Thus the Christ also has not glorified himself to be made a high priest; but he who had said to him, *Thou* art my Son, *I* have to-day begotten thee.
Hebrews 5 has just described an ordinary high priest. He is taken from among men, he is weak, and God appoints him; he does not take the job himself. Verse 5 applies that last point to Christ. The proof of the appointment is a word God spoke about His Sonship — so why is a call to priesthood announced in the language of a Father to a Son?
The verse follows straight on from Aaron's call. The choice of a mediator belongs to God alone.
God alone decides who is fit for this place of holy mediation between God and man. Man has not the slightest choice in this appointment. In human affairs, both sides in a discussion usually have to agree on a mediator. But in this matter God alone can be trusted to make the right appointment, and He keeps this choice to Himself.
Christ kept that rule. Where the ESV says He "did not exalt himself," older translations say "glorified not Himself." One writer shows what that restraint looked like.
He truly did not glorify Himself in any way, even when the atoning work was done. He waits for His kingdom, though He is Ruler of the kings of the earth... He waited on the One who sent Him. It was for God to speak, and God did speak.
This verse quotes Psalm 2; the next quotes Psalm 110. Each declares something different.
God declares two glories: the glory of His Person, shown as man on the earth, and the glory of His office. He declares the first when He says, "You are my Son, today I have begotten you" (Psalm 2). He declares the second in these words: "You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek" (Psalm 110).
The phrase can sound puzzling. One writer takes it of Christ in His place as man on earth:
The words "today I have begotten you" come from Psalm 2, and that passage is quoted in Acts 13:33, Hebrews 1:5 and Hebrews 5:5. This raises no difficulty, since it plainly refers to Christ as a man, Jehovah's Anointed and Jehovah's King, in connection with this world. The phrases used — "the hill of Zion," "the ends of the earth," and "this day" — belong to the earth and to time, and so confirm this view.
That declaration in time takes nothing from what He always was: "Son of God from everlasting to everlasting, in time also as man He has God declaring 'I today have begotten you'" (William Kelly).
If the point were simply that God appointed Him, Psalm 110 alone would have settled it. The Psalm 2 quotation is there because of who He is.
There can be no real doubt that the call to the office is implied in God's acknowledgment of His Sonship. Otherwise these words would be beside the point, and the second quotation would be the only one needed. On the other hand, it is His being the Son of God in humanity that makes Him fit for the priesthood — that is, for the office of mediator.
Both were called by God. That is where the likeness ends.
This appointment too is wholly of God, but it is not merely an appointment from outside. God's own announcement at His birth declares the personal glory of His Son. It implies that in His Person He is God's High Priest by nature. There is nothing like this in Aaron. No personal quality had the slightest bearing on his priesthood, which simply passed on by natural descent.
Taking the office of priest without God's call has always been serious.
See how serious it is to ignore this great truth. Judgment fell on Korah and those with him, who tried to make themselves priests without being called by God. Jude warns us that in Christendom many will do the same and appoint themselves priests without God's call.
Some think Christ prays in heaven to hold back God's anger. One writer answers that.
Some speak of Christ's work of intercession in heaven as needed to calm God's anger... The truth is different. The same grace that moved God's heart to give His only Son, and to give Him up for our offences to the death of the cross, also appointed Him to the work of priesthood.
- Called — no one takes this honour; God alone appoints the mediator, and reserves that choice to Himself.
- Christ called — He did not exalt Himself; He waited for God to speak, even after the work of the cross was done.
- Called as Son — God announces the appointment in words about Sonship. His being the Son of God in humanity is what fits Him for the office.
- Called beyond Aaron — Aaron's priesthood simply passed down the family line. Christ's rests on who He Himself is.
- Called by grace — the God who gave His Son also appointed Him priest. His priesthood flows from God's love; it does not have to win it.
Even as also in another [place] he says, *Thou* [art] a priest for ever according to the order of Melchisedec.
