What do you do when you feel condemned? Or when you feel like God is distant, hidden, and silent – you’ve tried to reach Him, tried to obey Him, and nothing happens? Or when life is hard because of disease, death, disappointment – breakdown of relationships, betrayal, or abandonment?

In these times of the virus, many are facing disease, or death, or unemployment, or bankruptcy of a business the family has worked incredibly hard for years to build.

But such questions about God occur not only in these extraordinary times, but in all times in this fallen world. We are always tempted to abandon faith in God, to think He’s not living up to His side of the bargain, to conclude He is not what Scripture says – or, if He is, to think He has rejected you personally.

Hebrews 4:13 could lead to such feelings of condemnation: “All are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.” He knows what is inside us. He discerns not only our actions but also our desires, our thoughts, our intentions. We are guilty before Him.

However, immediately after this verse the author tells us: “That guilt need not lead to condemnation! We have a great High Priest, Jesus! He sympathizes with our weaknesses! So there is mercy and grace available – indeed there is a throne of grace, because of our great High Priest and King!”

A throne of grace – that phrase appears only in Hebrews 4:16. The king sits on a throne, exercising justice, punishing evildoers, guiding and directing His kingdom. No one who is guilty, no one who stands condemned, can ever boldly approach the throne if the king knows all.

And yet: This king’s throne is a throne of grace. Though He is completely just, He stands ready to forgive and accept because of the mediatorial work of Jesus the Son, the High Priest. We therefore can boldly approach this throne of grace, whatever our doubts, whatever our sufferings, whatever our discouragements. Through Jesus, the King will grant us grace, and a perfectly-timed help.

That is the main point of Hebrews 4:13-5:10: Given who Jesus is, when the struggle is hard, it makes no sense at all to abandon the faith. Rather, it makes perfect sense to boldly approach this throne of grace – for that is the only place to find real help. You may not see that help immediately. There may be days or weeks or years or decades of walking by faith not by sight. But because of our great, sympathetic, merciful, and effective High Priest, you will receive God’s help at exactly the right time.

So hold fast to your confession!

In first verses of chapter 5, the author introduces three characteristics of any High Priest, and then shows how Jesus exhibits those characteristics – and, indeed, is superior to other such priests. We’ll see that in Hebrews 5:1-10, then consider the exhortations the author gives us in Hebrews 4:14-16 on the basis of those truths.

Three Characteristics of Earthly High Priests

God designed the priestly and sacrificial system in the Old Testament so that before Jesus was even born we would have pictures of who He is and what He does. The High Priest is one key part of those pictures. So we must do our best to understand the High Priest so that we might see JC in the way that God intends.

Three characteristics of earthly High Priests are brought out in Hebrews 5:1-4.

First, from verse 1: The high priest is “chosen from among men,” and thus is a man himself. But he acts “on behalf of men in relation to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins.” He thus is a mediator between God and men.

Why do we need a mediator? Because we are guilty, condemned by God. We have rebelled against our rightful king.

While all priests offer sacrifices, picturing the atonement of the people’s sins, once a year on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, only the High Priest enters the Holy of Holies (as described in Leviticus 16), picturing the very presence of God.

The second characteristic is mentioned in Hebrews 5:2: “He can deal gently with the ignorant and wayward, since he himself is beset with weakness.” That is: When the people are rebellious, sinful, or questioning, the High Priest doesn’t just berate them: “You failures! Do better! Work harder!” Why not? Because he too is “beset with weakness.”He too faces those temptations. He understands the difficulty of seeing God, of focusing on Him in the midst of a fallen world. So he can deal with sinful people as God intends.

Furthermore these High Priests also sin themselves, so as Hebrews 5:3 says, the High Priest is “obligated to offer sacrifice for his own sins” (see Leviticus 9:7).

So the High Priest is a mediator between God and men who deals gently with God’s people.

We see the third characteristic in Hebrews 5:4: “No one takes this honor for himself, but only when called by God, just as Aaron was.”

A High Priest is called by God. No one is to grasp for this position, to put Himself forward and campaign. God Himself has to appoint the High Priest.

Thus a High Priest is a mediator between God and man who deals gently with the people and is called by God.

Jesus: the Great, Sympathetic, and Merciful High Priest

JC is similar to all High Priests in these three ways.

Hebrews 5:5-6 tells us He is called by God. The author quotes Psalm 110:4 to make this point.

But why does the author quote Psalm 2 also? That text doesn’t mention the High Priest.

By quoting that psalm, the author draws our attention back to chapter 1 (where Psalm 2 was also quoted) to begin to show us that Jesus is superior to all other High Priests. He’s not only a man – He is the Son. He is the exact imprint of the nature of God.

So Jesus is indeed similar to the other High Priests, but He’s better.

Hebrews 4:15 indicates that Jesus can also deal gently with God’s people. He sympathizes with our weaknesses because “in every respect [He] has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.” Perhaps the NEB renders this clause better: “because of his likeness to us, [He] has been tested every way, only without sin.’”

For the point is not: “If I’m tempted to commit some horrible crime, Jesus must have been tempted to commit that same horrible crime.” Rather, Jesus is genuinely like us. He is genuinely human. His entire life was a test, a trial, a temptation.

