Chapter 5

           

              The first ten verses of this chapter are devoted to the purpose of preparation for the study of the priesthood: the importance of the priesthood of the believer. We study, therefore, the unique high priest and in the first five verses the history of every high priest before the Lord Jesus Christ. Remember that if you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ you are in full time Christian service. When you personally trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ God gave you 36 things. These things relate to God, they relate to the angelic conflict, they relate to your function in this world, they relate to your relationship to other people, they relate to everything. The thrust of this passage is the fact that at the point of salvation you were appointed a priest. Every believer is a priest. The universal priesthood of the believer is of absolute vital importance to you personally. The priesthood of the believer does not function normally until you reach supergrace, and once reaching supergrace you have the normal function of this priesthood. Your priesthood causes you to face toward God; your ambassadorship causes you to face toward the world. So that actually you are moving toward two directions at the same time. As goes the priesthood so goes your relationship and your function in this life. God has ordained that you should move in the direction of supergrace and upon arrival you have 1) occupation with the person of Christ, and 2) supergrace capacity based upon doctrine in the soul, and 3) God pours supergrace blessings into your cup. These supergrace blessings as poured include everything from prosperity to wealth, success, materialistic blessings, social blessings, sexual blessings. All of these are related to God’s grace in pouring for you and for me. God’s grace begins for us in phase one of grace: everything God provided for eternal salvation, everything that was necessary to make it possible for us to have a relationship with God forever. This particular type of grace involves volition, positive volition, non-meritorious type. Therefore, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.” Our second classification of grace involves phase two grace. This is merely survival and keeping you alive in the devil’s world, an impossibility apart from the things that God has provided. Most of these things are like an iceberg, they are invisible, they are hidden from you. You cannot see them but you know they are there because you are alive at this moment. This type of grace has no relationship to volition. The third classification is known as the principle of supergrace, and this involves volition, attitude toward doctrine. Positive volition toward the living Word, Jesus Christ, means salvation. Positive volition on a consistent basis toward the written Word means the supergrace life. Finally, there is surpassing grace or phase three grace and, again, no volition is involved there. Phase three grace is not directly related to the angelic conflict.

              The objective of the book of Hebrews is to bring your priesthood to the point of function, which means the point of the supergrace life, to bring you to the point where God can pour because God is glorified in that pouring.

              Verse 1 — this is the first of four verses relating to the function of high priest before Christ. Before the Lord Jesus Christ there was the family priesthood. The firstborn son of every family was the ruler of that family, was the priest of that family, and also received the double portion which was the financial wealth of the family upon the death of the patriarch of the family or the father.

             The word “For” is a conjunctive particle gar and it is used in a continuative way. It is used for explanation, it is a continuative concept.

            “every high priest” — the word “every” is paj which means every category as well as every individual. The word for “high priest,” a)rxiereuj, simply means ruling priest or first priest. I)ereuj is the Greek word for priest; a)rxi means ruler. We simply use the translation “high priest”.

            “taken” is a present passive participle from lambanw. Lambanw means to take, to seize, but this is in the passive voice and that means that the word means to be appointed, to be commissioned, to be recognised or authorised by God. The present tense is an iterative present in the Greek, it is used to describe what recurs at successive intervals in history. Therefore high priests do not exist every moment, there is no linear aktionsart here, but there comes a time when a person is recognised as a high priest. For example, Aaron was Moses’ younger brother. Technically, Moses should have been the high priest of Israel after their liberation. He was the leader, he should have functioned in this area. However, his reluctance to accept the call to be God’s instrument in liberating the people and his subsequent argumentation with God resulted in appointing Aaron as His spokesman. This appointment was set aside from the standpoint of leadership but not from the standpoint of the priesthood, and God appointed the younger brother of Moses, by the name of Aaron, as the first high priest of Israel. Both Aaron and Moses were from the tribe of Levi. Levi was one of the tribes that received the blessing that should have gone to Reuben. Reuben was the firstborn of Israel. The firstborn always had, up until the time of Abraham, three things: the family rulership, the family priesthood, and the double portion — all of the land and all of the wealth became his. Reuben lost all of these things through reversionism. He lost the family rulership to the tribe of Judah, and that brings us down to David. He lost the family priesthood to the tribe of Levi, and that brings us down to Aaron. He lost the double portion to Joseph, and the double portion became Ephraim and Mannaseh, so that technically you have thirteen tribes in Israel.

            Now every high priest is appointed is really what lambanw means here. The verb means to take but it means to be taken by God or commissioned by God or appointed by God. Principle: Any time God makes an appointment that appointment sticks. It comes from the sovereignty of God but sovereignty must be linked with immutability, immutability must be linked with omniscience. God knows what he is doing. This is one thing that is absolutely necessary in leadership. Leadership must always know what leadership is doing. God knows what He is doing and He has done it. God makes appointments and he appointed Aaron high priest. So Aaron obviously was an undeserving type. To handle such a ministry as the priesthood is a phenomenal thing, and to think of Aaron handling that whole situation is something most unusual. Aaron always went with the crowd, as in the golden calf incident. Leadership always stands up to a majority which is wrong. It never caters to a majority that is wrong, and that is exactly what Aaron did.

           This is to point out the fact that in the history of high priests the great marking point before Jesus Christ was the high priesthood of Aaron. It began with the Levitical priesthood taken from the name of his tribe, the tribe of Levi, and Aaron became the high priest. he had four sons. His eldest surviving son became the high priest who succeeded him. And they represented themselves and the people to God. Then the eldest son of Aaron had many sons and these sons would be the priests. Other members of the family of Levi would function in connection with the tabernacle and the various aspects of the priesthood. And all of this is brought to a head now under the principle of lambanw in the present active participle. This is a concessive participle which recognises the fact that this is a bona fide point of history and it reviewed only briefly to show a contrast between the high priesthood of Aaron and the high priesthood of Christ, the high priesthood of Aaron’s successors and the high priesthood of Christ.

           The next phrase is so important theologically that it must not be missed. Melchizedek was a Gentile priest, the king of Salem which is the original Jerusalem. He was also the priest of his people, which indicated the fact that before possibly he was the king he had functioned as the priest and they had taken a spiritual leader as their king and as a result they had great prosperity. So great was their prosperity that Melchizedek ministered to Abraham at a time of Abraham’s great need. He ministered to him as a priest although Melchizedek was historically a king-priest.

            There are those who erroneously contend that Melchizedek was not a human being at all but a Christophany, the Lord Jesus Christ. They base this on the fact that it says he had no father and no mother. That is not correct. A Christophany is never presented that way. It means no recorded father, no recorded mother. “From among men”, then, is important because it demonstrates that Melchizedek was a true member of the human race. The very fact that he was a priest demanded that he be a member of the human race. Jesus Christ is not Melchizedek and Melchizedek is not Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ was not a priest until His birth. He could not be a priest until He became a member of the human race. Therefore, Melchizedek is not Jesus Christ.

            “from among men” — e)k plus the ablative of a)nqrwpoj. A)nqrwpoj is a generic term for the human race. So it must be a member of the human race; no one is a priest unless he is a member of the human race. “For every high priest being taken from among men.” They are not constantly taken from among men. Remember again that the iterative present means that at certain intervals this occurred. Remember this principle once again. The moment a person dies as a priest he is no longer functioning as a priest. Death is the cessation of the function of the priesthood. This is important because, once again, we are meeting on Sunday, the first day of the week. This is resurrection day, this is the day that Jesus Christ came out from the grave. He went into the grave on Wednesday night and He came out on early Sunday morning in resurrection body. He was three days and three nights in the grave. On resurrection Jesus Christ perpetuates His priesthood. He had to be resurrected in order to go to the right hand of the Father to pray for you and for me and to be our advocate and to fulfil the various ministries of high priesthood. If Jesus Christ had not been raised from the dead you and I would not be priests and you and I would therefore not have purpose and meaning to our lives. But we do. We are not just peons spiritually, we have been appointed to the high office of priests.

 

           Summary

                1. The high priest was always taken from the human race, never from angels, never from deity. Priesthood, therefore, is unique to the human race. There is no priesthood among angels, there is no priesthood in the Godhead.

                2. The high priest must partake of the nature of the person for whom he acts, for whom he officiates, and for whom he represents.

                3. The priest, and in this case the high priest, is to minister to men in things which involve man’s relationship to God. In other words, every priest is a man representing man before God and the high priest personifies this to the maximum in the field of leadership.

                4. A priest is a man who represents man before God.

                5. Therefore, the high priest must be a man or a member of the human race since he is representing man before God.

                6. This means that all high priests from the first to the last Adam had to be bona fide members of the human race.

                7. Hence, the high priesthood completely by passes angelic creation.

                8. Your priesthood demands victory.

 

              Now this particular synopsis anticipates Hebrews 7:4,5,14,28; 10:5, 10-14 where the humanity of Christ is related to the high priesthood. As God, Jesus Christ cannot be a priest and therefore another reason for the incarnation and the subsequent hypostatic union.

             The next phrase: “is ordained” — the present passive indicative of the compound verb kaqistemi. Kata means norm or standard; i(stemi means to stand. To stand according to a norm or standard it means to stand on the basis of something outside of yourself. We as believers stand on the basis of something outside of ourselves, we stand on the basis of a commission, an appointment from God. That is exactly what this compound comes to mean: to appoint, to constitute, to commission, to ordain. The present tense is the static present. This is used for that which is assumed to be perpetually existing. It is taken for granted therefore as a fact, and it is a fact which we must take for granted if we are ever going to move to our tactical victory of supergrace. You and I are a priest, our high priest is Jesus Christ. As God the Father appointed Him high priest so God the Father has appointed each one of us a believer priest. And we must take this for a fact, it must be axiomatic, and on the basis of this axiom we move to the tactical victory of supergrace. This is also a passive voice: the high priest receives appointment or ordination from God the Father, we likewise receive it from the same source. The indicative mood is the reality of Jesus Christ as the high priest, appointed by God, the reality of each one of us at the point of salvation appointed a high priest by God.

             “ordained for men” — not quite correct. We have the preposition u(per plus the ablative of a)nqrwpoj. Always the priesthood is related to man. This actually means “ordained on behalf of men.”

              “in things pertaining to God” — this is a prepositional phrase preceded by a definite article: ta proj ton qeon. Ta is an article used to describe the principles of doctrine. Doctrine is described. This is the phrase “the things.” Proj means belonging to God, face to face with God, or in the presence of God. Then ton qeon — “the God”, a reference to God the Father. “The things with reference to face to face with God” refers to Bible doctrine. We have a high priest who has left a great heritage for us. He is in heaven representing us and since we are on this earth He has left us a great heritage. We possess the things pertaining to God or the things which are face to face with God. Here is a definition of Bible doctrine. Bible doctrine is that which is face to face with God, brought to earth, preserved in a book, and transferred to our souls by Bible teaching. That is exactly what we have. Therefore, you and I possess a phenomenal wealth, a wealth for which there is no classification on the cosmic world. Satan is the ruler of this world and under the cosmic world Satan is dispensing, under the system of the cosmos, great wealth, materialistic things, promotions, certain types of social life, sex life. All of these are things that Satan can distribute and favours which he provides in his system. The cosmic system is filled with these things. When we accept Christ as saviour we do not have to depend upon the cosmic system for anything, and under supergrace God pours these same things which he has had for us billions of years before Satan was created. But how can we possess these things totally apart from the cosmic system? The answer: The link is doctrine, “the things pertaining to God”, the thing about which the cosmos knows nothing. The whole cosmos is opposed.

             Your priesthood divorces you from Satan’s cosmos. Satan is the ruler of this world and has set up quite a system of promotion, wealth, success. He has set up materialistic things associated with happiness. As a priest your objective is to have a cup in your soul, God doesn’t pour without the cup. And doctrine or “the things pertaining to God” is the basis for having a cup in your soul. This is how Satan is defeated. The cross was the strategic defeat. The tactical defeat is based on “things pertaining to God”. And God said there will be no slip-up in the Church Age. Every believer is a priest and under his priesthood his first great function is the intake of Bible doctrine. Doctrine is going to make the difference. The high priest was commissioned for man’s benefit in spiritual things. Therefore, the high priest was appointed, ordained, for the benefit spiritually of man. The key to every high priest, then, must inevitably be doctrine. And the key to every priest is doctrine, and the key to your life is doctrine.  

              The Levitical Priesthood

                 1. It began with Aaron, the older brother of Moses. This concept of the priesthood is given in Numbers 16:5 which tells us three things about the Levitical priesthood. a) They were commissioned by God; b) They were responsible to be separated unto God, or holy. This is experiential separation after salvation; c) They were allowed to “come near.” They actually had conversations with God and entered into holy places authorised by God where other members of the nation could not enter. These are the three basic concepts of the Levitical priesthood.

                 2. The perpetuation of the priesthood through the natural line of Aaron. Aaron actually had four sons: Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar and Ithamar. Nadab and Abihu are out, they were involved in a reversionistic revolution and were executed by God. The surviving sons are the two orders of the Levitical priesthood. All those who are bona fide to have the title Kohen are descended from Eleazar or Ithamar. Eleazar was the high priest after the death of his father.

