Author: Lamar Austin

Over the last few weeks we’ve been talking about fellowship.  We’ve been looking at Hebrews 10:24-25 where the author of Hebrews is encouraging his readers to engage in deep fellowship because life was only going to get harder for them.  Listen to his encouragement:

24 And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, 25 not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.

So far we’ve seen the method of fellowship—considering how we may spur one another to love and good deeds.  Just being together is not enough.  Yes, that is needed, as verse 25 will show, but when we meet together, all of us need to pay attention to one another and identify how to encourage (v. 25) or agitate (v. 24, “spur”) them to get off their butts and develop a heart of love that loves to serve others.

Second, we saw that the goal of fellowship was to promote loving hearts and good deeds.  We want people to be motivated by love in their service of others.

Third, the object, or target of our fellowship is “one another.”  This ministry is not aimed at outsiders, but at those within the fellowship.

Now, today we’re going to look at verse 25 and see the means of fellowship.  Actually, the means are communicated through two participles—first negatively (“not neglecting to meet together”) and then positively (“encouraging one another”).  These are the two means by which we spur one another to love and good works.

Notice that sandwiched between the two exhortations to speak up (“spur” and “encourage”) is this vital exhortation: “don’t quit on one another!”

The participle is in the present tense, including an ongoing action, “don’t continue neglecting to meet together,” which is matched by the statement “as is the habit of some.”  In other words, it was becoming a growing, and dangerous, habit that some were dropping out.

“Meeting together” refers to assembling in the same location.  This, of course, may refer to the typical Sunday morning gathering, the large group gathering, but it could have any other kind of gathering of believers in smaller groupings in mind as well.  It merely points out that proximity over time is necessary for developing the deeper kinds of relationships in which “spurring” and “encouraging” can happen regularly.

In America there are 18 million self-proclaimed evangelical Christians.  Ten million of those have not been to church in the last six months! 

In the four years before the pandemic, 2016 through 2019, an average of 34% of U.S. adults said they had attended church, synagogue, mosque or temple in the past seven days.  From 2020 to the present, the average has been 30%, including a 31% reading in a May 1-24 survey. (https://news.gallup.com/poll/507692/church-attendance-lower-pre-pandemic.aspx#:~:text=Church%20Attendance%2C%20Past%20Seven%20Days%2C%20Historical%20Trend&text=Church%20attendance%20in%20past%20seven,in%20most%20years%20before%202013.)

Roughly 40% of Americans say they seldom or never attend church or synagogue according to a recent Gallup poll.  29% attend church once a week.  11% attend almost every week and 16% attend about once a month.

Thus, it has become the “habit” of some to drop out and not attend often.  Sam Storms says, “You don’t cultivate a habit overnight.  It takes time.  You find yourself immersed in a habit, often one you can’t shake or break, when you live unintentionally.  That is to say, you don’t get up each day with a plan for what is going to happen.  You simply drift through life.  You take things as they come without forethought or preparation or prioritizing the many things that compete for your time and allegiance.” (https://www.samstorms.org/all-articles/post/why-must-a-christian-be-in-community-in-a-local-church-hebrews-1023-25).  What the author of Hebrews is encouraging in Hebrews 10:24-25 is more like “urgent intentionality” rather than “lackadaisical unintentionality.”

Over the years there has been a decline in commitment to church.  It used to be that people would give 5 hours a week—Sunday morning, Sunday night and Wednesday night.  Now we’re lucky to get you to church for a couple of hours Sunday morning.  In fact, statistics show that 70% of Christians are content with their spiritual life just by attending church one time on Sunday.

There are many reasons for this—busyness, overcrowded schedules, disappointment with the pastor or the church, but at the bottom of it all is a satisfaction with minimal spirituality.  And it is bound to be dangerous, as Hebrews 3:12-13 shows.

12 Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. 13 But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

These verses are telling us that any of us has the potential of developing “an evil, unbelieving heart” and causes us to “fall away from the living God” unless we avail ourselves of the possibility of being exhorted by others.  That doesn’t happen when we do not assemble together with other believers.  It doesn’t happen when we watch church on television.  And when it doesn’t happen, we are in real spiritual danger!

Mark Dever, pastor of Capital Hill Baptist Church, near D.C., has written a book entitled Nine Marks of a Healthy Church, and in it points out the connection between missing church and getting caught up in sinning.

Nonattendance, in the early years of the church, was considered one of the most sinister of sins, because it usually veiled all the other sins.  When someone began to be in sin, you would expect them to stop attending.

The way that we guard ourselves against developing that evil, unbelieving heart is to place ourselves around those who will exhort us and remind us that sin is very deceptive.

Now, there is a direct link between that kind of God-based hope and the love and good works that get stirred up in assembling together.  Look at verses 34-35 in chapter 10.

For you had compassion on those in prison [there’s the love and good works that got stirred up by assembling together], and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property [there’s the proof that the love was not legalistic or forced or coerced, it was joyful], since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one [there’s the source of the love—confidence of hope in God’s promise of reward.  Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward.

That’s just another way of saying verse 23, “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.”

Our faith can be weak or become weaker, and we need others to encourage us to hang on to God’s promises.  We need to remind one another of God’s promises, to tell stories of His faithfulness so that they would be encouraged to believe.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, “The physical presence of other Christians is a source of incomparable joy and strength to the believer.”

We need that.

Assembling together is so important to others, but it is also important to you.

Charles Spurgeon, the great evangelist of the nineteenth century, told the story of a woman who came to him claiming that her relationship with God was just fine, even though she saw no need to actually attend church.  As she chattered away, he walked over to the fireplace in the room, and with the tongs, picked out a blazing coal. 

He carefully set the coal on the hearth, all the while listening as she made her case.  She noted his actions but failed to see their significance until he asked her to observe the coal.  The once red-hot coal, separated from the fire’s warmth, grew colder and colder, sitting alone on the hearth.

The significance of the lonely coal was not lost on his friend.  “As iron sharpens iron, so a man sharpens the countenance of a friend,” says the book of Proverbs (27:17). 

In another sermon he preached, “Warm hearts are not easily kept alive among empty pews.  A coal must be very lively to burn alone, but many glowing coals laid together help to keep each other alight.”

So assembling together helps everyone.

Several years ago, former American Prisoners of War were interviewed to determine what methods used by the enemy had been most effective in breaking their spirit.  Researchers learned that the prisoners didn’t break down from physical deprivation and torture as quickly as they did from solitary confinement or from being frequently moved around and separated from friends.  It was further learned that the soldiers drew their greatest strength from the close attachments they had formed with the small military units to which they belonged.

These observations give us insight into why Christians need the group experience of fellowship with other believers to help them remain loyal to the Lord.  Our own personal relationship to God, vital as that is, is not sufficient to produce spiritual maturity and endurance.  Relationships within a unified, Spirit-filled body of believers are essential for growth and for maintaining our individual faithfulness to the Savior (Hebrews 10:23-25).  Sometimes we would rather not be involved in church life, thinking it is easier just to go it alone.  But Christians who do that miss out on all the benefits.  Let’s remember that God in His wisdom has grouped us together for strength.

Isolation is the single most effective tool Satan has in his arsenal.  1 Peter describes Satan as a “roaring lion.”  Well, if you’ve ever watched the National Geographic channel you see that what a lion does is first they isolate a potential victim from the herd and then once the victim is isolated it becomes easy prey and soon becomes the lion’s supper.

