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Hebrews |
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| Chapter 1 | Prayer | Devotional | Chapter 8 | Prayer | Devotional | |
| Chapter 2 | Prayer | Devotional | Chapter 9 | Prayer | Devotional | |
| Chapter 3 | Prayer | Devotional | Chapter 10 | Prayer | Devotional | |
| Chapter 4 | Prayer | Devotional | Chapter 11 | Prayer | Devotional | |
| Chapter 5 | Prayer | Devotional | Chapter 12 | Prayer | Devotional | |
| Chapter 6 | Prayer | Devotional | Chapter 13 | Prayer | Devotional | |
| Chapter 7 | Prayer | Devotional |
Prayers
Lord God, Your Son is the Word of creation, providence, and redemption. He has spoken to us through His life, through His teaching, and through the apostolic gospel. He is greater than the angels, those glorious creatures You made to be ministering spirits for the sake of men. Though Your Son is far above men, in His lowliness He became a man in order to redeem us.
Our Father, help us to pay close attention to Your Word. From the sanctions of the Old Covenant it was clear that obedience to Your Law was a serious duty. How much more serious is the gospel, as the very Word of Your Son! You have put everything in subjection under the feet of Jesus Christ. He was made lower than the angels for a little while in order to face the suffering of death. Now He has been highly exalted forever. We are the children of the age to come who have been redeemed by the blood of Christ. He is our merciful and faithful High Priest. He made propitiation for our sins, and is able to help us through every temptation.
Our God in heaven, Jesus the Messiah is the builder of Your holy temple. He is superior to Moses, for He is faithful over Your house as a Son. We will not harden our hearts against Him. We will hear His voice in the Scriptures, and enter into His rest. Keep far from us the deceitfulness of sin. We do not want to fall because of unbelief. Fill us with faith and joy by the power of Christ at work within us.
Glorious Father, we have received the good news of Christ in the depths of our hearts, and we have entered into Your rest. While there remains yet a coming Sabbath rest for Your people, even today we rejoice in the rest that has come to us through Jesus. If we will be filled with faith as a gift from You, surely we will follow in the way of faith with godly obedience. We thank You that our great High Priest is able to sympathize with us in our weakness. Through Him we draw near to You with the full assurance of Your love and care for Your children.
Merciful Lord, the priests of the Old Covenant had to offer sacrifices for their own sins. Our High Priest Jesus Christ has no sin. His sacrifice was for us. He is a new kind of priest. He lives forever. Through Him we receive the Word of truth. Grant that we will now move on to greater Christian maturity through the message that we have eagerly received.
Father, we are often stuck in the most elementary truths of the faith, as if unwilling to grow in knowledge, grace, and assurance. How could we thus turn away from Christ who calls us forward to a more godly maturity? We do not want to be lazy anymore in the matter of true Christian growth. Help us to have a steadfast earnestness about our life of faith and patience. You have given us the most secure promise, since You have sworn by Yourself. It is impossible for You to lie. Your promise to Your children is sure. We have a firm hope as an anchor for our souls in Your sanctuary above. How can we doubt Your Word or abandon Your instruction? Empower us in Your service, we pray.
Great King of Righteousness, in Jesus Christ we have perfect holiness and peace. He is Your Son forever, and our great Mediator. He is superior to every hero of the Bible. No one else could have attained the blessings of perfection for Your people. He has become our Priest not by legal descent from Aaron, but through Your special provision and by Your solemn oath. He is a Priest forever. Your eternal Son is completely unstained. He gave Himself on the cross as a sacrifice once for all time. There is nothing lacking in His life, and there is nothing missing from His death and resurrection.
Our Father, thank You for our great High Priest. He is at Your right Hand in the heavenly sanctuary. What a wonderful gift to have a Friend in the seat of highest power! He is the Mediator of a New Covenant. He established this covenant with His own obedience. We thank You that You have put Your laws into our hearts and minds. We thank You that You have sent to us the Heavenly Teacher, the Holy Spirit. Fill us with this same Teacher even now, that we would delight in the truth of Your Word and follow You.
Lord God, You have given us a new way of worship that is different from the ceremonies of the Old Covenant. This is Your good pleasure. No longer do we have the ark of the covenant or the old festivals and sacrifices. Our High Priest has entered into the Holy Place in the heavens. You have sent forth the great gift of Your Holy Spirit, purifying our consciences from the dead works of false religion and sin, that we might serve You in resurrection life. We have a great eternal inheritance. Our position in the life to come is secure through the blood of Jesus Christ. No longer do we have only a picture of heaven in our worship. We have a participation in worship above even now in Christ, our Lord. We are in Him. What can this mean, O Lord God? We live here now and then we die. What is the life that we have beyond death? What will our future state be like when Your Son returns? Come Lord Jesus, and save those who are eager for Your appearing. Though we do not understand heavenly things very well, our hearts are longing for You.
Father God, we have a better way to You than the Law could ever have provided. The blood of Christ has actually taken away the stain of our sin. He came to do Your will. He provided the perfect righteousness necessary for us to be in Your presence forever. We have been sanctified by the one final sacrifice of the Lamb of God. He is now exalted forever. He reigns at Your right hand. Nothing can stop You, O Lord. You are God. You have promised that You will remember our lawless deeds no more. We have confidence to enter into the heavenly sanctuary through Christ even now. We have boldness in our confession of faith and in our petitions before you day by day. We will not forsake Your church. We will not spurn the Son of God. We will not outrage the Holy Spirit. We will worship You forever, O God. We will love Your people. We will not throw away our confidence. Please forgive us when we stumble. Grant us a perfect endurance, so that we will live by faith.
Sovereign Lord, what does it mean for us to live by faith? How can we live based on those things that are unseen? Convince our hearts about the reality of Your existence and the certainty of all Your great promises. Thank You for the people of faith that You have given to us in the history of salvation. We look forward to the city that You have promised. We live our lives here as those who are yet away from home. We will not be satisfied with any country here below. We want our homeland, for we are Your people. Help us to speak words of blessing to others based on the faith that we have in the truth that You have announced in Your Word. Make us willing to even suffer now, for we look for the reward that will be revealed at just the right time. Our lives ahead of us here below are largely unknown to us. We trust You through it all. We look to the day of certainty beyond this age of questioning. You will reveal the sons of God at just the right time as You have promised. Until that new day dawns, we will live by faith.
Lord God, if we follow in the way of faith, we must set aside the entanglements of sin by Your grace and look to Jesus Christ moment by moment. We are Your children. We are disciplined by You because we are loved by You. We trust that You are working out good things in us, that we might somehow share in Your holiness. We will not be discouraged today, because Your promises and love are secure in Christ. We turn away from all bitterness and immorality. We will be accepted in the Beloved One who is at Your right hand in the Zion that is above. We look to You, O God. We long to be in the company of men and angels in the presence of Jesus Christ. We absolutely will not refuse You. We are afraid to make such a bold pledge, but we are convinced that we must, and that Your strength is enough to help us in our obvious weakness. You are speaking to us clearly by Your Word. We will not refuse You. Give us more grace to keep our pledge. Forgive us again and again through Christ and restore us to Your fellowship when we foolishly wander away.
Merciful Lord, we thank You for the grace that You give us. Help us to be merciful to others. Move us far from every immoral impulse and action. Be our Helper always and grant us courage in every struggle. Your Son is with us, and He is the same forever. Help us to go where He goes – to suffer outside the camp, and to bear the reproach that He endured. We will not run away from His church. We will profess together His glorious Name and live in generous love. Help our leaders in the church that they might be faithful in serving You in the midst of special troubles and temptations. Equip us with everything that we need that we might be holy, even in the day of the greatest strife and persecution. Grant us the grace that can only come from You.
