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JUST JESUS The Book of Hebrews Lesson Seventeen T EXT Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another-- and all the more as you see the Day approaching. If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God. Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God under foot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace? For we know him who said, "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," and again, "The Lord will judge his people." It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Remember those earlier days after you had received the light, when you stood your ground in a great contest in the face of suffering. Sometimes you were publicly exposed to insult and persecution; at other times you stood side by side with those who were so treated. You sympathized with those in prison and joyfully accepted the confiscation of your property, because you knew that you yourselves had better and lasting possessions. So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised. For in just a very little while, "He who is coming will come and will not delay. But my righteous one will live by faith. And if he shrinks back, I will not be pleased with him." But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who believe and are saved. Hebrews 10:19-39 C ONTEXT The Letter to the Hebrews isn t actually a letter at all, but a 1 st century sermon that was written and sent to a small house church, probably in the city of Rome following the increased Hebrews, L17 (10:19-39) p. 1

persecution of 65 A.D. under Nero. The recipients were likely Roman Jews who had become Christians, and the author knew them personally. Hebrews 1:1-2:18 God spoke in various ways to our fathers through the prophets, but now he has spoken his final word to us in his Son, his perfect representative. The Son of God is his agent not only in creation and revelation, but also and pre-eminently in the salvation of the human race. He is greater than any prophet; he is greater even than the angels, as the ancient scriptures abundantly testify. It was through angels that Moses law was communicated, and its sanctions were severe enough; how much more perilous must it be to ignore the saving message brought by no angel, but by Jesus, the Son of God! Jesus, the Son of God, is the one to whom the dominion of the world has been committed for all time to come. As the eighth psalm teaches us, God has put everything under the dominion of human beings, and it was the nature of humans our nature that the Son of God took upon himself in order to win back this dominion. To do this he had to conquer the devil who had usurped it, and rescue those whom he held in bondage; and he conquered the devil when in death he invaded the realm of death, which the devil had controlled until then. It is because Jesus is truly Man, moreover, that he is qualified to serve as high priest on his people s behalf; he knows all their trials from his own experiences and therefore can give them the timely help they need. Hebrews 3:1-4:14 But let us beware: those who rebelled against God in the days of the wilderness wanderings were excluded from his rest in the promised land. There is, however, a better rest than that which the Israelites found in Canaan; it is the rest which awaits the people of God. We must take care not to forfeit that rest by rebelling against God, when he speaks to us no longer through his servant Moses, as he did in those days, but through his Son, one greater than Moses. Hebrews 4:15-6:20 As has already been said, Jesus is our great high priest, able to sympathize with his people and help them. We may safely look for understanding and delivering grace to the one who endured the agony of Gethsemane. He has been called to his high-priestly office by God himself, as an inspired oracle makes clear: The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind, You are a priest for ever, after the order of Melchizedek. (I should like to enlarge on this subject, but really I do not know if I can; you are so spiritually immature. I must warn you solemnly that those who have once been baptized and tasted the blessings of the new age can never repeat the experience of repentance and conversion if they commit apostasy. Not that I think you actually mean to be apostates; I have better hopes of you than that. I want you rather to press on from the point you have reached, so as to attain full maturity, instead of sticking there, or slipping back.) Hebrews 7:1-28 Jesus, then, is by divine appointment a high priest of Melchizedek s order. You remember the story of Melchizedek, priest of God Most High. He appears suddenly in the sacred record, without antecedents, and nothing is said of his subsequent career. Yet he was a very great man; our father Abraham paid him tithes and received his blessing. You might even say that Levi, ancestor of the priestly families of Israel, paid Melchizedek tithes in the person of his great-grandfather Abraham. This implies that Melchizedek is greater than Levi, and Melchizedek s priesthood better than Aaron s. And indeed that is obvious, for if perfect access to God had been attainable under the Aaronic priesthood, why should God have acclaimed the Messiah as priest of a different order? In many ways Jesus priesthood after Melchizedek s order is superior to Aaron s priesthood. Jesus, unlike Aaron and his successors, was confirmed in office by the oath of God. Jesus is immortal, whereas the priests of Aaron s line die one by one. Jesus