S12 || Why We Can Approach God Boldly and Receive Mercy || Hebrews 4:16 - 5:6 || Session 12

A closed throne room is the world we expect; Hebrews reveals a throne of grace that welcomes us with confidence. We open the door on what bold access really means, why the torn veil changes prayer from a cautious ritual into an honest conversation, and how Jesus’ ongoing advocacy turns our weakest moments into encounters with mercy.

We start by reframing the roles of priest and prophet, clearing up a common modern confusion: a priest represents the people to God. From there, we trace the high priest’s humanity and weakness under the old covenant and contrast it with Jesus’ sinless solidarity. He knows our condition from within, yet without guilt, which is why he deals gently and intercedes powerfully. We also unpack why no one takes the honor of priesthood for themselves and how Christ, like Aaron in calling but unlike him in order, was appointed by the Father.

The takeaway is deeply practical: when the need is urgent and the heart is heavy, the way is open. No gatekeepers, no queue, no fragile mood to navigate. You approach a sovereign who loves to give grace and mercy in real time. That changes how we pray, how we endure suffering, and how we resist the pull toward lesser mediators. If Jesus is both king and priest forever, then the verdict over your approach is settled: come boldly.

If this helped you see prayer and access in a new light, subscribe, share the episode with a friend, and leave a review to help others find it. Your questions and reflections shape future conversations—what does boldness in prayer look like for you today?

Chapters

• 0:20 Why Jesus Matters In History
• 0:41 Bold Access To The Throne Of Grace
• 2:28 Kings, Gates, And A Child’s Privilege
• 3:28 Temple Veil Torn And Direct Prayer
• 6:53 Grace And Mercy In Times Of Need
• 10:36 Transition To Hebrews Chapter Five
• 11:21 What A High Priest Is And Does
• 13:08 Human Weakness And Gentle Advocacy
• 16:01 Called By God, Not Self-Appointed
• 19:34 Begotten: Sent From The Father
• 22:03 A Priest Forever Like Melchizedek
• 25:16 King And Priest: Jesus’ Unique Order
• 27:13 Eternal Sonship And Early Church Debates

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:20

Jesus of Nazareth is the most significant person in all of human history. Wars have been fought, people's lives have been changed, nations have been risen and fallen again. And who is this man, Jesus? Many think Jesus is no more or less than a curse word. Some say he's a myth. Well, the book of Hebrews tells us the multifacets of this man, the nuances of who he is. What is his character? Where did he come from? What did he do? Today we're going to learn even more about this man, Jesus, this Yahweh Jesus, this king and priest, as he's going to be presented here. If you have your Bibles, turn to Hebrews, the last verse in chapter four says this. Therefore, let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. So it says here that we can draw near with confidence, or some of the older translations say boldness to the throne of grace. The word here for confidence or boldness, the original Greek means to have openness and complete freedom, to be plain and without concealing anything. We can be completely open and honest in front of the throne of God. I always think of in modern times or even in ancient times, a king would be in a castle behind armed guards. And still today, a president or a prime minister or a king is going to be in a capital city in a grand building behind gates and behind guards. Average people cannot just barge into the office and interrupt the affairs of state. Well, it says here in Hebrews, we as Christians can go with confidence, with openness into the throne room, the throne of grace. If you remember in Esther, she was asked by her uncle Mordecai to go into the king and make an appeal for the Jewish people. Her response was, I've not been asked. Yes, I'm the queen, but I've not been asked. If I just go into the throne room without being invited, I could be killed. So that's the image here. We can go with confidence, openly, with boldness into the throne room and bring our appeals. It is the throne of grace. A throne is the seat of sovereign power, of control. So what is this throne controlling? It's controlling God's grace. No common person can just barge into the throne room, but the child of the king can. The one who has the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ can go with confidence into the throne room. We don't have to fear if we go in and make an appeal to our God. We go to the seat of grace. We are with all power and authority to do this. Well, why? One of the reasons is we've been adopted as sons of the king, tells us that in Galatians 4.5 and Ephesians 1.5. We can go to the throne of Christ. It will present us holy and blameless and beyond reproach, it tells us in Colossians 1.22. We are alive in Christ, forgiven of all of our transgressions, Colossians 2.13. And in him we are complete, Colossians 2.10, and we're sanctified, 1 Corinthians 1.2. We have the right and the privilege of being in the king's family, and thus we can go with confidence to the throne of grace. Steve, isn't that wonderful that we can go directly to God any time of the day or night? We don't have to be afraid to approach his throne.

