Hebrews 11: The Land Principle; Concerning God's Grace Provision
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Sunday, January 23, 2022
Sunday, January 23, 2022
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Now you must understand that God owned the land. He had promised it to Abraham, to Isaac, to Jacob, and He reiterated the promise to Moses and yet again to Joshua.
Joshua 1:2–4 (NKJV)
“Moses My servant is dead. Now therefore, arise, go over this Jordan, you and all this people, to the land which I am giving to them—the children of Israel. Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given you, as I said to Moses. From the wilderness and this Lebanon as far as the great river, the River Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and to the Great Sea toward the going down of the sun, shall be your territory.
Now as we continue on in Hebrews 11, we must first pick up a principle to move us forward to the end of the chapter. The principle we must learn is Possession of the Promised Land.
All of the doctrine viewed by those in Hebrews 11, what they have depended on, the thinking and teaching and promises that revealed the character of God to them, that shaped their rewards in time and rewards
Thumbnail Doctrine of the LAND of PROMISE
We have 14 Points to be aware of. We are going to spend most of our time working through the first point.
The Land belongs to the LORD. The Land of Canaan belonged to YHWH, therefore it was His to give to whomever He willed.
We see this in Genesis 1:9
9 Then God said, “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear”; and it was so.
We also see this in Psalm 24:1
1 The earth is the Lord’s, and all its fullness, The world and those who dwell therein.
Which in turn is quoted and echoed in 1 Cor 10:26
26 for “the earth is the Lord’s, and all its fullness.”
Which was an appeal to the logic of the source for those who were concerned about meat sacrifice to pagan idols, to demons. even though it was sacrificed, it came from God, is just meat - and that cannot be changed by a religious ritual. It is good to eat.
The book of Job testifies to the same thing.
11 Who has preceded Me, that I should pay him? Everything under heaven is Mine.
The book of exodus teaches us about this, in the midst of the plagues on Egypt.
29 So Moses said to him, “As soon as I have gone out of the city, I will spread out my hands to the Lord; the thunder will cease, and there will be no more hail, that you may know that the earth is the Lord’s.
Part of the purpose of the plague of hail was to demonstrate that the Land belonged to God. All of the crops and livestock that was dedicated to, consecrated or set apart to the God’s of Egypt was burnt. God owns the land - not these false prophets.
Dr. Walter C. Kaiser, in his article on the Book of Deuteronomy said that :
One of the great themes of Deuteronomy is that the land is a promised gift from God. There are some 66 references to the land as God’s gift, and Israel is told 69 times to go and “possess” and “inherit” the land. However, the land of Canaan is not the nation’s natural right—the land belongs to the Lord. It is Israel’s only because the Lord swore on oath to give it to their fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob
In Leviticus 25:23 We read that
23 ‘The land shall not be sold permanently, for the land is Mine; for you are strangers and sojourners with Me.
… this lets us understand that the Land is the Lord’s. He never cedes ownership of it - just tenancy.
Now the Hebrew term for Land is אֶרֶץ ʾerets or אֶ֫רֶץ ʾěʹ·rěṣ, earth, land, soil, territory, nation.
God is the creator of the earth, the land, the soil. But the same word ERETZ is used, so we must rely on the context to understand what is intended in its use. At it’s base, it is the earth which was created by God - and as His creation, He Has retained ownership of it.
There are 2.519 instances of eretz being used as a noun in the Old Testament. The noun usage is broken down as such:
land as territory , a territory that is understood as a separate geographical entity over which control may be exercised by one or more political entities. - occurs 1085 times.
land as the boundaries of or the territory occupied by a nation - 577
earth , the place where human beings and animals live; modernly understood as the third rock from the sun. ok - third planet - 492
land -the solid part of the Earth’s surface; as opposed to water or sky - 262
soil, material in the top layer of the surface of the earth in which plants can grow; especially with reference to its quality or use - 27
people of the land - 19
homeland - 16
humankind - people of earth, referred to by the common feature of all humankind living on the Earth. Earth Dwellers. - 15
most distant land, referred to by the common feature of all humankind living on the Earth. - 14
land as property, the land on which a person’s property is located - 8
vegetation of the land - 2
district - 1
floor or surface - 1
In a theological sense, the land is most interesting to us when it is a reference to the promised land. But we want to understand what meanings are given by the context, so we properly understand the passage.
