Hebrews 2.end
Communion
August 4th 2013
Welcome.
Let’s pray.
On these tables to the side of me we have wine – fermented and non – and unleavened bread.
Prior to going to the cross, Jesus sat with his eleven disciples disciple’s and instituted communion – a sacrament to remember Him by when believers get together.
In our afternoon Meat gatherings (through Hebrews) we have been talking a lot about the “suffering savior” and according to Hebrews He designed Himself (before taking on flesh) to be the “captain of our salvation” through what the writer of Hebrews calls “the perfection of suffering.”
I do not think it is an accident that the elements Jesus chose to remember Him by are what they are – unleavened bread and wine.
Just as Jesus came down from His throne on High as God and took on a body of flesh – of dust taken right out of the earth – these elements come to us the very same way.
Wheat, sprouting from the earth.
Grapes, sprouting from the earth.
Both products of the dust of the ground.
And what do men do to these products of terra firma?
We take the wheat and grind it down to powder as a means to make bread.
And we take the grape – droplets of earth’s blood – and stomp them into a spilt red liquid. (Same thing we did to the Lamb of God, in essence).
So there, in the upper room, Jesus took these elements and broke them (and told them and us) to take, eat – this is His body. And then he took the cup and told them to drink it all down, that this was His blood.
As followers of the King, let’s do the very same thing in remembrance of Him . . . as a memorial to Him and His sacrifice on our behalf.
His sacrifice of love by condescending below all things and taking on flesh and blood, and His selfless sacrifice of the life and flesh He embodied – for us.
The elements HE instituted are here for the taking – if you believe on Him.
Come forward as you will – freely and of your own volition – in faith, gratitude, and remembrance of our Lord, and Savior, and King.
Music
Prayer and reflection
Alright, last week we talked about verse fourteen and fifteen of chapter 2 which say:
Hebrews 2:14 Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil;
15 And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.
In light of these passages we discussed the types of death Jesus overcame for us on the cross.
Some are of the opinion that it was only physical and some suggest it was both physical and spiritual.
Depending on where you stand your idea of how we are saved is established for if He ONLY overcame physical death than your spiritual sanctification is in your hands.
But if He overcame both spiritual and physical death we can say that our salvation lies entirely in His – that He did the perfect work, He is the author and finisher of our faith, and we – in faith – look to Him in all ways as we walk the Christian walk.
I would strongly suggest that Christ overcame both physical and spiritual death.
I reach this conclusion through a contextual view of all of the biblical story and passages like 2nd Timothy 1:10, which links the abolishment of death to immortality and life, saying:
“But is now made manifest by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.”
His feat in overcoming death is an eternal game changer which none of us can or will truly appreciate until we pass.
Some Scotsman once said:
“We picture death as coming to destroy; let us rather picture Christ as coming to save. We think of death as ending; let us rather think of life as beginning and that more abundantly. We think of losing; let us think of gaining. We think of parting, let us think of meeting. We think of going away; let us think of arriving. And as the voice of death whispers “You must go from earth,” let us hear the voice of Christ saying, “You are but coming to Me!” –
Now, whether you realize this or not, everything we have read from verse one of chapter one to the end of chapter two is the writer of Hebrews establishing for us:
The ontology of Christ
The supremacy of Christ
His amazing work of redemption by and through becoming flesh
So let’s finish up the chapter reading the last two verses and then, having the writer firmly establish his ground on those three points, let’s embark on chapter three.
Again, speaking of Jesus, the writer returns to the topic of Jesus and angels and says:
16 For verily he took not on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham.
17 Wherefore in all things it behooved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people.
18 For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succor them that are tempted.
Alright back to sixteen for a minute.
16 For verily he took not on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham.
Verily (truly) He took not on him the nature of angels.
That’s pretty point blank clear, eh. The discussion is settled – Jesus was not a heavenly angel but He took on the nature of Man who (listen) is a very different species than heavenly angels).
But the writer doesn’t just say that the Lord took on the Nature of Man but he wrote that He took on “the seed of Abraham.”
Because this letter was to Jews the writer takes the time to associate the Lord and His physical existence with a real man with a real history who they all respected and upheld and does so by saying Jesus was of his seed – the seed of a real huMAN being.
17 Wherefore, (or, as a result of Jesus coming in the form of a real man, the writer says) in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people.
As a result, Jesus, in all things “in His body, in His soul (His human mind, His human will; His human emotion) He was made like His brethren.
He partook on both a Jewish male nature AND the nature of all human beings.
Now, I have taught that Jesus was the only one who could have lived forever. My justification for this has always been that He was without sin therefore He was not subject to death.
