Gooding, David: 3 - The Warning Passages in Hebrews

This morning you have given me the severe task of discussing with you the solemn warning passages from the Epistle to the Hebrews, chapters three and four, six and ten. These are passages that, on the one hand, have been the terror of many Christians. It is my experience, at least, in coming alongside of Christian people, there are more than you might think who in their hearts nurse uncertainty as to their salvation. And when that uncertainty is compounded by the psychological difficulties of middle age and older age, bereavement or shock, these verses can become a terror to people. People who imagine that they have committed the unpardonable sin, and generally speaking, such people are light years away from committing any such sin. And therefore, the exposition of these verses needs care, surely pastoral care, that we shall understand them right and not so preach them as to cause genuine believers in the Lord Jesus unnecessary anxiety. It is a thing to be remembered as we expound them, that these warning verses occur in an epistle, which perhaps more than any other is brimful of encouragement to those who are genuine believers. Our blessed Lord Jesus is our high priest. He ever lives to make intercession for us. Because of that, he is able to save to the uttermost them that come unto God by him, because he ever lives to make intercession for them. The epistle abounds, therefore, with the exhortation and advice. Don't cast away your confidence. You have no need to give up on your profession and confession of faith. You have a high priest, and if in past you have wandered and fallen, yet there is a throne of mercy to which you may come, and grace to help to face the trials that lie ahead. We should see to it in our exposition of this epistle, we balance the warnings by the encouragement. On the other hand, we must listen to our brethren who would warn us against taking the edge off the sword of the Spirit, warn us against parrying the thrust of these solemn warnings. And therefore, you have presented me with a difficult enough task to do within the space of thirty minutes. Nevertheless, let's take courage in both hands and proceed. I would like first to lay down certain general principles, if you will allow me, for perhaps a consideration of general principles may help us more than the detailed exposition of the tiny details of the passages. First, I would ask you to consider again the difference between the conditions that we have to fulfill for receiving salvation and eternal life, on the one hand, and the evidence that is required to show that we have received salvation and eternal life, if we in fact claim to have received it. The difference between conditions and evidence. A little baby doesn't get life by crying. It receives life by an altogether different principle. It is given the gift of life, not by its effort, not in response to its crying. It receives its life as a gift. Yet if a baby is born alive, sooner or later it will cry. What a moment of triumph it is when a newborn babe is picked up by the midwife and held up by the heels and slapped on the back, and it emits its first triumphant yell. And everybody is relieved to know that the thing is alive. It has given due evidence that it is alive. If it should be that the baby was still born, it's no good telling the thing to cry. You never get life by crying. If it were still born, the only way it could have new life is to be born all over again. So is it with the spiritual life, with salvation. We do not get salvation by our works. We receive it as a gift. But because it is a life, it will show itself by works. If there are no works as evidence of that life, then it becomes doubtful whether the life is there at all. So let us consider now the attitude of two other apostles to this very matter. John, in his first epistle in chapter three speaks as follows. My little children, says he in verse seven, let no man lead you astray. He that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous. He who doeth sin is of the devil. And again he says in verse ten: in this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil. Whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother. John has been accused of talking in absolutes. Grant him that for the moment. And he is quite insistent. He is here, of course, talking about the evidence of spiritual life, not the conditions for it, the evidence of it. And he says quite categorically, now in this the children of God are manifest. You can tell. There are certain things about the children of God that you can't tell. We, uh, does not yet appear what we shall be. We know that when he appears, we shall be like him, or we shall see him as he is. On the other hand, yes, you can tell. In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil. Whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, says John. Find a man who persists in doing unrighteousness and has no intention of doing anything else and does so unrepentantly. Then, says John, the man that thus constantly practices unrighteousness, he is not a sort of a second rate believer who needs to pull up his spiritual socks, if he has any. He is not of God at all. Find a