The book of Hebrews is marvelous in both its content and its composition. No human mind could have written such an Epistle. It certainly was written under divine inspiration. In this message, on a merciful and faithful High Priest, we come to the conclusion of the first two chapters of Hebrews. After covering so many items in the first two chapters, the writer concludes this section by revealing that the Son of Man is a merciful and faithful High Priest ministering to us. In order for us to know His qualifications for being such a priest, we need to look back at chapters one and two to see all the items of what He is and of what He has done.
Why does the writer of Hebrews use the words merciful and faithful to describe this High Priest? Why does he not use just one word or more than two? The answer is that in the first two chapters of this book the writer has mainly covered two points — that Christ is the Son of God, God Himself, and the Son of Man, man Himself. Merciful corresponds with His being a man, and faithful corresponds with His being God. In order to be faithful we not only need virtue but also ability. Suppose I have spoken a word to you as a promise. Although my virtue may be good, I may not have the ability to keep my word. I have the heart to be faithful in keeping my word, but I lack the ability. I do not have the means to fulfill my word. Eventually I am forced into not being faithful. But this High Priest is not merely an honest man; He is the faithful God. God is faithful (Heb. 10:23). He is able to fulfill whatever He says. God never lies (Heb. 6:18). Whatever He has spoken He is able to fulfill. He has every means to fulfill what He has spoken. Only God can be fully faithful. None of us can be completely faithful. A good number of times I had a sincere heart to keep my word but found myself unable to do it. I could not do it because I am not the Almighty God. What can frustrate God from fulfilling His word? Nothing. Jesus can be a faithful High Priest because He is the very Almighty God. Since He, as the Son of God, is God Himself, He is able to be faithful. Although, as the many sons of God and as the many brothers of the Firstborn, we are divine as well as human, we are not almighty. We are human in our human nature and divine in His divine nature, but we are not almighty in His deity. Since He is the Almighty God, He can be faithful to us.
Being merciful corresponds to the point of Christ’s being a man. He became a man and lived on earth as a man passing through all the human sufferings. As a result, He is fully qualified to be merciful to us. He knows how to be merciful to man. He is a man with the experiences of human life, with the experiences of human suffering.
How is Christ able to be a merciful and faithful High Priest? Because He is the Son of Man with the human nature and the Son of God with the divine nature. He is fully qualified. Aaron was a good high priest, but he only had humanity. He did not have divinity. Although Aaron could have been merciful, I doubt that he was truly faithful. But our High Priest, Jesus Christ, the Son of God and the Son of Man, is both merciful and faithful because He is both God and man.
Another qualification of Christ’s being the High Priest is that He was incarnated to be like us (Heb. 2:14, 17). We may even say that He is more than like us, for He suffered in His human life some things we have not suffered. In order to be qualified to be a merciful High Priest, He became like us, sympathizing with all of our weaknesses.
The Lord Jesus is qualified to be the High Priest because He was tried (Heb. 2:18). If you read the Gospels again, you will see that no other person has been subject to so many troubles, attacks, misunderstandings, and rumors as the Lord Jesus. So many religionists are good rumor makers. There are as many rumors in the sphere of religion as in any other place. These rumor makers are accustomed to twisting your words. They isolate a few words that you say and add something else to it. Sometimes the Lord Jesus spoke a word and the religionists picked on it and twisted it, trying to make a case out of it against the Lord.
The situation is exactly the same today. When Brother Nee and I were working together in China, I saw how many lies and rumors were spread about him. Often Brother Nee would not say anything. A number of times he came to me, saying, “Witness, Christians can lie.” At that time, he was the target, and we were under his covering. The attacks did not reach us because he was the umbrella and we were under him. In 1949, after we went to Taiwan, I spontaneously became the target for the attacks. Now I know from my own experience that Christians can lie. If you were to go to the Lord Jesus and ask Him whether or not religious people can lie, He would say, “They certainly can. I have suffered a great deal of it.” Because the Lord Jesus was different from the dark religion of His day, He was hated by the religionists. All the religious people hated Him. The same thing happened to Watchman Nee in China. From 1932 until the day he was imprisoned in 1952, no denomination in China invited him to speak. Nevertheless, the Lord Jesus is merciful and certainly knows how to sympathize with us and how to suffer the lies. No human being has ever been tempted, tested, attacked, opposed, and misunderstood by the religionists as He was. He is qualified to be merciful to us and to sympathize with us.