Whenever life is tough, we humans are tempted to forget the promises of God, to lapse in our faith in God, and thus to lapse in faithfulness to God, thereby falling into disobedience.

In His genuine humanity, Jesus experienced such temptation – and He never gave in. Because He resisted to the end, He knew the power of temptation far better than you or I.

Hebrews 5:7 elaborates on this idea:

In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence.

Clearly Jesus prayed to God with tears in Gethsemane. But that same night, prior to His prayers in the Garden, our Lord says to His disciples, “You are those who have stayed with me in my trials (temptations)” (Luke 22:28). Since the disciples weren’t with Him when Satan tempted Jesus in the wilderness, Jesus is referring to other temptations that came on Him during his years of ministry.

Therefore, we must think of “prayers … to him who was able to save him from death” in contexts in addition to Gethsemane or the wilderness. So think of Jesus in light of Hebrews 2:15: Jesus delivers “all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery”. To do that He first had to conquer that fear of death, that fear of missing out on life Himself. Jesus too was tempted to think that God was withholding something good, desirable, fulfilling, or exciting from Him. He too was tempted to forget God’s great and precious promises. Jesus fought every minute of every day via prayer against such lack of faith. He persevered in faith, in trust, in dependence on God. Thus Hebrews 5:8: Although He was Son, He “learned obedience through what he suffered.” That is: He learned what it means to endure in faith when all your flesh cries out to turn away from God, when all around you say you’re foolish, missing out on life, when you’re mocked, derided, beaten, spit upon – and it could all end if you just say, “God’s promises aren’t true!”

Jesus lived out true faith which leads to faithfulness which leads to obedience from the heart. So, more than any of the former High Priests, more than any pastor, more than any parent, He can deal gently with the ignorant and wayward. He knows and sympathizes with our weakness.

Thirdly, Jesus is a mediator between God and man. This truth is the primary focus of later chapters; it’s only alluded to twice, briefly, in today’s passage.

Hebrews 4:14: “We have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens.” As Hebrews 9:24 makes clear, Jesus has passed through the heavens into God’s very presence so that He might make intercession for us, so that His death might cover our sins. That is, He is our mediator.

Then Hebrews 5:9: “Being made perfect (or, “complete”), he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him. Because He is the mediator, He is the source of salvation, salvation you can never lose, salvation to the uttermost (using the language of Hebrews 7:25). This salvation is for all those who, like Him, have faith in God, in His promises, and thus are faithful to God, and thereby obey Him from the heart.

This is the High Priest we have: Called by God, able to deal gently with the ignorant and wayward, and the perfect Mediator between God and man.

So Draw Near to the Throne of Grace for Help!

Based on these truths, the author gives two exhortations in Hebrews 4:14-16:

Hebrews 4:14: “Let us hold fast our confession.” That is: Hold fast to the truth! God has spoken! He has revealed who He is, who we are, how we can be part of His grand story of glorifying Himself. And the truth is: He has given Jesus, the Son, the King, for us! He lived like us, He was tempted like us, He suffered beyond what we suffer. He understands our weaknesses and trials. He died as a sacrifice for our atonement. He is the High Priest called by God, the one mediator between God and man. God invites us to Himself via that Mediator. So hold fast to the truth, despite the winds of doctrine swirling around us, despite the trials and the pressures and the fog of unbelief.

Second exhortation, Hebrews 4:16: “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to a well-timed help.”

Draw near! Now! Always!

Surely we need to draw near in times of crisis – whether the crisis arises from viruses or job losses or death or abandonment.

But just as surely we need to draw near to that throne of grace every day, every hour. Only then can we enter His rest.

He is King of all that happens, the seemingly trivial details of our lives as well as the big decisions.

He rules over us as individuals and over the entire creation as it moves to the culmination He has appointed.

His throne is a throne of grace! Thus, whatever we have done, however sinful we have been, however hard our heart has been, whatever the ways we have rejected Him and ignored Him and despised Him – we have a great High Priest! He will be our advocate, sympathizing with our weakness.

So our High Priest calls out:

“Come to me! Come to the throne. Don’t be afraid. You are covered by my blood. Trust in God’s great promises. Trust in Me as your Redeemer. Everything you need you will find in Me. I alone am the source of true joy. Come to Me.”

Given what this high priest has done, given that He is the Son, “no exhortation could be more logical … than … to hold fast our confession…. Nothing could be more senseless than for us to abandon our confession … because of the pain of the contest” (Philip Hughes, Commentary on Hebrews, 1977, p. 171).

So where are you? Tempted to throw away your former confidence? Attracted to a life lived by your own wits, by your own resources? Feeling like you’re missing out on life because you’re trying to follow God’s ways, and haven’t seen the benefits? Or thinking that you’re now beyond God’s forgiveness – you’ve strayed too far, you’ve repented and then sinned too many times, you’re no longer worthy to be called his child?

God promises us: He is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. And He shows this to us through Jesus, our High Priest.

Because of that High Priest, God’s throne is a throne of grace. So draw near. This is the only path to true joy. This is the only path to true fulfillment. This is the only path to rest.

Come to Him.

[This devotion is a shortened and edited version of a sermon preached May 3, 2020. You can watch a video of the service at this link.]