Why go to church?  In a letter to the editor of a British newspaper, a man complained that he saw no sense in going to church every Sunday.

“I have been attending services quite regularly for the past 30 years,” he wrote, “and during that time…I have listened to no less than 3,000 sermons.  But, to my consternation, I discover that I cannot remember a single one of them.  I wonder if a minister’s time might be more profitably spent on something else.”

That letter sparked many responses.  One, however, was the clincher.

“I have been married for 30 years.  During that time I have eaten 32,850 meals—mostly of my wife’s cooking.  Suddenly I have discovered that I cannot remember the menu of a single meal.  And yet, I have received nourishment from every one of them.  I have the distinct impression that without them I would have starved to death long ago.”

But it is obviously more than just going to church, just showing up, that is at stake here.  Real fellowship happens when we pay attention to one another and figure out how to exhort and encourage one another to love and good deeds, to continue to rest in God’s promises, so that we don’t allow an “evil, unbelieving heart” to develop and fall away from God.  We are encouraged to “assemble together” so that we can know one another, think about one another, speak to one another to promote spiritual development in each other.

The dangers are that we would stop getting together, fail to know one another, stay silent and as a result we would see a growing departure from the faith (Hebrews 3:13), which is exactly what we are seeing from the youngest generation, and we would see little love and few good deeds.

Notice how the early church did that.  They loved being together, sharing time and space.  Listen to these verses from the story of the early church as recorded in the Book of Acts: “And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.  And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common” (Acts 2:42-44).  “Now many signs and wonders were regularly done among the people by the hands of the apostles. And they were all together in Solomon’s Portico” (Acts 5:12)

Just like the Triune God, they hung out together, and they did it well.

Such fellowship does not just happen.  In fact, it requires a relentless struggle on the part of people whose fallen natures lurking within them fight to prevent any true bonding.  We are like sheep constantly going astray, wanting our own way.  That is our nature.

Solomon, in Proverbs 27:17, says “Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another.”  But iron only sharpens iron if the two pieces have sustained contact with one another.  And we can only shape and develop one another into that God wants us to be by maintaining regular contact with each other.

Hanging out well requires a commitment to engage others.  It’s so easy to disengage from the body of Christ.  After all, relationships are messy, complicated, boring, risky and sometimes painful.  You might get hurt.  People can be so dull and live such petty lives…unlike me.  People do such stupid things…unlike me.  People can be so mean and cutting and insensitive…unlike me.  Most of us could share stories of disappointment and rejection.  Or perhaps you know the hurt of losing a close friend.  People move in and out of our lives way too fast.  The change, loss and grief can be devastating.

Struggling to knit your heart together with another saint is often painful, but Proverbs 27:6a says that “wounds from a friend can be trusted.”  The more you know that someone loves you, the more you trust his or her “wounds,” that is, the words he speaks to pierce your heart and encourage or correct you.  Statistics show that 95% of Christian men do not have a close friend.

Jesus knew the value of friendship.  While preparing for His ministry, He chose twelve “interns” to travel with Him and share in all His experiences.  These men were united, strengthened and encouraged to take their stand in times of persecution and severe hardship.  Together they  brought hope to those who were without hope.

Spending time together provoking one another to love and good deeds…that is a formula that could change the world.

Christian fellowship is God’s precious gift…to each of us…and to the world.

The author of Hebrews reminds us that assembling together for the purpose of encouraging and exhorting good deeds through love grows all the more important as the days pass.  He says at the end of verse 25 that all of this should be happening “all the more as you see the Day drawing near.”

We should not be assembling less, but more.  No matter what persecutions come, no matter how busy we get, it is more and more vital for us to assemble together and encourage and exhort one another to hang on to God’s promises and minister to each other in practical expressions of love.

The “day drawing near” is likely the day of Christ’s return to earth.  While it will be a joyous, victorious day, full of deliverance and vindication for God’s people, it will be preceded by seven years of “hell on earth.”  Saints will be persecuted like never before.  The heavens and earth will convulse with God-ordained seizures, making life on earth miserable.

The verb “drawing near” is present tense, meaning that even as the author wrote these words he saw it in process of happening.  F. F. Bruce reminds us, ““Each successive Christian generation is called upon to live as the generation of the end-time, if it is to live as a Christian generation.” 

“Christians were to live as if the dawning of the day was so near that its arrival was only just beyond the horizon.” (Guthrie)

Kent Hughes summarizes this passage saying:

Hebrews 10:19–25 is no insignificant text. Its role in moving from instruction to application gives it huge significance. It tells us that if we have the proper confidence that comes from our access and advocacy before God, there are three things we must do for the sake of the church and her survival.

• We must draw near in prayer to God with a wholehearted sincerity.  Our entire human spirit must be engaged in prayer and worship.
• We must hold on to the anchor of hope we possess.  Our hope is in Jesus and is anchored in Heaven, where he intercedes for us.  This is no cock-eyed optimism but tremendous reality.
• We must devote ourselves to the corporate church and do everything we can to provoke each other to love and good deeds.

If we do this, the church will ride high on every storm that comes!  And we must do this more and more as we “see the Day drawing near.”

Thank you for joining me again in our study of Hebrews.  We are in Hebrews 10, verses 24-25, a very practical passage for us to focus upon today.

24 And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, 25 not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.

We are looking at the importance of biblical fellowship and in this passage we see that assembling together, being together, is important, but that fellowship is more than just physical proximity—it involves ministry towards one another.

I love the fellowship of believers.  I enjoy getting together with other people who love Jesus Christ.  David expresses how I often feel in Psalm 16:3, “As for the saints in the land, they are the excellent ones, in whom is all my delight.”

Our text begins with the method of fellowship, or how fellowship begins.  It begins by “considering” one another, of paying attention to one another.  In Greek the verb “concerned,” (NIV – consider) means to fix one’s eye or mind on another. (C. S. Lovett, Lovett’s Lights on Hebrews, 229-30).  It means to study them, to look at them closely and carefully.

The beginning of fellowship is putting others in the forefront of our minds, consistently.  In means that we have to get our minds off of ourselves.  I think the reason there is not more growth in God’s kingdom AND in individual believers’ lives is because we live such self-centered, self-absorbed lives.

Now I know, when we are hurting, when our lives are falling apart, it is hard not to think of ourselves.  At those times hopefully others are thinking of us.  But one of the reasons God used Joseph is that he paid attention to the people around him and saw when they were troubled.  Joseph was able to minister to the cupbearer and the baker because “When Joseph came to them in the morning, he saw that they were troubled” (Gen. 40:6).  He noticed them.  His mind wasn’t preoccupied with self-pity about how he had been falsely accused and thrown into prison.  Rather, his eyes were open and he noticed “that they were troubled.”  It registered.

Then Joseph asked them a question, “Why are your faces downcast today?”  Now, sometimes, when we ask questions like this, people will think we are prying.  But God was with Joseph and He worked in their hearts to open up about their dreams and share their troubled hearts with Joseph.

Who knows, that may happen to you.  So this Sunday, when you see someone standing alone, or when you notice a sad look on their face, don’t turn around and head for your seat or thank God that you aren’t struggling like that.  Rather, go up to them and ask them, “Why is your face so sad? Or worried? Or even happy?”  They may not answer you.  They may not want to answer you.  But they will know that you care and even that may make all the difference in their life that day.

So look at the eyes, the body language, the facial expression.  Pay attention.

