AP

Hebrews 5:1-3  Every high priest is selected from among the people and is appointed to represent the people in matters related to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins.  He is able to deal gently with those who are ignorant and are going astray, since he himself is subject to weakness.  This is why he has to offer sacrifices for his own sins, as well as for the sins of the people.

The Author of Hebrews is using the statement of this fact in order to draw a comparison, or rather contrast, between the Aaronic Priesthood of Judaism and the Lord Jesus Christ who himself lived a sinless life in perfect obedience to God and who “became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him and was designated by God to be high priest in the order of Melchizedek.” (verse 9)

But it also points us to a significant failing and inadequacy of the Aaronic Priesthood of Jesus’ day from which we all need to learn a lesson: the priests of Jesus’ Day were experts at finding, and highlighting, the sins of ordinary people, but failed to recognise the sinfulness of their own hearts!  It was this flawed attitude that led Jesus to label them as ‘hypocrites’ and to sound to them the warning: “Do not judge, or you too will be judged.  For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”  It also led him to point out how good we all are at finding ‘sawdust’ in the eyes of others, while we have ‘beams’ in our own eyes. (Matthew 7:1-5)

I need constantly to remind myself that I am only ever a sinner-saved-by-God’s-grace-alone when I find myself thinking judgemental thoughts about the short-comings of others.  I try always to remember John Bradford’s statement upon seeing criminals being led to execution: “There, but for the grace of God, goes John Bradford.”  Am I constantly aware of the fact that I myself am ‘subject to weakness’ (with so much clear evidence of this in my own daily life), and does such awareness ensure that I ‘deal gently with those who are ignorant and are going astray’?

Charitie Lees de Chenez helps to refresh my awareness of my inherent weakness whenever I sing, “Because the sinless Saviour died, my sinful soul is counted free, for God, the Just, is satisfied to look on him, and pardon me.  Behold him there: the Risen Lamb, my perfect, sinless Righteousness, the great unchangeable ‘I AM’, the King of Glory and of Grace. One with my Lord, I cannot die, my soul is purchased by his blood, my life is safe with Christ on high, with Christ, my Saviour and my God.”  The minister of my church when I was a teenager had a helpful definition of ‘witnessing’:  ‘One beggar telling another beggar where to find food’.

– Bruce Christian