Hebrews 5:6 completes the proof that Christ never took the priesthood for Himself: God Himself announced it, in words drawn from Psalm 110. Three questions follow — who spoke them, what "the order of Melchizedek" means, and how long "for ever" lasts.
Christ did not promote Himself. So who gave Him this place?
Who, then, glorified Him? Hebrews 5:5, 6 quotes two passages from the Psalms, 2 and 110. Together they show that Jehovah made this appointment. It was Jehovah who said to Him, "You are My Son," and also "You are a Priest." With Aaron, Jehovah said to Moses, "Take Aaron your brother... that he may minister to Me in the priest's office" (Exodus 28:1). But in glorifying Christ there was no mediator, for Jehovah spoke directly to His Son.
Hebrews sets Psalm 2 beside Psalm 110. Each declares a different glory.
So the Christ did not glorify Himself to become a High Priest. God plainly declares both the glory of His Person, shown as man on the earth, and the glory of His office. He declared the first when He said, "You are my Son, today I have begotten you" (Psalm 2). He declared the second in these words: "You are a priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek" (Psalm 110). So this is the High Priest, the expected Messiah, Christ — glorious in both His Person and His office.
Melchizedek appears in one short passage of Genesis. Naming him here would startle any Jewish reader.
Verse 6 is the actual official announcement of His High Priesthood: "You are a Priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek." The words are quoted from Psalm 110:4, and they must have awakened the wonder of any godly Jew who read them. For Melchizedek was a priest long before Aaron. Genesis 14 mentions him only in passing, yet God's approval clearly rests on that account: he was "priest of the Most High God." Here was an order that stood apart from Aaron and came before Aaron, yet had no place in the nation of Israel on earth.
Why can this priesthood never end? The answer lies in who the Priest is.
God does mark Him out, God does appoint Him, to be sure — but He is declared the Priest of God because of what He is, the Son of God. So, as we think of our great High Priest, we think of one whom God called because of what He is... He can never cease to be a priest, because He can never cease to be the Son of God. He is priest because of what He is... The thought of the Melchizedek priesthood is its eternal and royal character.
Commentators differ here. Some take the phrase as a title that can never lapse:
If Jehovah has said "a Priest FOR EVER," how serious is the responsibility of the man who says, "He ceases to be Priest"!
Another writer measures the word by the need that priesthood exists to meet:
"For ever" is of course here qualified by the necessity and the existence of priesthood. In the eternal state, where sin and suffering are no more, it will cease in the final result of grace triumphant in glory.
Christ already belongs to this order. But His work today looks more like Aaron's.
The order of Melchizedek does apply now, in that Christ, like him, is the one sole priest without predecessor or successor. But today He exercises His priesthood after the pattern of Aaron in the sanctuary, and His intercession rests on sacrifice. The blessing and refreshment of Melchizedek belong, by contrast, to the world to come.
Aaron's priesthood passed down a family line. Melchizedek's did not.
The Aaronic principle of succession was from father to son. On that principle Christ would not be a priest at all, since He was not descended from Aaron... The striking thing about Melchizedek is that he appears in the story without descent, without beginning or end of life, and so he remains a priest continually. Not until He came who could truly remain a priest continually was there another priest after his order or succession. Only the Son of God, in resurrection, sitting at God's right hand, can be the promised priest after the order of Melchizedek.
- Called — Christ did not glorify Himself. God spoke the words to Him directly. With Aaron, God spoke through Moses.
- Declared — Psalm 2 says who He is. Psalm 110 says what He does. Both glories come from God's own mouth.
- Order — Melchizedek was a priest before Aaron and outside Israel's system. He had no ancestors in the office and no successors, and neither has Christ.
- For ever — the title cannot lapse, because it rests on His Sonship. Commentators differ over whether priesthood itself continues into the eternal state.
- Not yet in full — He holds the Melchizedek order now, but serves after Aaron's pattern. Its blessing and refreshment belong to the world to come.