Now, in the Greek, this word “consider” is in the present tense, meaning that it calls for continuous consideration.  Not a brief glance, not a monetary thought, but to deeply and for a good while, to think about it.

God is calling me to exert mental energy, to spend time thinking about how I can inspire and motivate you to love (with is an action verb) so that it results in good works.

Let us remember that we are Christians not only for our own sake but also for the sake of others.  No man ever saved his soul who devoted his whole time and energy to saving it; but many a man has saved it by being so concerned for others that he forgot that he himself had a soul to save.  It is easy to drift into a kind of selfish Christianity; but a selfish Christianity is a contradiction in terms.  (William Barclay, The Daily Study Bible Series, Hebrews, 121)

Oswald Chambers has written that a Christian must consciously identify with Jesus Christ’s interests in each of the other people in his life.  Please think about some of the near ones in your life.  How well to you really know them?  Do you know their dreams, their fears, their goals?  Do you know what they are committed to be and do for the Lord and for others?  What are you doing to press into their hearts to find out this vital information?

This, by the way, is what shepherds do.  They know their flock.  They know well the condition of their sheep.  They pay attention to who is present or absent and they pay attention to anything that causes them trouble or fears and anxieties.

Next, we see the goal of biblical fellowship, which is “to stir up one another to love and good works…”  This is what we are to focus our thoughts on, what we are to “consider.”  Our focus on others is to help us understand them well enough (their needs, values and goals) so that we know how to “stir” them up to putting love into action through good deeds.

The word “spur” here, is the Greek word “nnnnngggggg” (sound of a nasal mosquito), which means to “irritate” or “pester,” just like a mosquito does.

Actually, the Greek word is paroxusmos, from which we get paraoxysm, which describes a “sudden attack or violent expression.”

Depending upon the context, it can be positive, “to rouse, incite,” or negative—“to irritate, provoke.”

Last March I was at Leon Rogers’ funeral.  Before the funeral started, I said hello to the person sitting next to me and someone poked me on the shoulder.  It was Frank Rosipal, who used to come to Grace Bible Church, so I said hello to him and to Stokes Herod, sitting to his right.  Then I got another tap.  It was from Reba Rosipal, since I hadn’t already greeted her.

Her husband mentioned then how she was an irritator and joked that she had been for years.  I said, “Well, it’s OK, because Hebrews 10 tells us to irritate one another…to love and good deeds.”

So the idea here is that we irritate, we agitate, we bug the heck out of someone, we become a burr under their saddle, until they get up and act in love with good deeds.

What is in view here is an action which doesn’t rest until it produces something, something good in this case.  It’s like teammates, who push one another to work harder and do better.  We should be each others’ biggest fans and cheerleaders.

Oswald Chambers said, “It is a most disturbing thing to be smitten in the ribs by some provoker from God, by someone who is full of spiritual activity.”  Yes, it can be disturbing, but it has a good aim.  We’re not trying to make people mad, like those little kids on the school bus who sat behind you and picked, picked, picked, until you wanted to turn around and smack them!

No, this is an irritation that turns into something positive—an expression of action-oriented love.

Normally, as in the rest of the New Testament, this is not a pleasant word (for example, “a sharp disagreement”— paroxysmos —came between Paul and Barnabas, Acts 15:39; cf. 1 Corinthians 13:5).  But I believe here our author believes it is something positive, at least something that produces a positive result.

So, with some it may be your example that motivates them to love and good deeds, with others it may be your soft encouragement, but with some it’s going to be that continual needling until they do something.

What we might call “the other side of the coin” is found in verse 25.  There our author calls us to “encourage one another.”  The Greek is parakaleo, which means to come alongside someone to provide a word for them.  It is more gentle than paraxysmos.  While stirring is agitating; encouraging is soothing.  It pictures a preferable future.  One Greek historian used parakaleo to describe a military regiment that had last heart and was utterly dejected.  The general sent a leader to talk to the disheartened ranks and he so enlivened them that their courage was reborn and a body of dispirited men became fit again for heroic action.

The present tense of that participle calls for encouragement to be the believer’s continual practice.

Journalist Robert Maynard related the following story from his childhood in The New York Daily News: As a young boy Maynard was walking to school one day when he came upon an irresistible temptation.  In front of him was a freshly poured piece of gray cement—a piece that had replaced a broken piece of sidewalk.  He immediately stopped and began to scratch his name in it.  Suddenly he became aware that standing over him with a garbage can lid was the biggest stone mason he had ever seen!

Maynard tried to run, but the big man grabbed him and shouted, “Why are you trying to spoil my work?”  Maynard remembers babbling something about just wanting to put his name on the ground.  A remarkable thing happened just then.  The mason released the boy’s arms, his voice softened, and his eyes lost their fire.  Instead, there was now a touch of warmth about the man.  “What’s your name, son?”

“Robert Maynard.”

“Well, Robert Maynard, the sidewalk is no place for your name.  If you want your name on something, you go into that school.  You work hard and you become a lawyer and you hang your shingle out for all the world to see.”

Tears came to Maynard’s eyes, but the mason was not finished yet.  “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

“A writer, I think.”

Now the mason’s voice burst forth in tones that could be heard all over the schoolyard.  “A writer!  A writer!  Be a writer.  Be a real writer!  Have your name on books, not on this sidewalk.”

Robert Maynard continued to cross the street, paused, and looked back.  The mason was on his knees repairing the damage that Maynard’s scratching had done.  He looked up and saw the young boy watching and repeated, “Be a writer.”

There is amazing power in an encouraging word.  You and I can change a life with a kind word.  Encouragement is a Christian duty.  Lives of provocation through prayer, example, Scripture, and encouragement are gifts the church needs desperately.

So, when you come to church, pray, ‘Lord, help me to know how to stir someone or encourage something to love and good deeds.”  Come to church on the lookout.  Come to church on mission.  Be watching and listening and contemplating how you can encourage someone to a new or deeper expression of love through doing something good for someone else.

Spurring (v. 24) and encouraging (v. 25) are both calling us to speak up.  Don’t be silent.  First, use your eyes and ears to learn how best to move someone to greater love and kindness.  Then speak up.

I have read (and highly recommend) a great book, The Silence of Adam, by Larry Crabb (written primarily for men).  The premise of the book is that in Genesis 3:6, Adam was right there with his wife when she sinned, and he did not open his mouth.  He did or said nothing to prevent her from falling into Satan’s trap.  Likewise, far too many men today tend not to open their mouths and speak from the heart, even to their wives.

Believers can have a profound impact on the lost when they combine a godly life with a loving witness.  We all know of instances of conversions simply because dedicated Christians let their light shine.  On the other hand, we can recall with grief some lost persons who rejected the Word because of the inconsistent lives of professed believers.

In the summer of 1805, a number of Indian chiefs and warriors met in council at Buffalo Creek, New York, to hear a presentation of the Christian message by a Mr. Cram from the Boston Missionary Society.  After the sermon, a response was given by Red Jacket, one of the leading chieftains.  Among other things, the chief said:

Brother, you say that there is but one way to worship and serve the Great Spirit.  If there is but one religion, why do you white people differ so much about it?  Why not all agree, as you can all read the book?

Brother, we are told that you have been preaching to the white people in this place.  These people are our neighbors.  We are acquainted with them.  We will wait a little while and see what effect your preaching has upon them.  If we find it does them good, makes them honest and less disposed to cheat Indians, we will then consider again what you have said.