Now in Leviticus 25, we want to keep in mind these different meanings for land - but I also want you to see the interconnectedness of the concepts.
Now back to Leviticus 25:23-24
23 ‘The land shall not be sold permanently, for the land is Mine; for you are strangers and sojourners with Me.
24 And in all the land of your possession you shall grant redemption of the land.
So which meaning is intended here in this section of Leviticus?
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v. 24 is a reference to property. The same as in Leviticus 27:24
24 In the Year of Jubilee the field shall return to him from whom it was bought, to the one who owned the land as a possession.
v. 23 is a reference to the land as the territory allotted by God.
Leviticus 25:1-38
Let’s get the context of the relationship with the land as expressed to Israel. It is a picture of our relationship to spiritual life and living, so it is important to an understanding of our spiritual walk with God.
So let’s walk through Leviticus 25, and see what this Land business is all about . Starting in Leviticus 25:1-7.
1 And the Lord spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, saying,
2 “Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: ‘When you come into the land which I give you, then the land shall keep a sabbath to the Lord.
3 Six years you shall sow your field, and six years you shall prune your vineyard, and gather its fruit;
4 but in the seventh year there shall be a sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a sabbath to the Lord. You shall neither sow your field nor prune your vineyard.
5 What grows of its own accord of your harvest you shall not reap, nor gather the grapes of your untended vine, for it is a year of rest for the land.
6 And the sabbath produce of the land shall be food for you: for you, your male and female servants, your hired man, and the stranger who dwells with you,
7 for your livestock and the beasts that are in your land—all its produce shall be for food.
Notice in the first 7 verses - the doctrine of the sabbath of the land which depicts grace dependency on YHWH. Work 6 years, then rest the land. That is like telling us to work 6 years, and then take a year off. Don’t sow the field to get grain to grow. Don’t prune the vineyards, which forces fruit to grow. When it does grow, you shall not sell it. Don’t gather the grapes - meaning don’t make wine for profit. But have the grapes as food. Share with your servants, your employees, the stranger to whom you are hospitable, and feed your livestock, and let the beasts of the land eat freely.
Next we have Lev 25:8-17.
8 ‘And you shall count seven sabbaths of years for yourself, seven times seven years; and the time of the seven sabbaths of years shall be to you forty-nine years.
9 Then you shall cause the trumpet of the Jubilee to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the Day of Atonement you shall make the trumpet to sound throughout all your land.
10 And you shall consecrate the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a Jubilee for you; and each of you shall return to his possession, and each of you shall return to his family.
11 That fiftieth year shall be a Jubilee to you; in it you shall neither sow nor reap what grows of its own accord, nor gather the grapes of your untended vine.
12 For it is the Jubilee; it shall be holy to you; you shall eat its produce from the field.
13 ‘In this Year of Jubilee, each of you shall return to his possession.
14 And if you sell anything to your neighbor or buy from your neighbor’s hand, you shall not oppress one another.
15 According to the number of years after the Jubilee you shall buy from your neighbor, and according to the number of years of crops he shall sell to you.
16 According to the multitude of years you shall increase its price, and according to the fewer number of years you shall diminish its price; for he sells to you according to the number of the years of the crops.
17 Therefore you shall not oppress one another, but you shall fear your God; for I am the Lord your God.
Notice that this is the doctrine of the Year of Jubilee. We Might call it the year of multiplied grace. Having gone through six sabbath years, the 7th occurence has additional requirements. It is a year of celebration. It is the year of Liberty to all inhabitants. No harvest allowed - just live from what God provides. Eat the produce from the field. All people will return to their land. Land sold or conscripted for dept must be returned to its original owner. Those who pay for the land, will pay based on the number of years of crops until the next Jubilee. Do not oppress one another by pricing unfairly. Fear God in this matter.
The next section deals with the 7th year promise, Lev 25:18-22.
18 ‘So you shall observe My statutes and keep My judgments, and perform them; and you will dwell in the land in safety.
19 Then the land will yield its fruit, and you will eat your fill, and dwell there in safety.
20 ‘And if you say, “What shall we eat in the seventh year, since we shall not sow nor gather in our produce?”
21 Then I will command My blessing on you in the sixth year, and it will bring forth produce enough for three years.
22 And you shall sow in the eighth year, and eat old produce until the ninth year; until its produce comes in, you shall eat of the old harvest.
Observe my grace provisions - and I will provide for you. Three years of harvest will come on the 6th year. Year 7 is to rest. Year 8 is to sow. Year 9 will produce the harvest, but you are provided for until then from the year 6 harvest.
