BETTER EXPECTATIONS

Heb. 6:9 ... "Beloved, we are convinced of better things concerning you, and things that accompany salvation."

      Although we do not know specifically who the recipients of this epistle were, nor the exact place of their residence, we are assured they were of Jewish background and had been Christians for many years. There is considerable evidence that they had cooled in their affection and zeal for the faith and were in danger of losing their identity in Christ. Perhaps they had become disappointed because Christianity had brought them no visible earthly kingdom and had itself been decisively rejected by the great majority of other Jews. The writer states several instances in which they were failing in the commitment they had made to the Lord when they pledged their lives to Him. -1- They had become lazy, (5:11; 6:12). -2- They had grown despondent, (12:3, 12). -3- They had lost their initial enthusiasm for the faith, (3:6, 14; 4:14; 10:23, 25). -4- They had failed to develop spiritual discernment, (5:12-14). -5- They had fallen into the habit of not attending worship services, (10:25). -6- They were not being loyal to their Christian overseers, (13:17). -7- They had ceased to imitate the faith of Christians who had gone before, (13:7). -8- They were easily influenced by new and strange doctrines, (13:9). -9- They had entered the danger zone of falling short of God's promises, (4:1). -10- They were drifting away from the doctrine which had converted them, (2:1). -11- They were coming perilously close to leaving the faith in deliberate and persistent apostasy, (3:12; 10:26).

      When the growing weaknesses and failures of the Hebrew Christians are noticed and considered, the writer's exhortation, "Beloved, we are convinced of better things concerning you," evince their poignancy. It reminds me of something I witnessed in my youth. While waiting for a ride to high school one morning, a friend and I were approached by our Second Grade teacher. She gave my friend a letter to deliver to her son at our high school. A few minutes later she saw him from her window open the letter and read its private contents. Hurrying out and retrieving the letter, she spoke almost the same words as in Heb. 6:9, "J----, I expected something far better of you!" She trusted him to deliver the message inviolate and was both disappointed and distressed that he had betrayed her trust. Similarly, those who first carried the gospel to the Hebrews had entrusted it to them to preserve in their lives all its provisions by their fidelity. At the time of this epistle these disciples had not yet gone so far as to betray the divine trust, but they were drawing very close to doing so.

      Only here in the 303 verses of the letter does the writer call them "beloved," (agapêtoi), a term of affection that indicates he had not given up hope for them. Though they had already strayed afar and become quite a disappointment, he nevertheless believed they were capable of turning around and coming back to the salvation which always awaits those who will repent. There is a point beyond which such repentance is impossible, and in that condition the apostate has no prospect other than "a terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire which will consume," (Heb. 10:27). There are those who abandon their faith in the Lord for one reason or another, but so long as they breathe the air God gives and enjoy the divinely bestowed energy that keeps their heart beating, they may always return to their allegiance to the Lord. And God, who does not want to destroy anyone in judgment, but who "desires all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth," (I Tim. 2:4), will welcome them back into His grace and reinstate them in His own family of saints. It is wonderful that God is so patient and self-restrained that he waits for a considerable time while those who once served Him wander afield in faithlessness until they at last discover ultimate truth and turn their lives back toward Him. May God grant such souls the time and opportunity to allow them to have this experience that will mean their eternal salvation.

THE SOURCE OF ETERNAL SALVATION

Heb. 5:9 ... "Having been made perfect, He became to all those who obey Him the source of eternal salvation."

      The life of Jesus was the unique experience among all human lives in many ways. His birth was the miraculous result of a woman conceiving a child, not by carnal union with a man, but by the power of the Holy Spirit, (Luke 1:34-35). He was physically a human, (Php. 2:7-8), but spiritually God, (John 16:28). Indeed, he was God incarnate, i.e., "God-in-the-flesh," (John 1:14). He spoke and acted as no man ever has, (John 8:46 and 3:2). Although there were many men in Biblical times who were visited by the Spirit, who empowered them to perform supernatural deeds, Jesus possessed the Spirit in His infinite fulness rather than "by measure," (John 3:34). 