                 3. However, any progeny in either line with physical defects or other defects were eliminated. Leviticus 21:17ff. It is a fact that when a priesthood is based on regeneration qualification is believing in Christ. But when a priesthood is based upon natural progeny, procreation, then of course there are certain eliminating factors.

                 4. The Levitical priesthood was supported by funds and other means. For example, no Levitical priest ever did any work in the sense of industry, he was supported by those who did. His support came, first of all, by the fact that thirteen cities of Israel were given to them and the revenue of those cities went to the Levitical ministry. One tenth of the tithes paid to the Levites of Leviticus 23:10 went to the support of the priesthood. There was a special tithe every third year for the support of the priesthood, according to Deuteronomy 14:28; 26:12. There was also the redemption money of the firstborn — animals; redemption, firstborn — human beings, and that went to the support of the priesthood. So there were at least five or six sources of income to make sure that the priest could devote his time entirely to the teaching and the functioning of the Word of God as authorised in the Old Testament canon.

                 5. Except on ceremonial occasions the high priests and the priests of Levi dressed like others. But on ceremonial occasions they had a special uniform. It was composed of some slacks that were cut off about six inches above the knees — white linen shorts. They wore over the top part of the body a white linen coat, the skirt of which went down to about two or three inches below the middle of the thigh. They wore a uniform belt made up of four colours like the linen curtains in the tabernacle — white, blue, scarlet, and purple, each having great meaning in relationship to the person of Christ. The belt in the uniform represented the principle that this man served the Lord Jesus Christ by representing the people of Israel to the God of Israel. In addition, there was a white linen cap.

                The high priest was in command of the priests and had this uniform plus some additional things. Over his white linen coat he wore an ephod, a long robe. It was blue, but woven into it was white, purple, scarlet, and blue threads. He also wore, hooked on to this ephod, a breastplate made primarily from gold and cloth. The breastplate had a checker board with twelve squares right over the chest, each one representing one of the tribes of Israel, minus Levi. Then, on each shoulder, it was hooked on by what is known as Urim and Thummim, two stones which God made to flash yes or no with regard to certain functions in Israel and with regard to the problem of divine guidance. Then there was underneath a gold clasp on which was engraved the names of the twelve tribes of the tribes of Israel on each shoulder, and this attached the breastplate to the ephod. The ephod was attached to the coat. There was a special type of hat, different from the other priests. Instead of the usual white cap the high priest wore a mitre, a form of a turban. Over the top of this turban was a golden crown, and on the front of the crown it said: “Holy To Jehovah.” This was his distinctive head dress. So that he wore the badge of his rank and he carried the final authority over the entire priesthood. He was their ruler, he was the absolute authority, and he supervised all of the functions of the priesthood and was responsible for its function in Israel.

                6. The big day for the high priest was always the day of atonement. On that day the high priest put on his full dress uniform, performed a sacrifice on the brazen altar, caught up the blood of the animal, and started his march. He marched into the tabernacle, past everything representing Christ on the holy place — past the table of shewbread with twelve fresh loaves on the table, past the golden candle stick, past the golden altar, into the holy of holies where if anyone else walked at any time they were immediately killed by God. He took this blood and sprinkled it upon the top of the altar for himself. Then he did an about face and marched out. If he marched out and again appeared before the people he was high priest for another year. If they had to haul his body out of the holy of holies then his eldest son succeeded him.

               He offered a second sacrifice and again took a bowl full of blood and started the march. This time the people held their breath. They wanted to know whether they would last another year or not. And with this bowl the high priest walked in and, again, into the holy of holies he sprinkled the blood over the mercy seat, and walked out. When he walked out you could hear a sigh from thousands of people gathered in front of the tabernacle. Often at that time they broke out into song, some song of praise to the Lord.

               7. The descendants of the high priest. This is a great and detailed subject. At this point we only need a little information.

                   a) In the Levitical priesthood succession of the high priest occurred after his death and the installation of the new high priest, his eldest surviving son. Upon the death of Aaron, for example, the office of high priest passed to his eldest surviving son, Eleazar — Numbers 20:28ff.

                   b) The line was then promised to pass down through Phinehas, the elder son of Eleazar for a very special reason. God said that Phinehas and his line would be the high priestly line in Israel. Why? Because Phinehas picked up a javelin and actually killed those in Israel who were in revolt. So Phinehas was promised in a very beautiful passage just exactly what he would receive. Numbers 25:10-13. Operation phallic cult. That led to emotional revolt of the soul, intensifying their problems rather than helping their problems. That led to negative volition toward doctrine, and that led to demon influence which led to the blackout of the soul and reverse process reversionism. Verse 12 — “Behold, I give him my covenant of peace [reconciliation].” What does that mean? He will offer the sacrifices pertaining to salvation and to rebound. Verse 13 — “and he shall have it and his descendants after him.” And Phinehas will have descendants who will administer animal sacrifices in the Millennium.

                   c) However, in the time of Eli the priest, Eli was not descended from Phinehas and the priesthood had switched from the line of Eleazar to the descendants of Ithimar. Eli was actually descended from Ithimar. The descendants of both men are priests. The issue is: Who is the high priest? Eli was set aside when Solomon deposed Abiathar but for some reason in the days of king Saul there had been a switch. So while Eli was a legitimate priest he was not the legitimate high priest. This situation was corrected when Solomon came to the throne. Solomon set aside Ahimelech and put Zadok on the priesthood. Zadok is related directly through Eleazar and Phinehas. There was a very evil high priest at the time of the fifth cycle of discipline. When Israel was about to go out the high priest, whose name was Seraiah, was one of the great enemies of Jeremiah. He did everything he could to get Jeremiah killed, to throw him in jail, to get him out of the way. Seraiah was one of those who was captured by the general of Nebuchadnezzar. He was brought into Nebuchadnezzar and executed. Then we have the son of Seraiah whose name was Jehozadak. He never served as high priest. He lived in the 70 years of the fifth cycle of discipline. But he had a son named Joshua in the days of Zechariah and was appointed high priest, and Zechariah chapter three tells the story and the priesthood was then restored. Then down to the days of Alexander the Great and the descendant of Joshua the high priest was the high priest who made all the priests get into their uniforms and they marched out to meet the army of Alexander as they approached the city. He marched out with a scroll of Daniel, he had the Word of God under his arm, and he unrolled it in front of Alexander and read to Alexander the passages in Daniel dealing with Alexander the Great. And Alexander from that time was a friend of the Jews, he wouldn’t allow his army into Jerusalem and wouldn’t allow Jerusalem to be touched in any way.

                 So far is our passage we read: “For every high priest being taken from the source of mankind is ordained on behalf of men with reference to things pertaining to God.”

                Next we come to a conjunction, i(na, which introduces a purpose clause. Up to this point we have had a brief historical statement about high priests before Christ. Now we have a little bit of purpose and function thrown in by way of amplification — “that he may offer”, the present active subjunctive of prosferw which has to do with sacrifices on the brazen altar. It means literally to present as gifts or oblations, or to offer sacrifices. The present tense is a customary present which denotes that which habitually occurs or may be reasonably expected to occur. it is habitually the function of the high priest and the few priests gathered with him to offer the animal sacrifices on the brazen altar. Many times there would be thousands of people standing in line with their sacrifices, so the high priest would begin at dawn and he would handle the sacrifices until he became tired. Then he would be relieved by another priest, and another, and another, and so on. Sometimes for many days sacrifices would be offered on that brazen altar. The customary present indicates that function. The active voice: the high priest produces the action of the verb by communicating doctrine and by the ritual of animal sacrifices. The subjunctive mood is a potential subjunctive used to introduce a purpose clause and to indicate that the purpose in principle was to communicate doctrine, though animal sacrifices were used to do it. However, the subjunctive mood indicates that some people got it and some people never did understand.

               “gifts” — the accusative plural dwron is the object of the verb. This refers to food offerings. The food offerings or meal offerings of Leviticus chapter two present the Lord Jesus Christ as to His celebrityship, His uniqueness, and emphasised the importance of the humanity of Christ in the incarnation.

               “sacrifices” — qusia, always is used for animal sacrifices and never for human in the Bible. The animal sacrifices are very clearly specified in Leviticus chapters 1-6, not only as to the sacrifices but to what they signify. Here, all we need to do is to understand that the five basic Levitical sacrifices were related to sin — three to salvation, two to rebound.

              “for sins” — the preposition u(per plus the ablative of a(martia means “on behalf of” — “on behalf of sins” or “for the sake of sins.” There are two problems related to sins, that connected to salvation where all sins were judged; that related to rebound which is the application of the judgement of sin — you simply name the sin because the sin has already been judged. Since it has been judged God is free and has the right and is justified in forgiving you and cleansing you from all unrighteousness.

              Translation: “For every high priest taken from the source of mankind is ordained on behalf of men with reference to things [doctrines] face to face with the God, that he might offer both gifts and sacrifices on behalf of sins.”

             Notice two things about that passage. There is doctrine which has to be communicated verbally, and there is ritual designed to illustrate the doctrine. Sacrifices are ritual. The things pertaining to God is the doctrine he must know. Principle: You cannot communicate what you do not know.

             Notice also that the high priest offered for his own sins as well as for the people. The exception and the break in the line will be when the Lord Jesus Christ will only offer for the sins of the world, not for Himself. As our high priest Christ offered Himself for the sins of the world in fulfilment of the Levitical offerings. These offerings, then, are shadows and form a part of shadow Christology and soteriology, and they are fulfilled historically when Christ bore our sins in His own body on the tree.

             So the high priests before the Lord Jesus Christ were ordained as members of the human race without blemish to offer shadows, to communicate doctrine pertinent to the cross, pertinent to the strategic victory of the angelic conflict.

             When a high priest died he no longer supervised the communication of the things pertaining to God or the written Word, and a new high priest had to be appointed. Now we have it easy. We have a high priest, Jesus Christ, in charge of the doctrine, the things pertaining to God, and he will never die. He is in resurrection body, He is seated at the right hand of the Father, and because of that the canon of scripture is completed. And the completion of the canon of scripture is a memorial to our high priest, Jesus Christ; a memorial to the fact that we have a high priest who will be a high priest forever and doctrine is the thing pertaining to God which He supervises as far as communication. The high priest — the only high priest now, the Lord Jesus Christ — seated at the right hand of God the Father, supervises the communication of the written Word through the gift of pastor-teacher. Therefore the gift of pastor-teacher is directly related to the principle of the high priesthood of Christ. This will be emphasised in the thirteenth chapter of Hebrews.

               Jesus Christ as a man, after He died physically, was in the grave for three days. His resurrection means the perpetuation of His priesthood. His ascension and session at the right hand of the Father means the superiority of this priesthood over all other priesthoods, and at the same time it means that Jesus Christ fulfils what the high priest of Israel did once a year every moment. For they entered into the holy of holies once a year; He, the reality, enters into the holy of holies constantly, always, He is seated there. No high priest ever sat down in the holy of holies, he would have dropped dead immediately. But Jesus Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father in the true holy of holies. And Jesus Christ now makes intercession for us as well as acting as our advocate, and while He is in the holy of holies He has appointed a means of communicating the written Word. That means the gift of pastor-teacher which holds the line on earth during the Church Age.

              There is a principle which comes out at this point. Since there has been a high priest on the earth  (Adam was the first) there has been the delegation of spiritual authority in the realm of communication of Bible doctrine. It is the communication of Bible doctrine which every high priest supervised. It was Aaron’s job to do this, it was Eleazar’s job to do it, and later on it was that great man Phinehas. It was his responsibility not to do all of the teaching but to see that it was accomplished by the priesthood. Now the Lord Jesus Christ is our high priest. We are a kingdom of priests. In fact we are a royal priesthood because Jesus Christ is not only a priest and a prophet but He is also the King, the Son of David who will reign forever. Under these conditions He has delegated the responsibility of things pertaining to God. He has delegated this to the gift of pastor-teacher. This brings pastor-teacher into a new light. A legitimate pastor-teacher is a born again believer and he receives the priesthood at the point of salvation, and along with the priesthood he receives a spiritual gift for communication of Bible doctrine. It is the spiritual gift that gives him the authority on this earth. On this earth we are all priests but God has not delegated the communication of doctrine to all priests, only to those with the gift of pastor-teacher. And that is the last surviving gift of communication of the whole realm of doctrine since the end of the apostolic age. Therefore we are going to discover at certain points in Hebrews that one of the delegated responsibilities from our high priest is the gift of pastor-teacher and the communication of Bible doctrine. And when a pastor-teacher dies physically, then someone steps in the gap and takes his place so that always on this earth there are those with the gift who stand in the gap in every generation. Wherever there is positive volition God has anticipated that in eternity past and has provided the gift of pastor-teacher for that particular area and for that era of human history.