Who in the days of his flesh, having offered up both supplications and entreaties to him who was able to save him out of death, with strong crying and tears; (and having been heard because of his piety;)
The chapter has been setting out what qualifies a man to be a priest. It now turns to a scene of tears and loud cries: to whom did Jesus pray, what did He ask for, and why did God hear Him?
The phrase "in the days of His flesh" marks a period when the Son lived under human conditions, a period now over. One writer notes that the Bible uses "flesh" in two different ways, and only one of them fits Christ.
"The flesh" is used in two senses. First, as describing our bodily condition, and in that sense it could refer to our blessed Lord. "In the days of His flesh" (Heb. 5:7). Second, as describing what is moral, what is bad beyond repair: "For those who are in the flesh cannot please God" (Rom. 8:8). It is a condition that describes fallen sinful man. "You [believers], however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit" (Rom. 8:9).
Each word in the verse carries its own weight. Two of them mean something different from what most readers assume.
Verses 1 to 3 list what qualified Aaron; verses 7 to 9 show what qualifies Christ. There are most remarkable qualifications in verse 7. "In the days of His flesh," in order to represent this company, He offered up "prayers." That word means "asking." He also offered up "supplications," a word meaning "seeking a divine favour." It was with "strong crying and tears" — this refers to the garden of Gethsemane. He offered them "to Him who was able to save Him from death," or more correctly "out of death." And God heard Him because of His piety, which is what the word really means.
In Gethsemane the enemy attacked. Notice what the Lord used to meet him.
In Gethsemane the enemy sought to turn the Lord from the path of obedience by pressing on Him the terror of death. Facing this assault the Lord acts as the perfect Man. He did not use His divine power to drive the devil away or save Himself from death. Instead, as the perfectly dependent Man, He found His resource in prayer. So He met the trial and overcame the devil. Still, His very perfection as Man led Him to feel the terror of all that was before Him. It led Him to express His feelings in strong crying and tears.
The verse also says why God heard Him. The word behind "fear" means reverence, not fright.
He was heard because of His fear. It was right that He who took death on Himself, as answering for others, should feel its whole weight on His soul. He would neither escape the consequences of what He had undertaken, nor fail in the just sense of what it was to be under the hand of God in judgment. His fear was His piety, the right estimate of the position sinful man was in, and of what must come from God because of it.
Commentators differ here. Another writer rests the answer on His sinlessness:
He was heard, because death, the wages of sin, had no claim on Him. His claim to deliverance was allowed.
He died anyway. That does not mean the prayer failed. It means we have misread what He asked for.
He was saved, not from dying, for that would have left man in his sins and unredeemed; He was saved out of death. His prayer was answered by His resurrection. ... He did not save Himself, but drank the cup and died the sinner's death.
One writer puts the objection into words, then challenges the assumption underneath it.
How can One so exalted as the Son of God enter into all the details of His people's weakness and need down here? Hebrews 5 gives the answer. He has been here, in pressure and sorrow such as no other man ever knew. He is not in them now. It is a common mistake to think that I must be in the same circumstances as another to be able to sympathise. It is not true. If I am in them myself I am not so free to enter into those of another. But if I have been in them, and am now out of them, I can fully sympathise with those of another... Out of His own deep experience of human sorrow and trial, we know this: there is nothing we have to pass through that He cannot enter into. He enters into it to sustain us, as we seek to walk in the same path of His obedience.
- Flesh — the phrase marks His real bodily life on earth, a period now closed; it never describes a fallen nature in Him.
- Cries — facing the terror of death, He did not use divine power to escape. He prayed as the dependent Man, and so overcame.
- Fear — God heard Him for His piety: He felt the full weight of what sin deserved from God.
- Out — He did not ask to escape dying, but to be brought out of death; His resurrection was the answer.
