Transcript
Chapter 5 would be a good place at which to open your Bibles tonight. Tonight I have the daunting task of finishing the book within the first hour and, uh, then, uh, they will have refreshments. I understand by that time you will need the refreshment. And then we will reassemble and, uh, answer the questions that you have that we have not addressed or that we have not addressed, uh, clearly enough.
Tonight we come to the second major division of the book of Hebrews which we have entitled, uh, here on the overhead projector, God’s priestly Son. A unit that I think extends from chapter 5 verse 1 to chapter 10 verse 39 and which embraces, uh, two of the most famous warning passages in the entire book of Hebrews.
Let me say just a brief word of introduction. This morning as his scripture text, uh, Arch read the prologue to the epistle to the Hebrews, Hebrews 1:1-4. And as you recall the central assertion of the prologue is that God has spoken to us in His Son.
Now there is a sense in which we could summarize the book of Hebrews. There are a number of ways in which we could summarize it. But we could summarize it this way. That we need to listen to what God has said to us through His Son because of what God has said to His Son.
May I say that again? We need to listen to what God has said to us through His Son because of what God has said to His Son. And for the writer of the epistle there are two key texts. And these texts are brought together at the very beginning of the unit that we are looking at tonight.
After some opening verses which describe to us the, uh, task and responsibility of a priest we are told that Christ did not glorify Himself to make Himself a high priest. Nobody takes this honor to themselves but only those who are designated by God for this purpose.
And then there follow the two quotations, the two things that God says to His Son. The first, as we have seen, stands at the head of the list or catena of quotations that, uh, begins in chapter 1. It is drawn from Psalm 2. And God says to His Son,
You are my Son. This day I have begotten You.
But notice that immediately the writer to the Hebrews follows this with another statement that God makes to His Son.
You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.
Now as we suggested in our study of chapter 1 the quotations of chapter 1 particularly focus upon the kingly role of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And the fact that as the one who has sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high He is the one who only needs to ask and God will give Him the nations of the world as His inheritance. His destiny is to rule the world.
So we have looked at God’s kingly Son. But now the one to whom God said, “You are my Son. Today I have begotten You,” is also the one to whom God said,
You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.
To put it very simply God has said to Jesus Christ, “You are my king. You are destined to rule. And You are my priest. You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.”
Now in verses 7 to 10 of chapter 5, and this is the briefest of all the expository sections that we have listed up here, in verses 7 to 10 we are informed that Christ is qualified for His priesthood by virtue of His suffering.
And you will notice that we are told in verse 7 that in the days of His flesh He offered up prayers and supplications with vehement cries and tears to Him who was able to save Him from death.
This is the one to whom God said, “You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.” This is the one who becomes the source, the cause, the fountainhead, if you want to put it that way, of our experience of deliverance and victory and heirship in the kingdom that is to come.
You noticed, I presume, that it does not say here He is the author of eternal salvation to everyone who believes in Him because this is not a reference to eternal salvation, not a reference to the acquisition of eternal life. This is a reference to the process of following the great captain of our salvation.
And in the process of following Him, relying upon His intercession, relying upon His position at the right hand of God and the help that He is able to give to us along the pathway to His kingdom. So in introducing the high priesthood of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ the writer focuses on the fact that now that He is qualified through His own personal sufferings to be the high priest that He needs to be He becomes to each of us the source of eternal salvation, eternal victory, eternal heirship.
This brings us to warning number three that extends from chapter 5:11 to chapter 6 verse 20. One of the more famous warnings of the epistle to the Hebrews. It would be tempting to go into great detail in this warning but, uh, time does not permit us to do it.
Let me just simply summarize it and go into the points that I think are particularly important for understanding it correctly. In chapter 5:11 to 14 the warning begins with the assertion by the writer that the readership is not sufficiently mature.
He has introduced the subject of the priesthood of Melchizedek. But he says, “I have got a lot of things to tell you about this and, uh, quite frankly you do not seem to have the spiritual capacity to take it in. You are more like babes who drink milk rather than mature people who take in the solid food of exposition.”
So one of their problems is that as believers they have not progressed to the maturity that God and the, uh, the author of this epistle feels that they should have attained. Now this leads to an obvious danger which has already been hinted at in the previous warning section.
Remember that we were told for example in chapter 3 that we are part of the house over which the Son presides if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm to the end. We are also told we have become partners with the Messiah if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end.
In verse 14 of chapter 4 we are exhorted to hold fast our profession. So already the writer is concerned with the fact that there is a danger that these Christian people will throw their Christian profession aside. That they will cast away this hope which is the basis on which they are proceeding to heirship in the kingdom of God.
So because they are immature people and because they do not have the requisite spiritual strength he is concerned about the possibility that they may retrogress. And, uh, in chapter 6:1-3 he warns them against retrogressing.
His terminology here is that they are not to lay again a foundation on which they would need to be taught the fundamental and basic doctrines of the Christian faith. If they throw their Christian faith overboard and were ever to come back to it they would have to, uh, learn these things or relearn these things all over again. He says, “Do not do this.”
