Sermon Text: Hebrews 4:14–5:10
Preacher: Pastor Brian Sauvé
Holding Fast By Drawing Near
I told you from the first sermon in our time in this book that we would see three great themes unfold in this book:
1. That Jesus Christ is greater than all of his forerunners and his rivals.
2. That the conquest of Christ’s Kingdom is a global one—a conquest that the invasion of the Promised Land by Israel was but a shadow.
3. That in light of the supremacy of Christ and his Kingdom, you would be a fool to go back to the shadows or to bend the knee to one of his rivals.
Hopefully you see how that first theme—the utter supremacy of Christ—is the greatest of the three, and the reason for the other two. The whole book of Hebrews could be summed up under the banner: Christ is King!
And so far in the book, we have seen Jesus’ greatness: We have seen in Hebrews 1:1–3 that Jesus is greater than the prophets of the Old Testament—that in the former days, God spoke through those prophets, but in the last days, he has spoken to us by his Son.
We have seen in Hebrews 1:4–2:18 that Jesus is greater even than the glorious angelic beings, powerful though they are—that Jesus is the only one seated at the right hand of the Father, the only one to whom the Father has said, “Ask of me, and I will make the nations your inheritance.”
We have seen in Hebrews 3:1–6 that Jesus is greater even than Moses, the Law-receiver; greater than Moses, who led the people to freedom in Exodus and who wrote the bedrock first five books of the Old Testament—as much greater as the builder of the house is greater than the house.
And we saw last week that Jesus is greater than Joshua and that he leads his people into a greater rest than the land of Canaan that Joshua led Israel into—that Jesus’ rest is an everlasting Sabbath rest and his Kingdom a global and eternal and unshakeable one.
In our text today, the theme continues as we find that Jesus is greater than another Old Testament forerunner: Aaron and his priesthood. With the exception of a small excursion on the issue of Christian maturity and apostasy, this will be the theme for most of the middle portion of the book of Hebrews.
And so we’ll find that Jesus is a greater priest than Aaron, the immortal High Priest of a better priesthood. Look with me at verse 14 of chapter four, and we will read through chapter five, verse ten. This is the Word of the Living God:
“Since then we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.
For we do not have a High Priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
For every High Priest chosen from among men is appointed to act on behalf of men in relation to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. He can deal gently with the ignorant and wayward, since he himself is beset with weakness. Because of this he is obligated to offer sacrifice for his own sins just as he does for those of the people. And no one takes this honor for himself, but only when called by God, just as Aaron was.
So also Christ did not exalt himself to be made a High Priest, but was appointed by him who said to him,
“You are my Son,
today I have begotten you”;as he says also in another place,
“You are a priest forever,
after the order of Melchizedek.”In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence. Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him, being designated by God a High Priest after the order of Melchizedek.”
-Hebrews 4:14–5:10
Two Exhortations
The roadmap for how we will approach the text this morning is really established for us in the first three verses, Hebrews 4:14–16. In those final three verses of chapter four, the author gives us two exhortations that set our course through verse ten of chapter five.
First, in verse 14, we are exhorted to “…hold fast our confession.” Then, in verse 16, we are charged to “…with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”
Very simply, the author of Hebrews is charging us with that third great theme of the book: Never go back. Never go back, but rather hold fast to our confession. What is that confession?
It is the confession staked out by the whole book of Hebrews: That Jesus is our Lord, King, Savior, and God, greater than all of his forerunners and rivals, his blood the only hope of our salvation. It is the Gospel of the Kingdom of God and his Christ.
Hold Fast By Drawing Near
And so through the whole text—and this will be the main thing we do together this morning—the author of Hebrews will give us reason after reason we ought to obey his exhortations and hold fast our confession.
But briefly, before we do that, I want you to see and understand that the main way we obey the first exhortation, to hold fast, is by actually obeying the second exhortation, to continually draw near to and live before the throne of grace.
We hold fast our confession in obedience to verse 14 by obeying the instruction of verse 16, that is, by confidently and continually drawing near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
Think: What is that time of need? It is daily, hourly, from moment to moment, we are to live before this throne of grace. It is this grace that forgives us, resurrects us, calls us, sustains us, and will see us through to the end, when we are presented before the same throne without spot or blemish or any such thing, glorified by the glorious God-Man, Jesus Christ.
The world is constantly shouting at you this false gospel that your hope is anchored inside of you, right? This idea that what you need, the resources for your success and satisfaction, are to be found inwardly.
