How To Live What You Believe

A Life Related Study in Hebrews

Ray C. Stedman

Is it Possible to Live What You Believe?

Would the world be more receptive to the gospel of Jesus Christ if Christians could learn to live out their faith?

God speaking through the writer of Hebrews, has laid out a plan for Christians to follow. This plan shows that Jesus Christ is the only way to appropriate a living faith. Jesus is not only capable of meeting every human need, He is available as the Source to enable Christians to live what they believe.

Read this life-related study of Hebrews and find out.

HOW TO LIVE WHAT YOU BELIEVE.

How to Live What You Believe

A LIFE-RELATED STUDY IN HEBREWS

RAY C. STEDMAN

Regal Books

A Division of GL Publications

Ventura. California, USA

Published by Regal Books

A Division of Gospel Light

Ventura, California, U.S.A.

Printed in U.S.A.

Regal Books is a ministry of Gospel Light, an evangelical Christian publisher dedicated to serving the local church. We believe God's vision for, Gospel Light is to provide church leaders with biblical, user-friendly materials that will help them evangelize, disciple and minister to children, youth and families.

It is our prayer that this Regal Book will help you discover biblical truth for your own life and help you meet the needs of others. May God richly bless you.

For a free catalog of resources from Regal Books/Gospel Light please contact your Christian supplier or call 1-800-4-GOSPEL. Scripture quotations from RSV of the Bible, copyrighted 1946 and 1952, by the Division of Christian Education of the NCCC, U.S.A. Used by permission. Also quoted are: KJV--King James Version, Authorized King James Version, Philippians--THE NEW TESTAMENT IN MODERN ENGLISH, Revised Edition, J.B. Philippians, Translator. @ J. B. Philippians 1958, 1960, 1972. Used by permission of Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc.

Second Edition. Formerly published under the title What More Can God Say?

@ Copyright 1974 by Ray C. Stedman All rights reserved

Library of Congress Catalog in Publication Data

Stedman, Ray C. How to live what you believe. 1. Bible. N.r. Hebrews-Meditations. 2. Christian Life-Biblical teaching. I. Title. BS2775.4.S73 ISBN 0-8307-1177-5

Rights for publishing this book in other languages are contracted by Gospel Literature International (GLINT). GLINT also provides technical help for the adaptation, translation, and publishing of Bible study resources and books in scores of languages worldwide. For further information, contact GLINT, Post Office Box 4060, Ontario, California, 91761-1003, U.S.A., or the publisher.

Table of Contents

1      Hebrews 1        God Has A Word For You

2      Hebrews 2        The Life Jesus Lived For You

3      Hebrews 3        Truth You Can Lean On

4      Hebrews 4        Come Rest At His Throne

5      Hebrews 5        A Priest Who Understands You

6      Hebrews 6        Let's Keep Growing!

7      Hebrews 7        You Have A Friend In High Places

8      Hebrews 8        A Covenant You Can Count On

9      Hebrews 9        Keeping A Clear Conscience

10    Hebrews 10       What You Do Speaks So Loud

11    Hebrews 11       Is Your Faith Your Focus?

12    Hebrews 12       Pressing On When You'd Rather Give Up

13    Hebrews 13       How's Your Brotherly Love Life?

1 God Has a Word For You

Some of us were gathered in a home discussing the state of affairs of the world. We commented on the fears, the tensions, the sense of futility that we find in so many circles these days. Earlier someone had read the eighth chapter of Paul's letter to the Romans, where he speaks of the whole creation groaning in bondage with futility stamped upon all things. In our discussion the question arose: What can we do about this? As Christians we know the answer to the world's problems, but how can we make the world believe the answer?

Among us was a young Christian who seemed considerably troubled by our discussion. With a deeply concerned look on his face, he said, "Why is this? Why doesn't the world believe what we have to say?" Then he added, "I think it's because so many Christian don't act like they believe it themselves." Then he asked the logical but thorny question: "How can we make Christians believe what they believe?"

This is the very theme of the book of Hebrews! How to make Christians believe--how to make Christians act like Christians. This is what the world is waiting to see and what the epistle was written to produce. It is addressed to a group of Jewish Christians who had begun to drift, to lose their faith. They had lost all awareness of the relevance of their faith to the daily affairs of life. They had begun to drift into outward formal religious performance while they lost the inner reality. Doubts were creeping into their hearts from some of the humanistic philosophies that abounded in the world of their day. Some of them were about to abandon their faith in Christ, not because they were attracted again by Jewish ritual and ceremony, but because of persecution and pressure. They felt that it was not worthwhile, that they were losing too much; and that it was possible that they had been deceived and the message of Christ was not true after all.

No one knows exactly where these Christians lived. Some feel this letter was written to Hebrew Christians living in the city of Rome. Others believe it was written to the most Jewish city an earth in that day, Jerusalem. That is my own personal conviction. If anyone wished to influence the world of Jewish Christians, surely Jerusalem would be the place to start.

No one knows far certain who wrote the letter, either. If you read this letter in English you are almost sure that Paul wrote it, since so many of the thoughts are obviously Pauline. But if you read it in Greek you are equally certain that Paul did not write it, for the language used is far different from that in Paul's letters. There have been a great many guesses throughout the centuries, including Luke, Silas, Peter, Apollos (the silver-tongued orator of the first century), Barnabas, and even Aquila and Priscilla. It is my own conviction that the apostle Paul wrote it in Hebrew while he was in prison in Caesarea after his visit to Jerusalem, that it was translated by Luke into Greek and that Luke's Greek translation is the copy that has came down to us today.

The writer sees one thing very clearly--that Jesus Christ is the total answer to every human need. No book of the New Testament focuses upon Christ like the book of Hebrews does. It is the clearest and most systematic presentation of the availability and adequacy of Jesus Christ in the whole of the Bible. It presents Christianity as the perfect and final religion, simply because the incomparable person and work of Jesus Christ permits men free and unrestricted access to God. In every age that is man's desperate need. There is no hunger like God-hunger.

The argument of this first section is very simple. Immediately and somewhat bluntly the writer declares that God has spoken to man in Jesus Christ. This is the theme of the epistle. The very nature of that message indicates that Christ is a stronger word than that which came through the prophets. He also has a greater name than that of the angels. And He Himself is a surer word to man than the law.

In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets; but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He reflects the glory of God and bears the very stamp of his nature, upholding the universe by his word of power (Hebrews 1:1-3).

In these three short verses we have four amazing themes. First, the word which now comes to us in Jesus Christ, both by what He said and by what He was, is a stronger and more inclusive word than God ever spoke through the prophets. When you read the Old Testament you are reading the Word of God. The voice of God is heard through various forms and circumstances. Open the book of Genesis and read the simple, majestic tale of creation and the flood. Then follows the straightforward narrative of the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; then the thunderings of the law, the sweet singing of the psalmist, the exalted beauty of the prophets, the homespun wisdom of the Proverbs, the delicate tenderness of the Song of Solomon, and the marvelous mysteries of the prophetic writings such as Ezekiel and Daniel. All of it is of God, but all of it is incomplete. It never brings us to ultimates and absolutes.

But when you open the pages of the New Testament and read the fourfold picture of Jesus Christ, you find that the Old Testament voices merge into one voice, the voice of the Son. The syllables and phrases in which God spoke in the Old Testament are merged into one complete discourse in Jesus Christ. God's word to man has been fully uttered in the Son. There is nothing left to be said. Jesus Christ is God's final word to man. The word given through the Son is greater than that given through the prophets because it includes and surpasses theirs.

It is also greater because the Son forms the boundaries of history. The writer says, Whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. In that phrase, the heir of all things, he is looking on into the future as far as the eye of man can see.

A teenage boy once sat in my study with a very worried expression on his face. We talked about various things in his life, but finally he said, "I want to ask you a question."

I said, "Go ahead."

He said, "Where is it all coming to, anyway? What is happening in the world? Where is all this tremendous stirring and tumult going to end?"

I told him it would end exactly as the Bible predicted it would end. The prophetic pattern woven into the revelation of God has already been fulfilled to the very letter, as far as we have gone in history. Jesus Himself, in Matthew 24, Luke 21, and Mark 13, those great prophetic passages, indicated plainly what the end would be. He Himself is the terminating point of history. All things will end in Him. This is Paul's argument in the letter to the Ephesians, that all the events of the ages shall find their fulfillment and meaning in Jesus Christ.

Christ stands at the end of the future as He is also at the beginning of the past, for He is the Creator of the worlds. All things came from His hands. He is the originator of all the processes of life. Nothing began or exists but what began or existed in Him. Jesus made this claim Himself to the astonishment of the Jews. He said, Before Abraham was born, I am! (John 8:58).

