Transcript
The battle plan has changed just a little bit. I decided it was, uh, too sanguine of me to think that I would actually walk through the entire book in any kind of semi-detail tonight. So what I would like to do tonight is to go through unit one and unit two. And on Sunday night we will go through unit three and leave the remainder of the time open for your questions.
But I think it would be overly optimistic on my part to think that I could actually complete the discussion of the three units in the way that I would like to do for this particular conference. If you have your text of Hebrews, uh, open it up and we will be, uh, pointing out things in the text. And we will also be turning to other passages in the Word of God as we move through the epistle.
Please notice that we have identified the first four verses of the, uh, epistle as the prologue to Hebrews. And I think it is safe to say that the prologue of Hebrews is one of the most elegant Greek sentences that you will find anywhere in the New Testament. It is an extremely elegant sentence, uh, stylistically excellent, I think. And it is also a prologue that magnifies the person of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
We are very familiar with the prologue. And yet at the same time we read through it without thinking about it very much. And we cannot pause to go into all sorts of detail on it. Please notice that the central idea of the prologue is that whereas in the past God has spoken to us through His prophets, now He has given us the Son as the prime revealer of His word and of His truth.
“In these last days he has spoken to us by his son.” The supreme par excellence vehicle of divine revelation is the Son of God. Now there are basically three things that are said about Him as the one through whom God has spoken. One of these things is that He has been appointed heir of all things. That is to say He is going to inherit everything. And this looks forward to the fact that He will become the king of the entire world.
Then we are told that through this revealer that God has sent, God made the world. So that points us to the past and to His activity in creation. And then verse three actually boils down to the basic statement that once He had accomplished the work of redemption, once He had by Himself purged our sins, He sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high.
This is a very important and central statement for the epistle to the Hebrews. Since one of the primary points that Hebrews is making is that the Son of God, having offered a once-for-all sacrifice for sin, has now sat down at the right hand of God. And He functions at the right hand of God as our great High Priest.
Notice that before He reaches this climactic statement that He has sat down at the right hand of God, He tells us three things about this person who has done this. Namely that He is the brightness of God’s glory. He reveals what God is. He is the express image of His person. And He by Himself purged our sins.
So the author has built up to the great climax of the prologue that this person who is destined to be king in the future, who is the creator of all things in the past, who personally reveals the nature and character of God, who personally purged our sins, now sits at the right hand of the majesty on high.
So we are looking at the three phases of His career: the future, heir of all things; the past, creator of all things; and the present where He is seated at the right hand of God. And by virtue of His completed sacrifice He is able to function as our great High Priest.
And then the tagline that leads us into the following section is that as He sits at the right hand of God, He has inherited a name, a position, an honor that is far superior to the name, position and honor of the angels themselves. So that is the prologue that leads us to part one which is on the outline here.
And in which the emphasis falls upon the kingly role of the Son of God. The one who has been the revealer of God is the one who is heir of all things and therefore destined to be king. Now in order to appreciate this list of quotations, we sometimes refer to the series of quotations here as a catena, kind of a chain of biblical quotations.
We need to look at two of the passages that are cited here in a little bit more detail. So first of all as a reference to verse 5, will you turn to Psalm 2 verse 7? Psalm 2 is a very important and what we might describe as eschatological psalm. It looks to the future.
And you will notice that Psalm 2 begins with the idea that the nations rage, that they are in rebellion against the Lord and against His anointed, that is against His Messiah. But despite their rebellious attitude, He who sits in the heavens laughs at them. What can they do? His purposes have already been determined and they are firm and certain to be carried out.
And so in verse six He says, “Yet have I set my king on my holy hill in Zion.” It seems likely that the writer of Hebrews understood this as the heavenly Zion. And therefore that we are referring here to the session of our Lord and Savior at the right hand of God.
And then comes the part that is quoted. “I will declare the decree. The Lord said to me, ‘You are my son. Today I have begotten you.’” Let me pause here to say that this is not a reference, of course, to the eternal sonship of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. But rather to His sonship as the appointed and designated King of Israel in accordance with the Davidic covenant.
If you flip back, keep your place in Psalm 2, flip back to Hebrews 1, you will notice that the very next quotation, “I will be to him a father and he shall be to me a son,” is taken from 2 Samuel 7:14 from the covenant with David. In which God says of David’s son, “He will be my son and I will be his father.”
So the declaration here is that God has set His king, the one whom He recognized and acknowledges as the son king, the son of David as well as His own eternal Son. Of course He has set His king at the right hand of God despite the rebellion that is going to be raised against Him.
And then He says to the Son, notice this in verse 8 of Psalm 2, “Ask of me and I will give you the nations for your inheritance and the ends of the earth for your possession.” “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies the footstool of your feet” is another quotation in this passage. And this same spirit and principle is enunciated here.
