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Christian Chronicles, Nov. 2004 - Volume 7, Issue 107

| The Editor's Pen | Perspectives | Mid-East Update | Fruit of the Vine | The Word - A Discerner of the Heart | Hebrews, Chapter 10  | Judaism and Christianity Contrasted | Hebrews 6:1-10 | We're Available |

The Editor's Pen

What we find is that most troublesome passages lose their difficulty when their contexts are considered well. This is especially true of the passage in chapter ten. We are often asked why God doesn’t just move the writers to state things plainly. Actually, He does. However, in order to arrive at a simple understanding, one cannot attempt to make a troublesome passage stand alone. Paul told Timothy to study diligently (2:Tim 2:15). What was true for young Timothy is also true for us today. When we consider all that the Bible has to say about a doctrine, then what seems to be contradictory can be reconciled in the whole body of that doctrine. Since we know that the Word of God cannot contradict itself, then we must determine how that reconciliation is to best be achieved. In the case of eternal security, there are many, many passages that proclaim that precious doctrine. Therefore, it is not possible that a few troublesome passages can undo the whole body of that doctrine. While space will not permit an exhaustive exposition of the doctrine of eternal security, we can take a close look at these two passages and see that they do harmonize with it when placed in context and compared with other things that the Bible has to say in a few key and pertinent passages.

Perspectives

“But someone will say,
‘You have faith, and I have works.’
Show me your faith without your works,
And I will show you my faith by my works”
                                                (James 2:18)

James, a half brother of the Lord Jesus, created quite a stir with his epistle “to the twelve tribes scattered abroad.” Saints have struggled with this brief passage (2:14-26) for two millennia. Understood correctly, it is instructive. To the regenerate soul, it becomes comforting, a message of assurance, and not of condemnation. Yet, taken out of context and improperly applied, it seems to be a frightening passage.

There are a number of those in the epistles, and the devil seeks at every opportunity to obfuscate that which should be recognized as good news and turn them into dire threats. That is ever his aim in this age, to turn the grace of God into insecurity and fear. For a fearful Christian will not serve God, but will do as Adam and Eve did in the Garden of Eden: he will seek to hide himself from God. It is amazing to see how little has changed over the ages. Jesus Himself said, “For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed” (Jn 3:20). If the devil can instill a measure of fear, even believers will shy away from their Bibles. There are a number of derivatives of the Greek word “ei,” some of which can be used conditionally, translated “if,” but there are also derivatives of that little word that can equally well be translated “seeing that,” or “because,” or “on account of.” Many troublesome passages are easily resolved by a clearer translation of the various forms of “ei.” A good example is found in 1 Cor 15:2, where Paul writes, “By which also you are saved, if you keep in memory what I preached to you, unless you have believed in vain.” The Greek translated “if” is the primary “ei”, which can also be translated “forasmuch.”

The point is, the devil seeks countless ways to steal a bit of luster from our hope. He constantly reminds us of past sins, sins that God has already forgiven and forgotten, in an attempt to keep us feeling defeated and separated from God by our past sins. When the devil acts in that way, all those seemingly “conditional” passages are used to make us hide from the light. In the passage James wrote, quoted at the top of this article, he also said, “You see then that a man is justified by works, and not by faith only… For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also” (2:24, 26). The devil used Scripture wrongly in the temptation of Christ, and he has a much easier time of it with us. He will cause those verses to leap off the pages, without their contexts, directly into our hearts. However, James does not contradict Paul’s many clear statements that man is justified by faith apart from the Law. Rather, James complements Paul. Paul writes of justification before God. It is a once-for-all positional justification that takes place the moment one accepts the Gospel. James writes of justification before men, who can only see our faith by the effects it has on our lives. James says, “Yea, a man may say, thou hast faith, and I have works: show me thy faith without thy works, and I will show thee my faith by my works” (2:18 KJV). This justification is not before God, but before another man. God sees our faith without our works very clearly. The works that Christians do are the fruits of our faith, and they involve the fruit of the Spirit. Every person who is genuinely born again will do some works in service to God. The devil would have us believe that these are works of law-keeping. It is not so. The good works of which Paul writes are works that we do in service to God. While the new birth does have moralizing effects in the lives of Christians, the works that Christians do are those that show a love of God and an abiding love for our fellow man. “By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (Jn 13:35).