So speak up—stir up and encourage—but make sure your life backs it up.  Be a good example first, of love and good deeds, then stir up and encourage others to love and good deeds. It is a fact that loving God and man and doing good deeds are more readily caught than taught. To provoke others upward by example is the high road indeed.

So the goal of fellowship is to produce something positive—a response of love that does something good for others.

Love is the motivation—both the evidence of Christ in us and the empowerment of Christ living through us.  Good deeds are the manifestation of what it means to have Christ living in us.  Good deeds is mentioned in a number of New Testament passages, encouraging us that although we are not saved by good works, we are definitely saved for good works (2 Timothy 2:21; Ephesians 2:8-10; 2 Corinthians 9:8; 1 Corinthians 15:10; 1 Peter 2:12; Matthew 5:16).  Believers are to be known for what might be described as consistent aggressive goodness, done however not simply out of a sense of obligation or duty, but out of an unselfish love for both our Lord Jesus and for other people.

How do you empower someone to love?  How do you help them to find more motivation (love) and resources to love that hard husband, that rebellious teenager, that lazy roommate or coworker?

Believing in the promises of God is the root of love.  As you encourage others to have confidence in the promises of God, it helps them fight unbelief in their hearts and helps love to take root there.  This is implied in verse 23: “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.  And let us consider how to stir up one another to love…”

The object or focus of biblical fellowship is “one another.”  This is the only time our author uses this term (although it is quite common in the NT, used 54 times to express “one another ministry”).  Leon Morris says, “He is speaking of a mutual activity, one in which believers encourage one another, not one where leaders direct the rest as to what they are to do.”

Now, in Hebrews 3:12-13, which we looked at briefly last week, that says the object or focus or target of our fellowship is our brothers.  Again, those verses say…

12 Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. 13 But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

Some of you, when you went to college, had an orientation session or maybe a first class in which an instructor or professor said, “Look around you, in a few weeks, 25% of these people won’t be here.”  In other words, dropouts were expected.

The author of Hebrews is warning us of something very, very serious.  It is quote possible that some of us might develop an “evil heart of unbelief” and walk away from God.  We’ve seen it among some Christian celebrities.  Even some pastors.  It could happen right here.

We all need to be stirred up, encouraged and exhorted by each other.  You need MORE than just my exhortation to you.  You need MORE than your Sunday school teachers exhortations.  It requires all of us exhorting all of us to keep us from developing an evil, unbelieving heart.

There are many elements that go into the total concept of fellowship, as it is described in the New Testament, but the sharing together in suffering is one of the most profitable.  It probably unites our hearts together in Christ more than any other aspect of fellowship (Jerry Bridges, Trusting God, p. 189).  Our author knew that persecution and suffering lay in their future, if not in their present situation.  They would need fellowship with other believers in order not to fall away.

Here’s some good news and bad news for pastors:

Good News: You baptized seven people today in the river.
Bad News: You lost two of them in the swift current.

Good News: The women’s group voted to send you a get-well card.
Bad News: The vote passed by 31-30.

Good News: The elder board accepted your job description the way you wrote it.
Bad News: They were so inspired by it that they formed a search committee to find someone capable of filling the position.

Good News: The youth of the church came to your house for a visit.
Bad News: It was in the middle of the night and they were armed with toilet paper and shaving cream.

Good News: The Church Council has agreed to send you to the Holy Land for study.
Bad News: They are waiting for war to break out before sending you.

Good News: Church attendance rose dramatically the last three weeks.
Bad News: You were on vacation.

Some of the bad news over the last few years has been a decrease in church attendance.  The fears over COVID and the shut down of all “non-essential” services, which included churches, showed us just how precious fellowship really is.

During that time many people dropped out of going to church altogether.  Most of us pastors became “tele-evangelists” and produced videos of our sermons so that people at home could watch us and stay, at least remotely, connected.

But it wasn’t enough, as we all experienced.  Church is a gathered event.  It involves Christ followers gathering together to teach one another and minister to one another.

What is a shame is that now that COVID is over, some have fallen out of the habit of going to church.  It is easier to stay at home, sit in your LazyBoy recliner with your pajamas on with coffee in hand, allowing your children to play in their rooms while you watch the sermon on tv.

But that isn’t church.  Church is a gathered event.

Now, we all have times when we don’t want to go to church.

The story is told of a wife who woke her husband up for church, but he only groaned and rolled over in bed.  She coaxed him again, urged him, and finally ordered him to get out of bed and go to church.  But he said, “I don’t want to.”  She asked why not and he answered.  “Because it’s boring.  And because they don’t like me there.”  That’s when she got forceful: “That’s not true: It’s not boring and people do like you.  And besides that, you have to go: you’re the pastor!”

Oh, I admit that there are some times that I’ve not wanted to go.  But I don’t come to church just because I’m a pastor.  I come to church because I love Jesus and I love you.  I want to be here.  I want to be with you.  I enjoy teaching you.  I enjoy worshipping with you and serving alongside you.

Getting out of the habit of going to church is nothing new.  Many people have struggled with it because they don’t perceive the real value of it—not until it was taken away during COVID.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who wrote in the shadow of the Third Reich and Hitler’s rise to power, wrote a little book entitled Life Together, which reflects upon the illegal seminary in Finkenwalde and their fellowship together as religious freedom evaporated in Germany.  Here are some of the key insights from this little book.

First, every gathering of the local church is a gift of God’s grace.

Bonhoefer writes:

So between the death of Christ and the Last Day it is only by a gracious anticipation of the last things that Christians are privileged to live in visible fellowship with other Christians. It is by the grace of God that a congregation is permitted to gather visibly in this world to share God’s Word and sacrament.

Not all Christians receive this blessing. The imprisoned, the sick, the scattered lonely, the proclaimers of the Gospel in heathen lands stand alone. They know that visible fellowship is a blessing. They remember, as the Psalmist did, how they went ‘with the multitude . . . to the house of God, with the voice of joy and praise, with a multitude that kept holyday’ (pp.19-20).

Whenever we gather together as a church, we receive a gift from our gracious God. Every gathering of the saints provides a taste of the greater reality of heaven, and we look forward to the day when all the saints will be together with our Lord forever.

Consider Hebrews 12:22-24:

22 But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, 23 and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, 24 and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

Gathering together with our family of faith is a blessing that becomes all the more apparent when the gift is taken away. Let us prize the grace we have been given in our fellowship, and look forward to the day when we can know it again.

Second, we experience the love and presence of God through one another in Christ.

If you feel grief and loneliness, it is only right to feel this sense of loss.  Two-dimensional fellowship through technology is a gift, just as was Paul’s ability to send and receive letters from prison.  However, Paul still longed for face-to-face interaction with his disciples (1 Thess. 2:18; 3:17).