God turns to the one whom He has placed at His own right hand and He says, “All you need to do is ask me for it and I will give you the nations as your inheritance. I will give you the uttermost parts of the earth as your possession.” In other words, when you ask me I will make you king.
So that is the psalm from which the writer of Hebrews begins his list of quotations. Now turn to Psalm 45 please. This is a very lovely and very famous psalm. The writer of Hebrews quotes the material starting in verse 6. But to get the context out of which He is quoting, let us read some of the opening verses.
The psalmist writes in verse one, “My heart is overflowing with a good theme. I recite my composition concerning the king. My tongue is the pen of a ready writer.” Then He describes the king. “You are fairer than the sons of men. Grace is poured upon your lips. Therefore God has blessed you forever.”
Now notice this because this is relevant to the promise that God will make the enemies of Messiah the footstool of His feet. He says, “Gird your sword upon your thigh, O mighty one, with your glory and your majesty. And in your majesty ride prosperously because of truth, humility, and righteousness. And your right hand shall teach you awesome things. Your arrows are sharp in the heart of the king’s enemies. The peoples fall under you.”
Notice that the prophecy here is that the son king will ride forth like a conquering champion. Remember the white horse rider in the book of Revelation. And His enemies will fall before Him. They will be defeated. They will be crushed.
And here comes then the quotation that we find in Hebrews 1. “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever. A scepter of righteousness is the scepter of your kingdom.”
Now turn back to Hebrews 1. We could probably spend the next thirty minutes talking about each of these quotations and it would certainly be profitable to do so. What I am trying to show you, however, is that the writer of Hebrews is drawing upon contexts here that relate to the fundamental themes that He is interested in setting before His readership. Namely the future victory, the future triumph of the king over His enemies and the future authority and reign of that king.
So we start with the idea, “You are my son. Today I have begotten you,” in fulfillment of the Davidic covenant. Then we are told that in the future all the angels of God will worship Him. A quotation from Psalm 97:7.
And then we come to the quotation in verses 8 and 9 which we have read from Psalm 45. A prophecy of the eternal throne of this king who will be triumphant over all of His enemies. He will establish His throne by conquering His enemies.
Moreover we are told that this king, and the quotation that follows in verses 10, 11 and 12, that the king is eternal and by implication His kingdom is eternal even though the heavens and the earth will pass away. So we know from the book of Revelation for example that our Lord reigns over the present heavens and earth for a thousand years.
Then the present heavens and earth are taken away and removed and replaced by new heavens and by a new earth. And He continues to reign forever and forever because this is an everlasting kingdom. So the king has an eternal throne. “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever.”
The king Himself is unchangeable. But the creation over which He rules is kind of like a garment. It wears out. It grows old. He lays it aside and puts on a new garment and continues His eternal reign.
This brings us to one of the favorite texts of the writer of Hebrews which is Psalm 110. And I think we really need to look back at that psalm because the larger context of this quotation here is important for the epistle to the Hebrews. So turn once again to the book of Psalms and this time to Psalm 110.
Notice the psalm begins, “The Lord said to my Lord.” Do you remember the question that Jesus confronted His audience with in the last week of His life? He said, “What do you think of the Messiah? Whose son is he?” And they all answer, “Well, he is David’s son.”
And then Jesus said, “Well, if he is David’s son, how can David call him Lord?” Which He does when He says, “The Lord said to my Lord.” They were stumped. But the son of David of course is also David’s Lord because the son of David of whom this psalm speaks is the eternal Son of God. He is both God and man. And therefore He is David’s son and David’s Lord at the very same time.
This is a passage that Jesus used with good effect in the last week of His life. Now the Lord said to my Lord, here is the quotation that we meet in Hebrews chapter 1. “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies the footstool of your feet.”
Notice that we have already had the idea of His session at the right hand of God in the prologue. He sat after He purged our sins by Himself. Through His own effort, through His own sacrifice, He sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high.
Once He had purged our sins, God says, “All right, come back up here. Sit down at my right hand.” The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand. How long? Until I make your enemies the footstool of your feet.” You are temporarily here, says God, until the time comes when your enemies will be defeated.
And then of course we have the fulfillment of the other psalms, the riding forth of the triumphant king. His arrows are sharp in the hearts of His enemies. His sword is girded at His thigh. And when He crushes His enemies He sits down on an eternal throne. “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever. A scepter of righteousness is the scepter of your kingdom.”
But now this is not the end of the author’s interest in this psalm by a long shot. Let us read on. “The Lord shall send the rod of your strength out of Zion. Rule in the midst of your enemies.” Thus far we are talking about His future kingship.
