"Now faith means putting our full confidence in the things we hope for, it means being certain of things we cannot see..." Hebrews 11:1
And thus begins the beginning of the most famous "faith chapter" in all the 1,189 chapters in the whole Bible, including, if you read on, practical examples from real human lives. But first - you know me! - I want to take issue with the way, most of the time, we've heard and been taught and internalized the meaning of this very well-known opening verse. Take a read-through again in the Phillips translation and, then, in the NIV:
Yet the way it seems we've heard and understood this verse is at a position of remove, like "faith" is some remote action of shooting hopes out into the unknown darkness. The actual Greek wording would beg to differ, though: consider it: “Faith is the foundation of the things hoped-for, the proof of things not presently seen.” I think, oftentimes, we think of "faith" as a means to get somewhere - to peace, to calm, to Heaven - when, in fact, to believe means you've already arrived. Faith is the Heavenly we can hold onto; it's the economy of Life itself; as the King James' captures it so perfectly, it is "the substance" - the tangible, touchable - of what we claim to believe. For us to first just sit in a room and truly believe what we say we believe about Jesus is the most powerful human activity available to us. All true Christian doings can only proceed from there. What - and how - do we really believe?
0 Comments
Hebrews 8:3 - "Every High Priest is appointed to offer gifts and make sacrifices. It follows, therefore, that in these [heavenly] holy places Jesus has something that he is offering..."
...which is a logic that made perfect sense to the Hebrew readers of this epistle, but, let's be honest, you and I are not Hebrew readers and, I bet, most of us don't know all the forms and functions of the historical High Priests of Israel. Beyond, say, the Day of Atonement and the regularly-offered sin offerings, do you know what a High Priest's main duties and responsibilities were? Because, if they're a representation of what Jesus is now perfectly up to on our behalf, I'd sure like to know what those duties were and are... Well, in doing some research this week, I think I found the full list of all that they did. And wow! do they delight my heart in what Jesus is up to for me! Here we go... I. The High Priest conducted the service on the Day of Atonement and entered the Holy of Holies (Leviticus 16 & Exodus 30) – which, as it pertains to Jesus, I'll leave for further thoughts from Hebrews 9 & 10 - there's just too much for right now! II. The High Priest offered continual sin offerings not only for the sins of the whole congregation, but also for himself (Leviticus 4) – which, with Jesus, was unnecessary: He Himself was perfect; and His one perfect offering – Himself! – covers all our sin for all time, end of story. III. The High Priest was the mediator between God and the people (Numbers 16:20-22) – wherein, as Hebrews 7 said of Jesus, “he is always living to intercede on our behalf” – in fact, He has probably turned to the Father half a dozen times over the last few minutes to explain you and me – and our faults – to Him! IV. The High Priest was charged with the responsibility of pronouncing blessings over the people (Numbers 6:22-27) – which, with Jesus, would seem to be one of His highest and favorite works toward us, as He is Himself the best and greatest Blessing – a living alive Blessing! – that mankind has ever received. V. The people could go to the High Priest in order to know the will of God, (ie. the Urim & Thummim) (Moses, Numbers 27:21) – which Jesus now reveals to us – anytime we ask! – by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2) and by His bestowal of the “thoughts of Christ” (1 Corinthians 2) within our minds. VI. The High Priest oversaw the responsibilities of all the other priests (Jehoshaphat, 2 Chronicles 19:11) – which, since we are now the new “royal priesthood” (1 Peter 2) for the Kingdom of Heaven, means that we are directly under His perfect, ever-helpful oversight. VII. The High Priest offered a meal-offering every morning and evening for himself and the whole body of the priesthood (Leviticus 6) – of which, perhaps, Jesus was thinking when He said, “Give us this day our daily bread” (Matthew 6) and then “Do not be anxious for tomorrow, for tomorrow will take care of itself” (Matthew 6), ie. He will take care of tomorrow! VIII. The High Priest kept guard over the sanctuary (Numbers 18) – and Jesus’ "sanctuary" is now both the Throneroom of Heaven and your inner life: It is His work within you that matters most toward your experience of being made new. IX. And – (and how good is this?!) - when a High Priest died, all those in the cities of refuge were granted freedom (Numbers 35:28) – and it is by Jesus’ death that, once and for all time, we WERE and ARE and FOREVERMORE SHALL BE free! I think this is just a beginning of the flavor of the activities and blessings and offerings that Jesus is engaged with - on our behalf - in the presence of the Father right now, today. And isn't that all pretty wonderful? "Now to sum up — we have an ideal High Priest such as has been described above. He has taken his seat on the right hand of the heavenly majesty. He is the minister of the sanctuary and of the real tabernacle — that is the one God has set up and not man." Hebrews 8:1,2