SPEAKER_01: 4:28

A second description to what you described with Esther and the king is the tabernacle and the temple. That was divided into two basic rooms, the holy place and the holy of holies. There was a big veil that divided the two of them. The holy place is where the lampstand and table of showbread was, where the priests would minister in there, and the holy of holies was where the Ark of the Covenant was. And only once a year would the high priest enter into that place. So the public didn't even have access to those places of worship. They had to be represented by a priest. But here, the writer of Hebrews is letting us know that because we have Jesus Christ as our high priest, we now have direct access to that throne of grace. Yes, it's a great feeling to know that we can go in and bring petitions to our God and not feel intimidated or not feel shunned or not feel rejected, that we are able to go in directly to that throne of grace, as the writer puts here, and be able to talk directly to our creator.

SPEAKER_00: 5:42

The veil separated, as you well said, Steve, the holy of holies from the outer parts and the outer courts. Behind the veil was where the Shekinah glory of God was. And only the high priest could go back there, and then only one day a year. The veil separated the place where God was, the Shekinah glory was from where the people were. Well, when Jesus died on the cross, the veil was torn from top to bottom, says that in Mark 15, 38. Since the veil is torn, we now have access, direct access to God, direct access to the throne of grace. Therefore, we can go with freedom and confidence directly to God. We are a child of the king, heir according to the promise, with the full rights and privileges, and our sins have been washed. We are righteous, not because of our own righteousness, but because of Christ's righteousness given to our account. He is already in there advocating for us. So we can go with openness, with boldness, with confidence to the throne of grace directly. Now, the reason we emphasize that is there are many people today who ask the question whether it's good and proper to pray to other saints or to pray to Mary or someone like this and say, Could you please go to Christ for me? Could you please go to the Father for me? Well, Hebrews 4.16 says we can go with confidence directly to the throne. There's no reason to ask someone that is outside the throne room to go in there for us when we can go in ourselves. Our high priest Jesus is our advocate, already appealing our case before the Father. Therefore, it would be a step down to go to someone else and ask them to go in and speak for us. Plus, we should not be afraid to go in simply because, again, we are a child of the king and we have direct access to the throne of God. How wonderful. It says here at the end of verse 16, a question, Steve, when we go into the throne room and we appeal to the king, what are we going to receive according to verse 16?

SPEAKER_01: 8:02

It says that we're going to receive grace and mercy. The writer puts down here the time that we would go in there. He says, in the time of need. That is another great feeling that at a low point in our life, whenever we have a time of need, that we can go directly into the throne room and receive grace and mercy. I can't tell you how great of a feeling that is. I know I keep repeating that. It's really awesome when you think about the protocol of a king. Again, as you mentioned with Esther, you had to have an audience with the king. You couldn't just walk in. You had to petition somebody else to then petition the personal assistant of the king to then petition the king in order to even go in in the presence of the throne room itself. Then you might not even get to speak to the king because you were in there with several other people that they had their own petitions that they wanted to present to the king. Then at that point, you stood there until the king acknowledged you, and then you were able to speak. At that point, you really didn't look the king in the eye. You looked down, and you were really in fear because at any point in time, depending upon the mood of the king, he might decide to reject you. Or if maybe you happen to be viewed in his eyes, a friend of one of his enemies, he might take your land away from you, or even ban you, or kill you, put a death as death sentence on you. Going into the presence of a king was not really something that was pleasurable unless you were there in his court daily. We lose all that in our day and age because we don't really have kings in that regard in many of our countries today. But this is something that's really, really revolutionary here. We can have direct access to the throne room in our times of needs so that we might receive grace and mercy.