Devotionals
The author of this earnest and theologically rich epistle is unknown to the church. Perhaps that is as it should be, given that the unusual verses that introduce this letter focus so emphatically on Jesus Christ, the Son of God, as the final Word for the people of God. The author used by God to write this inspired revelation that would become a part of the New Testament is not as important to us as the One he writes about, who is the very radiance of the glory of God. Jesus is the Son of God to whom we must look in the day of persecution, that we might live the life of faith. The structure of the opening two verses of the book in the original Greek is worth our attention.
Verse 1 - A: Many parts and many ways, B: of old, C: God spoke, D: to the fathers, E: in the prophets.
Verse 2 - A: - Missing – There is no echo of “many parts and many ways,” B: in these last days (echoing “of old”), C: He spoke (echoing “God spoke”), D: to us (echoing “to the fathers”), E: in a son (echoing “in the prophets”).
But where is the echo of “many parts and many ways?” The Old Testament Word in the Hebrew Scriptures came to us little by little and in various ways. In Genesis 3:14-15, the center of the account of the Fall, God revealed the whole story of redemption, but in seed form. Little by little He told His people more. He did this through men like Hosea and Ezekiel who not only spoke His word, but who also lived out the parable of His love and justice before their eyes. But who is this Son of God who speaks, first on earth, and then from heaven, and who can add to the story of God once the Son has spoken? He is “the heir of all things” and the One “through whom also He created the ages,” the Alpha and the Omega, “the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature.” He is the God of creation and providence, for He “upholds the universe by the word of His power.” His coming is the supreme revelation of God, and His being and works are the center of both the Old Testament, spoken to the fathers in the prophets, and the New Testament, spoken to the New Covenant community of Jews and Gentiles who believed in Him and called upon His Name.
If this seems to place Jesus and His gospel too high, let your heart be persuaded by the message of the Hebrew Scriptures that Jesus is the Lord, our God, and that by His cross, the One who is at the right hand of the Father made “purification for sins.” By these Old Testament verses, it should be obvious that He is far superior to anything in all of creation, even the angels, who while they are powerful and impressive are actually servants to the heirs of salvation, both on earth and even in heaven, that place where so many of the Lord's servants now live. Be impressed then that God was talking about Jesus in Psalm 2 when He said, “You are My Son, today I have begotten You.” When God was speaking to David about a promised everlasting King, He was talking about Jesus, David's son, but also David's Lord, since God had said, “I will be to him a father,and he shall be to me a son.” He is not a super-angel, but the God with God who is worshiped by angels. He is the great divine King of Psalm 45. It was this Son who is called “God” in that enthronement song, and who was anointed by God His God with the oil of gladness, the Holy Spirit, beyond His companions. He is the Yahweh, Jehovah, Adonai, LORD, of Psalm 102 who made the heavens and the earth, and who forever remains as all of creation is renewed at His command. He is the amazing Lord of Psalm 110 who hears these words from His Father, “Sit at My right hand until I make Your enemies a footstool for your feet.” This great divine and human Prophet, Priest and King has come. He is the Final Word, and that Word has been spoken. We need no other Word to add anything to Him. Even the New Testament Word is His speech from heaven, yet it is not an utterly new idea, but the inspired interpretation of an old and good Word that came to God's people little by little and in various ways, and has now been fulfilled before us in the Son of God. If we must suffer for this great Word of God who suffered and died for us, this is our privilege and our calling. To shrink back from Him is a mistake.
To walk in faith together as His followers is both our destiny and our delight.
Christians in the first century who were facing persecution from both Jews and Gentiles had to battle against the temptation of giving up on public worship. Public worship has always been a testimony to the world. To attend that gathering, to pray together and sing songs to God, to listen submissively to His Word, and particularly to eat at the table of the Lord is to proclaim a serious message: “Christ died for sinners, and I am in that number.” It has always been an extreme action. Together the church says that there is a heaven, that heaven's King has come, and that He is not content with things as they are. Public worship of the God of Israel through Jesus Christ says that I am in that people that believe in and follow the Lord of salvation.
If following Him becomes dangerous it is tempting to think that we can hold to these kinds of beliefs privately without having to actually go to a place of assembly where our testimony will be public. Particularly for those first century Jews and Godfearing Gentiles who had left their synagogues in order to associate with those who believed that Jesus was the Jewish Messiah and had faced persecution for that decision, it must have been tempting to think that they could neglect the message of Christ, at least publicly, and yet be a part of the people of salvation in their hearts without facing the danger of a bolder testimony of worship in a Christian assembly.
The author of Hebrews wanted those who faced that kind of temptation to know that the New Covenant Word was not less serious than the Old Testament Law. If we need to compare, it is more serious to walk away from the assembly of Jesus. To ignore the church is to walk away from the Son of God, the final Word from heaven. How shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? That Word was first delivered from the Son of God Himself during His earthly ministry. It was then completed by the Son's declaration from heaven through the first century apostles and prophets. Even today, Jesus speaks through His preachers the same final Word that He spoke back in the days when the New Testament letters were being composed and read in the churches and when that Word was accompanied by miraculous signs that testified to this new period of revelation from heaven.
It may help us to comprehend the seriousness of the Word of Christ if we see Him as the key to a new world. There are two worlds of which we can speak. The first is Adam's world, and we live in it, but we are not of it. We give the testimony of public worship and sanctified living in Adam's world, and there we may face persecution. There is also a world to come, where Jesus already is together with his holy angels and redeemed humans who have finished their race here below. It is this second world of which the author of this letter writes, calling it “the world to come, of which we are speaking.” Quoting Psalm 8, he says this psalm can be read in terms of Adam's world, which is perishing, or it can be read in terms of the world of Jesus, which is a world of life. Jesus was made a little lower than the angels, coming into the present world in order to establish the next world in His worshiping church.
God put everything in Adam's world under Adam in the beginning, There Adam sinned for us, and all fell in Him. But now God has put everything in the world to come, Jesus' world, under Jesus' feet, though we do not yet see everything in subjection to Him. But what do we see? We see Jesus, His suffering for us for a little while, and His exaltation to the highest heaven. Why did He come to Adam's world? It was necessary that He taste death for everyone in the new world that is coming into being. Jesus came to die for us. The pathway back to heavenly glory for the King of the kingdom was through suffering.
According to Psalm 22, that psalm that Jesus quoted from the cross, we are the brothers of the One who is the Founder of our salvation. We are the sons of God who have put our trust in Jesus, the only begotten Son of the Father.
He shared in our flesh and blood in order to rescue us out of Adam's world with His death. We were under the power of the evil one, but Jesus has destroyed that kingdom through His victory on the cross. Now we are free from the bondage of the fear of death, a death that would once have only led to the Lord's righteous judgment against us. God has helped us in Christ. Death has already lost its sting.
Through faith in Christ, Jews and Gentiles have together become the chosen seed of God, the offspring of Abraham. He who is our great Prophet as the final Word and our matchless King over God's new kingdom world is also our great High Priest who offered Himself up to God as a propitiation for the people, a sacrifice that has turned away the wrath of God for us. He knows what it is to suffer on the pathway to glory. He is our perfect Helper now, encouraging us in the faithful testimony of worship. We are the assembly of those who publicly place our trust in Him. He is our very powerful brother who preserves us in the Name of God. Let us not give in when we are tempted to turn away from Him and His people in a day of persecution.