Right now, even as you're arranging your attentions to focus on Jesus via these words, He is there, sitting at the right hand of the Father, minister of the sanctuary and of the real tabernacle, and He is totally and intently focused on you. He is ever at work. And yet He is steadfast, seated, in firm control. So, following the opening words of this chapter, let us "sum up" - and be reminded of - all that has been described of our High Priest to this point in Hebrews. To do that, I've gone back and collated every single High Priestly description from Hebrews 1-7, and then shifted them from the third person to the second to make them all the more personal. If you have the time today, let these act as a prayer from your heart to His... Jesus, it was imperative that you should be made like us in nature, since you were to become a High Priest both compassionate and faithful in the things of God, and at the same time able to make atonement for my – and for our – sins. For by virtue of your own suffering under temptation, you are now able to help us who are exposed to temptation… We meditate on you, the messenger and High Priest of the faith we hold, Lord Jesus. We see you as faithful to the charge your Father gave you… Jesus, seeing that we have a great High Priest who entered the inmost Heaven – you! the Son of God! – help us hold firmly to our faith. For you are not some superhuman High Priest to whom are weaknesses are unintelligible – you yourself have shared fully in all our experience of temptation, except that you never sinned. We will therefore approach your throne of grace with fullest confidence, that we may receive – from you, Jesus! – mercy for our failures and grace to help in the hour of need… Jesus, you did not choose for yourself the glory of being High Priest, but you were honored by the One who said: ‘You are my Son, today I have begotten you’… When you had been proved the perfect Son by your death for us on the Cross, you became the source of eternal salvation to all who desire to obey you, being now recognized by your Father Himself as High Priest ‘after the order of Melchizedek…’ Jesus, by two utterly immutable things, the word of God and the oath of God, who cannot lie, we who are refugees from this dying world now have a source of strength, and can grasp the hope that you are holding out to us. This hope we hold as the utterly reliable anchor for our souls, fixed in the very certainty of your Father in Heaven, where you, Jesus, have already entered on our behalf, having become, as we have learned, ‘High Priest for ever…’ Jesus, you who are described as our High Priest belonged to another tribe of Israel, no member of which had ever attended the altar! It is a matter of history that you were a descendant of Judah… You derived your priesthood not by virtue of a command imposed from outside, but from the power of indestructible life within… Quite plainly, Jesus, there is a definite cancellation of the previous commandment because of its ineffectiveness and uselessness – the Law was incapable of bringing anyone to real maturity – followed by the introduction of your better hope, through which we approach your Father. Yes, you mean a ‘better’ hope for us, Jesus, because you have become our priest by the oath of God… Jesus, because you live forever, you possess a priesthood that needs no successor. This means that you can save fully and completely we who approach your Father through you, for you are always living to intercede on our behalf. You are the High Priest we need. A Man who is holy, faultless, unstained, beyond the very reach of sin and lifted to the very Heavens. There is no need for you, like the High Priests of the past, to offer up sacrifice, first for your own sins and then for the people’s. You made one sacrifice, once for all, when you offered up yourself… The word of the oath, which came after the Law, makes for High Priest you Jesus, the Son, who is perfect forever! "By two utterly immutable things, the word of God and the oath of God, who cannot lie, we who are refugees from this dying world may have a source of strength, and may grasp the hope that he holds out to us. This hope we hold as the utterly reliable anchor for our souls, fixed in the very certainty of God himself in Heaven, where Jesus has already entered on our behalf, having become, as we have seen, 'High Priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.'" Hebrews 6:18-20
