Lesson 9 – Qualifications of a High Priest
Read Hebrews 5 - www.bible.com/bible/59/heb.5.esv

In this study we look at what it takes to be a High Priest. One of the first qualifications listed is that the person must be a man. An angel could not be the High Priest. Remember the stories found in the Old Testament – God could only be met by the people He chose. He drove Adam and Eve from His presence when they had sinned (Genesis 3:23-24). Moses, though he met with God before the Tabernacle was built, could no longer go into God’s presence in the Holiest Place after Aaron was chosen as High Priest. In fact, no other person than Aaron could do that without dying. We will look at what effect Jesus becoming our High Priest has on this in just a bit.

Not only did the High Priest have to be a man, but he had to be God’s man. For a High Priest who had unconfessed sin in his life to enter into that Holiest Place would mean certain death. The High Priest had to live his life in God’s way every moment.


As a man who was constantly aware of his own relationship with God, a High Priest would be very aware of the struggles other people also had in keeping their lives free from sin. This would make him a sympathetic listener to the weaknesses of others as they came to him to make their sacrifice for sin. He would not be arrogant or full of pride and tell them they should have known better than to do what they did.

A High Priest would bring two kinds of offerings before God – gifts and sacrifices. Gifts would be anything of value a person would bring to the Lord – money, jewelry, grain, food, oil, and so on. These were offerings with which to thank God for His blessing or work in their life. Sacrifices would be anything that had to do with something they had done wrong, and these always included blood being shed.

Jesus is the perfect High Priest. He is God who became human so He could be this for us. But the effect of His being the High Priest is that He opened the door of access to God to every person who has become a child of God. Rather than limiting this Holiest Place to just one person, we are all invited to come into God’s presence by this perfect High Priest.

He can do this for us because He was chosen by God, and because He never had to make a single sacrifice for His own sin – He has never sinned. So the blood of His own sacrifice for us remains in God’s presence even to this day so when we come before God the blood is there as a reminder that the sacrifice has already been made. And since Jesus lived a life as a human being, He can understand all our weaknesses and be sympathetic with us when we come to Him and ask Him to forgive us for our failures.

 He is your perfect High Priest – have you come to Him boldly and without fear today? (Hebrews 4:16)