Table of Contents
Introduction
A Great High Priest (Hebrews 4:14-5:10)
1)We Need a High Priest
Consider the mindset of the first century Hebrew Christians.
But once Jesus died, God no longer accepted temple sacrifices. They would be detestable to Him.
Jesus is not just a high priest, He is a great high priest.
2)Confident Access (Hebrews 4:16)
3)Gentle and Sympathetic
4)Principle
Everyone needs a priest but only one priest offers everything you need.
5)Applications
How often are you taking advantage of your access to God's throne of grace?
What are you failing to bring to Jesus in prayer because you think he won't understand?
A Growing Maturity (Hebrews 5:11-6:12)
1)Immaturity
2)Spiritual Discernment
3)Elementary Doctrines
4)Can We Skip This Part? No! (Hebrews 6:4-8)
Cannot Repent
A True Believer
A Hypothetical
A Professing Unbeliever
5)This Is Not The Case (Hebrews 6:9-12)
6)Principle
Spiritual maturity is the result of doctrinal knowledge and faithful obedience.
7)Applications
How would your rate your doctrinal understanding? What can you do to gain a deeper understanding?
How would you rate your fruitfulness? What can you do to bear more fruit?
Who do you know that might be in danger of turning away from the faith? What can you do to bring him to the Savior?
An Anchor of Hope (Hebrews 6:13-20)
1)God's Promise
2)Fled For Refuge
3)Our Forerunner
4)Our Soul Anchor
5)Summary
6)Principle
God's word and His character are a sufficient basis for our future hope.
7)Applications
What affect are God's promises having on the way you live your life?
To what or to whom do you have your soul anchored? What ultimate hope does this offer you?
Conclusion
Introduction
Head diameter, weight, height
Weight, height, BMI, percentiles
Developmental: dexterity, hand-eye coordination, speech, crawling, walking, eating, playing, etc.
BMI – Biblical Maturity Index
“Darby, use your fork”
Note: if the aforementioned don't make sense, that's due to the fact that they were merely reminders for the intro to my lecture :)
A Great High Priest (Hebrews 4:14-5:10)
Most of the people of the first century A.D. thought it was great to have a high priest. At least those serious about their position before God and their need of forgiveness.
After reading Hebrews 4:12-13, the desire for an intermediary would be especially high. Someone who would represent them before a holy, righteous, and all-seeing God.
1)We Need a High Priest
Consider the mindset of the first century Hebrew Christians.
They had been used to a tangible high priest as their intermediary before God.
There was, most likely, a great temptation to desire that as part of their religious practice
But once Jesus died, God no longer accepted temple sacrifices. They would be detestable to Him.
They would be making the statement that God's priest and His offering were not sufficient
They would be saying that there is yet a coming redeemer when in fact he had already come
Jesus is not just a high priest, He is a great high priest.
That designation had not been used of any of the Old Testament high priests.
Some had been unfaithful.
But even faithful ones were mere men carrying out an obligation of God on behalf of themselves and the people.
In the OT the high priest was designated holy unto the Lord not due to their own holiness, but only because of the provision of the Levitical law and God's grace in atoning for their sins. Jesus was designated holy unto the Lord by his incorruptible life.
The great high priest has not just entered the holy of holies, he as passed into the heavens. This is his permanent position, with the Father. It's not once a year, it's access all year, every year.
2)Confident Access (Hebrews 4:16)
16 Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
How can we have confidence in approaching God?
Has God become more tolerant of sinners and of sin in general?
Not at all! He has not become soft on sin. He is still a consuming fire. His wrath is still over the enemies of God.
He is still to be treated with reverence and awe. Nothing has changed in relation to God and His character. The thing that has changed is the superiority of the believers' priesthood.
The superiority of his person, his character, and his offering.
Verse 16 does not say that we come brashly, flippantly, or irreverently before the throne of grace.
We come boldly or confidently, not a confidence in my own goodness, but confident that my high priest has afforded me access through his service and his sacrifice.
3)Gentle and Sympathetic
There is something about having someone understand what you're going through. And there's something about enduring something that makes you more sensitive to those who are going through the same or similar difficulties.
When you lose a job, someone who has endured a job loss and then finally comes through it will understand much better than someone who retires after 40 years at the same company.
If you lose a loved one, someone else who has endured the same loss understands your pain much better than a person who has never experience, but only imagined the experience.
The Hebrews, as well as you and I, could have the idea that since Jesus never sinned, he can't possibility understand the difficulty we face in our Christian lives as we strive to overcome temptation.
Hebrews 4:15 – 15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.
