Thursday, February 5, 2015

Jesus Christ our High Priest (Heb. 2:17)


SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/5/2015 11:17 AM

My Worship Time                                                                  Focus: Jesus Christ our High Priest

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Hebrews 2:17

            Message of the verse:  “17 Therefore, He had to be made like His brethren in all things, so that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.”

            As I was posting some of the older Spiritual Diaries on my blog I find that I did not write anything for Hebrews 2:17, and since this study was written 12 years ago I don’t know the reason why I missed this verse so I thought that I writes some things for this verse seeing how it is a very important verse in this letter to the Hebrews.

            What I do remember about this as it relates to the book of Hebrews is that the author will just mention the priesthood of our Lord in this second chapter and then go into more detail later on in his letter.  This kind of things happens, not only in the Scriptures, but also in writing today when people are writing novels.  The priesthood of our Lord Jesus Christ is a very important issue in the New Testament for His priesthood is different than that of the Old Testament priests and High Priests in that our Lord’s Priesthood lasts forever which did not happen to the OT priests. 

            When we see the word “therefore” we have to find out why it is there and so we have to go back to some of the preceding verses to determine why it is there.  As we look at the verses before this verse we can see that the author has been writing about Jesus Christ becoming a man so that He would be able to become our substitute.  Since He became a man and was like other men in all things He is then able to become our High Priest so that with His death He could satisfy His Father in order to pay for our salvation.  Propitiation in the secular sense meant “the satisfaction of an angry god,” and since there were many gods worshiped during this time period there were many to be satisfied through sacrifices.  However Jesus Christ satisfied His Father with His payment for our sins while He was on the cross and the proof of this is the resurrection, for if God would not have been satisfied with Christ’s sacrifice He would not have raised Him from the dead.

            We know that the teaching of the Bible tells us that it was impossible for Jesus Christ to sin, however that does not mean that He could not be tempted, and when you look at the 4th chapter of Matthew you will find out that He surely was tempted, tempted at a very weak time after He fasted without food for forty days.  Being tempted is an awful thing as we know, but Jesus did not or could not sin but was tempted many times by Satan.  Unlike us when we fall to temptation, Jesus never did and that is why He can feel our pain when we are tempted.  I understand that the crown given to those who are killed for the cause is also given to those who overcome temptations. 

2/5/2015 11:39 AM

           

           

No comments:

Post a Comment