      Nevertheless, Jesus' earthly life was developmental, a necessity He accepted willingly as a result of descending from His pre-incarnation Godness wherein He "emptied Himself," (Php. 2:6-7), and took on Himself the humble status of a human being. He entered the world by the normal means of childbirth as an infant, unable to speak or care for Himself, and was totally dependent upon His mother Mary to feed, clothe, and comfort Him. He grew to manhood and maturity by natural processes summarized in this important note: "And Jesus kept increasing in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man," (Luke 2:52). To phrase this in present terms, it says that He grew mentally, physically, spiritually, and socially, thus covering every dimension of the human constitution. From whatever low level He accepted when He descended into human existence, (but "yet without sin," (Heb. 4:15), Jesus moved upward to full maturity, indicated by the phrase in the lead text above, "having been made perfect." He thus obtained the full satisfaction and approval of His Father, (Mat. 3:17 and 17:5; Heb. 1:4-5, 9).

      This process of development into full maturity as a human involved a great ordeal of struggle and pain for Jesus, (Heb. 5:7-8). We must come to realize and appreciate this, for it emphasizes how our Lord experienced our human condition in the fullest way and enables Him even now to sympathize with all the varied trials of life here. It is of the greatest significance and comfort to us that we read, "We do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin," (Heb. 4:15). He therefore serves as the entirely valid and effective Model for mankind, because throughout His struggle with all the harsh challenges of life here, He never once faltered and committed sin. He accomplished the perfect, untarnished life because of His total submission to His Father's will, both in deed and in spirit. Here is where the lesson of Heb. 5:9 begins to emerge and reveal its application for us. Through the victory Jesus won by submission in spirit and obedience in deed, "He became to all those who obey Him the source of eternal salvation." As He reached perfection by obedience to His Father, He will conduct us unto perfection as we obey Him promptly, willingly, and gladly. This is not to say that anyone attains perfection by his own power, for nothing is further from the context here. Our perfection comes only through the instrumentality of Jesus' attained perfection, i.e., Christians are made perfect through faith in Christ and obedience to His will. Having attained perfection in Him, we shall be granted by Him the incomparable gift of salvation.

      Some people attribute human salvation to grace without consideration for personal deeds, while others attribute it to one's faith in and of itself. But this statement of Heb. 5:9 specifically connects our salvation to obedience to the teachings of Jesus. Of course, this does not dismiss the superiority and priority of divine grace, (Eph. 2:8); nor does it remove the essential necessity of faith, (Heb. 11:6). What it does do is establish irrefutably human obedience to the divine will as the necessary response to God's grace.

BE DILIGENT TO ENTER GOD'S REST

Heb. 4:11 ... "Let us be diligent to enter that rest, so that no one will fall, through following the same example of disobedience."

      Looking backward into the Old Testament scriptures with their record of God's activity among Israel and the people's response thereunto, Paul wrote in I Cor. 10:11, "These things happened to them as an example, and they were written for our instruction." One of the most decisive and memorable of those occasions involved the experience of the Hebrews led by Moses out of Egypt and across the desolate wastes of Sinai to the threshhold of Canaan.  God had promised to give that land to them as a rest from their bondage in an alien land, but the fulfillment of that promise was contingent upon their faith to follow God's directions. When the time came to exercise their faith by invading Canaan from the south, attacking fortified cities, and battling trained soldiers who were of greater stature than they, the hearts of the people melted within them. In the fear generated by a very weak faith, they rebelled and turned back into the relative safety of the desert. God's response was to abandon them to that desert until it swallowed every one of them except Joshua and Caleb, the two spies who had encouraged the people to follow God's lead in attacking Canaan. Out of the hundreds of thousands in that generation only those two men were finally allowed to enter Canaan as decisive conquerors, to take possession of it and enjoy the rest there that God had intended for all of them.

      God's promise of a rest for His people was not abrogated by the abysmal failure of the Israelites.  The generation that followed was led triumphantly into Canaan by Joshua and given to them for their possession. In vs. 8-9 it states that "if Joshua had given them rest, He would not have spoken of another day after that. So there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God." God has promised another rest to His people of the Christian Age, only this rest is heavenly rather than earthly, spiritual rather than material, and eternal rather than temporal. Just as it was in the case of the Israelites, it is contingent upon our faith to yield our lives to His direction and to perform the works of spiritual service for which He has created us in His Son, (Eph. 2:10). If we ignore His will, revealed to us in the New Testament, then we will, like that faithless generation so long ago, "fall, through following the same example of disobedience."  We can then be sure we will not "enter that rest."