Further, His word has greater power than the prophets' because He sustains the universe. We read, He reflects the glory of God and bears the very stamp of his nature, upholding the universe by his word of power. In the hills behind Stanford University is a linear accelerator, a gigantic instrument some two miles long. What is it for? Scientists hope it will prove to be a great lever by which they can pry the lid off the secrets that lie behind matter. They are trying to find what makes the universe "tick," what holds it together.

As man probes deeper into the secrets of the universe around him he discovers more and more that he is confronting the mystery of an untouchable, unweighable, unseeable pure force. What is that force? Scientists never name it, in fact they cannot name it, but the Scripture does. The Scripture says that force is Jesus Christ, that He holds everything in place, whether it be large or small. The reason we can sit, stand or walk, and not be hurled off into space though our earth is whirling at a furious rate, is simply because He sustains the universe. He is the secret behind everything that exists.

More than that, in the final statement here, His word comes with superior force because He redeems man and nature.

When he had made purification for sins, he sat. down at the right hand of the Majesty on high (Hebrews 1:3).

I stated earlier that we all feel the futility which is stamped upon everything today. Why is it that nothing ever completely satisfies? If we can get certain things we think we will be happy, but once we get them we soon lose all interest in them. Why is this?

We do not believe that the world was intended to be this way, and the Scriptures confirm this. They reveal the fact that the world in which we live is a world in desperate need of redemption. It needs to be brought back out of uselessness and restored to its proper condition as it was originally intended to be. All this is included in the great statement, When he had made purification for sins. When He had come to grips with the thing that is destroying human life and making this universe such an unpleasant place in which to live, when He had dealt with it fully, He took His place beside the Majesty on high. That is why His word is greater than that of the prophets.

In the next section the writer moves on immediately to compare Jesus with the angels. The ancient world made a great deal of angels. They worshiped them in many of the ancient religious rites. Angels are the demigods of the Roman and Greek pantheon. Therefore, this letter was written to people who had a particular interest in angels. The writer deals with this very rapidly, but very thoroughly. This subject may not interest us as much today as it did then, but it is still a tremendous revelation of the person of Christ. The Lord Jesus, says the writer, has a greater name than the angels, first, because of His relationship.

. . . having become as much superior to angels as the name he has obtained is more excellent than theirs. For to what angel did God ever say, "Thou art my Son, today I have begotten thee"? (Hebrews 1:4,5).

The contrast is between a son and a servant. Angels are servants but Christ is the Son. I once visited a ranch as the guest of the hired man on that ranch. When we came onto the property we had to drive around the big house and go to the bunkhouse in the rear. I stayed with him there in the bunkhouse and never once got into the big house with him. There were some beautiful sorrel horses in the pasture, and I suggested we take a ride. He said, "Oh, no, I'm not permitted to ride those horses." So we had to ride some mangy fleabags out to the pasture. A few weeks later I became acquainted with the son of the household, and he invited me out to the ranch. When I went out with him it was entirely different. We went right into the big house and he took over as all teenagers do. After a sumptuous meal we went out and rode the sorrel horses all over the range. What a wonderful time we had.

That is the difference between a son and a servant, and that is the difference between Christ and any angel. He is greater because of His relationship, the fact that He is a Son. Blood is always thicker than water. As C. S. Lewis points out, what we make with our hands is always something different from us, but what we beget with our bodies is always the dearest thing in the world to us because it is part of us. Thus, the angels were made; the Son begotten. What we beget has the same nature we have; what we make is always different. The angels, being made, cannot have the same relationship as the Son, who was begotten.

Here is the final answer to the cults. Jehovah's Witnesses teach that Jesus Christ was nothing more than an angel, the highest created angel. They identify Him with Michael, the Archangel. But this passage in Hebrews utterly demolishes that theory, for Christ is a Son and not an angel. To what angel did God ever say, Thou art my Son?

Second, Christ is greater than the angels by the demonstration of worship.

And again, when he brings the first-born into the world, he says, "Let all God's angels worship him" (Hebrews 1:6).

We only worship that which is superior to us. The worship of the angels at Bethlehem is testimony to the deity of the babe in the manger. John Bunyan said, "If Jesus Christ be not God, then heaven will be filled with idolators." For in Revelation and Daniel, those books that give us a glimpse into the heavenly realms, we see ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands of angels engaged in worshiping the Son. He is seen to be greater than angels by the demonstration of worship.

Third, His superiority is evidenced by the demonstration of authority. This section begins and ends with a word about the angels, while in between is the contrast of the position of the Son.

Of the angels he says, "Who makes his angels winds, and his servants flames of fire" (Hebrews 1:7).

What are angels? Servants and ministers, depicted by wind and fire. In our daily life wind and fire are more than man can handle, for they frequently get out of bounds. Yet they are made to be servants of men. These symbolize the angels, superior in being to men, yet servants of men. The quotation concerning angels is from Psalm 104. Then the writer uses part of Psalm 45 to show how the Son is contrasted to the angels.

But of the Son he says, "Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever, the righteous scepter is the scepter of thy kingdom. Thou hast loved righteousness and hated lawlessness; therefore God, thy God, has anointed thee with the oil of gladness beyond thy comrades" (Hebrews 1:8,9).

The Son is the originator of all things. Behind all material things lies the thought and intent of the heart, and the psalmist says of the Son, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever; . . . Thou hast loved. . . and hated (Psalm 45:6,7, KJV). What God loves and hates is the motivation for what takes place within the universe. No angel can make this claim.

Again the writer moves to another quotation, this time from Psalm 102,

And, "Thou, Lord, didst found the earth in the beginning, and the heavens are the work of thy hands; they will perish but thou remainest; they will all grow old like a garment, like a mantle thou wilt roll them up, and they will be changed. But thou art the same, and thy years will never end" (Hebrews 1:10-12).

Christ is not only the originator but the sustainer of the universe, the one behind all things, eternally keeping it going until at last it runs down. Notice a very interesting thing here, you scientists among us. There is here described very plainly what has been called "the second law of thermodynamics," the degenerative faculty in the universe. All things will grow old like a garment, but not the One who made them and who keeps them, the Son of God.

The third argument in this contrast with the angels is taken from Psalm 110.

But to what angel has he ever said, "Sit at my right hand, till I make thy enemies a stool for thy feet"? (Hebrews 1:13).

Again, here is the One who waits at the end of history, the termination point of all events, the One for whom all things exist and toward whom all things are moving, the heir of all things. All things find their purpose and meaning only as they relate to Him.

The writer of Hebrews comes back to the angels again in verse 14.

Are they not all ministering spirits sent forth to serve, for the sake of those who are to obtain salvation? (Hebrews 1:14).

Again, what are angels? Servants! But the Son is God!

"Our Father, the truth you have set before us is not one to trifle with. We are dealing with the very secrets of life, the very basis of the universe. The claims of the Lord Jesus are incomparable; they can never be surpassed. We pray, therefore, that we may face up to this and realize that there is no way of working out the problems of human life except as we work them out in fellowship with Him. As we go on in this letter we ask to see this even more clearly, and may hearts right now open their doors to you. Lord Jesus, you are the One who is the secret of human life and behind all the mysteries of the universe. May you enter our lives in grace and begin to reign. We pray in your name, amen."

2 The Life Jesus Lived For You

Having demonstrated powerfully and conclusively that Jesus Christ is God Himself and the final, authoritative word to mankind, the writer of Hebrews shifts his attention in chapter two to Christ's vulnerable humanity. But first the author presents a "therefore" thought which states clearly the impact which the universal supremacy of Christ and His word should have on the readers:

Therefore we must pay the closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. For if the message declared by angels was valid and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? It was declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard him, while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his own will (Hebrews 2:1-4).

His conclusion is: We need to pay attention! This is why Jesus said again and again to the people of His day, He who has ears to hear, let him hear (Matthew 11:15). It is not too often we are able to hear truths like these; truths that go to the heart of life. But he that has ears to hear, let him hear.

There are two reasons why this message is particularly valid. First, it is valid by comparison with the law. If the word spoken by angels, the law of Moses, had validity, and those to whom it was given found that it was absolutely true in experience, then this message also is true. If angels could give a word like that, how much more should we value the word that comes by the Son?

The confirmation of this was the testimony of Israel's history. Here is a race of people, the Jews, to whom the law was particularly given. They were told that if they would obey it they would be blessed; if they disregarded it, they would be cursed. There is no people on the face of the earth who show a more consistent pattern of cause and effect than this people. Wherever they have gone, in obedience there has been blessing; in disobedience there has been cursing. If the law had that effect, a law spoken by angels, how much more shall the words spoken by the Son have effect?

