October 16, 2016 ADULT SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON Did God Really Answer All of Jesus Prayers? MINISTRY INVOCATION O God: We give thanks to You for the manifold blessings to us. You did not have to bless us but You did. We shall remain eternally grateful. Amen. WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW AND UNDERSTAND There is a Divine promise of rest unexhausted in Old Testament times, and only fulfilled through faith in Christ. THE APPLIED FULL GOSPEL DISTINCTIVE We believe in the indwelling of the Holy Ghost for all believers and that the Holy Ghost verifies and validates the Believer as part of the Body of Christ. TEXT: Background Scripture Key Verse Lesson Scripture Hebrews 4:14-5:10 (NKJV) Our Compassionate High Priest 14 Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. 15 For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. 16 Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Qualifications for High Priesthood 5 For every high priest taken from among men is appointed for men in things pertaining to God, that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins. 2 He can have compassion on those who are ignorant and going astray, since he himself is also subject to weakness. 3 Because of this he is required as for the people, so also for himself, to offer sacrifices for sins. 4 And no man takes this honor to himself, but he who is called by God, just as Aaron was. A Priest Forever 5 So also Christ did not glorify Himself to become High Priest, but it was He who said to Him: 1
You are My Son, Today I have begotten You. 6 As He also says in another place: You are a priest forever According to the order of Melchizedek ; 7 who, in the days of His flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplications, with vehement cries and tears to Him who was able to save Him from death, and was heard because of His godly fear, 8 though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered. 9 And having been perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him, 10 called by God as High Priest according to the order of Melchizedek, COMMENTARY Verse 14. To the interposed minatory warning of the three preceding verses now succeeds encouragement, based on the view, which has been now a second time led up to, of Christ being our great High Priest, who can both sympathize and succor. The Word of God being so searching and resistless, let us therefore hold fast, etc. is connected logically. Having then a great High Priest who hath passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. The idea is that Christ has passed through the intermediate heavens to the immediate Presence of God to the sphere of the eternal. The conception of the phrase is that, whatever spheres of created heavens intervene between our earth and the eternal uncreated, beyond them to it Christ has gone before the face of God. For, carrying that nature with Him and still retaining it, He is spoken of as having passed to the region which admits no idea of limitation, and so as to fill all things. It is to be observed that the heavens in the plural is used of the seat of the Divine majesty itself to which Christ has gone. The designation, Jesus the Son of God, draws attention first to the man Jesus who was known by that name in the flesh, and secondly to the more excellent name, above, in virtue of which He hath passed through the heavens. The conclusion follows that it is the human Jesus, with His humanity, who, being also the Son of God, has so passed through. In consideration of having such a High Priest, who, as is expressed in what follows, can both sympathize and succor, the readers are exhorted to hold fast, not only their inward faith, but their confession of it before men. A besetting danger of the Hebrew Christians was that of shrinking from a full and open confession under the influence of gainsaying or persecution. Verse 15. For we have not an High Priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but one that hath been in all things tempted like 2
as we are, without sin. The power of sympathy of our great High Priest is not adduced to distinguish Him from other high priests, but to express, in this respect, His resemblance to them; community of nature and feeling with those for whom He mediates being essential to the conception of a high priest. There can, we conceive, be no real temptation where there is no liability to the sin suggested by temptation, still less where there is no possibility of sinning. The question has undoubtedly its serious difficulties in common with the whole subject of the Divine and human in Christ. That Christ, in His human nature, partook of all the original affections of humanity hope, fear, desire, joy, grief, indignation, shrinking from suffering, and the like is apparent, not only from His life, but also from the fact that His assumption of our humanity would have otherwise been incomplete. Such affections are not in themselves sinful; they only are so when, under temptation, any of them become inordinate, and serve as motives to transgression of duty. He, in virtue of His Divine personality, could not through them be seduced into sin; but it does not follow that he could not, in His human nature, feel their power to seduce, or rather the power of the tempter to seduce through them, and thus have personal experience of man s temptation. He does not mean that the regenerate Christian is not exposed to, and does not feel, the power of temptation; only that, so far forth as he lives in the new life from God, he is proof against it. What is said of one born of God may be said much more, and without any qualification, of the Son of God, without denying that He too experienced the power of temptation, though altogether proof against it. 5:1. For every high priest, from among men being taken, for men is constituted in the things pertaining to God, that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins. The phrase expresses both the necessary humanity of the high priest, and also his being set apart for his peculiar office. Verse 2. Who can have compassion on the ignorant and erring; for that he himself also is compassed with infirmity. It is not of necessity implied that every high priest was personally the ideal of his office that is spoken of And, in the case of human high priests, this ideal was fulfilled by their being themselves human, encompassed themselves with the infirmity of those for whom they mediated. Christ also, so far, evidently fulfils the condition. For, though he is afterwards distinguished from priests having themselves infirmity, yet he had, in His human nature, experienced what it was. Verse 3. And by reason hereof he ought (or, is bound, ὀφείλει), as for the people, so also for himself, to offer for sins. This obligation is evident in the case of the high priests of the Law. Consequently, their sin offering for themselves, in the first place, was a prominent part of the ceremonial of the Day of Atonement. Christ, though under no such obligation, might still fulfill the requisites of a high priest, expressed in 3
