This marks the third division of a series that introduces the Book of Hebrews. To start at the beginning, click here.

Access to the Throne of Grace

The warnings in Hebrews should cause us to take inventory of our faith. But faith remains the way of salvation and by it we have resources the Old Testament saints could only wish they had. I will introduce this with an event that happened the moment Jesus died:

And Jesus uttered a loud cry, and breathed His last. And the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. (Mark 15:37-38, NASB) 

The curtain torn, anyone walking around the outer court of the temple that day would be able to look into the Holy of Holies. This was the place that the high priest could visit once a year to make atonement for the nation. When Jesus died, the curtain tore, and all people have access. What symbolically happened when Jesus died is something Hebrews tells us has a tremendous reality in heaven.

The Old Covenant temple was all about restricted access. You had the general population in the outer court. The tribe of Levi could lead the worship and take care of the temple. The descendants of Aaron were the priests and they alone could offer up the gifts at the altar and enter the Holy Place to replace the Bread of Presence, burn incense, and keep the menorah burning. The High Priest alone could enter the Holy of Holies. He is the one who could pass through the veil to meet with God's presence.

Because of Jesus, our High Priest, we have access to the Holy of Holies in heaven:

Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. (Hebrews 4:14-16)

Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, His flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. (Hebrews 10:19-22)

We have "help in time of need." We receive mercy and grace. This is most valuable when:

• When we are tempted
• When we have sinned -- again.
• To receive a complete cleansing of guilt.
• When we need perspective or wisdom
• When we need power to overcome.
• When we need to intercede for another.

In the old, the high priest could enter. In the new anybody can. It was once a year, but now anytime. It was in a symbol, but now it is in heaven itself. It was in fear, but now it is with confidence. It was for an external cleansing, but now our consciences are made clean. It was by law, but it is now by faith. This is extraordinary.

I encourage you to walk in this reality. 

Monday: The Hall of Faith

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This marks the third division of a series that introduces the Book of Hebrews. To start at the beginning, click here.

Stubborn Hearts and the Gospel

What Jesus' parable of the soils and the stark warnings in Hebrews have in common is an understanding of how stubborn the human heart tends to be. The hearts of people range from concrete road hard to rich loams and everything in between. Where are you? Where are your friends? 

Ultimately, it is only the Lord who knows what type of soil receives His word. You could have two hard workers in the church. Both produce good things for the kingdom of God. One is motivated by the praise of the congregation and the other is motivated by his love for Jesus. When testing comes or the praise of men falters, the first might fall away. The Lord has not given us soil test kits for others, but we are admonished to know our own.

Then, too, the church must see soil preparation as part of proliferating the gospel. Prayer and the power of God can break up the roads. Patient instruction can remove rocks. Exhortation can weed the gardens. Dependence on the Holy Spirit will produce the harvest of righteousness in our lives. Salvation is a process. There is a preparation phase, a planting phase, and growth. The church needs to be active across the spectrum. The goal is to develop disciples who have personal assurance of salvation. Faith yields salvation. Fruit yields assurance.

The "Bad" Gospel

Perhaps the mark of success of the "Got milk?" advertising campaign are the copies. This includes, "Got Jesus?" As a pithy gospel message, "Got Jesus?" is not bad. The ultimate result of salvation is being with the Lord forever, "He who overcomes will inherit these things, and I will be his God and he will be My son." (Revelation 21:7)

There is a form of the gospel message that might be stated like this. "Got heaven?" It is the gospel that says there is a heaven to gain and a hell to shun. It is not that such a message is wrong or untrue, because it is true. The problem is that it is incomplete in at least two ways:

1. It tends to provide Jesus as the provider of heaven, but does not emphasize that He is also the goal of the Christian life. The emphasis is on heaven and eternal life. The means is a simple prayer. The deal is settled forever and you do not have to worry about hell anymore.
2. It appeals to the very self-interest that the true gospel must destroy to do its work. What sane person would choose hell over heaven? People avoid the true gospel, because it demands a changed life and enables that life.

Matthew 19 relates the story of the rich young ruler who came to Jesus and asked, “Teacher, what good thing shall I do that I may obtain eternal life?” (Matthew 19:16) Jesus ultimately instructed the young man to remove some weeds in his life and to follow Him. The young man walked away.