The second confirmation that this message is valid is the form of its communication to us. It was spoken, first of all, by the Lord! That is a most impressive argument. What Jesus Christ has to say is the most authoritative word the world has ever heard. This message did not originate with the apostles, it did not come to us by means of prophets, it came through the Lord Himself; He spoke it.

Furthermore, the message was confirmed by eyewitnesses. This is an unimpeachable argument. Any court in the land will accept evidence if it is confirmed by enough eyewitnesses. Here is the evidence of Christianity confirmed to us by numerous eyewitnesses who were there and who wrote what they saw and heard and did.

And the message was attested by signs sent from God Himself, by wonders and miracles and gifts of the Holy Spirit, distributed according to His own will. It still is attested this way. How can we explain the gifts that develop among Christian people, the ability to do certain things, except as we recognize the Spirit of God at work in our midst? What an impelling argument this is!

It all focuses down to one question which the writer leaves hanging in the air: How shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? That is not a threat, it is simply a question. It is addressed both to the Christian and to the non-Christian. To the non-Christian it says, Where are you going to go? How will you get out of God's universe? How can you escape the inevitable? Indeed, why seek to avoid that which is unavoidable: a confrontation with the One who is behind all things? How can you escape, and why attempt to do so? Especially when His purpose is not to curse but to bless? How can you find deliverance by any other route, by any other path, or by any other channel, if it does not involve the One who is behind all things?

To the Christian, the writer is saying it is not enough that we know Jesus Christ: We must use the resources we have in Him. We can lose so much, even knowing Him, unless there is a day-by-day walk with Him. We lose peace and freedom and joy and achievement; We are subjected to temptation, frustration, bewilderment, bafflement and barrenness without Him. And if we do not go on as Christians, if we do not grow, a serious question is raised: Have we ever really begun the Christian life? Or is this but a self-deceptive fraud, attempted in order to meet outward standards but without any inward change in the heart? He leaves the question hanging in the air, haunting, unavoidable. How shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? Answer that in the loneliness of your own heart.

Now we look at a section where Christ in His humanity is set before us as our mediator before God. When man is in trouble he craves a mediator. Some years ago I was involved in a rather minor automobile accident. In my view it was entirely the other driver's fault, but apparently he did not feel the same way, because he sued me for damages. This was the first time I was ever sued, and I confess I was a bit bothered by it. But, I was comforted by the thought that this damage suit did not constitute any real threat since I had a mediator--the insurance company! I turned it all over to them and they handled the matter.

Thus, when we feel that God wants to say something to us we look around for a mediator to stand in between. The ancient world looked to angels for this service. But the writer of Hebrews will argue that angels will never do as mediators. The reason is simple: No angel has ever been a man; no angel has ever stood where we stand. But Jesus, the Son, has! Just how fully He has become man, we shall see in this passage. All the value of His life arises out of what we may call "the identification of incarnation. "

There is an intriguing pattern developed in Hebrews 2:5-18 that I should like to indicate. Four times in this passage we are led along the course of our Lord's earthly ministry, viewing it from four different points of view. At the end of each trip we come up against the bloody cross. God has planted the cross in this passage four different times to indicate that whatever value there may be in the life of our Lord Jesus, it is made available to us by means of His death. He came to earth to live in order that He might die. In the holy anguish of the cross, He poured forth His life in order that we might have it. The four insights of this passage accord very remarkably with the four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Here are the Gospels in miniature. They are not in the same order as the Gospels and it may add interest to this message for you to seek to identify which Gospel is indicated.

Now let us look at the first of four mighty reasons why Jesus Christ became a man.

For it was not to angels that God subjected the world to come, of which we are speaking. It has been testified somewhere, "What is man that thou art mindful of him, or the son of man, that thou carest for him? Thou didst make him for a little while lower than the angels, thou has crowned him with glory and honor, putting everything in subjection under his feet." Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. As it is, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him. But we see Jesus, who for a little while was made lower than the angels, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for every one (Hebrews 2:5-9).

This section declares that Jesus Christ became a man in order to recapture our lost destiny. No angel could take Christ's place, for God had never given the right to govern the universe to angels but to men. The writer substantiates that with a quotation from the well-known Eighth Psalm, where David cries, What is man that thou art mindful of him. . . ? He is out beneath the stars on some soft oriental night, looking up into the majesty of the heavens and feeling his own significance. He asks, "Where is man's place in this universe?" and by the Spirit he answers his own question. Thou didst make him for a little while lower than the angels, thou has crowned him with glory and honor, putting everything in subjection under his feet.

The writer insists that when David says "all things," he means all things, everything. For he adds, Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. Here is man's intended destiny, his authorized dominion. Man was made to be king over all God's universe. Surely this passage includes far more than the earth. It envisions the created universe of God as far as man has ever been able to discover it, in all the illimitable reaches of space and whatever lies beyond that. All this is to be put under man's dominion. It is a vast and tremendous vision.

But man's authority was derived authority. Man himself was to be subject to the God who indwelt him. He was to be the means by which the invisible God became visible to His creatures. He was to be the manifestation of God's own life which dwelt in the royal residence of his human spirit. As long as man was subject to the dominion of God within him, he would be able to exercise dominion over all the universe around. Only when man accepted dominion could he exercise dominion.

The writer further points out that man was made lower than the angels for a limited time to learn what the exercise of that dominion meant. He was given a limited domain: this earth, this tiny planet whirling its way through the great galaxy to which we belong, amid all the billions of galaxies of space. And he was also given a limited physical body so that within that limited area man should learn the principles by which his dominion could be exercised throughout the universe. This limitation is described as being lower than the angels.

But the passage goes on to describe man's present state of futility. As it is, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him. There is the whole story of human history in a nutshell. How visibly true this is: we do not yet see everything in subjection to him. Man attempts to exercise his dominion but he no longer can do so adequately. He has never forgotten the position God gave him, for throughout the history of the race there is a continual restatement of the dreams of man for dominion over the earth and the universe. This is "why we cannot keep off the highest mountain. We have to get up there, though we have not lost a thing up there and we know when we get there we will only see what the bear saw: the other side of the mountain. But we have to be there. We have to explore the depths of the sea. We have to get out into space. Why? Because it is there.

Man consistently manifests a remarkable racial memory, a vestigial recollection of what God told him to do. The trouble is that when he tries to accomplish this now he creates a highly explosive and dangerous situation, for his ability to exercise dominion is no longer there. Things get out of balance. This is why we are confronted with an increasingly serious situation in our day when our attempt to control insects by pesticides and other poisons creates an imbalance that threatens serious results. The history of man is one of continually precipitating a crisis by attempting to exercise dominion.

If we go back into recorded history to the earliest writings of men, the most ancient of history, we find that men were wrestling with the same moral problems then that we are wrestling with today. We have made wonderful advances in technology, but have made absolutely zero progress when it comes to moral relationships. Somewhere man has lost his relationship with God. The fall of man is the only adequate explanation of this. Since then the universe is stamped with futility. Everything man does is a dead-end street; he is utterly unable to carry things through to a successful conclusion. Even in the individual life this is true. How many have realized, the dreams and ideals they began with? Who can say, “I have done all that I wanted to do; I have been all that I wanted to be.” Paul in Romans puts it, The creation was subjected to futility (Romans 8:20).

But, the writer of Hebrews says, we see Jesus! This is man's one hope. With the eye of faith we see Jesus already crowned and reigning over the universe, the man Jesus fulfilling man's lost destiny. In the last book of the Bible there is a scene where John beholds the One seated upon the throne of the universe while ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands of angels are crying out in unending, undying worship before the throne. The call goes out to find one who is able to open the little book with seven seals which is the title deed to earth, the right to run the earth. A search is made through the length and breadth of human history for someone wise enough, strong enough, and compassionate enough to open the seals, but no one can be found. John says, I wept much that no one was found worthy to open the scroll (Revelation 5:4). But the elder said, Weep not; lo, the Lion of the tribe of Judah has conquered, so that he can open the scroll (Revelation 5:5). And when John turned to see the Lion, to his amazement he saw a Lamb, a Lamb with blood staining its neck, a Lamb that had been slain. As he watched, the Lamb stepped up to the throne and took the little book and all heaven broke into acclaim. Here at last was found One wise enough, strong enough and compassionate enough to solve the problems of man and to own the title deed of earth.

This is what the writer sees here in Hebrews. We see Jesus, who alone has broken through the barrier that keeps man from his heritage. What is that barrier? Have you ever analyzed that? What is it that keeps you from being what you want to be? What is it that keeps man from realizing his dreams of dominion? It is put in one grim word: death!

