Christ’s prayers, suffering, and obedience reveal His completed priestly work. Hebrews 5:7–10 calls His people to enduring faith and a deeper appreciation of His mercy.

Watch the full sermon: Jesus, Our Intercessor

God appointed a high priest because He is merciful. Mercy means we deserve judgment rather than favor, yet despite our sinfulness, He offers forgiveness and restoration to His favor through Christ.

7 In the days of His flesh, He offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the One able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His piety. 8 Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered. 9 And having been made perfect, He became to all those who obey Him the source of eternal salvation, 10 being designated by God as a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek.

There are several significant phrases, some of which are difficult to understand. The phrase “in the days of His flesh” turns our minds to Jesus’ days on earth, especially His suffering. Because He was human and had a body, He could be hurt and killed. His true humanity enabled Him to represent us, and His sinlessness qualified Him to offer Himself for our sins.

“With loud crying and tears” points us to the time He spent with the Father in the Garden of Gethsemane before His arrest and crucifixion. It appears that Satan’s not-so-subtle temptation intensified the great distress and testing Jesus endured. As before, Satan offered Him the kingdom if He bowed to him and worshiped him (Mat 4:1-11). Jesus, the second Adam, however, was willing to fully follow the Father’s will, even if it meant the cross, with all its harshness, death, pain, and separation from the Father, as He bore our sin and God’s wrath. This serves as His wonderful example of endurance.

The phrase “able to save Him from death” befuddles many. Why? Because Jesus died! However, we need to step back and see that though He experienced death, it was not for His sin, since He was perfect, and therefore death couldn’t keep Him bound. Jesus rose from the dead and ascended into the Father’s presence.

“Having been made perfect” can confuse the English reader, as it sounds as if He was imperfect, but that is not the meaning. “Learned obedience” complements this idea, having obedience guide Him through the many trials, including His suffering and death. The Father proved His Son to make Him the all-sufficient Savior who could fully forgive and represent us as our high priest. While Satan tempts to cause us to fall, the Father only tests and proves our faith. As our high priest, Jesus intercedes for us, not only for our endurance in this life below, but also in representing us before the Father. “Therefore He is able also to save forever those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them” (Heb 7:25).

Our fight with suffering

Jesus not only bore our burden and the judgment of sin but also set the example for enduring these many trials. Many of us are misled by the evil one, who seeks to use these tests of suffering to cause us to misunderstand God and His ultimately good purposes. Satan beguiles us during these times and tells us:

What’s the sense in following Jesus? Look at what you are going through.

If God loved you, He wouldn’t let you suffer these things.

But these verses have us stare at Jesus’ intense sufferings and at how God rewarded Jesus through them. Don’t be deceived! If God would allow His Son to suffer, would He not also have us, if it were important, go through them so that God’s greater purposes would be accomplished? This “been made perfect” is likened to our verse 14’s “have their senses trained to discern good and evil.”

1. Jesus suffered to accomplish His Father’s purpose.

2. We will go through difficult times to test our own obedience.

Behind this is the thought: we might go through desperate times marked by pain, tears, and cries to God, but through these very times we spiritually “grow up” and prove our sonship and faithfulness in following our Heavenly Father.

Our earthly experience is not only where we find Jesus Christ’s salvation but also where we persevere in our faith. Christians, like Christ, will often need to go through testing times to prove our faith. Stay faithful, and you will see the rewards, as Christ did. We must train ourselves and our children to understand that these training sessions, like hard gym workouts, are necessary to achieve the very best for us.

If we think believing in Christ will keep us from suffering, we are deluded and set ourselves up for apostasy. If you train your children to escape rather than face difficulties, you are doing a very poor job of training them. Show them and yourself that the greatest thing is not to avoid testing times but to prove ourselves to our Heavenly Father.

5:9-10 The Source of Eternal Salvation

9 And having been made perfect, He became to all those who obey Him the source of eternal salvation, 10 being designated by God as a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek.

The Lord offers eternal salvation, commonly called eternal life. Only Christ can save. He is the source, the Way, the truth, and the life. Who else has been appointed high priest in the order of Melchizedek?

Regarding the phrase “became to all those who obey Him,” we might conclude that salvation depends on our good works. This is not the meaning. Instead, as we consider the whole theme of Hebrews, He shows us that either we follow Jesus Christ and find life, or we turn aside and perish. It is better to understand this as a reminder to continue following Christ, no matter what suffering we must endure.

