An high priest....of whom we have many things to say!

 "An high priest....... of whom we have many things to say." Hebrews 5:10, 11.

Paul is again emphasizing the need of this advanced light regarding the purpose and function of Christ high priesthood and the goal of justification by faith. The rest of verse 11 contains a rebuke to the Hebrew Christians. That which Paul is trying to teach is "hard to be uttered, seeing ye (the hebrews) are dull of hearing." The deeper truth is difficult to teach, and meets resistence because of spiritual dullness of the hearers affected by generations of corrupting and ignoring the Word of God. They did this while thinking they were the proud favorites of God with an advanced understanding. One gets the sense here that Paul has a harder task presenting the deeper gospel revelation to the hebrews than to gentiles. These statements bear a troubling likeness to Jesus' estimation of the last day church of Revelation called Laodicea. To better understand what Laodicea's blindness entails we can look at what Judah's and Israel's deafness was.
Literal Israel had advanced light revealed in the sanctuary imagery. From the passover to the day of atonement, near the end of the levitical temple year, they had a clear explanation of the gospel and its intended outcome. The passover prefigured the offering of the Messiah at Calvary for the human race so that helpless mankind could be united with divine aid through the act of His atonement. The day of atonement however prefigured the final judgment and rapping up of the infilling of the kingdom of Christ by those who availed of that aid. It involved a picture of their vindication by examination of fruits, or works wrought by faith. Romans 2:13 sets forth this scene. Those who have been justified by faith go on to bear the fruits of faith. But a mere profession of faith, without its natural outcome, proves that supposed faith to be no faith at all. Only the doers of God's law will be justified in the judgment. But only those justified by faith in the work of Christ, who acknowledge that their own natural works fail the standard of God, will be able to show works of righteousness wrought in them by Christ. The sins of their flesh lie crucified with the old man. The blood of Christ has pardoned and transformed them. There is a test for those who claim Christ. Only those who wear the wedding garment will enter the wedding. He who has the Son has life. "If ye live after the flesh ye shall die but if through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the flesh ye shall live." Romans 8:13. This can only happen if one accepts the real priesthood of Christ. But with many there is a longing for a salvation that meets the carnal desire to continue in sin. So with the Jews, they favored a manmade standard and so tried to immortalize the shadow priesthood and earthly temple in order to try to claim a mere manmade atonement. More on this next time. We shall also see Laodicea's danger of repeating the mistake by failing to believe in the true priesthood of Christ in all it entails.