Let me do my best to paint the picture of what is being said here. Jesus, the Word and Oath of God incarnate, having lived and died for our sakes, tore the curtain between God and men, men and God, forever. Then, in rising from the dead, He showed us the unending power of the new and resurrected life that is now ours, and, in ascending to the Father, He lifted our life to Heaven. No separation now exists between Heaven and earth. Jesus is the Way, the Door, the Go-between... And so, in bursting back through the doors of the Throneroom of Heaven, in re-approaching His Father upon the throne, it was as if He carried all our hope, our certainty, our belief, under His arm. And, in retaking His seat next to the Father, in their shared smile of acknowledgment that "It is finished," it was as if Jesus hooked the arms of the Anchor of our Hope firmly around the legs of His throne... Do you and I always have grounds for hope? Why, yes! We have our Friend, our Teacher, our Savior, alive, upon the very Throne of Heaven. Do you and I always have grounds for an audacious certainty in this life? Why, yes! Our hope is hooked like an anchor to Jesus Himself. My friends, as we prepare to start another month, do you see Him there, watching you, loving you? You and I never lack for anything - especially hope - when our hope is in this Man, a Man we know and love, a Man who is God, the One we know as Jesus. "Let us leave behind the elementary teaching about Christ and go forward to adult understanding. Let us not lay over and over again the foundation truths — repentance from the deeds which led to death, believing in God, baptism and laying-on of hands, belief in the life to come and the final judgment. No, if God allows, let us go on." (Hebrews 6:1-3)
Following hard on the heels of Chapter 5's closing tongue-lashing, we now get this: A charge to stop, in the Church, always talking about the original stuff - and did you catch this? - the "original stuff" is essentially the Gospel! And let me say this too: If these three verses weren't set here in stone in the New Testament canon, there would be plenty of voices all too happy to say that this writer must be some kind of heretic. But he's not. He simply knows that it is impossible to transact with the living Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit and stay as you are, stay in the same conversations. Jesus is the Way. The Way is movement. We must move. But we can read those verses and think - let's be honest: "But where are we supposed to go? What's next?" Well, if we tweak every clause within those three verses and consider what might follow each aspect - sort of the inverse, converse, or contrapositive of each part - I think we get a pretty clear picture of what we're supposed to be after. Give it a read: “Let us go toward the advanced teaching about Christ and leave behind the childish understanding. Let us build the house that rises from the foundation truths — accepting the holiness and deathlessness fully acquired at the hour of our repentance; believing God for the fullness of His promises, not just for our basic salvation; receiving our totally new life and living only from it; operating only in the power of the Holy Spirit, experiencing the life of Heaven now and not only after death; and living as those utterly free from judgment so that we might set about the rescue of those presently enwrapped by judgment. Yes, since God allows, let us stand firm.” But we can read those words and think: "Yeah, but that sounds pretty intense, pretty costly; aren't I just as much a child of God if I just kinda stay put?" Well, yes. But I want to give you an image that was given to me by a friend, years ago, of the difference we're talking about: Imagine two sons of a king, one a man, one a little boy. Both are equally, deeply loved and cherished by their father; both sit with him at his banquet table as princes... But when the enemy comes and lays siege to that castle, the little one is stowed away in a cupboard, and the older one is told, "Go put on your armor." That's the difference we're talking about. The question is: What kind of son do you want to be? "But Jesus said to Peter [after Peter sliced off the ear of one of the men arresting Jesus], 'Put your sword back into its sheath. Am I not to drink the cup the Father has given me?'" From John 18