I also support my stance with the fact that He said no man could take His life but that He willingly gave it instead – and was in a place to do so because of His purity and deity.
However, there is something that I have neglected to include in the formula –He was created (actually, He created Himself) completely in the form of Man.
Because of this He was subject to cell deterioration. His hair and nails grew, his skin sloughed off daily, He aged and matured, and when cut, He bled.
So I’m really unsure of how this plays out when it came to the physicality of our Lord and King.
Certainly, He never warranted death due to spiritual corruption through sin but being fashioned in all things as a Man, maybe death would have reigned over his flesh due to the fallen physical elements of
Life in skin and bones.
In any case, verse 17 says that it “behoved him,” in other words there was a proper reasons why our Lord assumed the total nature of us, His brethren
What was the reason?
The writer says, “That He might be a merciful and faithful high priest.”
We talked about this last week too – how our King got right into the mess of this world by taking on flesh and now serves to mediate between each of us and Holy God.
This “station of mediation” was pictured in the Old Testament by the Nation of Israel’s high priest.
A Jewish high priest was a successor of Aaron and served as the head of the ministers of religion among the Jews.
There was only one high priest at any given time.
He was set apart in these very solemn ceremonies which included his being washed with water, anointed with oil, and dressed in holy vestments (which were specifically constructed for his work in the temple ministry).
The parallel to Christ – our only and ultimate High Priest –is He was clothed in flesh, He was washed in preparation of His great work at the baptism of John the Baptist, and He too was anointed (not with oil) but with the Holy Spirit (which descended like a dove) and which was symbolized in the Old Testament by olive oil (like the olive oil used to consecrate the nations appointed high priest).
In his office the high priest of the Old Testament was the “general judge” of all that pertained to religion, and even over the judicial affairs of the Jewish nation.
So is Christ the one who will stand as judge and who, now (but especially during His millennial reign) will reside over the judicial affairs of the world.
Now the nation of Israel’s high Priest entered the “most holy place” or “the Holy of Holies” once a year, on the great day of expiation or atonement, and would put blood of a sacrificed animal on the alter or mercy seat as instructed in Leviticus 16.
He was also known as “the oracle of truth”so that when he was clothed in his proper vestments and having on the Urim and Thummim, he made known the will of God in regard to future events.
Of course the Lord became, in the Christian dispensation, what the Jewish high priest was in the old.
But even moreso, or in a number of “better” ways (which the writer of Hebrews will begin to point out.
Here in verse 16 the writer will use the term high priest for the first time but will return to using it seventeen times before the book is done.
Now, not only does the writer say Jesus is our high priest but he says by taking on flesh He has become a merciful and faithful high priest.
By merciful I suggest that he means that as a high priest who experienced what it is like to live in flesh he has compassion on you and me.
He understands not feeling well.
He understands our not having the physical strength to bear the loads assigned to us.
He understands what it’s like to be tempted, to be hated, to be ridiculed, to not have a place to rest our head, to be thirsty, to hunger, to die to His will in order to live for the Father’s.
He understands experiencing darkness in life, in what it means to walk by faith, what physical labor does to the body, what spiritual warfare does to the soul.
He understands sin – having paid for it on our behalf, and He completely understands the hearts of those who follow Him . . . and claim to follow Him.
And in this capacity He is a merciful, a compassionate mediator or high priest.
The writer also describes Him as a “faithful high priest.”
I mean, compare the two!
Old Testament temple High priest were men who, once a year, entered the Holy of Holy with the blood of animals in tow to cover the sins of a nation.
But our high priest entered in “once and for all, offered up His own shed blood, and now sits on the right hand of God day and night making intercession and offering rebuffs to Satan’s constant accusations against the brethren.
What a faithful, diligent high priest we have standing on our behalf.
I mean imagine that you are accused of a crime and let’s even say you are guilty of committing it.
And you learn that the most powerful and persuasive defense attorney on earth has asked to represent you in your defense.
There’s some comfort in that, right?
Take it out ten billion times further and realize that by your faith in this totally merciful and faithful high priest He has assigned Himself to defend you before the accuser of the brethren.
That’s comforting, eh?
It’s comforting because His defense of you is NOT predicated on your holiness.
Neither does He defend you because of your lineage, color, gender, or lifestyle.
He does not defend you because you are able to pay His retainer and because taking the case is going to bolster His standing in the courts on high.
He has NOT taken your case because you are innocent either. Don’t ever make the mistake in thinking that.
He’s taken it because you have trusted that He was born, took on flesh, was crucified on your behalf, died, and was resurrected.
. . . that He paid for your crimes, and because you believe He will perfectly perform what He has promised He would do for all who look to Him.