This issue of Christian Chronicles examines two other troublesome passages, both in the Epistle to the Hebrews. We only took a look at the James passage to illustrate how the devil misuses and misapplies the Scripture to wrest our hope and assurance from us, not only to make us downhearted, but more, to divert us from our labors,. He does not want us to be secure or zealous for those good works to which we have been ordained (Jn 15:16 KJV) or appointed. Unfortunately, it does not take much to divert us, and even less to dampen our zeal. But we know that the Bible is altogether Good News for the believer, that our eternal security is assured (see CC August issue Vol 7, Issue 104), and that it is not in any way dependent upon our works (Eph 2:8-10). When we come upon a troublesome verse or passage, we have only to read it in the larger context in which it is found, comparing also Scripture with Scripture, to turn a troubled heart into a rejoicing spirit.

Middle East Update

Fruit of the Vine

As we often point out, it is the goodness of God that leads man to repentance (Rom 2:4). The Gospel of grace stands in stark contrast to the Mosaic era. While salvation was by grace during that earlier dispensation (the rituals were not performed in order to be saved, but because faith dictated that they obey God), just as it is in the Dispensation of Grace, the requirements of the Law of Moses were very burdensome to the Jews. All of the rituals and sacrifices have been taken out of the way now, and all that is required of one who desires to come to God is faith in the finished work at Calvary. Actually, there are none who are lost who desire to come to God, but God draws the unsaved to Himself. Nevertheless, in this current dispensation man has only to believe in the efficacy of the death and resurrection of the Christ and accept that sacrifice as sufficient to pay his entire sin debt. The Church has only two ordinances, baptism and the Lord’s Supper, both of which are celebratory in nature, and not penitential.

The Word - A Discerner of the Heart - HGS

For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword,
piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow,
and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
And there is no creature hidden from His sight,
but all things are naked and open
to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.
                                                (Heb 4:12 -13 )

Hebrews, Chapter 10

For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth,
there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins,
but a certain fearful expectation of judgment,
and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries.
Anyone who has rejected Moses’ law dies without mercy
on the testimony of two or three witnesses.
Of how much worse punishment, do you suppose,
will he be thought worthy
who has trampled the Son of God underfoot,
counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified
an unholy thing,
and insulted the Spirit of grace?
                                                    (Heb 10:26-29)

How the devil loves to scare uninformed Christians with four verses of this most beautiful chapter in the whole of the Bible! He takes verses twenty-six through twenty-nine out of the context of the chapter and makes them stand alone. Taken that way, it is easy to see how it can be frightening. However, when considered in the context in which those verses are found, it becomes an ever more comforting passage.

The context of this brief passage actually begins in Chapter five, explaining the preeminence and finality of the Priesthood of Christ, but the narrower context begins in Chapter nine, verse 19:

For when Moses had spoken every precept to all the people according to the law, he took the blood of calves and goats, with water, scarlet wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, saying, “This is the blood of the covenant which God has commanded you.” Then likewise he sprinkled with blood both the tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministry. And according to the law almost all things are purified with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no remission.

Therefore it was necessary that the copies of the things in the heavens should be purified with these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ has not entered the holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us; not that He should offer Himself often, as the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with the blood of another — He then would have had to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now, once at the end of the ages, He has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself (Heb 9:19-26).

Chapter ten begins by restating that the law was a foreshadowing of the sacrifice of Christ. But the Bible goes on to say that the sacrifices that were offered under the law could not make those who offered the sacrifice perfect (as regarding conscience). The author says, “For then would they not have ceased to be offered? For the worshippers, once purified, would have had no more consciousness of sins. But in those sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year. For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins” (10:2-4).

The writer quotes in vv. 5-7 in an extended quotation from Ps 40. He begins, “Sacrifice and offering You did not desire, but a body You have prepared for Me” (10:5b). Oh yes! God prepared a body for the Son of God, which body would be sacrificed in order to settle the sin question forever, ending consciousness of sins. The writer ends this brief passage by saying, “Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come — in the volume of the book it is written of Me — to do Your will, O God’” (10:7). He said, “A body You have prepared for Me,” and “I have come to do Your will, O God!”

In verse ten, he continues, “By that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” He continues: “And every priest stands ministering daily and offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God… For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified” (10:11-12, 14). Remember, he had said earlier, “For the worshippers, once purified, would have had no more consciousness of sins.” Now God says, “Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more” (v. 17). And, “Now where there is remission of these, there is no longer an offering for sin” (v.18).

We have been sanctified (v. 10), that is, positionally. We are being sanctified, that is, experientially (v. 14). In God’s eyes we will never be more holy than we already are, but in our walk on this side of the rapture, our experience is a very different matter. However, God has already forgotten our sins, never again to raise them as issues before us. The issue today is not sin, but service. We are to walk in the Spirit, and we are to devote our lives to service to God as ambassadors and ministers. When we walk in the Spirit, we do not fulfill the lusts of the flesh.

