priest, he serves in heaven as a high priest.

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Every Jewish worshipper would want to know this, is he qualified to serve as a high priest? Does he meet those qualifications?

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Because while they were reading the book of Hebrews or while this book of Hebrews was being spoken or preached or read to them in the first century, there was a high priest in Jerusalem who was still doing what high priests had done for 1600 years, for 16 centuries.

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Every year going into the Holy of Holies and offering the sacrifices and mediating the relationship of believing

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Jews with their God, he was doing what high priests had done for 16 centuries, that was still going on all the way up until 70, 80, it was still going on in the temple, even as these words were spoken.

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And so they would want to know, this Jesus whom you say is a high priest, is he qualified to serve as a high priest?

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And that is the case that the author of Hebrews has to make. Now, we haven't directly considered whether or not Jesus is qualified to be a high priest.

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We've kind of assumed it, we've declared that he is, we've talked about his ability to sympathize with us in our weaknesses, the fact that he sits upon the throne of grace and dispenses his gifts to his believing people, that he intercedes for us, we've mentioned all of that and covered all of that, but we haven't directly considered the question, is he qualified to serve as a high priest?

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According to the biblical qualifications given in the Old Testament. And that is the case that the author of Hebrews has to make and that is the case that he makes here in chapter 5.

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So even though we have talked about him being a high priest, even as far back as chapter 2, we've never stopped to consider, is he really qualified to serve as a high priest?

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Now, even me raising the question to you and I, it seems almost kind of like an absurd question on the face of it, right?

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Of course he's qualified to be a high priest. I mean, he's God in human flesh and he makes all the qualifications, he's holy, he's set apart, he's the son of the father in heaven, he sits enthroned at the father's right hand, of course he's qualified.

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But see, no first century Jew would have thought that way, the way that you and I do, they would think from a little bit of a different perspective.

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And so the author of Hebrews would have to make the case. Yeah, he is qualified. So that's what chapter 5 verses 1 to 10 is all about.

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So we're starting into chapter 5 today. Having looked in verses 14, 15, and 16, the fact that Jesus is our high priest and a sympathetic one, seated at the father's right hand, and he's shared in our weaknesses so he understands our temptations and he now sits at a throne of grace and dispenses his good gifts to his people.

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Now we start into chapter 5 and though this is a new chapter, it is not a new subject because you can see that we've already been talking about a high priest and then he mentions in verse 1 that every high priest taken from among men must serve in the things pertaining to God on behalf of men.

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And he's talking there about the old order of high priests. So he describes the old order of high priests in verses 1 to 4.

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And so here's what we have in the first 10 verses of chapter 5. It's really one unit of thought. And I want you to keep that in mind because he really doesn't change gears until verse 11 of chapter 5, and we'll get to that in just a second.

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So in these first 10 verses of chapter 5, he is dealing primarily with this one issue. Is this one who we say is a high priest, is he really qualified to serve in a capacity of a high priest?

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Is Jesus qualified to be our high priest? And so in verses 1 to 4, he goes through a couple of qualifications, namely four of them that we're going to look at today.

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Four qualifications for a high priest or four things that a high priest had to be in order to serve as a high priest.

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And those are the four qualifications given in verses 1 to 4. And then in verses 5 through 10, he shows that Jesus meets those qualifications, that he fulfills the role of a high priest.

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So in verse 6, I want you to notice something in verse 6 before we jump in at the beginning of verse 4. I want you to notice the beginning of verse 6, or in verse 6 and in verse 10, the mention of Melchizedek.

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Verse 6, just as it says also in another passage, you are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek. And then look at verse 10, being designated by God as a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek.

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Now, what is that? What is the order of Melchizedek? We have not even talked about Melchizedek up to this point.

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Some of you couldn't even maybe pronounce that name Melchizedek. You're Mechadizek, who is that?

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Who is Melchizedek and how does he come into here at this point? And what bearing upon the relevance of this passage does

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Melchizedek have? Who is he and what did he do? We're not going to answer that today. I don't know if next week we'll jump into it in full order.

