Hebrews 6:7-8:2
Notes
Transcript
Hebrews 6:7-7:28
Hebrews 6:7-7:28
Good morning Church! We are resuming our study this morning in the book of Hebrews. I personally am so thankful for the tradition Pastor Chuck Smith passed down to us of going through the Word of God verse by verse, precept upon precept, all the way through the Bible. I don’t know if you guys realize how rare that is today even in Christian churches.
It is not the easiest way to do things, but I believe it is the best way to throughly equip the Saints for the work of the ministry. We read about some topics last week, that are supposed to be considered the building blocks, the basics, of the Christian faith. The things the author of Hebrews calls the elementary principles of Christ.
1 Therefore, leaving the discussion of the elementary principles of Christ, let us go on to perfection, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God,
2 of the doctrine of baptisms, of laying on of hands, of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment.
Now we could plan out a 4-6 week sermon series and cover these things, or these particular topics, but his point is, that we should be moving beyond these things. Teaching through the entire Word of God, allows the Word of God to go through us, and we go through it. The Apostle Paul tells us in second Timothy.
16 All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness,
17 that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.
So, I’m telling you if you stick it out in a church that is faithful to teach through the bible, I’d say a 4-5 year stay in that type of teaching environment you will receive a better education than what most pastors receive going through seminary.
If you were with us last week you heard thee most severe of the warnings that we find in this letter, it is in verses 4-6 of chapter 6. That is where we left off, so lets pray and then we will pick up in verse 7.
Lets Pray...
7 For the earth which drinks in the rain that often comes upon it, and bears herbs useful for those by whom it is cultivated, receives blessing from God;
8 but if it bears thorns and briers, it is rejected and near to being cursed, whose end is to be burned.
This section was added to give further explanation to our warning last week. It simply says, the rain falls upon the earth for a purpose, that it would produce good stuff. Here it is herbs that are useful, rather than thorns and briers, that are rejected, near to being cursed, and in the end are simply burned. It reminds me of what Pastor Jim shared with us from Philippians.
When we are wondering why am I here, what is the purpose and meaning of life? From Phil 2:13
13 for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.
We know that the God that created us, desires to work in us and through us to do His will and for His good pleasure. That we would bless God and be a blessing to others through God. Not live a wasted life. Remember the section before this, verses 4-6 were about apostasy. Not loosing your salvation, but the idea of leaving your salvation. Now in verse 9, we have this hopeful transition, both in content, and in audience. If you were with us last week, then you remember that the chapter began with the language being in the 1st person...
Let us go on…in verse 1, and this we will do…in verse three. When we get to the extreme warning in verses 4-6 there was a transition to the 3rd person…for it is impossible for those...verse 4, in verse 6 if they fall away, to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify again…OK, but now we see the author going back to the first person talking again to the reader…not about someone else.
9 But, beloved, we are confident of better things concerning you, yes, things that accompany salvation, though we speak in this manner.
So even though we had to speak in that way and give the harshest of warnings so you wouldn’t turn to something that can’t save you, we are confident of better things concerning you, now lets talk about those things. Before we do though, I want you to see the heart of the author inspired by the Holy Spirit…You can check me on this with your digital bibles, but in verse 9 he calls them beloved. It’s the only place I see him use that term towards them and I find it lovely that it comes immediately after the harshest warning.
Parents, Kids, teachers, disciplers, Elders…and even good friends should know and understand, how deeply you must love someone to not just let things go. To have the hard talks. To give the warnings when we need to be warned. Knowing it is coming from someone to whom you are beloved, makes it all the more easy to hear, to consider, and to receive. Verse 10
10 For God is not unjust to forget your work and labor of love which you have shown toward His name, in that you have ministered to the saints, and do minister.
11 And we desire that each one of you show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope until the end,
12 that you do not become sluggish, but imitate those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.
I love verse 10, let me put that back up there for you...
10 For God is not unjust to forget your work and labor of love which you have shown toward His name, in that you have ministered to the saints, and do minister.
Do you ever feel like no one sees, appreciates, or even cares about your service to the Lord? The pastor doesn’t even know my name! All the deacons ever do is stand around and talk. Why haven’t they made me a deacon? I’d be the best deacon… Sorry, I know you guys aren’t like me. Probably can’t even relate, or maybe you can. Have you ever had a pity party, and you’re the guest of honor? It’s about you, it’s for you, and all because you are not getting the treatment and recognition that you so rightly deserve?
Now I say so rightly deserve, because you probably actually do deserve recognition and appreciation. Especially if you serve in our children’s ministry, or your one of the crew that clean the bathrooms, or empty the trash…or maybe serve in the Cafe’ and have to deal with those nasty, unappreciative, demeaning people that sometimes visit from other churches. But God’s not like that. He sees it all, and He sees your heart.
