The Pulpit Commentary — Hebrews — Section 159

the double qualification for this is shown-a qualification God ward anrl manward; he must be appointed by God, and able to sympathize with man. Both these are shown to be true of Christ, and that he is, therefore, officially "perfect" (vers. 9, 10). J. THE NECESSITY THAT THE HIGH PRIEST SHOULD DAVE PERSONAL ACQUAINTANCE WITH HUMAN EXPERIENCE. He "must be taken from among men." 1. .Jipart from tMs he could be no true representative of mankind. Human obedience to the Divini, Law was required of men. Christ undertook, as itheir Representative, to meet all requirements ; that made the Incarnation a necessity. Christ must keep the Law on the same footing on which .Adam stood when he came from God's hand. So, likewise, bearing man's penalty, he must assume a nature which could die. '!'bat is, he must become man. 2. Apart from this he could not secure the confidence of the people. Christ need not pass through human experience in order to understand it; he understands it by his omniscience. But the infirmity of human faith can better confide in the sympathy of one who, it knows, has personally endured its trials. II. THE Ft7LFILMENT OF THIB QUALIFICATION IN THE LoBD JESUS CHl!IST. 11 Who in the days of his flesh," etc. 1. An illustration of (Jhrist's deep experience of human suffering. The reference is, evidently, to Gethsemane. What could have affected the Saviour then so intensely? Not the anticipation of physical anguish, for then he would have fallen lower than the martyrs ; not the dread of rejection by the people, for he had already endured that with great calmness; not the fear of the act of death, for he spoke of that-with joy : "If ye loved me ye would rejoice, because," etc. It could only have been because death would be to him what it could be to none other-the bearing of the world's sin, the experience of sin's doom. But why does the writer refer to this, but because it is the culminating point of our Lord's suffering? He leads them to look et Jesus when he has reached the deepest depth of suffering possible. However deep his people's darkness, Jesus has gone deeper still. He knows the lowest, therefore also the intermediate stages. 2. An illustration of the pain involved in submitting our will to God. "He learned obedience by the things which he suffered." Obedience is submission of the will to God. That was the burden of the prayer in GethsemlLDe. He laid his will absolutely et the Father's feet. Christ did not learn to be obedient. He came to do God's will; that was his meat nod drink. He did always (from the first) those things which please the Father. He learned obedience-came to know what it means for the flesh to submit ever to the will of Heaven; what it is to obey God amidst human frailties, pains, temptations. 3. An illustration nf <Jhrist's dependence for fidelity on hemJt//Uy helps. He preyed to be saved (not "from") "out of death;" not that death might be averted-for his prayer " was beard "-but that he might be delivered out of it. Divine support was given, and a glorious resurrection. Obrist, as men, had no inherent power by reason of his Deity for what, as man, he had to do and bear. He stood on men's footing. Perhaps nothing brings him closer to us than that for all he needed ho ·had to cling to God in trustful supplication as we have, and rrcoive delivering end sustaining graoe because thereof as we do. III. 'J.'BE WORTH TO BIS PEOPLE OF CHRIST'S FULFILMENT OF TIIlB QUALIFICATION. He was thus " made perfect "-perfect as to his fulness for high priestly work. Then : 1. The perjection of <Jhrist's priesthood makes every other priesthood needless. He is "e. high priest after the order of Melchizedek;" not in the Aaronic order, not thus for lsruol nfter the flesh, but "for ell those who obey him," i.e. submit to him. Christ, High Priest for every sinneT who yields himself to him ; end for this he is perfect. 'l'hen what room for any other mediator? 2. The power nf sympathy in a God who has himself suffered. For perfect repose we must have one of whose fellow-feeling we an, assured by his experience of our own trials. If we only knew God in heaven, we might revere, obey, trust, love him; but we could not fut our head on his bosom and weep there. Bnt when we see that there is not e. tria we expericnco whose counterpart wo <'Bnnot find in bis earthly life, we can rest in the Lord. 3. The humiliation and woe by which alone our salvation was sectired. See bow Christ shrank from Calvary, and yet how he advanced to it with unswerving willinguess, end thus "became the Author," etc. That leaves on the mind two deep impressions: (1) the baseness of making light of what was bought at such a cost; and (2) the terror of that wrath which shall overtake tha impenitent, since sud1 was the experience of the Son of God when he stooped to the penalty of sin.-C. N.  152 TBE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. [OH, V, 1-14.