Do you find it difficult to do God’s will? Do the commands of the New Testament seem daunting to you? G. K. Chesterton, turn of the century British author, Roman Catholic, and journalist, once famously said: “Christianity has not so much been tried and found wanting, as it has been found difficult and left untried.”
Admittedly, forgiving our enemies, keeping ourselves holy…these are not easy things to do. Are we really expected to keep all the commands and exhortations that we find sprinkled throughout the Bible?
But the reality is that God has not left us to rely only upon our own strength and resources to be able to do what He has asked. In fact, let me quote yet another person who has saying to say about this, St. Augustine. In his spiritual autobiography, entitled The Confessions, Augustine says to God: “Command what you will, and give what you command.”
This is precisely the genius of the New Covenant. Whereas with the Mosaic Covenant there were commands but no inner Holy Spirit. Now, God has given us “everything we need for life and godliness” (2 Pet. 1:3). God not only encourages us, but He equips us.
In Philippians 2:12-13 Paul gives us this formula for spiritual life: “Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.”
These two verses give us both sides of the equation: we work out what God is working in us. Notice verse 12 says “work out your salvation,” (not “for” your salvation) and we do this because “it is God who works in you.” And what does He do? He gives us the desire (the will) and the power (to work) so that we can live a life that is pleasing to Him.
Notice that God’s work always comes first. He takes the initiative and we respond. He acts and then we act. “We love because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19). So we can get up and get to work because we have the confidence that God has already been at work in us, equipping us that we “may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight” (Heb. 13:21).
This is why our author ends this book with a benediction. A benediction is literally a “good word,” a pronouncement of blessing upon someone. There are as many as 30 benedictions scattered throughout the New Testament. The original benediction is the Aaronic blessing, found in Numbers 6:24-26.
24 The Lord bless you and keep you;
25 the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you;
26 the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.
Benedictions in the New Testament are brief declarations of God’s blessings upon his loved ones, and are often found at the end of epistles. They are intended to bring comfort, peace, joy, and security to those who trust in God. Many Christian worship services conclude with a benediction. Pastors have the privilege of announcing, prayerfully, divine blessings on the people of God as they scatter from the place of corporate worship.
Benedictions pack more weight than a petitioner’s requests. They confer benefit through a minister authorized to speak from and for God.
The book of Hebrews closes with one of the most exquisite and soaring of all Scriptural benedictions. Multiple millions of worshipers have been dismissed with the pastor’s upraised hand and the sonorous words that begin, “Now may the God of peace . . .”
The whole benediction reads, “Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen” (Hebrews 13:20-21).
This benediction is requesting God’s help in staying on track in the Christian life—doing God’s will and being pleasing to Him—but it based upon what God offers to us (peace) by the blood of the cross. So verse 20 gives the foundation upon which the blessing in verse 21 is requested. Their ability to continue on living for God is based upon God’s attributes of peace, power (by raising Christ from the dead), loving and tender care (as a great shepherd) and ever giving grace (through the blood of the eternal covenant). This benediction seems to draw together the major themes of Hebrews: peace, the resurrected Christ, the blood, the covenant, spiritual perfection (maturity) and God’s work in the believer.
The first foundational gift is God’s peace. How necessary this peace is. We are born enemies of God, alienated from Him because of our sin and rebellion (Rom. 5:10; Eph. 2:12, 19; 4:18), but God has “brought us near” because “ he himself is our peace” (Eph. 2:12-13). He is the one who has reconciled us to God (Rom. 5:10; 2 Cor. 5:18-19). God is called “the God of peace” at least five other times in the New Testament (Romans 15:33; 16:20; 2 Corinthians 13:11; Philippians 4:9; 1 Thessalonians 5:23). Perhaps the frequency of this expression is attributable to the influence of the Aaronic blessing, which closes, “The LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace” (Num. 6:26). These citations, along with the opening invocation of our text, “Now may the God of peace,” reference two marvelous aspects of that peace.
First, it points to His own divine tranquility—the eternal calmness of God’s essential being. This means that God is totally at harmony within Himself and in relation to the Trinity and all He has made. God the Father is called the “God of peace” (Hebrews 13:20). God the Son, the “Prince of peace” (Isaiah 9:6). God the Holy Ghost, the “Spirit…of peace” (Ephesians 4:3).
John MacArthur says, “God is at all times at perfect peace, without any discord within Himself. He is never under stress, worried, anxious, fearful, unsure, or threatened. He is always perfectly calm, tranquil, and content. There are no surprises for His omniscience, no changes for His immutability, no threats to His sovereignty, no doubts to cloud His wisdom, no sin to stain His holiness. Even His wrath is clear, controlled, calm, and confident” (1 and 2 Thessalonians, p. 313).