But our hope is a gospel hope, not a self hope, right? We are Christians, and what that means is that our hope, beginning to end, is anchored outside of ourselves, in the Person and the sufficient work of Jesus Christ, our King.
So listen: We hold fast, not by staring at our own white-knuckled grip, clinging onto our confession like a rock climber might cling to a particularly difficult hold in the face of the rock, but by keeping our eyes fixed on the object of our confession, Jesus Christ, who holds us fast.
We hold fast, not by looking at ourselves, but by maintaining our gaze on our faithful High Priest, who is seated on the throne as our Advocate, Help, Friend, Rock, Shield, and Righteousness.
Help in Holding Fast
So this passage is not a call to navel gazing as the means of holding fast, but rather fixing our gaze on Christ.
To that end, our passage gives us 5 facets of Jesus’ glory that each function as reasons we ought to hold fast our confession of faith, 5 reasons we ought to obey the charge of verse 14. Number one, hold fast your confession, drawing near to this throne…
1. Because Jesus is seated on it, and he is a great High Priest, who has passed through the heavens. We have an Advocate where the Accuser once stood (4:14; 5:10).
Verse 14,
“Since then we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.”
-Hebrews 4:14
Jesus passed through the heavens—first down through the heavens to save us in his incarnation, then back up through the heavens to rule as our Advocate in his ascension and enthronement—to depose the Accuser and replace him with an Advocate.
See sermon #6 in this series, on Hebrews 2:10–18, entitled “The Accuser & The Advocate” for a whole sermon on this from what we have already seen in Hebrews. Because of that sermon, I won’t build that case again, but rather just point at the conclusion of it that the author restates for us here in verse 14: We have an Advocate before God’s throne, Jesus Christ, our High Priest.
We will say more on this in point 3, especially the results of this heavenly exchange. But for now, number 2, hold fast your confession, drawing near to this throne…
2. Because our High Priest is the God-Man, meaning we have a High Priest who can sympathize with our weaknesses, having passed through them all in true humanity, yet without sin (4:15; 5:1–2).
Verses 1–3 of chapter 5,
“…every High Priest chosen from among men is appointed to act on behalf of men in relation to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. He can deal gently with the ignorant and wayward, since he himself is beset with weakness. Because of this he is obligated to offer sacrifice for his own sins just as he does for those of the people.”
-Hebrews 5:1–3
The point the author wants you to see is that, under the Aaronic priesthood of the Old Covenant—which was a type and a shadow and a symbol of the greater priesthood of Christ—the chief priest, the High Priest, was chosen from men, and then commissioned by God to represent humanity to God.
But the problem was that he was a sinner himself. So he needed sacrifice for his own sin. And because of that identification with mankind, he could be understanding and sympathetic to sinful men. Jesus is like that, but better. Verses 15–16 of Hebrews 4,
“For we do not have a High Priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”
-Hebrews 4:15–16
As the author of Hebrews has labored to unfold for us in these first few chapters, Jesus is the great and perfect Second Adam—meaning he came not only to save us from our sin, but to do so by becoming the perfect head of a new humanity. He is not just righteous, he is embodied righteousness. He is a High Priest who has tasted our weak humanity and conquered sin nonetheless.
Jesus can sympathize with us, because he has faced the same temptations we have. When Jesus came to save us, when he condescended to the lowliness of a baby in Mary’s womb, he did so as a human. He is really, actually, truly, authentically, and fully human.
Now, there’s an important distinction to make here, because we’re also told that he did all of this “without sin.” This means that, unlike us, Jesus wasn’t fallen. He wasn’t, as we were sinful by nature from conception. And so all of his temptation was external to himself, but there was no corresponding internal, evil desire.
We sin, in other words, because we want to. Jesus never sinned, because Jesus never wanted to sin. But he was tempted on every point you can be. This is especially captured in his temptation by the Devil in Matthew 4, where Satan—who was given rule of earth by Adam through his sin—tempted Jesus with everything, all of the kingdoms of earth and their contents, if he would just bow down and worship Satan.
So hold fast your confession, because your Jesus was tempted with everything, and yet he sinned in nothing.
Now maybe you think for a moment about that and you think, “Hang on, but if Jesus is sinless, if he never gave in to his temptations, how can he identify with me, sympathize with me, really? I’m not sinless. I have given in to my temptations ten-thousand times! How can he really know what it is like?”