      Christians always face the danger of becoming complacent, taking the grace of God for granted, and participating less and less in the "good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them," (Eph. 2:10). If we do not wear ourselves out in God's service, we have no need for any rest in the life beyond. It is the one who has worked through the day, endured the heat of the sun, and produced fruit by the sweat of his brow, who needs and deserves the bliss of sweet rest at the end of the day.  Through the apostle John the Lord wrote to the Christians at Ephesus, "Remember from where you have fallen, and repent and do the deeds you did at first, or else I am coming to you and will remove your lampstand out of its place --- unless you repent," (Rev. 2:5). These people were obviously on the verge of missing "that rest" because they had ceased to "be diligent to enter" it. Perhaps their attention had been diverted by other activities in which they were engaging, or perhaps they were resting on the laurels of past achievements, or perhaps they had settled into the practice of just "keeping house for the Lord," the fault of many modern congregations. Whatever their situation, they were not busily and zealously involved in the works required by the gospel. It is sobering to consider Jesus' description of the Final Judgment in Mat. 25:31-46, where those who were assembled on His left hand were excluded from the rest of heaven because they had not been active in evangelism, edification, and benevolence for Jesus' sake while they yet lived on earth. 

ENCOURAGE ONE ANOTHER DAILY

Heb. 3:13 ... "Encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called "Today," lest any of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin."

     Although this statement contains only 25 words, it presents seven ideas in delivering a message of great significance to Christians. 

      First, Christians are to be constantly occupied in the effort to encourage. The object is to motivate other Christians to continue steadfastly in faith, love, hope, good works, and all the other components of the Christian Way. Every follower of Christ must learn to encourage within the scope of his ability and opportunity.  This could involve public speaking (preaching and teaching), but for the most part it can be accomplished on an informal, interpersonal plane in one's daily private life.

      Second, Christians are to encourage "one another." The circle of each person's life intersects those of many other people. No one must withdraw into his own circle of isolation. Within the community of the church, the life of each Christian touches, overlaps, and engages the lives of many fellow Christians. Because of these unavoidable, interpersonal relationships, and because of the divine persuasion to love one another, care for each other, and support each other, we are motivated to encourage "one another."

      Third, this encouragement is to be given "daily." Day by day, and not just on Sundays, Christians are to encourage each other to "fight the good fight of faith" (I Tim. 6:12) and never "lose heart in doing good" (Gal. 6:9). The force of evil never grows weary or slackens in its activity (II Ths. 2:7; I Pet. 5:8), and it is always ready to take quick advantage of any Christian who lays aside his vigilance and ceases to take the presence, the power, and the pervasiveness of evil seriously (Mat. 26:41). It is, therefore, an urgent, unending, and utterly essential task for Christians to encourage one another "daily."

      Fourth, each Christian must consider the time for his duty to encourage to be "Today." That is, he must take advantage of present opportunities to offer assistance to fellow disciples (II Cor. 6:2). It is too late to encourage effectively someone who has already sold out his life to the pleasures of sin. The opportunity to turn a brother or sister away from the face of evil will not always continue, and the degree of success in the attempt is progressively reduced with the passage of time as the evil warps, distorts, and destroys the mind and conscience.

      Fifth, sin is the great adversary of the children of God. It is the powerful tool of Satan "which so easily entangles us" (Heb. 12:1). Sin separates Christians from God (Isa. 59:2) and leads those who surrender to its power into the grip of death (Rom. 6:23). It has become accepted by a large part of our society that the concept of sin is meaningless, irrelevant, and in fact false. This is the most dangerous response that can be made to sin's presence and activity. To deny the reality of something does not destroy its reality, but it places the one who denies it at great risk.

      Sixth, sin operates extremely successfully because of its power of "deceitfulness." If sin presented itself to us in its horrible reality, it would be so abhorrent and repulsive that all but the most foolish would flee immediately from it. To avoid this reaction and also to ensnare its victims, sin rather masks itself behind a veneer of pleasure, success, power, and fame. The undiscerning person who is seduced by this bait finds out only too late how shallow and unsatisfying it really is. Christians must exhort one another continually so that no one will be swallowed by the "deceitfulness of sin."

      Seventh, sin hardens the conscience and soul until they are insensitive to the distinction between right and wrong. Sin also erodes any appreciation for what is good and lowers one's sight from the eternal things of heaven to the temporal things of earth that perish with the using and still do not bring enduring fulfilment. Unless Christian encouragement is persuasive enough before this hardening effect progresses too far, the soul of the victim might reach a state where it can no longer be motivated to repent.

      

NEGLECT THAT PREVENTS SALVATION

Heb. 2:3a ... "How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?"