               The reason that the high priest supervised as well as personally offered gifts and sacrifices is because the high priest of Israel was totally responsible for all of the dissemination of Bible doctrine. In that way the high priest of Israel illustrates Jesus Christ, our high priest, seated at the right hand of the Father. While Jesus Christ is of a different classification of high priest all high priests throughout history have one thing in common: they were totally responsible for the dissemination of spiritual information of Bible doctrine, and they had many ways in which they accomplished it — certain delegated responsibilities and certain direct responsibilities were involved. Jesus Christ seated at the right hand of the Father has delegated to pastor-teachers this particular responsibility in the priesthood. The priesthood, therefore, on earth functions as the pastor-teacher communicates things pertaining to God. In the history of the high priesthood this, then, is one of the most important facts. This helps to clarify in our dispensation, as well as in any past dispensation, where the responsibility lies with reference to spiritual things.

           

               Five points from verse 1

               1. The high priest offered for his own sins as well as the sins of the people, which means that the high priest in the Age of Israel had a sin nature and personally committed sins. This could not deter the function of his priesthood under the principle of rebound, and so on.

               2. However, there comes into history a high priest who ends all the previous function, modus operandi, modus vivendi, of high priests in history. For about 4000 years there were high priests upon the earth ordained of God but they had different responsibilities. However, all of their responsibilities tied into one factor: Bible doctrine, jurisdiction over the dissemination of Bible doctrine. Then something happened and this was the great warning to the human race. A high priest came into existence, came on to this earth, became a true member of the human race without a personal sin nature, without the imputation of Adam’s sin, without committing one act of personal sin. And that high priest therefore supersedes all other high priests, and that high priest is responsible forever for the dissemination of Bible doctrine on the earth in the devil’s world, during His own personal reign in the Millennium, and in His reign forever. He has chosen in this dispensation to utilise the pastor-teacher communicating the completed canon of scripture.

              3. As out high priest Christ also offered Himself for the sins of the world in fulfilment of every shadow, every type, every ritual which portrayed the cross in past history.

              4. These offerings, as shadows, were used to communicate the reality — Christ bearing our sins in His own body on the tree — 1 Peter 2:24.

              5. Therefore all high priests prior to Jesus Christ were ordained in the human race to deal with shadows, to deal with ritual. Our high priest has set aside all ritual except that pertaining to the memory of Him on the cross and therefore our high priest has terminated all other priesthood’s. That is why there is no ritual in the church authorised by the Word of God and that is why all ritual has been replaced by the completed canon of scripture and the exegetical, isagogical, historical interpretation of the canon of scripture.

             Verse 2 — the first word is not found in the original at all. The word “who” is a relative pronoun in the English and there is no relative pronoun in the Greek text. This is simply an attempt on the part of the translator to smooth out the translation of a participle. The word “can” does occur, however it is a present active participle from the verb dunamai. Dunamai means to be able. The present tense of this participle is a customary present which denotes that which habitually occurs or may be reasonably expected to occur. The active voice refers to the function of the high priest prior to the celebrity high priest, Jesus Christ. Remember that the first four verses of this chapter deal with the high priesthood prior to Jesus Christ. When Jesus Christ became a high priest all other high priesthoods were superseded and the Bible plus the pastor-teacher represents the principle of high priesthood at the present time. The participle is a concessive participle in which the unknown writer concedes that high priests did have a certain ability with regard to those to whom they ministered in the things pertaining to God. The verb now gives us that. So we should translate the word “can” by one word: “able” — “able to have compassion”, is the way this sentence actually begins.

             Next we have the present active infinitive of a compound verb metriopaqew. Metrioj means moderation; paqoj means suffering, passion, or feelings, it has different meanings. When you put these two words together in the Koine Greek it means to moderate one’s passions to the point of being gentle, to be moderate in one’s feelings, to be compassionate. And by moderation is meant the removal of anger or stubbornness. It therefore comes to mean, just as translated, to be compassionate. It was possible for the high priests before Jesus Christ to be compassionate. He could never be gracious because only one high priest has been gracious in all of history and that is the Lord Jesus Christ. So it must be understood immediately that while compassion is a very positive asset it is not as great as grace. Compassion is the verb; grace is greater than compassion. Grace is ultimately superior to compassion and grace is the function of our high priest, the Lord Jesus Christ. However, compassion is a noble human virtue under certain conditions and depending upon certain objects. The present tense, again, is a customary present and it denotes that which habitually occurs or could be reasonably expected to occur in any high priest facing his ignorant, stupid, sheep-like congregation. The active voice: the high priest produces the action of the verb through compassion. The infinitive denotes God’s purpose. It is God’s purpose for any high priest or for any delegated authority from the high priest to have compassion on those whom he teaches.

             Jesus Christ is our high priest seated at the right hand of the Father. He has delegated to everyone who has the gift of pastor-teacher and who has a congregation. Certain priests have received the gift of pastor-teacher. The pastor-teacher shows compassion by studying and teaching. Compassion is not maudlin sentimentalism, compassion is faithfulness to the Word of God so that you have the Word in your soul. Having compassion means on the part of the one who has the delegated authority great self-discipline in study in the field of doctrine. Therefore, again, the customary present denotes that which habitually occurs. The active voice: the high priest produces the action of compassion, and those to whom he delegates the responsibility produce the action of compassion. The infinitive, again, denotes God’s purpose in the high priesthood which is faithfulness to the Word of God and its communication. “Able to be compassionate” is the way this sentence begins.

             The high priesthood was designed not only to communicate doctrine but to be faithful in communicating doctrine as a demonstration of true compassion. True compassion is to provide the food, fulfilling the responsibility of getting the doctrine to the congregation. If you are ignorant, what do you need? Doctrine. Remember that the compound verb metriopaqew means to be moderate in one’s feelings also. Who gets compassion? The “ignorant” get compassion — the stupid! This is the dative plural present active participle of a)gnoew. This time the participle is used as a noun. The dative case of this participle is the dative of indirect object which indicates the ones in whose the act of compassion is performed — “able to be compassionate to the ignorant ones.”

 

          Summary

            1. Ignorant ones are all born again believers as of the moment of salvation. So “the ignorant” refers to each one of us. The removal of ourselves from the status of ignorance is not completed until we have reached supergrace where we begin the normal function of our priesthood.

              2. Even the Levitical offerings took up the problem of ignorance — like sins of ignorance, Leviticus chapter four.

              3. The high priest understood the problem of all believers at the point of their salvation and was responsible to alleviate the condition of ignorance.

              4. The responsibility was fulfilled through cognisance, study, and communication of doctrine — communication through ritual, communication through teaching.

 

             “and on them that are out of the way” — a dative plural, present passive participle of the verb planaw. Dative case, indirect object indicates the one for whom the act of compassion is performed. A lot of people are born again with something worse than ignorance — a religious background. Take people without a religious background. When they are born again they are ignorant. But there is something worse than being ignorant, and that is to be deceived. And if you came into the Christian way of life with a great religious background — religion being the devil’s ace trump, the worst thing that ever happened to this world — then you can’t even be ignorant. You’re worse than ignorant, worse than stupid; you’re deceived. And you have to be undeceived before you can just be plain ignorant. Then, when you are plain ignorant, you can advance through learning doctrine. So what is worse than stupidity? Religiosity. The dative case indicates that even though these people have been deceived, now that they are saved there is hope. The present tense is an iterative present, it describes what occurs at successive intervals. It is called the present tense of repeated action. The participle is in the passive voice, the believer receives the action of the verb by delusion. He carried into the Christian life religion as his background, or he carried into the Christian life antiestablishment. He is deceived, and there are two sources of deception, both of them are Satanic counterattacks upon the truth. Truth comes in two general categories: doctrine and laws of divine establishment. Satan attacks doctrine with religion and he attacks the laws of divine establishment with revolution or antiestablishment. When anyone comes in with one or the other of religion or revolution then he is worse than ignorant, he is deceived. Therefore, doctrine has to do two things: teach him as it teaches all ignorant believers at the point of salvation, and also undeceive him, he has to drop the deceits of legalism and/or antiestablishment. So the participle classifies this group as reversionists, that is, they came into the Christian life with a form of reversionism — unbeliever form — which they must shed. This is sometimes called the participle of attendant circumstances. So far we have: “Able to be compassionate to the ignorant ones, and a worse category, the ones being deceived.”

              The next word is “for”, the conjunction e)pei which means “in as much as”; “he himself” — the intensive pronoun a)utoj which is much stronger than the personal pronoun. That’s why it is translated “he himself.” It refers to every high priest in principle before Christ. Compassion was part of his essence according to the divine requirement for his life as a high priest. But Jesus Christ is superior to every high priest immediately because grace is greater than compassion. Compassion implies one possessing his own human infirmity as well, but grace from the Lord is something even greater.

                The word “also” is simply the adjunctive use of kai, and is correct — “is compassed”, perfect passive indicative of the verb perikeimai. Peri means around; keimai means to lay. It means to lay around, to be placed around, to be encumbered by, to be surrounded by. Here it means to be encumbered by. The present tense is the retroactive progressive present which denotes that which was begun in the past and continues into the present. Every communicator high priest responsible for communication to others was encumbered by his own problems, by his own failures, by his own weaknesses. So in having compassion for you the pastor-teacher who receives his delegated authority from our high priest, Jesus Christ, may have a lapse of compassion for you. Therefore, he realises he needs doctrine and he goes back to study and communicates to others who need it too. That is what this passage is saying, that the high priest before Christ was encumbered by his own weaknesses, his own frailties. The passive voice indicates that the high priest as the subject receives the action of the verb and therefore when the high priest was studying to teach the people he was also teaching himself. There is a principle. The high priest was responsible along with the other priests in Israel to communicate doctrine. The principle carries over today in the sense that Christ our high priest is absent from the earth and cannot personally teach us, and has delegated that authority to certain types of priests — pastor-teachers. These pastor-teachers also have weaknesses, frailties, infirmities, because of possessing an old sin nature. Therefore they teach themselves while they study to teach the congregation. The indicative mood is the reality of the fact that every high priest before Christ was encumbered with weaknesses.

              “infirmity” — the accusative singular from a)sqeneia, which means “weakness.”

             Translation: “Able to be compassionate to the ignorant ones, and the ones being deceived; in as much as he himself also is encumbered with weakness [frailty, imperfection].”

 

          Summary

              1. The last phrase “weakness” or “infirmity” anticipates why Jesus Christ is the last high priest, the only celebrity, and absolutely unique in His priesthood. Jesus Christ as high priest never had a sin nature, never had the imputation of Adam’s sin, never committed one sin, and in fact was impeccable.

             2. Every high priest before Christ was saturated with and encumbered by weaknesses. He possessed an old sin nature.

             3. But Jesus Christ did not have either an old sin nature or the imputation of Adam’s sin, and He resisted all temptation to sin.

             4. Therefore Jesus Christ is the last and the unique high priest, in His character, in His essence, in His function.

             5. The limitation of all high priests in history does not apply to Jesus Christ in fact. Jesus Christ broke the pattern of high priestly limitations in His own ministry and even at the present time at the right hand of the Father.

            Verse 3 — “And” is the transitional and continuative use of the conjunction kai. “By reason hereof” is a prepositional phrase, dia plus the accusative of the intensive pronoun a)utoj — literally, “because of it”. Because all high priests prior to Christ had old sin natures, because high priests before Christ committed personal sins, because of the imperfection and frailty of all high priests before Christ.

             “he ought” — present active indicative of the verb o)feilw which is a verb of obligation. The present tense is a static present used to represent a condition which perpetually exists. it existed constantly among all high priests. They had the responsibility or obligation before the Lord. The active voice: the high priest, perpetually under the obligation to offer for his own sins as for the sins of the people, which means that every time he became involved in the spiritual phenomena of doctrine it was beneficial to him first before it became beneficial to the recipients of his priestly ministry. The indicative mood is the reality of the fact that the high priest had to offer for his own sins as well as others, and the application today is the fact that the pastor is first benefited by the passage he communicates to others. Because of it — the old sin nature — he [the high priest] is under obligation, “as for the people” — kaqwj peri a(martiwn means “as concerning the people.” Peri plus the genitive means “concerning.” The people are the beneficiaries or the recipients of the priestly ministry. As today, so in those days, the people here refers only to those who were positive toward doctrine. Positive volition toward doctrine involves some ritual as well as attendance, and attention and concentration. But the positive volition concept has never changed, it is always the same. The people are those who are positive regardless of any other factor. But then again, the high priest himself had to be positive.

             “so also for himself”, o(utoj kai peri e(autou. Again we have another prepositional phrase with peri — “so also concerning himself.” This phrase, first of all, is of utmost importance by application to anyone who has the gift of pastor-teacher. If he is not positive toward doctrine, even though he has the gift of pastor-teacher, even though he has the preparation necessary to fulfil that gift, even though he has a command of the languages and has everything going for him, he has no ministry and must inevitably accept substitutes and gimmicks of one kind or another. There is no place in the ministry for the one who does not love God’s Word. Positive volition means that a pastor has to go to many, many different kinds of passages and teach them, but first of all he has to study them. The pastor-teacher must first of all prepare that food which is given to others. The chef always enjoys the food first. And the pastor-teacher must study and savour and prepare and classify and relate to other scriptures and analyse the ingredients in order that you might have a spiritual meal. That is what this phrase is saying, and it applies today even though technically it is dealing with high priests before Christ, and specifically the Levitical priesthood.