“Your people shall be volunteers in the day of your power in the beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning. You have the dew of your youth. The Lord has sworn and will not relent. You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.”
Here is another statement of Psalm 110 that will play a major role in the epistle to the Hebrews. But notice how Psalm 110, which is a pivotal and crucial psalm for our writer, brings together the two roles that we have presented for our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in the epistle to the Hebrews.
First He is the king. He is the heir of all things. He is the one who is destined to be triumphant over His enemies. And for the moment He is seated at the right hand of God until the time comes for Him to ride forth in conquering victory.
But in the meanwhile as He sits at the right hand of God He is our great High Priest over the house of God. He is a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. We therefore come into the presence of someone who is both destined to be king and who is presently our active High Priest operating according to the order of Melchizedek.
And that brings us to the end of the chain of quotations. And the writer says in the closing verse of chapter 1, He has been saying all through here, did God ever say this to the angels? This is what He says to the Son. This is what He says about the angels.
He never said to any of the angels, “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies the footstool of your feet.” Instead He says, “They are all ministering spirits sent forth to minister for those who will inherit salvation.”
We stop here for a moment in this church. I am sure I do not need to belabor this particular point. But there is what I would call in the evangelical church a knee-jerk reaction to the word save and salvation wherever we meet it. And therefore individuals who read a passage like this are predisposed to read it as a reference to eternal salvation.
Well first of all if we believe that people are saved already, we notice that at least it is not talking about a past salvation, right? They are sent forth to minister to those who will inherit salvation. But for that matter what in the world would there be in chapter one that would suggest to us a sudden reference to regeneration or justification? The answer is nothing. Nothing really.
Chapter 1 is largely a series of quotations from the book of Psalms with the exception of the quotation of course from 2 Samuel. If you take a concordance, even an English concordance, and you run through the list of uses of the word save and salvation in the book of Psalms, what are you going to find?
You will find that overwhelmingly the term saved and salvation refers to deliverance from and victory over one’s enemies. The psalmists often find themselves in all sorts of stressful situations and God saves them out of that. He saves them from their enemies. He gives them victory over their enemies. He leads them into His blessing and His provision whereas their enemies had prepared to defeat them.
And if we are looking for a contextual suggestion about the meaning of salvation here, it would certainly be natural to look for the very common and prevailing view and meaning of salvation in the book of Psalms. Is there anything to connect the word salvation in verse 14 with the triumph over enemies? Verse 13, right? “Sit thou at my right hand until I make your enemies the footstool of your feet.”
I want to suggest to you that in the book of Hebrews the word salvation never refers to the experience of regeneration. That it never refers to the experience of justification. It always refers to our future victory in association with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. A victory over all of those who oppose Him.
And therefore if we are identified with Him and associated with Him, who oppose us. And salvation therefore in the book of Hebrews is deliverance from these enemies. And it is a share in the triumph of the Savior who brings that deliverance to us.
And of course the result of His triumph is an eternal kingdom. We will have more to say about that in a moment. But that is obviously also very closely related to our victory over evil as well.
So here we are talking in the first chapter about the future king already seated at the right hand of God, destined to defeat His enemies and rule everybody forever. And the author is suggesting to us you can get in on that. The angels do not have that kind of a destiny. They are simply sent to serve and help those of you who will indeed participate in that marvelous victory in that wonderful deliverance that is yet to come.
This leads us to the very first of the warning passages, the warning section up here. First warning, chapter 2 verses 1 through 4. And as you have probably already guessed, the same kind of knee-jerk reaction that I mentioned in 1:14 occurs also again in chapter 2.
For we are told, “How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?” And an enormous number of people read that as meaning, you know, if we fail to get converted, we fail to get regenerated, we fail to be justified, we are not going to escape. What has that got to do with the context here? Again, really nothing.
What is the author doing here? Well He is obviously addressing His Christian audience. Therefore we must give the more earnest heed to the things that we have heard lest we drift away. And we should be very careful in giving heed to the things that we have heard that we do not neglect this salvation offer, this salvation experience of which I have just spoken.
Suddenly this passage becomes enormously relevant to us. I am surprised at the number of real born-again believers who go through their Christian life with only the vaguest kind of idea of what the future holds for them or even for our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And they have no real concept of the fact that He is headed toward a marvelous victory which will establish an eternal kingdom. And He wants associates. He wants partners in that kingdom.
And in fact that is already hinted at in chapter one. Look back in chapter one at the quotation from verse 9. “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever. A scepter of righteousness is the scepter of your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness. Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness more than your companions.”