Our gospel presentations must not appeal to self-interest, avoid providing a false security, and challenge the heart to enduring faith and its outworking. Jeremiah prophesied and Hebrews presents the nature of the New Covenant. Here is what Jeremiah wrote:

“But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the Lord, “I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. “They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,” declares the Lord, “for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.” (Jeremiah 31:33-34)

There are three promises here:

1. "I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it." This is fulfilled in us today by the presence of the Holy Spirit living in us and the fruit of the Spirit that He produces (Galatians 5:22,23)
2. "I will be their God, and they shall be My people." Through the gospel, we get to know God and belong to Him.
3. "Their sin I will remember no more." Jesus, as our high priest, entered heaven with His own blood so that we can be clean.

An emphasis on heaven alone is only about the forgiveness of sin and ignores the other two expectations of the gospel.

What about Sin?

For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, (Hebrews 10:26)

Does sinning after we receive salvation put us in danger of losing it? There are two points to be made here. First, "receiving a knowledge of the truth" need not be equated with salvation. It only means that you come to a place where you know the gospel message to be true and that it demands a choice form you. Rather than yield to the truth, you harden your heart against it. Eventually the offer is withdrawn. The second point is the word "willingly." Sin still has the power to ensnare us, and much remains unwilling. That is why 1 John 1:8, 9 has power, "If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." (1 John 1:8-9) To sin and confess is not to sin willingly. 

Let me put it another way. To know your sin and know the gospel and then to choose to remain in your old life is to place yourself in peril. To know your sin and see Jesus as:

• Your High Priest
• Who took His own blood into the real sanctuary to cleanse your conscience from dead works
• Who opened the way for us to enter the Holy Place to get help in time of need
• Who sent His Holy Spirit to indwell us and bring forth fruit.
• To see all this as a solution for sin and a means to relationship

And you respond in faith, you are saved. You become an adopted child of the Father, and receive discipline for being such. You will see fruit and will come to an assurance of your salvation. It cannot be lost.

Friday: Access to the Throne of Grace

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This marks the third division of a series that introduces the Book of Hebrews. To start at the beginning, click here.

Different Soils, Different Souls

The author of Hebrews wrote:

For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries. Anyone who has set aside the Law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled under foot the Son of God, and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace? (Hebrews 10:26-29, NASB)

As I wrote yesterday, the book of Hebrews has many hard sayings that seemingly challenge the permanency of our salvation. What are we to make of this? Does Hebrews contradict Paul's writings about the nature of faith and the gift of salvation?

The answer, of course, is "No." Although Hebrews devotes more space to this message or warning and caution, it is consistent with the ideas of Jesus, Paul, Peter, James, and John. The stronger emphasis in Hebrews invites us to understand the stubbornness of our hearts and it demands that we come to grips with the central issues of salvation and faith.

One of the parables of Jesus gives us perspective:

Listen to this! Behold, the sower went out to sow; as he was sowing, some seed fell beside the road, and the birds came and ate it up. Other seed fell on the rocky ground where it did not have much soil; and immediately it sprang up because it had no depth of soil. And after the sun had risen, it was scorched; and because it had no root, it withered away. Other seed fell among the thorns, and the thorns came up and choked it, and it yielded no crop. Other seeds fell into the good soil, and as they grew up and increased, they yielded a crop and produced thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold.” (Mark 4:3-8)

We Christians like things cut and dried, but life in the Spirit is not so easy. For many of us, the concept of salvation is a binary yes or no: someone is saved or they are not. The parable of the sower suggests that the reality is more of a continuum. At one extreme is the hard road that leaves the seed exposed to the birds of the air. As representative of a human soul, the hard road pictures the unsaved and belligerent. At the other end is the good soil that yields a good crop. This pictures the soul that is radically saved and productive. Moving towards the center is the short lived plant in the rocky soil against the living plant choked by weeds. Hardness of heart, fear, and worldly cares work against the gospel and discipleship. What the soils represent in picture form, Hebrews presents as stark warnings. So, when the author of Hebrews writes something like this, "Therefore, let us fear if, while a promise remains of entering His rest, any one of you may seem to have come short of it. (Hebrews 4:1)" He means that we need to know what kind of soil we are. The author knows his own soil to be good. He may begin by saying, "let us fear," which voices a common concern. But that common concern is that "any one of you may seem to have come short of it." He clearly does not consider himself to be one who will come up short.

There is a reality behind the warnings that is useful for us to know. When Hebrews says,

For in the case of those who have once been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance, since they again crucify to themselves the Son of God and put Him to open shame. (Hebrews 6:4-6)

It is useful for us to remember: 1. The Israelites freed from Egyptian slavery, but balked at entering the land (Numbers 14); 2. The Jewish leaders who rejected Jesus in spite of His miracles (Mark 3: 28, 29); and 3. The disciples who left Jesus shortly after seeing Him feed 5000 families (John 6:66). In these three cases, the population had seen great things not generally seen. They were given much. In light of Hebrews, to what degree had they:

• Been enlightened?
• Tasted the heavenly gift?
• Been made partaker of the Holy Spirit?
• Tasted the good word of God?
• Experienced the power of the age to come?