              Then we come to the present active infinitive of prosferw, translated “to offer” — in the customary present tense here, it denotes that which habitually occurs or may be reasonably expected to occur. The active voice: the high priest before Christ produced the action of the verb. The infinitive expresses a purpose. “To offer” indicates his function, but remember that the offering was preceded by explanation. Then came the ritual followed by further explanation. So he spoke twice and carried on the ritual in between — “for sins” is peri plus the genitive of a(martia which is “concerning sin.”

            Translation: “And because of it [the old sin nature] he is under obligation, even as concerning the people, so also concerning himself, to offer concerning sins.”

            The high priest before Christ was habitually obligated to offer sacrifices for his own sins. He himself, a communicater of the Word, also had an old sin nature and shared the human frailties and weakness of mankind. That has always been true of communicaters with the exception of the Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, whatever benefit he derived from a portion of the Word of God concerning his own life the benefit should also be derived by those who are positive. So he had the obligation to offer for himself, to offer for the people. This verse anticipates once again the Lord Jesus Christ as the exception to the whole historical precedence of high priests.

            Verse 4 — “And no man” — kai o)uk tij. Tij is an indefinite pronoun and means “anyone.” Kai is a continuative conjunction. O)uk is a very strong negative. Literal translation: “And no one.”

            “taketh” — the present active indicative of lambanw means here to seize, to seize power, to seize rank. Instead of being appointed by God, to take it, to seize it illegally. The present tense is a customary present, it denotes what habitually occurs or may be expected to occur. No one ever takes upon himself the office of high priest, it is an appointment from God. The active voice indicates that the human race is the subject producing the action, and no one would assume this responsibility or office. The indicative mood is the reality of the importance of the divine appointment to the office of high priest.

             The same application goes today. A man may be in the pulpit who does not have the gift of pastor-teacher. He can only be miserable, his ministry can only end in disaster and be a continuous disaster, and no matter how hard he tries or what gimmick he uses he still cannot cut it. On the other hand the worst slob in the world with the gift of pastor-teacher, with enough self-discipline to study, can communicate doctrine to the blessing of thousands. The high priest was appointed by God and no one else. And when God appoints the individual involved is responsible to God. The pastor-teacher is the priesthood today who has the delegated authority from Jesus Christ is a divine appointment with responsibility to God. This is a double-edged sword. When a pastor-teacher is responsible to God this means that God gives him double blessing or double discipline. It also means that anyone who tries to get into the act by their straightening everyone out — there are people who think they know more about the pastorate and how it should be done — suddenly find themselves with the double discipline.

             “And no one seizes this honour.” The word “honour” is the accusative singular from timh. Timh means a state of honour. Anyone who is appointed by God to communicate the Word of God in any dispensation resides in a state of honour. Every criticism, every attack, always bounces back because God can handle anyone a thousand times better than us. He knows what He is doing! He doesn’t need our help. The moment that God the Holy Spirit puts the gift of pastor-teacher in the new believer, at that moment that person is in a state of honour. The reason to translate it “state of honour”, which is what it really means, is because the person doesn’t have honour, he is in a state of honour. Being in a state of honour means that criticism bounces off of them and the critics get hurt by their own criticism. Anyone who is placed in this state of honour by divine appointment must get his discipline or his pat on the head directly from God.

             “unto himself” — dative of reference from the possessive pronoun e(autou; “but” — the adversative a)lla sets up a contrast; “he that is called” — present passive participle of kalew. The present tense is a static present, it is used to represent a condition which is assumed as always existing. It is always true that no one assumes this honour apart from divine appointment. The passive voice: the appointed high priest receives the action of the verb. The is, he receives his commission from God. The participle is a circumstantial participle to set up the precedent for all bona fide high priesthoods from the beginning of time until the first advent of the Lord Jesus Christ.

             “of God” — the preposition u(po plus the ablative of qeoj. It should be “by the God.” U(po plus the ablative always expresses agency in a prepositional phrase. God is the agent who makes the appointment.

             Then we have an adverb, kaqwsper, which is translated “just as” — “just as Aaron.” Aaron is a great illustration because he is the founder of the Levitical priesthood. He is the illustration and the pattern. The Levitical priesthood began with Aaron. He was appointed by God, he was sustained in that office by operation budding rod. By way of contrast, two men not appointed by God were disciplined for attempting to perform the functions of the high priest. King Saul tried to take over the priesthood. He offered a sacrifice himself. Saul was of the tribe of Benjamin which had nothing to do with the priesthood, and he was disciplined for that — 1 Samuel 13:9-14. Uzziah tried it — 2 Chronicles 26 — and he became leprous.

            The Greek adds an ascensive use of kai, so it should be translated “just as even Aaron was.”

            Translation: “No one takes the state of honour to himself, but the one being called by God, just as even Aaron was.”

            Verse 5 — “So also” is the adverb o(utoj used in the adjunctive sense. The adjunctive use of kai plus the adverb o(utoj should read “In this manner also”. We have previously had a summary of some of the things pertaining to the high priest prior to the Lord Jesus Christ. Now we move to the Lord Jesus Himself. This is a transitional phrase. And we move from all high priests before Christ to the unique high priest, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. The adverb refers to that which precedes while the adjunctive conjunction kai sets up a parallel between the fact of the divine appointments of high priests and the Father’s appointment of Jesus Christ, the Son, as the high priest.

            “Christ glorified not himself” — “glorified not” is the aorist active indicative of docazw plus the negative o)uk. This is a dramatic aorist tense, it states a present reality with the certitude of a past event. This is an idiom in the Greek, and the idiom is a device for great emphasis at this point. The dramatic aorist emphasises the fact that now we have a unique high priest and with the coming of this high priest all other priesthoods are defunct, inadequate, useless, and if you take all of the good high priests before Christ and put them all together, next to the Lord Jesus Christ they are completely and totally out of it. Jesus Christ is now presented immediately by a dramatic aorist as being absolutely unique. Jesus Christ, our high priest, is also appointed by God the Father. He was appointed by God the Father in eternity past as a part of the doctrine of divine decrees. Therefore there is authority in the commission of the priesthood of the Lord Jesus Christ. The active voice: Christ produces the action of recognising the Father’s authority in the matter and not pushing Himself into the office. Jesus Christ who is King and Prophet in His humanity did not press for high priest. He was born of the family of David and was therefore in the line of Judah. There is no priesthood of any kind in the family of Judah, the tribe of Levi has all of the priests — like Aaron. Jesus Christ did not push for this, God appointed Him also priest. He is the only priest in all of Israel’s history who is from the tribe of Judah, who is the bona fide King and at the same time is the priest. In the future He will be the high priest of Israel even though he is from the tribe of Judah. This does not exclude the function of the priesthood in the Millennium but now they will function under a high priest from a different tribe. Principle: Under God’s grace plan there is no place for inordinate ambition. Grace promotes, God promotes, God appoints, God commissions. You don’t have to get pushy. Grace promotion is permanent because it depends on who and what God is. When God appoints he puts you in a state of honour and you couldn’t be better off. But if God doesn’t promote you, you are not promoted. The indicative mood is the reality of the fact that Christ did not appoint of promote Himself, though His deity possessed the power to do so.

             “himself”, again, is the reflexive singular of e(autou and it is used to emphasise the identity of the person producing the action.

             “to be made” — the aorist passive infinitive of ginomai, which means to become. This is a gnomic aorist, it regards the action of the verb as axiomatic. It is a dogmatic fact. The passive voice: the subject, Jesus Christ receives the action of the verb — divine appointment to the high priesthood. The infinitive expresses divine purpose.              

            “but” — conjunction of contrast, the adversative conjunction a)lla; “he”, the Father, or literally, “the one”. Grace always glorifies the initiator. That is why you shouldn’t push. When you push you get away from grace. Grace is designed to glorify the initiator and the initiator is God the Father.

             “that said” — the aorist active participle from lalew which means to speak or to communicate. Here it refers to the verbal communication of the divine decrees as illustrated by Psalm 2:7.

             “unto him” is proj plus the accusative of a)utoj — “face to face with him.” When God the Father appointed Jesus Christ in eternity past Jesus Christ was right there with Him, face to face — “having communicated face to face with him.”

             Translation so far: “In this manner also the Christ did not glorify himself to become a high priest; but the one [God the Father] having communicated face to face with him ...”

            Now we are going to have a quotation from Psalm 2:7, so we will go back and look at Psalm 2:7.

            “I will declare” — the piel imperfect of saphar. Saphar means to speak, to relate, to rehearse, to recount. It means to describe something that has happened previously. Hence, the verb means to reveal something which was previously spoken. David is going to reveal something that was spoken thousands and thousands of years ago. In this case what was previously spoken was that part of the divine decrees dealing with the appointment of Jesus Christ as a high priest at the point of His incarnation. “I will recount the decree.” The word for decree is choq. It refers to something fixed or appointed. Choq is used for laws, customs, privileges, or decrees. “The Lord” is the tetragrammaton, which the Jews never pronounced — “Jehovah.” It refers here to God the Father.

            “hath said” — qal imperfect of amar. The qal perfect means He spoke it previously, the action was completed in eternity past as a part of the doctrine of divine decrees.

            “unto me” — refers to Jesus Christ. How do we know that? He says, been attar, “My Son, you”, and that is a statement of the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ was always the Son, there never was a time when He wasn’t. There is no verb here: “My Son, you”.

            Then comes the appointment: ha jom, “This day”. This does not refer to the day in which this was uttered but the day in which Jesus Christ was born of a virgin into this world. “This day” is incorrect, it is “The day” — virgin birth, not eternity past when this occurred.

            “have I begotten” — the qal perfect of jaladh. It is in the perfect tense to indicate that the moment that Jesus Christ was born He was born the unique high priest, He was born King [of Israel], He was born high priest forever, He was born a prophet. Jesus Christ was born in total uniqueness.

             This verse is quoted three times in the New Testament. The first is Acts 13:32,33 — “We declare” is the present middle indicative of e)uaggelizw which is about as strong a word as we could have to announce some good news. it means something of great blessing — “the promise”, now we have the cognate, e)paggelia which connotes a promise of grace and blessing.

            “having become” — aorist active participle of ginomai — “face to face with the fathers [ancestors]”

             Verse 33 — “the God [o( qeoj] has fulfilled” — the perfect active indicative of e)kplhrow, intensive perfect, something accomplished in the past with results that are now completed — “the God has brought to completion”

            “to their children” — dative of indirect object. It indicates the one in whose interest the fulfilment is performed. Teknon [children] refers to the Jews. So remember that the incarnation was to benefit the Jews, says the dative of indirect object.

            “in that he has raised up Jesus from the again” — the word “again” is not in the original, and the word “raise up” does not mean resurrection. Resurrection was in verse 30 but this is incarnation. We have the aorist active participle of a)nistemi which means to make the scene, to bring on the scene. So we translate it “having brought on the scene.” The verb refers to the incarnation of Jesus Christ, not the resurrection. The resurrection is the subject of the next verse and was the subject of verse 30.

             Then we have the quotation which is the fulfilment of the divine decrees — “as it stands written in the second Psalm, ‘You are my Son; this day I have begotten you’.”

             “Thou art” is the present active indicative of e)imi, indicating the deity of Jesus Christ. When this was said Jesus Christ was God. Later on at the point of the fulfilment He became man. Notice that the fulfilment of this portion of the divine decrees is first of all to Israel. In Hebrews 1:5, to prove that the humanity of Christ is superior to all angels we have a second quotation of this passage. In Hebrews 5:5, the third quotation, the high priesthood of Christ is superior to all high priesthoods which have existed before it and supersedes all high priesthoods.

           Verse 5b — we now see “my Son” — u(ioj [deity]; “thou art” — the present active indicative of e)imi, absolute state of existence. This present tense is linear aktionsart to denote that Jesus Christ always was God, always has been, always will be. There was a time when He was not humanity and not our high priest. Then we have an adverb. “Today” is the English word. The adverb shmeron refers to the point of the incarnation, not the point of the giving of the decree.

            “have I begotten” is the perfect active indicative of the Greek verb ginaw, which means to give birth. It is a reference here to the virgin birth. The perfect tense is the intensive perfect which indicates that the action is completed and has results that continue forever. Jesus Christ has been born of a virgin, has become a true member of the human race and therefore will be in hypostatic union forever. The active voice that God the Father who planned it brought this into action. The indicative mood is the reality of the incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ, the virgin birth beginning that point.

            Translation of verse 5: “In this manner also the Christ did not glorify himself to become a high priest; but the one [God the Father] having communicated face to face with him [the decrees, as per Psalm 2:7], My Son you keep on being, I today have begotten you.”

