Hebrews 5:10

called of God an High Priest after the order of Melchizedek.

That the first qualification of a high priest was found in Christ, the writer had shown at the end of chapter 4, namely, that He was touched with the feeling of our infirmities. Here it is shown that also the second attribute of a high priest is not wanting in Christ, namely, that He was called to fulfill the office: So also Christ did not glorify Himself to be made a high priest, but He (took care of that) who said, Thou art My Son, I this day have begotten Thee; as also in another place He says, Thou art a Priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. Christ did not attribute or arrogate to Himself the glory and honor of the high-priestly office which He administered. There was no personal ambition nor any sordid motive in Christ. He did not come in His own name, nor did He seek to glorify Himself. See John 8:54; John 5:31; John 17:5. It was another who sought His honor and judged accordingly, namely, His heavenly Father, of whom the Messiah Himself says in Psalms 2:7, that the Lord had distinctly called Him His eternal Son. This quotation shows what an immeasurably great and high person our High Priest is: God's own eternal Son. The Messianic dignity included that of the priesthood. Certainly in one who held such an exalted position the fact that He became the great High Priest cannot be surprising. The second passage, Psalms 110:4, exactly defines the priestly position and office of Jesus, already referred to in a general way. Christ has been called by God to be our Priest, our great High Priest. And the truest type of Christ in this capacity is not Aaron, the priest, but Melchizedek, as the writer later shows at length. His position, quality, kind, placed Jesus in a class with that singular Old Testament priest who lived at the time of Abraham.

The inspired author now proceeds to show how Jesus became obedient to the call of His Father: Who in the days of His flesh offered up prayers as well as supplications, with strong crying and tears, to Him who was able to deliver Him from death, and was heard on account of His godly reverence. When Christ was appointed to be our High Priest, He knew that this position involved an obedience which was altogether distasteful to flesh and blood, since it included also the necessity of becoming the sacrificial Lamb for the sins of the whole world. Yet in the days of His flesh, when He was in His state of humiliation, when He was like His brethren according to the flesh in capacity for suffering and temptation, He showed His obedience, even in the midst of His great Passion. In Gethsemane, on Calvary, He offered up to His heavenly Father not only quiet prayers, but also earnest, urgent entreaties. So deeply did the suffering affect Him that He added strong and bitter crying and tears. He cried to God, His heavenly Father, by whom He had been forsaken in the depth of the condemnation lying upon Him, to be delivered from the terrible experience of death, both temporal and eternal. The earnestness of Christ's pleading for deliverance was intensified by the fact that He knew His heavenly Father to be able to deliver Him by the sending of twelve legions of angels or otherwise. It was in the very face of the fact that the Father possessed almighty power and infinite resources that He continued in His Passion. His obedience, therefore, was rewarded, His godly reverence, according to which He always kept before His eyes the necessity of carrying out the Counsel of God's love to the end, was acknowledged in this way, that His Father heard Him. He passed through the terrible ordeal of gaining salvation for all men and was crowned with honor and glory, exalted to the right hand of God, Philippians 2:9. Thus God gave His Son the best answer to His prayer of reverent submission by giving Him the cup to drink to the very dregs, thus to accomplish the great work for which He was appointed.

The greatness of the sacrificial obedience is further pointed out: Thus, although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered and, having been perfected, became to all who obey Him the Source of eternal salvation. Christ was the Son of God, in the bosom of the Father from eternity, the Possessor of perfect happiness and bliss, the object of the Father's tender and solicitous love. He was, therefore, heard by His Father, the result being that He suffered, that He carried out the will of His heavenly Father. In this way He learned obedience, He acquired that perfect submission which was necessary and, at the same time, adequate for the-need of all men. "It is when the child is told to do something which pains him, and which he shrinks from, that he learns obedience, learns to submit to another will. And the things which Christ suffered in obeying God's will taught Him perfect submission and at the same time perfect devotedness to man. " in this way Christ was perfected, was perfectly equipped with all the qualifications needed for the great work of atonement. In this way eternal salvation was earned, Christ Himself becoming the Author and Source of this salvation. This redemption is now actually realized in those that obey Christ, that yield to Him the obedience of faith, 2 Corinthians 10:5; Romans 1:5, that accept Him as their great High Priest and Sacrifice. Thus also He is now saluted by God as a high priest after the order of Melchizedek. As one commentator has it: "When the Son ascended and appeared in the sanctuary on high, God saluted Him or addressed Him as a High Priest after the order of Melchizedek. This is a guarantee that the work of redemption is complete, that it lies ready before all men, that God Himself has acknowledged and accepted it. " We have here a wonderful source of comfort for our faith under all circumstances.