Finally the principle of redemption of property in Lev 25:23 -34
23 ‘The land shall not be sold permanently, for the land is Mine; for you are strangers and sojourners with Me.
24 And in all the land of your possession you shall grant redemption of the land.
25 ‘If one of your brethren becomes poor, and has sold some of his possession, and if his redeeming relative comes to redeem it, then he may redeem what his brother sold.
26 Or if the man has no one to redeem it, but he himself becomes able to redeem it,
27 then let him count the years since its sale, and restore the remainder to the man to whom he sold it, that he may return to his possession.
28 But if he is not able to have it restored to himself, then what was sold shall remain in the hand of him who bought it until the Year of Jubilee; and in the Jubilee it shall be released, and he shall return to his possession.
29 ‘If a man sells a house in a walled city, then he may redeem it within a whole year after it is sold; within a full year he may redeem it.
30 But if it is not redeemed within the space of a full year, then the house in the walled city shall belong permanently to him who bought it, throughout his generations. It shall not be released in the Jubilee.
31 However the houses of villages which have no wall around them shall be counted as the fields of the country. They may be redeemed, and they shall be released in the Jubilee.
32 Nevertheless the cities of the Levites, and the houses in the cities of their possession, the Levites may redeem at any time.
33 And if a man purchases a house from the Levites, then the house that was sold in the city of his possession shall be released in the Jubilee; for the houses in the cities of the Levites are their possession among the children of Israel.
34 But the field of the common-land of their cities may not be sold, for it is their perpetual possession.
Here we learn that God grants redemption of the land. The land shall not be sold permanently, for the Land is YHWHs. It may be bought back by he who lost it. If he cannot buy it, then a kinsman redeemer may buy it. At the year of Jubilee, it returns to the original owner, or family. Houses in a walled city have a year to be redeemed, or they are forfeit. Houses in villages are treated as land, and will be released in the Jubilee. The Levite cities, though walled, will be released at the Jubilee. No common-land may ever be sold, it is a perpetual possession.
The principle of the Land is the principle of grace.
Interesting that in all of the years of their occupation in the land, the Children of Israel never performed sabbath year of rest for the land. Why? They could not operate on the basis of Grace. They could not bring themselves to trust God for their provision.
Lets go back to our 14 points of the land.
We have 14 Points to be aware of.
The Land belongs to the LORD. The Land of Canaan belonged to YHWH, therefore it was His to give to whomever He willed.
YHWH promised the land to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob who is Israel.
YHWH provided freedom to the Children of Israel, in the Exodus Event, so that they might take possession of the land that was promised.
Crossing the Red Sea in fulfillment of promise to deliver, was to be the mark, the promissory note, that YHWH would give the territory of Canaan into their hands.
The people balked once at taking possession of the Land because they did not trust YHWH - their memories were seared by lack of reviewing and processing the Grace Provision of YHWH. They saw works and law, when He gave them deliverance and redemption into relationship with Him. They saw the achievement required to take the land and did not see the GRACE provision .
In Joshua the people are prepared to trust YHWH and take the Land. Kind of.
It is YHWH who will conquer the land and provide it to Israel.
Israel will mistake YHWH ‘s Grace and His Conquering for their ability to conquer outside of God’s protocols and without God.
Therefore Israel will neglect the principles of Grace Provision.
Israel will struggle with Grace Provision, and therefore struggle with Grace Principles, and therefore Lose the land which YHWH has given them.
YHWH disciplines Israel for neglecting His protocols.
Israel corrects their error, but never quite gets the point.
Israel never occupies the full land of promise.
Future Israel will finally occupy the land of promise under YSHUA in the Messianic Kingdom. This will be a foreshadow of the eternal kingdom of God that will follow.
Now to be clear - God Owns the Land. God promised the Land to Israel. The land was theirs - given by Grace. But Israel failed to possess all of the land. Israel frequently failed to prosper in the land. Israel failed to trust in the Grace Provision of God. Even though He conquered the land through the principles of Grace. But when the land was held, when there was prosperity, it was because the children of Israel depended on God - and thereby revealed God’s Grace Provision. Israel is a picture for the believers of the church age.
