Fifth Sunday in Lent: Epistle, Hebrews 5:1-10                        

Hebrews 5:1-10

In our epistle lesson this week one issue is highlighted for the Bible’s careful readers. It is the glorious fact that God desires to live in full fellowship with those He has made in His image. Proper fear of the Lord, full trust in His promises and selfless love for Him were all lost in the fall of our first parents. God the Father, not caught off guard, displays what He held in His infinite mind, that He would provide the remedy. Only he could. It would come in the giving of His very Son for the complete catastrophe which overtook those of His creation whom He loved most.

Our epistle highlights the system of sacrifice, payment and sin’s covering afforded by the shedding of animal’s blood and ties our Savior appropriately into His future role as the “Lamb of God” highlighted by yet another Bible author. The Scripture declares that this One learned obedience as representative of His fallen brothers and sisters. Learned, perhaps better, displayed His obedience and perfection fulfilling for all the demands of the law that none of his fallen brethren could fulfill.

So this High Priest, like those He represents save for sin, pays the awful price, carrying in His own body the sins of the world. To what end? Forgiveness of those sins, the glorification of the Son in His mission, and the vindication of the Father’s righteousness. Apart from the Son’s love-soaked obedience and standing in my stead before the Father, I would be lost forever. So would you. But thanks be to God, we have a perfect High Priest.