The Hebrew word shalom means so much more than merely an absence of conflict. It means completeness, wholeness, harmony.
Jesus Christ is the “Prince of Peace” and only through him can we find the “peace that goes beyond understanding.” (Isaiah 9:6, Philippians 4:7).
And that leads us to the second aspect of God’s peace. God can share His peace with us. He gives it to us as a gift. “My peace I give to you” Jesus says in John 14:27. In that vein, there is a distinction between “peace with God” and experiencing the “peace of God.” “Peace with God” is the objective reality that we as former enemies have become, through the cross and belief in Jesus Christ, reconciled to God and now are His friends. This “peace treaty” with God is an objective, one-time experience. Once established, it remains.
The ”peace of God” is the subjective calmness and tranquility we experience whenever we remind ourselves that God is with us, that God loves us and that God is on our side and we need to be reestablished in the “peace of God” time and time again, whenever we face new trials and difficulties. This peace is what Jesus is talking about in John 14:27, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.” The normal fears and anxieties of life disappear when we are experiencing God’s peace. Notice that this is a peace that Jesus gives to us and leaves with us even though He would be leaving this earth. It is not a peace like the world gives—shallow and short-lived—but a peace that dwells deep within and sustains us through the storms.
“God took the initiative to establish peace with rebellious men, and He is the author of both personal peace as well as peace among men,” said Matthew Henry.
“Peace with God” precedes experiencing the “peace of God.” In other words, our status with God must change—from enemies alienated from all that He is and has for us, to friends now enabled to receive everything He has for us—before our inner peace can be experienced. All who are God’s children have “peace with God” and can experience the “peace of God” if we fully rely upon Him and His promises.
Invoking God as “the God of peace” is parallel to Jeremiah 29:11, which reads literally, “‘For I know the plans I am planning for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans for shalom and not for calamity, to give you a future and a hope’” (based on NASB). Significantly, this promise of shalom was given to God’s covenant people at the beginning of the Babylonian captivity when it appeared that the seas of the Gentile world had inundated God’s people for good.
Therefore, the title “the God of peace” at the end of Hebrews comes as a consciously appropriate benediction to fearful, restless hearts—“Your God is a God of peace, and he will pick up the pieces no matter what happens—he will heal your wounds and fulfill what is lacking. No storm will sink you! So hang in there!”
It is this “God of peace” that is now bestowing these precious blessings upon the Hebrew Christians and us today.
Secondly, we see that God is a powerful, life-giving God. He proved when He “brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus.” Surprisingly enough, this is the first and only mention in the book of Hebrews of the resurrection of Jesus. Yes, He is spoken of as “ever living” and having an “indestructible life,” both of which point to the fact of the resurrection, but this is the only mention of Him being raised from the dead.
Of course, Jesus Himself raised Himself up from the dead, as He says in John 10: “For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father” (Johnn 10:17-18).
Here it is again in John 5:21-22: “As the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will. For the Father . . . has given all judgment to the Son.” So the Son has authority to raise from the dead whomever he will, including himself. So Jesus says in John 2:19: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” And John adds, “He was speaking about the temple of his body” (John 2:21). Destroy this body, and in three days, I will raise it up. And he did.
But God also “brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus” (cf. 1 Pet. 1:3; Acts 2:32-33; Rom. 8:11). This was the Father’s stamp of approval on all that Jesus had accomplished through the cross. Jesus said, “Paid in full; it is finished.” The Father showed that it was finished by reversing death and bringing the Innocent One back to life. The significance of this is that “The resurrection of Christ is the Amen of all His promises.” This means that everything God has promised He will now provide.
Hebrews has built its case for Jesus’ perpetual tenure as High Priest, in part, on the “power of [his] indestructible life” (Heb. 7:16), so that “he always lives to make intercession” for believers (7:25). Now, at last, our author explicitly announces Jesus’ resurrection, when God “brought [him] again from the dead.”
As he has previously, our author builds anticipation by reserving the Savior’s name for the end of the clause (in Greek word order): “who brought again from the dead the great shepherd of the sheep by the blood of the eternal covenant, our Lord Jesus” (cf. 2:9; 3:1; 4:14; 7:22; 12:2, 24). Thus, the name of Jesus concludes the description of the divine subject who blesses (13:20), and reappears to conclude the blessing he confers (13:21).
“Brought again” (or “led up,” anagō) is an unusual verb for resurrection (cf. Rom. 10:7), reflecting the influence of Isaiah 63:11, which reads in the LXX, “who brought up [anabibazō] from the earth the shepherd of the sheep.” In the exodus, the shepherd was Moses (cf. Psa. 77:20) and the rescue was from the sea; now the great shepherd, Jesus, has been “led up” from the realm of the dead.