Hebrews 5:1-4 – 1 For every high priest chosen from among men is appointed to act on behalf of men in relation to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins.
2 He can deal gently with the ignorant and wayward, since he himself is beset with weakness.
3 Because of this he is obligated to offer sacrifice for his own sins just as he does for those of the people.
At least the Levitical priesthood was of the same sin nature. They were not perfect.
And if you thought you were missing out on the sympathetic nature of a tangible priesthood – Jesus surpasses even that.
Hebrews 5:7-10 – 7 In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence.
8 Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered.
9 And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him,
10 being designated by God a high priest after the order of Melchizedek.
No priest, before Jesus, understood sin as Jesus did:
Sin was the complete antithesis of who Jesus was as the Son of God. He was repulsed and offended by sin and yet he willfully put himself in a position of exposure to it.
He underwent all types of temptation – in all points as we are – yet he did not sin.
He endured temptation, yet persisted in resistance to sin – no other priest understood that type of character.
Jesus motivation was selfless. His will was completely in submission to the Father and as such, he selflessly gave himself to an undeserving and rebellious people.
4)Principle
Everyone needs a priest but only one priest offers everything you need.
5)Applications
How often are you taking advantage of your access to God's throne of grace?
What are you failing to bring to Jesus in prayer because you think he won't understand?
A Growing Maturity (Hebrews 5:11-6:12)
There are some things you need not explain to a young child. Sometimes the best response to, “Daddy, where did I come from”, is the plain and simple, “New Jersey, son” (that is if your son is from New Jersey).
1)Immaturity
What causes spiritual immaturity or a lack of spiritual growth?
Being a new believer – this is natural
Being complacent – thinking Jesus statements about “childlike faith” meant to remain simplistic in understanding.
Becoming proud – or full of knowledge but too little practical use of what you've learned – stagnation.
Laziness – Always wanting and relying on teachers to tell you what it means without realizing it is your obligation to grow and learn to feed yourself on God's word.
Not teachers, but need to be taught.
Still stuck in the basic principles of the oracles.
Require milk rather than solids.
Remaining a child beyond your years.
2)Spiritual Discernment
Why is spiritual discernment so important?
There are many who teach false doctrine and would lead the undiscerning away from the truth – the Hebrews were facing those who were trying to pull them back into Judaism
Discernment is necessary in determining a course in life that is within the will of God.
Discernment leads away from unnecessary temptation.
We grow deeper in a walk of holiness before God.
3)Elementary Doctrines
There's a call here, in the first three verses, to leave the elementary doctrines of Christ. And he lists them out, or at least some of them. His purpose is to point the readers in the direction of maturity.
Repentance and faith vs. dead works – the foundations of salvation
Washings –
Baptisms – the Holy Spirit's vs. Johns
Could be Old Testament ceremonial cleansings
The resurrection of the dead
Eternal judgment
In verse 1 the writer says “let us leave...” and in verse 3 he says “if God permits.” In other words, the ability to move beyond the basics is not just a human effort. It takes work on the part of the human, but is must be in cooperation with the Holy Spirit enlightening the believer.
4)Can We Skip This Part? No! (Hebrews 6:4-8)
I was hoping to just jump to verse 9 from verse 3. But then verse 9 would not make too much sense apart from 4-8, so alas. We must try and work on this portion just a bit.
What does it mean to fall away (verse 6)? Herein lies the major difficulty in two of the three views I am going to put forth.
Does it mean that true believers can fall away from the faith and lose their salvation?
Does fall away refer to those who appear to be true believers but are only Christians by name – nominal Christians?
Or is the author putting forth a hypothetical situation that could not happen but is showing the logical implications were it possible to happen?
Cannot Repent
First, let's look at the implications of falling away.
Verse 4 tells us that it is impossible to restore again to repentance …
The Greek word, translated impossible, is always used in the New Testament to denote absolute impossibility.
In other words, this is not referring to a difficulty in returning to repentance, but an impossibility.
Other places where this term is used is in the Gospels where Jesus is teaching the disciples about a rich man entering the kingdom of God and comparing it to a camel going through the eye of a needle. Clearly the disciples saw this as an impossibility and in fact asked how any could be saved.
Basically, the logical conclusion would be, nobody can be saved apart from God bringing it about.
The same term is used in Acts 14:8 where the man was crippled and it was impossible for him to walk because of it.
One other place I wanted to point out was in Romans 8:3 where Paul is talking about what it was impossible for the law to do, namely bring salvation, God did by sending his son.
So the consequences of this turning away is an inability to repent and be saved.