man, says John, who does not love his Christian brother and has no intention of doing it, hates him, in fact, and refuses to forgive him and persists in that attitude unrepentantly, then, says John, he is not a, uh, second rate believer. He is of the devil. If you consult Paul on the topic, he will speak as follows, and I read you from Galatians chapter five. Having listed the works of the flesh, Paul says in chapter five verse twenty one: I forewarn you, even as I did forewarn you, that those who practice such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. That is, they who constantly live according to this lifestyle shall not inherit the kingdom of God. Pray notice the exactitude of John's language. He does not say, I forewarn you that if you practice these things, you will not inherit. He says, I'm forewarning you that those who practice these things, they will not inherit. For they are not second rate believers. They are not believers at all. In saying that, you will observe that we are not removing the cutting edge of these solemn warnings. We are allowing these solemn warnings their full extent. It would not be healthy, would it, to allow anybody, and ourselves likewise, to suppose that you can live constantly in sinful living, unrepentantly, loveless, hateful, and still regard yourself as a believer, a carnal believer, but a believer nonetheless. That would be taking the edge off the warnings of God's word. Secondly, let us notice, and the epistle to the Hebrews chapter six will remind us of it, that it is not only our fellow Christians and the world outside that have a right to demand evidence from us that we are genuine believers, but God himself demands the evidence. In chapter six of Hebrews, the writer refers to the occasion when on Mount Moriah, Abraham sacrificed his son and was justified by his works. Now, I was brought up by dear and godly men, and I, I thank God for their memory, and they taught me this little way of conveniently explaining these matters. They said, we are justified by faith before God. We are justified by works before men. It is true as far as it goes, isn't it? But it doesn't go far enough. The evidence of Abram's experience is that we have to be justified by works before God too. For when Abram raised the knife to slay his son, and the angel of the Lord called out of heaven, mark what the angel said. Not, now the Philistines know that you, uh, fear me, Abram. Not, now Sarah will finally be convinced that you fear me, Abram, but now I know that you fear me. You say, but that doesn't make sense. Surely God knew all the time. He didn't have to drag Abram up the mountain and get him to sacrifice his son before he knew what Abram's heart was. He, he knew beforehand that if Abram were put to the test, he would pass the test. You mean, now I know. Yes, but um, there are different kinds of knowledge, aren't there? I know that at this moment it's terribly cold at the North Pole, but I've read it in books, and I could perhaps imagine a little bit how cold it is if I were to go there. That kind of knowledge is altogether different, isn't it, from the knowledge of actual experience. And God, in his foreknowledge, knew that I was going to exist. I'm glad he wasn't content with foreknowing it, and insisted on my actually appearing. There is a difference, my brethren. And certainly God knows our hearts in foreknowledge. He insists, my brothers, on knowing by evidence. Now let us notice that evidence is different from proof. You can have conflicting evidence, can you not? You cannot have conflicting proof. And we are talking this morning about evidence, the necessary evidence that we are believers. Now, because we're talking about evidence, we must should observe that evidence can be conflicting. What would you have said if you had stood with Peter when he was using every square word he knew to convince the bystanders that he was not a believer? Suppose someone had asked you, hmm, what about this man Peter? Is he a a Christian? Is he a believer? What would you have said? Our Lord had earlier enunciated the principle that he that denies me before men, I shall deny before the holy angels and the presence of God. For a man who assists in denying the Lord is to give evidence that he is not a believer. He will be disowned by the Lord Jesus. What would you have said if you had been standing by Peter's side and someone had asked you at that point, is he a believer or not? You surely would have said, oh, but I thought he was, and in the past he loved the Lord and he served the Lord. Uh, something's gone wrong. I- I- I- I'm sure he was a believer, but- but- but then if a man says he's not, what can you say? He was a believer, wasn't he? The evidence at the moment was seriously conflicting, but the fact was he was a believer underneath, and as we thought yesterday, the Lord brought him through and his faith didn't fail. What would you have said about Judas all the three years when he carried the bag? Excellent man, you'd have said, a very efficient treasurer. Particularly if you hadn't inspected the accounts recently and wondered where some of the money had gone to. But he wasn't a believer. The evidence came out in the end, and the fact was he had never been