Hebrews 5:5-6

Heb. 5:5-6. So also Christ glorified not himself to be made a high priest; but he that said unto him, Thou are my Son, to day have I begotten thee. As he saith also in another (place), Thou (art) a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec.

Hebrews 5:6 enforces "Christ's Example to Gospel Ministers":

Ministers should imitate their great Master in his fervent prayers for the good of the souls of men. We find it to be Christ's manner whenever he undertook any thing of special importance in the work of his ministry, first to retire and pour out his soul in extraordinary prayer to his Father. Thus when he was about to enter on a journey, and go a circuit throughout all Galilee, to preach in their synagogues, "he rose up a great while before day, and went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed," Mark 1:35-39. And when he was about to choose his twelve apostles, and send them out to preach the gospel, he first went out into a mountain to pray and continued all night in prayer to God, Luke 6:12. And the night before his crucifixion, wherein he offered up himself a sacrifice for the souls of men, he pours out his soul in extraordinary prayer, for those he was about to die for, as we have an account in John 17. That wonderful and most affecting prayer of his, was not so much for himself as for his people. Although he knew what amazing sufferings he was to undergo the next day, yet he seems as it were to be unmindful of himself, and to have his heart all taken up with concern about his disciples; which he manifests in his spending so much time in comforting and counselling them, and praying for them with great affection, compassion, earnest care and fatherly tenderness. And the prayers that he made in the garden of Gethsemane, under the amazing view of the cup he was to drink the next day, seem to be intercessory; especially the last of the three prayers which he there made, when being in an agony, he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground: when he did not pray that the cup might pass from him, as he had done before, but that God's will might be done. (Compare Luke 22:44, with Matthew 26:42.) That prayer, as the apostle teaches us, Hebrews 5:6; Hebrews 5:7, was a prayer that he put up as our High Priest; and therefore must be a prayer of intercession for us, a prayer offered up with his blood which he sweat in his agony; as prayers were wont to be offered up with the blood of the sacrifices in the temple. His prayer at that time, Thy will be done, was not only an expression of submission, but had the form of a petition, as it is in the Lord's prayer. He prayed that God's will might be done in his being enabled to do the will of God, persevering in obedience unto death; and in the success of his sufferings; which might in an eminent manner be called the will of God, as it is in Psalms 40:7; Psalms 40:8: "Then said I, Lo, I come. - I delight to do thy will, O my God."

In the Humble Attempt Edwards uses this text to show that "the same he shed his blood for, he also shed tears for, and poured out prayers for."

This is the sum of the benefits Christ obtains for men by his intercession (John 14:16-17). "I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever; even the Spirit of Truth." Herein consists Christ's communicative fullness, even in his being full of the Spirit, and so "full of grace and truth" [John 1:14], that we might of "this fulness receive, and grace for grace" [John 1:16]. He is "anointed with the Holy Ghost" [Acts 10:38]; and this is the ointment that goes down from the head to the members. "God gives the Spirit not by measure unto him" [John 3:34], that every one that is his "might receive according to the measure of the gift of Christ" [Ephesians 4:7]. This therefore was the great blessing he prayed for in that wonderful prayer, that he uttered for his disciples and all his future church, the evening before he died (John 17): the blessing he prayed for to the Father, in behalf of his disciples, was the same he had insisted on his preceding discourse with them: and this doubtless was the blessing that he prayed for, when as our high priest, he "offered up strong crying and tears," with his blood (Hebrews 5:6-7). The same that he shed his blood for, he also shed tears for, and poured out prayers for.

Heb. 5:7