Articles, Bible studies, and sermons that contain Hebrews 4:14:
Hebrews 4:14-16
Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. Faith enables us to see that we have a great High Priest. Faith starts a person in the right direction and turns that person toward the One who can give him the help that he needs.
That help is in heaven and through Jesus Christ who is our High Priest. Faith clears the way to the mercy seat. Faith gives the assurance that there even is a mercy seat and a High Priest who waits to hear our petitions and our confession.
With confidence draw near. This confidence has the overtone of speaking freely. We are fellowshipping with God and communicating with Him.
Faith plows the way before us because prayer grows out of faith. We would not even be praying if we did not have faith. In our case, it is faith which is an operation of God made possible by revealing Himself to us that plows the way beforehand.
This power that He has given us enables us to believe what His Word says. It plows the way so that we can communicate with Him and talk with Him freely. We can open up to Him because He is just like we are.
He was tempted in all things yet without sin. He can relate to our weaknesses but He can also encourage and exhort and inspire and comfort. He can make us feel as though we are on the right track and need to go on.
Faith is the companion of prayer all along the way. According to your faith so be it unto you. Faith makes possible the answer and turns a mere request into something received.
Faith makes prayer strong and gives patience to the one who prays. Without faith it is impossible to please Him. He who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.
We have a great High Priest who has passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God. He is touched with the feeling of our infirmities, having been tempted in all points as we are, yet without sin. Therefore, let us hold fast our profession and come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
Justification by grace through faith in Christ's blood secures access into the very presence of God and more of God's grace. The Israelites' relationship with the tabernacle and temple pictured this access denial. They were shut off from the Holy of Holies and even the holy place, with only priests entering the holy place in duty performance, limited to about two times a year.
Ordinary Israelites never entered, as no sacrifices or good works gained them entrance into God's presence. Only the high priest entered the Holy of Holies once a year on the Day of Atonement, after sacrifice, purification, and special clothing. This shows we are not righteous enough to be in His presence without justification.
Justification brings us into alignment with God's standard as a gift, unearned due to our flawed works. It declares us righteous in God's eyes through Christ's sinless righteousness, granting access to Him. This access is like being freed after paying a penalty, but we cannot pay without dying, so Christ provides it.
If justification equaled salvation, there would be no need to hold fast or come boldly for mercy afterward. Justification is a necessary step toward salvation, which remains future. Salvation comes by Christ's life and ongoing intercession, not merely justification.
Seeing then that we have a great high priest that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, we are commanded to take advantage of the access we have to God because our salvation rests within that access. Following the typology of the Old Covenant and the elucidation by Peter and Paul, we are seen as part of the temple. We are also seen as having access to God through Jesus Christ because we have been sanctified or consecrated to the office of priest.
We have not yet seen a great deal of what is required of us. Peter said that we are a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices to God, acceptable by Jesus Christ. That is what qualifies our sacrifices as being acceptable before God.
There are spiritual sacrifices required and expected, because that is what God has empowered us by His Spirit to do. That is a function we must carry out. Our most vivid understanding of what a priest did was that he killed animals, cut them up, and burned them either upon the brazen altar or outside the camp if it happened to be a sin offering.
We are not required to do that, but we are required to do something much more difficult and painful. We have a high priest who can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, who was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Therefore, we should come boldly unto the throne of grace to obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
We can come confidently, with freedom of expression, to the throne of grace. In the vernacular, we can pour it all out before God and feel free to do so. We have this right and privilege to go boldly through the curtain to the very throne of grace.
Our High Priest has already gone into the real heavenly tabernacle, and He is God. As a result, we are invited and encouraged to draw near with full and confident assurance that we are accepted directly into God's presence. This access allows us to have the same kind of relationship and submission to the Father as Jesus Christ did.
We are permitted into His presence through prayer and Bible study to draw on, absorb, and receive strength from what He is by means of His Spirit. This privilege brings responsibility to act like sons of God and a royal priesthood. His purpose in allowing us into His presence is to receive strength to fulfill that purpose.
The Bible presents this absolute standard of righteousness not as something that is perfect afar off, but rather as a life spent as a human being lived to absolute perfection. It is something that we can relate to. That absolute standard of righteousness is God in the flesh.
We could always excuse ourselves and say that is the way God is. He was not tempted the way men were. But God squashes that argument and He said His Son did it for thirty-three and one-half years and He never sinned.
That standard of righteousness is not presented to us as something that is just distant and pure and holy, but also presented to us as a life that was lived in absolute holiness and sinlessness. That brings it right home. The Holy Spirit not only convicts us of our sin, but it also convicts us of the absolute standard of righteousness for men being in a life that was lived, the life of Jesus Christ.
Christ's physical life was not spared the kind of calamities we might have to face, in order that He be prepared for His responsibility in God's purpose through sharing experiences with us. In other words, if it is possible that we might have to flee for our lives, then God was not going to just excuse Christ from that kind of a trial. He was going to allow Jesus to get into situations where indeed He might have to flee for His life.
Now would He just presume that God would rescue Him because of who He was? The apostle Paul in writing this wants us to understand that Jesus' sinlessness was the result of conscious decision and intense struggle, not merely the consequence of His divine nature. Jesus followed His rejection of satan's temptation by fleeing not by standing in the midst of danger and tempting God to rescue Him, presuming that God would do it, just because of who He was.
Paul associates the throne of grace with mercy. The inference is that the mercy seat and the throne of grace are one and the same thing. The mercy seat is the place from which God governs and judges.
Symbolically, God sits on the Ten Commandments, which are directly under Him. That place is symbolic of both judgment and mercy being dispensed from the very seat of God's government. The basis of both judgment and mercy are the Ten Commandments.
God's law provides a foundation underneath His judgments. A merciful judgment extends grace to someone. A judgment extends a great deal of pain upon someone, but the basis of that judgment is the Ten Commandments.
Much of the book of Hebrews is devoted to the ramifications of those who have made the New Covenant with God because of what Christ did in His life and death. He is now our Eternal High Priest and stands between us and God. He is God and has restored the privilege that Adam and Eve had at the very beginning, giving us direct access to God.
For those who are in Christ there is not only direct access to God, but we are already in the Kingdom of God in embryonic form. The head of the Kingdom of God is the Father. That is where our citizenship is, and He is our government.
We have access to the Father through Jesus Christ, our great high priest. We are exhorted to come boldly to the throne of grace. He is talking about prayer, through which we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
