Gooding, David: 1 - The Message of Hebrews

Now you have, uh, decided that in this weekend we shall be studying together the Epistle to the Hebrews. The Epistle to the Hebrews is spectacular, as we know, in its exposition of the glories of our Lord Jesus Christ, calculated to stimulate our hearts' affection and to prostrate us in worship of the Lord. On the other hand, it is a book that, perhaps more than any other in the New Testament, contains constant exhortations. One of its repeated and favorite phrases is, let us do this, do that, do the other. Not only is it peppered all the way through with many an exhortation, it accompanies those exhortation with warnings of the most solemn kind. So let me remind us all at the outset of our studies that one of our early and principal tasks will be to inquire what the relationship is between those parts that expound the glories of the Lord Jesus and those other parts which issue these exhortations and these solemn warning. Because obviously, much as we shall enjoy, as we have enjoyed over many years, the expositions of the offices and work and person of our Lord Jesus from this epistle. If we were to fail to pick up the exhortations and the warnings of this epistle, if we were to fail to see the connection between the person of our Lord and what is said of him, and the exhortations and warnings that are addressed to us. We should depart from this conference sizably unbalanced in our thinking. And the exposition of the glories of our Lord would not then have the effect upon our lives that they should. Now, when it comes to the practical exhortations and warnings and their application to our lives. I suggest to you that, uh, it is easy, if we are not careful, to jump to hasty conclusion, and therefore to unwarranted application. And I propose just now to remind you just of one or two examples of that possibility, indeed to say how in times past, in some quarters, certain verses of this epistle have indeed, with the very best of motive, been misapplied. And I want to suggest as a general thesis that before we attempt to apply the exhortations and warnings to ourselves, we must first diagnose as clearly as we can what the spiritual state was of those people to whom the letter was first addressed, what their past experience had been, and what exactly were the dangers that surrounded them? What were the perils to which they were liable to succumb? If we can diagnose that, then we ought next to be able to show that what the writer says about the Lord Jesus is carefully and precisely calculated to meet the practical danger in which these people stood. I repeat, if we have rightly diagnosed their spiritual condition, their past history and present danger, we shall have no difficulty in seeing the relevance of what the writer is saying to them when he starts to talk to them about the Lord Jesus. And far from the descriptions of the glories of Christ being theological dilettantism, they will immediately appear to us as being vital things that these people in their peril needed to grasp. And if we perceive that, then we shall have little difficulty taking our study that necessary stage further. As we ask ourselves, do the people to whom we minister in our day and generation stand in any similar difficulty and danger? And if they do, is what this epistle says about the Lord Jesus relevant to them as it was to these ancient believers. And if it is, how way we, in our turn, not only take these lessons to ourselves, but become proficient in getting them across to the people of our day and generation, and particularly to the younger men and women that are coming on behind them. We need no telling, do we, as responsible servants of the Lord in our churches and mission field, that the younger members of our church, as we older members too, are surrounded by perilous situations. The call comes to us all that we need, in the words of the risen Lord, to repent and to overcome. The question is, how shall we help our contemporaries thus to overcome? Let me take, therefore, one or two less, uh, examples of the way in which it would be possible, in our desire to apply the exhortations of this epistle, to put our furrow in, the plow in, too shallow, and misapprehend what the writer is actually saying. Take, for instance, the famous words in chapter ten and verse twenty nine. The writer is saying from verse twenty six um onward to his readers that if we sin willfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more a sacrifice for sins. Verse twenty nine, of how much sorer punishment than anything that was meted out under Moses, shall he be thought worthy of, who has trodden under foot the Son of God, and has counted the blood of the covenant wherewith he was sanctified, a common thing. Some of your translations may have it an unholy thing. It should be more strictly translated, a common thing. What then does it mean to count the blood of the covenant a common