      There are three truths of the most fundamental importance and ultimately of eternal consequence, which confront every person who passes through this world. The first of them is revealed in Rom. 3:23, "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." The second is proclaimed in II Cor. 5:10, "We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad." And the third is presented in Rom. 5:8-9, "God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him." Very simply put, (1) every person is a sinner, (2) God will at last judge and punish the sinner, and (3) God offers salvation from sin and its terrible penalty through His Son Jesus.

      The only reasonable response that a person can make when he learns these truths is to accept the salvation God offers him. To learn that you are a sinner and hence doomed for destruction, and turn away from the one avenue of escape God has provided, is foolish. If a wildfire is raging across the countryside, as sometimes happens in the western states during a drought, those who live in its path are immediately alerted and warned to vacate their homes. As the flames draw dangerously near, orders to flee are issued in a stronger, more urgent way. If anyone refuses to leave and perishes in the holocaust, we feel great pity for their fate. And yet, we cannot but consider them foolish to have been warned and then neglected to save themselves. This is analogous to the action of sin in the world, which rages like wildfire through human experience. Christians, speaking from the inspired revelation of God's word, sound the warning of impending destruction to all. In Jude 23 we are thus instructed, "Save others, snatching them out of the fire." There is no one whose life is not in the path of the racing, consuming path of sin. To be warned by fervent, urgent appeals to accept God's route of escape through Christ, and then disregard it, is just as foolish as to stay at home until wildfire engulfs your house with you inside. In fact, it is more foolish, because physical fire ends a human life quickly, after which the anesthesia of death obliterates all pain. But the spiritual fire consequent upon sin is never extinguished, and no relief will ever come to the soul writhing within it, (see Mark 9:47-48).

      Perhaps many who refuse to respond to the gospel of Christ reject its necessity on the basis that, having denied the Biblical concept of sin, they are not sinners. Others who decline to respond to God's offer of salvation have denied the reality of a judgment, as well as the idea that God is an avenger of sin. Such rejections, denials, and refusals indicate a severe lack of faith in the truth of Holy Scripture, which affirms these things as realities. The denial of what exists does not remove its reality, though it may indeed remove one's anxiety over its impact upon his own existence. However, the reality of God and His will for man has been sufficiently confirmed by "signs and wonders and various miracles," (Heb. 2:4), which were recorded by competent observers and preserved for the benefit of all posterity. God does not repeat these verifying phenomena to each generation, but rather accounts this testimony as enough to convince anyone whose mind is open. Therefore, if a person rejects the merciful invitation of God to be saved, how can he escape the wrath of God? Our featured text, Heb. 2:3, does not bother to answer that question, apparently because the answer is so obvious. But the answer is clearly and emphatically given in many places in the Bible. For example, "To those who are selfishly ambitious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness ... (God will will execute) wrath and indignation ... (upon) every soul of man who does evil," (Rom. 2:8-9).

      

OUR RELATION TO GOD'S CREATION

Heb. 1:10 ... "You, Lord, in the beginning did lay the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of Your Hands."

      The Bible opens in Gen. 1:1 with the proclamation that God created the universe, ("the heavens and the earth") and spoke into existence the laws by which all the countless systems and parts would be governed. To study the universe, therefore, or any subsystem of it, is to study the handiwork of God. This is the view that was always present in my mind as I taught physics and marvelled at how the laws which operate in nature can be expressed in precise mathematical formulae. The psalmist said, "The heavens are telling of the glory of God; and their expanse is declaring the work of His hands," (Psa. 19:1). When a scientist discovers a law, he is, in reality, finally uncovering to the enlightenment of man what was set in place by God eons ago. Again we read, "By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and by the breath of His mouth all their host. ... For He spoke, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast," (Psa. 33:6,9). Science, when it is true to its name, brings the human mind closer to the conviction that the universe was created and that the God of the Bible was its Creator. Sir William Herschel (1738-1822) was a German-born astronomer who did his work in England. He discovered the planet Uranus in 1781, proved that our solar system rotates about a center within our galaxy, and began the great task of methodically cataloging the location and identity of the myriads of stars observable in space. At the height of his illustrious career he wrote: "All human discoveries seem to be made only for the purpose of confirming more and more strongly the truth contained in the Sacred Scriptures."