32 And what more shall I say? For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah, also of David and Samuel and the prophets:
33 who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions,
In verses 32 through 40 of Hebrews 11, the author continues the explanation of people who illustrate how doctrine operates in the soul. Note that it is not subject matter that will come to an end, but the time of writing these things out, of showing how each continuing example exemplified the illustration of doctrine operating in the soul of the believer.
As an aside, it is often, what those who stand behind the pulpit say to themselves. How do I fit all of this into the time allocated?
Next our writer mentions those that would merit further discussion and study, but he will settle with a summation of each.
The first of these is Gideon. “Gideon” is the object of the preposition peri, as also the others, Barak and Samson. We have peri plus the genitive, and then we have the proper names of certain judges and early kings and prophets. These are all mentioned as the object of this preposition. The preposition περί (peri) means “concerning” or “about.” Gideon is first, and the men who are selected are quite fascinating because they do not come from prominent tribes, they all come from low-class and useless areas. Therefore they emerged out of very handicapped backgrounds. Immediately this sets aside the old psychological adage that you cannot rise above your environment or that your environment explains all of the weirdo activities of your life. In effect, this passage says that environment is never a factor where a believer has Bible doctrine resident in the soul. Here we see that God chooses the week to deal with the powerful. Paul tells us that it is the foolish in man’s eyes who God uses to beguile the wise.
Look, for example, at Gideon. Gideon came from one of the worst tribes, the tribe that has the worst of all military records, the tribe of Manasseh. Furthermore, he was in that part of the tribe that never crossed the Jordan but lived in Gilead on the east bank. The Midianites and the Amalakites had taken over the land and Gideon was hiding out in the typical fashion of his tribe. He was down in a dugout and he had a little wheat but he hadn’t had time in running away to separate it from the chaff. So in the morning he was down in his dugout throwing the wheat up in the air. While he was tossing this up and down the Lord Jesus Christ was standing by leaning on a tree and said, “Hello hero”! From there on we have a dialogue which was the beginning of greatness for Gideon.
Judges 6:12 . He lived from BC 1250-1190 and did deliver the people.
12 And the Angel of the Lord appeared to him, and said to him, “The Lord is with you, you mighty man of valor!”
The next person who is the object of the preposition is Barak. Barak means lightning flash, and he was slow, cowardly, and a “momma’s boy.” Barak was one of those areas where the Lord’s sense of humour and His grace meet and a hero emerges. He was also from one of the weaker tribes. He was also suppose to go out and deliver the Jews from the Canaanites under a very very famous soldier of fortune called Sisera. He lived between 1195 and 1155 BC so he was in the generation after Gideon.
Then from the tribe of Dan who should emerge but Samson, and he was famous around 1085 BC. He was in the process of delivering the Jews from the Philistines but got involved in too many other things!
These three judges actually have the same grace pattern. They all came from inferior tribes. Manasseh for Gideon, Naphtali for Barak, and Dan for Samson. These are all inferior tribes when it comes to defense of country, when it comes to military types. This does not imply that they did not have a few people who fought but they were not famous for joining up and fighting for their country. So God raised up occasionally a great one from these three inferior tribes. They lived in a time of reversionism and national crisis, and this is always a time when God in grace raises up the weak, the helpless, the useless, to demonstrate that He is in charge. They were grace oriented through Bible doctrine resident in the soul though they were handicapped from the human viewpoint. They became supergrace believers and delivered their country. Each defeated a superior power.
The next one is Jephthah who follows the exact same pattern. He was born a bastard son on the east bank of the Jordan. Possibly he was from Manasseh. He was ridiculed out of town, moved to Syria, and became very angry and resentful at the ridicule. He entered into the military and became a great soldier. Gradually he collected a band of mercenaries — non-Jewish. Then the Jews were invaded by the Amonites and as soon as they were they were looking around for help since they had let their own military disintegrate. They found that the only army that could help them was commanded by the mercenary they had ridiculed, Jephthah. So they had to go on their hands and knees and crawl to the one they had ridiculed. By this time also Jephthah had lost his bitterness because he had become a believer and had found Bible doctrine. As a supergrace believer he had the greatest military capabilities of his day and therefore he went into action to deliver Israel. While he was in the process he came up to a critical battle he made a vow concerning his daughter. He vowed to keep her single for the rest of her life, thus ending the possibility of perpetuating his family. He ruled from 1105-1099 BC.
The impressive matter about these four men, is that they were not considered much and yet these are the kind of people that God’s grace picks up and moves into prominence in history.