There certainly may have been people in the first century who wondered whether Jesus was above the heavenly angels in His power and wisdom, but there were surely many Jews (and even Gentiles) who knew more about about Moses and the Law of Moses than they did about angels. Certainly many of them were convinced that it was a more serious offense against God to violate the Law of Moses (and even the traditions that had built up over time around that Law) than to violate the grace of Jesus Christ. But is this true? In Hebrews, God addresses this important practical issue, practical for those who had once worshiped in synagogues, but who now were part of Christian assemblies worshiping Yahweh through Jesus the Messiah.
Moses was a savior figure, but he was not the Messiah. He was called to bring the people out of the land of bondage and to bring them into the land of promise. As great a man as he was, he was not even ultimately permitted to bring the people across the Jordan into Canaan. He could only see that land from afar. But when Moses left this world, he was taken by God to heaven, the real land of promise.
Jesus is the Apostle and High Priest who we profess. He alone has brought us securely to heaven. The calling of Jesus was above the calling of Moses. Moses was faithful, but Jesus lacked nothing in the complete perfection of all His great faithfulness. Jesus is higher than Moses in His glory. He is the builder of the new kingdom, His own temple house, which is a house made up of people, a body of which He is the head. He has more honor than the house that He built, since the house derives all of its honor and glory from Him. Moses is a part of the body of Christ, the living house of God. He is not the head of the body; he is not the cornerstone of the living temple. Jesus is the Man at the head of His house, but He is also the divine Builder of His new world. He went to heaven to prepare a place for you. Moses is the servant in God's house, but Jesus is the Prince, the Son of God over everyone in the house. We who believe, who hold fast our confidence in the midst of persecution, who cling to the promise of heaven as our hope and Christ as our boast, we are the Lord's visible holy temple on earth, His church.
Jesus says in another place, “In this world you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” This world is a place, and today is a day, when we need to hear the voice of God calling us to a life of faith. Psalm 19 tells us that the voice of God shouts of His glory in the pathway of the sun every day, from its rising to its setting. It is like the greatest bridegroom pursuing His glorious bride. The voice of God also speaks to us in His written Word, showing us the truth of God, His Law, and His heavenly promise. We need to hear Him both in nature and in the holy oracles of our religion. We need to believe Him and obey Him. Psalm 95 begins with this call to worship, but it also includes an important warning. The first generation in the wilderness did not entirely worship and live in faith, and we are told that God was not pleased with that generation. Even Moses fell short of the Law that has come to bear his name.
Yet by God's grace and truth, a Man came who secured a place for Moses in a better land than Israel. On the strength of Christ's sure achievement of the task set before Him, even Moses was brought by Jesus to that higher place long before the Son of God was born of Mary.
Though our eternal position in the Son of God is sure for all who call upon His Name, and though the election of God can never be thwarted, yet there is a way of living that makes sense for people resting on Christ and there is a way of unbelief that does not make sense for us. Why should we live as those who have no faith? Holy is as holy does; and yet God gives more grace.
As the land of Israel was for the people of Moses, the assembly of the worshiping church is for the people of Jesus Christ. As it should have been a horrifying thought for Moses and the generation that died in the wilderness to be cut off from the Lord's nation in their day, it should be a repulsive idea for us to break fellowship with the Lord's church on earth.
Sin is deceitful. A man can be led by sin to reject the wife of his youth and to break covenant with her bringing misery upon himself and many others. There can be forgiveness and even heaven for such a man who believes and mourns and even a foolish man can be saved, but foolishness in the pursuit of evil is nowhere recommended as the continuing pathway of life. It is in the worshiping assembly of Jesus that we travel together through this wilderness to the Promised Land above. Together we hear His voice. We must not harden our hearts. We want to walk in the ways of heaven now. We have only this one life here in the land of mortality, and only this one lifetime of testing. This is our opportunity for faith working through love. It is a gift not to be squandered or thoughtlessly thrown away.
The bodies that fell in the wilderness are a warning to us. The book of Numbers records their story for a purpose. Christ died for the ungodly, but we need not show disrespect for the Name of Jesus by pursuing ungodliness and forsaking the Lord. Here is a warning for us who want to live in the love of Christ. Yes, our entrance into the true Promised Land is through His cross and resurrection, but as those who call upon the Name of the Lord and are saved, let us hear His heavenly voice together even now, let us walk in heavenly worship even now, let us live in heavenly love even now. It is a dangerous thing to habitually violate the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Psalm 95, a psalm of David, is extensively quoted in Hebrews 3 and 4. That psalm is almost entirely a call to public worship in the first seven verses. The psalm seems to change abruptly at the end of verse 7, and the final few verses are a very strong warning not to harden our hearts against the Lord's Word. One way to despise God is to overtly refuse His call to worship. A second way is to show up in body, but to be unwilling to sincerely hear and obey His Word.
The end of Psalm 95 insists that we give careful consideration to the account of the generation that came out of Egypt who would not listen to the voice of God. Remember that they refused to go into the Promised Land. Hebrews 3 and 4 keeps bringing this bad example before our consciences since a situation similar to this one faces the New Testament church in every generation. There was a promise of rest to the people of the Exodus, but they would not have it. They refused the voice of God, and they were excluded from the land of Israel. That promise of rest is still before us. We need to hear the voice of God calling us forward. We must strive to enter into that new Israel, the church that is named with the Name of a better Joshua than the one who led the second generation into the Promised Land so long ago.
The Exodus people had good news preached to them in God's command to take the land of Canaan, but they would not believe God's promise. Only Joshua and Caleb were able to go in. Now we have a call to worship, and once again there are those who would try to frighten us away from the clear command of the Almighty. Will we give in to fear of enemies or distraction from competing desires and stay away from the life of resurrection worship, or will we gather together not only in body, but also with ready hearts?
The end of Psalm 95 pronounced a dreadful verdict on that first generation: “They shall not enter my rest.” Even Moses was not permitted to go into Canaan. The second generation did go into that “rest,” though they soon found out that the rest they were called to was a life of faithful warfare. We have not been called out to some relaxing vacation, or to the distraction of inactivity. We are called to live a life of faith in service of Jesus. This is our rest that we should be walking in together as we worship the Lord in Spirit and in truth. If that means that we must suffer or even die, then we can see this as a part of the rest that God has ordained for His church, since it has been granted to us not only to believe in Jesus, but to suffer for His Name.
The age of heavenly resurrection is already upon us in the ascended body of Jesus Christ. When we worship and serve the Lord in the unity of the Holy Spirit, we are the kingdom of heaven. What a sad mistake it is to turn away from that kingdom now, when the voice of God calling us into the New Testament Promised Land is ringing in our ears. Today if you hear His voice do not harden your hearts.
Since the foundation of the world God has had a heavenly rest for His elect. He rested on the seventh day in the royal rule of one who has been working from the beginning and is still working to this day. God has a rest of faith for all of us now. Do you want to align yourself with the faithless Exodus generation that would not obey His call? David wrote Psalm 95 long after Joshua had led the people of Israel into Canaan. Yet he speaks of a rest that should still be entered into “today.” The ultimate rest comes for us in the place of perfect godliness. Heaven is not a land of pleasant inactivity or amusing distraction. It is a realm of perfect service with a united church seeking the glory of God. This is what is ahead of us. There remains this kind of Sabbath-like rest for the people of God, and we are to strive to enter that rest of perfect faith even now.