      Hebrews 1:10 is one of many statements in the Bible which remind us that God is the Creator of the universe, usually with an exhortation that we respond to His creative act with praise, thanksgiving, and concession to His ownership of what He has made. To be thus reminded should also have an humbling, sobering effect upon us, inducing us to bring our view of reality back into the proper perspective. It should also influence us to re-order our priorities and values. Although God submitted the world to man to occupy and use it, (Gen. 1:28-30), so that it is proper for us to exercise the claim of ownership to local portions of it, we should always be reminded that, in reality, we are never more than caretakers, or stewards, of what belongs to God. In no absolute or immutable sense do we actually "own" anything! Nor do we have any ultimate, superior, or inalienable right to lay such a claim to any portion of this world or its goods. Psalm 24:1 declares that "the earth is the Lord's, and all it contains, the world, and those who dwell in it."

      When we entered the world, none of us brought anything into it to add to what was already here; and when we leave it, none of us will be able to carry out with us one atom of its matter. "For we have brought nothing into the world, so we cannot take anything out of it either," (I Tim. 6:7). The universe was created by God as a closed cosmological system, and no man can either increase or decrease the sum total of its matter and energy. Therefore, no one has any ultimate personal claim to anything in it.

      The clarification of this world view should serve to decrease our lust for material things and the concomitant concepts of ownership and selfish gratification with whatever has come into our hands. Realizing that we are but stewards of what belongs in toto to God, we should find it much easier to use it according to the principles He has revealed to us in the Bible. These principles urge us to allow our relations with material things to be governed by such ideas as non-dependence upon them, the readiness to share our excess with those who have a deficiency, our glad willingness to commit a generous part of them to God's service in His church, and a deep appreciation for these things as manifestations of God's love and concern for us in entrusting them to our continuing use and good management.

THE PROFITABLE SERVANT

Philemon 11 ... "(Onesimus) formerly was useless to you, but now is useful both to you and to me."

      Onesimus was a slave who belonged to Philemon, a Christian in the church at Colossae in Asia Minor. Deserting his master, he escaped and made his way the considerable distance to Rome. There, in some way, he became acquainted with the apostle Paul who taught him the gospel and converted him to Christ. It then became Paul's duty to return the runaway slave to his owner, even as it also became the duty of Onesimus, now that he had committed himself to the way of righteousness, to return willingly to Philemon. Only now he would return not just as a slave, inferior according to the human institution of servitude, but rather much more as a "beloved brother ... in the Lord," (v.16). 

      The name Onesimus came from the Greek word meaning profitable. Paul picks up on this and uses it to persuade the master not to deal harshly with his returning slave. Before this he had failed to live up to his name, having fled his owner after perhaps being rebellious, resentful, and irresponsible. But now he is returning as a Christian, ready to serve Philemon according to the letter and spirit of Col. 3:22-25, a passage which Philemon had doubtless read.

      This story of conversion and reconciliation shows us that the gospel is able to turn anyone from a worthless sinner into a profitable worker in the kingdom of God. In another passage that Philemon had surely read or heard, Col. 1:21-22, Paul emphasized this transforming power of the gospel: "Although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds, yet He (Christ) has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him (God) holy and blameless and beyond reproach." In the beginning, the Colossians had been living "engaged in evil deeds," the common state of unregenerate human activity, which is unprofitable to God and also ultimately unprofitable to the people themselves. But having been exposed to the teaching of the gospel, which they had believed and obeyed, they were reconciled to God by virtue of Jesus' death for their sins, and they also were regenerated to become God's own possession. In this new condition of Christian sanctity they were profitable to God as members of His holy family. This conversion from the useless and unprofitable to the useful and worthy is the great benefit of the Christian gospel that comes to all who will accept it in faith and subject themselves to its instruction.

      Peter expressed it in his First Epistle in these words: "You have tasted the kindness of the Lord. And coming to Him as to a living stone, rejected by men, but choice and precious in the sight of God, you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ," (2:3-5). During His earthly experience Jesus was rejected by men as worthless and cast aside, but God then made Him to be the chief cornerstone in His eternal spiritual house. The same God can take men and women who are indeed worthless in their sins and make them to be "living stones" in the further erection of this great "spiritual house" when they respond to His call to them through the gospel. Those who formerly were of no use to Him are then not only vital parts of His house, but also even priests who "offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God." It is a very encouraging and exciting revelation that God has given us this wonderful opportunity to be changed from worthless parasites, who feed by our sin upon the vitality of society, into profitable workers whose lives uplift, support, and nurture the general community of mankind.