Death, in this passage as in many other places in Scripture, does not simply mean a funeral. It includes more than the ending of life. Death basically means uselessness, waste and futility. Death, in that sense, pervades all of life. You can see the signs of it all along. What is death? Boredom is death, and barrenness is death, as well as frustration and depression of spirit, anxiety, worry, fear, despair and defeat, along with all disease. All these are incipient death. The funeral is but the final straw. The closing of the casket is the ringing down of the curtain on a life of futility, of emptiness. The show is over! As Shakespeare put it,

"Life's but…a tale,

Told by an idiot,

Full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing."

(Macbeth 5. 5. 17)

The argument of Hebrews is that life apart from Jesus Christ is simply that kind of a tale. At the end of our life God may say, "It is a most remarkable performance, but the trouble is you missed the point. It signifies nothing."

But Jesus fulfilled the qualifications to realize man's heritage. He became lower than the angels, He took on flesh and blood, He entered into the human race to become part of it, He experienced death. Not only the death of the cross, but also that incipient death that marks the way of man through all his days. Thus He tasted death for every man, and in doing so He took our place. He thus made it possible for those who throw in their lot with Him to find that He has removed the thing that gives death its sting.

We shall see more of this in a moment, but for now it is enough to see that in Jesus Christ man has one ray of hope that he can realize the destiny God had provided for him. Christ has come to begin a new race of men. That race includes Himself and all those who are His, and to that race the promise is that they shall enter into all the fullness God ever intended man to have. Listen to the way Paul puts it to the Colossians, in Philippians glowing translation. They are those to whom God has planned to give a vision of the full wonder and splendor of his secret Plan for the nations (sons of men). And the secret is simply this: Christ in you! Yes, Christ in you bringing with him the hope of all the glorious things to come (Colossians 1:27).

That is the first reason Christ became man: to recapture man's lost inheritance. Which Gospel does that agree to? The Gospel of Matthew, the Gospel of the great King.

The second reason why Christ became man is to recover our lost unity.

For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the Pioneer of their salvation perfect through suffering. For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified have all one origin. That is why he is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying, "I will proclaim thy name to my brethren, in the midst of the congregation I will praise thee." And again, "I will put my trust in him." And again, "Here am I, and the children God has given me" (Hebrews 2:10-13).

The earthly life of Jesus is referred to in one phrase, made perfect through suffering. Was He not perfect when He came? When Jesus was a babe in Bethlehem's manger, was He not perfect even then? When He was tempted in the desert and Satan tried to turn Him from the cross, was He not already perfect? When He was feeding the five thousand, in compassionate ministry to the hungry multitudes, was He not perfect? Why then does it say He must be perfected by suffering?

There are, of course, two perfections involved. He was perfect in His person all along. The Scriptures make this abundantly clear. But He was not yet perfect in His work. Some of you young people may be perfect in health, perfect in body, perfect in strength, perfect in the soundness of your humanity, but you are not yet perfect in the work you are called to do. Suppose Jesus Christ had come full-grown into the world a week before He died. Suppose He had never been born as a baby, had never grown up into adult life, but had stepped into the earth full-grown as a man. Suppose He had uttered in one week's time the Sermon on the Mount, the Olivet discourse, the Upper Room discourse and all the teachings that we have from His lips recorded in Scripture. Imagine that He came on Monday and on Friday they took Him out and crucified Him, hanging Him on the cross, and that He died, just as it is recorded in the Scriptures, bearing the sins of the world. Would He still have been a perfect Saviour?

Certainly He would have been perfect as far as bearing our guilt is concerned: that only required a sinless Saviour. But He would not have been perfect as far as bearing our infirmities, our weaknesses, is concerned. He would have been able to fit us for heaven some day, but never able to make us ready for earth right now. In such a case we could always say (as too often we do say, anyway), "How can God expect me to live a perfect life in my situation? After all, I'm only human. Christ has never been where I am. What does He know of my pressures, what does He know of what I'm up against?" But He was made perfect through His suffering. He does know!

Some years ago a book was published with a characterization of Jesus on the cover. These words were written concerning Him: "A man who was often afraid, at a loss to know what was expected of him; a man who searched desperately for his own fulfillment and who, through his own strength and faith in divine guidance, conquered all human failings to set mankind an example it has never forgotten."

What is your reaction to that? Did you feel, as I felt when I first read it, that "This is but another example of liberal impertinence concerning Christ"? But when I read it through again I began to think about it, and soon found that I had only to change two words and I could accept it fully. I would have to take out the word "desperately"--"a man who searched desperately for his own fulfillment"--for I do not believe the Lord Jesus was ever desperate. And I would have to change the word "strength" to "weakness"--"Who, through his own 'weakness' and faith in divine guidance, conquered all human failings." But with those changes that is a perfectly accurate description of Jesus in His earthly life.

He was often afraid, He was uncertain at times, He searched for fulfillment in His life. If we deny Him this we deny Him His identification with us as human beings. These were the temptations He faced, the pressures He withstood. Every fear is temptation, every sense of uncertainty is temptation, and He was tempted "like as we are." Of course He never acted out of uncertainty, He never spoke out of fear, because He knew a secret, the secret He came to teach us: man is intended to be indwelt by God and to be continually dependent upon that God within him to give him everything he needs for every situation.

The moment Jesus felt fear gripping His heart, immediately He leaned back upon the full-flowing life of the indwelling Father and that fear was met by faith. The moment He felt uncertain, did not know which way to turn, He rested back upon the indwelling wisdom of God and was immediately given a word that was the right word for the situation. Because He fully entered into our fears and pressures He is fully one with us. That is why it can be recorded here, For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified have all one origin (or are all one body, all one lump together).

The writer quotes from the Old Testament to illustrate the point, showing that the attitude and the relationship He had to God is the same we have to Him. I will proclaim thy name to my brethren, in the midst of the congregation I will praise thee.

(Rejoicing in. all things, that is to re our attitude.) And again, I will put my trust in him. (Trust is the secret of life.) And again, Here am I, and the children God has given me. (All one, together.)

Christ has become so utterly one with us and we with Him that all causes of division are removed; all ground of enmity is taken away, all disagreement is answered. Thus this passage links up with the Gospel of John, the gospel of the one body, where Jesus prays to the Father, that they may be one, even as we are one (John 17:11). To make a new, wholly undivided body is the second reason Jesus Christ became man.

The third reason is to release us from our present bondage.

Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same nature, that through death he might destroy him who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong bondage (Hebrews 2:14, 15).

Is the devil destroyed? Do you think he has quit working? If we mean by this, "eliminated," obviously the answer is no. Bishop Pike said about the devil, "If there be such, he is still doing very well, as anyone reading the daily papers can know." Thus Pike disposed of the victory of Jesus Christ. But the word "destroy" here does not mean "eliminate." The word means "to render impotent; to nullify; to render inoperative, inconsequential. " That is the idea. The devil has not been eliminated, but the devil has been rendered impotent. Not to everyone! Only under certain conditions is this true, but those conditions are available to all men in Jesus Christ. That is what he is saying. When we enter into the conditions we discover that what he says is thrillingly true: there is a freeing from lifelong bondage.

The devil does not have the power of death in the sense of determining who dies and when life shall end. Only God has that power. But the phrase, "the power of death" means the grip of death, its fearsomeness, its terrible quality. Bondage therefore is that of the reign of sin, the flesh. This is what Paul means in Romans 8 when he says, To set the mind on the flesh is death (v. 6). Death is the absence of life. Death is not something in itself, it is simply the absence of something.

Someone gets hit by a car, the crowd gathers around and wonders if there is any life left. A doctor may come and examine the body. What does he look for? Evidences of death? No, he looks for evidences of life. If he can find no evidence of life as he searches the body of that person, he finally looks up and says, "I'm sorry; he's dead." Death, in all its forms, is absence of life. That is what boredom is, that is what distress is, that is what fear is, that is what anxiety is. These are forms of death because they are the absence of the life of the Lord Jesus.

It is from this death that Christ sets us free. The fear of this death is the devil's whip, the writer says, by which he keeps us in slavery and bondage all our life. Non-Christians, of course, have no escape from this, but even Christians, because they do not understand the kind of freedom that Christ brings, frequently experience death: defeat, waste, limitation, despair.

Let me give two examples. The first is taken from the student unrest of the late Sixties on the campus of Berkeley and other universities. What was behind this? Why are students often so restless? The issue, as it was publicized in the papers, is the matter of freedom of speech and, in a sense, this is natural. Students are desirous of experiencing life, they want to live life to the full. Who does not? They want to experience life in the totality intended for man, and they equate such living with freedom. To a degree, this, too, is right, but the concepts of freedom may be wrong. I am not attempting to judge the situation. There was obviously right and wrong on both sides. But, in analyzing this, I see beneath the restlessness a constant hunger for life.