SPEAKER_00: 10:05

My friend, do you have a need? Do you have a petition that you'd like to put before the king, the sovereign power of all grace? Well, you can have confidence if you're in Christ and you can go directly to him, directly into his throne room. He will always have time for you. He is not busy. He is waiting on you. If you go in in Christ's name, you can go in with all confidence. How wonderful that is. It is the sovereign control of all grace. He is wonderful, and we can go to his throne. That brings us to chapter five. And if you remember, just a quick review. Chapter one told us that Jesus is God. Chapter two told us that Jesus is fully man and explained why that was important. Chapter three had Jesus is greater than Moses and explained why God was angry at those who disobeyed in unbelief. Chapter four spoke about what it was like to enter God's rest and what will keep us out of God's rest. So now here in chapter five, we learn about Jesus that is our high priest. And we're going to learn even more as this book gets into this section. Steve, can you read the first six verses of Hebrews chapter five?

SPEAKER_01: 11:21

For every high priest taken from among men is appointed on behalf of man in things pertaining to God, in order to offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins. He can deal gently with the ignorant and misguided, since he himself also is beset with weakness, and because of it he is obligated to offer sacrifices for sins, as for the people, so also for himself. No one takes the honor to himself, but receives it when he is called by God, even as Aaron was. So also Christ did not glorify himself so as to become a high priest, but he who said to him, You are my son, today I have begotten you. Just as he says also in another passage, you are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek.

SPEAKER_00: 12:15

The first part of verse one tells us about the high priest and where he is taken from. What group does he come from?

SPEAKER_01: 12:23

The priests in general came from the tribe of Levi or Levi, and the high priest was actually supposed to be from the lineage of Aaron, Moses' brother. But in regards to what he says in verse one here, the high priest that represented the Jewish people, the Hebrews that he's writing to, came from men.

SPEAKER_00: 12:44

Verse 1 says the high priest comes from men and then has a purpose. What is the purpose in the last half of verse 1?

SPEAKER_01: 12:52

That he's appointed on behalf of men in order to offer both gifts and sacrifices for sin.

SPEAKER_00: 13:00

This is critical here because too often in modern times, anyways, we confuse what the purpose of a priest is. Too many people today think wrongly that a priest is somehow elevated up on a platform and that they're more holy than the rest of us, and that they come down from on high and give a message from God. It couldn't be further from the truth. What he's saying here is rightfully, a priest comes from the congregation. It comes from men and goes into the temple to represent the people to God. That's what the purpose of a priest was, especially a high priest, was to go from among the people and represent the people to God. The priest went in and made appeals for the people's sin to God. If God needed to speak to the people, that was the role of a prophet. A prophet would take God's message and go to the people and say, Thus says the Lord. If you were with us when we studied Ezekiel, many times Ezekiel would physically act out things that would represent him as being God. He would separate himself from people and things like that. We have here a very critical thing is a high priest has the job of representing people to God. And we need to get that straight or we won't really understand what it means here when it's talking about Jesus as the high priest. If a man wanted to make a sacrifice to God, he would have to go through a priest. The priest would then go to the temple and represent the man to God. In verse two here, Steve, why can a typical high priest be gentle with people?

SPEAKER_01: 14:48

It's because he says that the high priest himself is beset with weaknesses, meaning that he is a man himself.

SPEAKER_00: 14:57

A human high priest would know the weaknesses of people because he is in the human condition himself. He can sympathize with it. He realizes what it's like to be a weak, fallible human. So he could go in and make that appeal to God. At the end of verse 2, the human high priest is beset or clothed with weaknesses. And the King James Version, the old one says, compassed with infirmity. He's surrounded with it. Our high priest has weaknesses all around him and in him. Therefore, the next verse, verse 3, he has to offer sacrifices for the sins of both the people and himself also. The Old Testament high priest had to offer a sin offering for himself before he could go in to offer the sin offering for the people. Leviticus 16, 6 and verse 11 say that the high priest must first make an offering for his own sin prior to the Day of Atonement. Therefore, Hebrews is going to make the point, of course, that Jesus as high priest, he did not have to offer a sin offering for himself because he was sinless. But because Jesus is human, he can understand the human condition. He can understand what it's like to be tempted. He can understand what it's like to have a loss of loved ones. He can understand the human condition. Steve, what is it like to be able to have a high priest that understands us, that is going in before God, appealing our case?