thing? It would be easy for us, would it not, at that point to dive in and say as follows, using perhaps the language of First Peter chapter one as our springboard, and saying, but my dear good sirs, is it not the fact that we have been redeemed with the precious blood of Christ, of incalculable value? And since we have been redeemed at such amazing cost, God is naturally critical of how we spend the lives that he once bought at this immeasurable cost. Once our lives were empty, vain, fast getting nowhere. Now we have been bought, redeemed by the precious blood of Christ. Watch how you use your redeemed life. For if being redeemed and certain of your destiny in heaven, you become careless in the way you live. And instead of marching resolutely on your way, warrior-like, to eternity, you start chasing every wild flower and cultivated pansy by the side of the road, and wander off into this desert and the other, when you should be valiantly making progress to eternity. And if you thus wander in life and meander through it and get yourself wasting time and hours on this and that and the other, you are undervaluing the blood by which you were redeemed. You are counting it as though it were of little value. And I don't know, but what? That might make a good sermon, mightn't it, Dorsey? Well, effective, and many people at least would see sense. But, uh, before we go off in that direction as we study this epistle, we need to ask a few questions about that kind of application, don't we? The theme of the application might be true, but then how would you account, if that was the true diagnosis of these people, how would you account for what the writer says to them? If you judge these people to be believers absolutely sure of the basic doctrines of the Christian faith, who have more recently been idling and, uh, becoming a little worldly. What sense would it make for the writer to come alongside them and say, now look, my good brothers, you're getting worldly, aren't you? Wasting your time in riotous stupid living. You'll say, and not devoted to the Lord who redeemed you like you should be. Confident that you'll be in heaven, you're not too careful about how you behave down here. But do remember this, the one sacrifice of Christ forever has put all your sins away, and God won't remember your sins anymore. How would that help? If you spent your time putting the emphasis there, would that not encourage your fellow believers to become even more slack and saying, well, if that is so, and God has promised not to remember my sins and iniquities anymore, why do I need to bother? I shall end up in heaven like the most devoted of all saints, so long as I'm a believer. Praise God that the one sacrifice of Christ has put my sins away, and he's not going to remember them anymore. That's marvelous, so now I may behave as I please. How would you tie up what the man is saying? And you'll see, my good brethren, it's a thing that must concern us, mustn't it? It concerns me, who being a sort of a five-eighths teacher, not to be mentioned in the same breath as the giants that have previously stood before you. But I sometimes without, I trust, becoming unduly critical, but I'm allowed to be crotchety as an old man will be. I watch developments among, uh, the Lord's people in different countries. I say to myself, has it been my fault as a teacher of God's word? That there is so much apparent laxity amongst God's people. Is it because I have so stressed the security of the believer, so stressed the one sacrifice of Christ forever that puts away all sin, that without intentioning it, intending it, I have pushed my hearers over the edge of true balanced spirituality, into the chasm of carelessness. So I raise that first question with you. It's a question that will be with us many times in this epistle as we go through it. At what level are we to interpret its exhortations and warnings? And if we think we have diagnosed what the true situation was with these people, can we next show that what is said about the Lord Jesus is calculated to save them from that peril and not to push them over the brink into the very danger from which they need to be saved. You'll say, as well as that kind of test, we could apply the other common test, couldn't we? Reading these particular phrases and exhortations and warnings in their contexts. And if we were to do this with that particular phrase, this is the immediate context. Of how much sore a punishment think ye shall he be judged worthy who has trodden under foot the Son of God and has counted the blood of the covenant a common thing? Then, if we would put the thing in its context, we must give heed to the first phrase, for the two go together, and the second follows the first logically. The man or woman envisaged has in the first place trodden underfoot the Son of God. The very verb is significant, isn't it? And incidentally, we must not yield to the temptation of treating any warning