Now the word that is used here is a special word that is often used in the New Testament period of the idea of a partner. So we might almost say God has anointed you, the king, with an oil of gladness that is greater than your partners’ oil of gladness. They have gladness too but yours is the greatest. But you have partners.
Now you almost had to live in the environment of the Greek or Roman world to understand the full force of this. Because you see the Hellenistic kingdoms that preceded the Roman Empire all had situations in which the king was surrounded by a group of intimate people. They were very frequently individuals who had grown up with Him. They are individuals who were educated with Him.
And when He comes to power He puts them in places of power. Those were His companions. Those were His associates. Those were His partners in the kingdom. Even Caesar had that. And the term friend of Caesar referred to those who were on the inner circle with Caesar and who oftentimes participated in very judgmental functions in which Caesar Himself was involved.
So although He is going to go into this in more detail, the author has already hinted to us that this great king who is destined to rule has everybody as partners in that kingdom. And that in essence is what it means to receive this salvation. To receive deliverance from the enemies and opposition all around us and to share in the victory of the king who brings that deliverance to us.
But as I was saying a moment ago it is amazing the number of Christians who have almost no concept of that. And in that sense, but not quite in the sense in which the writer of Hebrews means it, they are neglecting so great salvation. They are neglecting the marvelous future promise of victory that is given to those who follow Jesus Christ.
Now this is the shortest of the warning sections. And as the author progresses through the epistle He will expand His warnings and it will become clearer and clearer what concerns occupy Him. But right now He is just, you know, this is kind of like me pausing for a minute. Let me apply this.
And so the writer of Hebrews said, “Let me apply what I have just told you. I just told you that this king is going to have a marvelous kingdom and that we can share in that victory through the salvation, the deliverance, the victory that He wants us to have. Let me just pause and tell you not to neglect that. Do not let it drift away from you. Do not let it slip by you.”
We ought to give more earnest heed to the things that we have heard lest at any time we drift away. Because if we come to the place where we throw this overboard, that is ultimately His concern in this epistle. If we come to the place where we throw this overboard then we are inviting the retribution and discipline of God. “How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?”
So that brings us to the end of the first expository unit and the first very brief warning section. Now He returns to the subject of the future world over which the king will reign. Notice that His statement in verse 5 is, “For He has not put the world to come of which we speak in subjection to angels.”
That point certainly comes through in chapter one. The angels are not going to rule this future world. The one who is seated at the right hand of God is going to rule it. But now He has another scripture to call our attention to from Psalm chapter 8. And the quotation is given here of course in verses 6, 7 and 8.
“What is man that you are mindful of him or the son of man that you take care of him? You made him a little lower than the angels. You crowned him with glory and honor and set him over the works of your hands. You have put all things in subjection under his feet.”
This is a familiar psalm. And when we are reading the Old Testament there are many people who take it as a kind of a general statement about God’s creation of man. It is very evident, however, from the application that the writer makes that that is not the way in which He understood this psalm.
So He says that He has put all things in subjection to the one that He is talking about here, the son of man that you visit. And He says, “We do not see that yet. It is not true yet. What do we see?” Verse 9, “But we see Jesus who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor, that He by the grace of God should taste death for every man.”
So the writer is telling us the psalm is about Jesus. It is about the fact first of all that God has destined Him to have full authority over the creation. We do not see that yet, says the writer. It is coming as He has emphatically made clear in chapter one. What do we see? Well we see that He is made lower than the angels for the suffering of death. We see that He is crowned with glory and honor.
I think here a reference to the ascension of our Lord and His session once again at the right hand of God. This we see and the other we are waiting to see. So this launches Him in a slightly new direction. This king who is not yet exercising His authority over the world in the way in which He will do it in the future has nevertheless been on earth and He has experienced suffering.
Now notice the statement therefore in verse 10. For it was fitting for Him, this person of whom we are talking, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, He is the creator, in bringing many sons to glory to make the author of their salvation perfect through sufferings.
He is bringing many sons to glory. What glory? Well I have already suggested that the thrust of the writer directs us to the thought of participation in the glory of the kingship of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. It directs us to partnership with Jesus Christ.
And so this king has come to earth and He has walked the pathway of suffering. Why? So that He might be a perfect leader, a perfect captain for those He is leading into the glory that He Himself has begun to experience at the right hand of God.
Now the word that is translated here the author of their salvation is a word in the Greek language that was used of a founder or a leader. For example if some significant leader from the city of Athens went to another geographical location and He founded a city, the word that is used here was a word that could describe Him.
And of course those who followed Him participated in the founding of the city and the benefits of the city and so on. So here what we have is that the king has already walked the pathway of earth. The king has already experienced the suffering of death. And the king knows the way to glory. He knows the way to the glory of kingship.