SPEAKER_01: 16:39

It's really great, Glenn, to be able to have that high priest that can identify with us. Jesus can identify with us because he was fully man as well as fully God. He's sitting at the right hand of God the Father. And so he can be our advocate. But especially for you and I, Glenn, we're Gentiles. We never had any high priest that would go in and make atonement for us year after year. The Jewish people did. And of course, we don't want to forget who the writer is writing to. He's writing to Hebrews, so that's why he's giving this type of description in history. But for you and I, Glenn, we never had a high priest. So it's really something exciting for us that we have such an advocate now in the throne rooms of heaven.

SPEAKER_00: 17:24

There are times when all Christians feel weak and fallible, and we've fallen and skinned our knee and we've sinned once again. It's so great to be able to have a high priest in there that's pleading our case before the Father. Then in verse 4, it says there that no one takes the honor to himself. And what it's talking about there is that no one takes the honor of being high priest to themselves. No one can just declare himself to be high priest. Aaron was chosen by God to be high priest, and then it was supposed to be his descendant. His eldest son ended up being the high priest. So we couldn't just go in and say, I'm going to be high priest next year. No, you had to inherit it. Likewise, all high priests had to be chosen by God. In the Old Testament, they were the eldest sons of Aaron. The penalty for a person going in and doing something that they were not, didn't have the authority to do was death. If you remember, there was a couple of the sons of Aaron and Levi that offered strange fire. They went in before the tabernacle when they weren't supposed to, and God struck them dead. It seems a little harsh reading it, but what we don't realize is that God has a plan, he had a purpose for all of these things. And bringing in strange fire violated the image that he was trying to communicate with no less than our salvation. Because God was making a spiritual lesson when they did not follow his commands, they destroyed the lesson. Here in Hebrews 5:4, no one takes the honor to himself. We can't just take on the high priestly role ourselves and go in and pretend we're priests. Then the next verse, likewise, Christ did not glorify himself as high priest, but rather the Father sent him. He had to be sent because the high priest was supposed to represent the people. Jesus fully submitted to the role. He was the sent one. He was the suffering servant, the obedient one. In verse 6, here it quotes Psalm 2.7 saying, You are my son, today I have begotten you. Jesus was begotten of the Father. And in this sense, the word begotten just means sent. The word has a broader meaning than just sent. In some cases, it means born, but that's not what it means here. Heretics have exaggerated the meaning of the word begotten, saying that the word begotten means Jesus had a beginning point. But all begotten means in relation to Jesus is that he was sent by the Father. He came from the Father. Begotten does not mean that Jesus had a beginning point. Jesus' role was that of an obedient servant. An obedient servant had to be sent. So to fulfill his role, he obediently allowed himself to be sent, and he obeyed in all things. In that sense, he was begotten. Jesus did not take his kingly throne while he was here on earth. Therefore, Jesus had to be sent to be begotten. A standard definition of begotten is, quote, to cause something to happen, to bring forth. That's right out of the lexicon. Therefore, the Son was sent by the Father, but Jesus always existed. That's what it's saying here. He is the one sent from the Father, just like the high priest had to be sent. He had to fulfill his role. How tremendous this is. Verse 5 says, quote, Today I have begotten you is merely to show that the high priest, Jesus had the role of being obedient to the Father. And Steve, how can we then be obedient to the Father? Is it not to submit in all things simply because our Lord submitted in all things?

SPEAKER_01: 21:30

He's our example to do that. Whenever we submit and just follow his ways and his commandments for us, we'll have so much of a better life by doing that. We'll stay out of a lot of troublesome things that we might get ourselves in trying to live a worldly life. Yeah, we'll have much, much better livelihood here on earth by obeying God.

