Lesson 8 - Our sympathetic High Priest
Read Hebrews 4 - www.bible.com/bible/59/heb.4.esv

With the last three verses of chapter 4, we change to a positive view of God’s offer of salvation through Jesus Christ. The idea of Jesus being our High Priest was introduced to us in chapter 2 – but we needed to understand some background first. And now we return to the description of Jesus as our High Priest.

We are reminded where Jesus came from. He is not a usual High Priest as the people of Israel would have thought – Jesus came from Heaven itself, the Son of God, as we studied in the first lesson. He was not chosen by man, but by God Himself.


And because of who He is, we can hold fast to our faith with a confidence no other religion can give its followers. He is one of a kind. He is unique in all the world.

Even though He became human like we are, with a mortal body like we have, was tempted to do evil or to do things for Himself just like we are – He never gave in. He never felt sorry for Himself, never wanted to do things other than the way God had planned it. He understands our weaknesses because He also knew the physical weaknesses we have.

Whenever we are troubled because things just aren’t going right, we can take our troubles to Him because He understands. One of His best friends on earth betrayed Him. Another denied even knowing Him – so He understands exactly how you feel.

We can come to Him with confidence. God’s throne of judgment became a throne of grace at the moment Jesus’ blood was put there. His blood paid the judgment price of death for us, allowing God to now hold out His hand of mercy to us. Remember the story of Queen Esther who knew if she came before the king without an invitation, she could be killed for doing so. But when she went, the king held out his scepter to her, saying he offered her mercy and grace rather than the judgment of death. So God can now extend His mercy and grace to us who deserved death for coming because we were filled with the guilt and defilement of sin – because of Jesus’ blood

There will come a day when Jesus does sit on the throne of judgment, to judge all the people who have ever lived on this earth. All who did not accept His offer of grace through the blood of the sacrifice will receive no grace or mercy on that day. Their choice was made on that “today” when they last heard God’s voice calling them to Himself, and they said, “not yet.”

In our next lesson we will look more at what Jesus does for us as our High Priest.