Again, the principle: Jesus Christ controls history. And Jesus Christ can pick up the one who defies all of the arrogance and pride of the human race — no talent, no wisdom, no background, no training, no human attractiveness — and shoving them forward in history and, as it were, thumbing His nose at the entire human and angelic races. This is grace.
The next phrase is not correctly translated — “David also.” We have David and then te kai, and then Samuel. It is translated “both David and Samuel.” Samuel is the last of the judges, David is a great supergrace king who has to be mentioned. Next to Moses when it comes to ruling David is the greatest king of all time and he is a supergrace hero in every sense of the word.
“and the prophets” — we now have the adjunctive use of kai and it should be translated “also the prophets.” That takes all the rest of the people in the Old Testament.
The prophets
1. The prophets refer to believers of the Old Testament who under the inspiration of God the Holy Spirit communicated to the Jews the will of God, the plan of God, the future of Israel, in both written and verbal form.
2. Excluded from the text in this verse are prophets who existed before David, such as Moses and Samuel. But they are mentioned by name, therefore not included in this category at the end called prophets.
3. This category of prophets includes Elijah and Elisha — verbal communicators. Then both verbal and written: to the northern kingdom, Amos and Hosea; to the southern kingdom, Isaiah, Micah, Jeremiah.
4. The word “prophets” also includes, in exile, Daniel and Ezekiel.
5. The word “prophets” also includesthe post-exilic prophets, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi.
In verses 33-40, the last part of this chapter, we have the exploits of Old Testament supergrace heroes, not a roster. We depart from the roster to look at the exploits with sn emphasis not on the blessings but on how they met pressures, how they could face crisis after crisis, adversity, tragedy, trial, heartache, frustration; how they handled these things and became great in adversity. In verses 33-38 we have the actual exploits and in verses 39 and 40 we have the completion of the supergrace dissertation.
Verses 33 and 34 have a very simple construction. We have nine separate clauses designed to present the importance of Bible doctrine in the soul in time of adversity and in historical crisis. These nine clauses have maximum rhetorical force. In other words, each clause is a study in itself. In the syntactical structure there are no conjunctions or anything else linking each clause. We have the conjunctions omitted; these clauses are not connected. Each clause draws a spiritual conclusion in principle form.
Verse 33 — the first clause begins with the nominative plural relative pronoun o(j. The plural refers to all the great believers of the Old Testament. The antecedent to this clause is the list of supergrace heroes mentioned in the previous verses, and especially verse 32, but also it refers to other supergrace heroes who have not been mentioned or implied up to now.
“Through faith” should be “Through doctrine resident in the soul.” this is the genitive of agency.
“subdued” — the aorist middle indicative of KATAGONIZOMAI which means to defeat. It means to defeat by crushing into the ground. The aorist tense is a constative aorist which contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety, and it takes all of the great military victories of Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah and David, and gathers them all into a single whole. In effect, it says that over a period of 500 years of Jewish history all of their freedom came through military victory. The middle voice is the indirect middle stressing the agents as producing the action with reflexive force, so we have to translate “who themselves by means of doctrine resident in the soul conquered kingdoms.” The indicative mood is declarative representing the verbal idea from the viewpoint of reality.
“kingdoms” is the accusative plural direct object of basileia referring to kingdoms and their military forces and indicating that they were always the aggressors.
Principle
1. Doctrine resident in the soul is the secret to military victory.
2. Doctrine resident in the soul provides courage to be aggressive in victory. Remember, victory is never won by the defense. You eventually have to attack. All of these men were aggressive and they always attacked a larger force with a smaller force. And there is the principle: the aggressor inevitably wins even when he has a smaller force. But you have to be tough and well-trained to be aggressive.
3. There never was and never will be victory apart from taking the offensive.
4. The emphasis in this clause is on military history as it pertains to national sovereignty. All nations maintained their sovereignty and their freedom by military victory. It is a historical principle.
5. Therefore in the cases in our passage Bible doctrine resident in the soul was the basis of winning battles and wars.
6. Bible doctrine resident in the soul is the key to military victory, freedom, and the maintenance of national sovereignty.