Later the writer will tell us that we are to run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and completer of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despised the shame, and He sat down at the right hand of God.
He is your example says the writer of Hebrews. He is the one you look to. He knows this path. At Victory Street Bible Chapel we like to say the Lord knows the way to the promised land. All we need to do is follow. The Lord knows the way through the wilderness. All we need to do is follow.
And in terms of leading us to the glory of kingship He knows the way and He is the one that we are to follow along that pathway to the glory to which He is leading us.
Now you will notice that in the remainder of chapter 2 the writer tells us that these sons whom this king to be wishes to lead to the glory of dominion over the creation, that is what Psalm 8 is talking about, these sons are partakers of flesh and blood. They are human beings.
All right. What does the king do? And as much as the children, these sons, were partakers of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise took part of the same. He also took upon Himself flesh and blood. And through death He destroyed the one who had the power of death and delivered them who were all their lifetime subject to bondage through the fear of death.
And then we come to the very interesting conclusion in this section in verses 16, 17 and 18 that in fact this king who is leading many sons to glory does not lay hold of angels. He does not help angels. He helps the seed of Abraham. He helps human beings.
And furthermore it was important for Him to be made in all respects like them that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God to make propitiation for the sins of the people. And in one of the great statements of the epistle we are told that in that He Himself has suffered being tempted He is able to help or aid those who are tempted.
This is a very beautiful and lovely portrait of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We have to appreciate fully in the light of the description of Him as the future triumphant king, the one who will crush all His enemies. But for our sakes, folks, for your sake and for my sake, He took flesh and blood.
And He endured all of the testings and trials and temptations that you and I endure. Why? So that despite the fact that He is going to become a king someday on earth He might right here and now become a merciful and faithful High Priest to us.
First of all He makes propitiation for our sins. But above and beyond that, as we shall see, He offers aid to us along this extremely difficult pathway. He leads us with His assistance, with His power, with His grace, with His provision to the glory of the world to come.
Now that leads us to the second warning passage, a much longer warning passage. And we could once again, it would be so easy to get bogged down. Bogged down is the wrong word to describe whatever happens to you when you get attracted by some particular section of Hebrews. We could probably spend a long time discussing chapters three and four. But we do not want to do that.
I am going to use an overhead to give you a kind of a general idea. Is that readable? Now I have turned it every possible way and I think that will work. You remember that in our discussion last night we suggested that the most likely background for the epistle to the Hebrews is a background in which we can postulate a Jewish Christian audience.
And in all probability a Jewish Christian audience living near a desert area. A Jewish Christian audience is being tempted to return to Judaism but not normative Judaism. If normative Judaism were the problem here it is very hard to explain why we do not have more reference to the temple. We have no explicit reference to the temple.
Instead what we have, as we pointed out last night, is a reference to the tabernacle and to the wilderness experience of Israel. This makes sense particularly now in the light of what we now know about the Qumran sect that they idealized the wilderness experience of the nation of Israel and tried to recapitulate it as far as they could out in their desert community.
So whether we are thinking of a sect like Qumran in Palestine or as I suggest in the light of the possibility that Barnabas is the author we might be thinking of a similar sect on the fringes of Cyrene or some other place. The simplest way to understand what is going on here is that the readership is being allured by some such kind of sectarian Judaism which idealized the wilderness.
And the writer of Hebrews is saying you really ought not to idealize that period because that is a period of one of the greatest failures in the history of Israel. The children of Israel came to the borders of the land of promise. And what did they do when God said go in? They said, “No, we cannot do that.” They disbelieved God. They were condemned therefore to forty years of wandering in the wilderness of Sinai.
This is not an ideal period. This is a tragic record of the failure of the nation of Israel at a very early stage in its national history. So with this in mind the writer launches out into this second and more extended warning section.
Now I am going to try to summarize very succinctly here. And I will be passing over a lot of details. But bear with me because if they gave me five more nights I would be glad to go into almost infinite detail here to the extent of my ability. I cannot go into infinite detail. Only God can go in infinite detail. But more detail than we are going into here.
The writer first of all begins by telling us that the Son of God is faithful in all God’s house for Him in a way that is similar to the faithfulness of Moses in God’s house. Now the reference here in Moses is back to Numbers 12 and to the story you recall in which Miriam and Aaron criticized Moses because He had married an Ethiopian woman.
And God is not pleased with their criticism of His servant. And so He pulls Aaron and Miriam and Moses out to the tabernacle. And He says to them, “Why were you not afraid to criticize my servant Moses who is faithful in all my house?”
Now the context shows that the house there is not the whole nation of Israel. The house is the tabernacle and the worship system that is established around the tabernacle. And it is a major point for the writer of Hebrews that Moses established the worship system in a way that was completely faithful to God.