in Hebrew superficially. The way to study God's word and expound it, surely, is to give to every word and phrase its maximum, maximum valency and power. This man, therefore, has not, notice, he has not tripped over the Son of God. Our Lord used that phrase himself, didn't he? Talking himself as the stone of stumbling. He said there are some that stumbled over him. His claim to be the Messiah and the Son of God incarnate was far more than many a Jew of his contemporary period could take at first. They stumbled over the whole idea. But stumbling is a largely accidental process, isn't it? One doesn't go intending to stumble over anything normally. Trampling something under foot is not necessarily accidental. It suggests deliberation, deliberately to stamp something. And this is what this man does. Then mark the way our Lord Jesus is described. Trampled underfoot, not Jesus. Now, of course, it is that person. But here, with deliberate care and precision, the writer says they have trampled underfoot the Son of God. This man deliberately repudiates the deity of Jesus. What he will not have is that Jesus is the Son of God. That's a much more serious thing, isn't it? And you will at once see how the two phrases are linked logically. If first you deliberately reject, deny, repudiate, and stamp underfoot the deity of Jesus, you will, by remorseless and in, uh, irresistible logic come to take, now watch the next verb, he considers. That is, he has come to this settled opinion. It is his settled opinion that the blood of Christ is common. You will say if Jesus is the Son of God, then his blood is of infinite value. If Jesus is not the Son of God, then his blood is common blood, and no more worth than the blood that courses in anybody's veins. You'll see the logic of it. The situation, therefore, was more serious than at first sight might appear. Say is, is your exposition even, even credible? Would you need to write a letter today to any self-respecting Christian church and guard against the danger that some people in the church were repudiating the deity of the Lord Jesus and therefore counting his blood to be common. Well, we have a plenty of theologians in Britain. We could export some to you if you wanted them. We'd be glad to get rid of them. Who deny the incarnation and deny the deity of the Lord Jesus. And still call themselves Christian. You say, but not in our assemblies. Well, I should hope not, my brothers. But... I have known young gentlemen to leave assemblies and go off and listen to such theologians in the university, and sometimes it wrecks their faith completely. So the problem is deeper. It goes down to the very bedrock issues of our faith. Who is Jesus? Is he? Or is he not? The Son of God. For you can talk as long as you can about the redeeming blood of Christ. Gentlemen, if he's not the Son of God, there's no value in his blood whatsoever. The basic thing at stake, as we shall be hearing tomorrow from our dear brother Carson, is the question of the deity of the Lord Jesus. And though we shall take time patiently to consider its primary application to the people to whom this letter was written, we shall be remembering, shall we not, from our store of biblical knowledge, that the question of the deity of Christ, that a vigorous faith in the deity of Christ, is even for us Gentiles the secret of overcoming the world. My good brethren, allow this crotchety old man to remind you. That if you are concerned about young people, or older for that matter, that somehow the world seems to have got hold of them. You don't necessarily cure their trouble by using the poker of exhortation. If the world has got hold of them, it has done so to the extent in which they have lost a vigorous, realistic, up-to-date faith that Jesus is the Son of God. If Jesus is, as we shall be hearing tomorrow, the author of this universe, the maintainer of its vast display. If he is the heir of all things, who at the end of history shall receive all its dividends. And we should be consummate fools, shouldn't we? Not to live for him. How do I come to be sidetracked by the little baubles and flowers of this world? Why? Because I've lost sight of the deity of Christ, perhaps not as a theological pro- uh, doctrine, but as a practical impact on my life. And therefore the world seems big. And Christian things seem small. And the world seems real. And the Christian story, like the Red Riding Hood story we learned at babyhood. And oh, my brethren, what an insult we sometimes do to the Son of God. We sometimes give our young people, do we not, the impression that Christianity and all that concerns it is such a bitter pill that the only way any reasonable person could persuade any young people to come to listen to it would be to coat the bitter s- pill of Christianity with a whole sugaring of entertainment, and very often s- second rate entertainment at that. But if Christianity is such a nasty little thing, it has