In the other three Gospels, Jesus has only just been praying that this “cup” might pass without His having to drink it, and yet, according to Mark’s account, “it is not what I want but what you want” that matters to Him. But here’s what matters to us: What is this “cup”? What is the meaning of this that “the Father has given” Him on this night, and what will it mean for Jesus that He must “drink” it? Looking back at the Old Testament, the Old Covenant, there are fourteen references, each using slightly different language, to describe a “cup of the Lord’s wrath” against the sin of the world and the accumulation of all wrongdoing throughout human history. Then, within the narrative of the Passover, we have the four promises of Exodus 6 – 1) “I will bring you out” 2) “I will deliver you” 3) “I will redeem you” 4) “I will take you as my people” – commemorated by four specific cups of wine – 1) The cup of sanctification 2) The cup of deliverance 3) The cup of redemption 4) The cup of restoration. Now consider the promise of Isaiah 51, as it pertains to the coming of a Savior:
And why won’t we drink it again? Listen to Jesus, taking up the third cup (the cup of redemption) at that night’s Passover dinner:
As Jesus took and drank to the dregs the eternal “cup of the Lord’s wrath” on our behalf at the Cross, He was simultaneously pouring out His blood and thus, once and for all times, sealing a New Covenant between Himself and the Father. We are sanctified, delivered, redeemed and restored – the four cups of the Passover – because of the empty “cup of the Lord’s wrath” and the cup brimming over with Jesus’ shed blood. And what does He hold out to us? Psalm 116 tells us: “the cup of salvation.” And how full is that cup? David declares: “my cup overflows.” In John 17, Jesus prays: "I have given [the disciples] your word, and the world has hated them, for they are no more sons of the world than I am. I am not praying that you will take them out of the world but that you will keep them from the evil one. They are no more the sons of the world than I am — make them holy by the truth; for your word is the truth. I have sent them to the world just as you sent me to the world and I consecrate myself for their sakes that they may be made holy by the truth.”
What a mystery is our relationship to the world in light of being indwelt by the One who came, not to be of it, but to save it! We are the ones He daily sends to be “in” something in which we don’t belong; we are meant to be as disarmingly “other” as He Himself was, to catch people’s attention in the manner in which He did. That’s why the closing of His prayer for His disciples is so incredible important. Consider the exact wording of verses 17:17-19 - “Sanctify them in the truth, your Word (λόγος, ‘logos’) is truth. As you sent me into the world, I also sent them into the world; and I sanctify myself for them, that they also might be sanctified in truth.” Our experience of life-in-Jesus isn’t meant to be analogous to the life of Jesus, it’s mean to be absolutely identical. He was “sent,” we are “sent.” He was “sanctified,” we are “sanctified.” But the linchpin for our identical experience of His life can be found in how He states it in verse 17: You and I must be sanctified – bathed in holiness – in the truth that is the λόγος, the Word, Jesus Himself. There is no part of this that’s apart from Him. His eternal, never-changing life is running concurrent to your daily experience of your life. “Every man who knows my commandments and obeys them is the man who really loves me, and every man who really loves me will himself be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and make myself known to him.” From John 14
What a wondrous cycle of love and life and living we are part of when we’re part of the Kingdom of Heaven! Out of the little bit of Him that we presently know, we obey, and, because of our obedience, we are enwrapped by the love of the Father, and Jesus too, and Jesus then shows us more of Himself. To know is to obey is to love is to be loved is to know even more of His glory. The cycle never ends. We live inside it and it lives inside of us. That, in my opinion, is the very definition of John 10:10 – “life, and life more abundant.” Let's enjoy it to the full today!
From John 12 - "Jesus told them, 'The time has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. I tell you truly that unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains a single grain of wheat; but if it does, it brings a good harvest. The man who loves his own life will destroy it, and the man who hates his life in this world will preserve it for eternal life. If a man wants to enter my service, he must follow my way; and where I am, my servant will also be. And my Father will honor every man who enters my service.'"