Only the high priest could enter the Most Holy Place, and that, but once a year. Now, because we have been sanctified, we have access into the very presence of God, our High Priest being seated at the right hand of God. Hear the words of the writer: “Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He consecrated for us, through the veil, that is, His flesh, and having a High Priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water” (10:19-22).

But, we are instructed to come boldly to the throne of grace, with full assurance of faith. What does he say about the conscience? That it is evil. There is no rationalization here. God moved the unknown writer of this letter to put it precisely that way. Remember when we opened this discussion, we were in Chapter nine. There we saw that Moses sprinkled animal blood over the book of the law, over the tabernacle, over all the vessels of the ministry and, especially, over all the people. Some two million Jews paraded before him and he sprinkled blood over all of them. That blood was substitutionary, as was Christ’s. Now, not our bodies, but our very hearts are to be sprinkled from an evil conscience. A conscience that reminds us of the law, that darkens our hearts and dims that great and glorious Light that is Christ (see 2 Cor 3:15-18) can only be an evil conscience in the light of the exalted position in which every Christian stands. And what does the author say next? “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful” (v.23).

The whole of this chapter, and the context of the Bible in which the chapter is found, is about the perfection of the saints, the fulfillment of the law, the doing away with the sin issue altogether. Paul said to the saints at Colosse, speaking of the Law of Moses, “And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross” (Col 2:13-14). To the Galatians he wrote, “Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage. Indeed I, Paul, say to you that if you become circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing. And I testify to every man who becomes circumcised that he is a debtor to keep the whole law. You have become estranged from Christ, you who attempt to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace” (Gal 5:1-4).

And so, we come to the troublesome passage with which we began this article, vv. 26-29 of Chapter ten. Let us read verse twenty-six” “For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins.” The issue revolves around what a willful sin is. Sin is, as was discussed at length in the October issue of Christian Chronicles, a transgression of a stated law. If there is no law that says a person cannot exceed, say, sixty miles per hour, then a person may drive at ninety-five without transgressing. As soon as the speed limit sign goes up, however, a transgression has been committed if the driver pushes his vehicle to sixty-one miles per hour or faster. The Law of Moses has been taken out of the way. It has been fulfilled and nailed to the cross. We are not under law, but grace. The only way that it is possible to sin willfully is to put oneself back under that Law. And, since there is no longer an offering for sin, then that poor soul cannot expect to be saved at all. One sin. That is how many sins Adam had to commit in order to lose his perfect standing before God and become condemned. The one sacrifice that paid man’s sin debt forever has already been offered. If a person places himself back under the Law, then he must by necessity reject that one offering at Calvary. We have already received the knowledge of the truth, throughout the rest of this chapter, and so, we cannot demand another sacrifice, and our hearts are left with “a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries” (v. 27). If we are under the Law, and no further sacrifice can be offered, then the only expectation is judgment.

“Anyone who has rejected Moses’ law dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. Of how much worse punishment, do you suppose, will he be thought worthy who has trampled the Son of God under foot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified an unholy thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace?” (10:28-29)

Under the Law of Moses, two or three witnesses could testify and bring death upon a man, and there is no mercy. The writer asks the pointed question: “Of how much worse punishment, do you suppose, will he be thought worthy…” The one who puts himself back under the beggarly elements of the Law of Moses tramples Christ underfoot. He counts Christ’s blood to be an unholy thing, like the blood of a dog. He does not recognize the grace of God in it, nor does he reckon himself to have been sanctified by it, and the Spirit of God that provides the grace that saved him is insulted. It is not breaking the Ten Commandments that insults God, but the disregard for the magnitude of the work He did at Calvary.

Under the Old Covenant, if an Israelite spurned the Mosaic Law and at least two or three witnesses verified his actions, he was put to death. This being true, the author then argued from the lesser to the greater. If defiance of an inferior covenant could bring such retribution, what about defiance of the New Covenant which, as he had made clear, is far superior? The answer can only be that the punishment would be substantially greater in such a case. In order to show that this is so, the writer then placed defection from the faith in the harshest possible light. An apostate from the New Covenant has trampled the son of God underfoot and has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant (cf “blood of the eternal covenant,” 13:20) that sanctified him. The words “sanctified him” refer to true Christians. Already the writer to the Hebrews has described them as “made holy (Gr. ‘sanctified’) through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus once for all” (10:10) and as made perfect forever through this sanctifying work. (The Bible Knowledge Commentary, New Testament, Walvoord and Zuck Editors, Victor Books, Wheaton IL, 1983 — Pg. 805)

It cannot be inferred that, because we have liberty, or are sanctified, that we have license to sin. We certainly do not. However, the focus of Christianity in recent decades has come to be more upon the sins that we commit and less upon the service we are to perform. As this publication has stated many times, a person does not learn to become spiritual by avoiding sins. Rather, a person learns to avoid sin by becoming spiritual. As we mature in our Christian walk, our service to God takes a foremost place in our daily walk, and we avoid sin to a greater extent, if only because we find ourselves with less time to engage in sinful activities. Christianity is not about taking things out of our lives; it is about putting into our lives that which we lacked before we were saved.