to be sh- coated with much sugar before any sensible, healthy young person would listen to it more than five minutes at a time. And my answer is I don't want the, I don't want Christianity. It is an insult to represent it as anything more less than the most spectacular thing in the universe. And if we're not getting that across, we are failing our modern generation, are we not? You'll see, in the last analysis, the younger generation can be moved emotionally in their youth when idealism runs high and romantic feelings course through their veins. And all kinds of romantic sentiments can be sung and said, and the young will respond. When middle-aged cynicism has got hold of them, they'll need something more than that kind of experience to keep them. When life's trials and pains have laid hold of them. When all the faults you could ever imagine they discovered to be not just in the world, but in the church as well. And it won't be the emotion that keeps them. It won't be the entertainment that keeps them. It will be the sheer fact, is Jesus the Son of God, with all that that implies, or is he not? Let's take one more slice, as an archaeologist would do if he were cutting into an ancient site, you know, and wanting to find out what it was all about, he would take a dig, wouldn't he, a slice down the till and see the different ages represented and what the thing was, anyway. Let's take one more slice. In chapter six, verse 1, the writer exhorts his people, wherefore let us cease to speak of the first principles of Christ and press on to perfection. That phrase has been used as the text, the springboard for many a vigorous sermon, such as I have no right to criticize. It is good sometimes to take a phrase, even out of its context, I suppose, and build a sermon on it, the sermon being true, nothing necessarily to do with the text, but it's a convenient, uh, peg to hang the sermon on, I suppose. Who would be so nasty as to say it wasn't a good thing to do? But how should we interpret this exhortation? Press on to perfection. It would be very easy, would it not, to glide into an exposition modeled on Philippians chapter three and what Paul there says, indeed, in his use of the term in that very chapter. For there he tells us that once he was a proud Pharisee seeking to establish his own righteousness before God, and piled up his merit as he thought it to make a righteousness of his own by the law. He came to see his folly. And booted it all out and counted it as refuse, that he might be found in Christ, not having a righteousness which is of the law, but that which is of faith in Jesus Christ. So now he was on a solid foundation indeed, justified by faith and certain of acceptance with God. Only, says he, I don't just rest on my oars, I am thus certain of acceptance with God, but because of that very thing, I press on to the great goal that is set before me, which is conformity to Christ in body, soul, and spirit. I am not yet perfect, my brethren, he says. I press on. It would be easy, I say, to take that message and bring it back into Hebrews six, wouldn't it? Indeed, on a wet Tuesday afternoon, it might be, uh, uh, seem a sensible thing to do, perhaps, or if you were pushed for a sermon on Sunday. But a little care would show that the writer to the Hebrews is using, using this term pressing on to perfection in his own specialized sense, let's take a few examples of what he says. In chapter seven, for instance, he follows by saying, if there was perfection through the Levitical priesthood, what further need was there that another priest should arise? And again, he says in chapter seven, eight, and nineteen, for there is a disannulling of the foregoing commandment because of its weakness and unprofitableness, for the law made nothing perfect, and there is a bringing in thereupon of a better hope through which we draw nigh to God. So now what is the writer talking about? Well, he's talking about two different priests. The priests set up by the Levitical law of the Old Testament, and the priest that is our blessed Lord Jesus after the order of Melchizedek. And he's saying that the first priest made nothing perfect, and therefore it had to be scrapped. And there was brought in a different and better system. So what is it that the writer is saying? Is he saying that in Christianity there are two priesthoods, you know, one is a bit better than the other, really, and on the whole, if I were you, I'd go for the, the better one. There is in Christianity a Levitical priesthood. Don't go after them, whatever the color of their robes. You go after, uh, uh, the priest after the order of Melchizedek. And thus you will be going in for the perfect priesthood in Christianity. No, no, gentlemen, there are not two priesthoods in Christianity, of course not. The one priesthood that brought nothing perfect was Judaism's priesthood. And pressing on to perfection will mean leaving Judaism's priesthood and its