Author: Kristen Kansiewicz, LMHC

“So let us stop going over the basic teachings about Christ again and again. Let us go on instead and become mature in our understanding. Surely we don’t need to start again with the fundamental importance of repenting from evil deeds and placing our faith in God. You don’t need further instruction about baptisms, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. And so, God willing, we will move forward to further understanding. For it is impossible to bring back to repentance those who were once enlightened—those who have experienced the good things of heaven and shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the power of the age to come— and who then turn away from God. It is impossible to bring such people back to repentance; by rejecting the Son of God, they themselves are nailing him to the cross once again and holding him up to public shame. When the ground soaks up the falling rain and bears a good crop for the farmer, it has God’s blessing. But if a field bears thorns and thistles, it is useless. The farmer will soon condemn that field and burn it.”

Sometimes when you know something, you can’t un-know it. Try to look at these words and NOT read them. It’s impossible. Once you learn how to read you will automatically read words in front of you. When you have heard the good news of Jesus and experienced the goodness of God for yourself, it changes you. You can’t truly un-know God. The Holy Spirit lives within you and shows you supernatural realities to which you had been blind. Seeing into the supernatural is a place from which you can’t really go back.

In today’s passage, there are some hard ideas. Can you lose your salvation? These verses point to the answer being “yes.” That loss will not be accidental, so you don’t need to worry that you will somehow “break” your salvation or mess up too much for God. That’s the opposite of the Gospel. But you can choose to walk away. If the Holy Spirit opens your eyes and then you decide to reject Jesus, there’s really no way you will come back from that. That’s a really significant choice to make.

Every single day of the spiritual journey is a choice. Will we follow Jesus one more step? That gets harder as we grow deeper with him. That’s probably why the readers of this letter were happy with their spiritual baby-milk. If we stay shallow, we can coast. That’s really not what following Jesus is all about. But this passage is a giant WARNING sign — going deeper means seeing more in the supernatural realm and that means harder and harder choices. Are you willing to keep going with Jesus? Are you going to stay? His disciples swore up and down that their answer was “yes,” but when he got arrested they split. Don’t choose to stay because you are coasting and not putting too much into your spiritual life. Choose to stay because you genuinely want to devote your life to Jesus no matter the cost.

“There is much more we would like to say about this, but it is difficult to explain, especially since you are spiritually dull and don’t seem to listen. You have been believers so long now that you ought to be teaching others. Instead, you need someone to teach you again the basic things about God’s word. You are like babies who need milk and cannot eat solid food. For someone who lives on milk is still an infant and doesn’t know how to do what is right. Solid food is for those who are mature, who through training have the skill to recognize the difference between right and wrong.”

As a writer, I try not to insult my readers. The author of Hebrews does not share that perspective. Or perhaps this author is not afraid to confront the readers on their lack of spiritual growth. So far the book of Hebrews has not been light reading material as far as I am concerned. It’s pretty understandable that the readers would need some teaching on the nuances of the nature of Jesus and other heavenly beings. Even the author (or authors? — notice the “we” here) acknowledges it is difficult to explain.

Let’s receive the contents of this letter as if they were written to us today. Are we spiritually dull? Do we have trouble listening? Are we still satisfied with a milk diet rather than maturing to deeper things? If you’ve been a Christian for a year or more, are you teaching others what you’ve learned so far?

When we follow Jesus, we get to live with a continual hunger for more. We can never be satisfied because there is always more of God. We can never go deep enough that we reach the end of God. When we are satisfied with our spiritual lives, we get complacent. When we are complacent, we stop trying to grow. Don’t be satisfied with what you’ve discovered about God so far. Whether you have been following Jesus for one day or fifty years, there’s more to discover. Ask him to show you more of himself in this moment.

Take a moment to read Hebrews 5:1-10 before reading the devotional below.

Yesterday we began to talk about the Old Testament concept of a high priest. The readers of this letter (broadly titled “Hebrews” as it was clearly written specifically for a Jewish audience) would have needed no explanations about these ideas. They routinely memorized the entirety of the Torah (our first five books of the Bible). They regularly went to the Temple and offered sacrifices in accordance with Old Testament law.

