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14 Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. 15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. 16 Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. ~ Hebrews 4:14-16
We return to the letter of Hebrews, written to Jewish Christians, who were struggling in their faith in the God of the Bible due to pressures levied on them from their Jewish community. As they suffered for their faith in the Lord Jesus as the Messiah, some were on the verge of discontinuing their pursuit of God through Christ for the rituals of their religion.
From the very beginning of this book, the writer of Hebrews had shown these young believers the superiority of the Lord Jesus to all things Old Testament. He is the fulfillment of the Old Covenant. In Christ we discover everything we need in every way. And, since the Lord Jesus is the Son of God, there are serious consequences for those who choose to reject His free gift of eternal life.
In v.14 of our passage for today we read, "Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess."
Four words in this brief passage sum it all up: "God's throne of grace." God's throne speaks of His authority and power, while His grace directs us to His compassion and love. These two were brought together in the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ to earth. The just requirements of perfection were met through the Lord Jesus Christ at the cross and through His perfect life lived, and now that we believe in Him, God sees us through the lens of His Son.
As our High Priest, the Lord Jesus passed into heaven into the very presence of God on the behalf of all humble enough to believe in Him as Messiah. In the Old Testament, the high priest went into the Holy of Holies, the very presence of God, and there, he applied to blood of the sacrifice on the mercy seat which was on the Ark of the Covenant. This happened once a year on the Day of Atonement, when the high priest sacrificed an innocent animal for the sins of the people. After sacrificing the animal, the high priest went into the Holy of Holies and he would take the blood from the sacrifice and he would sprinkle the blood on the Mercy Seat to atone for the sins of Israel. Before he could do that, he had to do it for himself because he was a sinner.
The Lord Jesus is a different high priest because He is sinless. He passed through the heavens and He went into God's very presence, carrying with Him the satisfactory sacrifice that He had made, and, in heaven, He applied His blood on the heavenly Mercy Seat when He arrived.
As our great high priest, the Lord Jesus Christ is like our defense attorney who represented our case before God, and He has and will never lose a case. As a result, we are exhorted to "hold firmly to the faith we profess," because God's requirements of perfection have been met on our behalf by the Lord Jesus Christ.
Christianity is a personal relationship. And, it is through the Lord Jesus we have a personal relationship with God. And, even though the Lord Jesus never sinned, He knows the power of temptation. In fact, He is the only One who has ever fully resisted temptation, therefore He knows sin's lure and power to the fullest extent. As a result, He empathizes, He feels with our struggles because He knows and understands the power of temptation even more than we. And, even though we all stand before God in a state of complete poverty, completely guilty because of our sin, the Lord Jesus stands in the presence of God on our behalf as our perfect high priest.
Having believed on the Lord Jesus, the throne of God is no longer to us a throne of judgment because Christ is interceding on our behalf having made atonement for our sins. His is not a throne of indifference because Christ is our empathetic High Priest who knows exactly what we feel, and even more. And His is a throne of grace because we have been made perfect in the eyes of God through Him. God, in His mercy, looks at our misery, and His grace is the means by which we can overcome our struggles.
In v.16 of today's passage we read, "Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need."
The reality of such a great high priest energizes the reality of our prayer life. As we learn from the Old Testament book of Leviticus, the work of the Lord Jesus Christ as our high priest is the work of His self-sacrifice. The Lord Jesus laid down His life for anyone willing to be His friend. The Lord Jesus offered His own body, receiving the very punishment of God in our place. His sacrifice, made once and for all, covers all of our sin, past, present and future. His perfect blood cleanses us and declares us "not guilty" and "innocent" in the very presence of God.
When the Lord Jesus died on the cross the curtain in the Temple was torn from top to bottom, indicating all who are humble enough to believe, have access to God. Sadly, after the events of that weekend when the Lord Jesus was crucified, the religious leaders had the curtain in the Temple sewed up. They illustrated the struggles of these young Christians to whom the writer of Hebrews wrote. They returned to their legalism, to their religion.
God wants us to be free enough to know Him and to make Him known to others. And, He is always prepared to receive the sin-stained heart that we bring to Him. He is forever equipped to meet any deeply-felt thorn in our existence with the words that He gave to the Apostle Paul, "My grace is sufficient for you." Therefore, we should be full of confidence in the presence of God and even in the presence of our greatest dangers.