Friday after the Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity Sunday

Scripture: Hebrews 4:14—5:14 (NKJV)

4:14 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. 15 For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. 16 Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

5:1 For every high priest taken from among men is appointed for men in things pertaining to God, that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins. 2 He can have compassion on those who are ignorant and going astray, since he himself is also subject to weakness. 3 Because of this he is required as for the people, so also for himself, to offer sacrifices for sins. 4 And no man takes this honor to himself, but he who is called by God, just as Aaron was.

5 So also Christ did not glorify Himself to become High Priest, but it was He who said to Him:

“You are My Son, today I have begotten You.”

6 As He also says in another place:

“You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek”;

7 who, in the days of His flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplications, with vehement cries and tears to Him who was able to save Him from death, and was heard because of His godly fear, 8 though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered. 9 And having been perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him, 10 called by God as High Priest “according to the order of Melchizedek,”

11 of whom we have much to say, and hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. 12 For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God; and you have come to need milk and not solid food. 13 For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. 14 But solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.

Devotion

“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.”

There is only one true confession, because there is only one true Faith. The Lord Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the only way of salvation. He has proved this by His death, resurrection, and ascension. The Lord Jesus Christ really did come as a man, He really did die, and He really did rise bodily from the dead. Having made Himself the sacrifice for our sins, He is the High Priest before God the Father. A high priest is a mediator, who stands between the people and God; the high priest prays to God on the people’s behalf and, in turn, delivers the Word of God to the people. The Lord Jesus Christ likewise mediates between God and those who trust in His salvation. Therefore, we must hold fast to this one true confession, lest we fall away from His grace and perish.

There are those who want to compare religions by talking about “your belief” and “my belief,” and that it does not matter what you believe as long as you stand up for it. This is a lie. If you stand up for a false faith, in the end you will be damned. The one belief that saves is the one true confession of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who sacrificed Himself for our sins and sits at the right hand of the Father as our mediator.

We pray: O Lord, we beseech Thee, let Thy continual pity cleanse and defend Thy Church; and because it cannot continue in safety without Thy help, preserve it evermore by Thy help and goodness; through Jesus Christ, Amen.

Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.