Hebrews 5 begins with a definition of a high priest. We see that "every" high priest is "chosen." The chosen high priest is to represent others with regard to God, including offering sacrifices for those people (as well as himself) for their sins. He is charged with using compassion because he is also a sinner and understands the difficulties of not sinning. Notice that no one can simply become a high priest because they want to but only by being called by God Himself.
We know that Christ is our High Priest and Hebrews draws similarities and differences between the high priest earlier described and Christ. Christ also was called/chosen by God to be the High Priest for us all. Christ intercedes for us as does the other high priest. Christ suffered the same temptations and understands our struggles because he was a man and lived among us understanding what humans go through. His understandings of our difficulties lead Him to deal gently with us. He also offers a sacrifice for us as does the human high priest. On one hand it is different as no sacrifice is needed for Christ being Himself sinless. Again, different, because the sacrifice He offers for us was actually Himself. He lived, died, rose and stands before the Father for us that we would be saved and the price for our sin be paid once and for all time.
His life on earth and His perfect life qualified Christ, in God's eyes, to be our High Priest. Christ became the source of salvation for it is through Him that we are saved and by none other, not even our works.
Note in verse 8, we are told that Christ learned obedience from the things He suffered. Do we at times see no purpose in our struggles and suffering? Yet Christ suffered and learned much. If we have the negative view of suffering, can we see the great positive things that come from our struggles? We learn obedience and become more mature and more tuned in to our relationship with God through them. Such trials don't break us, they help us grow closer to God.
Hebrews then takes us to evaluate our current state. If we have been believers for a long time we should be sharing what we have learned by teaching others. Many believers do not learn and grow from what they have been taught and stay as babies. They continue to be taught things on a basic or beginner level. Such are likened to babies that still live on milk. Might I go further and say it is like being a baby living on breast milk. Does that make any sense? Can we picture a ten year old still breast feeding? That is what a Christian who goes on year after year living in the basics of faith is similar to. No, we should be growing and moving forward and applying what we learn to our lives and then teach and share with those who are young in their faith.
Young Christians may not understand right from wrong, but mature Christians should know right from wrong and be able to teach others such things.
That is the challenge to those who have been in the faith for some time now. Take what we have learned and step up to teach and share so others will learn and then also be able to teach.
February 1st is this Friday. We can now move on to Hebrews 6-10 for the month of February.