But to so hunger after life exposes us also to the devil's lie, that freedom is self-expression. It is having what I want; it is doing what I like; it is going where I want to go and acting as I please. It is the fear that we are going to miss out on life (the fear of death) that is the devil's whip to drive us into activity on a principle that leads us into more and greater death. To gain such freedom only means greater boredom; to be denied it means hate or despair, all forms of death.

Example number two comes from the realm of imagination, although it is often true. Here is a man who believes that money brings happiness, that if he can just get certain things in his life he will be content. Since he wants to be happy he devotes all his time to the unending contest to amass a fortune. As a result, life begins to pass him by more and more. He does not have time for the real things of life. In his grubby search for money and the things that money can buy he may awaken to find that the years have flown by and he has not yet begun to live. Because he is afraid that he will lose out on life he keeps this up, and in the end he loses out entirely. That is the devil's whip. These words are highly accurate, precisely stating the situation as it is being lived out day after day.

How does Christ deliver from this? The glory of the gospel of Jesus Christ is that the cross reverses our values. In its light we are able to strip away the devil's lie, and to act upon a totally different principle of life. That principle is this: freedom is not having what I want; it is doing what God wants. It is the man who gives up who gains; it is the man who flings away his life in abandonment to what God wants, who finally learns to live. It is the one who tries to keep his life who loses it. Is that not what Jesus said?

The man or woman who steps out upon this principle will discover that for him the devil is impotent. That man is set free to live the kind of life God intended him to live. He may not have some of the things others may have, for things do not produce happiness; but he has what God wants him to have: life lived to the fullest degree possible. That is the third reason Jesus Christ became man: to release us from the present bondage.

The last reason is to restore us in time of failure.

For surely it is not with angels that he is concerned but with the descendants of Abraham. Therefore he had to be made like his brethren in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make expiation for the sins of the people. For because he himself has suffered and been tempted, he is able to help those who are tempted (Hebrews 2:16-18).

There is the cross again, expiation for the sins of the people. It comes at the end of a life in which the Lord Jesus learned to become a merciful and faithful high priest. The cross here is seen in its character as the basis for daily cleansing and forgiveness for the people of God. This has in view the ministry of 1 John 1:9. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. He is able to do this because during His life He learned how to be merciful, that is, compassionate, and how to be faithful. That gracious compassion is now made available to us in His death. Christ's present attitude is summed up for us in Hebrews 5:2: He can deal gently with the ignorant and wayward, since he himself is beset with weakness.

If we come defending our sins, defiant, excusing ourselves, we can find no help at all. But if we come, as David comes in the fifty-first Psalm, confessing, pouring it all out, admitting everything, saying it is wrong, and casting it all upon Him, we find there is an immediate flowing out of strength and healing, restoring grace.

Paul Fromer once wrote an editorial in His magazine in which he told of a personal incident in his own experience. He found himself bitter and resentful over a situation that had occurred in his work. As he thought over the hurtful attitudes others had shown toward him a verse from the ninety-first Psalm flashed across his mind. He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High, who abides in the shadow of the Almighty, will say to the Lord, "My refuge and my fortress; my God, in whom I trust” (v. 1,2).

He said it suddenly occurred to him that the verse was saying that Christ was not merely able to become a refuge and a fortress; He is that. As he went on, he said he thought of the Lord as across the room from him, a refuge, a fortress. But here Fromer was on this side and the problem was how to close the gap, how to get into the fortress, the place of refuge. As he thought further about his problem and what Christ could be to him, the thought came to him, "Why not itemize your problem? You are dwelling on it in such a hazy, vague fashion. You must get it down to specifics. Now itemize it." So he did that and found that he had six grievances rather than one, as he thought when he started. Then he went through these six and, one by one, as he thought on each one, he felt the Lord imparting to him a different point of view. He began to look at each from the point of view of those who had caused his problem, and each time he saw there was some basis for their accusation. He was then able to forgive and forget each grievance.

Eventually, as he went down this list one by one, he found every one of them was settled. When he reached the end he found that all the resentment had ebbed away and in its place was a sense of peace and quietness of heart that made him able to go back to his work without strain, fret, or distress. He realized then that Christ in His high priestly ministry had closed the gap and had made him discover that He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High abides in the shadow of the Almighty. If you learn the reality of this you will not need to go to a psychiatrist, or buy a book on peace of mind. If you know Jesus Christ you can come directly to Him, at any time, any place, and find that His ministry will bring you under the shadow of the Almighty."

The writer of this letter is deeply concerned that Christians enter into this relationship. My question to you in this twentieth-century hour is: How much have you discovered this total ministry of Christ in your own life? He became a man not only to recapture our lost destiny but also to heal the disagreements among us and bring us into the unity of one life in Him; to release us from daily, lifelong bondage to the fear of losing out on life; and to bring us that sweet, healing ministry which, in time of failure, restores us to fellowship without condemnation.

"Lord, teach us to be more than perfunctory about our prayers. Grant us depth, honesty, earnestness that we may believe this marvelous ministry made available to us by our Lord Jesus. That here in this late twentieth-century hour there may arise such a tremendous demonstration of what human life was intended to be that everywhere men and women will be talking about it and saying, 'What do these people have?' "We ask it in Christ's name, amen."

3 Truth You Can Lean On

A group of tourists visiting the city of Rome came to an enclosure where a number of chickens were penned. The guide who was taking them through the city said, "These are very unusual and distinctive chickens. They happen to be descendants of the rooster that crowed on the night in which Peter denied the Lord." The tourists were very much impressed. One Englishwoman among them peered at the chickens and said, "My word! What a remarkable pedigree!" An American immediately reached for his checkbook and said, "How much do they cost?" But an Irishman turned to the guide and said, "Do they lay any eggs?" He was not interested in apostolic succession, but in apostolic success!

This is the attitude many have toward the Christian faith, and properly so. Can it do anything for me right now? Does the good news of the gospel have anything really helpful to say about the problem of nervous tension, for instance? Can it aid me in the matter of an inferiority complex? Will it do anything for my terrible habit of anxiety and worry when things do not go right? These are the problems that more desperately affect our lives than any other. We may be concerned about atomic bombs and nuclear warfare, but the problems of nervous tension and inferiority, resentment and bitterness, take their bitter toll on us each day.

Hebrews, chapter 2, closed on a practical note. The Lord Jesus, in His coming to earth, became a man for four mighty reasons. Among them, and the one last stated, was that He might be a compassionate and merciful High Priest in order that He might help those that are tempted, in the midst of their temptation. Chapter 3 picks up that theme and develops it, asking us to consider the astonishing solution that is offered by Jesus Christ to this plaguing, nagging problem of frustration, hypertension, anxiety, and all the neuroses and psychoses that are so familiar today.

Therefore, holy brethren, who share in a heavenly call, consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession. He was faithful to him who appointed him, just as Moses also was faithful in God's house. Yet Jesus has been counted worthy of as much more glory than Moses as the builder of a house has more honor than the house. (For every house is built by some one, but the builder of all things is God.) Now Moses was faithful in all God's house as a servant, to testify to the things that were to be spoken later, but Christ was faithful over God's house as a son. And we are his house if we hold fast our confidence and pride in our hope (Hebrews 3:1-6).

Seven times in that short section the word "house" appears, and is primarily a reference to "God's house." There is a very common misunderstanding abroad today, especially among Christians, that the term "the house of God" means a church building. In my opinion there is nothing more destructive of the greatest message of the New Testament than that belief! A building is never truly called the house of God, either in the New Testament or the Old Testament in the present or in the past. Certainly no church building, since the days of the early church, could ever properly be called the house of God. The early church never referred to any building in that way. As a matter of fact, the early church had no buildings for two or three hundred years. When they referred to the house of God they meant the people. A church is not a building, it is people!

Even the Temple or the Tabernacle of old was not really God's house. Let someone point out the fact that no building today can properly be called the house of God, and some Bible instructed Christian nearby wisely nods his head and says, "Yes, you're right. The only building that could be called the house of God was the Temple or the Tabernacle." It is true that these buildings were termed that in Scripture, but it is meant only in figure, only as a picture. They were never actually meant to be the place where God dwelled.

In the sixty-sixth chapter of his magnificent prophecy, Isaiah records the words of the Lord, saying, Heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool; what is the house which you would build for me?… All these things my hand has made (Isaiah 66:1,2). Paul, in preaching to the Athenians, reminded them that God…does not live in shrines made by man (Acts 17:24). Even as he said those words the Temple was still standing in Jerusalem. No, God does not dwell in buildings.