The answer is, "To a very great degree!" To what degree have you? The first generation Israelites, the Jewish leaders, and the disciples who left Jesus saw, tasted, and experienced without a saving change of heart. Others, like Peter, recognized who Jesus was and clung to Him (John 6:67-69). I will add Joshua and Caleb to this list. Hebrews 6:4-6 is written to those past and present who have seen and experienced credible evidence of the Truth and turned away.

The very things that undercut the Old Covenant--unbelief and rebellion--work against the heart's ability to respond in faith. Hebrews wants us to understand this for our own good. It is vital that we know if our heart is a hard road, a rocky plot, choked with weeds, or rich in nutrients. We should push through until we have a firm assurance of our salvation. 

To balance the warnings, Hebrews places alongside them strong passages of assurance:

Therefore, let us fear if, while a promise remains of entering His rest, any one of you may seem to have come short of it. For indeed we have had good news preached to us, just as they also; but the word they heard did not profit them, because it was not united by faith in those who heard. (Hebrews 4:1-2)

But, beloved, we are convinced of better things concerning you, and things that accompany salvation, though we are speaking in this way. (Hebrews 6:9)

But we are not of those who shrink back to destruction, but of those who have faith to the preserving of the soul. (Hebrews 10:39)

The warnings in Hebrews are always offset by a direct or indirect statement of assured salvation based on faith. The message is consistent with Peter and Paul who wrote:

Therefore, brethren, be all the more diligent to make certain about His calling and choosing you; for as long as you practice these things, you will never stumble; (2 Peter 1:10)

So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling; (Philippians 2:12)

All of this has a serious bearing on the way that we present the gospel. That will be tomorrow's topic.

Thursday: Stubborn Hearts and the Gospel 

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This marks the third division of a series that introduces the Book of Hebrews. To start at the beginning, click here.

The Stubborn Heart and the Gospel

If one is not careful with the argument made by the book of Hebrews, one might finally conclude that people can lose salvation and their adoption as sons and daughters. It is true, that Hebrews admonishes us more than all other New Testament books to test and know that our salvation is real, but each warning, as I will show, is balanced with a promise of perseverance to those who have salvation.

One critical thing to understand about Hebrews is that the author has more of a national rather than individual concern. This concern was common in the first century among believing Jews. It began with Jesus weeping over Jerusalem during the last week before His execution. It continued with Stephen who concluded his defense before the Sanhedrin with these words:

“You men who are stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears are always resisting the Holy Spirit; you are doing just as your fathers did. “Which one of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? They killed those who had previously announced the coming of the Righteous One, whose betrayers and murderers you have now become; you who received the law as ordained by angels, and yet did not keep it.” (Acts 7:51-53, NASB)

In short, the first century Jewish believers in Messiah Jesus had to come to grips with a national falling away. It was painful. Paul, for example, wrote:

I am telling the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience testifies with me in the Holy Spirit, that I have great sorrow and unceasing grief in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed, separated from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh, who are Israelites, to whom belongs the adoption as sons, and the glory and the covenants and the giving of the Law and the temple service and the promises, (Romans 9:1-4)

Paul always proclaimed Jesus to be the Messiah in the Jewish synagogues before he spoke to the Gentiles. Time after time after time, the synagogue rulers threw him out. It grieved him to the point of wishing he could be eternally condemned if it could mean that his people would not fall away. 

The situation also grieved the writer of Hebrews:

Therefore, let us fear if, while a promise remains of entering His rest, any one of you may seem to have come short of it. For indeed we have had good news preached to us, just as they also; but the word they heard did not profit them, because it was not united by faith in those who heard. (Hebrews 4:1-2)

He remembers several things about his people:

• The generation that saw the wonders of the Lord's deliverance from Egyptian slavery, refused to enter the good land that He then brought them to.
• The period of the Judges saw a cycle of renewal and apostasy.
• By the time of the Babylonian exile, the nation was fully apostate.
• After the Babylonian exile, they became legalistic.
• Now they were in danger of rejecting the Lord's program again.