And the reason you ought not to do it is as follows. And here comes the most famous portion of this warning section. Let us read it starting in verse 4.
For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened and have tasted the heavenly gift and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, if they fall away, to renew them again to repentance.
Now quite frankly despite the fact that there are many interpreters of the book of Hebrews who would like to feel that the people who are being warned here are mere professors of faith it would be hard to conceive of language that more emphatically asserted the fact that they were saved, that they had genuine spiritual experience.
After all they have been enlightened. He says they have become partakers of the Holy Spirit. They have tasted the good word of God, uh, and the powers of the age to come and so on. So I think it is almost an open-and-shut matter that the writer of the epistle regards the readers whom he warns as regenerate people.
It follows from this of course that we should not understand him to say, as many other interpreters have understood him to say, that if these people turn away or fall away in some way they lose their salvation. So there is the kind of, you have heard of Scylla and Charybdis, the whirlpool and the rocks. If you went too far to one side you fell into one. If you went too far the other side you fell into the other.
This is the theological Scylla and Charybdis, I would say. And if you are interpreting Hebrews you must not draw the improper conclusion that the people who are warned are unsaved. You must also not draw the improper conclusion that they are saved and could lose their salvation.
What does he really say about these people in this passage? He says that people of whom this can be said, these spiritual experiences can be ascribed to them, and who fall away, he says it is impossible to renew them to repentance. Think about that for a moment. It is impossible to renew them to repentance.
He does not say it is impossible for them to repent. When you renew somebody to repentance somebody else does the renewing, do they not? So it is impossible for someone or someones to renew these people to repentance.
Does this mean that God cannot do it? I think it is obvious to us that God could do it. What is this saying? And I want to submit to you that this is saying that humanly speaking there is no person, nobody in the Christian community, no preacher, no teacher who can persuade these people to turn back to God, who can in fact draw them back to repentance.
Does that mean that they can never possibly come to repentance? Not necessarily at all. Look at the following verses which are equally famous and equally often misapplied.
For the earth which drinks in the rain that often comes upon it and bears herbs useful for those by whom it is cultivated receives blessing from God. But if it bears thorns and briers, it is rejected and near to being cursed, whose end is to be burned.
All right? As soon as we hear about anything burning we are ready to jump into hell. Right? And this is not what is referred to here. What is referred to here is a very common agricultural practice which existed in the Greek or Roman world and still exists today.
And that is if you have a field that is all overgrown with the wrong kind of growth what you do is set fire to that growth on the field and you burn it off. And having burned off the unwanted growth the field can be reused.
I am going up to Oregon, uh, tomorrow from here. And on several occasions when I have been up in the particular area of Oregon where I am going they have pointed out to me fields that have been burned like this, burned off the growth of the field. It does not mean the field is permanently unusable. They intend to reuse it.
And what is suggested here, it seems to me, taking verses 4, uh, through 8 together, is this. That when a man has cast away his Christian profession, when he has turned his back on his Christian faith, that then there is nothing that you and I can do to renew that person to repentance. It is impossible for us to renew that person to repentance.
And that what that person has to look forward to is the fire of God’s discipline and judgment and chastisement. And the very nature of the illustration here suggests that it is at least conceivable that if the ground responds properly to the fire that burns off the unwanted growth it can be reused.
I do not accept the proposition that even though a Christian may indeed, uh, commit apostasy and turn away from his Christian faith that that automatically renders him unreachable by anybody including God. I certainly think this means it renders him unreachable by us. But God will have to deal with this person.
And it is conceivable that as a result of God’s, uh, chastening work in this person’s life the process can be reversed. I had a friend who worked with us many years ago in the, uh, church work in which I am currently engaged. He was headed for the mission field, uh, and, uh, when he graduated from seminary he decided to get a, uh, PhD degree. I think that was a mistake.
He had originally thought that he would go back to the place he came from and be a missionary. And in the process of gaining his degree he lost his faith. There were some personal factors, uh, also involved in that. And I remember that I went up to the university town where he was living. We were very close personal friends, the two of us.
And I remember, uh, sitting down with him in his living room and we talked about this. And he was, as he always had been with me, extremely courteous. But as far as I could tell he was totally impervious to anything I could say to him. And I later heard that in the classroom because he wound up teaching at the university, uh, that in the classroom he was hostile to Christianity.
But I knew at the point at which I had had fellowship with him and worked with him that he was a believer in Jesus Christ. I know that I will meet him in heaven. I have lost track of him so I do not know what his subsequent history is. But I remember I was emphatically impressed with what I would regard as the super hardness of this individual’s heart.
He was warm and friendly to me but God had been shut out and he pulled the shade down on God. And I think what is being suggested here in this passage is very simply that when a person turns away from their Christian faith you and I cannot turn them back. We cannot renew them to repentance.
And if it happens it will have to be the result of the judgment of God. Now in verses, uh, 9 to 12.
Yes.
“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.