There is no possibility of being found guilty when we are represented by such a high priest, and this is the writers point.
“that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people.
The Nation of Israel’s high priest did things “pertaining to things of God” and in reconciling the sins of the people in and through His actions, so did Christ, except He did them once and for all.
What is interesting about this description of Christ the high priest is the original wording.
The writers point was not that Jesus was “just” making reconciliation between God and sinful man” like the high priest of the Old Testament would do, but that He was a merciful and faithful high priest – a better high priest – because He had taken on flesh and blood and actually became one of us.
This is the main point of the writers position – THIS high priest UNDERSTANDS us and our plight.
Trust this.
See, the Greek word used in the line, “to make reconciliation” is only used twice in the entire New Testament.
Once here, where Jesus is described as the High Priest who “mercifully reconciles” us to the Father, and then in Luke 18:13.
What is said in Luke 18:13?
It is the story of the Pharisee and the Publican standing in the temple.
First, Jesus says that the Pharisee stood and prayed this way:
“God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess.”
Then Jesus says
“And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, “God be merciful to me a sinner.”
The word here used in the line, “God, be merciful to me a sinner” is the same word the writer of Hebrews uses to describe the reconciliation Jesus makes on our behalf as our mediator– ilaskomai—meaning, His reconciliation of us is merciful, and it comes from the noun ilasmon – which means “propitiation”.
Ultimately, the word means that Christ’s propitiation of sin on our behalf is based upon MERCY.
And in conjunction with what is being said here in Hebrew this mercy is abundantly applied to us BECAUSE He has been where we are now.
Feel like life has hung you out to dry – He first hung thirsting on a cross.
Feel abandoned, without a friend in the world – He was abandoned and even betrayed by His own.
Feel the desire to exact revenge? So did He?
Tempted inordinately? As was our King.
And He gets it. He gets us. And (listen) because of OUR FAITH!!!!!!!!! He is not only defending us and our failures at every turn He is helping us through them.
(verse 18)
18 For in that He himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succor them that are tempted.
The word tempted here in that
“He himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succor them that are tempted.”
Is better understood as being tried or tested, (as in tempered by fire).
We read this and it sounds like tempted, you know, to look at porn or tempted to gossip, but its meaning is much more general, and it means He Himself suffered all these tests and trials so He is able to
sympathize with us when we are in the midst of them.
We cannot ever forget, as believers, that though He is on the throne, and though He sympathizes with anything and everything we might be subjected to as believers in this fallen world, that it does NOT mean we will always be delivered from every situation.
I cannot tell you how often I speak with believers find themselves impatiently waiting on God to move, or remove their trials and tests from before them.
Sometimes this occurs. Sometimes we experience miracles. But sometimes He will allow the painful experiences to remain . . . even for life . . . and even unto death.
Paul prayed and prayed to have his thorn removed . . . and it never was. Instead the Lord told Him, “My GRACE is sufficient for you.”
Amen. His grace is sufficient for all things.
And we must recall that Stephan was, while testifying of Christ, stoned to death, that all but one of the twelve suffered martyrdom, and that millions and millions of faithful believers have gone to their deaths clinging to His support, and to the faith that He is mindful of their plight.
But as Romans 14:8 says:
“Whether we live, we live unto the Lord; and whether we die, we die unto the Lord: whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord’s.”
And all of this leads us right into a significant and important conclusion the writer presents us.
We have the context right?
There is no doubt present that Jesus is the best, Jesus is present, and Jesus is working for all who are His.
There is no doubt about His make-up, His value, His unconditional mediation on the part of all who are His correct?
There exists no doubt that our salvation is predicated entirely on the fact that He came and took on flesh and did what none of us are capable of doing, right?
Good. Now, read with me chapter three, which we will begin to cover verse by verse next week.
Ready?
Hebrews 3:1 Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus;
2 Who was faithful to him that appointed him, as also Moses was faithful in all his house.
3 For this man was counted worthy of more glory than Moses, inasmuch as he who hath builded the house hath more honor than the house.
4 For every house is builded by some man; but he that built all things is God.
5 And Moses verily was faithful in all his house, as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken after;
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 unto the end.
7 Wherefore (as the Holy Ghost saith, To day if ye will hear his voice,
8 Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness:
9 When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my works forty years.
10 Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, They do alway err in their heart; and they have not known my ways.
11 So I sware in my wrath, They shall not enter into my rest.)
12 Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God.
13 But exhort one another daily, while it is called To day; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.
14 For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the end;
15 While it is said, To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation.
16 For some, when they had heard, did provoke: howbeit not all that came out of Egypt by Moses.
17 But with whom was he grieved forty years? was it not with them that had sinned, whose carcases fell in the wilderness?
