Therefore, holy brothers and sisters, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession: Jesus; – Hebrews 3:1 NASB20
Last time we took a very brief look at what the priests were called to do. It’s easy for us to take what we know from modern-day religion and read it back into the Biblical text. It’s easy to read this verse and conjure up in our mind’s eye a picture of Jesus sitting in a confessional and listening as we confess our sins to Him.
But that’s not what the writer is talking about here.
Let’s talk for a bit about this word translated confession. It’s from the same double root as the word we use talking about confessing your sins. The Greek is “homologia” and is built from two words that will seem familiar to most. “Homo” or the same and “logos” or word. The translators use either confession or profession for this word pretty interchangeably, and either works. The only problem with confession is that we already think we know what confession is about.
To the religious American mind, confession has one meaning and it’s not what this particular word means. This derivative word is never used in the New Testament to mean telling someone about your sin.
I don’t want to completely separate Christ’s role as High Priest from sin. This phrase, High Priest, is used fifteen times in the book of Hebrews, and Christ’s cleansing us and fulfilling the law of God for all our sin is a key theme in the book.
But here, in 3:1 confession speaks of what a person professes to be true. In particular, it is the believer’s saying the same–‘homo’ words–‘logos’ as God.
The other confess word – the root word – is sometimes used this way, but that word has both meanings.
To get to the heart of what the writer is talking about let’s look to other scripture.
Paul, in describing the salvation process says this.
that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation. – Romans 10:9-10 NASB20
Our first professoin in the Kingdom of God is “Jesus is Lord.” Perhaps you’ve never noticed that this does not say “if you confess your sins,” but “if you confess Jesus as Lord.”
The process here is important. We believe and we say then it’s done.
Confession, or profession, is an integral part of faith–all faith.
Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4,
But having the same spirit of faith, according to what is written: “I BELIEVED, THEREFORE I SPOKE,” we also believe, therefore we also speak, – 2 Corinthians 4:13 NASB20
You see, it’s the same process, believe and confess. The same prescription as Romans 10, believe in your heart and confess with your mouth.
Jesus gave us the same combination in Mark 11,
And Jesus answered and said to them, “Have faith in God. – Mark 11:22 NASB20
So, here we have Jesus defining faith…
“Truly I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says is going to happen, it will be granted to him. – Mark 11:23 NASB20
And there it is. Believe in your heart, speak it–confess it–profess it–with your mouth and it will be granted.
I’m really not sure why the church has relegated these verses to some kind of wishful thinking. These are clear promises to believes from our very own great High Priest.
Check this out from John,
“And on that day you will not question Me about anything. Truly, truly I say to you, if you ask the Father for anything in My name, He will give it to you. “Until now you have asked for nothing in My name; ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be made full. … “On that day you will ask in My name, and I am not saying to you that I will request of the Father on your behalf; – John 16:23-24, 26 NASB20
Here we have Jesus speaking beforehand about His role as High Priest of our confession. Remember, our High Priest is our mediator–our go-between, making a way for us to approach the Father. As High Priest of our confession, He brings our words before the Father.
But what words?
Remember, this word confession is about THE SAME words. We bring the Lord’s words back before Him believing that what He said is true. We don’t just come to the Father with our wild desires and demand that He gives us stuff based on our words.
Our confession must line up with His will, which we derive from His Word.
This is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests which we have asked from Him. – 1 John 5:14-15 NASB20
In His role as High Priest of our confession, He ensures that the words we speak from a believing heart and based on the Word of God come before God. And God, who is faithful and cannot lie, acts on our behalf.
Is this beginning to click with you?
Hear me. I’m not trying to minimize Jesus into the role of some divine messenger boy. Jesus is Lord–my Lord and Master. But let’s not miss this title and role He has taken for our good.
This is enough for today, but I’m not quite done on this yet, so stay tuned.
Speak what you believe today.
See you soon,
Ben
If you’ve missed any of this gleaning in Hebrews, catch up here.