Christ is also qualified to be our High Priest because He suffered death (Heb. 2:9). The death that the Lord Jesus passed through was truly a baptism. Once the Lord Jesus asked His disciples, “Can ye...be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” (Mark 10:38). That baptism was His death. His death was the real Jordan River. In suffering death, He crossed the river and entered into the region that is full of God’s expression, full of God’s glory.
By suffering death on the cross, Christ made propitiation for our sins (Heb. 2:17). This means that He appeased God for us. He has appeased God’s righteousness and all of God’s requirements on us. He has settled every problem between us and God.
By His death on the cross Christ has not only tasted death for us and made propitiation for our sins, but also has destroyed the Devil who has the might of death (2:14). He has abolished death. He has solved the problem of our sins. He has also spoiled the Devil. So He is qualified to be a merciful High Priest.
Christ has also released us from the slavery of death (2:15). We have been released by Him from the slavery of sin, from the slavery of the fear of death, and even from the slavery of death itself. No longer are we enslaved by anything.
A further qualification of Christ’s being the High Priest is that in resurrection He has brought forth many brothers in order to form the church (Heb. 2:10-12). He is the Firstborn Son of God in resurrection, and we are His many brothers in resurrection to form the church. He and we are the same in life and in nature. He and we are all in resurrection. He is the Head of the church, and we are the members of the church. This affords Him so much ground to be our High Priest.
Christ’s being crowned with glory and honor in His exaltation is also a qualification of His priesthood. His exaltation, glory, and honor all afford Him the possibility of ministering to us as the High Priest. With such a position and possibility, He can be merciful and faithful as much as He likes.
Eventually Christ was perfected and qualified to be the Captain of our salvation (Heb. 2:10). We have seen this in the two previous messages. As the Captain of salvation, He is now fully qualified to be our High Priest.
In the past, many of us have had the experience of being ministered unto by Christ as our High Priest without knowing much about it. Hebrews is a book on the priesthood. As we shall see in future messages, the priesthood which is mentioned in chapters four through six, is fully developed in chapters seven through ten. When we come to that portion of Hebrews, we shall see more. In this message we need to spend some time to lay a foundation for a proper understanding of the priesthood.
What is a priest? We have already said that the priest is one who serves God. Although it is correct to say this, it is not adequate. A priest is not only one who serves God but also one who ministers God into man. All Christians think that a priest is one who serves God, but not many Christians know that, ultimately, a priest is one who ministers God to man. In a sense, serving God is secondary, while ministering God to man is primary. The basic significance of the priesthood is not to serve God but to minister God to man. If, as priests, we only know how to render service to God without knowing how to minister God to man, we shall be quite poor.
The first mention of the word priest in the Bible is with Melchisedec (Gen. 14:18-20). Melchisedec was the first priest in the Bible. As we have pointed out on other occasions, the first mention of a thing in the Bible establishes the principle for that category of things. Therefore, the first mention of the priest, that of Melchisedec, establishes the principle of a priest. If you examine the case of Melchisedec as the priest of the most high God, you will see that he did not go from man to God but came from God to man. He did not go to God and serve God; he came from God and ministered something of God to Abraham, God’s seeker. After the case of Melchisedec, there is much development of this matter of the priesthood in the Bible. But we must not forget that the foundational story of the priesthood is that of a priest coming from God ministering something of God to God’s people.
The main point with respect to Christ as the High Priest is not that He serves God but that He ministers God to us. We must go deeper than the superficial concept that a priest is one who serves God. Everyone, including the unbelievers on the street, knows that a Catholic priest is one who serves God, burns incense, and fulfills his “holy” duty. Even the heathen religions have priests. We need to cross the river out of this low concept into a higher one. God does not need your service, but He does want you to minister Himself to people. As the High Priest, Christ’s major job is to minister God to us. Mainly what Christ does within you is to minister God into you. This is our High Priest. He is continually doing one thing — ministering God into us. Some may say that Melchisedec did not minister God. But what about the bread and the wine — what do they signify? The bread and the wine signify God as our enjoyment, God being ministered to us to refresh, sustain, support, strengthen, and nourish us that we may grow with all the riches of God. This is the primary task of a priest. In principle, we who serve God today are His priests. As priests, our main responsibility is to minister Him to people.