a believer, as the Lord Jesus himself said. Now, for the fact that evidence can be conflicting, of course, presents us with difficulties if we are pastors and shepherds of God's people. It will present us with the impossibility sometimes of being absolutely sure in our hearts where a particular person stands. We may rest, therefore, with great gladness on the assurance of this writer. He is writing to the people, and he has a very great concern for them. And in chapter six, verse, uh, uh, says one to eight, he has listed the marks of outright apostasy. But having listed those marks of outright apostasy, he says in verse nine, but beloved, in our heart of hearts we are persuaded better things of you and things that accompany salvation, though we are thus speaking, though we speak as if we were not convinced that there is evidence in your lives that you are saved. Here is the writer telling us how he viewed the situation. Better things, we do not think you are apostles. Better things, things that accompany salvation, evidence that you are saved. But then we're speaking as if we weren't convinced that is so. Speaking as though the worst were true. And we have got to admit on times, haven't we, that we cannot be sure just where a person stands. Thank God, God does know. Thank God for what the writer adds. God is not unrighteous to forget your works and the love which you showed in times past. God expects evidence, demands evidence, but God is righteous. He does not forget the evidence that we gave in the past, says the writer. The present evidence may be conflicting. By our behavior, we may be raising all kinds of doubts, but God remembers the evidence of the past, if there was any. He is not unfair. He doesn't assess the evidence simply on the present current showing. He remembers the past too. That was merciful, yes, and so would you have been inclined to do had you been assessing Peter in those dreadful moments when he denied the Lord, wouldn't you? And with a pastor's heart, you would have said, ah, ah, but in my heart of hearts, I look what he was in the past, look how he loved the Lord, look how he served the Lord, look how he sacrificed for the Lord. Oh, in my heart of hearts, I, I feel sure he was a believer and there was evidence of salvation in his life. But then you would have added, wouldn't you, had you come near Peter and added it through your tears with him. Oh, but Peter, Peter, where do you stand, my boy? Come, Peter, grab yourself, pull your socks up, take your courage. The Lord loves you. Don't abandon your face. Hold on, Peter, there's mercy for you. Wouldn't you? And that's what the writer is doing in Hebrews. He fears the worst. He hopes the best. We need not to go long over chapter three because I have already indicated to you how I myself view those chapters. You may well disagree, but here I'm just giving you, uh, my, uh, considered opinion. The crucial verses, in my estimation, of the verdict given by the Holy Spirit. Why did the Israelites fail to enter in? Because of unbelief and disobedience. Somebody will say, but are we not all, as believers, liable to moments of unbelief? Well, we certainly are, and weak and wobbly faith. And is it not true that all of us as believers sometimes disobey the Lord? Alas, it is true, and the Lord has to discipline us on time. But when it's a case of a true believer, uh one Corinthians eleven tells us that if God has to discipline a believer so drastically as to remove that believer's physical life. He does it that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord, that we shall not be condemned with the world. Here we must take notice of the terms that the, the, uh, the writer uses. The word for disobedience, as I mentioned the other night, belongs to a cluster of words in Greek that are frequently used throughout the New Testament, and never once is this group of words or any one of their members, never once it is you- is it used of true and genuine believers. It is always used of men and women who, having heard the gospel, deliberately reject it. Let me take an example from this very epistle, chapter eleven and verse, um, thirty one. Thy face, Rahab the harlot, perished not with them that were disobedient, having received the spies with peace. Now we've got to think, who were these people in Jericho that were disobedient and therefore perished? Were they moderately decent believers who had temporarily come a little bit wobbly in their faith? Well, of course not. People in Jericho who perished were men who had heard the gospel in the terms of that day, like Rahab had heard it. Rahab received the gospel, turned from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for the Savior, who, when he brought destruction on Jericho, brought simultaneously salvation for Rahab. The majority in Jericho who had heard the same gospel rejected it. They were disobedient. Or in Acts chapter fourteen verses one to two. Acts fourteen verses one to two. While they were in Iconium, they entered together into the synagogue of the Jews and spoke, and a great multitude both of Jews and Greeks believed. But the Jews that were disobedient stirred up the souls of the Gentiles and made them evil affected against the brethren. And who