Jesus’ perfect rest of faith in the promises of God came in His complete consecration to the Word, despite the suffering that He was called to. This is what it means to rest: to be steadfast and immovable in the calling of God. If our bodies are resting in worship, but our hearts are restless and unwilling to hear the Lord, we need to remember that God knows what is going on in us better than we do. His Word pierces our heart with perfect divine awareness. We cannot fool Him. We need to yield ourselves to His rest, His call, and His love. This is what Jesus did for us, and He remains our faithful high priest in heaven. He understands the challenges that we have in the rest of faith that God calls us to today. He is able to sympathize with us, and to strengthen us so that we can fight the good fight. Turn to His great throne of grace above. He and all who are with Him there are still very much engaged in the battle that is ours even today. He has grace for us, that we might stand in the evil day.
God has always called His people to worship Him. This is as it should be. He is our great divine King, and we are His subjects. Yet, in Christ, our King is also our High Priest who represents us before the Almighty.
Moses wrote about the Old Testament offices of prophet, priest, and king in the Law. But long before Moses, the patriarch Abraham encountered a mysterious figure, Melchizedek, who was both a priest and a king.
The priests who served God according to the Law of Moses had no connection to Melchizedek. They were all descendants of Moses' brother Aaron. They had to follow the system of sacrifices given by God in the wilderness. At the head of those descendants of Aaron was a high priest chosen from among them. This man continued in his office until he died, representing the people before God. Knowing what sin was like first-hand, he could understand those who come with sin offerings, since he had his own weaknesses. He offered sacrifice for his own sins as well as for the sins of his brother Israelites.
A person could not just decide to be a priest according to Old Testament Law. He had to be called by God. Christ was called by God to be our High Priest. The same God who appointed Him to be the King of the resurrection age, saying in Psalm 2, “You are my Son, today I have begotten you,” also said in Psalm 110, “You are a priest forever.” But Jesus was not a descendant of Aaron. Moses and Aaron were from the tribe of Levi. Jesus, according to His human nature, was from the tribe of kings, Judah. God knew all about this long before Jesus was born. In the place in Psalm 110 where He said, “You are a priest forever,” He continued with these words, “after the order of Melchizedek.” Though we learn many things about Jesus from the Old Testament Law, Jesus was not a priest according to that Law, but according this earlier mysterious figure spoken of in Genesis, Psalm 110, and Hebrews.
We will have more to say about Melchizedek when we get to Hebrews 7. For now it is enough for us to think about Jesus as our great High Priest. The reason we are even considering this office of Jesus is that God wants us to find hope in the face of His earlier warning, “Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts.” God calls us to worship Him in the midst of a very challenging world of distraction and unbelief. Jesus knows what that world is like, since He lived here. He faced every temptation, yet without sin. God demands that we walk along this road of faith, hope, and love that He calls in Hebrews “His rest.” When the Lord makes that demand, He does not leave us without help. Jesus, who understands trouble, traveled that road, and He is the One who represents us now before God.
Not only is Christ our High Priest in heaven, He was our High Priest on earth. It was intense work representing us before the Father. Jesus entered this world of mortality, becoming flesh in order to live and die as a mortal man. He also prayed for us like the best father prays for his wayward children. He was not ashamed to cry out to God with all that He had. He prayed for His resurrection, not only for Himself, but because of what it meant for us. If He did not receive resurrection, we would have had no hope of resurrection life. He cried out to the Father in Gethsemene, and He called out to Him from the cross. Surely His whole life of prayer was a great work of faith on our behalf. Did God hear His holy Son? We have the proof of the resurrection. He was heard because of His reverence.
When Christ calls us to worship, He commands us to do what He did during His days on earth. He was the perfect worshiper of the Father. He came as the divine Son in His essence, but He lived as the obedient Son in His subservience. In His human nature He learned obedience through suffering. How perfect! He led the way for all of us who would learn through suffering.
Now He lives in resurrection glory, but He has not forgotten what it is to suffer. We who have Him as our Priest and the Captain of our salvation are called to fight the good fight in the perfection of His power. He is able to strengthen us in the life of faith, so that we will not finally foresake the pathway of rest through disobedience. There is much more to say about this life of true rest. We have the privilege of this life of suffering love because we have been joined to a Rock that cannot be moved. This is where we rest, and it is not always easy. Will we turn away from the voice of our Commander?
Many Christians become dull of hearing. They may not find the words to express it. They may not even be able to admit it to themselves. When they responded to the Lord's call to worship, they had not anticipated that His rest would involve so much hearing and obeying. Many should be teachers by now, but they still refuse to learn. They should have the basic principles of the Word of God firmly in their hearts. They should know about repentance and faith. They should know about the power of baptism to recreate and the blessing of the hand of God to bring life. They should not need to be reminded again about the coming resurrection and eternal judgment.
Perhaps we need to be reminded of the basics of Christian living again. If we will seek a renewed desire to hear and obey the Word of God, then we will be able to experience greater maturity in the Lord. In the strength of our exalted Priest and King may we hear God's call to worship with resurrection ears as those who are ready to respond with fruitful obedience.
The core beliefs of Christianity are listed by the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 as matters of first importance: “that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures.” These beliefs and others were soon developed into baptismal creeds that have since been referred to as the Apostles Creed. The Trinity, the two natures of Jesus Christ, His works of humiliation and exaltation, the kingdom of God in the church now and in the life to come; these are essential doctrines of Christian faith.
But there is another list of vital Christian concerns that are also of great importance. They are noted in Hebrews 6 as the elementary doctrines of Christian living, a list of basics that are central to Christian experience. These include repentance, faith, baptisms, blessings through laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and the coming eternal judgment. These are considered by God to be basic matters of introductory life for New Covenant believers. Without this foundation, how can the church move on to more challenging concerns of biblical interpretation or greater progress in holiness?
The life of the body of Christ is to be lived out together in a community of faith, a heavenly body that is actively engaged in life on earth now. Some who do not understand the basics of Christian living think that the church is an optional part of following Christ. They do not see that what began with repentance and faith in the body of Christ ends with the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment in that same body. In between this beginning and end is the work of divine creation through the cleansing and blessing that comes as God touches us through His church. To walk away from that place of living heavenly experience is to miss the Christian life on earth as God has designed it. We are being remade out of the primordial waters of God's judgment and grace in baptism, and the hand of our heavenly high priest is reaching forth from another world through the church touching us and speaking words of life and benediction that will not return void.
If we walk away from the church, where else will we find this new life that Christ is dispensing through the means of His appointment? This is not merely a philosophy club, a self-help therapy group, or a social action organization. We cannot just revoke our membership in the church and think that all is well. In this temple of the Holy Spirit heaven touches earth, the age to come reaches today, and Jesus embraces those who repent and believe. We must never abandon the church.
To reject the church is to turn away from that living temple where we taste heavenly life and where the forgiveness of sins is declared and known. Here we have felt the light of heaven and shared together in the body and blood of Jesus as a continuing gift to us. Here we receive the Word of God and are granted the fruit of the Holy Spirit. This is where we grow in the life of love. If we reject that life, where can we find heaven again, and how do we start all over with repentance, as if we were newcomers to the world of Christ? That would be impossible for men, and only possible if God grants another miracle of renewal in us. There is no other sacrifice for sin except the one that Christ has accomplished. And there is no other family of God except the church that He has established.