 

           Summary

           1. All persons of the Trinity are identical in essence. This means that the first and second persons of the Trinity are coequal and coeternal, they have the exact same essence.

          2. The first person of the Trinity is called in language of accommodation, Father. This is simply using a human term to describe the relationship of the first person of the Trinity to the divine decrees. He is the author of the divine plan, He is the authority of the divine plan, He is therefore qualified by language of accommodation, “Father.”

          3. The second person, under the language of accommodation, is called “the Son” because He is obedient to the authority of the planner in His humanity. While in His deity he has as much sovereignty as the Father — in essence He is one with the Father — in His humanity He must not only obey but His obedience must be implicit.

         4. Therefore, authority and obedience become the issue in the strategic victory of the angelic conflict.

         5. For this reason they have been made an issue in the human race through the laws of divine establishment. Authority and obedience is the basis for tactical victory in the angelic conflict, and authority and obedience means authority is in the Word, authority is in the one who communicates the Word as the pastor.

         6. The Father’s plan calls for salvation of mankind through the cross.

         7. These Son as high priest, in obedience to the Father’s authority and the Father’s Word [decree], offered Himself as a sacrifice for sins. He obeyed His Father and the decree.

         8. The priestly function of Christ begins with the removal of the barrier between God and man. Therefore Christ is the unique high priest, obedient to the Father’s authority and obedient to the Father’s command in the divine decrees.

         Verse 6 — we have an adverb, kaqwj, used to indicate a comparison. It should be translated “even as”, it gives it a little more strength; “he saith” — present active indicative of legw, “he communicates”: “Even as also in another place he says [communicates].” There is more than one passage of scripture that communicates the doctrine of divine decrees. Now we are going to get a second citation from the word of the Father, the divine decrees. Notice is says “in another place” — e)n plus the locative of e(teroj, which means another of a different kind. So a different area, a different passage of scripture, is what e(tereoj means here. it is in the Psalms again, this time Psalm 110:4 is cited.

          Psalm 110:4 — “The Lord hath sworn.” This is the tetragrammaton for “the Lord”, it refers to Jehovah the Father who is the author of the divine plan, the author of the divine decrees; “hath sword” is the niphal perfect of shaba which means to seven something, to say it seven times. Seven was considered the perfect number. If you said it seven times it was supposed to be right, and it finally came to mean to make a solemn promise. The niphal stem here is reflexive. The reflexive concept has to do with the fact that in making this solemn promise the reflexive brings out who made it, and the one who made it is absolute truth, eternal truth. The one who made it is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, sovereign, absolute righteousness. In other words, the niphal brings out not only what was said but who said it. The niphal stem says in effect that when God says it, it is a fact, it is an absolute. The perfect tense indicates the action is completed.

             “and will not repent” — the Hebrew is the niphal imperfect of nacham, and again we have a reflexive niphal, and again it emphasises the person who never changes his mind, and that is exactly what repent means — to change the mind.

             “Thou art a priest” — kohen, the word for priest. it is derived from the verb kun which means to stand up, and kohen was the one who stood up at the altar, stood up for the people, stood up and talked, stood up for what God wanted, stood up and represented the people to God.

             “after the order of Melchizedek” — literally, “after the manner of Melchizedek.” Melchizedek was one of those people whose name was mentioned in heaven in eternity past. He was an actual person, a Gentile, who ruled a great city called Salem, the ancient Jerusalem. He functioned as a priest under the family priesthood and he was a contemporary of Abraham and not a theophany.

 

          The doctrine of Melchizedek — not a theophany.

              1. Theophanies are never given formal names.

              2. Theophanies are never related to a specific geographical location. Melchizedek was the king of Salem.   Salem is a specific geographical location.

              3. Theophanies always disclose God as the messenger. Not so Melchizedek.

              4. Psalm 110:4 — Christ is the one being addressed; the Father is speaking to the Son. The verses is conclusive. It does not say “You are Melchizedek,” it says “You are a priest after the manner of Melchizedek.”

              5. A priest must be true humanity to represent the human race before God.

              6. Therefore Melchizedek was a true historical person rather than a theophany. As a historical person he is a king, the king of Salem, he is a priest under the family priesthood system, therefore a perfect illustration, a perfect pattern of the unique priesthood of Christ. Jesus Christ is a king as well as a priest.

             “Thou art” — “art” is simply a part of the verb to be and is not found in the original text either here or in Psalm 110:4. You have a proleptic pronoun su. The proleptic pronoun means you and only you. It is in the singular, one person is involved: Jesus Christ. There is not verb. The absence of the verb not only emphasises the proleptic pronoun but emphasises the appointment of a unique person to a unique position.

             The next word is a noun, i(ereuj, the Greek word for priest, followed by e)ij ton a)iwna which means forever and ever — “You and only you a priest forever and ever.” This phrase is addressed to Jesus Christ. He is appointed a high priest forever and ever by the speaker in eternity past. “For ever” is the duration of Christ’s appointment in contrast to Aaron’s priesthood terminated by his death. The very fact that in the divine decrees the Father said forever and ever indicates that the Father intended to raise Christ from the dead and in fact answered His prayer from the cross to do so. So death does not hinder the priesthood of Jesus Christ. It hindered the priesthood of Aaron. Since Aaron died he has never functioned as the priest. Melchizedek finally died, and when he did that was the end of his priesthood. Death terminates the priesthood for everyone but Jesus Christ, and the fact that He would be a priest forever is the prophecy of resurrection in this paragraph of divine decrees. In resurrection Jesus Christ continued the function of His priesthood.

              “after the order of” — we have a preposition kata plus the accusative singular of tacij. Tacij means a rank of troops, the line in which the platoon falls in. It is a military word. It can also be used in the sense of classification — “according to the classification of Melchizedek.” Jesus Christ is in the tacij of Melchizedek, He is not in the tacij of the Levitical priesthood, those in the line of Aaron. The classification of Melchizedek is the royal priesthood. It is the one in which we as believers find ourselves during this Church Age. Melchizedek was a king and a high priest. Jesus Christ is the King of kings and is the unique high priest. The symbols of bread and wine are the symbols of one priesthood; the symbols of the other are animals and tabernacles/temples. They are entirely different priesthoods. Melchizedek is a real person; Jesus Christ is a real person. Both of them are in the same priesthood, is what this is saying. They are not the same person.

              Translation: “Even as also in another place, You [Jesus Christ] a priest for ever in the same priesthood as Melchizedek”.

          Verse 7 — the verse begins with the relative pronoun o(j which refers to the Lord Jesus Christ whose priesthood is perpetuated by resurrection. Priesthood was terminated by death but the Lord Jesus Christ was resurrected, and one of the reasons for it, apart from the strategic victory of the angelic conflict, was the perpetuation of His priesthood at the right hand of the Father. Jesus Christ is perpetually in the real holy of holies in heaven at the right hand of the Father making intercession for us.

            “in the days of his flesh” now takes us back to the beginning of His priesthood at the incarnation. We have the preposition e)n plus the locative, indicating a time, and this refers to the incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ as specified in Psalm 2:7.

            “when he had offered up” — the aorist active participle of the verb prosferw, one of the primary functions of the Levitical priesthood. The aorist tense here of the participle is very important because He is offering not the usual sacrifice or the one usually portrayed of Himself but He is offering the sacrifice of prayer, indicating that prayer is the ministry of the priesthood, and indicating our function in that particular area. The action of the aorist participle precedes the action of the main verb. The main verb: “he did not glorify himself”, verse 5. Before He did not glorify Himself he offered up these prayers. We have the constative aorist here referring to the cross. Remember that the constative aorist gathers up into one entirety a certain type of function. This function is extracted — He did other things at the cross beside this but while He was on the cross He did offer prayer. Sometimes these constative aorists overlap each other and such is the case here, we have an overlapping constative aorist with other functions that occurred on the cross. Instead of the usual prosferw which is for offering animal sacrifices we have it clearly declared by the accusative plural of dehsij that this is something else. Dehsij is translated “prayers” and that is a legitimate use of the word. This is a very intensive type of prayer, however. It refers to Christ’s prayer on the cross as recorded in several of the Psalms. For example, part of this prayer is recorded in Psalm 69:13-15, part of it is recorded in Psalm 16:9,10, and part of it is recorded in Psalm 22.    

            “prayers and”, and then we have an adjective, “supplications” — i(kthria, which is derived from someone coming up with an olive branch as a peace sign, or sign of wanting a treaty, or as a suppliant. It refers to the prayer of Christ on the cross. As it were, He was carrying an olive branch to God the Father. This, again, is the supplication of Psalm 22:22-31 which contains the Lord’s prayer request for resurrection. This is not a reference to Gethsemane. In Gethsemane Christ prayed to God but he prayed for avoidance, if possible, of the cross. But this is not a reference to that prayer, this is a prayer for resurrection during the intense suffering of the cross.

            Next we have a prepositional phrase, the preposition meta plus the descriptive genitive kraugh which means both crying and screaming, even loud shouting. This is a descriptive genitive, it tells exactly what was associated with our Lord’s prayer. We can tell from the use of the noun and the adjective in the first part of this sentence that it was a very intense prayer, but this intensiveness is now amplified. Meta here with the genitive is the preposition of association, and it can be translated “associated with loud crying [or screaming].” This prayer was screamed at God the Father. We know from Psalm 22 that our Lord did quite a bit of screaming on the cross. The agony of bearing our sins is what brought forth the screams. He didn’t scream because He was in pain and couldn’t take it. On the contrary, He had demonstrated that he could stand up under any kind of physical pain and any kind of soul torture. He stood up under the torture of being lied about in every possible way in a courtroom, He stood up under the Roman system of interrogation with whips.

 

            Summary

            1. The prayer which is specified in this passage is found in detail in Psalm 16:9,10; 69:13-15; 22:22-31.

            2. Christ was praying this prayer during the time when He was offering Himself for our sins.

            3. We have two priestly functions occurring simultaneously: offering Himself as a sacrifice for sins and offering prayer for resurrection from the physical death which would follow the spiritual death of our Lord Jesus Christ.

            4. The physical death interrupts the priestly ministry of Jesus Christ. No man ever ministered as a priest after dying. The death of a high priest meant that he was succeeded by his eldest surviving son, under the Levitical code. This was more or less the same under the family priesthood but it was different under the royal priesthood. Under the royal priesthood a person who was a king also functioned as the high priest of his nation.

              5. The phase one ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ: He offered Himself for our sins. the phase two ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ as priest: He makes intercession for us at the right hand of the Father. This is vital because one out of every 100, 000 believers knows how to pray. It is only after one is thoroughly inculcated in the doctrine of prayer and have reached the status of the supergrace believer priest that you really begin to have an effective prayer life. Christ could not have fulfilled His phase two ministry without resurrection, so He is praying for the continuation of His priesthood while He is functioning as a priest.

              6. No priest can function in physical death, whether Aaron or Christ.

              7. Christ is a priest. He could not offer Himself for our sins in physical death, He had to pay the penalty of our sins which is spiritual death. The physical death of Christ came because His work was finished for the moment. So when he was bearing our sins that is equivalent to spiritual death because God the Father was judging all of the sins of the human race, past, present, and future at the point of the cross. Once the objective to go to the cross was accomplished the Lord Jesus Christ departed from this earth. But there is another objective that has to be fulfilled and it has to be fulfilled at the right hand of the Father. So He must be resurrected, He must ascend and be seated at the right hand of the Father under the doctrine of session. Once the session is accomplished then it becomes necessary for Him to function and to fulfil a ministry that not one of us would ever be able to fulfil for ourselves or others.

 

              In anticipation of His own physical death and because His work of salvation, or the sacrificial work, was fulfilled the Lord Jesus Christ now prays for His resurrection in order to continue His own priestly ministry, for He is a high priest. Also there is a second word which is the object of the preposition — “and tears.” This, too, is a descriptive genitive. The only difference is it is a descriptive genitive plural in contrast to kraugh which is a genitive singular. This is also the object of the preposition meta and should be translated “associated with a scream”, since it is singular, “and many tears.” This, again, emphasises the intensity of the prayer.

             The question arises: Was the prayer effective? Even apart from our own understanding of the historical resurrection the answer is yes. The next phrase “unto him” is the preposition proj plus the accusative of the intensive pronoun a)utoj, which means “face to face with him” and indicates that the prayer was getting through.

 

 

            Summary

            1. All prayer is addressed to God the Father. This means that God the Father is the only person to whom you can address prayers and be heard.

            2. Jesus Christ as high priest is absolutely accurate in the address of His prayer. He addressed it to God the Father.

            3. The principle: All prayer must be addressed to God the Father, as per Ephesians 3:14. The approach is in the name of the Son, He is our high priest — John 14:13,14. And all effective prayer is accomplished under the ministry of God the Holy Spirit — Ephesians 6:18.

            4. The Son as our high priest offers prayer to the Father in Hebrews 7:25. So does God the Holy Spirit in Romans 8:26,27.

