1._For every high priest, etc. _He compares Christ with the Levitical priests, and he teaches us what is the likeness and the difference between them; and the object of the whole discourse is, to show what Christ’s office really is, and also to prove that whatever was ordained under the law was orda... [ Continue Reading ]
2._Who can, etc. _This _fourth _point has some affinity to the first, and yet it may be distinguished from it; for the Apostle before taught us that mankind are united to God in the person of one man, as all men partake of the same flesh and nature; but now he refers to another thing, and that is, t... [ Continue Reading ]
4._And no man, etc. _There is to be noticed in this verse partly a likeness and partly a difference. What makes an office lawful is the call of God; so that no one can rightly and orderly perform it without being made fit for it by God. Christ and Aaron had this in common, that God called them both;... [ Continue Reading ]
5._Thou art my Son, etc. _This passage may seem to be farfetched; for though Christ was begotten of God the Father, he was not on this account made also a priest. But if we consider the end for which Christ was manifested to the world, it will plainly appear that this character necessarily belongs... [ Continue Reading ]
6_As he saith in another place, _or, _elsewhere, etc. _Here is expressed more clearly what the Apostle intended. This is a remarkable passage, and indeed the whole Psalm from which it is taken; for there is scarcely anywhere a clearer prophecy respecting Christ’s eternal priesthood and his kingdom.... [ Continue Reading ]
7._Who in the days, etc. _As the form and beauty of Christ is especially disfigured by the cross, while men do not consider the end for which he humbled himself, the Apostle again teaches us what he had before briefly referred to, that his wonderful goodness shines forth especially in this respect,... [ Continue Reading ]
8._Yet learned he obedience, etc. _The proximate end of Christ’s sufferings was thus to habituate himself to obedience; not that he was driven to this by force, or that he had need of being thus exercised, as the case is with oxen or horses when their ferocity is to be tamed, for he was abundantly w... [ Continue Reading ]
9._And being made perfect, _or _sanctified, etc. _Here is the ultimate or the remoter end, as they call it, why it was necessary for Christ to suffer: it was that he might thus become initiated into his priesthood, as though the Apostle had said that the enduring of the cross and death were to Chris... [ Continue Reading ]
10._Called of God, _or _named by God, etc. _As it was necessary that he should pursue more at large the comparison between Christ and Melchisedec, on which he had briefly touched, and that the mind of the Jews should be stirred up to greater attention, he so passes to a digression that he still reta... [ Continue Reading ]
11.He therefore makes a preface by saying that he had _many things _to say, but that they were to prepare themselves lest these things should be said in vain. He reminds them that they were _hard _or difficult things; not indeed to repel them, but to stimulate them to greater attention. For as thing... [ Continue Reading ]
12._For when for the time ye ought, etc. _This reproof contains in it very sharp goads to rouse the Jews from their sloth. He says that it was unreasonable and disgraceful that they should still continue in the elements, in the first rudiments of knowledge, while they ought to have been teachers. “Y... [ Continue Reading ]
13._For every one who uses milk, _or, _who partakes of milk, etc. _He means those who from tenderness or weakness as yet refuse solid doctrine; for otherwise he who is grown up is not averse to milk. But he reproves here an infancy in understanding, such as constrains God even to prattle with us. He... [ Continue Reading ]
14._Of full age, _or _perfect, etc. _He calls those perfect who are adults; he mentions them in opposition to babes, as it is done in 1 Corinthians 2:6; Ephesians 4:13. For the middle and manly age is the full age of human life; but he calls those by a figure men in Christ; who are spiritual. And su... [ Continue Reading ]