The second clause: “WORKED OR WROUGHT righteousness” — “wrought” is the aorist middle indicative of ERGAZOMAI. It is used in the transitive sense to do, to accomplish, to carry out, accomplished. The aorist tense is a constative again, it gathers into one entirety the grace righteousness produced by supergrace believers from the inner resources of doctrine in the soul. Man is constantly producing what is in his soul whether it is from the old sin nature, mentality, emotion, or conscience of the soul. We produce what is in our souls just as we think on the basis of the vocabulary we possess in our souls. You can’t use someone else’s vocabulary to think, you have to use your own. You think on the basis of the resident vocabulary in your right lobe or heart. So here is grace righteousness produced from Bible doctrine in the soul gathered up into one syntactical entirety. The middle voice has the same reflexive concept of the indirect middle. The indicative mood is declarative representing the verbal idea from the viewpoint of absolute reality. These people in supergrace by means of doctrine resident in the soul actually produced a righteousness.
“righteousness” is the accusative singular direct object of the noun DIKAIOSUNE. Like all of the derivatives from the original noun, dikh, it has numerous meanings that are related. it is used here in the moral sense of uprightness as a characteristic required by God; righteousness, therefore, in the sense of fulfilling divine requirements and statutes; righteousness in the sense of inner motivation from Bible doctrine, honourable conviction, a righteousness which finds its strength in doctrine as well as its source, a righteousness in the sense of doing what God wills, therefore a righteousness based upon the balance of residency in the soul. This is an experiential righteousness which we categorise in our day as phase two sanctification.
Principle: Doctrine resident in the soul is the basis for accomplishing divine righteousness.
“Who themselves by means of doctrine resident in the soul conquered kingdoms, accomplished righteousness.”
Third clause: “obtained” — the aorist active indicative from ἐπιτυγχάνω (epitygchanō) which means to obtain or attain.
The aorist tense here
1. The aorist tense is constative, gathering into one entirety the special blessing paragraphs designed for each supergrace believer mentioned in context.
2. In eternity past as a part of the divine decrees and the basis for glorifying God in the angelic conflict two special blessing paragraphs were designed by God the Father — designed for every believer.
3. Paragraph SG2 — special blessing for the supergrace believer in time.
4. The first category of that paragraph is a spiritual category — occupation with Christ, sharing God’s happiness [+H], maximum doctrine resident in the soul to meet all exigencies of life.
5. The second category of SG2 — temporal, which includes success, wealth, promotion, prosperity.
6. Third category of SG2 is dying. The basis for dying grace for believers who seize and hold the high ground of spiritual maturity.
7. Second special blessing paragraph is SG3 — surpassing grace, special reward, and blessing for all eternity.
8. For the believer in supergrace who seizes and holds the high ground [SG2] something better exists for him in dying, and something better than the best in SG3, reward and blessing in eternity.
The active voice: the supergrace believer who holds the high ground of spiritual maturity produces the action of the verb. He moves to glory on the basis of SG2, dying grace, and SG3. The indicative mood is declarative representing the verbal idea from the viewpoint of reality. This is the mood of unqualified assertion and therefore it is a guarantee for the reality of the fact that God has for each believer special blessings. Whether you get them or not depends upon your attitude toward Bible doctrine.
The word “promises” is a genitive plural from the noun ἐπαγγελία (epangelia). It is used for divine promises or pleasures, it is a reference to paragraph SG2 and SG3 with PCS dying grace included. The absence of the definite article calls attention to the supreme quality of SG2 and SG3. This is an objective genitive in which the noun in the genitive case receives the action of the verb. This does not refer to messianic promises.
Principle: Maximum doctrine resident in the soul is the basis for obtaining paragraph SG2and SG3.
“Who themselves by means of doctrine resident in the soul conquered kingdoms, accomplished righteousness, obtained promises.”
Remember that verses 33 and 34 have nine separate clauses designed to present the importance of Bible doctrine resident in the soul of the believer.
These two verses have very strong rhetorical force USING A GRAMMATICAL OR SYNTACTICAL CONSTRUCTION CALLED asyndeton. The syntactical structure of asyndeton is the omission of conjunctions to connect the clauses. It is very unusual to have clauses unconnected. We have nine of them here and each one presents a principle related to the residency of Bible doctrine.
The fourth clause: “stopped” — aorist active indicative of the verb φράσσω (phrassō) which means to stop, to shut, to close or to block. Here it means to shut rather than to stop. The aorist tense is a culminative aorist employed when it is wished to view an event in its entirety but to regard it from the viewpoint of existing results. The result of maximum doctrine resident in the soul was that
Daniel stopped the mouths of lions. Daniel 6:21-22 .