Judaism and Christianity Contrasted - OMM

The Jewish people Israel are God’s chosen of the earth . “And what one nation on the earth is like Your people Israel, whom God went to redeem for Himself as a people and to make a name for Himself, and to do a great thing for You and awesome things for Your land, before Your people whom You have redeemed for Yourself from Egypt, from nations and their gods? For You have established for Yourself Your people Israel as Your own people forever, and You, O LORD, have become their God” (2 Sa 7:23-24; 1 Ch 17:21-22).

The Christian church is a Heavenly election. “For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ” (Phi 3:20).

Judaism is of the flesh by natural birth. Christians are born from above by the Spirit. “If anyone else has a mind to put confidence in the flesh, I far more: circumcised the eighth day, of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews” (Phi 3:4-5). “For neither is circumcision anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation” (Gal 6:15).

Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come (2 Cor 5:17). "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be amazed that I said to you, 'You must be born again.' " (Jn 3:6-7)

Judaism had priests offering sacrifices that could not bring life. Christ the High Priest offered Himself once to save all. “Therefore He is able also to save forever those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them. For it was fitting for us to have such a high priest, holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners and exalted above the heavens; who does not need daily, like those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His own sins and then for the sins of the people, because this He did once for all when He offered up Himself. For the Law appoints men as high priests who are weak, but the word of the oath, which came after the Law, appoints a Son, made perfect forever” (Heb 7:25-28).

The Law of Judaism was weak through the flesh creating bondage. Under grace Christians have victorious liberty as Sons of God. "But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. "God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth" (Jn 4:23-24).

But before faith came, we were kept in custody under the law, being shut up to the faith which was later to be revealed. “Therefore the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor. For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:23-26).

“For when the priesthood is changed, of necessity there takes place a change of law also” (Heb 7:12). “When He said, ‘A new covenant,’ He has made the first obsolete. But whatever is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to disappear” (Heb 8:13). “For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace” (Rom 6:14). However, the Law is not of faith; on the contrary, "HE WHO PRACTICES THEM SHALL LIVE BY THEM." Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us--for it is written, "CURSED IS EVERYONE WHO HANGS ON A TREE" (Gal 3:12-13). “Therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ, so that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God” (Rom 7:4). “But now we have been released from the Law, having died to that by which we were bound, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter” (Rom 7:6).

“Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit” (Rom 8:1-4).

Judaism divides, Christianity unites: Remember that you were at that time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For He Himself is our peace, who made both groups into one and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall, by abolishing in His flesh the enmity, which is the Law of commandments contained in ordinances, so that in Himself He might make the two into one new man, thus establishing peace, and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, by it having put to death the enmity (Eph 2:12-16).

Shake off the grave clothes of earthly Adamic Judaism. Walk in the newness of glorious heavenly Christianity:

“…be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith…” (Phi 3:9)

Hebrews 6:1-10

The clause rendered “who have become partakers of the Holy Spirit” (v.4) might be paraphrased somewhat like this: “were willingly being led toward the Holy Spirit.” The warning is issued to those who have been instructed and even moved by the Holy Spirit but have never committed themselves to Christ. The entire passage turns on the word “better” in v.9. If all that is written in vv.1-5 were equivalent to salvation, there could be nothing better. The experiences outlined may precede and even accompany salvation, but they do not always result in salvation. Scripture abundantly affirms the Christian’s eternal security; therefore this passage must not be interpreted as teaching that believers in Christ can lose their salvation. See Jn 3:15-16,36; 10:27-30; Rom 8:35, 37-39; Eph 1:12-14; 4:30; Phil 1;6; Heb 10:12,14; 1 Pet 1:3-5. (New Scofield Study Bible, NKJV Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, TN —1989—Pg. 1483)

...Thus the phrases in verses 4-5 are understood to refer to experiences short of salvation (cf. v. 9) (Ryrie Study Bible, Expanded Edition, NASB, Moody Press, Chicago—1995 —Pg. 1951)

Newell writes:

We're Available

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