HE is not unjust, to forget your work and your labor of love which you have shown toward His name, notice how He says that we do that. In that you have ministered to the saints, and do minister, or serve them. Oh, I love God, I just can’t stand people. I love serving Jesus, I’m just not going to go to church…those things don’t add up in God’s economy. How do you show and do a true labor of love in His name and toward His name? You love and serve His people.
And it is serving the Saints of God, that help up to avoid the warning in verses 4-6 and to finish strong, faithfully to the end, look at the rest of it again…
11 And we desire that each one of you show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope until the end,
12 that you do not become sluggish, but imitate those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.
the end of verse 12 again…imitate those who through faith and patience earn the promises…that’s not what it says is it? Through faith and patience INHERIT the promises. We can sometimes get too caught up in the approval of man, or the appreciation of people. If we are serving the people, we will grow weary, we will get hurt, be taken advantage of, there will never be enough thank you’s. But if we are serving God, by ministering to the saints, we will never get burned.
There is a cool verse in 1 Samuel from a time in the life of King David that the people weren’t overly enthusiastic about openly expressing their love and adoration for him.
6 Now David was greatly distressed, for the people spoke of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons and his daughters. But David strengthened himself in the Lord his God.
Find your strength in the Lord and through that you will find the full assurance of faith until the end.
13 For when God made a promise to Abraham, because He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself,
14 saying, “Surely blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply you.”
15 And so, after he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise.
Don’t forget God made more than one promise to Abraham. He promised His people would inherit the Land. That He would be the Father of many nations. That all the nations of the earth would be blessed in Him. But there was this one promise that was not just a promise of the God who cannot lie, but it was a promised from God that was sealed with an oath.
The author of Hebrews is quoting here from
16 and said: “By Myself I have sworn, says the Lord, because you have done this thing, and have not withheld your son, your only son—
17 blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your descendants shall possess the gate of their enemies.
18 In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.”
So God went beyond just a promise and had nothing greater than Himself to swear by…look at verse 16 with me.
16 For men indeed swear by the greater, and an oath for confirmation is for them an end of all dispute.
17 Thus God, determining to show more abundantly to the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel, confirmed it by an oath,
18 that by two immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before us.
The two immutable or unchangeable things are God’s Promise and God’s oath. And because they are unchanging, there is this hope set before us. Verse 19
19 This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters the Presence behind the veil,
20 where the forerunner has entered for us, even Jesus, having become High Priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.
Now we have talked about the high priest before. You’ll remember that the Old Testament Priest represented God to man and also man to God. They would have to make anointment for themselves daily, because even though they were of the tribe of Levi and the family of Aaron, they were not without sin. The High Priest didn’t just make sacrifices on behalf of people, but on behalf of the Nation of Isreal.
One time per year, on one day of the year, the high priest and the high priest alone would enter into the Holy of Holies. He would do so as a representative of the people of God. Remember our theme to the Book of Hebrews…Jesus is.....Better.
Unlike the High Priest under that Aaronic priesthood, Jesus was more than a representative, verse 20 says He was the forerunner for us, meaning that He goes first, and then we get to follow into the very presence of God! And unlike the High Priest in the days of old who served for one year, Jesus is forever our High Priest, our eternal High Priest according to the order of Melchizedek.
That brings us to a very interesting character in the Bible, that if it were not for this additional information in Hebrews, might get missed entirely in our Bibles, because His appearances are so brief.
We first read about Melchizedek in the first book of the bible, the book of Genesis. You can turn there with me if you’d like. Genesis chapter 14. The context of what is happening here is this. Abraham has this nephew named Lot. And Lot has moved down near the boarder of a place called Sodom. You guys know the history of that place, it was a prideful, sinful place.
While Lot is down there living close to Sodom a war breaks out. This was not a small skirmish, the Kings of the East actually formed an alliance together and came against the Kings of the West. Those who lived around the area of the Dead Sea. Well the Kings of the East prevailed and dragged off people as slaves along with all the wealth as part of the spoils of war. One of those who was taken captive was Abraham’s well he was still called Abram at this point as God had not yet changed his name.
Abram rounds up 318 trained men from his own household, goes down there, and there is a reckoning. Picking it up in verse 16 of Gen chapter 14
16 So he brought back all the goods, and also brought back his brother Lot and his goods, as well as the women and the people.
17 And the king of Sodom went out to meet him at the Valley of Shaveh (that is, the King’s Valley), after his return from the defeat of Chedorlaomer and the kings who were with him.
