Hebrews 5:5 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Hebrews 5:5

Comments

There are no loose ends in the implementation of God’s plan. Every last detail has been worked out perfectly and, no matter how hard we scrutinize, we will find no deficiency. Every high priest is called by God, and Christ too was called, but in his case that calling came by the words of the Holy Spirit recorded in Scripture before he was incarnate. It was not as though the second person of the Trinity came entirely on his own initiative. No, every act of God is a triune act. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, equally God, equally mighty and divine and eternal, always act perfectly in concert together. There is a distribution between them of roles. Only Christ would come, but it would be equally the will of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit that he should do so. So really we see the act of the Trinity in this verse. Christ glorified not himself - it was not a unilateral act to come into the world and to be our high priest and Saviour, but the Father is specifically mentioned here and the great quotation comes from the second Psalm: ‘Thou art my Son, to day have I begotten thee.’If there was anyone who might have taken the role of high priest upon himself, it was Christ. He alone was perfectly qualified for this office, because of his sinless perfection, because of his love for the people he would represent. As the Son of God, he knew the divine plan perfectly, and the place he would have in it, but so as to fulfil all things in a right way, he submitted himself to his Father’s will, and did not proceed without being appointed by his Father. The writer says, ‘Christ Glorified not himself’, because it is an office of immense glory, but this glorification refers not to Christ’s divine nature which could not be more glorious than it is, but to Christ human nature. It was an incalculable honour for a man to be given this office, but in the case of the Lord Jesus Christ, he was entirely worthy of this honour.

Application

Questions

There are two prophecies quoted here, the first from Psalm 2:7, and in the next verse the second from Psalm 110. But someone might ask, in what way does Psalm 2 prove that Christ was appointed a priest, since it does not mention priesthood? This verse has already been quoted in Hebrews 1:5 to establish the incarnation of the Son of God, but now it is used to show that Christ was made our high priest. Before he can become high priest he must be born, for he can only be a priest to men if he shares their nature, and so he took flesh and blood (Hebrews 2:14). But since also there could be no other reason why the Son of God should be made incarnate except to represent his people, then his incarnation implies his priesthood, for he is made incarnate to carry out the work of a priest. The point being made is that he did not appoint himself to be high priest, and so even in the matter of his incarnation which logically came first, Scripture makes clear that this was by the decree of God.

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Introduction

Hebrews 5:5 Commentary and Bible Study