We need to see this kind of priestly ministry in the practical church life. There are many service groups in the church life today. These service groups should not only be considered as a kind of Levitical service. All the service groups must also be the priesthood. A service group should not be just for its service. The brothers and sisters in every service group must constantly minister the riches of God in Christ to people. You need to minister God to the people in your service group. Eventually, your whole group will become a priesthood ministering God from one member to another. Take the example of the cleaning and arranging group. The main task of this service group is not simply to clean the hall, arrange the chairs, and keep everything in order. That is a help, but that is not the priesthood. The real priesthood comes into being when you minister God to people as you clean the hall and arrange the chairs.
As we minister God into people, they will eventually have His expression. Christ ministers God into His believers until there is in them the expression of God. As we have seen, the expression of God is glory. In the Bible, the glory of God is God’s expression. When God is expressed, we have glory. But how can God be expressed? By Christ as the High Priest ministering God into us continually. We have basically covered this point in the two messages on the Captain of salvation.
Now we can see Christ in three aspects. In the first aspect, He is the Captain of salvation; in the second aspect, He is the seed of glory; and in the third aspect, He is the ministering One, the High Priest. As the High Priest, Christ ministers God to us. This is His priestly work and this also is the job that the Captain of salvation is doing. Although He is the Captain of salvation, He fulfills His office by being the High Priest. In 2:10 we are told that Christ is the Captain of our salvation, and in 2:17 we see that this Christ who is the Captain of our salvation is also our High Priest. How can He function as the Captain of our salvation? Only by being the High Priest. According to our human concept, a captain is a leader, a leading fighter. This concept is not wrong, but if Christ were just a Captain in this sense, He could not fulfill His office.
Consider the relationship between Moses and Aaron in the Old Testament. Without Aaron, Moses could not fulfill his leadership. The apostle’s leadership needs the ministering of the priesthood. Joshua, like Moses, also needed the high priest. Do not think that Aaron is one person and that Moses is another. According to themselves as historical figures, they are two, but considered as types of Christ, they are one. On the one hand, Jesus is our Moses; on the other hand, He is our Aaron. When we come to chapter three we shall see more of Jesus as our Apostle and as our High Priest. The leadership and the priesthood must always go together. In Christ, these two ministries belong to one person. He could never function as our Captain if He were not our High Priest. I could not follow Christ if He were not the High Priest. On the one hand, He is the Captain leading on and fighting on; on the other hand, He is the High Priest ministering God Himself and the riches of the divine life into us.
I may use my physical body as an illustration. I praise God that He has given me a strong, healthy body. After ministering, however, I become quite exhausted. Then I go home and enjoy a good meal. This revives me. After such a meal, I am able to come and minister again for another hour and a half. Then I go home and enjoy another good meal. Recently, after speaking in an evening meeting, I went home still very much alive. I awoke the next morning before six o’clock full of energy. I did many things that morning. Where did the energy come from? It came from the nourishment. Likewise, I have a real High Priest ministering bread and wine to me. This enables me to do my job without being tired out. The more I enjoy the nourishment, the more energy I have.
If you read Hebrews 1 and 2, you will see that this wonderful, mysterious, marvelous One is now our High Priest. Do not think that this High Priest only serves God. That is secondary. This High Priest is the One who continually ministers God to us. If, as a priest, you only go to God and serve Him, He will say, “I don’t need you. Why do you come here and waste your time. You must go with Me to the people. You need to minister Me to people. That’s what I want.”