- Ours — He has been through it, and He is now beyond it. So nothing we face lies outside the sympathy of our High Priest.
though he were Son, he learned obedience from the things which he suffered;
Hebrews 5 shows why Jesus is fit to be a High Priest. Then comes the strangest claim in that argument: the One who is Son had something to learn, and suffering is how He learned it.
The verse first grants His dignity, then sets it against the place He took. One writer explains why obedience was foreign to Him:
Yet in His eternal being, in His rightful position, in His personal dignity that can never be taken from Him, the Son was a divine person. As such, He had nothing to do with obedience. This is the very reason Hebrews 5:8 says that He learned obedience through what He suffered. He did not know what it was to obey until He came down to be man. He knew perfectly well what it was for others, for every creature; but He was no creature but Creator. Still, having become man, He loyally took up the duties of man. And the very first duty of man is to obey God.
Learning obedience is not the same as being taught to obey. That difference explains why the verse names Him as Son (older translations read "though He were Son"):
He learned, not to obey, "for the law of God was in His heart," but He learned obedience. He was obedient in the lowest and most painful circumstances a man could ever pass through, for He went down to death. When Jesus suffered, it was not a necessity He could not avoid. It was according to the will of God, who had appointed Him that portion in the world. The Holy Spirit makes us feel the right Jesus had not to pass through death, when He says, "though He were Son."
We also learn obedience through suffering, but the two lessons run in opposite directions:
We have to learn obedience because we have a wicked will. He learned it because He was God over all, who from eternity had always commanded. We often learn obedience through the suffering our own disobedience brings on us. He learned obedience through the suffering that came on Him because He obeyed the will of God. He learned by experience what it cost to obey. No suffering, however intense, could move Him from the path of perfect obedience.
How much of His life does this suffering cover — only the garden of Gethsemane, or all of it? One writer weighs it up:
The question has been raised whether our blessed Lord learned obedience only through what He endured in Gethsemane. There is no possible doubt that verse 7 refers to His experience in the garden. But the same was true of His whole life, as seen, for example, in His temptation by Satan in the wilderness. He came to do the will of God, and this brought Him suffering at every step. We conclude therefore that He learned obedience by the things which He suffered throughout His whole life on earth. Gethsemane is named as the climax of His suffering, because there the pressure of death came upon His soul.
Another writer agrees, and adds that the suffering was not only physical:
We read that He learned obedience "through what He suffered" (Heb. 5:8). This surely covers all His pathway here, and not just the closing scenes of suffering of a more physical kind.
This learning was not private. It is the ground of the sympathy He now shows to people in trouble:
It was in this school — the school of weariness and weeping, of hunger and poverty, of contact with every kind of human misery and grief. In this everyday school, and not in the untroubled dignities of heaven, He learned the art, rare and precious, of sympathy and of speaking a word to the weary. His sympathy is the result of dearly-bought experience, and is therefore always effective.
The next verse states the outcome. One writer pictures the testing behind it:
Every girder in a great bridge is tested before it goes into its destined place. In the same way, our Lord was tested under the greatest pressure, and He was never found wanting. There was no resistance to God's will in Him, no resentment, no murmuring, no fault, no flaw. The will of God did not chafe His holy soul; He delighted to do it both day and night. He passed through every test and graduated in the school of suffering, and so He is fully qualified to be the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him.
- Enrolled. The Son had always commanded; He did not know what it was to obey until He came down to be man.
- The lesson. He did not learn to obey. He learned obedience itself, and found out by experience what obeying costs.
- The classroom. Suffering was the schoolroom — not only Gethsemane, but every step of His life on earth.
- The contrast. We suffer because we disobey; He suffered because He obeyed, and no pressure moved Him off that path.
- The graduation. Out of that school came sympathy bought by experience, and an Author of eternal salvation for all who obey Him.
and having been perfected, became to all them that obey him, author of eternal salvation;
The Son who prayed with loud cries, and learned obedience through suffering, is the One God calls High Priest. Verse 9 gives the result: a Saviour brought to completion, a salvation that never ends, and a surprising description of those who receive it: they obey Him.
