3-9-75. 1-Le Have a Great High Priest. He Can All of Us Bear Heavier Burdens When We Are Doing It for a Relative. a Small Boy, Carrying Another on His Back
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3-9-75. 1-le have a great high priest. He can all of us bear heavier burdens when we are doing it for a relative. A small boy, carrying another on his back ... It isn't a heavy lead, its my brothe The msg of Yr is that God sent his Son to restore the relatship w/man, so that those who respond in faith becor e heirs oft God and joint:~heirs w/Xr, we become children of God and adopted brothers & sisters of Xr. So the burden Jesus bore was no burden at all because he cared for his blood rel atives. Our lessons for the month of Marhh are taken from the ltr to the Hebrs, the central theme of which is the great highpriesthood of Xr that is perfect, repiacing the old highpriesthood that -ras imoerfect. The book:--it is more a theol treatise or an exhortation than a letter--was written with two objects in mind. One was to shore up the faith and courage of people who were facing per secution, and the other was to grapple with the intellectual problems that faced devout Hebrs who became Xr. The entire book is an app~al to hold fast to the faith despite persec~ts. It was prob written during the persect of Domitian who was Roman Emp during 801s-90's. In that reign there was a systematic effort made to stamp out Xr, by persecut, by ridicule, by econ boycott, and to establ Caesar worship on a grand scale. To profess Xr meant risk of martyrdom and certainty of persecut of some sort or other. Thus threatened, loyalty of members of Xr Ch was put to test and under strain, and many were tempted to take the easy way out. This is the primary purpose of the book. It is an appeal th those whose faith was faltering, and it is a valuable wor~ for our own time fan that reason. We are not persecut, but worse--we are ignored. Many people are leaving the Ch not because it is dangerous to stay in it but it seems meaningl~ss or irreievant. To those who are thinking about just simply dropoing out, the bk of Hebrs is an exhortat to keep the faith and the commitment. But though this is the dominant theme, it is also an answer to the intell probls of Hebrs who became Xr. It is the earliest example of a philosophical reconciliat betw Xr claims & Grk philosophy, partic Platonic thought. It is also another (like those of Paul in Gal & Rom) to reconcile Xr w/old Jewish faith. To the Jew, it was fundam that OT contained final rev• elat of God, and in Law of Moses God had made His will& purpose known completely. If so, what nee is there for further revelat? Is not Xr superfihilous? What use is it? And to those questions, hotly debated in apostolic age, Hebrs offers ans--OT revelat is not final or complete, God spo~e to the prophets in many ways in past, but these are broken and fragmented revelats. And w/Plato the author believes that the Y~SIBworld is imperfect, but there is a spiritual world, heaven, in which there is a perfect copy of everything we see in imperfection upon earth. And it is his pri• mary claim, which we shall study today, that JCr is the ideal high priest who offered the ideal sacrifice in the ideal sanctuary, unlike the old high priests who wgr.e imperfect, who offered imp~rfect sacrifices in an imperfect :s:aNKt Temple. Let us hear the claim as written by the auth~r. Hebr 4: 14 - 5: 10. Lot in this, let's medi• tate upon it. This is the main theme of the book, and it begins with claim of perfect highpriest in Xr. Because we have a great high priest who passed thru the heavens, let us hold fast to our confession. This describes the vast difference · that separated the ord- inary high priest from God in the past, and has now been broken down in Xr. Xr has passed into the immemiate presence of God, all barriers have been removed, the gulf betw earth and heaven has been bridged, complete communion between God and man re-establ. This was function of the old high priest--to perform those functions that wou~d bring man into the presente of God, make communion possible. But now we have a highpriest who is in perfect communion w/God, S"o that our communion is complete, but he is also compl identified w/human race, he is one of us. He is capable of sym• pathizing with our weaknesses because he has lived our life and has been tempted as we are. But whmle we fall, he never did. Nowhere in NT is there a more complete underst of the divinity and the humanity of Xr than in this book. It is in the overlapping, simpltaneous manhood-godhood of J that the communiton w/God is restored. ri.nd because this is true we draw near the throne of lrrace with confidence, to get mercy and grace in time of need. ·~nd brethren, that time is now. Let us in fonfidence receive grace for the soul, and amso grace to help us in our need. It is there for us, since we have a great highpriest who has bridged the gulf betw ~od and man. Then the author points uo the smiliartties between old and new highpr. Must by sympatheti & humane, must be divinely apoointed, and these J fulfilled. First qualific (vv 1-3) must bear gently w/ignorant & erring, for he himself is beset w/weakness. Xr was tempted as we, yet he held firm; still he can be gentle and symoatheic, for he was once there himself. Second qualif (vv5-~) cannot appoint himself, derives authority & office from God. Even Aaron had a direct call. So J also was divinely appointed, as evidenced by two proof-texts, one from 2d Psalm, thou art my Son, anJ other, that is vitally important to the author, from Psa 110t4, a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek. He returns to that idea in Ch 7, so it is important, and here we are reminded of the intell probl of the Yrs of the day. If we have in Jewis.B law a divine revelat, and a divinely appointed priesthood to act as mediator between God and man, what need is there for anything more? In meeting this objection, both Paul & ahthor of Hebr use S'me method--go behind the Law to relig of the patriarchal age ••• "D·aul to Abraham 1 s faith that made a nation be:£wre there was n.aw, when relig was pure and direct. before the Law put barriers between God and Man. Hebr does s aie thing w/Melchizedek, and that is mush less well-known than was Abr. All Hebrs knew Abr was their father, knew of his faith before there was Law to reveal God's will. But Melchizedek is only known from 3 verses in Gen 14, and in that reference in Psa 110. Scanty evidence, but implicat is that helchizedek represents the heavenly ideal of the priesthood which degenerated in the Aaronic priest hood, & levites, until rescued by Xr. So in the golden age, before the curse of legalism, there was a high priest whose faith was simple & direct; it is of this order that Xr has become perfect example. In the days of his flesh, at Gethsemane, J offered prayers & supplications to Him who was able to save him, and he was heard for his ~odly fear. This is the proof that J is the perfec highpriest, for the real snswer to the prayer was strength to carry out God's will. And because he suffered he learned obedionce and was fierfected so th·1t he became the author of salvation. So we have a great highpriest, human as we are, yet one w/God to reconcile us. We have the beat reason of all to homd to our confession despite what is happening around us, because our priest cares for us. Because he cept the faith we are strengthened and encouraged, because he faced temotation we too can face it, because he lives we too can live. This is the hope of those who out & keep their faith in the great high priest. 3-23-75. What makes a valid faith? We come now to the second grand theme in the ltr to the Hebr. The first you will remember was theargumt that we should keep the faith despite persecuts because we have a great high priest set in the heavens. And in this the author had one major objective-• to encourage people beset by official persecut of RomGovt to hoilid to the faith in spite of all. And he had two other objectives. One was to make the earliest known attempt to reconcile Xr theol w/Grk philos, esp Piatomic thought. He uses this a rgumt in descr Xr as great highpriest•.. where before there was an imperfect highpriest offering an imperfect sacrifice in an imperfect temple --the Platonic idea that all things visible are imperfect copies of the invisib ideal in the spiri world--we now have a perfect highpriest offering the perfect sacrifice upon the perfect altar in the perfect temple. This was one ejective. The other was to ans the question being debated among Jewish people and Jewish Xrs--if the Law is the highest revelat of God, then why Xr~ And to this question the author brot same line of argumt that Paul himself used: the Lqw was imperfect, marked a decline from the simpler faith of the patriarchs.