Opening Prayer
Dear Lord, let Your Word create in our hearts a steadfast and living faith. Amen.
Text: Hebrews 5:5–10
So also Christ did not glorify Himself to become High Priest, but it was He who said to Him: “You are My Son, today I have begotten You.” As He also says in another place: “You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek;” who, in the days of His flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplications, with vehement cries and tears to Him who was able to save Him from death, and was heard because of His godly fear, though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered. And having been perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him, called by God as High Priest “according to the order of Melchizedek.”
Devotion
Our salvation through Christ is rock-solid. God Himself appointed Him as our High Priest. His call is true and legitimate according to God’s eternal counsel and confirmed by God’s own oath. And it is Christ’s “glory” to become High Priest for us! Should God’s arrangement fail? Does our faith not rest on solid ground? Or should Christ not carry out His glory and fulfill His office? Is our salvation not a very important thing to God, since the Son, the Only-begotten, has His glory in being our High Priest? The basis for our salvation is so firm that the gates of hell cannot prevail against it. And our salvation itself, our redemption and glory, is so high that the devil cannot come near to touch it. So our High Priest has also rightly carried out His work and brought the sacrifice that was needed to atone for our sins. When He had taken on Himself to be the sacrificing Priest and the sacrificial Lamb at the same time, He had to carry it out completely for our sin. Not the smallest part was to be omitted although He is the Father’s only-begotten Son. He willingly submitted Himself to the great demand of strict justice and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Never was disobedience found in Him, yet He learned through His suffering what it means to be obedient. He withstood the test of obedience, experienced the feelings of obedience, and received the reward of obedience: victory over death, and glorification. And now He is our High Priest at the Father’s right hand and by both His humiliation and His exaltation is author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him. For the sake of His perfect suffering and the sacrificial blood He shed, which He now presents to God for our benefit, we are justified and ever receive full forgiveness of sins. But to obey Him is above all to believe in Him. By the Spirit’s grace bow your heart in submission to this Word that God’s Son Himself is Your High Priest who saves you by His blood, so that you are duty-bound to Him. To this let us awaken and exhort one another. O that you would obey Him who for your sake was obedient to suffer all! He was obedient and willing to take the wrath. Are you not even obedient and willing to receive His grace? If it were an unsafe bridge we would lead you out on, then you could still refuse to go to heaven, but now it is built upon God’s eternally sure counsel and on the Son’s office and finished work.
Closing Prayer
God, grant us the light and strength of Your Holy Spirit to believe. Bow our will and thoughts to sincere obedience of faith, so that we may build firm upon the solid rock of our salvation, on Your Son’s obedience in suffering unto death. Amen.
Hymn
O gracious God, Thy loving heart
Was full of sweet compassion;
And felt our woe and desperate smart,
And planned our restoration;
Thy grace and justice found a way
To save us from death’s horror;
And everlasting judgment stay,
And give us joy for sorrow.
On Christ, the rock, I’m anchored fast,
By faith in Him remaining;
I’ll weather every stormy blast,
My peace of soul retaining;
On Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,
My ever firm foundation,
Until the harbor bar is crossed,
And I see God’s salvation.
O Jesus, at my dying breath
Hold Thou my hand securely,
And may I in a living faith
Hold fast to Thee most surely;
That my last prayer to Thee may rise,
My soul to Thee commending,
And I shall find in Paradise
The joys of life unending.
Kingo: Thy love, O gracious God L 441:9-11 ELH 449:7-9 tr. G. A. T. Rygh;
tune: Durch Adams Fall