Hebrews 5:7-11 Who in the days of his flesh… I. First, that we may see the suitability of our Lord to deal with us in our cares and sorrows, we shall view Him as A SUPPLIANT. 1. The text begins with a word which reveals His weakness: "Who in the days of His flesh." Our blessed Lord was in such a condition that He pleaded out of weakness with the God who was able to save. When our Lord was compassed with the weakness of flesh He was much in prayer. 2. In the days of His flesh our Divine Lord felt His necessities. The words, "He offered up prayers and supplications," proved that He had many needs. Men do not pray and supplicate unless they have greater need than this world can satisfy. The Saviour offered no petitions by way of mere form; His supplications arose out of an urgent sense of His need of heavenly aid. 3. Further, let us see how like the Son of God was to us in His intensity of prayer. The intensity of His prayer was such that our Lord expressed Himself in "crying and tears." Since from His lips you hear strong crying, and from His eyes you see showers of tears, you may well feel that His is a sympathetic spirit, to whom you may run in the hour of danger, even as the chicks seek the wings of the hen. 4. We have seen our Lord's needs and the intensity of His prayer; now note His understanding in prayer. He prayed " unto Him that was able to save Him from death." The expression is startling; the Saviour prayed to be saved. In His direst woe He prayed thoughtfully, and with a clear apprehension of the character of Him to whom He prayed. It is a great help in devotion to pray intelligently, knowing well the character of God to whom you are speaking. Jesus was about to die, and therefore the aspect under which He viewed the great Father was as " Him that was able to save Him from death." This passage may be read in two ways: it may mean that He would be saved from actually dying if it could be done consistently with the glorifying of the Father; or it may mean that He pleaded to be saved out of death, though He actually descended into it. The word may be rendered either from or out of. The Saviour viewed the great Father as able to preserve Him in death from the power of death, so that He should triumph on the Cross; and also as able to bring Him up again from among the dead. 5. It will further help you if I now call your attention to His fear. I believe our old Bibles give us a correct translation, much better than the Revised Version, although much can be said for the latter, "With strong crying and tears unto Him that was able to save Him from death, and was heard in that He feared." That is to say, He had a fear, a natural and not a sinful fear; and from this fear He was delivered by the strength brought to Him from heaven by the angel. God has implanted in all of us the love of life, and we cannot part from it without a pang: our Lord felt a natural dread of death. 6. But then notice another thing in the text, namely, His success in prayer, which also brings Him near to us. He was heard "in that He feared." O my soul! to think that it should be said of thy Lord that He was heard, even as thou. a poor suppliant, art heard. Yet the cup did not pass from Him, neither was the bitterness thereof in the least abated. II. Behold our Lord as A SON. His prayers and pleadings were those of a son with a father. 1. The Sonship of our Saviour is well attested. The Lord declared this in the second Psalm: "Thou art My Son; this day have I begotten Thee." Thrice did the voice out of the excellent glory proclaim this truth, and He was "declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead." So, when you are put to great grief, do not doubt your sonship. 2. Being a Son, the text goes on to tell us that He had to learn obedience. How near this brings our Lord to us, that He should be a Son and should have to learn! We go to school to Christ and with Christ, and so we feel His fitness to be our compassionate High Priest. 3. Jesus must needs learn by suffering. As swimming is only to be learned in the water, so is obedience only learned by actually doing and suffering the Divine will. 4. The Lord Jesus Christ learned this obedience to perfection. 5. Our Lord learned by suffering mixed with prayer and supplication. His was no unsanctified sorrow, His griefs were baptised in prayer. It cost Him cries and tears to learn the lesson of His sufferings. He never suffered without prayer, nor prayed without suffering. III. Behold the Lord Jesus as A SAVIOUR. 1. As a Saviour He is perfect. Nothing is lacking in Him in any one point. However difficult your case may seem, He is equal to it. Made perfect by suffering, He is able to meet the intricacies of your trials, and to deliver you in the most complicated emergency. 2. Henceforth He is the author of salvation. Author! How expressive! He is the cause i,f salvation; the originator, the worker, the producer of salvation. Salvation begins with Christ; salvation is carried on by Christ; salvation is completed by Christ. He has finished it, and you cannot sad to it; it only remains for you to receive it. 3. Observe that it is eternal salvation: " the author of eternal salvation." Jesus does not save us to-day and leave us to perish to-morrow; He knows what is in man, and so He has prepared nothing less than eternal salvation for man. 4. Furthermore, inasmuch as He has learned obedience and become a perfect High Priest, His salvation is wide in its range, for it is unto "all them that obey Him." 5. Note, that He is all this for ever, for He is "a priest for ever." If you could have seen Him when He came from Gethsemane, yon think you could have trusted Him. Oh! trust Him to-day, for He is " called of God to be an High Priest after the order of Melchizedec," and that order of Melchizedec is an everlasting and perpetual priesthood. He is able today to plead for you, able to-day to put away your sins. (C. H. Spurgeon.) Parallel Verses KJV: Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared; |
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