temple and its sacrifices. And pressing on to full-blown Christianity. That's what it means. And the various of immature converts that has left faith in the Jewish system of priesthood and sacrifice and has stepped across to Christ, has moved on to the perfection of Christianity, to a perfect priesthood. In similar terms, the writer talks about the tabernacle that Judaism had, and that glorious tabernacle that our Lord now, uh, inhabits, where he exercises his ministry. And he says he has become, Joel say, a priest of the true, the greater and more perfect tabernacle. That is Hebrews nine verse 11. Now pray, what does he mean by saying that, uh, our Lord is a minister of the greater and more perfect tabernacle? Are there two tabernacles in Christianity? One which you use when you are immature believer, and the other one to which you graduate when you've been some years upon the road of Christian experience? Well, of course not. Obviously not. There's only one tabernacle for us, that is this greater and more perfect tabernacle. It's not made with hands, it is eternal in the heaven. Pressing on to perfection, therefore, in this context means leaving the old tabernacle of Judaism and going on to that true tabernacle that Christianity brings before us, the heavenly abode of God. You say, well, that's, if that's what it means, we may pack up and go home forthwith, you'll say. We've nothing to do, thank you, Mr. Preacher. We're already there in that greater tabernacle, you'll say. I mean, uh, so we don't need to press on anywhere. Well, if that's how you feel, pray have a heart for myriads and millions of people in this world. In Russia at this moment, as in many a country, the formal churches are built internally after the form of the Jewish tabernacle, deliberately so built. If you enter the church building, halfway down there's a wall that stretches from one wall to the other, or nearly so, and from floor nearly to the ceiling. In that wall, there are three doors. The center one is the door of the king. The one on the left and the right, you'll see, are the north and the southern doors. At some time during the liturgy, the central door is open, but none may enter behind that veil, that wall, save the priest. And that, I will tell you, is the holiest of all in there. As one told me with great pride, I'm the only one allowed in there, and my assistant said he, if anybody else got in there, they would be put out. I said, uh, what is it? Well, he said it's like they had it in the tabernacle. I said, so that is. Yeah, I can see that. I said, well, what then do you, what then do you, um, what then do you make out of what the New Testament says? You know that when our Lord was crucified, the veil was rent. And that, uh, the letter to the Hebrews says with boldness to enter into the holy place. Look here, he said, that's how they had it in the Old Testament, and we're going to have it like that. End of conversation. It wasn't a matter of scoring theological points off him. Pray remember the million. And some believers among them, who need to hear the gospel of Christianity and leave a Christendom that has sunk back into Judaism and come out right into full-blown Christianity, its freedom and its glory. So after all, you'll see the letter is properly described in its title that it bears in the manuscripts, the early manuscripts. The letter is to the Hebrews. They were by birth Hebrews attached to the system of Israel's worship. They had obviously at some stage confessed Jesus as Lord, and as a result had suffered much persecution and borne it manfully. More recently, they had begun to hesitate, to wobble. According to chapter ten, the manner of some was to forsake the assembling of themselves together. It's always an ominous sign, isn't it, my brothers? When people who have once been keen and apparently devoted to the Lord and have endured much for the Savior's sake, begin stopping coming to the meetings of the church. It immediately raises in your pastor's heart. Why aren't they coming? And if they're not coming, where are they going? The writer who knew well their circumstances is afraid that they are going back to the Judaism that once they left under pressure of persecution. What would it mean if they went back? It would mean that they would have to deny the deity of the Lord Jesus. That is still true. If somebody converts from being a Gentile or a Christian to becoming a Jew, they must deny, in great part or if not in whole, the deity of the Lord Jesus. And if they were going back to Judaism, and that is really what they were doing, denying his deity, that raised very serious questions, did it not? How would you help them? Would you hammer them around the head and stir them with the poker of your exhortation. It might do some good. Our, our writer, he exhorts them, he's not afraid to. Would you warn them of the consequences? Our writer is not afraid to do it. In the most solemn term. That's