Hebrews -- Holding on to JesusSample

Our Great High Priest

We’ve often heard that Jesus came as our prophet, priest, and king, three roles essential to understanding His mission. Some aspects are easier to grasp than others. It’s not hard to see Jesus as king, reigning over a spiritual kingdom that will one day be fully realized for all eternity. As prophet, He taught with authority and revealed future events with divine clarity. But the role of priest, particularly High Priest, can feel more distant and confusing, especially for modern readers. It was difficult for the original Jewish readers of Hebrews too. That’s why the author of the letter carefully explains not only that Jesus is our High Priest, but that He is our great High Priest, utterly unique and superior in this role.

The idea had already been introduced in Hebrews 2:17 and 3:1, but now it is developed further. Why is Jesus a great High Priest? Because no other priest came from heaven, and no other priest was the Son of God. No other priest was both fully divine and fully human. Hebrews masterfully highlights both truths: Jesus’s deity (Hebrews 1:4–14) and His humanity (Hebrews 2:5–18). His humanity is not a theological footnote. It means that the One seated on heaven’s throne truly knows what it is to feel pain, weakness, and temptation. The ancient Greeks believed their gods were impassive, incapable of emotion. From the word apatheia (where we get apathy), they concluded that divinity meant complete detachment. But Jesus was and is not detached. He turns this idea on its head. Jesus sympathizes with our weakness. The Greek word translated as “sympathize” literally means “to suffer along with.” He feels what we feel because of His humanity.

Why does the humanity of Jesus matter? First of all, because a priest needed to be human. Jesus’s humanity allowed him to be the perfect mediator between God and man. And because empathy changes everything. Hearing of a tragedy may stir sorrow. But if that tragedy occurred in your hometown, at your high school, to someone you love, the pain is personal. Jesus took on flesh, lived among us, and suffered alongside us. That’s not distant sympathy; it’s intimate understanding. He was also tempted, though never sinned. Sometimes we wrongly assume that Jesus, being God, couldn’t possibly know the strength of temptation like we do. But the opposite is true: Jesus felt the full weight of temptation precisely because He never gave in. The one who resists longest bears the strongest force. Though He had no sinful nature pulling Him inward, He endured external temptation to a degree we can’t imagine.

Jesus sympathizes with our weakness and our struggle, but not with our sin. Still, this doesn’t make Him less compassionate. In fact, it means He can help us more. He is not compromised by sin, and so He can rescue us from it. Because we have a High Priest who is both all-powerful and deeply compassionate, we are invited to come boldly to the throne of grace. Satan tries to discourage this access. He may tempt us to see Jesus as unapproachable, pushing us toward saints or rituals instead. Or he may convince us that Jesus can’t or won’t help us. But Hebrews 4:16 reminds us to come boldly. Boldly doesn’t mean arrogantly. It means we can come: constantly, without fear of wearing out our welcome. Freely, without rehearsed prayers or flowery language. Confidently, because we are accepted in Christ. Persistently, because His mercy is never exhausted.

Ancient Jewish rabbis taught that God had two thrones: one of judgment and one of mercy. They couldn’t reconcile how God could be both just and merciful. But in Christ, these two are perfectly united. The throne of justice is now a throne of grace, where justice was fully satisfied at the cross, and mercy flows freely. Jesus did not appoint Himself as High Priest. Just as Psalm 2:7 declares Him the Son, Psalm 110:4 declares Him a priest forever. This would have been difficult for early Jewish Christians to accept. Jesus wasn’t from the tribe of Levi. He didn’t serve in the temple. In fact, He challenged the corrupt religious system. By the time of His ministry, the priesthood had been politicized and corrupted. But Jesus wasn’t like Aaron or the priests of His day. Aaron had to atone for his own sins. Jesus had no sin. Aaron’s priesthood ended in death. Jesus’s resurrection confirmed that His priesthood is eternal. In rising from the dead, He became our perfect High Priest, forever.

Hebrews 5 tells us something else that is remarkable: Jesus learned obedience through what He suffered. This doesn’t mean He went from disobedience to obedience. Rather, He experienced what obedience costs. God on the throne does not obey; He commands. But in Jesus, God obeyed. He submitted. He suffered. He walked the path we walk. And in doing so, He learned and modeled what it means to follow, not just to lead. If suffering was the school where even Jesus learned, how can we despise it in our own lives? Suffering is not God’s second-best teaching method. It is, at times, His most effective. Jesus was never outside the Father’s will; He was taught by trials, not detoured by them. Because He suffered, and because He triumphed, He is the author, the source, and sustainer of our salvation. He alone can lead us through weakness, temptation, and sorrow, because He has passed through them all and conquered.