As we have seen, Christ is more than fully qualified to be our High Priest. He, the Son of God, God Himself, became a man and suffered as a man. As the Son of Man, He passed through all things and accomplished all things. Now He is qualified to minister to us as our High Priest. Regardless of our situation, He has something to minister to us. Often, the enjoyment of His priestly ministry is like breathing. There is no need for us to understand the breathing process or to analyze the air. As long as we breathe, we get all that is in the air. Likewise, many things happen in our spirit that we do not understand. Like the air, Jesus is here. As long as we contact Him by breathing Him in, we have all that we need. Nevertheless, it is a help if we know the Lord well. This enjoyment of Christ is real; it is not superstitious.
As our High Priest ministers God into us, we shall gain more of God and come into His expression. Eventually, we shall come to serve God. Here is where we need to make a turn. When we come to serve God, we are infused the more with God. Once we have been infused with Him, God will say, “Go and minister Me to others.”
Now we can understand the way in which the Lord Jesus as the Captain of our salvation brings us into glory by being the High Priest ministering God to us all the time. As Christ ministers God into us, a chain reaction begins. We are transfused with God until we also become priests. As priests, we do not mainly serve God but minister God to others, bringing them into God’s expression. The ones who receive our ministry will in turn be infused with God. This will cause them to go to God for more infusing. Then God will tell them to minister Himself to others. This is the way that the Captain of our salvation is leading us into glory. I regret that I do not have the adequate words to express this. This is not merely a kind of Christian edification. It is the way that the Father is leading many sons into glory. I repeat, the Lord leads us into glory by being our Captain and our Captain fulfills His duty by being our High Priest.
I learned Hebrews 2:17 as a youth. I was taught that Christ, as our High Priest, can sympathize with us, but I was taught this in the low way which says that whenever you find yourself in difficulty, Christ can sympathize with you. Although I experienced Christ’s sympathizing with me like this many times, I did not receive from it the ministry of the divine life. I only obtained comfort, nothing else. My present experience is much different. The experience that I now have of Christ’s sympathizing with me as my High Priest is much higher and richer than this. Every time I experience His sympathy I receive the divine supply. I have learned from my experiences that Christ as the High Priest mainly serves God by ministering God to us.
This kind of ministry is called succor, a helpful rescue. To understand the Greek word that is rendered “succor” in 2:18 in the King James Version we need to read 2:16 in both the King James Version and the Recovery Version. The King James Version says, “For verily he took not on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham.” The Recovery Version says, “For assuredly He does not take hold of angels, but He takes hold of the seed of Abraham.” What a difference between these translations! The King James Version says the Lord Jesus did not take upon Him the nature of angels but the nature of the children of Abraham. But the proper meaning of the Greek is not to take on but to take hold of. What does it mean to take hold of? According to the Greek, it simply means to help and rescue us. But this does not mean to rescue a person in the way that you rescue a drowning man. It does not just mean to grab hold of a person and pull him out of a dangerous situation. No, it means to get into a person, put him upon you, and carry him. That is the helpful rescue spoken of here. This is why the King James Version says, “He took not on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham.” This is not absolutely wrong, for it is a partial meaning of the Greek word. The full meaning of this word is “to help, to rescue, by coming to a person, putting him on you, and carrying him.” For example, when you have a difficult time, the High Priest is not going to stretch forth His finger and rescue you from that difficult time. No, while you are suffering, He will come to you, put you on, and carry you through the difficult time. This is the work of our High Priest. After you have experienced this a number of times, you will never again be threatened by any difficulty. The next time a difficulty comes, you will say, “The more difficulties I have, the more I enjoy Christ, the more I enjoy God, the more I enjoy the divine element, and the more I am brought into glory.”
Now we know the real meaning of Heb. 2:17-18. Christ is so many things: the Son of God, the Son of Man, the Creator, the Upholder, the Heir, the One who suffered death, made propitiation for our sins, destroyed Satan, and released us from the slavery of death. As such a One He is thoroughly qualified to be the Captain of our salvation. As our Captain, He saves us from every kind of low situation and brings us into God’s glory. He does not save us in an objective way but by ministering God Himself into us and by rendering us a subjective succor by putting us on, bearing us, and carrying us. When we enjoy this succor, we participate in God’s element and are brought into the expression of the glorious God. This is the way in which the Lord is bringing us into glory.