So is he talking about a hypothetical situation, or is he talking about an enlightened unsaved, or is he talking about a believer that leaves the faith?
A True Believer
Too many other passages in the Scriptures deal with the idea of eternal security.
Even the concept, eternal life, does not mean sometime in the future but life that begins now and goes on into eternity.
If eternal life does not really mean eternal, what does eternal condemnation mean?
If Jesus is the one that secured the salvation of his own, how can his own unsecure that salvation? If I didn't earn it, how can I unearn it?
There are too many reasons to not choose this option.
A Hypothetical
The warnings surrounding this whole section seem to suggest that the writer is serious about the possibility.
It does not seem likely that he is putting forth some theoretical situation in order to explain the deeper truth.
A Professing Unbeliever
The most probably person is one who is a believer by association only.
One who has been enlightened. In other words, the Holy Spirit has revealed the truth of the gospel to him.
He has hung around believers and had at least an understanding in his head of the truth to the extent that he has been a recipient of some of the benefits of the church – the heavenly gifts.
He has even shared in the power of the Holy Spirit as He is poured out for the building up of the church. He may have even been healed or seen those he cares about healed or changed by the Holy Spirit or had others pray for him and see answers.
And he has tasted the goodness of God's word.
He has hung around enough, but never come to the place of submission to Christ in true repentance.
It's like the warning from chapter 3 where the writer tells the Hebrews that not everyone who came out of Egypt entered into God's rest.
It was not close association with God's people that counted. It was being one of God's people that mattered.
And so this stern warning is to any who might be hanging around in the church, but are just there for some other motive than to be completely committed to God in faith.
Those who have been given much light will be subject to greater judgment for what they did with that light.
To leave and turn away from Christ would be tantamount to trampling under foot his sacred sacrifice.
5)This Is Not The Case (Hebrews 6:9-12)
Quickly, the writer turns to the evidence that he sees in the audience.
They were filled with acts of love and service. Not at all that these were the reasons they were saved. On the contrary, they were saved so they would be able to do these things.
These were just evidence of the salvation that they had received.
His desire is that this same type of life continues on until the end.
11 And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end,
12 so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.
Over and over the apostle calls the readers to a persistent faith lived out in good fruit.
6)Principle
Spiritual maturity is the result of doctrinal knowledge and faithful obedience.
7)Applications
How would your rate your doctrinal understanding? What can you do to gain a deeper understanding?
How would you rate your fruitfulness? What can you do to bear more fruit?
Who do you know that might be in danger of turning away from the faith? What can you do to bring him to the Savior?
An Anchor of Hope (Hebrews 6:13-20)
We ended the last section talking about imitating those who through faith and patience inherit the promises. What better image of such a person than Abraham, at least in the minds of the Hebrew Christians.
1)God's Promise
How did Abraham live?
He believed
He waited – endured in faith
He obtained the promise
The author is illustrating something about the nature of God and his word that was true in Abraham's day, and is just as true in their day and ours as well.
God lived up to His promise to Abraham.
He gave a promise – His word is a guarantee based upon His own character – it is impossible for God to lie.
But He also wanted to instill hope in His people so He gave an oath
This did not make the promise more valid than God's word, it just served to encourage and strengthen the hope of the heirs.
This encouragement to hope was not just for Abraham, but for all of God's children (those who seek refuge in Him)
2)Fled For Refuge
18b we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us.
Refuge from what?
The wrath to come
He is our protection from what our moral imperfection deserves
He is the source of our future Hope – both resurrection (bodily) and salvation from the presence of sin
A hope that begins and ends in Jesus our great high priest.
He is the promise God made to Abraham.
3)Our Forerunner
Verse 19 is an allusion to the priest entering the holy of holies
This priest (Jesus) entered once forever
He is a high priest forever
He is a forerunner – messenger sent before to give notice of the approach of others
He has made it possible for us to be in that approaching group
4)Our Soul Anchor
An anchor is only as good as its ability to hold onto something solid that will keep the ship steady.
The souls of believers are anchored in the solid rock of a salvation we have not earned. We do not deserve. But in love was given to us by a gracious heavenly Father.
The hope of our souls must be anchored in the hope that only Jesus can bring.
5)Summary
The Hebrews were not losing anything as Christians.
They gained a great high priest.
One who is not temporary or temporal.
One who is not weak but understands weakness.
One whose sacrifice is final.
One who opens the curtain into the presence of God.
Who affords His people confident access because of His acceptability in the eyes of the Father.
And One who is our hope and eternal salvation.
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