The Superiority of Christ Over Aaron

Hebrews 5:5-10

 

In these verses the Holy Spirit shows Christ’s fitness as our great High Priest by contrasting his priesthood with Aaron’s. Aaron and the other high priests in Israel were types and pictures of the Lord Jesus Christ as our great High Priest. Like our Savior, those priests were men of flesh who understood and had compassion upon their fellow creatures. They were chosen and appointed of God to be high priests. They were intercessors, mediators between God and men. They offered blood sacrifices for sin.

 

The Contrasts

 

Yet, in many ways, the priesthood of Christ cannot be typified by men. Those priests of the Old Testament age were many. Christ is the one High Priest. -- Their priesthood was only temporary. Our Lord’s priesthood is eternal (Heb. 7:1-3). -- Those priests offered many sacrifices. Our Savior offered only one (Heb. 10:12). – Those priests offered the blood of others. The Lord Jesus gave his own life’s blood as an offering to God for us (Heb. 9:12). -- The sacrifices offered by those priests of the Mosaic age could not put away sin. The one sacrifice of Christ has effectually put away all the sins of all God’s elect forever (Heb 10:14). -- The work of the priests of that carnal, ceremonial dispensation was never finished. – The Son of God, our Savior, finished the work given to him (John 17:4; 19:30; Heb. 10:11-14).

 

The Days of His Flesh

 

        We are told, concerning our great High Priest, that “in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and (he) was heard in that he feared.” I have no doubt that there is much, much more in those words than I have yet understood; but that which is obvious is both delightful and comforting to my soul.

 

The days of his flesh” refer to our Lord’s temporary earthly life. He is still in that body in which he suffered the wrath of God for us and in which he was raised from the dead. There is a Man in glory! And that Man who is our God in human flesh will never put aside our nature.

 

While our Savior dwelt upon this earth as our Representative, being numbered and identified with transgressors, he offered prayers, and supplications to the Father, with tears. Do you see how truly and fully human he is? He who is our Redeemer, our Savior, our great High Priest, is fully God and fully man. He lived in this world both in complete faithfulness and by perfect faith. When he knelt in the Garden, anticipating being made sin for us, the weight of our sin crushed his very heart.

However, we must never imagine that our Savior prayed that he might be kept from dying as our Substitute, or even from being made sin for us. He came into this world for that purpose. His determination to fulfill his covenant engagements for the glory of his Father and the salvation of our souls never wavered.

 

His prayer described here was a prayer of reverence, consecration, and worship. This Man “feared” God as no other man ever could, not that he might be kept from dying, but that he might be delivered from death. He was heard because he was perfectly righteous and holy in nature and in conduct. Having fully satisfied the law and justice of God for sin, our Savior was raised from the dead and declared to be the Son of God. He was thus “delivered” from death and the grave. We are delivered from death in him. He said, “He that believeth on me shall never die.”

 

The Things He Suffered

 

Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered. As a Man, as our Mediator and Substitute, the Lord Jesus Christ learned obedience by that which he suffered.

 

If the Man Christ Jesus would be our Savior, he must be “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.” God spared his Son nothing (Rom. 8:32). He suffered all that we deserved, both in his life and in his death. Let no one deceive you in this matter. Suffering is not an indication of God’s disfavor or disapproval. None of God’s children in this world are exempt from suffering (John 16:33). We must all enter into the kingdom of God through much tribulation.

 

Though he is the Son of God, the Lord Jesus himself could not bring in everlasting righteousness and could not put away the sins of his people, satisfying all the demands of God’s holy law and infinite justice, without the things he suffered as our Substitute (Lk. 24:44-47).

 

The Author of Eternal Salvation

 

Rejoice in this. – The sufferings of our Savior are gloriously effectual! “Being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him.” That salvation which Christ accomplished for and gives to his people is an eternal salvation. It is given to those, only those and all those, who obey him, who believe the gospel.

 

Being perfect in his obedience in life and in death, Christ became the author of a perfect, eternal salvation to all who believe on him. He gives us a perfect righteousness before the law and a perfect justification before the throne (2 Cor. 5:21). He gives his sheep eternal life, “and they shall never perish.

 

We are assured that our salvation in Christ is an “eternal salvation,” because he is an everlasting Priest with an everlasting priesthood. He is "an high priest after the order of Melchisedec."