the case of sinful high priests by the obligation to offer for themselves. Whether, however, there was in Christ s own experience anything corresponding to the high priest s offering for himself will be considered under verses 7, 8. Verse 4. And no man taketh this honor unto himself, but being called of God even as was Aaron. This verse expresses the second essential of a high priest, Divine appointment, for assurance of the efficacy of his mediation. Of course Aaron s successors derived their Divine commission from his original one. Verses 5, 6. So also Christ glorified not himself to be made a High Priest. Here begins the proof that Christ fulfils the two requirements, as is usual in this Epistle Christ was crowned in His exalted position as Priest-King. But he that said unto him, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee. As he saith also in another place, Thou art a Priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek. These two texts must be taken together for the proof required. The first shows the LORD S appointment of Christ to His kingly office as SON; the second shows that this kingly office carries with it, also by Divine appointment, an eternal priesthood. Christ s entry into this kingly priesthood is best conceived as inaugurated by His resurrection, after accomplishment of human obedience, whereby He fitted Himself for priesthood. Before this, He was the destined High Priest, but not the perfected High Priest, ever living to make intercession for us. It is not during is life on earth, but after His exaltation, that He is spoken of as the High Priest of mankind. In His sufferings and death, He was consecrated to His eternal office. It was there seen to be more than a typical prophecy, David having in it a distinct view of One far greater than himself of the SON to come, whom he calls his LORD. For, though David organized and controlled the priesthood and the services of the sanctuary, though both he and Solomon took a prominent part in solemn acts of worship, yet neither they nor any other king assumed the priestly office, which, in its essential functions, was confined to the sons of Aaron. The verse assigns a true priesthood to the future King. Verses 7, 8. Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up (rather, when he offered up) prayers and supplications to him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared; though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered. Here we have the account of how Christ fulfilled the human requirements of a High Priest. Christ is regarded, not as executing His priestly office, but as being prepared and consecrated for it. His eternal priesthood is conceived as entered on after the human experience. The only question with regard to time is whether they have reference to the agony in the garden only, or both to the agony and the cross.. The view presented is, as in the Gospels, of some intense inward struggle, outwardly manifested, and expressing itself in repeated prayers aloud for 4
deliverance. It is true that the Gospels, as we have them now, do not mention tears; but these too are quite in keeping with the bloody sweat specified by St. Luke. What, then, as seen in the light of these verses, was the meaning of the prayer and supplications in the garden of Gethsemane? Mark 14:36 confirms the view that the cup which He prayed might pass from Him, was the death before Him, and that the purport of His prayer was, not to be raised from death after undergoing it, but to be saved from undergoing it. It does not indeed positively follow that, because He prayed to One who was able in this sense to save Him, His prayer was that He might be in this sense saved. (1) How was such a prayer consistent with His distinct knowledge that death must be undergone, and hhs late strong rebuke to Peter for venturing to dissuade Him from it? (2) How can He be said to have been heard since He was not saved from death in the sense intended? To the first of these questions the answer is that the prayer expressed, not the deliberate desire of His Divine Will, but only the inevitable shrinking of the human will from such an ordeal as was before Him. As man, he experienced this shrinking to the full, and as man he craved deliverance, though with entire submission to the Will of the Father. His human will did not oppose itself to the Divine Will: it conformed itself in the end entirely to it; but this according to the necessary conditions of humanity, through the power of prayer. Had it not been so with Him, His participation in human nature, would have been incomplete; He would not have been such as to be touched with a feeling of our infirmities, being in all things tempted like as we are; nor would he have stood forth for ever as the great Example to mankind. Father, save me from this hour was the human craving of the agony; but still, Father, glorify thy Name was the essence of the prayer; and perfect submission to the Divine Will was the outcome of it, after this troubling of his human soul. The mystery surrounding the whole subject of the Divine and human in Christ remains still. For we, too, praying legitimately for release from excessive trial, may have our prayer best answered by grace given to endure the trial, and by a happy issue out of it; as was the case with Christ. For his bitter passion was made the path to eternal glory; and thus in the Resurrection too his prayer was answered. It was not in right of his sonship that He was heard. He won His hearing by His human piety; though he was SON, and as such knew that His Father heard him always It is true that it was not until after the Resurrection that He attained His exalted position as SON but still He was all along the SON, in virtue of His origin as well as of His destiny. 5
For, although for Himself Christ needed no atonement, yet the prayers and supplications were offered in his behalf, being due to His own entire participation in the conditions of humanity; the whole agony and bloody sweat were part of His own preparation and consecration for executing the office of a High Priest for others. Verses 9, 10. And being made perfect, he became unto all them that obey him the Author of eternal salvation; called (or rather so addressed) of God a High Priest after the order of Melchizedek. Being thus perfected, or consecrated, He became, afterwards, the Author, not of mere ceremonial cleansing or temporary remission of guilt, but of eternal salvation; potentially to all mankind and effectively to all them that obey him. Doubtless, as a true High Priest on earth, He offered one sacrifice for sins; all that is meant above is that it was not until after the Resurrection that He entered on His eternal office of mediation in virtue of that one accomplished sacrifice. RELATED DISCUSSION TOPICS CLOSING PRAYER My God: I am grateful to have found You and kept You in the forefront of my being. Bless us continually with Your grace and mercy. They represent bountiful blessings for all of us. Amen. 6