Let me give you an illustration by way of response: Imagine ten knights riding out of their city to face a deady dragon that had been eating their children and killing their women and burning down their buildings. There is cheering and encouragement and glory as they ride out of the gates to go into the mountains for battle.
But when they actually meet the dragon, four knights flee at the sight of it, and as the fight goes on, and the fire rains down and the knights really begin to reckon with the strength of the enemy, one by one the rest run away. But through it all, one knight refuses to flee, and that knight slays the dragon and cuts off its head and brings it back to the city, triumphant.
Here’s the point: Who knows the deadly strength of the dragon the best, the ones who fled, or the one who fought it and threw it down? Jesus victory over sin as the sinless, triumphant Man is like that. He not only knows the power of sin—he knows it better than any sinner, because he never gave into it. C.S. Lewis helps us out here as well. He writes,
“No man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good. A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is. After all, you find out the strength of the German army by fighting against it, not by giving in. You find out the strength of a wind by trying to walk against it, not by lying down. A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later. That is why bad people, in one sense, know very little about badness — they have lived a sheltered life by always giving in. We never find out the strength of the evil impulse inside us until we try to fight it: and Christ, because He was the only man who never yielded to temptation, is also the only man who knows to the full what temptation means — the only complete realist.”
We give in to the power of sin after a short struggle, and then we dare to look at Jesus, who battled sin to the death, and yell out, “I am the real sin expert, Jesus! You don’t really know how strong it is!” And Jesus responds by cutting off the dragon’s head and turning its skull into a cup to drink out of. Jesus knows the power of sin—because Jesus threw that dragon down into the dust.
So hold fast! He knows the power of sin. And now only does he know it, but number 3, his throne of triumph is also a throne of grace. Hold fast your confession and come near to this throne…
3. Because we have free invitation into the royal court of heaven, and the throne at the center of that court is an everlasting fountain of grace (16).
Because our Lord has passed through the heavens as our Savior and then back into the heavens as our priestly Advocate, verse 16 is true, meaning the throne of God is no longer a place of terror for us but of love and mercy and grace and help.
Our modern ears and modern hearts—catechized by modern notions that “Honey, you are enough,” and “You are perfect just the way you are”—don’t understand the glory of what this means.
See, we haven’t really learned to tremble properly at the idea of standing before the throne of God. Most Americans today have no problem considering that idea, because we tend to think of ourselves as pretty good, basically good people. Sure, we’re not perfect, but we’re good people.
But if the Scriptures teach us anything, it’s that nobody an stand before God’s throne unless they are utterly and to-the-bottom perfect. I’ll give you just one example from the hymnal of Israel, Psalm 5. David writes,
“For you are not a God who delights in wickedness;
evil may not dwell with you.
The boastful shall not stand before your eyes;
you hate all evildoers.
You destory those who speak lies;
the LORD abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful man.”-Psalm 5:4–6
Jesus himself said in his great Sermon on the Mount, that if you want to stand before God, if you want salvation, here is the standard to meet, Matthew 5:48, “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
Nobody can stand before this throne unless they are utterly perfect. That’s why all of our cute notions of salvation by works are utter nonsense. Because all have sinned and fallen short of this God and of his glory!
That is why we have no hope, why we ought to lament and fear this throne unless the gospel is true, unless our High Priest has passed through the heavens, achieved perfection in the flesh, died to take away the Law’s curse for our sin, and risen for our life.
Unless we are clothed in his righteousness by grace and through faith, this throne is a place of terror. But Hebrews 5:9 tells us that Jesus, “…being made perfect … has become the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him.”
And so, because of the shed blood of the Lamb of God—and only because of that blood!—we can sing not only the first 6 verses of Psalm 5, but the seventh verse,
“But I, through the abundance of your steadfast love,
will enter your house.
I will bow down toward your holy temple
in the fear of you.”-Psalm 5:7
The throne is now a place of welcome—the very welcome of God’s perfect Son! See the contrast here between the mountain of Moses, Sinai, where the Law thundered down in glory from God, a mountain you couldn’t even touch without death, now with the free invitation into the very throne room of heaven!
Do you know what that means, Refuge? It means that the Father is not just putting up with you. His love and delight in you is not halfhearted; he loves you, he delights in you, he sings over you with alacrity!
He is not merely putting up with you; he receives you with delight—why? Not because you were delightful in the deeps of your inner self, but because you have been made delightful by the perfect work of Jesus Christ! So come, and come boldly. Come, especially when you have sinned and need mercy, with boldness.