were these Jews that were disobedient? They were not second rate believers, were they? These were men who, having heard the gospel, repudiated it and did their very worst to stop other people hearing the gospel. And listen to Paul talking to Titus about the false teachers that were to be found in the church. Titus one sixteen: they profess that they know God, but by their works they deny him, being abominable and disobedient. There comes the word again. And not genuine believers who have fallen into occasional disobedience. They are men who, while they profess to know God, are not genuine believers at all, and reject God and his word and his moral standards and his gospel. Thus does the Holy Spirit describe the men who fell in the wilderness. They had the gospel preached to them, just as we've had the gospel preached to us. It did them no good. They disobeyed. They disbelieved. You say that must have been a shock to discover that. Well, I suppose it was. But then with hindsight, there were ominous signs, weren't there? Take one little sign. I mean, there were bigger ones. They despised God's glories. They saw his signs in Egypt and through the wilderness, and in spite of it, disbelieved him. There was the other little man- uh, matter, the matter of the manna that came down from heaven. They didn't mind it for a day or two, but then after that they said, you know, Moses, you'll have to do better than this old boy. You can't expect us to be content with, I mean, his manna morning, noon, and night, man. I mean, you've got to move with the times we could import a little from Egypt, cucumbers and things, you'll say. A man who bores you stiff. Vary the program, Moses, whatever you do. Well, just consider the situation. They were traveling, so they said, and they really said they believed it, to an inheritance that flowed with milk and honey. But as the historians pointed out, the manor tasted like honey. If you can't stick honey, and you find honey every day of the week revoltingly boring, you'd be well advised not to go to the inheritance. It flows with the stuff. We profess we're going to an inheritance flowing indeed with milk and honey. There is the bread that came down from heaven. We have access to him and to his holy words in this book, my brethren. The psalmist said of it, your words are better than honey to my taste. It would be an ominous sign, wouldn't it, if people said, yes, we're going to heaven, but you know we do find the Bible boring. Please give it to us in tiny little doses if you must. Or if we find the conversation of the Lord Jesus in his word boring now, we would be ill-advised to go to heaven and spend eternity listening to his conversation. We pass on to chapter six, And you'll notice the context of the warnings. The apostle has just spoken to them about Melchizedek, chapter five, verse uh ten. And then he remind- re- re- remembers, and he says, of whom we have many things hard to say and hard of interpretation, seeing you are become dull of hearing. For when by reason of the time you ought to be teachers, you have need again that someone teach you the rudiments of the first principles of the oracles of God, and are become such as have need of milk and not of solid food. For everyone that partakes of milk is without experience of the word of righteousness. He is a babe. So they were going to find it difficult to contemplate what he talked to them about, or what he wanted to talk to them about, which was the Melchizedek priesthood of our Lord. Why would they find it difficult? They were, had remained babes, they couldn't take it. But there is great truth, is there not, in what Professor Bruce points out in his contra, that the head doesn't always find it easy to comprehend what the heart doesn't want to receive. There were men and women that had professed to believe that Jesus was the Messiah, and hitherto it hadn't dawned on them, perhaps, the complete implication of this. They would have been happy if they could have believed Jesus was the Messiah and had Jesus along with the temple at Jerusalem, plus the high priest, plus the sacrifices and all the social stuff that went with it. What were these Christian teachers saying now? That Jesus was not only the Messiah, but he was a... the high priest. And if Jesus was the high priest, you can't have two high priests, and therefore, if Jesus was now the high priest, exit the high priest in Jerusalem and exit his temple and exit his sacrifices. Really? Did it mean that if you really believe that Jesus was the Messiah, you must be prepared to give up the high priest and temple and sacrifices and come out side gate and camp to bear the reproach of Christ. It did. Then they found it very difficult to understand, they said. Difficult to understand all this business about Jesus being a priest. Yes, because, as Professor Bruce points out, they didn't want to understand it. The implications were too far-reaching. But if that were true, what did it mean? You can't have just the vague notion that Jesus is the Messiah without taking on board the detailed doctrines of full-blown Christianity. It's not just the Messiah. He is the perfect sacrifice for sin. His body is the new temple. He is the great high priest. If you're not