18 And to whom sware he that they should not enter into his rest, but to them that believed not?
19 So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief.
These passages have been justified and rationalized in every way you can imagine in an effort by people to make them say what they are not saying.
People have said they were written to the Jews only, and therefore no gentile convert could take them seriously.
People have said that they are given by way of encouragement, that they don’t mean what they say but are merely the writers attempt to get the Hebrew reader to stay the course.
But I would strongly suggest, even in the presence of such a thick fog of once saved always saved rhetoric hovering over the church, that the passages mean exactly what they say, that they are meant not only for the Jewish reader but also for believing Christians, and that they are not meant to encourage but to warn.
These will not be the first passages in our study of Hebrew that will challenge the Calvinistic teaching of Perseverance of the Saints.
There are at least three more headed our way in the Book of Hebrews which are as much of an indictment of the teaching as Chapter three.
But we cannot lose sight of what saves us in the first place (His grace received by faith) and that it is this very same principle that keeps us in Him.
Not works of righteousness.
Not holiness by perfection of the flesh.
Not sweat, tears, blood, money or time.
Grace by faith.
Additionally, chapter three (and those to come) represent a sound wall of resistance to the five points established to encapsulate and present Jean Calvin’s total teachings.
The five points are certainly not exhaustive nor are they even authored by Calvin himself, but most true Calvinists refer to the five points without much of a problem.
As somewhat of a pre-emptive strike against the Calvinistic mindset, let me wrap today up by introducing to you another acronym I believe is biblically based and refutes (while rewriting) the Five Points represented by the initials T.U.L.I.P. or Tulip.
The first point that summarizes Calvinism
is T, which stands for total depravity.
Essentially it means what it says: Human beings from the fall are unable to choose God. We are so-spiritually depraved that there is nothing in us that would ever choose God or His ways.
In my refutation of the Tulip, I come closest to agreeing with Calvin on this point.
But I would suggest there is a subtle difference which will become apparent in a minute.
So where Calvin says humankind is totally depraved and unable to choose anything about God, I would suggest that due to the Fall humankind naturally possesses an Indifferent nature toward the things of God.
We are self absorbed, self-directed, and ego centric. As such, no human being would ever choose, of their own will and nature, God or the true things of God.
Where Calvin says T (Total Depravity) I would suggest and I for (Indifferent Nature).
Because Man is so depraved toward the things of God in Calvinism, the next point in the TULIP is the U which stands for “unconditional election.”
This means humans CANNOT choose the things of God so God elects them to be His, according to His will, and not according to anything they have done or merited.
A natural result of this position is God also chooses to NOT elect others (no matter what they do) and therefore by His good pleasure they were created, in effect, for hell.
I would respond that because human beings are indifferent toward Him, God has chosen to make Himself known to all – in a variety of different ways.
Without Him taking these steps to reveal Himself no person would ever rise above their natural indifference toward Him and choose Him on their own.
Because He has revealed Himself in these ways every human being is in a position to choose to hear or see or respond to His ubiquitous calls – or to reject them.
Where Calvin calls this God’s Unconditional Election (and notes it with the capital U) I would say that there is a Conditional Election and mark it with a C.
In other words, God’s calls are to all people and our election is predicated on our the condition of our choosing to hear, see, and believe.
That some will choose election and some won’t was completely foreknown by God prior to creating us.
Because man is totally depraved and God therefore has to elect those who will be His unconditionally, Calvinists then maintain that Jesus only atoned for the sins of the elect. This premise is noted by the L in the tulip and stands for limited atonement.
I would suggest that the Bible teaches that Jesus atoned for the sins of the whole world and therefore say it is an Unlimited Atonement.
Thus far we have the TUL of the tulip
And an ICU of what will become the ICURP.
The I in tulip stands for irresistible grace and means that once God elects you, and Jesus atones for you, you cannot resist His election – it is irresistible.
I believe chapters like Hebrews three say otherwise and differ with irresistible grace by claiming His calls are completely resistible and mark it with an R.
Finally, Calvinism says that because God does the electing, and it is irresistible, there is no falling from grace – once saved always saved is the rule and it is represented by the P in Tulip, which stands for Perseverance of the Saints.
I would also use a P for the last letter of the ICURP but suggest the biblical presentation is Perseverance of the Faithfilled.
That we are saved by grace through FAITH, and that we are retained by Grace through . . . Faith.
We’ll get more into this next week with chapter three.
Questions.
Prayer.
Thursday nights postponed.
Song