21 Then Daniel said to the king, “O king, live forever!
22 My God sent His angel and shut the lions’ mouths, so that they have not hurt me, because I was found innocent before Him; and also, O king, I have done no wrong before you.”
The active voice: Daniel produced the action of the verb. It is obvious that Daniel is now listed officially as one of the supergrace heroes. The indicative mood is declarative for historical reality. Daniel was a supergrace hero and he is mentioned by this most famous of his deeds.
“mouths” is the accusative plural of stoma indicating the fact that the mouth of the lion is dangerous to human beings.
Summary
1. The ebb and flow of empires radically changes history. When you have one empire going down, as the Chaldeans were, and another empire coming to the front, as with the Medes and the Persians, this means radical changes in history. But radical changes in history do not change the objective for the believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. Daniel wrote in a time when empires were going and coming and history was in a state of radical flux. Even though this was true the objective for Daniel’s life remained the same. God’s plan for the believer continues in spite of radical changes in history.
2. God promotes supergrace believers like Daniel. This is a clear-cut case of promotion. Even though the entire personnel of ruling the empire changed it made no difference to the status of Daniel. As a matter of fact Daniel came out of obscurity to become number one administer behind Cyrus the Great and his father-in-law Darius Cyaxeres II. Maximum doctrine in the soul prepared Daniel for the leadership dynamics and the promotion which came to him out of the lions’ den. Daniel’s supergrace blessings, therefore, includepromotion, technical prosperity and leadership dynamics.
3. Supergrace prosperity causes reaction from others. How did Daniel get in the lions’ den? Reaction. There was a personality conflict between 300 princes and Daniel. In other words, supergrace prosperity causes others to react. The reaction in Daniel’s case was jealousy, bitterness, vindictiveness, implacability. However, the supergrace believer is not petty and does not stoop to retaliation. Daniel simply left everything in the Lord’s hands and the Lord vindicated him — called “all things working together for good.”
4. For the supergrace believer all things work together for good. The jealous princes tried to destroy Daniel with phony decrees, but God used this to destroy them. The principle: Jesus Christ controls history.
5. Darius Cyaxeres II was trapped by his own approbation lust in signing a phony decree and making it a part of the laws of the Medes and the Persians. When people get carried away with too much power the valve stem that reveals this is arrogance. This was the means of producing his own misery. So, mental attitude sins produce self-induced misery.
6. Legislation under divine institution #4 — national government, must be designed to protect the freedom and the privacy of the citizens in that constituency. They must have opportunity to succeed within the framework of their abilities, their energy and their drive, and all of this is based upon freedom. [1]
Once you insert something phony, something incongruous, into national legislation as Cyaxeres did immediately you have a problem.
a) Legislation cannot solve social problems. Only God’s grace can do that. Legislation under God is not designed to solve social problems. One phony law ruins the power of legislation.
b) When legislation is distorted into socialistic and liberal panaceas it creates greater problems and destroys the freedom of its constituents under the evil guise of the greatest good for the greatest number.
c) Legislation of the government who sponsors it becomes evil and immoral when it forces people to make decisions regarding religion, business, retirement, employment, travel, living quarters, and marriage.
d) Legislation should be designed to protect the innocent and punish the guilty, but never coerce the individual into legitimate fields of human activity. What are the legitimate fields of human activity? If I have a company I have the right to hire and fire anyone. The government should not be able to come in and force the hiring of a certain percentage of minority groups.
e) By virtue of the principle of freedom the government does not have the right to tell me that I cannot believe in Jesus Christ, nor does it have the right to keep me from teaching the Word of God.
f) The government does not have the right to tell me whom I can hire or fire.
g) The government does not have the right to pick my friends and associates and force me into a social situation with people that I have no desire to have fellowship with.
h) These are matters of personal choice and freedom. Legislation must be designed to protect my freedom.
7. The supergrace believer with doctrine resident in his soul was happy in the lion’s den, while the unbeliever who put him there, who failed in the administration of his government, was miserable in the palace.
8. Every believer must face his own den of lions, and sooner or later you have your own den of lions. Daniel was being forced into something that was contrary to the Word of God and sooner or later you are going to face the same issue. How you face your den of lions depends on the amount of doctrine resident in your soul, and whether you are in supergrace or in reversion.
Maximum doctrine resident in the soul meets every exigency of life. Doctrine is the only preparation for testing and for crisis, and doctrine resident in the soul gives you the ability to never compromise the grace of God.