You remember God said to Him, “See to it that you make all things according to the pattern that is shown to you in the mount.” And in the Old Testament we see how carefully it is pointed out that that is exactly what Moses did. When God said, “Make it this way,” Moses made it that way. When God said, “Put it there,” Moses put it there. When God said, “This is how the priests will operate,” that is how the priests operated under the direction of Moses.
So Moses was faithful to God in all His house. Now we are told the Son of God, Christ, has His own house. And as we will learn later in the epistle we are not talking of course about the tabernacle nor are we talking about the temple. We are talking about the new worship system, the heavenly tabernacle into which the Lord Jesus Christ has entered with His own blood.
And just as surely as Moses was faithful to God in all of God’s worship system, so also the Lord Jesus Christ is faithful to God in the worship system and in establishing that worship system which is going on today.
Now it is in the light of this that we will understand statements like the one made in chapter 3 and verse 6. “But Christ as a son over His own house, whose house are we if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm to the end?”
All right. A lot of people have read that and immediately they make the connection between house and the house of God, the family of God. And they say, you know, we are members of the family of God as long as we are faithful to God. That is not the point here.
The reference in the context here is to the worshiping situation, the worshiping arrangement, the house over which the Son of God presides. You remember that we are told in chapter 10 verse 21 we have a great High Priest over the house of God.
Now this is followed by a quotation from Psalm 95 that we need to turn back to. So if you will flip back in your Bibles to Psalm 95 we will see here a basic text from which the writer draws a lot of material. Now the quotation that we meet starting in Hebrews chapter 3 and verse 7 begins in Psalm 95 with verse 7. But the first part of this psalm is exceedingly important.
So follow with me as we read it. “Oh come, let us sing to the Lord. Let us shout joyfully to the rock of our salvation. Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving. Let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms. For the Lord is the great God and the great king above all gods. In His hand are the deep places of the earth. The heights of the hills are His also. The sea is His for He made it and His hands formed the dry land.”
Notice verse six. “Oh come, let us worship and bow down. Let us kneel before the Lord our maker. For He is our God and we are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand. Today if you will hear His voice, harden not your hearts.”
And so on. The quotation that the writer gives us in Hebrews chapter 3. Notice therefore that right from the beginning we are talking about the worship situation. And we are saying that just as Moses was faithful in the worship situation that related to the tabernacle so the Lord Jesus Christ is faithful in the new worship situation.
And now we should participate in that. We should stay with that. That is the thrust of verse 6. “Whose house we are if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm to the end.” And then He gives us a psalm which is basically a call to worship.
Now by the time we have reached the end of this book and this is very important what we really see the readership tempted to do is to throw their Christian faith overboard. Apparently they were under some kind of pressure and they were tempted to retreat back into Judaism as we have already suggested. Apparently tempted to retreat back into a sectarian form of Judaism.
And instead what they need to do is to hold fast to their Christian profession. Not to forsake the assembling of themselves together as the manner of some is. But to come boldly into the presence of God. To go into the Holy of Holies as it were spiritually inside the veil.
In other words we might almost say that the fundamental exhortation of the book of Hebrews is keep on worshiping God under the leadership and headship of the king priest who presides over the house of God. Do not give it up. Do not throw it overboard. Do not abandon it.
Because as long as we are doing this we are part of His wonderful priestly house. Notice also a little bit later in verse 14 of chapter 3, “For we have become partakers of Christ.” Partakers. The English keeps us from seeing this. But the word that I pointed out to you in chapter one, the companions of the king whose throne is forever and ever, this is exactly the same word, partners.
Let us use the word partners for this word. Therefore, “For we have become partners of Christ. We have become partners of the Messiah if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end.”
Look, says the writer of Hebrews, we have been invited into partnership with the great king priest. And as long as we hold fast to that partnership, as long as we cleave to the worship system, as long as we continue our Christian profession, we are His partners. We are part of His house.
But the implication is very obvious, is it not, that if we do not continue in that, not that we will lose our salvation, that is not even under consideration, but that we will lose our partnership with Jesus Christ. And partnership with Jesus Christ leads to the glory of the future.
The captain of our salvation is leading many sons to glory. But we have to stay with Him. There He is. You ever play follow the leader when you were a kid? I did. So there He is, the great leader, the future king, the one who suffered and triumphed and sat down at the right hand of God. He has blazed the path for us.
Follow Him down that path. Remain His partner and let Him lead you to the glory of dominion over the creation.
Now this brings Him therefore to the wilderness situation. And He reminds the readership that at Kadesh Barnea of course the Israelites who were invited to go into the land and take possession of the land failed to do so because of their unbelief.