Come boldly, because true faith in this grace is bold. It is bold, not in itself, but in the Lord. True faith is bold because true faith understands the utter solidity of the righteousness it has been given in Jesus Christ. True faith understands that this righteousness is unbreakable, because it is the very righteousness of Jesus, credited to you.
He has made him who knew no sin to become sin, that you might beome the righteousness of God in him. Number four, come boldly to this throne, holding fast your confession…
4. Because this grace is a helping grace (16).
It is a grace that is bent on making us like our Lord. This grace is not just forgiving grace, but sanctifying grace. Do you see that in verse 16?
“Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”
-Hebrews 4:16
The invitation of verse 16 is not merely to draw near to this throne for mercy, but for help in time of need. It is for help, not just to be saved—as in snatched from the flames—but to be saved.
Maybe you’re like, “Brian, you just said the same thing.” I know. And it didn’t hit you the way it should because we have so shrunken and dehydrated our theology of salvation down into a little astronaut-food nugget. We’ve made our gospel lighter than a freeze-dried ice-cream bar.
We tend to think of salvation as mere forgiveness. It’s certainly not less than that, but forgiveness is just the beginning. God forgives us in order that he might remake us. Salvation is nothing short of a new creational act of God.
Meaning God doesn’t just forgive you and then say, “Have a nice couple decades; I’ll see you in heaven when you die!” No, it’s more like, “I’ve forgiven you, remade you, resurrected you, implanted a new heart in you with my law in it, so that you could know me, walk with me, and become a part of my eternal Kingdom that I’m building right here, right now. And when you die, yes, you will be with me. And then I’ll come back and raise your body and put your soul back in it, glorified, and you can live with me in your immortal body forever in my new creation Kingdom.”
And God is working all of that in you right now. He would have you come to his throne for mercy, and also for empowering help, that you might grow in holiness, that the aroma of his Kingdom might linger about you, that you might say your emphatic No! to sin and Yes! to the Son.
Come, because he beckons you come for help. Number 5, hold fast this confession, drawing near to this throne…
5. Because our High Priest is no upstart: He was appointed by God to do the work of God and will certainly see it through (1–10).
Let’s take a walk through Hebrews 5:1–10, and we’ll see how this works out together:
For every High Priest chosen from among men is appointed to act on behalf of men in relation to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. He can deal gently with the ignorant and wayward, since he himself is beset with weakness. Because of this he is obligated to offer sacrifice for his own sins just as he does for those of the people. And no one takes this honor for himself, but only when called by God, just as Aaron was.
So also Christ did not exalt himself to be made a High Priest, but was appointed by him who said to him,
“You are my Son,
today I have begotten you”;
as he says also in another place,“You are a priest forever,
after the order of Melchizedek.”
Jesus is no upstart, trying to save us to prove something to God. No, he is the Son of God, begotten from the dead, a Priest forever after an eternal order, and when he laid down is life for us, verse 7,
In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence. Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him, being designated by God a High Priest after the order of Melchizedek.”
This Son was raised from the dead, because he knew no sin, couldn’t be held by death, whose power is sin, and so his Father raised him up, immortal, to grant to us an immortal salvation. It is all of God, beginning to end, eternity to eternity.
He sees it through, because he is a Son, not an upstart. He sees it through, because he was appointed to this work, called to this work, went willingly to accomplish this work, and has finished this work.
Don’t Dare Not To Come
I know there is much in this passage that I have basically gestured towards without diving in. You will see why that is the case as we continue in Hebrews, especially with the Melchizedek priesthood of Jesus, which we will take a really hard look at that in chapter 7.
So don’t think I’m short changing you, here! We’ll throw it back, Old Testament style, and see all sorts of awesome stuff from Genesis and Psalm 110 and I am excited for you to see that.
(Spoiler: The Mormons got it totally wrong.)
But I digress. This morning, let me simply leave you with this: You are going to pass through the fire and through the temptation of sin and through opposition and through boredom and maybe depression and through all sorts of trials and testings and tribulations.
In it all, obey verse 14 by way of verse 16: Hold fast your confession by living ever before the throne of God’s mercy and grace, the place where he not only beckons you, but beckons you with a smile.
Our Lord delights to pour out this grace on his people, because it magnifies his awesome glory as we lean on him and so bear the fruit of his gospel in our lives. Don’t dare not to come. Don’t dare hold back from this throne. Go there with me now as we pray and come to the table of our Lord. Let’s pray.