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But Melchizedek, I'm just putting it out here because I want it to be on your radar because it is significant. In fact, it's so significant that in the next three chapters, chapters 5, 6, and 7,

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Melchizedek is mentioned eight times, five of them with that phrase, according to the order of Melchizedek.

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So it's mentioned in verse 6 here and then in verse 10. It's mentioned again at the very end of chapter 6.

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Look at verse 20, where Jesus is entered as a forerunner for us, having become a high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.

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Melchizedek is mentioned in chapter 7, verse 11, where, again, you see that phrase, according to the order of Melchizedek.

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And he's mentioned in chapter 7, verse 17, according to the order of Melchizedek. And then three other times,

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Melchizedek is mentioned. So he's a central figure. I'm just putting that on your radar because we're going to have to talk about who Melchizedek is and what he means and what the point of the author here is in this passage.

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But in the discussion of Melchizedek here in chapter 5 and chapter 6, the author introduces us, he changes gears, as it were, in verse 11 to focus on what is going to be the third warning passage.

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Now it seems, I know, like we just got done talking about the second warning passage back in chapter 2, verse 3, verse...where

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are we at? Chapter 4, verse 13. I get my chapters mixed up. I go through them so quickly. They're just all bundled together in my head.

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So we just got done talking about the second warning passage. The author gives us a third warning passage starting in verse 11 of chapter 5 and going through the end of chapter 6, verse 12.

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And that warning passage sits, just like the other two, like parenthetical rabbit trails in the midst of another discussion.

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And so he starts here on the priesthood of Jesus, talks about the order of Melchizedek, and then it is as if he kind of stops and pauses and says, now you should understand this, but you don't.

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And then we have that third warning passage, and then he picks up Melchizedek again and goes on through the rest of chapter 6 and chapter 7 discussing the significance of Melchizedek.

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So that all serves as a good review and a good overview of what is to come. So here is our outline for today. The question in verses 1 to 4 is concerning the old order of the old high priest.

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Is Jesus qualified to serve as a high priest? Is he qualified to serve? And so here are the four qualifications that the author in verses 1 to 4 marks out.

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First, he had to be a man. And I'm just giving you two, and then we're going to go over these as I point out each one from the text.

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First, he had to be a man. Second, he had to serve on behalf of men in things pertaining to God. Third, he had to be sympathetic and gentle toward those whom he represented.

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And fourth, he had to be appointed by God. He had to be a man. He had to serve on behalf of men. He had to be gentle toward those whom he represented.

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And he had to be appointed by God. I wish there was some way or I had come up with some way to make all four of those points memorable, like some sort of a crafty or clever outline or alliteration or something like that.

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But I simply, honestly, I just didn't even have time. The Patriots are in the

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Super Bowl again this year, so I was under suicide watch until Wednesday. I finally was functional and came out of that on Wednesday.

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And I just don't even have time to come up with any kind of a clever outline at all. And I really don't care.

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With any luck, I'll be dead before Super Bowl Sunday, and nobody is. It's all vanity anyway. So those are your four points, and we're just going to have to deal with those four points.

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First, he had to be a man. A high priest had to be a man. Look at verse 1. He had to be taken from among men.

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For every high priest taken from among men is appointed on behalf of men in things pertaining to God.

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Every high priest, and he's speaking here of the old order of high priests. So he's hearkening back to the order under Aaron, as it were.

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You see that in verse 4. He references Aaron as being appointed by God. He's describing here the priesthood and the high priesthood and everything that they were familiar with.

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And he's saying in every case, those high priests were taken from among men. Now, that seems kind of obvious, but there was another option.

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A high priest could have been appointed from among angels, right? In fact, in many ways, angels might have been more understanding and more capable than a fellow man.

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Angels never die, so you'd only have to appoint one angel as a high priest, and that angel could serve as a high priest forever.

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And a holy angel would know God's holy standards and his righteous demands and decrees, and so he could easily communicate the righteousness and holiness of God to the people that he was ministering on behalf of.

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But high priests in the Old Testament were not appointed or taken from among angels. They were taken from among men. Why is that?