SPEAKER_00: 21:56

Then in verse 6, it says, You are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek. Now, chapter 7 is going to have a great deal to say about Melchizedek, but since it brings him up here, Steve, who is this man Melchizedek?

SPEAKER_01: 22:12

Melchizedek is both the king and priest of the city of Salem, which eventually became Jerusalem. We first see him whenever Abraham is coming back through from some fights that he had with some other kings, and Melchizedek comes out from the city and they have a conversation with each other, and we see that Abraham gives him one-tenth of the spoils that he has. That's the first time that we see Melchizedek in scripture.

SPEAKER_00: 22:43

This Melchizedek will learn a great deal about him, as we said, when we get to chapter 7, but he is both king and priest, which is unusual. Here, the writer of Hebrews is quoting Psalm 110, which says that the Messiah is a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek. He's clearly connecting Jesus as being the Messiah and being a priest forever, according to not the order of Aaron, but the order of Melchizedek. We'll get into more detail on him later. But to summarize here in this chapter, verses four through seven are saying that just as a son of Aaron received the office of high priest, Jesus received the office of high priest because he submitted in all things. But it was not because he was a descendant of Aaron, it was because he was of a different order of priesthood. He was a high priest, but not a high priest as a son of Aaron. He was a high priest because he was of a different order, the order of Melchizedek. This is hugely profound. Melchizedek was both king and priest in 1418. A son of Aaron in the Levitical and Mosaic law could not be king. And a son of David could be king, but he could not be priest. But since Jesus is the son of God, he could be both the king and the high priest, but a priest according to Melchizedek, this is hugely profound. And again, we're going to flesh this out a little bit more when we get a little bit further. But I want to talk for a minute here about verse 5 that quotes Psalm 2.7. As we said before, you are my son. Today I have begotten you. It says there that Jesus came from the Father. This indicates that Jesus, again, was begotten. Christ is in relation, means that the Father sent the Son. Hebrews 4, 3 has already told us, quote, his works were finished from the foundation of the world, unquote, which just means that God's works were completed from eternity, not in time. Therefore, Jesus was sent by the Father, but he was sent from eternity, not from within a point in time. It is not the case that there was a point in time where Jesus was sent. False teachers claim that Jesus became the Son or became the sent one only at the point where he was born of the Virgin Mary in the first part of the Gospels, that prior to that he was not sent. This is a heretical teaching that the church dealt with in the early centuries of the church. The first two or three hundred years of the church, they ironed out all these questions about the nature of Jesus and the nature of the Father and the nature of the Trinity. To say that Jesus has a beginning point is heresy. And it was refuted by passages such as John 1.1, John 1.3, John 8.58, Colossians 1.16. The council of Nicaea in 325 A.D. was called to refute the teachings of a man named Arius who taught that Jesus had a beginning. And the council got together and said, no, Jesus did not have a beginning. And the doctrine that's been taught since then is called the eternal generation of the Son, S-O-N Son. The Son was eternally generated. He was begotten or sent from the Father, but he was sent from all eternity. Again, Hebrews said that his works were finished from the foundation of the world. Yes, the Son was begotten of the Father, sent from the Father, but he was sent from eternity, not from a point in time. This is critical simply because Jesus did not have a beginning. It tells us that several places in the scriptures. With that doctrinal interlude, Steve, we have this great teaching now that Jesus is both king and priest, but he's not a priest according to Aaron. He's of this very special order, the order of Melchizedek, this mysterious figure that came into the pages of scripture back in Genesis and then disappeared. Now we have him again. So we're going to learn quite a bit about this Melchizedek.

SPEAKER_01: 27:25

The writer of Hebrews continues to take us down this path, Glenn, and it's just going to continue to get better.

SPEAKER_00: 27:31

We trust that you're going to be back with us next time as we continue to breathe some rarefied air and reason through the book of Hebrews.

SPEAKER_01: 27:41

Thank you so much for watching and listening. May God bless you.