Bonhoeffer elaborates on this as he describes the blessing of physical presence with other believers:

The believer therefore lauds the Creator, the Redeemer, God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, for the bodily presence of a brother.  The prisoner, the sick person, the Christian in exile sees in the companionship of a fellow Christian a physical sign of the gracious presence of the triune God.  Visitor and visited in loneliness recognize in each other the Christ who is present in the body; they receive and meet each other as one meets the Lord, in reverence, humility, and joy.  They receive each other’s benedictions as the benediction of the Lord Jesus Christ.  But if there is so much blessing and joy even in a single encounter of brother with brother, how inexhaustible are the riches that open up for those who by God’s will are privileged to live in the daily fellowship of life with other Christians! (p. 20)

It’s like the story about a little girl who can’t get to sleep.  She knocks on the door of her parents’ room and says, “I can’t sleep.”  One parent gets up, goes with the little girl child back to her room, gets her back into bed, and tries to offer reassurance and comfort.  The parent says, “You know that we love you, right?”  “Yes,” nods the child.  “And you know that God loves you, right?” “Yes,” again, says the little girl.   “And you know that God will be right here with you, watching over you all night long.  You know that, too, don’t you?”  The little girl says yes, and smiles as the parent kisses her good night and turns out the light.

A few minutes later, there’s a knock on the parents’ door. “Yes?” they ask.  The little girl explains, “I know God is with me all night long.  But can I still sleep with you?  Right now, I need God with skin on.”

We all need a God with skin on.  And thankfully God provides that.  As we assemble together as the body of Christ on the Lord’s Day, we encounter Christ in his Word and in his people.  We know the love of Christ through one another as we serve as his hands and feet.  Our gatherings are an incredible gift for us to treasure.  It is right for us to desire to be face-to-face with each other.

And so, thirdly, let us thank God for this grace.

In today’s age of individualism, far too many professing Christians see the gathering of the church as an optional activity, and many others are content with “internet church.”  Even for those who are faithful to gather, the weekly blessing of assembling together is easily taken for granted.

Bonhoeffer warns against this, and calls the church to thanksgiving:

It is true, of course, that what is an unspeakable gift of God for the lonely individual is easily disregarded and trodden under foot by those who have the gift every day. It is easily forgotten that the fellowship of Christian brethren is a gift of grace, a gift of the Kingdom of God that any day may be taken from us, that the time that still separates us from utter loneliness may be brief indeed.

Therefore, let him who until now has had the privilege of living a common Christian life with other Christians praise God’s grace from the bottom of his heart. Let him thank God on his knees and declare: It is grace, nothing but grace, that we are allowed to live in community with Christian brethren. (p. 20)

And this brings us to our passage in Hebrews, one that is likely familiar to many evangelical Christians.

19 Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, 20 by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, 21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. 23 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. 24 And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, 25 not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.

The theme of these verses is drawing near to God, but we cannot truly draw near to God without drawing near to our brothers and sisters in Christ.  It is largely through them, as Bonhoeffer attests, that we experience the presence of God and come to know more of His love (cf. Eph. 3:18, “with all the saints”).

People throughout the ages have found reasons not to go to church.  The early church had a fall-off of attendance due to persecution, ostracism, apostasy and arrogance.  Today church attendance is rarely dangerous or costly like that, rather we miss due to laziness or lack of proper priorities.

Some think, “I don’t have to go to church to be a Christian.  In fact, I worship God better in a fishing boat or a deer stand.”

No, you don’t have to go to church to be a Christian, but you do have to go to church to be a growing, devoted Christian.  We survive in our spiritual life precisely because we surround ourselves with brothers and sisters in Christ who support us and personally and regularly exhort us and sometimes confront us so that we don’t waver from the truth.

As the evil days surround us, as wickedness and wokeness and the deceitfulness of sin cloud our vision, we so need others to help us remain faithful to Jesus Christ.  Just listen to the warning we saw earlier in Hebrews 3:12-13.

12 Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. 13 But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

Any one of us could develop “an evil unbelieving heart” and “fall away from the living God.”  It can happen.  And because it can happen, we need to “exhort one another every day” so that “none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.”  Satan is a master of deceit, and he covers the lure in seductive ways so that we think we are getting something good, something that will truly make us happy, but underneath is the hook and we find that the pleasure we thought we were getting is so, so short-lived and the consequences are harsher than we could have imagined.

Without intentional, faith-building togetherness we lose our zeal, drift from God, and become hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.  We can’t see it.  We are deceived.  If someone doesn’t snatch us (James 5:19; Jude 23), we make shipwreck of our so-called “faith” and perish in unbelief.

By the way, this help doesn’t come merely by showing up at church on Sundays.  Unless you intentionally interact with others, ask for prayer, reveal your burdens and temptations, get involved in studying God’s transformative Word together, you may find that just coming to church on Sunday morning does very little for you.  Take advantage of the opportunities to expose ourselves to the mirror of God’s Word in community where you can tell the truth about yourself and hear the truth about yourself.  Attach yourself to a few people who dare to tell you the truth and who will hold you accountable for seeing yourself as you really are and making changes in your life.  All of these things is what the church fellowship is really about.

Battling unbelief, or to put it positively, fighting the good fight of faith, that is what church is really about.  We live in a world six days a week that encourages unbelief and doubt and the deconstruction of our faith.  The battle isn’t over and believing it is makes us extremely vulnerable to the subtleties of unbelief.  It is a life-long struggle.

At the end of his life, Paul looked back over several decades of being a Christian and says, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”  He had fought the good fight to keep the faith all his Christian life (2 Tim. 4:7).

And do you know Paul’s secret?  He always surrounded himself with other brothers in Christ.  Although he seems like a gung-ho, Marine, he was not a loner.  Even Seal Team 6 functions as a unit.  Paul didn’t believe that he could successfully live the Christian life on his own.  He knew that he needed others.

So Paul surrounded himself with Barnabas and Silas and Timothy and Luke and Aristarchus and Mark and Ephphras and others.  The one time he was forced to go off by himself to Athens his spirit was almost broken by the overwhelming evil there and he sent immediately for Timothy to join him.  This macho man needed Timothy.

We might mistakenly get the idea that Paul’s faith (and the faith of other ministers today) was never in need of human reinforcement.  But listen to 2 Corinthians 7:5-7:

5 For even when we came into Macedonia, our bodies had no rest, but we were afflicted at every turn–fighting without and fear within. 6 But God, who comforts the downcast, comforted us by the coming of Titus, 7 and not only by his coming but also by the comfort with which he was comforted by you, as he told us of your longing, your mourning, your zeal for me, so that I rejoiced still more.

Paul felt overwhelmed.  He had enemies that fought him and he had fears that raged within his mind.  But God comforted Paul.  How?  “by the coming of Titus.”  And in verse 7 you see the ripple effect of eyeball-to-eyeball comforting of one another.  The Corinthians comforted Titus and Titus arrived and comforted Paul.  Paul was an emotional wreck, but Titus came.  Titus gave him a hug, gave him encouragement and prayed for him.  That’s what he needed.

Paul knew that he needed others.  He knew that he could quite possibly shipwreck his faith if he didn’t have others in his life.  You and I need others too.  We need close friends; we need the body of Christ—to help strengthen our faith when fear gets the upper hand.

You see, we are constantly being spiritually formed.  We cannot help it.  But we are either being transformed in a positive direction by truth and grace, or we are being deformed by the world around us in a negative direction through lies and deception.

It’s easy to go with the flow and all too often we find ourselves moving with the flow of the world—into disobedience and sin.  Fortunately, God offers us another flow going in the opposite direction.  The truth is, we are weak; we cannot often stand on our own and go against the flow.  That is why we need a Christian community to surround us and carry us in the direction of positive transformation.

So our author gives us these life-saving, faith-cementing verses:

24 And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, 25 not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.

Over the past two weeks we’ve been exploring this passage in Hebrews 10 that exhorts us to draw near to God, to take advantage of the reality that we can have a relationship with God that is more constant and immediate than even the Old Testament high priest enjoyed under the Old Covenant.

