Jesus became a man to become a merciful and faithful high priest and to help us in our battle against temptation. In this message we learn what Christ has done for us as our high priest, and how we can gain the victory over temptation through Him.
Why Did Jesus Become A Man? Pt. 3
Hebrews 2:17-18
This will be our third and final message seeking to answer the question, “Why Did Jesus Become A Man?”
In our first message on Hebrews 2:5-9 we discovered one answer – so that He could enable believers to rule in the world to come.
In our second message on Hebrews 2:10-16 we discovered two more answers – so that He could bring many sons to glory and so that He could free believers from the fear of death
Today we are going to discover two more answers to this question: so that He could become Our Merciful and Faithful High Priest, and so that He could Help Us In Our Battle Against Temptation
1. So That He Could Become Our Merciful and Faithful High Priest
Remember that this letter was written to Jews who had professed faith in Christ. They were very familiar with the priesthood. They had participated in the various feasts and festivals of Israel. They had witnessed many Days of Atonement. However, the author of Hebrews is directing them, not to an earthly High Priest, but to Christ, the heavenly High Priest.
The job of the High Priest was to act as a Mediator. He was to represent the people to God, and he was to represent God to the people. The regular Israelite could not approach God in the holy of holies or he would be struck dead. So the High Priest represented him. He brought the blood of the innocent animal inside the curtain in the tabernacle into the holy of holies, and sprinkled the blood on the mercy seat. The innocent animal became the substitute. The animal died so that the people would not have to die. The High Priest represented all the people before God, offering a blood sacrifice on their behalf.
What is a mediator? A mediator is a neutral, third party who helps conflicting individuals resolve their disputes. God had a dispute with sinners. Sinners were estranged from God. God hates sin and must punish it if He is to remain just. A mediator was needed, a go-between, someone who could reconcile man back to God.
1 Timothy 2:5, “For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” There is one mediator, and it’s not Mary, and it’s not any of the saints. It is Jesus Christ. He is the only one who can reconcile sinful man back to God.
So, just how did the high priest reconcile man to God? On the day of atonement, He laid his hands on a goat and confessed the sins of the people, and then sent the goat out into the wilderness never to return again. This symbolized the sins of the people removed from them never to return back on their heads again. Then the high priest would slay another goat, and bring its blood into the holy of holies, and sprinkle it on the mercy seat. Inside the mercy seat were the 10 commandments written on stone. This symbolized that innocent blood was shed because the people had broken God’s law, and this was the way they could be reconciled to God.
You see reconciliation could only take place through the sacrifice of the high priest. The high priest of Israel would offer animals in sacrifice. But Jesus, the true High Priest, offered Himself as the sacrifice to bring reconciliation.
What does our text say in Hebrews 2:17? “He became a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.” Jesus our high priest, made propitiation for sins. The word propitiation refers to a sacrifice which satisfies God’s justice and wrath. God is angry with sin and His justice requires that sinners must pay the penalty of sin which is death. When Jesus hung on the cross, He fully satisfied God’s justice. Sin was paid for. He also fully satisfied God’s wrath. Now God is free to pardon and reconcile sinners because Christ has legally paid the debt.
Jesus had to be made like His brethren – He had to become a man, so that He could make propitiation for them. In order to make propitiation for human sins, a perfect human must die. God the Father is unable to make that propitiation, because he is not a human. God the Son had to become a man, in order to offer His body up on the tree and satisfy God’s justice and wrath. Now, heaven’s gates are flung open wide for any and all who will put their entire trust and confidence in Jesus Christ!
So that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God…
Jesus is merciful towards us, and He was faithful towards God.
Merciful. Jesus Christ came into our world as a true man. He experienced our temptation and suffering. He understands our weaknesses and struggles. When we fail, He does not condemn or reject us. He grants us mercy and enables us to repent and continue to put all our trust in Him.
Faithful. Jesus was faithful to God. He obeyed the Father’s will, even when it meant drinking the cup of His wrath down to the final dregs. Yes, in his humanity, He shrank from it, and even asked God to remove the cup from Him, but when it was clear He had to drink the cup, He did not shirk His duty, but perfectly carried out the will of the Father.
To sum up, Jesus had to become a man in order to save you! God could not remain in heaven and still save you. His justice required that a Man live, suffer, and die in our place. You and I deserved Hell on account of our sins. God would have been absolutely just to send the entire human race to Hell. The wages of sin is death. We all sinned; therefore we all deserved death. So how can we escape God’s inflexible justice and holy wrath? The only way is to embrace Christ’s sufferings and death on the cross as payment for our sin, and trust in Him and His work alone. There is nothing you or I can do to pay for our sin. The only sufficient payment for sins was paid by Christ on the cross. Therefore, rely entirely on His death to pay for your sin! Are you doing that? Have you done that? If you haven’t, you are still under God’s justice and wrath. The propitiation Jesus made on the cross, will do you no good at all, if you do not embrace the cross as your only hope of salvation! You can trust Christ and His finished work right now, in your heart, by putting all your trust in Him!