Keep your faith alive, as the Hebrew believers did, even when your property is taken, and others scoff at you. What matters now is far less than having Christ Jesus, the resurrected One, living in you and living through you. Revive your faith in Christ. Go deeper and let His extreme mercy flood your souls with great joy.

The more we reflect on the truth of Christ’s death, resurrection, and ongoing intercession, the more sensitive we become to His transforming grace. Truth frees us by deepening our awareness of these marvelous realities. This awareness, in turn, allows the truth of grace and mercy to seep further into our lives.

The less we glory in this truth, whether through forgetfulness, distraction, or plain ignorance, the more our failure to recognize God’s great mercy in giving us His Son is revealed. Perhaps, for example, we forget our sin, the extent of the wrath upon us, or our otherwise horrible nature before God. Problems in our spiritual lives, such as anger, an unforgiving spirit, guilt, and rudeness, are symptoms of failing to appreciate Christ’s intercessory work.

Whatever the reason, the result is the same: We take holy communion lightly and do not, in our hearts, treasure Jesus and His work on the cross. We believe, yet we fail to experience the full transforming power of Jesus’ redemptive work. Yes, you are saved; your sins are forgiven, but the truth doesn’t deeply affect your life.

Hebrews emphasizes this truth because we should all seek more of its vibrancy in our lives. The more we esteem and treasure this truth of Jesus’ intercession for us, the deeper our walk and the more faithful our service. Whether we are grateful that He died for us or, as this text leads us to recognize and more fully realize, that He intercedes for us, a deep, growing exuberance and joy shape our existence.

Put more simply, the less we treasure His mercy and grace, the more we confront ourselves rather than being further touched by Jesus’ mercy. We know the truth, yet it no longer touches our souls as it once did (i.e., we are lukewarm). Our awareness of His love for us is directly related to how keenly we sense our need for Him.

The next couple of verses, 11-14, point us to the training we all need to undergo. Don’t remain infants; grow up in the faith. Where does Christian spiritual growth lead? He tells us: “solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil” (Heb 5:14).

Summary

Jesus Christ, the Son of God, suffers for us as the high priest of Melchizedek’s priestly order, and therefore offers a sure hope of full forgiveness, since He has ascended, passed through the heavens, and, at the Father’s right hand, intercedes for us.

So we discover three main points as we summarize the lesson. Jesus suffered because of His great love for us. He paid the penalty we owed so we could be reconciled with God. If we leave Him, we will be without Christ. You must hold on, as Jesus did, even through suffering and death on the cross, and you will find several important things in our faith:

The Promise of Mercy: Belief in Christ’s work on the cross is essential. Hold fast to Jesus who is in God’s presence. With Him, you live; without Him, you perish.

The Reason for Mercy: Jesus suffered because of our sins, and now, because of those same sins, intercedes for us as God’s appointed High Priest.

The Lessons of Mercy: Following Christ’s example of endurance, we can trust our Father for extra grace and mercy amid the difficulties we must endure.

The Book of Hebrews seeks to awaken His people to God’s extreme and everlasting mercy found in Jesus Christ’s intercessory work. The more we appreciate each aspect of Christ’s work, the more we can treasure God’s love in Christ. As we are touched by His love, we better imitate Christ, are less influenced by the flesh, and let more of Christ fill our lives.

Don’t grow dull like the Hebrew believers this book was addressed to. We are all tempted, some by great changes such as societal persecution, but the luxury of easy believing can also shift our spiritual focus away from Jesus Christ and God’s great mercy. This loss of focus on God’s great mercy leads us to increasingly treat our living faith in Christ as just another religion. We drift further and further from Christ. We forget. We believe less and less. Oh, young and old, it is through this truth of God’s grace that you grow spiritually.

Let’s conclude this powerful section of Hebrews with the image of the throne of grace. God invites us to enter His wonderful presence to receive His abounding mercy, good for life now and for the future when we see Him. All will see the Lord before His great throne of judgment, but if we hold fast to our confession in Jesus Christ, this same throne remains a throne of grace, where we, with full confidence, can trust Him for full forgiveness, mercy to love others, and welcome into His holy presence.

Scripture quotations marked NASB are from the New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. All rights reserved. The Lockman Foundation.