In the process of encouraging this access into God’s presence, our writer emphasizes their “full assurance of faith” (v. 22), the “confession of our hope” (v. 23) and considering “how to stir up one another to love and good works” (v. 24).  Like Paul, the author of Hebrews sees faith, hope and love as key characteristics of the Christian disciple’s life.  These three virtues are what we should aim for.

You must have noticed that Scripture links faith, hope and love, and groups them together again and again.  Hope is the middle term between faith and love.  Hope keeps faith from collapsing under the burden of disappointment and delay.  Hope keeps love from dissolving under the acids of frustration.  Hope fortifies love and lends it resilience.  Hope stiffens faith and forestalls collapse. (You Asked for a Sermon on Hope, March 1999, www.victorshepherd.on.ca.)

These three virtues support each other.

Here is the passage we are exploring (Hebrews 10:19-25):

19 Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, 20 by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, 21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. 23 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. 24 And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, 25 not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.

The readers of this epistle were in danger of forsaking their confession of Jesus Christ by going back to the Old Covenant system of animal sacrifices.  The writer does not exhort them to hold on to their salvation, because their security was in Christ and not themselves (Heb. 7:25).

The second admonition is the one our author emphasizes so strongly in this epistle.  Since Christ has consecrated a new and living way in which we can walk before people in the world (v. 20), we should continue in it. This exhortation to “hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering” has already been made in 4:4 (“Let us hold fast our confession”) and finds earlier echoes in the solemn admonition of 3:6, “if indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope,” and 3:14, “we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end.”  He has already expressed the desire that his readers should show earnestness “to have the full assurance of hope until the end” (6:11) and has drawn their attention to the encouragement which is ours, who have found refuge in the promise of God, to seize “a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain” (6:19).

Humans seek after hope like moths seek after light. It’s intrinsic to who we are. Neuroscientists Tali Sharot argues hope is so essential to our survival that it is hardwired into our brains, arguing it can be the difference between living a healthier life versus one trapped by despair.

• Studies show hopeful college kids get higher GPA’s and are more likely to graduate.
• Hopeful athletes perform better on the field, cope better with injuries, and have greater mental adjustment when situations change.
• In one study of the elderly, those who said they felt hopeless were more than twice as likely to die during the study follow-up period than those who were more hopeful.

It’s pretty clear: hope is powerfully catalytic, and why Dr. Shane Lopez, the psychologist who was regarded as the world’s leading researcher on hope, claimed that hope isn’t just an emotion but an essential life tool (Drake Baer, “What Good Is Hope?,” The Cut (12-27-16)

Hope is vital to our emotional survival.  In Man’s Search for Meaning, psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl articulates the necessity of hope through his time spent as a prisoner at various concentration camps during WWII.  He supplied one particularly poignant example: between Christmas 1944 and New Year’s 1945 the camp’s sick ward experienced a death rate “beyond all previous experience,” not due to a food shortage or worse living conditions, but because, “the majority of the prisoners had lived in the naïve hope that they would be home again by Christmas.”  When this hope was unmet, prisoners found no reason to continue holding on, nothing to look forward to. When a mind lets go, so does its body.

As oxygen is to the body, so is hope to the soul.  Hope is like a trapeze artist who hopes the hands will be there to catch him.  There is a confident assurance as he lets go his secure perch and flies through the air, but there is also a momentary gap as he hurtles through the air and just prior to the connection of the hands of safety and security.  It is in that time of hurtling that you find hope.

Hopelessness, on the other hand, is the lot of the honest secularist. Bertrand Russell gave it famous expression in his book A Free Man’s Worship :

. . . the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of Man’s achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins . . . only within the scaffolding of the truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul’s habitation henceforth be safely built (Bertrand Russell, A Free Man’s Worship , in Mysticism and Logic (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1929), pp. 47, 48).

The “firm foundation of unyielding despair”?  It doesn’t sound very firm to the ear, or to the logical mind.

Most people, however, are not as cerebral as philosopher Russell. They base their lives, rather, on a vague, shapeless, subjective hope. Professor William M. Marston of New York University asked three thousand people, “What have you to live for?” He was shocked to discover that 94 percent were simply enduring the present while they waited for the future . . . waited for “something to happen” . . . waited for “next year” . . . waited for a “better time” . . . waited for “someone to die” . . . waited “for tomorrow” (James S. Hewitt, Illustrations Unlimited (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 1988), p. 291).

So many people live on so little, surviving in this world, just putting one foot in front of the other as they depend on unsubstantiated, ungrounded “hope.”

The most important thing about hope is the object of our hope.  If we place our hope in things that are temporal and always changing, we will constantly be disappointed.  Even other humans can frequently disappoint us.  Our hope is built upon Jesus Christ and the unchanging character and promises of God.

But what is biblical hope?  A Christian’s hope has objective substance.  The hope that our text commends here in verse 23 is a conscious reference back to the writer’s statement in 6:19, 20—“We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf.”  It is grounded in the life, death, resurrection, ascension, enthronement, and intercession of our Lord Jesus Christ.  It is anchored at the right hand of God.  It is so substantial and real that it is called an “anchor.”

No ancient or modern sailor who knows what can happen during an ocean voyage would go to sea in a ship that carried no anchor, even today and even if the ship were the greatest and most modern vessel afloat.  Every sailor knows that situations might arise when the hope of the ship and all her company will depend not on the captain, the crew, the engines, the compass, or the rudder, but on the anchor.  When all else fails, there is hope in the anchor.  It was so easy for Christians to appropriate this as their symbol because its very shape uses the form of the cross.

The anchor that grounds the Christian’s hope and provides stability through the storms of life, are the promises of God, thus our author refers back to God, saying “he who promised is faithful.”

Christians can hold fast to their hope in this way because behind it is a God in whom they can have full confidence.  God is thoroughly to be relied on.  When he makes a promise, that promise will infallibly be kept.  He has taken the initiative in making the promise, and he will fulfill his purposes in making it.  (Frank E. Gæbelein, Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Vol. 12, 104)

Christian hope, biblical hope is “a confident expectation and desire for something good in the future.” And from that definition we can see three things that must be true about something if it indeed is to be the object of biblical hope. 1. What we hope for must be something good. 2. What we hope for must be in the future. 3. What we hope for must be certain, not doubtful, so that our expectation of its coming to pass may be confident, not wavering. (Sermon, Our Hope, Eternal Life, June 29, 1986, www.DesiringGod.org).

“Hope” points to the certain, but not yet realized, promises of God.  Christian hope is not wishful thinking.  We can be certain, because “He who promised is faithful.”  Peter warns us that in the last days, mockers will taunt us, “Where is the promise of His coming?” But they fail to notice that with the Lord, one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day. The day of the Lord will come like a thief, bringing with it His inescapable judgment.  Peter concludes that in light of these certainties, we ought to be people of holy conduct and godliness (2 Pet. 3:3-13).  Even if we face martyrdom, we can still have hope in the promises of our faithful God.

We have a “hope” that is grounded in what God has revealed about his gracious purposes for us in Jesus. This “hope” entails not only our present salvation but our future glory in Christ. 