In Hebrews, we see an author who has seen his nation fail time and again. He writes to warn them to be on guard so as not to fail again. It is, therefore, no wonder that he appeals so strongly to the superiority of Jesus as a messenger, kinsman, covenant mediator, high priest, and offering. The outworking of this concern can be seen in these two hard passages from Hebrews:

For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, (Hebrews 10:26)

For in the case of those who have once been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance, since they again crucify to themselves the Son of God and put Him to open shame. (Hebrews 6:4-6)

Beginning tomorrow, I will begin exploring the application of these and similar passages to us. Before I leave off, however, I would like to show you the interesting ways Hebrews challenges us to examine our salvation while clearly teaching its permanency. Read Hebrews 4:1-2 again and wathc the pronouns:

Therefore, let us fear if, while a promise remains of entering His rest, any one of you may seem to have come short of it. For indeed we have had good news preached to us, just as they also; but the word they heard did not profit them, because it was not united by faith in those who heard. (Hebrews 4:1-2)

He begins with "let us fear." This includes himself. He is concerned about his people and their salvation and he calls on all to share that concern. He then writes, "any one of you." These are the group in danger of coming short. He does not include himself. He did not write, "any of us," but "any of you." Everyone of Hebrews hard sayings has in context a statement of assured salvation. Good news "united by faith" brings profit.

Wednesday: Our stubborn hearts 

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Jesus and the New Covenant(6)

This marks the second division of a series that introduces the Book of Hebrews. To start at the beginning, click here.

One very central tenet in Hebrews is the superiority of Jesus and the New Covenant over Moses and the Old. This second section of Gleanings from Hebrews will cover this central message.

Jesus: The Final Offering

According to Hebrews, Jesus is:

• A King -- Upholding all things by the word of His power
• A Prophet -- He is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of His nature. He reveals God more truly than any messenger ever sent.
• A Mediator -- He was the mediator of a new covenant based on better promises. He and the New Covenant outshine Moses and the Old Covenant.
• A Kinsman -- The Son took on humanity in order to become our kinsman. In so doing he took on the responsibilities of the redeemer and rescued us.
• A High Priest -- The Son is king and priest. His priesthood is based on a prophetic oath made by God is Psalm 110 and is certified by the resurrection.

Hebrews systematically connects Jesus with points of the Old Covenant and declares Jesus superior.

Jesus is the great eternal high priest. He has provided purification of sins for us. This, however, raises two questions: In what temple did He serve? -and- What was His offering? The answer is that Jesus carried His own blood, spiritually speaking, into heaven itself. As Hebrews has told us, Moses erected the Tabernacle as a copy of things that he saw in heaven. Jesus carried His offering into the Holy Place from which Moses copied his:

Now the main point in what has been said is this: we have such a high priest, who has taken His seat at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, a minister in the sanctuary and in the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, not man. For every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices; so it is necessary that this high priest also have something to offer. Now if He were on earth, He would not be a priest at all, since there are those who offer the gifts according to the Law; who serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things, just as Moses was warned by God when he was about to erect the tabernacle; for, “See,” He says, “that you make all things according to the pattern which was shown you on the mountain.” But now He has obtained a more excellent ministry, by as much as He is also the mediator of a better covenant, which has been enacted on better promises. (Hebrews 8:1-6, NASB)

And, as I have mentioned, Jesus carried His own blood into this place:

But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things to come, He entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation; and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling those who have been defiled sanctify for the cleansing of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? For this reason He is the mediator of a new covenant, so that, since a death has taken place for the redemption of the transgressions that were committed under the first covenant, those who have been called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance. (Hebrews 9:11-15)

In this way, the salvation that Jesus brings is complete and perfect.

For Christ did not enter a holy place made with hands, a mere copy of the true one, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us; nor was it that He would offer Himself often, as the high priest enters the holy place year by year with blood that is not his own. Otherwise, He would have needed to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now once at the consummation of the ages He has been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment, so Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin, to those who eagerly await Him. (Hebrews 9:24-28)

KAL V'CHOMER

I have previously mentioned the rabbinical argument form of KAL V'CHOMER. It has the form: If this light thing, how much more this heavy thing. KAL V'CHOMER means light and heavy.

If mortal priest serving in a copy of the tabernacle in heaven using daily blood offerings provided a covering for mankind's sins, how much more did this one offering of the eternal high priest with His own blood do for us:

For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling those who have been defiled sanctify for the cleansing of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? (Hebrews 9:13-14)

It is no wonder that early on in Hebrews, the author admonished his readers:

For this reason we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away from it. For if the word spoken through angels proved unalterable, and every transgression and disobedience received a just penalty, how will we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? After it was at the first spoken through the Lord, it was confirmed to us by those who heard, God also testifying with them, both by signs and wonders and by various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit according to His own will. (Hebrews 2:1-4)

We have a great salvation. In the final section of this study, I will look into Hebrew's Halakah. Let's see how we should then live.

Tuesday: The Stubborn Heart

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