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Because men share our nature. And it was necessary that the one who represented us before God understood us.

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And so high priests were taken not from among angels, but from among men, because the humanity of a high priest was something that was necessary for him to perform his function.

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And one of the functions of a high priest was to represent the nation of Israel. So he had to be taken from among men, and he was.

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And you see in verse 2 and 3 that he deals gently with those, the ignorant and misguided, since he himself also is beset with weaknesses.

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So we're not talking about sinless men that were appointed as high priests, but we're talking about fellow sinners who were appointed as high priests.

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And they were taken from among men. They needed to be able to relate to us, to understand us, to know our humanity, to share our frailty and our passions, to be able to sympathize with us in our struggles, our trials, our sufferings, our temptation.

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They had to be men who put their robes on one arm at a time, just like we do, and get up and face the same things that we do, be able to sympathize and understand what it is that we go through, so that when a believing

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Jew would come to the high priest, he would find somebody who was able to deal gently and kindly and in an understanding fashion with him because he was approaching somebody who understood what it meant to be a man, to wage war against sin, to deal with temptation and suffering, and to live in a fallen world.

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Second, he had to serve on behalf of men, and this describes generally the function and the role of a high priest. He had to be able to serve on behalf of men.

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So verse 1 says, he was taken from among men, and he is appointed on behalf of men in things pertaining to God. That is to say, in the religious function, in the religious life of the nation of Israel, the high priest functioned in things pertaining to God on behalf of men.

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He was their representative before God. That's what that phrase means. In other words, the high priest was not somebody who had power of attorney and made medical decisions.

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He was not somebody who made real estate decisions or financial decisions for them. He represented the believing

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Jew in primarily one way and one way only, and that was he mediated their sacrifice, their faith, their standing before God by offering a sacrifice.

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He stood between God and them, and he mediated that relationship as their representative.

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He represented the people before God in all that he did in the tabernacle and in the temple. So that God would look at the activity and the actions of that high priest and regard that as if it had been done by every believing

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Jew because he represented them in all things pertaining to God, and that's why a high priest had to be taken from among men so that he could represent us on behalf of men, and it was a mediatorial office where he offered, verse 1 and 2 says, both gifts and sacrifices for sins.

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He offered gifts and sacrifices for sins. Now gifts probably refers to bloodless offerings. There were some grain offerings detailed in Leviticus chapter 2 that a high priest offered, and there were also bloody offerings and the sacrifices, the animal sacrifices in the temple, and primarily here probably is intended the bloody sacrifice on the high day of the year,

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Yom Kippur, the day of atonement, when the high priest did everything on behalf of the nation, and he made that one atonement behind the veil on the ark and the mercy seat on the ark of the covenant.

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Primarily this would refer to that sacrifice for sins, that offering, that bloody offering, a sacrifice. And he offered it to God on behalf of men appointed by God to act for men in things pertaining to God.

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So God would look in terms of the entire believing nation of the Jews, God would look at the activity and the actions and the sacrifices and the work done by that high priest and regard it as sufficient for the entire nation.

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Make sense? These believing Jews who would come and offer that sacrifice to God. And this is the reason for the humanity of Jesus.

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This is why we believe he was divine and human. So that being human, he was able to fully represent us.

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Being divine, he was able to fully represent God to us. Being human, he was able to represent us to God.

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So that unity of, I was going to say mixture, but it's not a mixture.

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I have to be careful how I'm describing the nature of Christ, lest I blaspheme. That union of the divine nature and the human nature, fully

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God and fully man in that one person together, one person, two natures, as a man able to understand and represent men, as God able to offer a sacrifice on behalf of believers, all who believe, that atones for their sins.

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And the evidences of Jesus' humanity are all over Scripture. And that is why we believe in the full humanity of Jesus, that he was taken from among men, appointed by God on behalf of other men.

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And because he was God in human flesh, because he was fully divine, he was able to offer a sacrifice sufficient for the sins of all who will believe.