It is a serious mistake to turn away from Christ and His church. We should not find ourselves anywhere near that bad choice. We should be the good soil that is continually taking in the water of life from the Holy Spirit through Word, sacrament, and prayer. This will be the way that leads to present fruitfulness and future stability. We are God's field, and He is cultivating His life in us with love, producing an excellent yield for eternity, an incomparable blessing that can only come from Him. Do we prefer to reject the ordinances of the Lord and to be useless land where thorns and thistles scratch out a meager existence living as something destined for fire?
We need to hear God's warnings in passages such as this one. Through them the Lord exposes our errors and we rediscover our firm footing in grace. We see a day of future salvation before us again and we return to the life of worship and love that God has ordained for us. Together as a church we remember what God has done for us in the past, how we stood together through trials and loved one another despite our failings and the pressures of life in this world. This is the way that we recover again our forgotten hope, and take up our work of love again with renewed energy and purpose, following the good examples of others who have gone before us from our community of love who through faith and patience inherited the promises.
We are certain of this hope, not because of our own strength, but because of the reliability of God. He made a promise long ago to Abraham that He would bless him and multiply his descendants. God swore by himself, since there is nothing greater than God by which anyone can make the most solemn promise. God swearing by God – that is a most sure decree. We are heirs of this promise as the children of Abraham by faith in Jesus Christ. God cannot lie. He has promised by Himself and has committed Himself with a most solemn covenant oath. See Genesis 15:9-21.
Christ's death on the cross was the fulfillment of God's determination to bless those who have fled to Him for refuge. In His ascension into the heavenly temple and in the life of that temple on earth which is His church, we have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. Our great High Priest will never forsake us.
Melchizedek is one of the more mysterious figures in the Scriptures. He appears, seemingly out of nowhere, in Genesis 14. He is immediately recognized as a great superior, for the patriarch Abraham gives a tenth of the spoils of war to this king, as one would give a tithe to God.
This man was the king of Salem, meaning “peace.” Melchizedek's name itself translates literally as “king of righteousness.” Where did this man come from? Where did he go after Abraham honored him so well? No one can say. He is a part of no genealogy. It is as if he came down from heaven itself to receive praise from Abraham, the man we presumed to be God's greatest representative on earth in his day.
It is Melchizedek who gave Abraham a blessing, “Blessed be Abram by God Most High, Possessor of heaven and earth; and blessed be God Most High, who has delivered your enemies into your hand!” This is a man who speaks authoritative words of God's good care upon Abraham, the man of faith. Abraham gave him his tithe.
This unusual priest is greater than the later priests that descended from Aaron according to the Law. Melchizedek was like the Son of God Himself, yet appearing before His time. Here is an eternal man of blessing that comes from heaven.
Continuing this mystery, so many years later when David wrote Psalm 110, he spoke about the coming Messianic Priest who would come from heaven. We hear these words: “You are a priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek.” There have been so many descendants of Levi and Aaron who were priests. But where is the Priest who fulfilled David's great prophesy? Where is the King of Peace? Where is the King of Righteousness? Where is the Son of God? Where is the Man who will bless us forever?
The Levitical priesthood could not produce the gift of resurrection perfection for the people. This could not come through the Law. The key to resurrection is not the exact achievement of ceremonial righteousness. We needed a great Man to bring His own complete moral perfection, and then to be both Priest and Sacrifice for us. If Levitical excellence could have provided what we need for eternal life, David would never have written about a different priesthood and an eternal priest in Psalm 110. This change in the priesthood is a change from the Old Covenant to the New Covenant. The Levitical priests were a necessary component of Old Testament worship according to the Law of Moses. Now we need only one great Priest after the order of Melchizedek. The Messiah King would come from Judah, and therefore could not have possibly been a Levitical priest. In Jesus the Levitical methods of ceremonial righteousness are over. The Substance has come. The shadows must fade away.
It was not enough for the Messianic Priest to reveal Himself as being a descendant of David from the tribe of Judah. There were many descendants of King David, and none of them came from heaven, none of them could have been a priest forever. But Jesus had the power of an indestructible life. Because of His divine nature and His perfect righteousness, death could have no hold over Him. He has demonstrated who He is through His resurrection.
One Law must be set aside, because it does not have resurrection power. A new hope is introduced to the people of God through our union with the new Man. In Him we have a solid resurrection assurance. Even now we can draw near to God through Jesus Christ in a way that was impossible through the old rituals of the Law.
Psalm 110 draws our intention to the solemn oath of God in providing us a new Priest. “The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind, 'You are a priest forever.'” God has put His Name on this new age of resurrection life. He will not violate His sure promise.
The period of the Law was outwardly very impressive; the temple, the priestly garments, the Levitical choirs, the moving rituals of sacrifice; all of these were something to behold. But there is something much more impressive than what we can see with our eyes. The spectacular worship of the Old Testament has given way to Jesus Christ, the Man from heaven, the Man of the resurrection. The priests of the old system died. Jesus died too, but in three days He rose again, as He had promised beforehand to His disciples. Now He is a priest forever. He still intercedes for the people of God. The old priests could not save anyone. Jesus saves His people forever. The old priests had to offer sacrifices for their own sins before they could offer ceremonial sacrifices for the people. Jesus has no sin. His sacrifice of Himself was entirely for our sin. The old priests had to perform their rituals every day, because they could not actually turn away the wrath of God. The death of Jesus was once for all time and accomplished our liberation. There is no ceremony that man can invent or that God will devise that can do what Jesus has done. He is the King of Righteousness. He is the King of Peace. He is the Son of God. He is a Priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek.
Why would anyone need a priest? A priest is one who understands both the world of heaven and the world of earth. As someone who has lived on earth, he understands the challenges and opportunities of living in a place under a the Lord's just sentence of futility. He has experienced things like betrayal and loss. As someone who has lived in heaven, he knows what is important to Almighty God, and how we who have sinned can have peace with a God who will by no means clear the guilty. He works within a covenant administration established by God. A covenant administration contains the rules of engagement between a holy God and His worshiping people. A priest is a man who bridges heaven and earth according to those rules. What could be more important than that?
The true priest offers up sacrifices to God on behalf of people and pronounces blessings from God upon people. The problems with the Levitical priests of the Old Covenant were substantial. But in Jesus we have a far better Priest and a vastly superior covenant administration.
Our Priest serves from a superior location. The earlier Levitical priests had to work from earth, because they did not have the right to be seated with God on high. Jesus has ascended to that place of power. He does not minister in an earthly tent that is a symbolic portrayal of the temple in heaven, but He has entered heaven itself.
The covenant that Christ administers is based on the Promise of God. The Law of Israel said to the people of God, “Do this and live.” In the Promise, God says to His worshiping people, “I will do this for you so that you will live” Which is more secure, a covenant administration dependent on the faithfulness of God or one where the blessings can be taken away based on the failure of man? Even during the time of the Law, which promised an earthly place of rest based on the full obedience of the people, the Promise was still in effect, securing a heavenly Land. The Law teaches us about the sinfulness and weakness of people. The Promise proclaims to us the power and mercy of God through the provision of a Substitute. These lessons could be seen in the shadows of the Law, but the administration itself was very different from the Promise. The Law was destined for failure. The Promise of God can never lose.
There are many ways to demonstrate these points from the Old Testament Scriptures. One of the most straight-forward is to read the writings of the prophets who served during the time of the Law. Jeremiah lived under the Law, but God used Him as a herald of a coming New Covenant administration. If there were no problem with the ceremonial arrangements of the Law, why would the Lord have spoken of a New Covenant through His servants the prophets?
