I had been a Christian for more than twenty years before the book of Hebrews started to make sense to me. Before that, I'd been treating it like any other book of the Bible: reading it in devotions, trying to understand, and cross-referencing with the odd commentary here and there. But ultimately, always walking away frustrated and confused.
It wasn't until my back injury ten years ago that I finally started to figure it out. To understand Hebrews, I had to study it. It couldn't be read on the surface. I had to dig deep, to meditate, to let it fill my thoughts, to question why the writer used each word and phrase. Then, understanding flowed in.
The Bible talks about how Jesus became our perfect high priest, the perfect one to provide a bridge between God and man. [1]
In Old Testament times, the high priest was an agent of purification and reconciliation between God and humankind.
So what does it mean for Jesus to be our high priest?
The Bible tells us that Jesus became not only the high priest but also the Lamb of the sacrifice. He offered Himself up once and for all so that we no longer have to bounce in and out of a sinful and broken state before God. Jesus has made a way for us each to enter into a perpetually restored and reconciled relationship with God.
This is the good news that Jesus brings to us. He has become the perfect conduit for our purification and reconciliation with God.
But the Bible also says, "God did the right thing when he made Jesus perfect by suffering." (Hebrews 2:10, CEB)
We might well ask: what does it mean that Jesus was "made perfect" through His sufferings?
After all, wasn't Jesus already perfect, without sin, when He died on the cross? If he was already perfect, how can He have been made perfect through suffering?
The answer lies in our language.
In English, "perfect" has a few different meanings.
The one we usually refer to when we think about Jesus is "without sin, flaw, or defect".
But there is another definition that comes into play, especially in this verse:
"exactly fitting the need in a certain situation or for a certain purpose" [2]
You see, just as a key may be perfectly balanced and formed, cast out of perfect metal with no impurities and yet still not fit every lock, Jesus could have been flawless, without blemish, but still not exactly fitting the the needs inherent in the role of high priest.
One of the crucial aspects of a high priest was his humanity. He stood in front of God on behalf of humankind, as a member of the human race.
Only someone who had experienced the full range of human suffering, temptation, pain, and struggle could be of any help to the rest of humanity.
Without having suffered, Christ would not have been—the Bible tells us, could not have been—the one who perfectly fulfilled every aspect of the high priestly role.
Why must Jesus have gone through all of this in order to become perfect for the job description of high priest? The book of Hebrews tells us this too:
For this reason he had to be made like them, fully human in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.
(Hebrews 2:17-18)
We struggle against sin. Sometimes, we struggle hard. At its root, our struggle often comes from our desire to have our own way, to avoid submitting our base desires and instincts to the authority of God. As I've written before, we are all addicts to control. When we don't get our own way, the sin within us tends to rebel.
Those of us who have a concept of a benevolent God might imagine Him watching our struggles with sympathy, while still remaining distant—kind of like that song tells us that "God is watching us from a distance" [3], as if He can't see the minutia of our hearts and lives. [4] Poppycock.
We might think that God (cloaked in holiness) can't understand us, and our struggles with unholiness. Also poppycock.
The reality is that Jesus, as our perfect high priest, knows exactly what that struggle looks and feels like.
As C.S. Lewis put it:
"No man knows how bad he is until 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.... 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." [6]
If you've ever been tempted to lust after someone and given in, you've never struggled as hard as Jesus did with lust. If you've ever stolen something or lied or sinned in any way, the same holds true.
Let's visit Him for a moment in the Garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus struggled with the idea of submitting to His Father. Of allowing Himself to go through the torture He knew was in store. [5]
Experts tell us that the drops of blood that Jesus sweat during that time [7] were likely from a condition called haemotidrosis, which can result from a high degree of psychological stress. Enzymes break down the capillaries in the sweat glands, and blood is mixed with the sweat. [8] [9]
And so we're faced with a stark reality:
Unless you've sweat drops of blood, you've never struggled as hard against temptation as Jesus did.
That's what makes Jesus our perfect high priest:
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.
(Hebrews 4:15)
The benefits of Christ's experience are clear:
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)
How I love the gentleness of Christ with our weakness.
We'll finish next time with another aspect to Christ's work as high priest for His people that's been an enormous blessing to me in recent days.
NOTES
[1] See Hebrews 7.
[2] “Perfect”, Dictionary app, iPhone.
[3] Bette Midler, “From a Distance,” Atlantic Records, track 7 from Some People’s Lives, 1990.
[4] Psalm 139 resoundingly refutes this idea.
[5] To this day, the Roman crucifixion remains one of the most cruel forms of torture human beings have ever devised.
[6] C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (London: Harper Collins, 1997), 118.
[7] See Luke 22:44.
[8] I first heard this in a lecture given by a doctor, but here are a few web sources as well. “What is Hematidrosis?” WebMD. Last accessed on 11 May 2022. https://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/hematidrosis-hematohidrosis. and “Hematidrosis.” Wikipedia. Last accessed on 11 May 2022. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hematidrosis.
[9] Incidentally, another symptom of haemotidrosis is sensitive skin, which would have made the whipping and crucifixion even more painful for Jesus.
