3. "Thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchisedec. 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; though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered; and being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him." (Heb. 5:77Who 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; (Hebrews 5:7).)
What a contrast between this and the preceding portion! In that the Son, having marked the high calling and nature of the church in His Father's mind, is presented to us as coming clown into the midst of her sorrows and captivity, by His own death to destroy him that had the power of death- that is the devil, and to deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage: here the same blessed One is seen realizing in His own person all the sorrow and anguish of the fear of death, and, though heard, not delivered from it -" 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." Unasked, undesired, he came, in the deep sympathy of His own perfect soul, to remove the fear of death, and that too at His own proper charges, from those that were under-lying it. But in this act and deed He had placed Himself where all that love which was in the Father toward Him, could only act under restraint. How wondrous is the love of God to the church, how marvelous the grace of Christ toward her. May we never forget either His love in thus tasting death for us, or the reality of the bitterness of the draft to His soul; and may we ever remember, that He having drank the cup, it remains not for us.