prepared for it, what are you? Notice, if you will please, the difficulty that the writer confronts. He says that if you get people of this kind, is you will find it is impossible to renew them to repentance. I pray let's be exact. He doesn't say it is impossible for God to forgive them. God is prepared to forgive anybody. But God cannot forgive anybody who doesn't repent. These people, it is impossible to get them to repent. It is impossible to get them to change their minds. Why is that impossible? The analogy the writer uses explains the matter. He says, here's a piece of ground, and the rain came- comes down from heaven. And the ground brings forth herbs and fruits, meat for those for whom it is prepared. Jolly good stuff. Um, here's another piece of ground, and the rain comes down. It produces nothing but thorns and thistles. Now, what will you do about that? You say, a little bit more rain, please. No, sir. The more rain, the more thorns. And the rain is the blessed illumination and power of God's Holy Spirit. If the holy rain of God comes down on a person's heart, and they now are illuminated, and they receive the knowledge of the truth, and with their eyes open, they say no. How will you get them to change their mind? You say, what, what, what you want to do is a miracle or something. Do an earthquake, Lord, that'll shake them. You suppose earthquakes are more efficient than the Holy Spirit? If earthquakes would lead people to repentance, there'd be repentance, there'd be one every five minutes in Sydney. The revelation warns us that earthquakes and plagues do not necessarily lead people to repentance. The biggest power in the universe to lead men and women to repentance is the Holy Spirit of God. If he reveals God, if he reveals the Savior to a person's heart, and they have received the knowledge of the truth, and they are no longer in ignorance but illuminated, and then they say no. God has no power left with which to cause them to change their minds. It is a solemn thing that men can resist God. Paul said, I received mercy because I did what I did in ignorance and unbelief. He wasn't talking about his natural intelligence. If you had joined him up the Damascus road and said, Saul, my good man, what are you doing? He would have said, I'm persecuting nasty little vermin called Nazarenes. That's what I'm doing. I'm attempting to stamp out the pestiferous name of Jesus. That's what I'm doing. How could he thereafter say he did it in ignorance? Well, because he at that stage had not been illuminated by the Holy Spirit. And therefore he said, I receive mercy. After he had been illuminated by the risen Lord, and he had said no. What then? He can no longer claim he did it in ignorance, could he? And you will observe the care and precision with which the writer uses his terms in this letter. Call to mind, says he, the former days after which you were, when you were first saved. No. Why not? Because that's the very point that's now uncertain. Call to remember the former days in which you were first illuminated. Being illuminated is not the same thing necessarily as receiving the love of the truth, is it? You can be illuminated and rejected. And I can finally, though I know for stepping up, ma- ma- Mr. Chairman, so may I have three minutes, or would you advise me to sit down forthwith? Go ahead. Oh, go ahead. None dare dispute his, his authority. We come to the last passage that you have asked me to discuss in chapter ten. And already I've indicated how I would go about, um, interpreting it. But let us notice the key phrase. It says here that if anybody sins willfully after he has received the knowledge of the truth, it doesn't say now it is impossible to n- renew him to repentance, that would be true. It says there is no more a sacrifice for sin. God is prepared to forgive anybody who repents, but if the, if they repent, God must have a sacrifice on the basis of which to forgive. The argument here is, if you reject the only sacrifice there is, then there is none other sacrifice. And all you may expect is the wrath of God. It does not mean that a believer can do some sins and be forgiven, but if a genuine believer does some extraordinary sins, then he can't be forgiven, and those sins are not covered by the sacrifice of Christ, and you have to pay for them yourself if you're going to get into heaven. That would be utter nonsense. We're talking about people who reject the one sacrifice of Christ for sin. There is no other. And the Jews would need to be told it, wouldn't they? Because in their system, you didn't have just one sacrifice for sin. You, every time you sinned, if you wanted to, you brought a sacrifice, and certainly year by year, continually, you brought a sacrifice. They were, of course, forgiven. The Old Testament, Leviticus says that when a Jew brought his sacrifice in sincerity and truth, repented and, and, and did what God told him, he was forgiven. But you see, he never had a conscience made perfect. You see that, says the writer from the very fact that they kept on offering sacrifices, one this year, another the next year, and so forth ad infinitum. And the very fact they constantly offered sacrifices would be evidence enough that their conscience was not yet