In Jeremiah 31, the prophet plainly shows that the problem with the Law was that the people of God did not keep it. A better covenant administration would be needed to address that great weakness. The best laws in the world cannot help anyone unless they are followed. According to the Law, the people of Israel did not continue in covenant with God.
There needed to be something in the New Covenant system that would address this fatal problem of the Law. In the New Covenant, the laws of God would be placed within God's people. Rather than being an external reality that could be applauded by the mind but rejected by the will, now the laws of the Lord will somehow be alive in the renewed lives of the New Covenant people. According to Jeremiah 31, this coming administration will be grounded in the promises of God. He will be our God. We will be His people. But also the experience of this life of promise will proceed from a renewed will. We do not yet see the culmination of this New Covenant life, but one day we will. Then the Word of God through the prophets will come to pass, that no one will have to teach his neighbor to know the Lord. We will all know Him just as surely as we will all be alive. The forgiveness of sin will be so permanent and complete, that God's ancient promise will be fulfilled: God will no longer even remember our sins.
This New Covenant life has come. We may feel that much of the joy and assurance of it seems to allude us at present. Yet the ground of our joy and assurance has already been provided. We are not waiting for the Messiah to be the Lamb of God. He has already done this. We are not hoping that a Man will rise again to resurrection life. It has already happened. We are not thinking that it would be a good thing if God would send His Spirit to dwell within His people. We have the Holy Spirit now. We can walk in the blessings of eternal life now as we consider our great High Priest.
The Old Covenant arrangement is now obsolete. The New Covenant has come in Christ. It must have been tempting for many first century Jews and Godfearing Gentiles who used to worship in Jewish synagogues to think about returning to the old ways in order to escape persecution. To do so would be to reject Christ as High Priest.
Jesus is the perfect High Priest. He knows both heaven and earth as One who has lived in both places. He knows as God as One who is God. He had the moral perfection and love necessary to be our Sacrifice. There is no other priest who can represent us before the Father today. Even though we pray for one another, and are together a kingdom priests who care for one another, we offer up all of our worship through one Man, and from one Man we receive all the blessings of heaven. The Old Covenant has vanished. The new and better way has been revealed in the Son of God.
God gave the Israelites rules for Old Covenant worship through Moses. To those who have been schooled in the simplicity of the New Covenant, the life of tabernacle and later temple worship is very foreign. Yet for Old Testament worshipers who understood what it was to have a Holy Place and a separate section within the temple called the Holy of Holies, this was all normal, imprinted upon their souls from the youngest ages.
As we consider these matters in our day, we need to have diagrams and an artist's rendition to understand the physical properties and locations of the lampstand, the table for the bread of the presence, the curtain, the golden altar of incense, the ark of the covenant, and the mercy seat above the ark. The Jews knew about these objects, even if they never were able to see them. If they came to Jerusalem for the annual festivals, they could not help but see the impressive building that towered above the city, and they were taught by their elders about the rituals of the Law, and the holy objects and spaces connected with them. Yet they did not understand the meaning that God stored up for us all in the religious patterns that were to be a part of the normal rhythm of Jewish life.
When they heard the word “priests,” they had immediate mental images that flooded their minds from experience. Those men, who were dressed so distinctively, were the ones who had access to special places in the temple where other people could not go. They performed certain ritual duties that only they were allowed to do. In particular, only the high priest was allowed to go behind the curtain into the Holy of Holies, and only on the Day of Atonement once per year with the blood that was commanded according to Leviticus 16. But what was all this about? They knew that the high priest offered sacrifices for his own sins and for the unintentional sins of the people. But why was access to the presence of God in worship subject to such severe restrictions?
Now that the final Sacrifice has come in our great High Priest Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit has revealed to us the meaning of these rules. God established this system exclusively for the time of the Law, which was a time of preparation. It was the Lord's intention to eventually bring down the curtain that separated us from His presence. While that old system of worship was still in place, it told worshipers that a safe way into the Lord's presence had not yet come in the person of the Messiah. These old ways speak to us with even greater clarity now about the division between heaven and earth, and about a day beyond the gospel era, when we will see the full reunion of all things in Christ. Peace with God and resurrection life could never have come to us through the right set of rituals, whether old or new. We need the reality behind the rules. That reality is Christ, who has now appeared as a High Priest of the good things that have come. The resurrection age has begun. The new temple is His body. His physical body was pierced for us and our atonement was secured through His blood. When He ascended again into heaven, he brought the blood of a better sacrifice into the presence of God for us, securing our eternal redemption.
The old way of ceremonial purification according to Leviticus had its good purpose for the time of preparation. Now the reality has come to us in Christ, and we cannot return to a system that has had its day, but has now come and gone. We want more than a story of redemption communicated in the mystery of symbols. We want redemption itself through the Son of God and the gift of the Spirit. Christ is the only sacrifice that is truly without blemish. He offered Himself to God through the eternal Spirit, and through that same eternal Spirit, the benefits of His life and death touch our lives today as we worship God through Him. Our consciences have been purified from the dead works by which so many Jews and Gentiles once tried to obtain peace with God. Through the blood of Christ we have been set free to serve the living God.
The time has come that was foretold so long ago in God's promise to Abraham. The death of Christ has brought the Old Covenant to an end. Now is the time to walk together in the inheritance that is ours in Christ, the one Mediator between God and man. Blood is all about life and death. God has created an amazing system of circulation whereby necessary oxygen and nutrition flows to every part of the body. While the heart is pumping and the arteries and veins are doing what they were designed to do, we have life. When there is a great loss of blood, or the body is damaged by some injury or disease that is so severe that this system of healthy mortal life can no longer function, we face death. Blood is a matter of life and death.
When the Son of God shed His blood and when Jesus ascended into heaven, God made a way for us to have bold access to Him. Jesus did not enter the temple in Jerusalem to make peace with God for us. He ascended into the heavenly temple. Now we look for a life where the glories of heaven will be our daily experience, and the former ways of our access to God, old and new, will only be a fading memory.
Christ, in His singular sacrifice, has done what the Old Testament priests could never do through all their annual rituals. Because of the power of His blood, we can die in peace, and can face the judgment of God safely in the perfect Lamb of God. He has borne the sins of many, and will come again to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.
One of the great conflicts in the 1st century church was the question of the place of the Old Testament ceremonial law in the new Christian life. Did new converts who were Gentiles have to be circumcised and become Jews before they could follow the Jewish Messiah? Was the way of the Law of Moses the final Word for those who were seeking to grow in the obedience that comes through faith, or had certain aspects of that covenantal system been superseded by a new way of approaching God in the simplicity of a new spiritual worship?
The testimony of the Old Testament and the New Testament is very clear on this question. New and different times would one day come. The prophets of Israel spoke of another age of blessing beyond the days of the Law. The word “shadow” is used to talk about the time of the Law. Shadows become less prominent and eventually disappear as the light shines more brightly. The coming of Christ, His death and resurrection, and the pouring out of the Holy Spirit were events of the greatest revelatory light. The Law as a covenantal system would have to recede. The new age of the ascended Messiah had come. With His gift of His Holy Spirit to the church, New Covenant worship became the prominent expression of true religious faith in Israel's God. There would be many who would resist this change in those early generations. They might even be so defiant in their dedication to a way of worship that was fading away that they would seek to persuade others to turn away from any worship that was distinctively Christian.