2. So That He Could Help Us In Our Battle Against Temptation
He Himself was tempted in that which He has suffered. Because Jesus became a man, He could be tempted, just like us. God the Father can not be tempted. James 1:13, “God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone.” Jesus was tempted to refuse to drink the cup. He was tempted to evade the sufferings and the cross. He knew He could call down 12 legions of angels (72,000 angels) who would obliterate all of those that would torture and kill Him. Jesus knows what it is to be tempted. He faced the temptations of the devil in the wilderness at the beginning of His ministry.
Jesus experienced many of the same things we experience – hunger, thirst, fatigue, temptations, suffering, death. If He had not become a man, he would never have experienced these things. God the Father has never experienced those things. Although God knows all things, He has not experienced all of the things we have. But Jesus has experienced them. He can relate to us. He knows what it is like to live as a Man in this fallen, sin-cursed world. And Jesus is merciful and compassionate towards us in our temptations.
He is able to come to the aid of those who are tempted. That’s all of us! We are all tempted in many ways: vent our anger, spew out ugly words, view porn, watch films filled with profanity and blasphemy, abuse drugs and alcohol, lift ourselves up with pride and view others with contempt, be filled with envy and greed, find our contentment and satisfaction in something other than the true and living God. We face temptations daily!
Because Jesus was made flesh, and was tempted, He can sympathize with us in our weaknesses. And He is able and willing to come to our aid to help us when we are tempted. However, every Christian doesn’t automatically have victory in every situation. How can we gain the victory?
Well, just flip over a few pages to Hebrews 4:14-16, “Therefore, since 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 cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” Here we have the recipe for victory in temptation. We are commanded to draw near with confidence to the throne of grace so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
Draw near with confidence. This is pointing out the truth that though we are weak, and continue to sin, we can draw near to God’s throne with confidence. Why are we able to do that? Because we have been justified freely by His grace. In Him, we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace. There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. Are you a child of God? Have you been born of the Spirit? If so, you can approach the throne with confidence. Jesus said, “the one who comes to Me, I will certainly not cast out” (Jn. 6:37).
To the throne of grace. How do we draw near to the throne of grace? Through prayer. We seek God, call on Him, cry out to Him. We pray and ask Him to deliver us from evil.
To receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. We need mercy for our past sins. We need grace for our present struggles. When we approach God in prayer and are brutally honest with Him, we can expect Him to bestow both mercy and grace upon us. That is the kind of prayer He delights to answer! He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus!
Conclusion
- Are you trusting in Christ to save you? Is He your Mediator? Has He reconciled you to God? Has His sacrificial death satisfied God’s justice and wrath on your behalf? Is He your merciful High Priest?
Folks, I know that many of you are new to the things of God. There may be several here who have never taken that decisive step of trusting Jesus to save you. What exactly does it involve?
Repentance. It means you have changed your mind. You may have thought you were a pretty good person, with a good heart, and that you would be fine on Judgment Day. You need to change your mind! Maybe you think you are going to heaven because you are a good person. You are really trusting in yourself. You need to change your mind! You need to start thinking about yourself Biblically.
Faith. To have faith is to believe God’s promise. And what is His promise?
1 Jn. 2:25 “This is the promise which He Himself made to us: eternal life.”
1 Jn. 5:12 “He who has the Son has the life”
Rom. 10:9-10 “if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.”
John 1:12 “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name”
Do you have the Son? Have you confessed with your mouth Jesus as Lord. Do you believe in your heart God raised Him from the dead? Have you received Him?
If you have never done so, you need to take a decisive step of commitment. You need to make up your mind that you will turn away from anything that keeps you from Jesus, and that you will put all your trust in Him and what He accomplished when He died and rose again. And once you make that commitment, you need to make a public profession of faith be getting baptized. If there are any of you here that want to make that commitment of faith to Christ, please let us know so we can help nurture your new life in Christ.
- Are you trusting in Christ to help you in temptation? I think part of our problem is that when we are tempted, we just give in too easily. Where is the struggle and the fight? We need to storm heaven’s gates and run to the throne to find help. Either we don’t really want to overcome that temptation, or we try to overcome it on our own without going to Christ for help. Both are disastrous.
I challenge you to make a commitment that when you are tempted next, you will draw near to the throne of grace in prayer, and plead with God to enable you to overcome.
Each of us have our own besetting sin – that sin that trips us up. Do you pray about those sins? Do you plead with God for victory over them? God loves to hear and answer those prayers. I’m calling on you to make a commitment to go to God for grace the next time you are confronted by sin.
Let’s pray.
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