Then what is the house of God that is mentioned here? The answer is very clearly stated in Hebrews 3:6. We are his house--we people. God never intended to dwell in any building; He dwells in people, in men and women, in boys and girls. That is the divine intention in making men, that they may be the tabernacle of His indwelling. In that beautiful scene recorded in the twenty-first chapter of Revelation, the last chapter of the Bible, the mighty vision of the prophets is fulfilled, Behold, the indwelling of God is with men (Revelation 21:3). Paul refers to this in 1 Corinthians, Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God? (1 Corinthians 6:19). This is the focus toward which all Scripture is directed. God's purpose is to inhabit your body and to make you to be the manifestation of His life, the dwelling place of all that He is; so that, as Paul prays in Ephesians 3, you may be a body wholly filled and flooded with God himself (see v. 19). The great message of the gospel is that it takes God to be a man. You cannot be a man without God. It takes Christ to be a Christian, and when you put Christ into the Christian you put God back into the man. That is the good news, that is the gospel.

Now in this house of God, which is people, Moses ministered as a servant, but Christ as a Son. Therefore the Son is much more to be obeyed, much more to be listened to, much more to be honored and heeded, than the servant. Moses served faithfully as a servant. What is the ministry of a servant? A servant is always preparing things. He must prepare meals, he must prepare rooms, he must prepare the yard. He is always working in the anticipation of something yet to come. His work is in view of that which is yet future. So, Moses was faithful in all God's house as a servant, to testify to the things that were to be spoken later (yet to come), but Christ was…as a son (Hebrews 3:5,6).

What is the role of a son in a house? To take over everything, to possess it, to use whatever he likes. The house was made for him. So Christ has come to inhabit us, as Paul again prays in Ephesians, that Christ may make his home in your hearts by faith. (See Ephesians 3:17.)

Now, the writer declares, we are that house--if. At this point he interjects the little word, if. And we are his house if we hold fast our confidence and pride in our hope (Hebrews 3:6). And again in verse 14. For we share in Christ, if only we hold our first confidence firm to the end.

Now a cloud passes over the sun. The possibility is raised of being self-deceived in this matter of belonging to Christ, of being His house. It all hangs upon that word of uncertainty, if. What does this mean? Well, there are two possible views of this that are usually taken by Christians. There is the view that we can be built into the house of God and become part of it, that Christ can come to dwell in our hearts and we can be the tabernacle of the Most High. Then later on, because we fail to lay hold of all that God gives us and we sin, we lose all we have gained, Christ leaves us and we lose our salvation. This is the view that is called "Arminianism" (not Armenianiasm) after a man named Arminius, a theologian in the Middle Ages. This view suggests that it is possible to lose our faith after we have once become the habitation of the Most High.

But if we take that view we are immediately in direct contradiction with some very clear and precise statements elsewhere that declare exactly the opposite. For instance, in John 10:27,28, Jesus said, My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me; and I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish. Why? My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand (v. 29). Romans 8, verse 35, asks, Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Paul goes on to list all the possibilities, then he declares, No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us (v. 37).

Another possible meaning here suggests that, once having professed to receive the Lord Jesus, once having invited Him to come in, if then we do not manifest signs of new life, if nothing happens to our behavior as a result of our profession of faith, we have simply been self-deceived. We never had faith despite the external appearances, the religious observances that we have gone through. This is the danger the whole book of Hebrews faces. We will return to it again and again. Hebrews is addressed to a body of people among whom were certainly some whose Christian life was highly in doubt because they were not growing, they were not going on, they were not entering in to what God had provided for them.

This was not mere hypocrisy. The writer is not speaking of one who deliberately tries to pass himself off as a Christian, knowing in himself he is not. There are those who join a church because they think it is good for business or helps their status or prestige in the community, but they know they are not Christians. They do not believe what they hear, they do not have interest in what is said. Such people stick out like sore thumbs among the saints. They deceive no one but themselves.

But the writer of Hebrews is talking here about some who have fallen into self-confident delusion and who feel themselves to be Christians. They have gone through every possible prescribed ritual to identify themselves with Christianity. Because of this they feel they are Christians. They believe the right things, they hold the right creed, they have orthodoxy in every bone of their body. They are rigid about the proclamation of the truth and conform to doctrine in every degree. But they are self-deceived. As they are unable to manifest what God has come into human hearts to produce, they reveal that there never was faith in the beginning. So, in Hebrews, continuance is the ultimate proof of reality.

An illustration confirms clearly the point. If it is properly understood, it is designed to shake us to our eyeteeth. It is the story of the rebellion of Israel in the wilderness.

Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, "Today, when you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, on the day of testing in the wilderness, where your fathers put me to the test and saw my works for forty years." Therefore I was provoked with that generation, and said, "They always go astray in their hearts; they have not known my ways." As I swore in my wrath, "They shall never enter my rest" (Hebrews 3:7-11).

Further, the writer says,

Who were they that heard and yet were rebellious? Was it not all those who left Egypt under the leadership of Moses? And with whom was he provoked forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? And to whom did he swear that they should never enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient? So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief (Hebrews 3:16-19).

The writer points out this people comprised almost the whole number of those who left Egypt under Moses. They had fulfilled every prescribed symbol of deliverance, but they were not delivered. While they were in Egypt they had killed the Passover lamb, and had sprinkled the blood of it over the doorposts. On the terrible night when the angel of death passed through the land and took the life of every first-born son in every household, they were safe. They had followed Moses as they left Egypt and had come to the borders of the Red Sea. As the waters flowed before them and the armies of the Egyptians were fast approaching from the rear, Moses lifted up his rod and the waters parted arid they all passed through the sea as well. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians, they were baptized into Moses in…the sea (1 Corinthians 10:2). They were united to him.

Many of us, perhaps, have likewise looked to the cross of Christ and in some degree counted His death as valid for us as the blood of our Passover lamb. We have gone through the waters of baptism, testifying by that that we believe we have been baptized by the Spirit of God into the Body of Christ, made to be part of Him.

These people, as they wandered through the wilderness on the way from Egypt to Canaan, had enjoyed the protection and guidance of the pillar of fire by night and the cloud by day, speaking of the protection, guidance, and fatherly care of God. They had even been fed every day by the manna as it came from the skies, fresh every morning. Centuries later, when the Jews of our Lord Jesus' day heard Him refer to them as children of the devil, they said to Him, "We are not children of the devil, we are children of Abraham. Don't you know what happened to our fathers? Talk about people of God! We are the true people of God. Our fathers ate bread in the wilderness for forty years: if that is not a sign that we are the people of God, I don't know what could be!" But the writer says, With whom was he provoked forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? (Hebrews 3:17).

When the test finally came and they stood on the borders of the Promised Land, they were given the word of the Lord through Moses to advance and take the land. But they held back because they were afraid of the giants that inhabited the cities of that land. When they were asked to face the giants and, by the principle of faith, to overcome them and enter into the rest of the land, they refused to do so. They turned back and for forty years wandered in the wilderness. The test came when for the first time they were asked to come to grips with the thing that could destroy their life in the land--the giants--and their failure to do so revealed the bitter truth that they never had any faith. They had never really believed God. They were only acting as they did to escape the damage, death, and danger of Egypt. But they had no intention of coming into conflict with the giants in the land.

The Word of God is pointing out to us that we may profess the Lord Jesus, we may take our stand in some outward way at least upon the cross of Christ and claim His death for us. We can profess to have been baptized into His body, and say so by passing through the waters of baptism ourselves. We can enjoy the fatherly care and providence of God and see Him working miracles of supply in our lives, and even find in the Scripture much which sustains the heart, at least for awhile. Yet, when it comes to the test, when God asks us to lay hold of the giants in our life which are destroying us; those giants of anxiety, fear, bitterness, jealousy, envy, impatience, and all the other things that keep us in turmoil and make us a constant trouble to our neighbors and friends when we are asked to lay hold of these by the principle of faith and we refuse to do so, the writer says we are in danger of remaining in the wilderness and never entering the promised rest.

Take care, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called "today," that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we share in Christ, if only we hold our first confidence firm to the end (Hebrews 3:12-14).

We share in Christ if that faith which began in us continues to produce in us that which faith alone can produce, the fruit of the Spirit. This is the second warning of this book. The first one was against drifting, the danger of paying no attention, of sitting in a meeting and letting the words flow by while our minds are occupied elsewhere. That is the peril of letting these magnificent truths, which alone have power to set men free, drift by unheeded, unheard.

This second warning is against the danger of hardening: of hearing the words and believing them, understanding what they mean, but taking no action upon them; the peril of holding truth in the head but never letting it get into the heart. Truth known never does anything; it is truth done which sets us free. Truth known simply puffs us up in pride of knowledge. We can quote the Scriptures by the yard, can memorize them, can know the message of every book and know the whole Book from cover to cover, but truth known will never do anything for us. It is truth done, truth acted upon, that moves and delivers and changes.