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So a high priest acted before God on behalf of men, and therefore he had to be a man and be taken from among men so that he might represent us.

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The third quality, he had to be sympathetic and gentle toward other men. He had to be able to sympathize.

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Look at verse 2. He can deal gently with the ignorant and misguided, since he himself is also beset with weaknesses.

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That word that is translated deal gently is kind of an interesting word. It's only used one time in all of the

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New Testament. It's used here. It is a word that is a combination of two other words that are put together.

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And the word means or has the idea of being measured in your dealings. That's basically the literal translation, to be measured in your dealings.

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It means to treat with mildness and moderation, to be in the middle ground or measured in your dealing or in the middle ground of your dealing with somebody else, to not be on one side or the other.

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And you say, how does all of that refer, how does all of that describe the work of a high priest if he deals gently? And the idea is simply this, that a high priest had to be one, and because he was man and able to represent us, the high priest in dealing with other sinners was able to be very measured in how he responded to them.

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So if a sinner came to him and said, look, here is my sin, I'm offering this sacrifice, the high priest would take the middle ground in the sense that he wouldn't be apathetic toward the sin and say, oh, it's no big deal.

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We understand. You're just born that way. That's just how you are. That's just how God made you. It's all good. Don't worry about your sin.

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No biggie. I'll take care of it. It couldn't be like that. He couldn't be apathetic, nor could he be indulgent in the sin or so sympathetic that he approved of it, nor could he be so irritated and frustrated by the sin that he would immediately jump in the middle of the guy that committed the sin.

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So it's a middle ground where you're neither indulgent and apathetic, nor are you overly irritated by the sin.

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Somebody who is able to deal gently has this measure in how he responds to sinners.

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Now, that is ideally a high priest. How many high priests do you think actually had that quality in the

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Old Testament? It is a very rare quality. MacArthur in his commentary describes it this way.

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A person with this characteristic would, for example, show a certain balance between irritation and apathy in the face of wrongdoing.

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He'd be patient with the wrongdoer but not condone the wrong, be understanding but not indulgent. A person who is either too sympathetic or too apathetic cannot help someone in trouble.

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The one who is too sympathetic will himself be engulfed by the problem, becoming too grief -stricken or too scared to be of any help.

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On the other hand, the one who is apathetic possibly will not even recognize a problem someone else is having and in any case will not be concerned about helping.

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In the middle is the person described here. He can fully identify with the person having a problem without losing his perspective and judgment.

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Thereby, he would be able to deal gently with those to whom he ministered without becoming victim of their misery.

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This is a rare quality, especially in a day and an age like today in the world in which we live where people believe that if you don't fully embrace and celebrate and actually promote their sin, you are therefore hatred and bigoted and against them.

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But in the middle is the individual who can say, Look, I love you. I can sympathize with you.

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I understand your struggle. But what you're involved in is sin. That's the middle road.

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That's dealing gently. It is not dealing gently or loving to embrace and condone and promote and appreciate and approve sinful lifestyle, nor is it dealing gently to be so harsh towards somebody that they don't feel any love.

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In the middle, ideally, this is the Lord Jesus Christ who is able to sympathize with us and love us, but he still holds the line.

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He says, This is sinful. And my love for you, he would say, my love for you is not affected by the fact that you sin, but I'm not going to approve of your sin just because I love you.

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So this is a rare quality, and this is the quality that a high priest was supposed to have because he was afflicted with the same weakness.

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He shared the same temptations and trials that afflict us, and for that reason, he knew what it was to be like us in the sense that he suffered the same frailties that are opportunities and occasions for our sin, but yet he is without sin.

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He's the Holy One. So he doesn't approve of sin. He's not apathetic towards sin, and he doesn't come down harshly or deal harshly with those who do sin.

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We have always an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, who is willing and able and ready to forgive and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

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That is the perfect picture of a high priest. A high priest in the Old Testament was taken from among men in order to perform acts pertaining to God on behalf of those men, and because he suffered the same frailties and weaknesses, he was able to sympathize with them.

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And you can see the contrast here in verse 2 and 3 with Jesus when he says that he himself is beset with weaknesses.