The word cannot mean that something was missing in His character.
Not moral perfection — we all know He was morally stainless — but perfection as "the author of salvation." He would never have been perfect in this sense if He had not gone on to death. It was fitting for God to give us a perfect Saviour, and just as fitting for Christ to make Himself a perfect Saviour.
So what was completed? His office as Saviour, reached through suffering and then glory.
The Lord Jesus was always morally perfect, yet Scripture speaks of His being "made perfect" — for instance, as the captain of salvation. All had been completed in view of that office (Heb. 2:10). Though He was a Son, He learned obedience (not "to be obedient") through the things He suffered. And after He had finished the work of redemption, He was made "perfect" — that is, glorified — and became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him.
With that completion comes a title. Where the ESV reads "source," older translations have "author."
Our High Priest is the Author of eternal salvation — a title found nowhere else in the New Testament. It belongs to the Lord Jesus alone. He is the Author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him, whether they were once Jews or Gentiles... Here too we first meet the word eternal in this letter. Their fathers entered Canaan, enjoyed it for a few years, and then passed away. These, their descendants, were to share in blessing that lasts for ever. It includes everlasting salvation (v. 9), everlasting redemption (9:12), everlasting inheritance (9:15), and all that flows from an everlasting covenant (13:20).
That word "eternal" also marks a contrast with Israel's rescue from Pharaoh.
That salvation lasted only for this life, and most of those rescued from Pharaoh's hand never reached the purpose of God for them... But the salvation brought to light today is said to be "in Christ" (2 Tim. 2:10), and "eternal" (Heb. 5:9). It is not an outward rescue from physical slavery. It sets the soul free from the fear of death, and from the devil, the world, the flesh, and every spiritual enemy.
The wording echoes verse 8: the Son Himself learned obedience.
Hebrews 3 and the start of Hebrews 4 press the value of faith so hard that we might have expected it to read "them that believe." Why does it say "them that obey Him"? The obedience is of course the obedience of faith. But here is the point: the One who asks obedience from us is the One who has learned obedience Himself. In obedience the Son of God worked out eternal salvation, and that salvation is ours when we come under obedience to Him.
But "obey" can sound like a fresh set of rules to keep. One writer rules that out.
The obedience is not the obedience of the law. It is not obedience done to get life. It is what Paul calls in Romans the obedience of faith. This faith has bowed in obedience to Christ. It has owned God's righteous judgment on itself, and it accepts God's perfect provision in what Christ has done.
If the salvation is eternal, the question of timing answers itself.
What is "eternal" salvation, and when do I receive it? Paul says to us that God "has saved us" (2 Tim. 1:9). Is that not "eternal salvation"? If I have obeyed Him — for the gospel calls for obedience, most surely (Rom. 10:16) — if I have obeyed His call of grace and come to Him, is He not the author of eternal salvation to me right then? Or must I wait until there is no more danger before I can speak of being saved for ever?
The certainty rests on who He is and on what He has done.
Everlasting salvation is sure for all who own Him. He is none other than the prophet like Moses whom the Lord promised long ago to raise up. But He is far more, and more blessed. Instead of only the threat of God's punishment on the one who does not listen, He has become author of salvation to those who obey Him. And, against the uncertainty of law, it is "everlasting salvation." How could it be otherwise, if we believe in the glory of His person and the power of His work?
- Perfected, not improved. He was always morally spotless. What reached completion was His course as Saviour — through suffering, death and glory.
- Author, and He alone. No one else in the New Testament carries this title.
- Eternal, not temporary. Israel's rescue from Pharaoh freed bodies for a season. This salvation frees the soul for ever, and starts a chain of "eternal" blessings running through Hebrews.
- Obedience, not law-keeping. The obedient One asks only the obedience He Himself rendered — the heart bowing to Him in faith.
- Now, not later. If God has saved us, we already have that salvation. Waiting until all danger is past misses the word "eternal."
addressed by God [as] high priest according to the order of Melchisedec.