            5. Therefore, the precedent of our priesthood is established. As a kingdom of priests we are under the royal priesthood and we must all follow the same procedure. Being in a royal priesthood you always approach God through your high priest, and our high priest is the King-priest, Jesus Christ.

            6. All prayer is offered to God the Father. No believer priest ever prays to God the Son or to God the Holy Spirit. There is a principle here: More failure results from stupidity than carnality when it comes to prayer.

 

            “that was able” is incorrect. The present active participle of dunamai. The present tense is a retroactive progressive present, it denotes something begun in the past and continues right up to the present time — the time that the writer writes. God has always been able to answer prayer, both then and now. So, “face to face with the one who has always been and continues to be able” is the way you translated a retroactive progressive present. The active voice: God the Father produces the action of the verb by answering prayer. This participle is the adjectival use of the participle to describe God the Father. One of His functions is prayer answering. The accusative case of the participle is still a part of the object of that preposition proj, so that literally that whole prepositional phrase should be translated, “face to face with the one who has always been and continues to be able.”

              Now we have an infinitive, the present active infinitive of swzw which is translated “to save” which actually means to deliver. The type of deliverance is specified by context. The present tense is an iterative present, it describes that which occurs or reoccurs at successive intervals. It is called the present tense of repeated action. At different intervals of time there is deliverance. The active voice of this infinitive: God the Father is the subject producing the action of the verb which is deliverance as an answer to prayer. The infinitive is a verbal noun here. This is not an ordinary infinitive, it came to the Koine Greek from the Sanskrit by way of Attic Greek. This is called the infinitive of purpose for it is God’s purpose to raise Jesus Christ from the dead to continue His priestly ministry at the right hand of the Father. This is used as a noun and therefore when you have the infinitive used as a verbal noun it means that this is a part of the Father’s plan, He always intended for it to happen, and the fact that Jesus prayed for it is for our information, as well as to show that when Jesus Christ on the cross side of His death prayed for something and was answered through death — which apart from resurrection would have been an impossibility for an answer — it was a demonstration of the power of prayer from our only celebrity and high priest, Jesus Christ. His power of prayer is phenomenal because from the cross it was answered through death and resurrection. It also gives us the thrust of our Lord’s prayer on our behalf at the right hand of the Father. It is also God’s purpose to make the resurrection a part of the strategic victory of the angelic conflict. The reason we have supergrace today is because of the victory of the angelic conflict. The back of Satan was broken at the cross. Not only was our salvation provided but this is what broke the devil’s back. Then resurrection, ascension and session completes the first stage of the strategic victory which interrupts the Age of Israel, starts up the Church Age with a new type of priesthood — the royal priesthood — and makes our tactical objective — supergrace, where we have the cup through doctrine and God pours: celebrityship of Christ, supergrace capacity, and supergrace blessings. And under the royal priesthood it is God’s objective that we live like royalty. He wants to give us wealth, success, prosperity, promotion, etc. The royal priesthood demands royal living.

            Our next word is “him”, the accusative singular from the intensive pronoun a)utoj. It refers to Jesus Christ. The intensive pronoun emphasises more than the personal pronoun. That is why we have it so frequently. The personal pronoun just means “you,” the intensive pronoun means “you yourself.” Here we have “he himself” because the intensive pronoun always has a stronger connotation, and Christ is the victor in that strategic activity — the cross, resurrection and session.  

            “from death” — preposition e)k plus the ablative singular of qanatoj for physical death — “the one being able to deliver he himself [Jesus Christ] out from physical death.” Note that Christ did not pray for deliverance from death on the cross but out from death. In other words, while Christ was bearing our sins on the cross, which was one of His priestly functions, He was anticipating another priestly function but death stood in the way. So he anticipates His physical death as the termination of the first phase of His priesthood but He prayed for the perpetuation into the second phase, therefore He prayed for resurrection. He didn’t pray for resurrection because He was not aware of the implications, He prayed for resurrection so we would be aware of the implications.

            “and was heard” — here is the dynamics of our Lord’s ministry of prayer. We have the aorist passive participle from the compound verb e)isakouw. E)ij means upon or because of; a)kouw means to hear. Christ was heard because of His prayer, therefore the verb means to accept someone’s petition — “and having received the acceptance of his petition.” The aorist tense is a culminative aorist which indicates the results of His prayer, it gathers up the whole concept of His prayer and emphasises the result. So the culminative aorist followed by the passive voice, the subject [Christ] receives the action of the verb — answer to His prayer. The participle is an antecedent participle. The action of the aorist participle precedes the action of the main verb, the main verb is found in verse 5: “he did not glorify himself.” The Father glorified Him.

            “in that he feared” — the preposition a)po plus the genitive of e)ulabeia. E)ulabeia means to be careful and watchful in the sphere of respect for authority. It means to be very careful about the authority of someone who has authority. It means maximum respect for authority. It means also reverence but reverence is merely a type of authority and therefore not a good way to translate e)ulabeia. Here is respect for authority. A high priest must have respect for the person of God the Father. The prayer is offered to God the Father. He respects His person. That means His essence. He respects the plan of the person to whom He offers the prayer. And e)ulabeia means respect for the authority of the person and for the authority of the plan of God. Therefore it should be translated, “because of respect for divine authority.”

            Translation: “Who in the days of his flesh [incarnation], having offered up both prayers supplications associated with scream and tears face to face with the one [God the Father] who was able in the past and keeps on being able to deliver him out from death, and his petition having been heard because of his recognition of divine authority.”

 

              Summary

              1. There is no normal function of the priesthood apart from the supergrace life. We are in a royal priesthood that demands a supergrace life. Here is where prayer becomes effective.

              2. Jesus Christ is a royal high priest, He is the King high priest. He was effective in His prayer because of His recognition of the Father’s authority and the Father’s plan.

              3. The prayers that are effective demand concentration on who and what the Father is and who and what His plan is. That calls for knowledge of doctrine.

              4. The petition for resurrection indicate thorough cognisance of the importance of having started a strategic victory to complete it.

              5. In this way and in this prayer Jesus Christ paved the way for the tactical victory of the supergrace life in this dispensation. The supergrace life is for royal priests.

              6. E)ulabeia emphasises authority, and the supergrace believer has maximum recognition of the authority of Jesus Christ, His person and His work.

              7. Blessing and happiness in life must be related to authority and respect for authority. Respect for authority is always involved in two categories: a person who has the authority, and the plan.

             

             Verse 8 — “Although being a Son, he [Christ] entered into learning obedience to authority from the things which he had suffered.”

               Verse 9 — this verses records the result of Jesus Christ learning absolute obedience to authority. The result was the cross where Christ fulfilled His priestly function as offering Himself a sacrifice for our sins.

               The word “and” beginning the verse is a continuative use of the conjunction kai and indicates the results of Christ’s suffering to learn obedience. He had to learn discipline of absolute to authority or there would be no salvation. It is always hard for people to realise that if Jesus Christ had not been the most disciplined, the most obedient to authority person who ever lived, He would not have gone to the cross and offered Himself for our sins. This required the greatest of self-discipline and the greatest respect for authority in all of human history. Furthermore, it was contrary to every impulse, every desire, every part of His soul. Nevertheless, He did it. And while we like to think in terms of freedom and the blessings of our royal priesthood it would be totally impossible were it not for discipline. The Lord Jesus Christ didn’t enjoy great freedom, He went to the cross under the strictest system of discipline. The Father was the absolute authority; His plan was also the authority. In obedience to the person of God the Father and in obedience to the plan of God the Father Jesus Christ went to the cross. It was the strictest system of discipline in all of human history. Out of discipline comes freedom. Out of self-discipline and principles of authority freedom exists in the human race so that the angelic conflict might be perpetuated from one generation to another. So this is the continuative use of the conjunction in order to now move to the results of learning discipline and respect for or obedience to authority.

              The phrase “being made perfect” is not a correct translation. The aorist passive participle teleiow means something different. Teleiow means to execute a command perfectly, to execute fully, to complete, to bring something to an end, to accomplish a goal or to reach an objective. It also means to complete the process of training through the suffering and the discipline of the previous verse. So its best possible translation: “and having completed the disciplinary training.” The whole life of our Lord was one of disciplinary training, of extreme self-discipline. Every temptation to sin was also an issue of self-discipline. The Lord Jesus Christ never had the freedoms that you and I had. He had the freedoms and more so, but He did not have the freedoms because His objective was the cross and His objective was to reach the cross in sinless perfection. If He had succumbed to one temptation and sinned He would have acquired an old sin nature, He would have been a sinner in the same way that Adam became a sinner. But the Lord Jesus Christ went through 33 years of intense discipline and it reached its culmination on the cross where He obeyed a command to go to the cross where He bore our sins. He knew how horrible it would be and yet He was carried by His respect for the Father’s authority, His respect for the plan of the Father, ad by the extreme self-discipline of His own soul. All of this carried Him to the cross. The cross represents from the Godward side and from the standpoint of our high priest, Jesus Christ, the highest obedience to authority. This is brought out by the aorist passive participle of teleiow. The aorist tense is a culminative aorist which regards the event in its entirety. In other words, the entirety in this case is everything whereby Jesus Christ learned to respect authority, learned self-discipline, learned obedience, obedience unto death. He learned it in childhood, He learned it through doctrine, He learned it through temptation, He learned it through testing, He learned it in relationship with other people, He learned it by living not a normal life but an abnormal life. He was true humanity and could have lived a normal life without sin but He lived an abnormal life without sin and He fulfilled His objective without ever losing sight of His objective. And we now have here the culminating aorist. Here is the constative concept, the punctiliar concept, of the aorist. The culminative aorist regards the event in its entirety — learning obedience to authority through disciplinary training of suffering — but places special emphasis on the existing result: executing our salvation as the first function of His high priesthood. As a royal priest He had a different sacrifice. As a King with a crown on His head He went to the cross and offered Himself in fulfilment of the uniqueness of the royal priesthood. He executed our salvation by offering Himself for our sins on the cross. The passive voice of the participle: the subject, Jesus Christ, receives the action of the verb, namely the completion of His training course of learning discipline by suffering and then fulfilling the result of His training course in obedience to death, the death of the cross. The participle has antecedent action, it is an aorist participle, and the antecedent action is relevant to the main verb, “he became.” So literally, “And having completed the disciplinary training, he became.”

              “he became” — aorist active indicative of the verb ginomai. The aorist tense is a dramatic aorist which states a present reality with the certitude of a past event. The active voice: Christ became the only saviour, which is part of His celebrityship involved here. The indicative mood states reality plus the main verb from the preceding participle.

              The next word “author” is also incorrectly translated. A)itioj does not mean “author”, it means “source.” The absence of the definite article in the Greek emphasises the qualitative aspect of the source. The principle of no definite article means that Christ is the only source of salvation.

              “of eternal salvation” — swthriaj a)iwniou are two descriptive genitives. When a genitive stands out in its typical significance without shading off into combinations with some contextual idea it is classified as a descriptive genitive and this is also the genitive of possession. This was originally addressed for believers, we know that from the genitive. They actually possessed eternal salvation.

               “unto all” — the dative plural of paj is the indirect object, which isn’t really the indirect object at all but that is the easiest way to describe it from English syntax. The dative of indirect object indicates the one in whose interest the act is performed. Jesus Christ did this because of us. And all of the time on this earth when Jesus Christ was under discipline He had you in mind.

               “them that obey” — the dative plural of advantage, the present active participle from the verb u(pakouw, a very strong word for obedience. U(po means to be under the command of; a)kouw means to hear or to obey or to respect the authority of. So “the ones obeying” is the corrected translation. The present tense is an iterative present, it describes what occurs or recurs at successive intervals. That means that throughout history there will always be those who obey. Only our obedience is different. The obedience to the cross on the part of Jesus Christ was offering Himself as a high priest; our obedience is to believe in Jesus Christ, to receive Him as personal saviour in the sense of a gift. The Lord Jesus Christ, our high priest, had a special obedience connected with the cross. Everyone who enters the royal priesthood also has a special obedience. His was the obedience of total ability from His hypostatic union; ours is the obedience of total inability, for obedience specifies the principle but faith indicates the mechanics. Faith is non-meritorious. The obedience of Jesus Christ was one hundred per cent merit, whereas our obedience to the cross as the royal priesthood is zero merit. So anyone related to the cross in any way has to face the issue of obedience. God ordered Jesus Christ: Go to the cross. And when He obeyed that order it took one hundred per cent of everything that He had. But when God commands us obedience to the cross it takes nothing because it took everything. In other words, in fulfilling this verb our high priest gave one hundred per cent and He came to the cross under obedience that required all of His ability to stay there and to take it, to bear our sins. But when we approach the cross it is zero, zero point zero, zero because he took all the percentage. So the doctrine of obedience to the cross is the very basis for our priesthood. Our priesthood gives us freedom but that freedom always and inevitably comes through the strictest obedience to authority. It is God’s objective to take every royal priest and through the function of GAP bring that royal priest to the point of supergrace. He not only saves us but in time it is His intention to give us blessing and prosperity exceedingly abundantly above all we could ever ask or think. And when a priest fails here the bottom drops out of everything for that generation. The active voice: people at different times obey and believe in Jesus Christ. That is where you start obeying God. The participle is a modal participle, it signifies the manner in which the action of main verb is accomplished. The main verb: Christ “became the source of eternal salvation” .The modal participle tells us how He accomplished it. The manner of accomplishment: obedience to the cross. The word “obeying him” is a dative singular from the intensive pronoun a)utoj. The intensive pronoun refers to Christ who commands salvation.  