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It's the same word, weaknesses, but in the case of the Old Testament high priests, those weaknesses were sins. Those weaknesses were shortcomings, but in the case of Jesus, we learn from chapter 4, verse 14 and 15 that he was tempted yet completely without sin.

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And the author is going to make this contrast later on in chapter 7, still dealing with the high priesthood of Jesus, when he says in verses 26 and 27, it was fitting for us to have such a high priest, holy, innocent, undefiled, separate from sinners, exalted above the heavens, who does not need daily, like those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for his own sins and then for the sins of the people, because this he did once for all when he offered up himself.

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You see, that's the contrast between Jesus and the Old Testament priests. The Old Testament priests needed to offer first a sacrifice for their own sins, then they could offer a sacrifice in the sins of the people.

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Jesus didn't need to offer a sacrifice for his own sins. He is able, as the Holy One, to offer one sacrifice, himself, which atones for the sins of all who will believe upon him.

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And so he is greater in that way than all of the Old Testament priests. He made, the author is making the case that they needed to be sympathetic with us, but Jesus is even better because not only is he sympathetic with us, he is completely without sin.

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Completely without sin. You can sympathize with their sinful nature, not because he has ever sinned, but because he has experienced the frailties and the weaknesses that are common among sinful men.

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And the fourth quality, he had to be a man, he had to be taken from among men, he had to function and represent other men, he had to be sympathetic, and the fourth quality is he has to be appointed by God.

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You see it in verse 4. And no one takes the honor to himself but receives it when he is called by God, even as Aaron was.

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It was an honor to be the High Priest because that was the highest religious office in the entire nation, the entire land.

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And the High Priest functioned on behalf of the people in all the sacrifices, he was appointed by God and it was quite an honor to be a

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High Priest because you represented men to God. And on that day, the Day of Atonement and the oversight of all of the priestly duties of all of the other priests that functioned in the temple and the tabernacle, you were the man, you were the man, you were the head man, you were the highest man out of all of it.

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And so it was quite an honor to be a High Priest. But no one took the honor to himself. That means that no one would presume or assume to step into that capacity.

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He had to be appointed by God. Now here's what's interesting. By the time of Jesus in the first century, the office of High Priest was no longer one that was appointed directly by God under the oversight of the priesthood itself.

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It had become a political office. And so as we saw in John, the Gospel of John, Annas and Caiaphas were both political stooges who used their power and cooperated with the

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Roman authorities and abused their power over the people because it had then become a political office. But that's not the way that God had appointed it when he appointed

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Aaron, mentioned in verse 4. God had appointed it, God had appointed this office and those who served in Aaron's stead after Aaron for a number of generations and years, all were men who were directly appointed by God to that office.

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And no one would take this honor to himself. It wasn't an elected position. It wasn't available to anyone.

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In fact, it was not available to anyone other than those in one particular tribe, the tribe of Levi, out of all the 12 tribes of the nation of Israel, only one tribe had priests.

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And in that one tribe, only one family, the descendants of one man, had priests who functioned as high priests.

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And that was Aaron and his descendants. So Exodus 28 verse 1 says, then bring near to yourself, this is the

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Lord speaking to Moses, bring near to yourself Aaron your brother and his sons with him from among the sons of Israel to minister as a priest to me.

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Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, Eleazar, and Ammar, Aaron's sons. Numbers 3 verse 3, these are the names of the sons of Aaron, the anointed priests whom he ordained to serve as priests.

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Only the descendants of one man, Aaron, Moses' brother, were ever allowed to function as high priests. And nobody could choose to become a high priest.

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They were chosen by God and appointed by God. You didn't take that honor to yourself. Just as God appointed

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Aaron, verse 4 says, just as Aaron was appointed, so also were all the descendants of Aaron after him. Now of all the people that could or would serve as a high priest, can you think of anybody more unlikely than Aaron?

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You familiar with what Aaron did? Do you remember Aaron? While Moses was on the mountain receiving the law and the priesthood,

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Aaron was down in the camp with the people. And it had been a long time, and the people said to Aaron, make us a god.