The entire blueprint for our life-in-Jesus is given in this paragraph. Let’s rephrase each part, just to make sure we understand His statements, and then tie it back together so that it’s ours, so we possess it. “The time has come for the Son of Man to be glorified” – The glory of Jesus is His death and, along with it, His Resurrection and His Ascension. So, immediately, we’re in an inverted economy because, in the world, only living out your own life is what really matters. “I tell you truly that unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains a single grain of wheat; but if it does, it brings a good harvest” – Again an inversion: Death results in more life. And, with that, He also gives an important part of the lifestyle of what He’s about to call the Way: “a good harvest”; the absolute importance of the multiplicative effect of our self-death. “The man who loves his own life will destroy it, and the man who hates his life in the world will preserve it for eternal life” – The barrier-to-entry for following Jesus is death – death of your old life, death of your self-life, death of your self-concern, self-focus, self righteousness, your whole “Self.” If you have missed that to this point in trying to follow after Jesus, miss it no longer. “If a man wants to enter my service, he must follow my way” – What is the “way” of Jesus? JESUS. His actual life, with its mannerisms, affections, delights, struggles, loves, hates and complete abandonment to the Will of the Father. It is walking precisely as He walked during every day of His life before arriving at the Cross of Calvary. But how can we access that? How can we reach out and touch and know a Way that rests on the other side of the Cross? By going right through His death on the Cross. The barrier-to-entry for our salvation is Jesus’ death; the Cross is the doorway through which we walk and where we trade our life for His life, His Way. (Does this all sound a bit morbid and grim? Well, keep reading for the payout!) “And where I am, my servant will also be” – And also so beautifully true: “Where my servant is, there I am.” We don’t deal with an external rule that judges and condemns our efforts; we walk with the Indwelling Way who recreates His life in us. And we even have a cheering section while we Abide in Him… “And my Father will honor every man who enters my service” – It’s a simple thing to walk in the good pleasure of the Father when His perfect Son has taken up residence in us. Seeing us, the Father now sees Jesus. And the path to all this goodness and glory? His death, our death. And the reward in all this? His Life, eternal Life. All glory to you, Jesus! This morning, I was so struck by David's prayer in 2 Samuel 7, as he overwhelmedly received all the promises of God and tries to wrap his mind around Yahweh's choosing of him. To me, with just a few slight changes, it's a perfect prayer to celebrate our chosenness by Jesus, and the power of all we inherit through Him. What a way to prepare to start off the New Year with gratitude! Consider both prayers, side by side:
"This is the reason why the Father loves me—that I lay down my life, and I lay it down to take it up again! No one is taking it from me, but I lay it down of my own free will. I have the power to lay it down and I have the power to take it up again. This is an order that I have received from my Father.” John 10
Theologically, there is so much going on in these sentences that it hurts your brain if you stop and really give your thoughts to it. Let me prove it to you. At the Creation of man, Adam and Eve walked perfect and perfectly with God; they lived effortlessly in the center and enjoyment of the Father's will. It didn't occur to them, until it was suggested to them by Satan, that their self-will might have any interest for them. But, in their exerting it against God, they Fell and were now forever Fallen. The constant presence of the imperfect self-will was upon them; that was Sin. Then, at some point in what we call time, Jesus given an "order" from the Father that it would be His job to wage war upon the self-will, Sin and Satan. His weapon? To rob sin of its power by, everyday, every minute of every day, denying the self and walking in the exact will of His Father. He plainly says this in John 6:38 - "For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of Him who sent me." And do you understand that He understood this to absolutely include the death it would cost Him? Hence the Cross being the world's most glorious moment as His "authority" to lay down His life perfectly meets the Father's will to redeem mankind. That was Jesus' most powerful act of self-abandonment. But do you also understand that Jesus was not externally raised-from-the-dead, like when He raises Lazarus, but that it was His own authority, His own expression of His own will, that would cause Him to "take up" His life again? The Cross was the final abandonment of His self-will; the Resurrection was the most complete exertion of self-will in all human history. That Friday and Sunday gave birth to a new sort of human will: a will totally redeemed from the self and Sin.
This argument crescendoes into "I AM" and a near-stoning. What a stouthearted Savior we follow!
|
Themes
All
Archives
May 2024
|