And this leads us to the third foundational truth which establishes this benediction with theological weight to carry our obedience to Christ…He is our loving and sacrificial shepherd.
The shepherd metaphor is one of the most spiritually humbling in all of God’s Word. It reveals volumes about us (the sheep) and about the Lord (our Shepherd). As to our “sheepness,” Dr. Bob Smith, long-time philosophy professor at Bethel College in Minnesota, used to humor his point home regarding our human state by insisting that the existence of sheep is prima facie evidence against evolution. Sheep are so unintelligent and obtuse and defenseless, they could not have possibly evolved—the only way they could have survived is with shepherds!
We may gripe and complain about being called sheep, but we cannot but greatly appreciate that Jesus took up the term shepherd and applied it to himself (cf. Mark 14:27). Jesus’ shepherd heart welled with compassion, for Mark tells us, “When he went ashore he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd” (Mark 6:34).
Even more, Jesus identified himself as the shepherd who would lay down his life to protect his sheep (John 10:1-18; cf. Ezek. 34:1-24; 1 Pet. 2:25; 5:4). This image of Christ comes from Psalm 23, where the Lord God is the Shepherd who provides for His sheep (Ps 23:1), nourishes and refreshes them (Ps 23:2-3), and protects them from their enemies (Ps 23:5; see also Jn 10:11-15). This association between Jesus as “our Lord” and as the “great Shepherd” is a final strong affirmation of the deity of Christ. (Charles R. Swindoll, Swindoll’s Living Insights: Hebrews, 228)
But here our writer tells us that he is not only a “good shepherd”—he is also “the great shepherd of the sheep.” Why? Precisely because he is a risen Shepherd—“brought [back] again from the dead.” As the great risen Shepherd, his compassion and protection are mediated from a position of an unparalleled display of power! He, our Shepherd, is exalted at the right hand of the Father. All other shepherds pale by comparison. There is none like our “great shepherd.” Our risen Shepherd lives not only to give us life, but to tend us so that we will be sheep who bring him glory through our obedience and living a life pleasing to Him. This means that our grandest spiritual desires are never audacious and that any spiritual aspirations less than the loftiest are not grand enough. What security and what challenge the fact of our risen “great shepherd” brings to our souls.
Warren Wiersbe reminds us that “as the Good Sheperd, Jesus Christ died for the sheep (John 10:11). As the Great Shepherd, He lives for the sheep in heaven today, working on their behalf. As the Chief Shepherd, He will come for the sheep at His return (1 Pet. 5:4)” (The Wiersbe Bible Commentary: NT, p. 845). As the Good Shepherd He worked for us when He completed the great work of redemption (John 17:4). Now that He is in heaven, He is working in us to mature us in His will.
Fourthly, our God is a covenant keeping God, and sealed that covenant with the blood of His one and only Son.
Moses sprinkled the “blood of the covenant” on the Israelites at Sinai (Heb. 9:20, citing Exod. 24:8), but they broke that covenant, and Jeremiah 31:31-34 pronounced it “obsolete” (Heb. 8:13). The new covenant, which Jesus’ blood inaugurates, secures our everlasting salvation, fulfilling God’s promises to establish an “eternal covenant” with his people (2 Sam. 23:5; Isa. 55:3; 61:8; Jere. 32:40; 50:5; Ezek. 16:59-60; 37:26).
“Specifically, the foundation for our highest dreams is the everlasting, unbreakable new covenant promise earlier quoted in 8:10 where God says, “I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people” (cf. Jeremiah 31:31–34). The promise is nothing less than a renewed heart and a personal relationship with God through the atoning work of God the Son and the indwelling of God the Holy Spirit. We have his word for it that all this is ours if we come to him!
“And this covenant, this promise, is eternal. It will never be replaced by another as it once replaced the old covenant. It was established by the blood of the ultimate Lamb of God, whose atoning death was ratified and verified by his resurrection. The writer’s friends were being encouraged to remember that whatever came, no matter how high the seas, his new covenant promise would never change or fail. The eternal covenant granted them eternal life” (R. Kent Hughes, Hebrews: An Anchor for the Soul, Volume 2, p. 244).
Every time we partake of the Lord’s Supper we remind ourselves of this eternal covenant. On the night he was betrayed Jesus broke the bread and distributed the cup as a sign of the new and eternal covenant that his blood would inaugurate and establish: “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood” (Luke 22:20; see 1 Cor. 11:25). How can we know with absolute certainty and assurance that God will keep his word in the new and eternal covenant to forgive our sins and be our God and never leave us or forsake us? We can know because the covenant was signed, sealed, established, and delivered on the foundation of the blood of God’s very own, dear Son Jesus Christ.
Grace Still Amazes 