It is possible to imagine God’s holiness as a reason to stay away from him. Hebrews answers by directing us to a high priest who knows our weakness and has opened the way to God’s mercy.
The Word
ἀρχιερεύς (archiereus) means high priest or chief priest. It is a noun. The Gospels often use its plural for the chief priests involved in Israel’s religious leadership; Hebrews gives sustained attention to Jesus as high priest.
An occurrence of the word is therefore not automatically a reference to Christ. The person and the priesthood must be identified from the passage. Hebrews builds its argument by comparing Christ with other priests and showing where the comparison gives way to something greater.
Range of Meaning
In the passion accounts, chief priests participate in the proceedings against Jesus. In Hebrews 5, a high priest represents people in matters relating to God and offers sacrifices for sins. That account gives the reader a setting in which to understand Christ’s work.
Yet Jesus is not simply another priest in a sequence. Hebrews 7:23–28 contrasts priests prevented by death from continuing in office with the one whose priesthood endures. He lives to intercede and has offered himself.
Where You’ll Meet It
Hebrews denies that we have:
“a high priest incapable of sympathizing with our weaknesses” (Hebrews 4:15, NET)
The rest of the verse affirms that Jesus has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. His sinlessness does not make his sympathy unreal. Nor does sympathy require that he share our guilt.
The next verse invites believers to approach the throne of grace for mercy and timely help. The argument is not that weakness has become harmless. It is that the high priest who has passed through the heavens is the very one to whom weak people may confidently come.
What Confessional Lutherans Hear
Christ’s humanity and divinity belong together in this comfort. He has truly entered our life, suffered, and faced temptation. He is also the Son through whom we have access to the Father. A merely apparent humanity would not give us the brother Hebrews describes.
His priesthood also guards the sufficiency of his mediation. We do not need to locate another heavenly advocate who will be more sympathetic than Jesus and persuade him to listen. The invitation to approach is already his.
The ministry of a pastor serves that invitation by preaching Christ and administering his gifts. It does not insert a second atoning priest between Christ and his people. Augsburg Confession V describes the office in terms of giving the gospel and sacraments through which the Holy Spirit works faith.
So What
Weakness is a reason to ask for mercy, not proof that you have been excluded from it. Bring the temptation you find humiliating to the Lord who knows what temptation is and remains without sin.
His sympathy does not mean he blesses the sin. He forgives, helps, and calls you away from it. Entynchanō follows the continuing intercession that Hebrews connects with his enduring priesthood.