Throughout Hebrews we have seen how Jesus is compared to others, including humans, angels, and God himself. In today’s passage the author compares Jesus to the other Jewish high priests. What makes Jesus the highest of all high priests? First, we know that God appointed him. But God appointed the other high priests, too. He offered prayers to God on behalf of the people, but so did the other high priests. The key difference lies in the fact that Jesus was perfect. If you were as familiar with the Old Testament as the Jewish readers of this letter, you would immediately know that the Jewish priests were anything but perfect. Some, like Melchizedek, stood out above the rest. But some, like Aaron and the sons of Samuel, led the people away from God. Malachi 2 offers a look at what God thought of bad priests.

It is an unfortunate reality that a lot of people have been led astray by bad leaders in the church. Priests and pastors have harmed people. Of course, many good leaders have also helped a lot of people. Jesus is a good leader. In fact, he is the perfect leader. What’s interesting about God is that he alone is good. We throw around the word “good,” but in describing Jesus as a “good leader” I am saying that he is the most perfect leader in the deepest sense. He is not a good leader among other good leaders. He is THE good leader. He will never abuse you, harm you, or lead you astray. At the very core of his character, he is perfectly good.

“So then, since we have a great High Priest who has entered heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to what we believe. This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses, for he faced all of the same testings we do, yet he did not sin. So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most.”

When I hear the word “priest,” I picture a Catholic priest with fancy robes in a huge cathedral. The Jewish people of this era (just after Jesus’ life, probably around 64 A.D.) might have pictured something a little similar but simpler. The Jewish temple was a stone structure that was mostly square/rectangular. Priests had rules that were described in Leviticus 21 as well as other portions of the Old Testament. They had unique garments and performed sacrificial rituals to mediate between God and his people. They followed the Old Testament laws about giving different types of sacrifices or offerings depending on the reason (atoning for sin, praise offering, etc).

The High Priest was the most highly ranked of all the priests, as Leviticus 21 tells us. Recall that the author of Hebrews just finished telling us that God sees into the deepest places of our hearts. Jesus is God, but he also has walked in our shoes. He gets it. All of this together means he is a perfect priest who can mediate our relationship with God better than any earthly priest.

It might have felt intimidating to approach the High Priest with a hope that the animal you brought is good enough for God’s standards. There’s a lot that depends on you and the priest getting it right. We know that Moses’ brother, Aaron, led the people into idol worship in the desert when he was appointed as the first priest. A lot can go wrong when humans are involved. With Jesus, we don’t have to have any fear. He is the perfect and ultimate priest, he gets your struggles on a deep level, and he is able to mediate your relationship with God because he is God. This is why we said before that Jesus is the path. He is the way into God. He joins humanity and God in a way that nothing and no one else could. All of these truths give us permission to be bold before Jesus. He wants to help and he’s ready to show you mercy.

“For the word of God is alive and powerful. It is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword, cutting between soul and spirit, between joint and marrow. It exposes our innermost thoughts and desires. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God. Everything is naked and exposed before his eyes, and he is the one to whom we are accountable.”

Hopefully you are aware that the Bible was not written in English and sometimes it is helpful to take a look at the original language in which it was written (in this case, Greek). The word for “word” here is the Greek word “logos,” which is the same word used in John 1:1 where it says, “In the beginning the Word already existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Sometimes we think of the Word of God as the Bible or Scriptures, but in today’s passage the meaning is much deeper.

If this “logos” already existed and was with God and in fact was God, then it is certainly a direct reference to Jesus. With that in mind, read the verses above thinking of Jesus where you see “word of God” instead of thinking of the Bible. It would read, “For Jesus is alive and powerful. He is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword… He exposes our innermost thoughts and desires.” Certainly this makes sense with the sentence that follows, again showing a fluid continuity between Jesus and God.

How do you respond to the idea that God can see the deepest places of your heart? Your reaction is revealing in and of itself. Those with nothing to hide who just want someone to love them are reassured. Those who are trying to pretend to be important when they really aren’t will feel scared. Make no mistake about it, Jesus has a supernatural power that will cut deeply through you. That can either be a life-restoring process (like the knife of a surgeon) or an act of destruction (like being stabbed in the heart). The difference lies in the posture of your heart.