The terrible danger which the writer is pointing out is that truth that is known but not acted on has an awful effect of hardening the heart so that it is no longer able to act, and we lose the ability to believe. This is what the Lord Jesus meant when He said to His disciples, If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced if some one should rise from the dead (Luke 16:31).

A man once said to me, "If we only had the ability to do miracles like the early church did, then we could really make this Christian cause go. If we could perform these things again, and had faith enough to do miracles, we could make people believe." But I had to tell him that after thirty years of observing this scene and studying the Scriptures I am absolutely convinced that if God granted us this power, as He is perfectly able to do, so that miracles were being demonstrated on every hand, there would not be one further Christian added to the cause of Christ than there is right now!

At the close of Jesus' own ministry, after that remarkable demonstration of the power of God in the midst of people, how many stood with Him at the foot of the cross? A tiny band of women and one man, and they had been won, not by His miracles, but by His words. This is why God says, “I swore in my wrath, "they shall never enter my rest.” That is not petulance. That does not mean God is upset because He has offered something and they will not take it. That is simply a revelation of the nature of the case. When truth is known and not acted upon, it always--on every level of life, in any area of human knowledge--has this peculiar quality: it hardens, so the heart is finally not able to believe what it refuses to act on.

Our Father, though it may take us many years of struggle and effort to learn this principle of ceasing from our own efforts and resting quietly upon your ability to work in us, nevertheless, Lord, when we learn it, what release, what relief there is, what a joy to stop our straining, fretful, petulant efforts to please you and do something for you, and simply to rest upon your willingness to do everything in and through us. What grace, Lord, to make this known to us. We pray that we may learn both to act upon this truth and to rest upon this new arrangement and thus be equipped to enter into every situation, face any circumstance or any problem with the adequacy which is yours, available to us. In Christ's name, amen."

4 Come Rest al His Throne

Now we come to the sign of reality. What is it that unmistakably marks the one who has genuinely become part of God's house? What is the "rest" of God, the mark of reality?

Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest remains, let us fear lest any of you be judged to have failed to reach it. For good news came to us just as to them; but the message which they heard did not benefit them, because it did not meet with faith in the hearers (Hebrews 4:1,2).

That does not mean the message did not meet with belief. When the Israelites stood at the borders of the land they had no doubts at all that the land was there--they believed in it. Nor was it that they did not believe there was honey and milk in the land, the fullness of supply awaiting them--they believed it. There was a species of belief, but there was not faith, for faith is more than belief. Faith is action upon that belief! There was belief, there was even strong desire to enter the land, but they did not enter because they had no faith. They would not act upon that which had been given.

The writer says the same gospel was given to us as to them; we have the same good news, the same possibility of entering into a life of rest. These words must be taken seriously. The Word of God knows nothing of the easy believism that is so widely manifest in our own day. We think we can receive Jesus as Saviour, raise our hand to accept Christ, and that settles the matter. We will go to heaven and there can never be any doubt about it from then on, though there is no change in our lives. But the promise of Christ is that when He comes into the human heart there is a radical change of government which must inevitably, in the course of its working, result in a revolutionary change in behavior. Unless that takes place there has been no reality to our conversion. The goal of His working in us is rest.

Now what is this rest? In verse 3 we learn it is pictured for us by the Sabbath.

For we who have believed enter that rest, as he has said, “I swore in my wrath, they shall never enter my rest,” although his works were finished from the foundation of the world. [Here is a rest that has been available to man ever since man first appeared on earth. It was available from the foundation of the world.] For he has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way, "And God rested on the seventh day from all his works." And again in this place he said, "They shall never enter my rest" (Hebrews 4:3-5).

You know the story of creation. On the seventh day God ceased from His labors; He rested on the seventh day, intending that to be a picture of what the rest of faith is. It has been available to man since the beginning of the world. Certain groups have focused upon the shadow instead of the substance and have insisted that we must observe the Sabbath day much as it was given to Israel, that this is what pleases God. But God is never pleased by the perfunctory observance of shadows, of figures.

Here is one of the great problems of Christian faith. We are constantly mistaking shadows for substance, pictures for reality. A teenage girl told me, in an anguish of repentance, that she had gotten up from a Communion service and gone out to engage in some very wrong activities. I asked her, "How could you do this? How could you leave a Communion service to do this?" She replied defensively, "Well, I didn't partake of Communion." And I said, "What difference does that make?" That was a mere shadow. Communion pictures the sharing of the life of the Lord Jesus. If we deny that in our activity but are scrupulous about its observance in the shadow, in the mere picture, it is an insult to God.

The believer's rest was figured in the Sabbath, and anyone who learns to live out of rest is keeping the Sabbath as God meant it to be kept. It was also prefigured in the land of Canaan. Yet in verse 8 it says, If Joshua had given them rest, God would not speak later of another day. If the figure had been enough God would not, later on in the Scriptures, have recorded the words, there remains a sabbath rest for the people of God (v. 9). Obviously Canaan, too, was nothing but a figure, nothing but a picture, a shadow. Then what is the real rest? We come to it in verse 10 where it is stated most clearly, For whoever enters God's rest also ceases from his labors as God did from his.

Here is a revolutionary new principle of human behavior on which God intends man to operate. That was His intention from the beginning. It is from this that man fell and it is to this now, in Jesus Christ, he is to be restored. Unless this principle is operative in our lives we can have no assurance that we belong to the Body of Christ. This is the clear declaration of this writer throughout the whole of the book.

We all have been brainwashed since birth with a false concept of the basis of human activity. We have been sold on the satanic lie that we have in ourselves what it takes to be what we want to be--to be a man, to be a woman, to achieve whatever we desire. We are sure we have what it takes or, if we do not have it now, we know where we can get it. We can educate ourselves, we can acquire more information, we can develop new skills, and when we get this done we shall have what it takes to be what we want to be.

For three and a half years the apostle Peter tried his level best to please the Lord Jesus by dedicated, earnest, sincere efforts to serve Him out of his own will. He failed dismally because he could not be convinced that he did not have what it takes. When the Lord Jesus told him, “You will never have what it takes until the cross comes into your life," he would not receive it. He said, "Lord, don't talk to me about a cross. I don't want to hear anything about that."

And the Lord Jesus said, "Get behind me, Satan, you are an offense unto me. You do not understand the things of God, but only the things of men." It was not until that wonderful day, the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit opened Peter's eyes to the full meaning of the cross, that he realized what the Lord had meant. Not till then did he realize what it took to be a Christian.

I repeat, it takes Christ to be a Christian, and it takes God to be a man. When you put Christ back in the Christian, you put God back in the man. This is God's design for living. This is the new principle of human activity--to stop our own efforts. We do not have what it takes, and we never did have. The only One who can live the Christian life is Jesus Christ. He proposes to reproduce His life in us. Our part is to expose every situation to His life in us and by that means, depending upon Him and not upon ourselves, we are to meet every situation, enter into every circumstance, and perform every activity. We cease from our own labors.

This is the way you began the Christian life, if you are a Christian. You came to the place where you stopped trying to save yourself, did you not? You quit trying to be good enough to get to heaven. You said, "I'll never make it." You looked to the Lord Jesus and said, "If He has taken my place, then that is all I need." Thus, receiving Him and resting on that fact by faith, you stopped your own efforts, you ceased from your own work and rested on His. Now Paul says in Colossians, As therefore you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so live in him (Colossians 2:6). "As. . . so," in the same way: as you have received Him, so live in dependence upon Him to do all things through you. Step out upon that, and what is the result? Rest! Wonderful rest! Relief, release, no longer worrying, fretting, straining, for you are resting upon One who is wholly adequate to do through you everything that needs to be done. He does not make automatons of us, He does not turn us into robots. He works through our thinking, our feeling and our reasoning, but our dependence must be upon Him.

Notice the word that is stressed through this whole section: today. This is God's design for living today. It is not inactivity, but it is freedom from strain. It is the principle upon which He expects everything to be done: your work, your schooling, your studies, your play, your responsibilities in the home, at the shop, wherever you are. All are to be fulfilled out of reliance upon this new principle of human behavior. Whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of [by the authority and ability of] the Lord Jesus (Colossians 3:17).

Now one important word on how. If you have never yet entered into this principle in any degree and yet have been truly born of God by the Holy Spirit, this study will find you asking, "Lord, show me how. I want to enter into this rest, I want to know what this is." Then look at the instrument by which we enter in, the Word of God.

Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, that no one fall by the same sort of disobedience. For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart (Hebrews 4:11, 12).