The implication here of course is that Christians have a similar choice and that they can either go forward into the inheritance and possession which God has for them or if they behave in the unbelieving way that the Israelites in the desert behaved they can go backward and lose this relationship.
Let us look at a few details in chapter 4. Maybe before we look at these details it may be helpful to us to look at the book of Deuteronomy. So turn here to Deuteronomy chapter 3. The point I would like to emphasize from the passages we are going to look at here, two passages from Deuteronomy, is the way in which these texts use the word rest.
So look at Deuteronomy chapter 3 verses 18 and following. “And I commanded you at that time, saying, ‘The Lord your God has given you the land to possess. All you men of valor shall cross over armed before your brethren, the children of Israel, that your wives, your little ones, and your livestock, I know that you have much livestock, shall stay in your cities which I have given you until the Lord has given rest to your brethren as to you. And they also possess the land which the Lord your God is giving them beyond the Jordan that each of you may return to his possession which I have given you.’”
Now turn to chapter 12 please. And look at verse 9. “For as yet you have not come to the rest and the inheritance which the Lord your God is giving you. And when you cross over the Jordan and dwell in the land which the Lord your God is giving you to inherit, and when He gives you rest from all your enemies round about, so that you may dwell in safety,” etc.
All right. Let me suggest a very simple equation from these passages. The word rest is functionally equivalent to inheritance. It is functionally equivalent to a possession. If you inherit a home that is your possession. And this is described in these passages as rest.
Now the argument that the writer is setting before us in chapter 4 is basically this. That when the children of Israel turned back at Kadesh Barnea they failed to go into the land to take possession of it and to enjoy the rest into which God was leading them. And they forfeited that possession, that rest, by their unbelief and by retreating back into the wilderness. They were forced of course to go back into the wilderness.
Now the question might be raised and the writer of Hebrews confronts it. Well after all that was the generation of the children of Israel that was under Moses. But Joshua led them in, did He not? Did not Joshua give them rest?
And the argument that the writer of Hebrews makes in this chapter is no. If Joshua had given them rest, then God would not have later spoken of another day in which He was still inviting the children of Israel into that rest. “Today, if you will hear His voice, do not harden your heart.”
In what sense did Joshua not give them rest? Well even though the children of Israel of course got into the land, even though they possessed it for a while, they did not ever possess it permanently. And as a result of their sin they were cast out.
And so the rest into which Israel is being called will not be fulfilled except in the kingdom. And in the kingdom and then and then alone will the nation of Israel fully and completely and forever possess their land.
So says the writer of the epistle to the Hebrews, the offer of rest is still open to the people of God. There remains therefore a rest. There remains a possession. There remains an inheritance open to the people of God and we can participate in that as well.
So fundamentally the perspective of the writer it seems to me is that the kingdom which becomes first of all the permanent possession of Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of the promise of rest. It is a permanent and eternal inheritance. And the many sons whom God is leading to glory are those who will participate in that rest.
Look at Hebrews chapter 4 and a couple verses here before we break it for questions. Verse 9. “There remains therefore a rest for the people of God” on the basis of the argument I have just cited to you. “For He who has entered into rest has Himself also ceased from His works as God did from His.”
Remember that God rested on the seventh day because He had finished His works and they were all good. So when we finish our work for God, that is when we are prepared to enter into rest. “Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest lest anyone fall after the same example of disobedience.”
Let us be careful, says the writer of Hebrews, to get into that rest because we have the tragic example of the Israelites in the desert and we do not want to fall in the same way that they fell through unbelief. And then He reminds us of the judgment seat of Christ in verses 12 and 13.
“For the word of God is living and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. And there is no creature hidden from His sight. But all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.”
So it is at the judgment seat of Christ that we will discover whether we have in fact completed our works in the way that God wants us to complete them and whether therefore we enter into this rest, whether we gain this inheritance.
We have other scriptures that say this plainly. And because this is an important point look at them quickly. Revelation chapter 2 and verse 26. “And He who overcomes and keeps my works until the end, to Him I will give power over the nations. He shall rule them with a rod of iron. As the potter’s vessels shall be broken to pieces, as I also have received from my father.”
Look over at chapter 3 verse 21. “To Him who overcomes I will grant to sit with me on my throne as I also overcame and sat down with my father on His throne.” “He that keeps my works to the end, to Him I will give power over the nations.”
And that is why the writer of Hebrews stresses the necessity of persevering in the pathway of partnership to Jesus Christ. Because those who persevere to the end of that pathway will enter into this rest, will have power over the nations, will share in the glory of the king who reigns forever and ever.
So we say that sounds kind of tough. Nobody else reacted that way but me. Uh that sounds tough to me. That really sounds tough to me. I am going to need help. Right.
