It can be easy to feel like you need to have everything together before coming to God. But the book of Hebrews makes a powerful case that the opposite is true. Jesus, as our perfect High Priest, invites us to draw near to Him especially in our weakness, not after we’ve overcome it.
What Is a High Priest and Why Does It Matter?
For many of us today, the concept of a high priest feels distant. But for first-century Jewish Christians, it was central to how they understood their relationship with God.
Hebrews 5:1 explains it clearly: “Every high priest is a man chosen to represent other people in their dealings with God. He presents their gifts to God and offers sacrifices for their sins.”
The high priest was a human being appointed by God to stand between God and the people. He was a mediator. People couldn’t approach God on their own. They needed someone to go before them.
That context makes what comes next in Hebrews so significant. Because now, through Jesus, we have direct access to God.
What Does It Mean That Jesus “Deals Gently” With Us?
Hebrews 5:2 says the high priest “is able to deal gently with ignorant and wayward people because he himself is subject to the same weaknesses.”
The phrase “deal gently” comes from the ancient Greek word metropatheo, which means to have compassion on. The high priest wasn’t meant to be a harsh judge standing over struggling people. He was called to have compassion because he understood human weakness from the inside.
This is a picture of how Jesus relates to us. He sees our struggles and our failures, and instead of turning away, He responds with compassion and invites us closer.
Compassion Doesn’t Mean Ignoring Sin
It’s worth being clear here. Compassion doesn’t mean pretending sin isn’t serious. It absolutely is. But dealing gently means responding to struggling people without crushing them.
It’s easy to point out what’s wrong with others. It’s much harder to look at what’s going on beneath the surface and respond with grace. That was the posture of the high priest, and it is the posture of Jesus toward us.
Jesus Doesn’t Sympathize From a Distance. He Identifies With Us Personally.
Hebrews 4:15 puts it plainly: “This high priest of ours understands our weaknesses, for he faced all the same testings we do, yet he did not sin.”
Jesus knows what it feels like to be human. He experienced temptation, exhaustion, rejection, grief, and suffering. He didn’t watch from a safe distance. He entered fully into the human experience.
And here is the remarkable thing. Unlike every high priest before Him, Jesus didn’t need to offer a sacrifice for His own sin. He could identify completely with sinful humanity without being sinful Himself.
That means your weakness is not a reason to stay away from Jesus. It is a reason to draw near to Him.
Why Do We Run From God When We’re Struggling?
When we’ve blown it, our instinct is often to avoid God. When we’re stuck in the same temptation again and again, we think we need to get our lives together before we can come back to Him. When we’re angry, confused, or doubting, we feel like we have to earn our way back.
But that’s not what Hebrews is telling us. We can come to Jesus just as we are. The reason we can approach God with confidence, even in our weakness, is because Jesus is the one God appointed to bring us near.
Jesus Was Appointed by God, Not Self-Appointed
Hebrews 5:4-6 makes clear that no one becomes a high priest simply because they want the honor. God does the appointing, just as He appointed Aaron in Exodus 28:1.
Jesus didn’t seize the role of High Priest for Himself. God appointed Him. The author of Hebrews brings in two psalms to establish this. Psalm 2:7 speaks of God’s Son and King. Psalm 110:4 speaks of God’s king who is also a priest.
Put them together and you see something powerful. Jesus is both our King and our High Priest. Every high priest before Him eventually died and the role passed on. But Jesus lives forever, which means His priesthood never ends.
Hebrews 7:24-25 says it this way: “But because Jesus lives forever, His priesthood lasts forever. Therefore he is able, once and forever, to save those who come to God through Him.”
Jesus Knows What It Feels Like to Cry Out to God
Hebrews 5:7 says: “While Jesus was here on earth, He offered prayers and pleadings with a loud cry and tears to the one who could rescue Him from death. And God heard his prayers because of His deep reverence for God.”
This points to Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, praying in agony before His arrest. Luke 22:42-44 records His words: “Father, if you are willing, please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.”
Jesus knows what it means to trust God when the outcome of obedience is painful. He was overwhelmed with anguish, yet He surrendered His own desires to God’s will. That is our High Priest.
Was Jesus Really “Heard” If He Still Went to the Cross?
This is a fair question. If God heard Jesus’s prayer, why did He still suffer and die?
Being heard didn’t mean Jesus would avoid death altogether. It meant God delivered Him through death and out the other side. The resurrection was God’s answer. Death did not get the final word. Three days later, God raised Him from the dead.
Jesus was heard because of His reverent submission and faithful surrender to God’s will. And Hebrews 12:28 calls us to the same posture: “Let us be thankful and please God by worshiping Him with holy fear and awe.”
What Does It Mean That Jesus “Learned Obedience” Through Suffering?
Hebrews 5:8 says: “Even though Jesus was God’s Son, he learned obedience from the things He suffered.”
This doesn’t mean Jesus was previously disobedient. It means He experienced obedience in the full reality of human life. His obedience was tested and demonstrated through suffering. He obeyed when obedience meant rejection, anguish, and the cross.
Faithful obedience took Jesus through suffering, not around it.
Sometimes we follow Jesus with conditions attached. We’ll forgive if the other person apologizes first. We’ll love as long as we’re loved back. We’ll follow as long as we keep some control. But Jesus shows us that obedience is most clearly revealed when it costs us something.
Suffering isn’t always evidence that we’ve gotten off the path. Sometimes it happens precisely because we’re walking the path of obedience, and God is doing something in us through it.
What Does It Mean to Obey Jesus?
Hebrews 5:9 says Jesus “became the source of eternal salvation for all those who obey Him.”
Jesus said in John 14:15: “If you love me, obey my commandments.”
Obedience to Jesus isn’t about checking religious boxes. It flows out of a relationship of love and trust. Trusting Jesus leads to following Jesus, and following Jesus looks like loving God and loving people. His love becomes the standard, and that love starts showing up in how we treat others.
The Throne We’re Invited to Approach Is a Throne of Grace
The author of Hebrews spent all this time explaining Jesus’s high priesthood because He wanted discouraged people to understand who was representing them before God.
Your High Priest is not distant from your weakness. He is with you in the middle of it. He knows temptation. He knows suffering. He knows what it’s like to pray and receive an unexpected answer. He knows what it costs to remain faithful.
Hebrews 4:16 says: “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.”
We don’t have to hide our failures. We don’t have to pretend we have it all together. The throne we are invited to approach is not a throne of condemnation. It is a throne of grace and mercy.
Life Application
This week, identify one area of your life where you have been avoiding God because of shame, failure, or the feeling that you need to get yourself together first. Instead of waiting until you feel worthy, come to Jesus as you are right now. Bring that struggle, that temptation, or that doubt directly to Him in prayer. Practice the posture of Jesus in the garden: honest, surrendered, and trusting that God’s will is better than your own.
Ask yourself these questions as you reflect:
- Where in my life am I running from God instead of running toward Him?
- Is there an area where I am placing conditions on my obedience to Jesus?
- Do I truly believe that Jesus understands what I am going through, and am I letting that belief change how I approach Him?
- What would it look like this week to come boldly to God in my weakness rather than waiting until I feel strong enough?