              Translation: “And having competed the disciplinary training [to learn obedience], he became to all the ones obeying him the source of eternal salvation.”

              This completes the first phase of the high priestly ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ. The second phase involves His intercessory work on our behalf. To perpetuate His high priestly ministry He has to be raised from the dead and placed in a position to make intercession, namely at the right hand of the Father.

              Verse 10 — “Called of God.” The word “called” is an aorist passive participle of the verb prosagoreuw and it does not mean to call. Kalew means to call. This verb, prosagoreuw means to designate, to salute in the sense of recognising authority. It also means to nominate, but it came to mean to designate. The aorist tense is a dramatic aorist which states the present reality from the past quotation of Psalm 110:4. The passive voice: Christ received the action of the verb in eternity past as part of the doctrine of divine decrees. The participle: the antecedent action relative to the main verb, Christ became the source of eternal salvation but first of all He was designated. He was designated in eternity past as a part of the divine decrees and therefore He was commissioned to go to the cross.

              “of God” is a prepositional phrase, u(po plus the ablative. U(po mans a lot of different things depending upon what we have by way of object. The ablative case is the object here. We have a definite article, so it means “by the God” — God the Father.

             Then we have again, a)rxierouj kata thn tacin Melxisedek, which means “according to the battalion of Melchizedek.” It is called the battalion of Melchizedek because of the first record of a royal priest. This doesn’t mean that he was the first royal priest, but that he is the first one recorded.

           

             Summary

             1. At this point we have a dramatic interruption. This is the end of talking about the priesthood for awhile. All of a sudden the writer of this epistle stops his great doctrinal dissertation. Reversionism cannot take the royal priesthood. The writer of the epistle has a large congregation which doesn’t know what he is talking about because they are in reversionism.

             2. Those to whom this passage was originally addressed are believers — Jewish believers in Jerusalem. The year is 67 AD, the eve of the greatest disaster in Jewish history.

             3. The Jewish believers are reversionistic, they are not ready for the doctrine of the royal priesthood of the believer nor related doctrines of the angelic conflict.

             4. They do not understand the strategic victory of our high priest and how it relates to the tactical victory of the royal priesthood.

             5. Before this doctrine can be understood these believers must recover from reversionism. The writer will not go on until he has presented the issue of reversion recovery and how it relates to occupation with the person of Jesus Christ,

             6. The fact of this reversionism and the quality of it is now discussed in verses 11-14.

             7. This subject of the royal high priesthood of Christ, according to the Melchizedek classification, will not be mentioned again until Hebrews 6:20.

             8. Spiritual progress is always hindered by reversionism. As long as we are in reversionism we have compounded our spiritual abnormality.

             9. While the royal priesthood demands nobility of life and character, and the possessions that accompany nobility, the reversionistic believer has demonstrated the antithesis and in effect has demoted himself. So the writer must stop and deal with this reactionary reversionistic self-demotion.

 

             Verse 11 — the interruption because of reversionism. Reversionism is always negative toward doctrine, but more than that, reversionism is negative toward anything related to God.

             “Of whom” — the preposition peri plus the genitive of the relative pronoun o(j. This particular phrase means “concerning whom.” The relative pronoun refers to our Lord Jesus Christ presented as the royal high priest in verses 5-10.

             “we” — e)gw in the dative plural of indirect object, indicating the believers in whose interest this teaching is performed. The word “have” is not found in the original MSS. It is literally, “Concerning whom to us.”

             “many things” — the adjective poluj referring to many doctrines — “Concerning whom to us many doctrines.” This is rather awkward English and to smooth it out this idiom means “Concerning whom [Christ] we have many doctrines.”

             “to say” — present active infinitive of legw. The present tense is iterative, it describes what occurs at successive intervals, namely the assembling and the teaching of doctrine by the right pastor. The active voice: the writer is the pastor who does the teaching here. The infinitive denotes his purpose: to teach and to go on with his teaching and only stop long enough to make an issue out of a problem in the congregation, namely reversionism.

             “and hard to be uttered” — this is a verbal compound noun, dusermhneutoj. it means hard to explain, difficult to teach. Advanced doctrine is difficult to teach. There is a waning of interest on the part of many, there is a straggling of spiritual growth, there is some reason people fall out right and left; and therefore it is always hard to explain advanced doctrine. The doctrines relating to our royal priesthood are advanced doctrines. There must be a frame of reference in the right lobe before the doctrine is understood. The reversionist not only lacks a frame of reference but he has also lost whatever he originally learned and it totally handicapped in his attempt to understand these things.

             The word “seeing” is a causal conjunction, e)pei, it should be translated here “because”; “you are” — perfect active indicative of ginomai, which means to become: “because you have become.” The perfect tense is an iterative perfect in which the process of a completion occurred at recurrent intervals rather than continuous progress. In other words, the iterative perfect recognises the fact that these Jews would, for a while, GAP it and then they would peel off and react and have to start over, then again they would peel off into reversionism, and so on. So that at different intervals they have advanced a bit and then fallen off, advanced a bit and fallen off. This is the perfect tense of repeated action. The stress is upon completed action but the character of the action is iterative, and this means that the believers involved already are reversionists but they get there by repeated acts of negative volition, repeated acts of reacting to something. The active voice: the negative believer produces the action of the verb. The indicative mood is the reality of repeated acts of negative volition, repeated acts of reaction, resulting in a completed action of reversionism. They just can’t get up long enough to do anything.

              “dull” — the nominative plural from the adjective nwqroj. This means apathy as well as dullness. With the locative of this verse it indicates another classification of believers in Jerusalem in 67 AD. They are dull, dull, dull when it comes to listening to Bible teaching.

              “of hearing” — the locative plural of a)koh.

          Translation:  “Concerning whom [Christ] we have many doctrines to communicate, and hard to explain, because you have become apathetic in the sphere on hearing.”

        Verse 12 — we begin with the word “For”, the conjunctive particle gar used here to express continuation. These conjunctive particle are quite important as far as understanding the interpretation of a passage. Here we have continuation from what we have previously studied. The word “when” is incorrectly translated, it is the adjunctive use of the conjunction kai and it should be translated “also”; “for the time” is also incorrectly translated because this is dia plus the accusative of xronoj. Xronoj refers to time in the sense of one minute following another minute, one hour following another, one day following another. Literally then, “For also because of the time.” The time at which this particular epistle was written is very similar to the time in which we live today. The time refers to the proximity of national disaster.

 

            Summary

            1. The phrase here refers to the proximity of the fifth cycle of discipline to the southern kingdom of Judah, headquarters and capital city Jerusalem. This was written to Jewish believers in Jerusalem just three years before their great national disaster.

            2. One of the greatest disasters in all of history was the siege of Jerusalem which would occur in 70 AD.

            3. The principle of this verse indicates to that people, as it indicates to us as a people, that the time is short. The only preparation for disaster is entrance into the supergrace life and the full function of the royal priesthood of the believer.

            4. A nation on the eve of such disaster needs doctrine as never before. It is the objective of this writer to provide that information so necessary for a nation approaching disaster.

            5. Supergrace means deliverance for those who reach it, and during the time that this was written and afterward there were many Jews in Jerusalem who through the daily function of GAP reached supergrace and were delivered from one of the greatest disasters in all of human history.

            6. God pours in another way under the supergrace life. We have seen supergrace in the sense that after salvation we GAP it all of the way to this condition. Supergrace is characterised by occupation with the person of Jesus Christ our high priest. It is characterised by having supergrace capacity which is the cup in the soul. This is Bible doctrine. It is characterised by God pouring into that cup. God is glorified by such pouring. We are left here to glorify God. We glorify God by receiving from His hand through grace, wealth, promotion, success, all of the things which are designed for us in eternity past. God wins the tactical victory by providing these things. We are a part of the strategic victory because of the death, burial, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ in the incarnation. We are now moving toward the objective which is tactical victory and when we reach it God is glorified, we are blessed. It is this blessing which has another aspect now. In time of approaching or in time of actual national disaster it is the pouring of God that delivers us under the most difficult things of life. And God poured for many of those Jews who listened to what this writer had to say, who heeded it, who GAPed it to supergrace. They were delivered from that great disaster. In the course of action many of these Jews ended up living in Egypt in Alexandria. Many of them moved to Rome, many of them to Ephesus, to one of the Greek Islands. But wherever they went God poured, first of all by deliverance and later on by prosperity. So we have in the generation to whom this was originally addressed those who listened to the teaching of the Word of God, those who reached the tactical victory of supergrace, those who were delivered from this awful disaster and spent a very wonderful life in the prosperity of the far-flung Roman empire.

            7. But the reversionist is caught in national disaster, ending his life, ending his priesthood, by the sin unto death. So your spiritual condition is very important in time of national disaster, and it is the believer who has Bible doctrine to the point of supergrace who stands in the gap, just as Jeremiah stood in the gap, and then later on receives that great wealth and blessing. When God delivers from national disaster He doesn’t leave you down at the heels, His deliverance is followed by a great period of personal prosperity in whatever part of the geographical location of this earth he finds himself on in that deliverance.

            8. National disaster is no time to be caught in reversionism.

 

               Our next phrase says “ye ought.” This is a present active participle of the verb o)feilw which connotes obligation. In time of national disaster all believers are obligated to communicate and to converse divine viewpoint, and this is what we have. You are not to be a teacher, a preacher. You are to be a communicator of divine viewpoint because of the time. The time in which we live demands that you take your stand for divine viewpoint as God provides the opportunity. The present tense is a retroactive progressive present in which communicating doctrine begins in the past and continues into the present time. This is called a present tense of duration. This is the time, as it were, to stand up and be counted. This is the time to express as you have opportunity the divine viewpoint of life. This is a very important principle. The retroactive progressive present means to communicate doctrine and keep on doing so.

              This is the day in which, surprisingly enough, there is a request on the part of almost every type of news media for your comments. One thing that has come out of all of this is the fact that people are invited to speak their piece and to declare what they feel is the right about something that is wrong. There are letter columns in the papers where each person has a right to express himself on a given subject. “Because of the time ye ought” you have an obligation to communicate divine viewpoint. You don’t have to be a preacher, you are not supposed to be a preacher, all you are supposed to do is to communicate — at parties, in conversations, etc.

              The active voice of this participle: it is the believer’s responsibility to produce the action of the verb as disaster approaches. It is the function of the supergrace believer to take a courageous stand. The participle denotes a purpose. “Being obligated” is the best translation. All believers have an obligation as disaster approaches.

              “to be” — the present active infinitive of the verb e)imi, the absolute status quo verb. The present tense is a customary present, it denotes that which habitually occurs or should occur. The active voice: the supergrace believer or the growing believer in the normal function of his royal priesthood produces the action of the verb. The infinitive is an infinitive of command, it is called the imperative infinitive.

               The word “teachers” is the predicate nominative plural of didaskaloj and here it simply means communicators. The word can be used for a pastor-teacher but in this context it is used for the entire priesthood. It means indoctrinators, inculcators, or communicators of divine viewpoint.

               Notice that we have an almost identical situation in our time to that of the original context. In the original context of this passage these people in Jerusalem were three years from the great national disaster which would destroy their nation and put 90,000 of them into slavery, and would at the same time cause the casualties to be over 1,000,000. Roughly 20,000 came out as supergrace believers, totally delivered, and prospered for the rest of their lives in other geographical areas. God always pours for the supergrace believer, and no matter how dangerous, disastrous or how difficult the circumstances God’s pouring includes this deliverance.

               Our next phrase says “you have.” This is the present active indicative of the verb e)xw which means to have and to hold, and sometimes, depending upon the noun that goes with it, the object of the verb, it means something else. The present tense here is a progressive present indicating linear aktionsart. We have a special responsibility as believers in time of our nation’s decline. “You keep on having” says the linear aktionsart. The active voice: the reversionist produces the action of the verb here. He is not doing what he should be doing. The supergrace believer or the growing believer actually expresses fearlessly the divine viewpoint. it is the reversionist who lines up with the decadence of the national entity. Since this is addressed to reversionism you have a special need. The indicative mood is the reality of the reversionist having to relearn Bible doctrine before he can actually communicate divine viewpoint in time of national crisis.

              The word “you have,” e)xw plus the accusative singular of xreian means “you require.” Xreian means a need. The two words together are blended into a Greek idiom — “you keep on requiring that one teach you again”.