God's own verdict closes this section: His Son is a high priest in the line of Melchizedek. Two questions sit under that line — what happened when God "designated" Him, and why the name Melchizedek and not Aaron.
This chapter uses one English word, "called," twice. Two different words stand behind it, and the difference matters.
First notice the two words in Hebrews 5 that our common version both translates "called." They are by no means the same. The second word (verse 10) reads "named" in the Revised Version, but "addressed" or "saluted" would be better. It does not carry the thought of calling to an office. And the Lord's priesthood did not begin after His work was finished. He was most certainly High Priest when He offered up Himself (Heb. 7:27), and this passage says nothing to the contrary. But it is in resurrection that His priesthood takes on the character which Melchizedek pictures — a royal priesthood, with no shadow of death upon it.
So the verse pictures a scene. The risen Christ arrives in heaven, and God greets Him there.
There you have His priestly work. Are you surprised that He is called the Author of eternal salvation? Who can touch Him now? Can death say anything to Him? He has been down into it and through it — it could not hold Him... He has suffered for sin, and put it away. The storm is gone forever, and He is the Author of eternal salvation. He has gone on high, and God now addresses Him — not "called of God," as you have it in this last verse, but "saluted of God": the risen, glorified Son of God presented there in the infinite glory of heaven. The Most High God salutes Him as "King of righteousness" and "King of peace" — a "High Priest forever."
Priesthood is given, not grabbed. What sets Christ's appointment apart is the form God used.
How did He become High Priest? The High Priest had to do with God, so no one could take this office for himself. Aaron was called to it, as the Scriptures declare. The Priesthood of the Lord Jesus Christ was no less of divine appointment. No one saw Him consecrated to the office, as the people of Israel saw Aaron brought into the high priesthood. Yet we know on equally sure ground — the Word of God — that He entered His Priesthood only by divine warrant... Aaron and his sons were made priests by God's command. The Lord Jesus Christ was made Priest with an oath of God. "The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind, 'You are a priest forever'" (7:21). No more solemn form of appointment could be conceived.
Why name Melchizedek and not Aaron, Israel's own high priest? A brief appearance in Genesis carries the answer.
Melchizedek was a priest long before Aaron. History mentions him only briefly (Gen. 14), yet God's evident approval rested on that history: he was "priest of God Most High." Here was an order independent of Aaron, and earlier than Aaron, yet an order that had no place in the nation of Israel on earth. The reason for this is wonderful. This man was a picture of a heavenly priesthood, not an earthly one. Our Lord fully enters it only in His resurrection.
Christ holds the Melchizedek order now. But the way He serves His people today follows another pattern.
What we learn here is that the One now established after the order of Melchizedek is carrying a company through the wilderness. He acts after the pattern of Aaron toward a people in wilderness conditions. He waits to come out fully as functioning according to the order of Melchizedek in the world to come. We need Christ's support after the pattern of the Aaronic priesthood until we reach that day.
Another writer states the same distinction, and adds what the order guarantees.
Scripture plainly teaches us that Christ is "designated by God a high priest after the order of Melchizedek" (Hebrews 5:6). More than that, we read in Hebrews 7:11 of another priest who should rise after the order of Melchizedek, and not be called after the order of Aaron. But notice, it is a question of order here, not of exercise. There was one undying Priest, not a succession.
- Called — no one takes this office for himself. God appointed Aaron by command, and His Son by an oath — the most solemn form possible.
- Suffered — He went down into death and came through it. God's welcome comes after the storm is over.
- Saluted — the word is not "appointed" but "addressed." He was already High Priest when He offered Himself. Here God hails the finished work.
- Melchizedek — an order older than Aaron and outside Israel. It pictures a heavenly priesthood, with no shadow of death on it.
- Forever — one undying Priest, not a succession. He serves us now after the pattern of Aaron. The order of Melchizedek can never pass.