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HEBREWS CHAPTER 5
Heb_5:1-4 Concerning the office of high priests taken from
among men,
Heb_5:5-10 wherewith Christ’s priesthood is compared, and its
privileges set forth.
Heb_5:11-14 A further account of which is deferred, and for what reason.
For every high priest taken from among men: for is a rational particle, enforcing the truth of what was asserted concerning the gospel High Priest before, that he was the most sensible and tender-hearted of all other, beyond what all his types were, even Aaron himself: how did it therefore behove those Hebrews to cleave to him and his religion, as to desert the Levitical priesthood which he had perfected in himself; he being more excellent for rise, qualities, office, call, than his preceding types, and the permanent truth of them all! For every one of that order in God’s institution, and according to his law, ought to be selected out of the numbers of men for whom he was to minister, and therefore to be a man. He was not to be an angel, nor to minister for them; and being separated from men, is to be put into another and higher rank and order, Exo_28:1, than he was in before: no person was to usurp it, but to be designed to it according to the Divine law settled in that behalf. This was accomplished in Christ’s person, and he hath not since selected out of men any such order of priests properly so called in the Christian church. His officers being so far from being high priests, that they are not so much as in the enumeration of their titles styled iereiv, priests; and as far is it from truth, that there are now as priests, so altars, sacrifices, temples in the Christian church properly so called; since it is expressly against the New Testament, and if so spoken of by the fathers, it must be understood figuratively and metaphorically, or else it is untrue.
Is ordained for men in things pertaining to God; kayistatai, the designed person, is constituted and set over others for their good, to seek either temporal or spiritual good, as the office is: compare Heb_8:3. By this ordination is power conveyed to this officer, and an obligation laid on him by a charge to exert it about things wherein men are concerned with God: he is a religious officer. Ta is imperfect, as Heb_2:7, for en toiv, in things, or kata ta, about things. A sinner can undertake to manage nothing towards God immediately, or by himself, but with a mediating priest, who must know God’s mind and perform it; and it was infinite mercy for God to institute such a help to sinners. The common sense of mankind about it since the fall doth evince it; no nation being without a religion, a temple, a place of worship, or a priest.
That he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins; who may bring home to God, the supreme Lord and King of all, gifts, which were those free-will offerings, as of things inanimate, the first-fruits of corn, wine, and oil, &c., or of sacrifices, such whereby they were to atone and propitiate God for their sins, they being guilty, and he just; those were necessary to satisfy his justice, remove his wrath, and procure his blessing. What those sacrifices were which would please him, God only could reveal, as who should offer them both for himself and others: and this he did reveal to Adam, Noah, and Abraham, and to Moses fully in his law given him about them on the mount, and of which he hath written in his last four books.