In order to enter into this new principle we must repudiate the old. But the problem is, the old basis of activity is so ingrained in our thinking that we automatically respond to old thought patterns. Thus, though the new life of the Lord Jesus may be in us, we find ourselves repudiating it and responding along old lines, reacting in bitterness, impatience, anger, frustration, anxiety, worry, fear, trepidation, uncertainty and inferiority. We do not know how to recognize the old in its practical appearance. What will help us? The Word of God! This living, marvelous Word becomes an instrument in the hands of the Holy Spirit with a two-edged action. It strips off the false. If we seek to obey it as we read it, we shall discover that it exposes the entrenched power of the flesh in our life and strips off all pretense. It is not only the Bible which is meant by the phrase the word of God. It is the truth of God, whether it comes by sermon, by Scripture, or by some confirmation of life. It is the truth that strips off the false. It can be utterly ruthless, moving in on us, backing us into a corner, taking down all our fences and facades, worming its way right into the heart of our nature, discerning even between the soul and the spirit. One time I watched the book of Esther in the hands of the Holy Spirit take a group of people and strip off their pretenses and expose them to themselves. For the first time they saw, with horror, what they really were under the domination of this sin-principle, the flesh.

But the Word has a twofold action. It not only strips off the false, but it unveils the true. When we come to the place where, like Jacob, we are ready to take a good look at ourselves, then there comes the marvelous, healing, wholesome, comforting, sweet, delivering Word that sets us on our feet again, and shows us, in Christ, every provision for every need. We need no longer go on doggedly, wearily fighting a battle that is already lost, but we can step out each fresh new day into the glorious experience of a victory that is already won.

And what is the final outcome? Look at verse 13.

And before him no creature is hidden, but all are open and laid bare to the eyes of him with whom we have to do.

We come at last to the God of reality. When Adam sinned, he hid from God. He hid because he realized he was naked; he was ashamed, and he clothed himself. When all pretense is stripped off and we see ourselves for what we are, and by faith have appropriated what Christ is; when we believe that He not only died for us, but rose again to live in us; when we realize that we not only need Him for what He did, but also for what He is; then we can stand again before God exactly as we are, naked, without need of facades, masks, or pretenses. We are exactly what we are--just men, just women, just sinners saved by grace, with nothing to defend, nothing that need be hidden, nothing that cannot be fully exposed to everyone. We discover a wonderful lifting of burdens, a wonderful freedom, a wonderful release--we have entered into rest. The fences come down between us and our friends and neighbors; we do not try to hide anything anymore. Because we are what we are before God, we can be exactly what we are before men.

Perhaps you have been in the wilderness a long, long time--too long. Normally, as this book will make clear as we go on, it is expected that a Christian who comes to know the Lord Jesus will be led into the experience of rest within a few years after his conversion. It may take no longer than a few months. But even if you have been living in the wilderness of self-effort for many years, it is yet possible to die to your unbelief, as that old generation died, to leave the carcass of unbelieving self-sufficiency behind, and, like the new generation born in the wilderness, to follow your heavenly Joshua into the land.

You cannot crucify the flesh; God has already done that. But you can agree to it. And when you do, you will discover this priceless gift of peace, of rest. But if you refuse, knowing what to do but not willing to do it, the living death that marks your fruitless, self-centered, so-called "Christian" life, will be the tombstone of a phony faith, a faith that never really was, a house built upon the sand which, when the floods and storms of life strike it, is swept to destruction.

This principle, then, is not an option. It is not something we can choose to accept or ignore. It is the whole goal of God's work in human hearts. In Hebrews this principle is called the rest of God; it is activity out of rest. It is to cease from our self-directed activities, the principle upon which we have lived our human lives ever since we were babies, convinced that we had what it takes to do what we wanted to do or, at least, could get what it takes from some human source. This new principle, made available to us only in Jesus Christ, means to cease our self-directed activities and to trust in the ability of a second Person to work through us.

That is exactly what faith is. Every one of you exercises faith every time you sit in a chair. You trust in the work of another person. You don't pick up a chair and examine it to see if it will support you if you sit on it. You take it by faith; you exercise trust in the maker of the chair. You may not have the least idea who he is--whether he is a rascal or trustworthy--but you simply take it for granted and exercise a faith which supports you. We make faith so difficult, but it is simply trusting in the work of another.

And that is what the life of rest is: trusting the Lord Jesus who has come to indwell our hearts to do through us all that we do, using the functions of our human personality to do so. That is rest. It takes away from us our favorite excuse for failure. It demands we stop justifying our failure by saying, "Well, after all, I'm only human." For this principle proposes to meet every situation, not with human wisdom, but with divine; not with human strength, but with God's strength; not by the exercise of sheer will power, but by the exercise of absolute trust.

This One with whom we have to do, Jesus Christ, knows us thoroughly, sees everything about us. Nothing is hidden from His gaze; we are absolutely open and naked before Him. He knows our weaknesses. He knows that when temptation is heavy upon us, when we are being harassed and irritated by the children or the boss or our mother-in-law, we shall be strongly tempted to give way, to fight back, to lose our temper and say things we shouldn't say. The Lord knows that when we are treated unfairly--perhaps we have done the right thing but are blamed for it, even insulted over it--there is a strong, almost overpowering urge to strike back, to get even, to do something to even the score. He knows that in the human heart there is a great hunger for acceptance by those around us, that we are very uncomfortable when we are in a crowd of people and feel we must act differently. He knows, too, that under those circumstances of pressure we will tend to excuse our failure by saying, "Well, I know I should lean on the Lord, but the provocation here is too great. I can take it up to a point, but if it gets too strong, I know I will give in."

Because of this tendency to excuse ourselves when the pressure gets too great, the writer now says in effect, "I want you to take a closer look at the great High Priest who is our strength, our refuge, our fortress, our enabler."

Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we have not a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sinning. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need (Hebrews 4:14-16).

Four words in that brief passage sum up all it has to say: "the throne of grace." It is fashionable in some circles these days to view the Protestant Reformation as a great mistake, something that we should feel ashamed of and work to heal by the ecumenical movement of our day.

It is interesting to note that wherever there has been genuine renewal in the Catholic Church (or the Protestant Church), it has been by a return to the great principles of the Reformation reflected in this passage. The reformers, Luther, Zwingli, Calvin and others, nailed to the masthead of their movement three great principles taken from the Scriptures. No sacrifice but Calvary, no priest but Christ, no confessional but the throne of Grace! With these three mighty principles they turned Europe upside down during the Middle Ages. The Christian finds power only as there is a return to these great things declared here.

Here is the throne of grace. A throne speaks of authority and power, while grace conveys the idea of sympathy and understanding. These two thoughts are combined in Jesus Christ. He is a man of infinite power, yet in complete and utter sympathy with us. He said, after His resurrection, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth (Matthew 28:18, KJV). His title here in Hebrews is Jesus, the Son of God, possessing the fullness of deity.

But more than that, He is the One who has passed through the heavens. In this space age this phrase should catch our eye. Jesus not only passed into the heavens but through the heavens. This is the point the writer is making.

When we put men into a rocket and hurl them into space from Cape Canaveral, we throw them into the heavens. They are still within this space-time continuum. Even when they land on the moon this is true. It would still be true if they went to the nearest planets or the outermost reaches of our solar system.

But the claim made for Jesus is that He has passed through the heavens, He has passed outside the limits of time and space. He is no longer contained within or limited by those boundaries that hold us within physical limits. Because He is outside, above, beyond and over all, there are no limits to His power.

It is wrong to think of heaven in terms of space. There is a tendency for some Christians to think of heaven as "out there" in space somewhere, perhaps on one of the stars, some great distance from earth. Because of the figurative language employed in Scripture we think of going "up" to heaven and "down" to hell. It was this that Bishop Robinson seized upon in his book Honest to God and pushed to unwarrantable extremes.

The idea that is conveyed to us by the figurative language of the Scriptures is that heaven is outside time and space; therefore, it can be within us as well as around us, above us, and beyond us, since it is a dimension of reality beyond time and space limitations. The throne of grace is not a remote space; it is right in the heart of a believer in whom Jesus Christ dwells. To come to the throne of grace does not mean to go into a prayer closet and then address an appeal across the reaches of space to some distant point in heaven. It means to reckon upon the One who indwells us. The throne of grace is that close to us, that available to us.

The writer also makes clear that though the Lord Jesus has passed into the place of supreme power, and has absolutely no limits upon His ability to work, He also is tremendously concerned with our problems. He says, We have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities (Hebrews 4:15, KJV). It is almost an indignant retort to some sly accusation, "We do not have," he says, "a priest who is remote from us, who is isolated from us, who does not understand what we are going through." Previously in this letter Jesus has been called "the pioneer of our salvation." This is the thought of the phrase here. He has already gone the whole course before us. He has felt every pressure, He has known every pull, He has been drawn by every allurement we face, He has been frightened by every fear, beset by every anxiety, depressed by every worry. Yet He did it without failure, without sinning. Never once did He fall. Therefore,