18 Then Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine; he was the priest of God Most High.
So he was a king and he was a priest. We don’t see the sacred and the secular being combined by God very often by God. But here this King and Priest comes out to met Abram and he actually blesses him. Also interesting, is he brings out bread and wine. I believe, and this is just me personally, we don’t have it written, or even implied really, but I believe they shared the Lord’s supper together, looking forward, or looking ahead to Messiah coming. Similarly how we do today, looking back 2,000 years remembering and proclaiming his death and resurrection until he comes again. Verse 19
19 And he blessed him and said: “Blessed be Abram of God Most High, Possessor of heaven and earth;
20 And blessed be God Most High, Who has delivered your enemies into your hand.” And he gave him a tithe of all.
So before the law, and before the Aaronic Priesthood, Abram gives Melchizedek a tithe of all. Now we don’t hear anything about Melchizedek again for hundreds of years, until we read a Messianic Psalm, a Psalm of David, Psalm 110 and we see here that God swears of makes an oath, in verse 4
4 The Lord has sworn And will not relent, “You are a priest forever According to the order of Melchizedek.”
and then we hear nothing more for hundreds and hundreds of years and we read his name in Hebrews and we wouldn’t know all that we do know if it wasn’t for Hebrews. Verse 1 of chapter 7
1 For this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the Most High God, who met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him,
2 to whom also Abraham gave a tenth part of all, first being translated “king of righteousness,” and then also king of Salem, meaning “king of peace,”
3 without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but made like the Son of God, remains a priest continually.
There is so much here to get bogged down on, and if we were in Growth Group session maybe I would to prevent confusion, or if this were a study on Melchizedek, rather than a study on why Jesus is a better High Priest than the priests under Aaron, then maybe I would. But what an incredible description we have here! His name is translated as King of righteousness and king of peace. Well that sounds a whole lot like Jesus to me.
Very three goes on but really is establishing that this is a different priesthood entirely. Under Aaron this all mattered. Without genealogy, you couldn’t be a priest. You couldn’t study to become a priest, you couldn’t just identify as feeling like you are of the tribe of Levi. There had to be birthright, there had to be evidence. Who was your mother, your father. But this Melchizedek there was no record of father, mother, or genealogy, because his priesthood did not come from that. He was chosen by God.
Imagine how the Jews would have felt about that! Abraham, the greatest man ever paying a tithe, to some gentile King! No beginning of day, no record of his death, made like the Son of God, for clarity, it doesn’t say, made the Son of God, but rather like the son of God. But also that he remains a priest continually. Well in reality it either means that through Jesus, his priesthood continues on without end for all of eternity…Or, Melchizedek was what they call a Christophany, a preincarnate appearance of Jesus Christ in the Old Testament.
I want to get through this, so I won’t go deep in the bushes here. I know some of you have looked into this, dug into this. I had a professor who when he was getting his Master’s of Divinity, dug into the Targums on this. The Targums are the traditionally spoken translations of the Hebrew bible into Aramaic, some call them paraphrases.
From his study, he found four different possibilities mentioned for who he was...(1) a real person who was a type of Christ, (2) Shem the great, who was one of Noah’s sons. (3) a Christophany, and (4) an allegorical foreshadowing of Christ. The debates didn’t start in our day, from his study It seems the OT religious leaders had several arguments over this character as well.
I’ll tell you this. Anyone who tells you anything definitively beyond what we have here in Hebrews really doesn’t know, and they are only speculating. And I say that having had pastors and scholars try to convince me that they were right, I just don’t think we can be dogmatic about things the scriptures don’t tell us. Let’s move on, because this tells us why it tells us all this.
Verse 4
4 Now consider how great this man was, to whom even the patriarch Abraham gave a tenth of the spoils.
5 And indeed those who are of the sons of Levi, who receive the priesthood, have a commandment to receive tithes from the people according to the law, that is, from their brethren, though they have come from the loins of Abraham;
6 but he whose genealogy is not derived from them received tithes from Abraham and blessed him who had the promises.
it is a pretty incredible thing that these priests, these sons of Abraham were to receive tithes from other men, their brethren under the law. But even more so that this one who was a priest before the Law would receive a tithe from Abraham and bless the one who God had made the promises. Verse 7...
7 Now beyond all contradiction the lesser is blessed by the better.
8 Here mortal men receive tithes, but there he receives them, of whom it is witnessed that he lives.
9 Even Levi, who receives tithes, paid tithes through Abraham, so to speak,
The author is making an allegorical point here about Levi a descendant of Abraham, who receives tithes as part of the Aaronic Priesthood, also paid tithes to Melchizedek, that is why he uses the expression “so to speak” before continuing...