is sinless, whereas the priests of Aaron s line have to present a sin offering for their own cleansing before they can present one for the people. Their sacrificial service must constantly be repeated because it is never truly effective; Jesus, by the single sacrifice of himself, put away his people s sin forever. Hebrews 8:1-10:18 The Aaronic priests minister under the old covenant instituted at Mount Sinai; Jesus is the Mediator of the new covenant the covenant whose inauguration Jeremiah foretold. The introduction of a new covenant means that the former one is obsolet e. The old covenant made provision for the removal of external pollution by means of animal sacrifices and similar rites, but these things could never remove sin; under the new covenant Jesus, by yielding up his life to God as an acceptable and efficacious sacrifice, cleanses the conscience from guilt and thus abolishes the barrier between his people and God. The Aaronic priests minister in an earthly sanctuary belonging to the old order, where access to the divine presence is barred by a curtain; Jesus exercises his high priesthood in the heavenly sanctuary, where there is no such barrier between the worshipers and God. And this heavenly sanctuary in which direct access to God is accorded through Jesus is that spiritual and eternal order of which the earthly sanctuary is only a temporary and inadequate copy. For the new order into which Christ brings his people is to the old Levitical order as substance to shadow. Summations from F.F. Bruce, Hebrews, pp. xix-xxii S UBTEXT Having presented God s Son, Jesus, to us as our high priest and our sacrifice who has ratified the new covenant (7:1-10:18) the author now presents the required response for those who have put faith in God s Son an intimate, steadfast, other-centered relationship with God and his people. In a very real sense this is the very heart of the sermon seeing clearly and applying in our lifestyles the tremendous benefits that the supreme, sympathetic, brotherly, faithful Son of God offers to us on the basis of his atoning work. Hebrews, L17 (10:19-39) p. 2

Lane points out that 10:10-30 also parallels another famous passage in Hebrews, 5:11-6:12. He cites the following structural elements (Lane p. 138): 5:11-6:12 10:10-39 5:11-6:3 Reminder of the actual situation of the community 10:19-25 6:4-8 Warning against apostasy 10:26-31 6:9-10 Encouragement based on their past performance 10:32-34 6:11-12 Appeal focused on the future 10:35-39 Each passage however has an unique function. 5:11ff prepares the audience to hear the great truths about Christ as our high priest and sacrifice, whereas 10:10ff applies these truths to the lives of the audience. If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God. Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God under foot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace? For we know him who said, "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," and again, "The Lord will judge his people." It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. We again come to a stern warning about the dangers of apostasy. Recall from 6:3ff that to commit apostasy is to intentionally, with full knowledge, display distain for the work of God in Christ to accomplish our salvation. One simply cannot accidentally deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth. In this sense, no one who is trying to follow Christ is overcome and then deliberately keeps on sinning. This passage isn t speaking to someone who is weak, or in difficult circumstances or who faces doubts that God could really save someone as wretched as themselves and thus they are in danger of committing apostasy. To deliberately (willfully, intentionally, voluntarily) keep on sinning means that one stands up and looks God squarely in the eye and says, Liar! What you say is not true about my sin and Christ s death and resurrection. I reject it. How can we say this with such certainty? How can we specifically know, with full confidence, that when our author warns us against deliberately continuing to sin after we have knowledge of the truth, that he doesn t have in view sins such as sexual immorality, anger or lying? The answer is because in he tells us what it means to deliberately keep on sinning in verse 29: How much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God under foot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace? The vocabulary is both intense and expressive. To trample under foot is a very literal translation of katapateo (καταπτεω; κατα down on, come down upon; πατεω to walk, to walk around). It means to trample or stomp upon. The word indicates treating something with the utmost contempt. The phrase has treated as an unholy thing means to treat something as common, profane. It is the exact opposite something being holy, or set apart by God for his purposes. Finally the phrase who has insulted the Spirit of grace means to treat with utter contempt, to arrogantly insult. To do these things, to stomp on Christ as if he were a piece of trash, to treat the covenant blood of the Lamb of God as if it were no better, not different the blood of the most common criminal executed by Rome, to contemptuously insult the Holy Spirit, results inevitable punishment. Our author gives us two reasons for this most severe of punishments. First, no sacrifice for sins is left. It is not that these sins are so bad so as to be unforgivable, but rather they by their very nature reject the only remedy that can be applied to any sin, the sacrifice of Christ. The only thing that offers adequate payment, the sacrificial death of our great high priest on our behalf, is the one thing that is patently rejected. The second reason for such a severe punishment rests on theological common sense, Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punished who (commits apostasy). If rejection of the inferior, Old Covenant resulted in death without mercy, how much more so is one deserving of death if they reject the New Covenant God s divine plan of salvation, delivered by Son, which is bigger, better and more complete than the Old, and which is put into effect through the high priestly min istry and sacrifice of Christ himself. If you couldn t get away with rejecting, despising and treating with contempt the inferior Hebrews, L17 (10:19-39) p. 3