It is because God is faithful to keep His promises that we can have hope.  Wayne Grudem defines God’s faithfulness as meaning “that God will always do what He has said and fulfill what He has promised.”  He does this without fail because He is faithful.  God’s faithfulness is not affected negatively by our unfaithfulness (cf. 2 Tim. 2:13).  A. W. Pink declares, “To every declaration of promise or prophecy the Lord has exactly adhered, every engagement of covenant or threatening He will make good.”

Pink goes on to say…

There are seasons in the lives of all when it is not easy, no not even for Christians, to believe that God is faithful.  Our faith is sorely tried, our eyes bedimmed with tears, and we can no longer trace the outworkings of His love.  Our ears are distracted with the noises of the world, harassed by the atheistic whisperings of Satan, and we can no longer hear the sweet accents of His still small voice.  Cherished plans have been thwarted, friends on whom we relied have failed us, a profest brother or sister [ by that he means, someone who publicly claims their allegiance] in Christ [and a Christian at that!] has betrayed us.  We are staggered.  We sought to be faithful to God, and now a dark cloud hides Him from us.  We find it difficult, yea, impossible, for carnal reason to harmonize His frowning providence with His gracious promises.

But God is ever faithful, so that Lamentations 3:23, in the very midst of the destruction of Jerusalem, the seeming failure of God’s promises, says, “great is your faithfulness.”  And Jeremiah goes on to say in verse 24, “”The LORD is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.”

Study the references on the word “promise” in this Epistle, and see what a large place they take in God’s dealings with His people, and learn how much your life depends on your relation to the promises.  Connect the promises…with the promiser; connect the promiser with His unchanging faithfulness as God, and your hope will become a glorying in God, through Jesus Christ our Lord.  (Andrew Murray, The Holiest of All, 391)

It is vital that we place our faith and our hope in the “promises” of God, he “who is faithful.”  The promises of mankind will not last.

Thus, because God is faithful, we can hold on to our hope “without wavering” (Heb. 10:24).  “The Greek word translated in this way is used only here in the New Testament and is based on the idea of an upright object not inclining at all from the true perpendicular. There is not place in the Christian experience for a hope that is firm at one time and shaky at another.” (Donald Guthrie, Hebrews, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries).

Because God is faithful “without fail,” we can hold on “without wavering.”  We can hang on no matter how hard the winds blow or how high the waves get.

The most important thing that we can do, the way that we “stir up one another to love and good works” (Heb. 10:24) is by repeating to one another, reminding one another, of the promises of God.  We remind ourselves of the narratives of Scripture in which, though all hope seemed lost, God kept His promises; though His people were unfaithful, yet He remained faithful.

The phrase ‘confession of hope’ is remarkable. The Apostle substitutes for the more general word ‘faith,’ that word which gives distinctness to special objects of faith to be realized in the future. Hope gives a definite shape to the absolute confidence of Faith. Faith reposes completely in the love of God: Hope vividly anticipates that God will fulfill His promises in a particular way. (Brooke Foss Westcott, ed., The Epistle to the Hebrews the Greek Text with Notes and Essays, 3d ed., Classic Commentaries on the Greek New Testament (London: Macmillan, 1903), 325–326).

Faith and hope ever go together.  “Faith is the substance of things hoped for.”  Faith accepts the promise in its divine reality, hope goes forward to examine and picture and rejoice in the treasures which faith has accepted.  And so here, on the words Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, there follows immediately, Let us hold fast the confession of our hope.  Life in the Holiest, in the nearness of God, must be characterized by an infinite hopefulness.  (Andrew Murray, The Holiest of All, 389)

The living God has promised, and for this reason Peter speaks of the “living hope” to which, by God’s great mercy, we have been born anew through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead (1 Pet. 1:3).  Declension from the confession of this hope (the dire consequences of which are described in vv. 26ff) is eloquent both of the deficiency of personal commitment to our utterly trustworthy God and of deficiency of comprehension regarding the character of God and his unfailing faithfulness (Philip Edgecombe Hughes, A Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews, p. 414).

We are told not to lose hope nor waver because “He who promised is faithful”.  We have no idea what will happen tomorrow or today, we do not know if things will get worse or better, but praise be to God, this one thing we know: “God is faithful” (1 Cor 1:9; 10:13), “Christ is faithful” (Hebrews 3:6), “The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. “The LORD is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him” (Lamentations 3:22-24).  “He who calls you is faithful; He will surely do it” (1 Thess 5:24), and “He who promised is faithful” (Heb 10:23).  Our God is faithful; therefore let us continue in faith.  Let us by faith hold fast to our confession of hope in Jesus Christ.

In his blog, Major Dalton dives deeply into the nature of hope:

Authentic hope is a hard thing to kill.  In the heart of the one who knows that outcome is not driven by perception or circumstance, hope may just be immortal.

In the 8th installment of the Star Wars saga, Kylo Ren, son of Han Solo & Princess Leia, has embraced the Dark Side of the force and bowed to the power of a Sith Lord named Snoke.  Donned in a black robe and helmet like his grandfather Lord Vader, Ren believes he has crushed the rebellion once and for all. But Snoke knows better.

Returning from an apparent victory for the Dark Side, Ren is chastised by his master.

Snoke: “You are no Vader. You’re just a child in a mask.”
Kylo Ren: “I gave everything I had to you; to the Darkside.”
Snoke: “Skywalker lives. The seed of the Jedi lives. As long as he does, hope exists.”

Rebellions will live as long as they are led. It is true in the Star Wars universe. It is true in ours as well.

Some people live as though hope is a concept reserved to the “long ago,” or relegated to a “galaxy far away.”  Hate reigns, lies rule, and fear sits as a monarch in the hearts of those who have surrendered to despair. But there is a rebellion subverting hate, lies, and fear.  A counter-cultural existence led by a lowly Galilean carpenter. Some believe he died long ago. But he lives! And because he lives, hope exists!

So, the real question is not; “Is there hope?” There is hope in the universe! We only have to ask; “Is there hope in what we are presently trusting?”

In what are you trusting—the promises of men or the promises of God?  It makes all the difference.

The byline of the old Star Trek program went like this, spoken by William Shatner, who played Captain James Tiberius Kirk.

Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds; to seek out new life and new civilizations; to boldly go where no man has gone before!

The passage we are studying in Hebrews encourages us to boldly go into the very presence of the transcendent, absolutely holy, almighty God.  Our boldness comes not because we are worthy at all, but because Jesus Christ has made a way into God’s presence through His death on the cross.  The author of Hebrews is thus encouraging his readers to take advantage of this glorious privilege and to not return to the old system of sacrifices and priests where only the high priest could enter God’s presence, and that only once a year!

19 Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, 20 by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, 21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. 23 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. 24 And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, 25 not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.

We looked last week at the access we have in vv. 19-20, and today we’re going to look at the advocacy we have in vv. 21-22 through “a great priest,” Jesus Christ.  Our confidence in our access to God is especially strong because of the advocate we have.

The book of Hebrews has been developing this great theological truth that Jesus Christ is the “great priest,” one better than all the others.  “By offering Himself as the sacrifice for our sins, He fulfilled everything connected with the Levitical priesthood.  Beyond that, Jesus is a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek (Heb. 5 & 7).  In that role, He surpasses the Levitical priests.  He abides forever at the right hand of God to intercede for His people (7:25)”

(https://bible.org/seriespage/lesson-29-putting-your-position-practice-hebrews-1019-25 )

See this access and advocacy, the dual sources of our confidence, together.  See what strength they bring. Jesus is both the curtain (our access) and the priest (our advocate).  His torn body and shed blood provides our access to the presence of the Father.  And in our access he is our perpetual priestly advocate.