10 for he was still in the loins of his father when Melchizedek met him.
Remember as we go through this, Jesus is better, Jesus is better. I really think is makes it less confusing in trying to understand why the need for a new priesthood.
11 Therefore, if perfection were through the Levitical priesthood (for under it the people received the law), what further need was there that another priest should rise according to the order of Melchizedek, and not be called according to the order of Aaron?
The problem with the OT priesthood and the law was us. It never made us perfect, it could never make us sinless. Therefore something had to change or we could not be saved.
12 For the priesthood being changed, of necessity there is also a change of the law.
13 For He of whom these things are spoken belongs to another tribe, from which no man has officiated at the altar.
14 For it is evident that our Lord arose from Judah, of which tribe Moses spoke nothing concerning priesthood.
Everything about the OT priesthood was about the Law of Moses. Under Abraham, from the tribe of Levi, the family of Aaron. So with a new priesthood there also had to be a change of the law. Jesus did not have that DNA, He was not of the tribe of Aaron. His genealogy was from the tribe of Judah, and as it said here, Moses made no exceptions for that.
15 And it is yet far more evident if, in the likeness of Melchizedek, there arises another priest
16 who has come, not according to the law of a fleshly commandment, but according to the power of an endless life.
17 For He testifies: “You are a priest forever According to the order of Melchizedek.”
The authority of this priesthood did not come by fleshly commandment, or genealogy, but by eternity. Another thing that Jesus had that no earthly priest ever had, an endless life, an eternal priesthood.
18 For on the one hand there is an annulling of the former commandment because of its weakness and unprofitableness,
19 for the law made nothing perfect; on the other hand, there is the bringing in of a better hope, through which we draw near to God.
That is the thing about the law it made nothing perfect. The law did set a perfect standard, but made not provision for us to keep it perfectly, it had no power to make us successful. Rather than make us perfect it only pointed out our imperfections.
20 And inasmuch as He was not made priest without an oath
21 (for they have become priests without an oath, but He with an oath by Him who said to Him: “The Lord has sworn And will not relent, ‘You are a priest forever According to the order of Melchizedek’ ”),
That the verse from Psalm 110. Where God made the Messiah a priest by an oath, but under Aaron they were a priest, because dad was a priest.
22 by so much more Jesus has become a surety of a better covenant.
a surety, a guarantee. An engagement ring, or promise of what is to come to pass. If Jesus is the surety, I’m all in! You know its going to happen. Check this out for a promise.
23 Also there were many priests, because they were prevented by death from continuing.
24 But He, because He continues forever, has an unchangeable priesthood.
25 Therefore He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.
We sometimes jokingly say in this movement that Jesus saves to the guttermost. He can save you out of whatever deep, dark nasty gutter you have been wallowing in. Some of you in this room have experienced this. Or maybe some of you listening or watching on line are about to experience this. The thought, or the fear that you are too far gone to save. You’ve slipped to far away, you fear that warning in the last chapter has condemned you. Again, if you care, that it not you beloved.
But no matter how far away from God that you have wandered, or ran whatever the case may be, this says from that uttermost distant land, Jesus is able to save all who come to God through Him. In fact that is the only way to be saved coming to God is through Him. Jesus told us that when He was here.
6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.
I know if you go here, you hear that verse a lot. I hope if you go here you share that verse a lot too. The world needs to know the truth, and when people you love die, you need to know that you told them the truth.
Finishing up...
26 For such a High Priest was fitting for us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and has become higher than the heavens;
27 who does not need daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His own sins and then for the people’s, for this He did once for all when He offered up Himself.
28 For the law appoints as high priests men who have weakness, but the word of the oath, which came after the law, appoints the Son who has been perfected forever.
SO I ask you, who was Melchizedek? No, I’m kidding, I hope you can see now that is not the point at all. Jesus is a better High Priest. And I can’t end here, because this is the worst chapter break in all of the new testament. Imagine if you wrote all this, or said all this, and your dialog continued with what we have in chapter 8 and someone cut you off here! Check it out with me.
1 Now this is the main point of the things we are saying: We have such a High Priest, who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens,
2 a Minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle which the Lord erected, and not man.
See what I’m saying! I mean I’m good with the end of 7, reminding us that the oath of God appoints the SON, Jesus, who paid for sin once and for all, and He has been perfected forever, and through Him we are too before God, but don’t miss the main point of what we are saying. We have such a High Priest, in Heaven right now, not some guy, some sinner representing us, but Jesus is our High Priest and that is better.
If Jesus is not yet your High Priest. Stop wasting time, stop settling for less and come up front here and make things right with God, there will be pastors and elders up here to pray with you.
Grace and peace!