Old Covenant, the one that was merely a shadow of the good things to come, how could anyone expect to escape even more severe judgment for rejecting the New Covenant which was instituted at such an infinitely high price? God s love for his people remains a holy and just love. It cannot excuse a rejection of the divine provisions of forgiveness. Thus It is mine to avenge; I will repay," and again, "The Lord will judge his people." It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Remember those earlier days after you had received the light, when you stood your ground in a great contest in the face of suffering. Sometimes you were publicly exposed to insult and persecution; at other times you stood side by side with those who were so treated. You sympathized with those in prison and joyfully accepted the confiscation of your property, because you knew that you yourselves had better and lasting possessions. Again as in 6:9-10 the author next offers encouragement based on their past performance. The author does not think that this his audience has committed this sin of apostasy. The if in v. 26 is true first class conditional clause; it really means that this is a possibility, but it is not a certainty. The Hebrews have not yet plunged over the cliff but some of their number are on a path that will sooner or later lead them there (specifically those who had given up meeting together for worship). In contrast to this dangerous hesitancy, the author urges them to recall their earlier walk with Christ. As a community they: stood your ground in a great contest in the face of suffering. were publicly exposed to insult and persecution; other times you stood side by side with those who were so treated. Like their own sympathetic high priest you sympathized with those in prison joyfully accepted the confiscation of your property, These are not the marks of a church that is immature or able to claim the excuse that they didn t know what it would be like to follow Christ in a hostile world. They are not people unacquainted with suffering for the sake of the kingdom, or people who had no history of seeing God s provision and protection in the midst of difficult times. Rather because you knew that you yourselves had better and lasting possessions as a church they staid faithful in the midst of suffering, continued to witness even though it meant public ridicule, supported those in prison even if it then marked themselves out as Christians and joyfully gave over their worldly possessions rather than back away from their Christianity. This strain of better and lasting possessions will be taken up in chapter 11 when we consider the history of God s people in the Faith Hall of Fame. So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised. For in just a very little while, "He who is coming will come and will not delay. But my righteous one will live by faith. And if he shrinks back, I will not be pleased with him." But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who believe and are saved. The author concludes this section of warning with an appeal focused on the future. Again, the main charge of apostasy must be kept in mind. The author is not exhorting his congregation to be A+ Christians or face judgment, but rather to continue to believe that they have a sympathetic and faithful high priest who has made and end to all of their sins through the offering of himself. This confidence, that salvation is needed and real will be richly rewarded, because salvation is itself the reward. The need to persevere is a sine qua non feature of being a disciple of Christ. One can t be a disciple in the past tense. Hebrews, L17 (10:19-39) p. 4

Again this assurance is rooted in God s promise and his abilities, "He who is coming will come and will not delay. But my righteous one will live by faith. And if he shrinks back, I will not be pleased with him." To shrink back to explicitly reject the idea that God has promises for us and that he his able and willing to carry them out. In contrast to those people who appear to have begun the journey of faith, but who then turn their backs on Christ, the author is confident that he and his congregation have genuine ongoing faith that culminates in ultimate salvation. W HERE HERE D O WE GO F ROM ROM HERE How has your understanding of Christ s work for you impacted the way you view: the dignity and majesty of God s plan of redemption. your understanding of the intimate, ongoing relationship with God it makes possible. your relationship with other people. In light of what is happening at NPC, where do you sense God calling you into a deeper sense of sacrifice for the sake of his kingdom (even if it doesn t result in persecution). Hebrews, L17 (10:19-39) p. 5