New Covenant worship was very different from the temple worship in Jerusalem, which was so heavily dependent upon animal sacrifice and the other features of the Jewish system of offerings. The new way of the church was much more like the devotional activities of the Jewish synagogues, with two very important additions. First, the new church services culminated in the Lord Supper. This was the addition of an entirely new element of worship in response to the Lord's command that His disciples perform this new ritual in remembrance of Him. The second change had an impact on the entire service. Even when the worshipers sang, preached from the Scriptures, and prayed as Jews did in all their synagogues, these familiar elements of worship were thoroughly transformed by the new light of the revelation of Jesus Christ in the message of peace with God through our Substitute.
Of course there were some who did not like this emphasis and who were ashamed of the Savior. They would have been happy to shrink away from the distinctively Christian aspects of the faith, returning to the more acceptable and established way of life represented in Jewish synagogue worship. But what a loss it would be to turn away from Jesus just to avoid the attacks of those who despise Him!
If the new system of worship was infused with the light of Christ, the old system of synagogue life was thoroughly informed by the regulations of the ceremonial Law as they were understood by the Pharisees. The importance of circumcision, the regulations of clean and unclean, the celebration of the Old Testament calendar, the strong connection with the events of temple life in Jerusalem were inseparable from the life and worship of the Jewish synagogues. To return to that worship was to return to the old system of ceremonial Law, and that Law could not bring about the true forgiveness of sins.
If forgiveness could have been achieved for mankind through the old way, then the priests could have given up offering their daily sacrifices long ago. True cleansing comes through Christ and the Holy Spirit. It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.
Psalm 40 prepares us for the Lord's provision of One who would come with a physical ear to hear the will of the Lord and a body to obey that Law. This coming One would be so far superior to the ways of the shadows, that in comparison, it was said of God, “Sacrifices and offerings You have not desired.” We are declared holy not through the old ceremonies, but through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all time. His work was successful, requiring no daily repetition. Therefore, He has taken His place at the right hand of the Father, until his enemies will be made a footstool for his feet.
When God spoke through the prophet Jeremiah about the coming resurrection age, He said, “I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.” An age was coming when the time of preparatory sacrifices would be completed through the offering of one final sacrifice that brought about the true forgiveness of sins. This time has come. We still have ceremonies. We have been ceremonially cleansed in baptism. We partake in a ceremonial meal. But we have something more. Our hearts have been sprinkled by the blood of the final sacrifice, and streams of living water have been poured out from heaven upon the church.
We must not give up the good habit of meeting together in covenant assembly in worship that is thoroughly Christian. Where else can we go for the true declaration of the forgiveness of sins? The old ways of the shadows are over. The God of grace will not consider it a light offense if we turn away from His Son.
The heritage of the church is better than that. It is a record of standing together through persecution, continuing in the faith, hope, and love of Christ who reigns from heaven. Christ will come again. Until then, let us not be those who shrink back from Jesus to save our flesh from persecution. Let us press forward in faith in the way of Christ, for the just shall live by faith.
Those who are credited with the righteousness that God requires will live by faith. This is what the Old Testament prophet Habakkuk wrote. It has always been this way. The Old Testament people of God lived by faith, and we must live by faith. Though the Law came through Moses, Moses lived by faith. Faith expresses its true nature in love for God and neighbor, which is the fulfillment of the Law.
What is faith? Faith is not the same as sight. If a person sees something he once longed for and it now has his name on it, he no longer has to trust in the promise of a gift-giver who had once said that he would bring him that present. Now he has it. Now he sees it. His new happiness is not faith. Faith builds on the solid foundation of the promise of God. It is sure of the gift because it is certain about the Giver. Faith is “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” It is a way of life that God has always commended.
The speech of God is the true foundation on which all faith is securely built. God showed the power of His Word from the beginning of creation. He said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. The Word of God is more sure than what our senses can perceive. Our eyes may deceive us, but God's Word is always true. He can bring forward things that are visible from His storehouse of all that is invisible to the eyes of flesh.
From the earliest accounts of our spiritual heritage, the people of God have lived by hearing, believing, and following God. Abel's sacrifice was made by faith. His pathway in obedience to the Word of God subjected him to a brutal murder by the hand of his own brother, yet he preferred the Lord's commendation of him as one who was righteous rather than the preservation of his life. Now he lives above with men like Enoch and Abraham. These men knew that God was real, and they believed that He would reward those who diligently seek Him. Noah had to obey the Word of God concerning the building of an ark before he saw one drop of rain. His faith saved his life and that of his whole household. The world that would not see the truth of God's judgment was condemned, but Noah and His family were saved.
Abraham, our father in faith, believed the promises of God, along with his wife Sarah. How far could they see beyond the gift of even one child? Yet we are told that they were looking far beyond to the gift of heaven. Together with their son and grandson, Isaac and Jacob, they were “looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.” These people suffered, but they also heard the Word of God and believed.
God made great promises to the patriarchs from whom came the 12 tribes of Israel. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob did not receive the Promised Land in their lifetimes, but they died in faith. They were looking for a better land than Canaan. Over the course of their journeys, some earlier, and some later, they learned to believe in a new world that could never be taken from them, a world that would be secured through the fulfillment of the promise of God. Now they live in that better country, and God is not ashamed to be called their God.
When Abraham was tested through a commandment that seemed beyond his understanding, he obeyed the Word, trusting that God had the power to raise the dead. Through wrenching moments of testing the promise continued from generation to generation, and the people of faith buried their dead in faith, assured that God's Word would never fail. If we follow the stories of Moses, Joshua, the judges, and David, we will see the same common truth. Those who did not have strength in themselves, heard the Word of God and believed. They were tested and had to make difficult choices. Their ultimate joy was not in any earthly Jerusalem or in the ceremonies of Old Testament worship. They set their hearts on things above, knowing that the promises of God would be inadequate unless death itself was defeated. What good are all the blessings that can come to a man in this life if there is no hope beyond the grave? They heard the promises of God concerning a life of bounty that had to be better than the finest kingdoms on earth, and they believed that God would secure those promises for them through His own faithfulness and grace.
This kind of faith is what enables a man to suffer with outcasts rather than deny God. It is not about good people, but about a powerful and reliable God who people like Rahab, Gideon, and Samson hear and believe. It empowers prophets, apostles, and unknown worshipers of the Lord to face the brutality of their countrymen because they have found a new life among those who hear the Word of God and keep it.
All of these men and women of faith were looking for a life beyond this mortal world. They did not receive what was promised during their lifetimes on this earth. They would be made perfect together with all the people of God in the place where the Word becomes sight, and where life is free from the sting of death.
These great brothers and sisters prepared us for Jesus, the greatest Man of faith. He has secured the promises of God for us with His blood. The very best figures of the Old Covenant, whether we know their names or not, would all have chosen Jesus rather than the comforts of powerful people who demand that we turn away from our Lord and His church. This is what it must mean for you to believe. Through this gift of faith the righteous live for God and worship Him, despite the greatest trials and difficulties that we can ever imagine.
If you love the Law of God, if you are thankful for the heroes of the Hebrew Scriptures, if you desire to follow their good example of devotion to the Lord, then you need to imitate above their delight in the coming One who would secure the promises of God for His people at great cost to Himself. Those who claim to love the Word of God, but who seek to entangle the faithful in ceremonial requirements that are no longer the way of true covenant life, are not examples of holiness to be emulated but slaves and purveyors of serious error that are dangerous to the spiritual life of any church that seeks to follow Christ.
