Have you ever been hit between the eyes with hard questions that stir you to move beyond where you are? You know the facts but you are failing to implement them in real life. The Holy Spirit comes and use the Word to wake you up. This is what the author of Hebrews 5 hopes to achieve. He lovingly has drawn a picture for the reader of the supremacy of Christ in all facets. Now in Heb 5 he adds that is Jesus alone is the eternal priest who was appointed by God to be the perfect Lamb of God to take away the sin of the world. He is an eternal high priest after the order of Melchizekek. Thus Jesus is superior to angels, superior to Moses and now superior to Aaron. And yet in his humanity he suffered, prayed deeply, was tempted yet without sin. This is why he could “[become] the source of [our] eternal salvation.”
Why then does the author digress? It is because he had warned the listeners of drifting, of neglecting their salvation. But, there is a greater problem–they were still infants in their understanding of the basic principles of the gospel. They knew Jn 3:16 but not the greater implication.[In fact that is all they have in their arsenal of weapons when they should have memorized and used more against the wiles of the evil one.] They were like the disciples who over and over asked “what does he mean?” They should be teachers but just want their ears tickled. These readers were not hungering, thirsting or being trained to discern truth from error. Truly Beloved these are some hard questions we need to answer also for ourselves.
Do we hunger for the solid food of the Word? Can we discern truth from error? Are we going and making disciples?