Every Old Testament high priest had to minister to people who were “ignorant, and… out of the way [wayward]” (Heb. 5:2). God made no provision but judgment for high-handed sins of rebellion (see Ex. 21:12–14; Num. 15:27–31). But He did make provision when people sinned through ignorance or weakness. An Old Testament priest could identify with the sinners, since he himself was a sinner. In fact, on the day of Atonement, the high priest had to offer a sacrifice for himself before he could offer one for the nation (Lev. 16; Heb. 9:7)!
You would think that one sinner would have compassion for another sinner, but this is not always the case. Sin makes a person selfish. Sin can blind us to the hurts of others. Sin can harden our hearts and make us judgmental instead of sympathetic. Remember how heartbroken Hannah, who was praying for a son, was accused by high priest Eli of being drunk (1 Sam. 1:9–18)? And when King David was confronted with a story of a rich man’s sin, he had no sympathy for him, even though David himself was a worse sinner (2 Sam. 12).
No, it is the spiritually minded person with a clean heart who sympathizes with a sinner and seeks to help him (see Gal. 6:1). Because we are so sinful, we have a hard time helping other sinners, but because Jesus is perfect, He is able to meet our needs after we sin.
Our Lord was prepared for His high priestly ministry during His days of ministry on earth (Heb. 5:7–8). The phrase “to the days of his flesh” means “In the days when He was on earth in a human body.” From birth to death, our Lord experienced the sinless infirmities of human nature. He knew what it was to grow and mature (Luke 2:52). He experienced hunger and thirst, as well as weariness (John 4:6–8, 31). He also faced temptations to sin (Matt. 4:1–11) and persecutions from the hands of sinful men.
How could the Son of God “learn obedience”? In the same way any son must learn obedience: by the experiences of life. We must remember that our Lord, in His earthly walk, lived by faith in the Father’s will. As God, He needed to learn nothing. But as the Son of God come in human flesh He had to experience that which His people would experience, so that He might be able to minister as their High Priest. He did not need to learn how to obey because it would be impossible for God to be disobedient. Rather, as the God-Man in human flesh, He had to learn what was involved in obedience. In this way, He identified with us.
This preparation involved the experience of death. The writer of Hebrews (5:7) focused on our Lord’s experience in the garden of Gethsemane (Matt. 26:36–46). As He faced the cross, it was not the physical suffering that burdened Jesus, but the fact that He would be made sin and separated from His Father. Other servants of God have faced death and not expressed such great emotion; but no other servant ever bore on his body the sins of the whole world.
In His Gethsemane prayer, our Lord did not oppose the Father, but prayed, “Not my will, but thine, be done” (Luke 22:42). He was not praying to be spared from death, but to be saved out of death. He was praying for resurrection from the dead, and God answered that prayer. He had prophesied His own death and had made it clear that He was laying down His life of His own free will. This ties in with the quotation from Psalm 2:7, cited in Hebrews 5:5, that promised His resurrection from the dead.
The writer of Hebrews states that Jesus’ prayer “was heard” (Heb. 5:7), that is, answered by the Father. Since He did die on the cross, this could not have been what He was praying about; for if the Father had answered, the Son would not have been crucified. He did not pray to be saved from death, but out of death, and God answered His prayer by raising Him from the dead.
No one else ever died the kind of death that Jesus died. He was made sin for us (2 Cor. 5:21; 1 Peter 2:24). Men have died because of their own sins, but only Jesus died for the sins of a whole world. He experienced the ultimate in suffering and, therefore, He is able to sympathize with His people when they are suffering. The readers of this epistle were going through difficult times, but they had “not yet resisted unto blood” (Heb. 12:4). Their goods had been seized and they had been ridiculed (Heb. 10:32–34), but they had not been crucified and forsaken by the Father.
No matter what trials we meet, Jesus Christ is able to understand our needs and help us. We need never doubt His ability to sympathize and strengthen. It is also worth noting that sometimes God puts us through difficulties that we might better understand the needs of others, and become able to encourage them (see 2 Cor. 1:8ff.).
When Charles Haddon Spurgeon was a young preacher in London, his successful ministry aroused the envy of some of the clergy, and they attacked him with various kinds of slander and gossip. His sermons were called “trashy,” and he was called “an actor” and “a pulpit buffoon.” Even after his ministry was established, Spurgeon was lied about in the press (including the religious press), and this was bound to discourage him.
After one particularly scurrilous report in the press, Spurgeon fell before the Lord and prayed, “O Lord Jesus, Thou didst make Thyself of no reputation for me. I willingly lay my reputation down for Thy sake.” From that time on, Spurgeon had peace in his heart. He knew that his Great High Priest understood his need and would give him the grace that he needed for each hour.