False or outdated works of ceremonial holiness are not merely harmless acts of devotion. They are sinful entanglements that promote spiritual death rather than the life that comes from the Lord. These false ways need to be cast off, along with all the sin that so easily entangles the church. Even now as we worship God through Jesus Christ, we are surrounded by a great glory cloud of heavenly witnesses who know the importance of hearing the true Word of God. We have a race to run during our brief stay in this mortal world, and we cannot finish well with the heavy weights of dead works and distracting sins tied around our limbs.
In this race we keep our eyes on the glorified Christ. He is our finish line. He ran His own race perfectly, focusing on the joy that lay ahead of Him in heavenly realms. It was that joy of what would surely come that sustained Him as He endured the cross. He did not love the shame of the cross. He hated it. But the cross is a past event, an offering that is never to be repeated. Jesus is not on the cross now. He is at the right hand of the Father.
When the church considers the sufferings of Christ, we do so with the encouragement that He passed through them for a most important purpose. He gave His life to accomplish the death of sin. We have not yet given our lives for anything. If we face the discipline of God's providential care, it is because we are being treated as beloved sons. That discipline will one day yield a great harvest of righteousness. It may not feel great at the moment, but we can trust God through it.
With God's sure word reminding us of the strong bonds of family love in the household of God, we need to make every effort to get back in the race. We need to be on the lookout for every root of bitterness that would spring up within us. The way of obedience is before us now, just as it has been for the people of faith since the beginning of time. The only difference is that the light along that road is so much brighter than it used to be during the time of the Old Testament ceremonial Law. God still loves purity and faithfulness. He still wants us to live at peace with others. His Holy Spirit is still leading us in the way of greater holiness. What else would we expect from the loving Spirit of God at work within us by the power of Jesus Christ?
For the church to choose the way of Esau would be a greater disgrace for us today than it was for Jacob's brother when he sold his birthright for a pot of stew. We know more than Esau did. Why should we allow ourselves to be enslaved again by immoral enticements? We want to see the Lord. There we choose holiness.
The people of God have moved beyond the experience of Sinai, where they begged not to hear the voice of God, lest they die. We have come to the heavenly Jerusalem, to the assembly of Jesus, the firstborn from the dead. Our names are written in heaven, where Christ has gone to prepare a place for us. We want hear the voice of God.
We have the best of all possible mediators. The One who represents us is the One who died for us. His blood purified the way for us into the heavenly sanctuary of God. That blood of the perfect Lamb speaks a great Word of innocence for us before the throne of God. The voice of Abel's blood cried out to God from the ground so long ago. The first generation after Adam and Eve contained one son who was murdered and another who was his assailant. That blood screamed out to heaven about the guilt of mankind. Now the blood of Jesus speaks gently to our Father about the perfect atonement that has satisfied God's justice.
God has done so much for us. We must not refuse Him. If He warns us, we must not consider His words to be of little substance. If we admit that the Law of Israel was so very serious in light of the frightening circumstances surrounding the giving of that gift, can we not also acknowledge that a warning from heaven is far more serious than a warning from Mount Sinai? Is it a small matter to walk away from New Covenant assembly of Jesus the Son of God?
The Lord will shake the heavens and the earth when He comes to save. Everything that is temporary will be gone. Only that which is permanent will last. The perfected body of Christ, the church, will last forever. We are receiving a heavenly kingdom that can not be shaken. Therefore, let us worship the Lord of heaven and earth through the perfect mediation of the resurrection Man. He is the only way for anyone to be able to stand in the midst of God's fiery judgment. Let us worship the Lord with reverence and awe, and let us be thankful. We have a Man to look to in our deepest troubles. Jesus Christ, the righteous, has conquered hell and the grave for us. We must not turn away from Him.
Throughout the centuries of church life, people have had all kinds of strange ideas about the kind of life that is pleasing to God. We wish them well, but we cannot always agree with their directives for godly living. There is little doubt that the way to follow the Redeemer is to live a life of love.
“Let brotherly love continue.” It is easier to make a start at love for a few days than it is to keep at it. If your church is trying to follow Jesus in love, at a minimum do not stand in the way of that kind of sincere and quiet commitment. Let love continue. Do not be the critic, but the helper.
Are there strangers in your midst, new people who are lonely? Show them love. Find out what would make them happy and, if it is in the will of the Lord and in your power to provide, give them the help and friendship that will be easiest for them to receive. That's the way that the Hebrew patriarchs ended up feeding angels without even being aware of what they were doing.
Are some in trouble for their faith? Be a friend to them, even if they are in prison. This attention to the needs and happiness of suffering people is nothing more than doing unto others what you would have them do for you and loving your neighbor as yourself.
Stay far away from all immorality. It will not bring you freedom, but only bondage. If you have sunk too low into some mess, and you don't know how to recover, start with God, confessing your sins, and let some trusted elder speak words of forgiveness, cleansing, and blessing over you in the Name of the Lord. Then take whatever steps are necessary to restore your marriage and to cut off all adulterous affections.
Stay away from dreams of power and wealth. Do not love money; it is far too great a deceiver. God is your Lover and your Benefactor. He will take care of you. You can be content with what He gives you. This is the pattern that has been well-established for us by the best leaders in the church. It is the pattern of Jesus Himself, who is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
Stay far away from all strange suggestions of ceremonial life, new or old, that promise holiness through outward rituals that cannot touch the diseased soul. It is God's grace, preached, heard, received, believed, and followed that will do you the greatest good by far.
Some strange worship alternatives boast of impressive sanctuaries and altars. But we are not lacking in an impressive sacrificial altar. Our holy place is not in Jerusalem, but in heaven. Why spoil your spiritual appetite by filling your heart with holy foods from lesser altars? Heaven is to be preferred to every shrine that men can devise. The Old Testament priests had to bring the leftover garbage from their sacrifices outside the camp, because the camp was holy. Jesus died outside the gate of the city of Jerusalem in a place reserved for garbage. We go to him where he is, serving in places of disgrace where He may be found. There we love people who are counted as nothing by others. We are sanctified by the blood of Jesus. No religious ceremony can improve upon that. If we serve in a place that seems disgraceful to men, we have a better city coming down from heaven that is far superior to any great place of human boasting. What an immense privilege it is that our praise to God reaches the heavenly Jerusalem through Jesus. The life we are cultivating is one of true worship sincerely lived out in the joy of Christ. This is the good life, and no strange spirituality can ever replace it. There is no better way to please God. The best church leaders will direct people in this kind of life both through example and through teaching. Such men can be safely obeyed. One day your church leaders will have to give an answer to God for you. How well have they led you in ways of faith and love? If you resist their good efforts at every turn, they will soon be complaining to God about you, and that can't be good. Follow them happily as they follow Christ. Pray for such men, that they would act honorably in all things, and that the Lord would establish the work of His own hands through their labors in Christ.
God is our powerful help in a life of challenging love. He brought Jesus back from the dead. Surely He will help us to live a life of resurrection love. Christ has offered up the blood of the eternal covenant. There is no possible way to improve upon His offering to the Father. The purpose of God will be accomplished. The great Shepherd of the sheep lives on high and is still directing His church. God will give us everything we need in order to serve Him well now, and we will do His will through Jesus, to whom be all glory forever.
We receive the greetings and blessings of heaven's King upon the church and we are empowered to believe and to obey. Throughout this world the true faith is one faith. Wherever Christ is named as Lord the true life is one life. Follow Jesus.