Look at the closing verses of chapter 4. “Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.” Hold on. Why? “For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.”
“Let us therefore,” in one of the beautiful verses of the book of Hebrews, “let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” Need help? That is what the great High Priest is there to give.
Questions. I am only halfway through what I was going to do tonight but I am not going to hold you overtime tonight. So it might be we will not get to the second unit till next time.
Yes, CJ.
“By all means.”
I do not think that we would necessarily know that exclusively from Hebrews. We would have to go to the Pauline doctrine that in Christ we are all grafted in and we are the seed of Abraham. That does not mean that we are Israel. And of course Paul’s idea is also that because Abraham was justified by faith He becomes the father of all those who are justified by faith.
So when God said to Abraham in the Old Testament, “I have made you the father of many nations,” God is not only thinking of those who are the physical descendants of Abraham. He is not only the father of the physical descendants that come from Him. He is also the father of His spiritual descendants.
And but with this verse alone of course in Hebrews we would not be able to figure that out. And if I were a Jewish reader of this I would not probably need to figure it out. I would say, you know, that applies to me. But now we come to it as Gentiles in the line of Pauline doctrine. And it is very hard to believe that the writer of Hebrews, especially if He was either Paul or Barnabas, did not Himself understand the statement in exactly the way we have explained it. Even though the Jewish Christian reader would appropriate immediately at a physical level.
Good question. Yes. That is a very good question. And at one level I have to say to you I do not know. But no I think it is more than that. God does not always operate in the expected ways. I mean there are a lot of questions of a similar nature we could answer. The father knows before you ask Him what you need. So why bother asking Him? Well because He said to.
And so Jesus is not only God’s eternal Son. He is a man. And really this Psalm 2 stresses His manhood. The sonship that is involved here is something He acquires as a result of being the seed of David because this is part of the Davidic covenant that David’s son will be adopted as God’s son. All right. He is a man.
“I will declare the decree. Thou art my son. Today I have begotten you.” You are a man whom I adopt as my son. Now what do you want me to give you? Remember that He did something very similar with Solomon. He comes to Solomon. He said what would you like me to give you? And Solomon said the following.
So because obviously you know Jesus we say, “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies the footstool of your feet.” There is a sense in which God’s will determines that. I will decide when your enemies will be made the footstool of your feet. The other side of it is Jesus knows the right time to ask.
So when that time comes and the Father is ready to give Him the kingdoms of the world Jesus will turn to Him. Obviously I am using imagination and say something like, “Father now give them to me now.” But I think this is understandable because the person who is at the center of this psalm is both man and God.
As God I am assuming He has perfect communion with the thoughts of His Father. His Father does not think anything that He does not know and vice versa. But as a man He does what all of us as human beings do. And the great king of the future will get His kingdom because He asked God for it. There is something beautiful about that in my opinion. I do not claim to understand it but it is beautiful.
Yes, they are right behind the lady.
Well that would have been a very interesting question to ask either Barnabas or Paul or whoever wrote this. And I am going to give you what I think would be the type of answer they would give you. I think they would say in some way or other, look, the rest that Joshua gave to the people of Israel was very temporary. And the psalm that I am quoting is in fact referring to an eternal rest which has never been given either by Joshua or anybody else and will only be given by Jesus Christ.
I think their answer would be along those lines. Anything else? Well it does not seem like it would be prudent for me to start in the next section, talk for two minutes, right? So why do not we commit the study that we have had tonight to the Lord in prayer.
Father, we are thrilled by the way in which Your word exalts the person of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And we are thrilled by the fact that He sits triumphantly at Your right hand. That He is there because He by Himself purged our sins. And we are thrilled as well by the fact that His destiny is to rule all men.
And we are likewise thrilled, our Father, by the fact that He is the captain, the leader of our experience that is directed by Your hand to the glory of shared kingship with Him. This is thrilling and exciting and exhilarating and something well beyond our capacity to accomplish in our own strength or by our own ability.
And so we thank you that our leader, the king, is also our great High Priest after the order of Melchizedek. And that He knows everything we go through. That He has confronted every kind of temptation. That He knows human weakness and that He is able to help us when we come to thee through Him.
We pray that all of us, speaker and audience as well, may develop a renewed sense of confidence in Him, dependence upon Him, the realization that these goals and destinies are far too high to be accomplished by human strength or effort. And that we need Your grace and we need Your power and we need the working of Your Holy Spirit in us. We need the intercession of our great High Priest. Even when we do not know that we need it we thank You that He is there making intercession for us according to Your will.
Father, help us to go out from here with a new consciousness of our destiny, our partnership with Him, and the immense privilege of following Him day by day. We ask this in Christ’s name. Amen.