              “one teach” is a present active infinitive of didaskw. Here is the problem with reversionists, they have to relearn Bible doctrine. The progressive present tense is used to signify the action of the verb in a state of persistence. In other words, once you realise that you are in reversionism and you realise that the only answer is to study doctrine and to take it in and to take it in, and to GAP it to recover, then you must be in a state of persistence. The active voice: the pastor actually produces the action of the verb, and he produces the action through the teaching of Bible doctrine. The infinitive denotes purpose and therefore we could translate this very simply, “you require teaching.”

             “For also because of the time being obligated to be communicators of divine viewpoint, you require teaching.”

             The word “again” is an adverb, palin, and it means “once more.” This means there was a time when you came to Bible class every night, a time when you were so positive about doctrine it was almost painful to your friends, and you received the isagogical and exegetical teaching of the Word of God and all of the things that were pertinent to learning doctrine. They went into your left lobe and became objective reality because of the ministry of God the Holy Spirit making these things real. Then there was the great issue. Are you simply going to be a hearer of the Word or are you going to be a doer of the Word? So the issue came up: would you transfer doctrine from the left lobe down to the human spirit where it is useful? And you made that transfer, and with that e)pignwsij immediately there was a line that draws doctrine right in to the frame of reference of the heart or the right lobe of the soul. Then this doctrine was picked up by the memory centre and a new vocabulary was developed and with it came categories. Then gradually your whole scale of values in life changed and your norms and standards began to line up with divine norms and standards. Your capacity for life began to develop. You began, therefore, to get divine viewpoint on the launching pad and this was a great time in your life, though possibly you have forgotten it because once you started to react because of disillusion, boredom, discouragement, overcome with self-pity, loneliness, frustration, bitter or vindictive or jealous, jilted in some way. These things caused you to react by that frantic search for happiness, whatever type it was. This always leads to emotional revolt which amplifies, intensifies the reactor factors, and at the same time destroys this beautiful picture you had built up over the years or over some period of time because now you are negative toward doctrine. Now there is a vacuum opening up and through this vacuum comes Satanic propaganda or the doctrine of demons. And now doctrine has drained out of your heart or right lobe back into the left lobe where it is no longer useable. Now your right lobe is filled up with all kinds of weird ideas. As this develops there is the destruction of whatever you had in your ECS and you are now in reversionism. You require teaching once more of “certain things.”

             The words “which be” is not which be at all. It is the accusative neuter plural from the indefinite pronoun tij. The indefinite pronoun means “certain things.” These certain things are described by the phrase “the first principles” .However, the first principles is really the doctrines — logiwn in a descriptive genitive plural, and it refers here to basic or elementary doctrines which have to be relearned. You requite teaching once more of certain things, the elementary basic doctrines — “of God.” The ablative of source means “from the source of the God”: qeoj in the ablative plus the definite article.

             “and are become” — the perfect active indicative of ginomai — “you have become.” The perfect tense is the intensive perfect, it emphasises a completed action of the verb with existing results. The existing results of the completed action: reversionism. The process of this action started out with your reactor factors, then your reaction — frantic search for happiness, then the emotional revolt of the soul which closed down the valves in the right lobe or the heart, then negative volition toward doctrine, then the attack upon the right lobe through the vacuum through which Satanic doctrine goes, the destruction of the ECS, the blackout of the soul, the practice of reverse process reversionism. All of these things became a part of the picture and the intensive perfect emphasises this particular function resulting in reversionism. The active voice: the reversionistic believer produces the action of the verb. The indicative mood is the reality of reversionistic failure as specified. Nothing is worse for any believer than to be in reversionism in time of national disaster, you are under double pressure: the pressure of the spiritual conflict and the pressure of the disastrous historical movement that you face. Therefore the most miserable people alive are reversionists today because they cannot help but see something of what is going on, they cannot help but see the disaster course taken by the nation.

            The word “such” is not found in the original. The word “have” is a present active participle of e)xw, and this time it does not mean to require because it is not in idiom with xreian, this time it stands alone — “the ones having need”, and again we have a retroactive progressive present in which this need has existed since they went into reversionism and the need exists right now. Ever since they went into reversionism they have needed to get some kind of spiritual food called milk.

            The word for “milk” is a descriptive genitive singular from the noun gala, and this particular noun is used for very simple food. it is actually a metonym for basic doctrine necessary for recovery from reversionism.

             Verse 12b — “strong meat.” The word “strong” is an adjective in the genitive singular, stereoj, which means “solid.” The genitive is a genitive of description. Solid food means food assimilated by adults. And then we also have the genitive singular of the noun trofh which means food, not meat. What we have here is not so much a bad translation as a problem of anachronism. Meat used to be “food” 300 years ago in English and the word strong used to be “solid” or food that had great substance.

               Translation: “For also because of the time [national crisis] being obligated to be communicators of divine viewpoint [in time of crisis], you require once more teaching of certain things, the elementary principles of the doctrines from God; and you have become ones having need of milk, and not of solid food.”

               Verse 13 — this is now amplified. We have an explanatory gar. This is used as a conjunctive particle to explain what is meant by the fact that you cannot take solid food into your soul. “Every one” is the nominative singular of paj and it refers to the reversionist. Reversionism has reached a new peak in Jerusalem and therefore this particular word is used.

              “that useth” is incorrect. The present active participle of metexw means to partake or to assimilate. It can be translated “partaking” or “assimilating.” The present tense of the participle is a customary present for that which habitually occurs. The reversionist does not care for solid food, he does not like advanced doctrine. Among other things he isn’t interested in the royal priesthood, it has no more significance to him than positional sanctification has. The active voice: the reversionistic believer is producing the action. The action is partaking of milk only, he cannot take solid food. The participle is an ascriptive participle which ascribes a quality or characteristics to the reversionistic believer. The reversionistic believer is immature and like all immature types, whether in the spiritual realm or in the human realm, they demand entertainment, they demand that which is shallow, the demand the superficial, they cannot take anything that is deep.

              The word for “milk” is an objective genitive, again, of the noun gala. The word “unskilled” is incorrect, it is the adjective a)peiroj and it means ignorant or stupid. It doesn’t means stupid in the sense of not being able to learn, it means ignorant in the sense of being able to learn and having learned, having forgotten, and can no longer apply what was once known.

             “in the word” is the descriptive genitive singular of logoj which means doctrine — “of righteousness”, is “pertaining to righteousness.” We have a descriptive genitive of dikaiosunh, Dikaiosunh describes the principle of righteousness in the sense of nobility. The ordinary Greek word for righteousness is dikaioj. Dikaiosunh means not simply righteousness. The word says that if you are in a royal priesthood you must have with your royal priesthood a royal righteousness. A royal righteousness means nobility of character. Nobel righteousness, nobility were always famous for several things — recognising the privacy of others, recognising the freedom of others, the rights of others. That is the nobility of our priesthood. We are a royal priesthood and we are going to live like royal priests upon reaching supergrace. We will have every type of prosperity but there is also a prosperity of the soul. Dikaiosunh is prosperity of the soul, and prosperity of the soul has its own righteousness, which is right without self-righteousness. It is a divine righteousness. It is doing the right thing but not, as it were, rubbing it into everyone. It is being right without being offensive. Dikaiosunh is the soul righteousness of the priesthood. Here it is then: “For every one partaking of milk is ignorant of doctrine pertaining to royal righteousness.”

             “for he is a babe” — “he is” is the present active indicative of e)imi: “keeps on being immature.” This is present linear aktionsart. The active voice: it refers to the reversionist. The indicative mood is the reality of his condition; “a babe” — the Greek word is nhpioj, which means a minor, an immature person, a person who grows physically without maturing soulishly. Here it has the connotation of spiritual immaturity. There is, of course, a definite relationship between the spiritually immature type of person and the person who is non-adult as a member of the human race. When you have a believer in both status’s then this compounds the problem. it is very hard for a believer to grow up spiritually and at the same time to be growing up mentally. This is why some people find it so difficult to reach supergrace, because while they are consistent they are overcoming two problems at the same time and not one. This is why it takes so long for some believers to make supergrace, because doctrine must not only overcome spiritual immaturity it must also over come human immaturity. Furthermore, people who are humanly childish have a very difficult time concentrating. The word “for” is an explanatory use of gar and should be translated “because”; “because he is immature.”

               Verse 14 — “But.” We have a conjunctive particle de used to connect two clauses when there is a contrast between the clauses. Here the contrast is between the immature reversionist of the previous verse and the mature supergrace believer of this verse. It is possible to move in to solid food but solid food. Again we have stereoj and trofh — “belongeth.” This is not quite correct, we have the present active indicative of e)imi which means “to be”, or literally, “keeps on being.”

              “to them” — e)imi plus “to them” means to possess — “solid food possessed to them that are of full age”. However, teleioj means “mature.”

              “those” the genitive plural of the definite article which modifies teleioj means “the ones.” This is an appositional genitive.

             “who by reason of use” is incorrect. We have dia plus the accusative of e(cij, and e(cij means “skill”, acquired through practice or discipline. It comes to mean self-discipline. Lack of self-discipline is a sign of immaturity. Mature people, humanly speaking, have great self-discipline; immature people do not have self-discipline.

            “have” — the present active participle of e)xw brings out the basic meaning of this verb. E)xw means to have and to hold.

            “there senses” — a)isqhthrion means perceptive faculties. In other words, if you are a mature person when you accept Christ as saviour you have the ability to concentrate. No matter how boring or how difficult you can concentrate. But at the same time you contribute in other ways. You may be saved for a short time but you have excellent manners. You are thoughtful of those around you, you do not wiggle or squirm or move or do something to demonstrate immaturity. You not only have manners but also a recognition of authority, and even though you may not be understanding what is taught at the moment you demonstrate maturity by excellent poise and self-discipline in a teaching situation. This again is a sign of maturity and it makes it easier for you to move on. Your maturity plus the filling of the Holy Spirit causes you to concentrate and in the intensity of your concentration you are able to acquire more information much more quickly than the one who is immature.

            “exercised” — the perfect passive participle of gumnazw, from which we get the English word “gymnasium.” It means to be trained by extreme self-discipline applied to exercise. The perfect tense is the intensive perfect which indicates the completed action with emphasis on the existing results. The passive voice: the subject receives the action of the verb — mental faculties for perception are acquired through self discipline, and this self-discipline is brought into the Christian life with speeded-up results under the function of GAP. The participle is a modal participle which signifies the manner in which the action of the main verb is accomplished. The main verb means to keep on having their perceptive faculties. We translate it “well-trained.”

            “to discern” — this is a prepositional phrase, not a verb: proj plus the accusative of diakrisij, which means “discernment.”

            “the good and the evil” — the word “good” is the descriptive genitive singular of kaloj and should be translated “noble”; and it is followed by the adjective kakoj, and should be translated “the honourable and the bad [or evil].” The word “honourable” refers to the supergrace function of the royal priesthood; “evil” refers to the function of the priest in reversionism. So the two adjectives describe the two conditions of the royal priesthood. Some have moved toward supergrace and their function is honourable in the royal priesthood. Some, on the other hand, are functioning under reversionism and they are evil or bad.

             Translation:  “But solid food [advanced doctrine] is belonging to the mature [the growing believer or the one who has reached supergrace], the ones because of self-discipline keep having their perceptive faculties well-trained with reference to differentiating between both the honourable and the evil.”

 

             Summary

             1. Only the supergrace believer can distinguish between the honourable function of supergrace and the evil function of the reversionist.

             2. The supergrace believer in addition to supergrace blessing knows what he is doing and where he is going. This is something no reversionist understands, and no Christian understands, until he reaches supergrace.

               3. Solid food or doctrine in the soul not only gives capacity for love but capacity for life and blessing which calls the believer to emerge into tactical victory of the angelic conflict. And he emerges not only with tactical victory but, attached to it, honour and nobility of righteousness. This is in contrast to legalistic self-righteousness.

              4. Only the supergrace believer related to the strategic victory of the cross, resurrection, ascension and session, with the tactical victory of the supergrace status can appreciate where he has been and where he is going.

              5. God vindicates His Word in the soul of the supergrace believer. Therefore the supergrace believer is not only noble in righteousness and functions under the royal priesthood but he is a winner.

              6. God has designed solid food [doctrine] and the believer to meet in the study of the Word of God to merge with doctrine so that he becomes a winner. Doctrine was always a winner. Satan has tried to knock out doctrine for thousands of years but God has stored doctrine in a container called the canon of scripture, and doctrine has always been a winner. Satan has never been able to knock out the Bible. You cannot merge with doctrine without coming out a winner yourself.

             7. God loves a winner. God hates [anthropopathism] losers in the Christian life because they all go out under the sin unto death before their time. There is no excuse for any believer not being a winner.

             8. This verse describes a winner, but remember this passage is addressed to losers, to reversionists.

             9. The purpose of this section of scripture is to convert losers into winners.

            10. God is glorified by winners, and the only winners in the Christian way of life are supergrace types. God is disappointed by losers and He expresses His disappointment by the sin unto death.