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And so Aaron said, well, bring me your gold and your silver and all your jewelry, and they did, and he melted it down in the fire, and he formed a golden calf, and he lifted that up and says, this is the god who has delivered you from the land of Egypt.

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Bow down and worship it. And the people had a drunken worship service there before that golden calf and debauched themselves there in the face of Aaron.

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And the Lord was on the mountain giving the priesthood to Moses, directions to Moses, that Aaron was to oversee the priesthood.

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And Aaron was leading an idolatrous worship service at the base of the mountain. And the Lord said, get down there before I destroy these people.

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And so Moses got to the bottom of the mountain, and what did he find? All the people doing exactly what the Lord had said he was doing up on the mountain, everything

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I just described to you, and he confronted Aaron, and what did Aaron say? The people brought me their gold and their silver,

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I threw it into the fire, and this calf came out. And that is one of those statements where even after Aaron said it, he had to have been thinking in his mind,

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I could have done better than that. That really was not even, if you ever had one of your kids give you an excuse, a justification for something that they've done, that is so patently stupid, so patently unlikely, that you just think to yourself, do you really come from my loins?

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Because that is, you can surely be a more accomplished liar and fabricator of truth than you are in this moment.

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You're almost ashamed of them. Such it was with Aaron. We threw the gold and silver in, and the calf came out.

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It just jumped right out of the fire, so we all thought, this must be a work of God, we all bowed down and we worshiped it. And then

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God said, set apart for me Aaron and his sons, they're going to serve as my high priests. But talk about grace.

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Talk about grace. God should have destroyed Aaron in that very moment. But he didn't. And there were some who presumed in Scripture to take the honor to themselves.

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Notice verse 4 says, nobody takes this honor, nobody jumps into the role of a high priest and presumes it, or takes it upon themselves.

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They have to be appointed by God. There are at least three examples in the Old Testament of men who presumed to take this honor to themselves and stepped up and thought they were worthy of being a high priest and wanted that office themselves.

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The first and most notable is Korah in Numbers chapter 16. Remember what Korah said to Moses? Look, this nepotism has got to stop.

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You and Aaron, you appoint him as priest and he recognizes you as the leader of Israel. This is all.

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There's a lot of smoky going on here. This is not right. And so you can't say to us, the rest of the sons of Levi, because Korah was a descendant of Levi, you can't say to the rest of the tribe of Levi that none of us can serve as priest.

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We're the tribe that is supposed to be taking care of all the tabernacle and you're saying one man, just your brother?

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Just your brother and his descendants can serve as high priest? This is wrong. And they led this rebellion. And so Moses did the whole thing with the censors.

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You bring the censors and Aaron's censors and they all came before the Lord and the Lord said through Moses, you tell everybody who's innocent to step away from the tents and all of the possessions of Korah because I'm going to do something here.

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And then Moses said that to all the people and they scattered away from Korah. And then he said to Korah, if you die a natural death, the

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Lord's not with me. But if something weird or curious happens that's never happened before, then the Lord is with me.

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And at that moment, all the ground opened up and swallowed Korah, his family, all of his possessions, and the ground closed back.

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And the people were terrified, as you can well imagine. And it says in Numbers chapter 16 verse 40, this all happened as a reminder to the sons of Israel that no layman who is not of the descendants of Aaron should come near to burn incense before the

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Lord so that he will not become like Korah in his company, just as the Lord had spoken to him through Moses. A couple centuries later, another man thought he was qualified to serve as a priest,

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Saul. Remember Saul? What did he do? Well, he was going to battle against the Philippines. The Philippines didn't exist, the

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Philistines. He was going to battle against the Philistines. He was going to battle against the

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Philistines and he was waiting for Samuel, who was functioning as a priest before the people. He was waiting for Samuel to come into the camp and to offer a sacrifice so that God would be pleased and show his favor with Saul and his battle plans.