not how he begins, is it? He has a wiser heart. He sees what the fundamental issue is going to be about the deity of the Lord Jesus, and he starts by expounding the wonder of the person and the deity of the Lord Jesus. Since I noticed what John says in his epistle, that the secret of overcoming the world is a belief that Jesus is the Son of God, I sort of tucked it up under my cap from time to time, every bit of evidence, every argument that is evidence that Jesus is the Son of God. And sometimes I have been bold enough, perhaps brash enough, rude enough, when given the opportunity to question my dear fellow believers, and some of the younger ones in particular, to ask them, you believe Jesus is the Son of God? Well, of course, yes. Would you mind telling me why you believe he is? Uh. Well, the Bible says he is. I said, yes, that's a very good reason for believing. And why do you believe the Bible is the word of God? Uh. Well, it is, isn't it? Well, I don't doubt it. I was just asking you why you believe it is so. Well, Jesus says it was, and then so he did. Now, which comes first? Do you believe the Bible because you already know Jesus is the Son of God? Or do you believe that Jesus is the Son of God because you first believe the Bible is inspired? Which way round is it? And what particular reason would you give if you were challenged all of a sudden without being, uh, having time to prepare? What reason would you give first for believing that Jesus is the Son of God? You ask me why I believe, I say, well, my, my, my mother told me. That, gentlemen, is an excellent reason for believing in the deity of Christ, but you're, that will not be quite enough throughout the whole of life, will it? Why do we believe? Suppose the very moment you were faced with an atheist, how would you convince him? Indeed, suppose you were facing a Jew to whom the idea of the deity of Jesus is an absolute anathema, if not a blasphemy. How would you prove it to him? Not just enough to state it, is he? How would you prove it? You can imagine many a young convert going home and telling his Jewish parents they become a Christian, and they, with alarm and grief, call in the rabbi to have a word with their children. And the rabbi comes and says, look here, my dear young child, you're breaking your parents' heart. And what is this silly notion you've got into your head that Jesus the carpenter of Nazareth is the son of God? I'm absolutely surprised at you, brought up from your babyhood to hear it recited, Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one Lord. How could you ever go off into this piddling nonsense that the carpenter of Nazareth is a, is a son of God? Why ever do you believe it? Wouldn't be enough for the rabbi if the convert turned around and said, well, Peter says it's true. He might say, and who is Peter? You mean that fisherman from Galilee who never attended a theological school in all his life. To be convincing to a Jew, you'd have to prove it, wouldn't you? From the Old Testament. Not just state it, prove it. And so you would have to do for all the distinctive doctrine. Fancy going along to a rabbi or the high priest in Jerusalem and saying that you really believe now that Jesus was the high priest. He would look down the Aaronic nose at you, wouldn't he, Otto? And say, what stupid folly is this? I thought you believed the Old Testament was inspired. Well, I do, sir. Yes, I do. Well, then, don't you remember how God, through the Old Testament, appointed Aaron and his children to be high priests? And when people like Korah, Dathan, and Abiram rose up and challenged the right of Aaron and his sons to be priests, you know what God did with them, don't you? He opened the very earth and sunk them in its flames, for daring to deny the priesthood of Aaron. How can you possibly come to believe that Jesus is a priest? It was of the tribe of Judah, wasn't it? Are you denying great bits of the Old Testament in order to believe that Jesus has become a priest? And you'd need an answer ready for it, wouldn't you? And what is more, you'd need to get the answer from the Old Testament, for for the time being, that's the only authority that the high priest would acknowledge. What a wise man this writer is, as having assessed the danger that his friends were in. He not only writes to expound the glories of Christ, but at every turn he proves them from the Old Testament. And that's what we're going to learn from him again, or relearn from him again, in these days that we spend together. Say not this is mere theological theorizing. We shall be thinking about the biggest battle in the whole world, fought still in the big fighting planes of the world. Who is Jesus? Is he the Son of God, Savior, Redeemer, High Priest, Creator? Or is he not? We need to hear it. Our young people need to hear it and the evidence for it. And the world needs to hear it in our evangelism. God be with us and help us in our studies.