made perfect. They had not complete peace with God, no confidence to enter the holiest of all. They stood without. Why couldn't they stop their sacrifices then? Because their sacrifices were only tokens. They were like promissory notes. When a man cannot pay his creditors in real cash, so he signs a little note saying he promises to pay and gives it to his creditor, and that keeps the creditor at bay for a while, doesn't it? And the, uh, and stays off bankruptcy for the time being. That's all the sacrifices in Israel were. They were promissory notes that one day had to be redeemed. One day the blessed Lord came, and he died to redeem the transgressions that were under the first covenant, and paid in full all the debt that had accumulated in Israel over the years. And then, when the debt was paid, the system of promissory notes finished. You don't need any more promissory notes if the debt is actually paid, do you? That debt was paid once and for all by the sacrifice of our Lord. And now here were folks that had professed to believe Christ, but they weren't coming to the meeting of the church. Where were they going? Well, they're going back to Judaism. For if they knowingly went back to Judaism, they first had to deny the deity of Christ. They trod underfoot the Son of God. They then counted his blood common, for if he were a mere man, then his blood was common and valueless. And as for the spirit of grace that offered them in the name of the risen Lord salvation by grace and not by works, to go back to Judaism was to repudiate the spirit of grace. Ah, says the Jew to himself, that's all right, but I can go back to Judaism, and I got my sacrifices. Because I could use them under the Old Testament law, you see, so I have to use them still without Christ. No, you can't, says the writer. For now, since our Lord has suffered and offered his sacrifice, there is none other. And if you reject him, your prospect is nothing but the wrath of God. You say, what relev- relevance then has it all to us? Please turn the tape over at this point. You say, what revel- relevance then has it all to us? Well, a great deal, my brethren. We must remember that we too are required to give evidence in our lives to Almighty God, let alone to our elders and shepherds, that we are genuine believers. Secondly, we should remember to con- to provoke one another to love and good works. We need to attend the meetings of the church to, to encourage each other, don't we? What is more, we must learn ourselves to walk consistently with what we believe. We'll see, Peter himself had a little trouble with this, and with this story I close. He was quite clear that salvation was by faith and that circumcision couldn't bring you salvation, you'll see. That's what he believed doctrinally, but he happened to be at a conference once at a place called Antioch, and had been heavily moving and eating with the believers, Jews and Gentiles, when there came down certain brethren from Jerusalem, or James or something, and Peter said, oh, he got a little bit of a stomach ache and wouldn't be coming to the table today to eat the midday meal at the camp, you'll see. Didn't feel well or something. When he got up to go, Paul stood in the doorway. He said, oh no, Peter, no, no, my eye, stomach ache. The trouble with your stomach is you're afraid of these brethren, aren't you? And Peter, you are being a hypocrite, my boy. There are two kinds of hypocrite. One is to pretend you are what you're not, and the other is to pretend that you're not what you are. Peter, my boy, says he, you believe that salvation is utterly by faith, don't you? That circumcision contributes nothing to salvation and is unnecessary for salvation. That's what you believe, my boy, don't you? And therefore, hitherto you've been happy to eat with these Gentile believers, even though they're not circumcised. But now, because of pressure from Jerusalem, you're beginning to compromise and behave as though you didn't believe what you do believe. And your hypocrisy is so good that Barnabas has been fooled by it. Peter, it won't do, he says. We have to walk down the line consistently with what we believe. Why do we have to do it? For the very sake of the gospel. It is no news to you, my brethren, that in the second, third, and centuries onward, Christendom compromised and in many respects went back to Judaism, with its supposed bloody sacrifices on the altar, in churches that were divided into two bits, one holy and one so holy that only the priests were allowed to go in, and all that paraphernalia. My dear brethren, if we believe the gospel, that Christ has put an end to that kind of sacrifice, put an end to the veil, put an end to a specially separate class of priests amongst God's people, then these verses call upon us to so behave that we walk consistently with the doctrine of the gospel that we profess to believe. Not in any narrow-mindedness, of course. Not in any Pharisaic spirit, but because it is the gospel at stake, the gospel of people's salvation is at stake, and we must behave consistently with that gospel. Bear these words of exhortation, and in your wisdom consider them. Pray God may give us the right truth about them and grace to walk consistently therewith.