Of High Priests and Fat Babies

Scripture: Hebrews Chapter 5

We have much to say about this but it is hard to make it clear to you because you no longer try to understand.  In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again.  You need Milk, not solid food!  Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness.  But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.  (Hebrews 5:11-14)

Observation:

There are so many things here I want to unpack!  I’m afraid of writing a novel instead of a daily devotion.  The writer of Hebrews points to the office of priest, one who is human – with human weaknesses who sacrifices for his own sin and then stands for the people and offers sacrifices to God on their behalf, because they are like children who don’t understand that they are breaking God’s laws.

The word “sacrifice” conjures barbaric images of animal slaughter.  We shy away from the image and it takes more work to see the meaning behind the imagery, but to a people who raised and killed their own food regularly, slaughtering the animal wasn’t something they got hung up on or shied away from.  We in our modern world are so dissociated from it that we miss the main point of the image.  The point is that when you sin, there is a price.  Romans 6:23 says “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ.”  Before we even understood what the law was, we already broke it. 

How could anyone get to heaven then?  No one is able to keep the whole law! 

This is why God established the sacrificial system and created the office of priesthood.  Our chapter today says in verse 4 that “no one takes this honor upon himself, but he must be called by God”.  God chooses him for his maturity, for his practice of Righteousness.  (I’ll talk more about that in a moment.)  For centuries, this was the way God dealt with the sinfulness of man; by demanding a price in blood, offered through those called out among the people who lived righteous lives.    

This is the reason Jesus came to us as a human instead of materializing in some other fashion.  He grew up and lived among the people understanding their weaknesses knowing their pain and able to be counted as one of them.  In this way when he offered himself (a sinless sacrifice) we would no longer have to transfer our guilt to livestock and pay the blood price in that way.

Now that the blood price is taken care of “once and for all” (Heb. 10:10) we are freed up from having to be perfect in order to get to heaven.  We no longer have the crushing weight of condemnation (Rom. 8:1) and are free to practice righteousness

Application:

Now we get down to it.  What is Righteousness? Religious language and the semantics that we bring into it knots meanings and definitions so that it ends up meaning different things to different people. First of all, you must decide what is right.  Does your definition of truth reside in what scripture says is true or in what you cherry pick as your own truth?

The simple definition is “to do the right thing”.  Righteousness is an action, a lifestyle of doing the right thing.  James 4:17 says “a man who knows the right to do and does not do it, to him it is a sin.”  God holds us accountable to what we know.

The verse in today’s chapter says we learn righteousness.  It’s a process.  It says: “by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil”.

Those who do not train themselves are infants, able only to drink milk.

Prayer:

Lord, I tried to unpack a lot into this one passage.  I pray that you would take my offering and speak where my words fail.  I am so thankful for the sacrifice of your son, because no matter how right-ly I try to act, I cannot be good enough to enter heaven.  It is only by your grace and the fact that Jesus paid my blood-price that I can have fellowship with you.  Lastly, I pray that my words and my actions be in sync.  Rise up people around me to challenge me when they see differences, I don’t want to be a fat baby.  Thank you for your Holy Spirit that convicts and teaches me, help me prove my faith by what I do.  Amen.