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Samuel took a little bit longer than Saul wanted, so Saul took it upon himself to offer up some animals on an altar in order to gain

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God's favor. And when Samuel arrived, he said this, You've acted foolishly. You have not kept the commandments of the

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Lord your God which he commanded you. For now the Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel forever, but now your kingdom shall not endure.

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The Lord has sought out for himself a man after his own heart and the Lord has appointed him as ruler over his people because you have not kept what the

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Lord commanded you. There was to be a distinction between the king and the priest and the prophet.

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Those were three separate and distinct offices. And the king was to do, he was to rule and reign in his realm and exercise authority his way, but he was not to step into the office of a priest and presume to take upon himself all the priestly duties and the priestly functions.

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That was forbidden. But Saul did that. And Saul wasn't the last one. The last example that I have for you is

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Uzziah from 2 Chronicles chapter 26. He became strong, 2 Chronicles 26 verse 16 says, and his heart was so proud that he acted corruptly and he was unfaithful to the

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Lord his God. For he entered the temple of the Lord to burn incense on the altar of incense. Things were going well for Uzziah and he said, man,

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I am the bee's knees. So he stepped into the temple and thought, I'm just going to light up some incense and lit up some incense and he burned it there before the

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Lord, taking the function of a priest and doing something which was not for him to do. And 2

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Chronicles 26 verses 17 and 18 says, and then Azariah the priest entered after him and with him eight priests of the

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Lord valiant men. Now you've got to be a valiant man to go confront the king.

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Right? Eight of them. They opposed Uzziah the king and said to him, it is not for you,

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Uzziah, to burn incense to the Lord, but for the priests, the sons of Aaron who were consecrated to burn incense.

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Get out of the sanctuary for you have been unfaithful and have no honor from the Lord your God. And he got enraged with them and the

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Lord struck him with leprosy and they put him in a separate place to live out the rest of his days and he died a leper.

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The Lord takes this seriously. Only men from one tribe, Levi, were allowed to serve as priests.

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And within that tribe only men from one family, Aaron's descendants, were allowed to serve as priests.

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Now in case you haven't tracked this far ahead of me just yet, that presents to us a problem. And here's the problem.

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The Lord Jesus was neither from the tribe of Levi nor was he a descendant of Aaron.

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Not qualified in that way. He was taken from among men. He was appointed on behalf of men and things pertaining to God.

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He was sympathetic because he shares our weaknesses, but yet he's without sin. But when it comes to this and the author mentions in verse 4 that Aaron was appointed and no one takes this honor to himself unless it is appointed by God just as Aaron was.

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That reminds us, oh yes, high priests had to come from Levi. They had to come specifically from the family of Aaron.

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And Jesus comes from neither the tribe of Levi. He's from the tribe of Judah. And he is certainly not a descendant of Aaron.

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So on what basis, in what way, by what authority can we say that the Lord Jesus Christ is qualified to serve as our high priest if he does not come from the family of Aaron in the tribe of Levi?

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And yet we assert he is our high priest. See that's a real, genuine, serious problem.

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Especially for a Jew who knew his Old Testament. Because it sure seems to me, and it would seem to them, that Jesus had appointed himself as a high priest.

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Just like Uzziah, just like Saul, and just like Korah. How can he serve as a high priest if he isn't from that family?

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That is the question that we will address next week. Because it's a big question. Let's bow our heads. Father, we are so grateful that you have appointed the

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Lord Jesus Christ to serve in our stead so that all that he has done might be credited to our account.

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His righteous life, his perfect obedience, his suffering and death on the cross, and his victory over the grave and the resurrection.

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All of it is the work of your Son, but it is credited to our account by virtue of our faith in him.

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And we thank you for that. We thank you for that tremendous mercy of our salvation which has been wrought entirely by another.

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And we thank you for your wonderful word which reminds us of this, and that we have a Savior in heaven who knows our weaknesses, and who's sympathetic and is able to deal gently with us.

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As he dispenses to us the grace that we need in times of trial and temptation. We thank you for your perfect provision, and we pray that you would delight our hearts together in him, the

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Lord Jesus Christ, who is all our hope and our stay. In Christ's name we pray. Amen.