Listen to Paul’s bold confidence:

If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. (Romans 8:31–34)

[But] if a person tries to go into God’s presence based on his own character, his own works, or his own religious affiliation, he will find no access.  He will certainly not have access on the basis of a mere verbal profession of Christ.  “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven; but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven.  Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’  And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness’” (Mt 7:21-23).  (John MacArthur Jr., The MacArthur NT Commentary: Hebrews, 260)

On the basis of our access and advocate, it is possible for us to enter the presence of a holy God, so his exhortation is “let us draw near.”  We can “draw near” because several issues are settled.  The problem of access to God has been settled.  The problem of a perfect High Priest has been settled.  The problem of moral and spiritual pollution has been settled.

Jesus Christ is the “great priest over the house of God.  The house (or household) of God refers to the whole family of God (cf. 3:6).  In the OT, God’s “house” referred exclusively to his people, the Jews.  But under the new covenant, God’s “house” refers to all who believe in Jesus Christ as Savior, accepting his sacrifice for their sins–whether they are Jews or Gentiles.  Over this house rules “a great priest” (Jesus Christ) who opened the way into God’s presence.  As the perfect Mediator, Christ accompanies Christians into the very throne room of God.  (Bruce Barton, Life Application Bible Commentary: Hebrews, 159)

God does not dwell in tabernacles or temples made by human hands, but in the hearts of His people. Individually, but in a greater sense, corporately, we are the temple of the living God (1 Cor. 3:16; 6:19; 2 Cor. 6:16).  Paul uses this great truth to drive home our need for holiness.

With that dual basis for drawing near to God settled, our author next indicates how we should draw near: “with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.”

First, one must draw near with a “true [or sincere] heart in full assurance of faith.”  The “heart” represents the whole inner life. There must be inner sincerity from one’s whole being. One must be true, completely genuine, “wholehearted” (Moffatt).  Commentators have noted that although the language is different, the sixth Beatitude carries the same idea, where we are called to be “pure in heart” (Matthew 5:8).  There are to be no mixed motives or divided loyalties.  There must be pure and unmixed devotion, sincere love for God.  And God, who knows our hearts (1 Kings 8:39; 1 Chron. 28:9; 1 Samuel 16:7; Psalm 38:9; 139:2-4; Proverbs 21:2, sees that it is true.

When Jesus said, “God knows your heart” in Luke 16:15, He was speaking to the Pharisees—men who did live double lives.  Outwardly, they sought public approval.  They made a point of following all the religious rules and worked hard to impress people so that they would appear to be godly and wise.  But God knew their hearts.  He saw through their phony, pious displays to what was on the inside.

Jesus’ challenge to these hypocritical leaders is the same for His followers today.  We must be careful not to simply honor the Lord with our lips while we live like the world because our hearts are far from Him (Matthew 15:8; Isaiah 29:13).  We need to focus on cleaning up the inside of our spiritual houses, dealing with our sinful attitudes and misguided motives.

Our commitment to Jesus Christ must be “all in,” placing our hope only in Christ and fully in Christ, and nothing else.

Can you imagine a tightrope stretched over a quarter of a mile and spanning the breadth of Niagara Falls?  The thundering sound of the pounding water drowning out all other sounds as you watch a man step onto the rope and walk across!

This stunning feat made Charles Blondin famous in the summer of 1859.  He walked 160 feet above the falls several times back and forth between Canada and the United States as huge crowds on both sides looked on with shock and awe.  Once he crossed in a sack, once on stilts, another time on a bicycle, and once he even carried a stove and cooked an omelet!

On July 15, Blondin walked backward across the tightrope to Canada and returned pushing a wheelbarrow.

The Blondin story is told that it was after pushing a wheelbarrow across while blindfolded that Blondin asked for some audience participation.  The crowds had watched and “Ooooohed” and “Aaaaahed!”  He had proven that he could do it; of that, there was no doubt.  But now he was asking for a volunteer to get into the wheelbarrow and take a ride across the Falls with him!

It is said that he asked his audience, “Do you believe I can carry a person across in this wheelbarrow?”  Of course, the crowd shouted that yes, they believed!

It was then that Blondin posed the question – “Who will get in the wheelbarrow?’

Of course…none did.

But that is what faith is.  It is complete, unwavering trust, completely depending upon Someone Else.

God sees what is done in secret.  His eyes “range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him” (2 Chronicles 16:9).  He knows the motives behind every action because He knows every human heart (1 Kings 8:39; Acts 1:24; 15:8).  Since God knows our hearts, we ought to always live to please Him alone and not worry about impressing people.

And this is how we are to draw near to God in prayer—real, genuine, absorbed.  The preacher sees this as being of key importance to those who are being distracted by the menacing waves.  He knows that essential to their survival is the ability to perpetually come to God in prayer that is sincere and wholehearted, true and engaged.  If they do this, they will emerge victorious.  They must prayerfully “draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith.”  The wisdom of this exhortation is as relevant and necessary today as it was in the first century.

Sam Storms reminds us…

We are to draw near “with a true heart in full assurance of faith” (10:22).  By a “true” or “genuine” heart he means a heart that does not come trying to fool God or acting as if we deserve to be in his presence.  It is the opposite of a hypocritical and insincere heart.  I’m constantly amazed by people who think they can fool God by pretending to love him and pretending to praise him, as if God is hoodwinked by our religiosity. 

And the “assurance of faith” of which he speaks doesn’t point so much to the subjective feelings you experience, as if you can’t draw near to God if you ever have doubts about your salvation.  No.  Rather, the assurance we experience is the confidence that Christ has done everything necessary to make our entrance into God’s presence a glorious privilege that we can embrace and enjoy without hesitation.

The author will devote chapter 11 to this theme.  He says there, “Without faith it is impossible to please [God]” (11:6).  Faith is both God’s gift and our responsibility.  Faith rests on the promises of God.  We are saved through faith (Eph. 2:8) and we are to live our lives by faith (Col. 2:6).  Our faith is not a mindless, blind leap in the dark.  Faith rests upon the person and work of Jesus Christ, which the author has been expounding on from the start.  The better we know Him as revealed in His Word, the more we will trust Him.  The more we trust Him in the difficult matters of our lives, the more we prove His faithfulness and that enables us to trust Him the next time.

The next two factors in the way that we draw near to God involves the images of sprinkling and washing, both meant to reflect the idea of something that has been cleansed from defilement.  Notice it is first “with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and [then] our bodies washed with pure water.”  There is an inward washing that precedes the outward washing of the body.

This sprinkling of your heart that cleans your conscience has already been accomplished.  It refers to what Christ achieved for you by his death and resurrection.  It doesn’t mean you have to feel clean to come to God, although you can.  It means that you rest confidently that you are clean because of Christ’s cleansing power!

William Lane, in his Word Biblical Commentary, points out…

“… the specific imagery of the ‘sprinkling of the heart from a burdened conscience’ has been anticipated in 9:18-22.  There the writer reminded the community of the action of Moses, who sprinkled the people with blood during the ratification of the old covenant at Sinai.  The thought that Christians have been made participants in the new covenant by the blood of Christ is forcefully expressed in the immediate context (v 19).  This suggests that the ‘sprinkling with respect to the heart’ in v 22b is to be associated with Jesus’ inauguration of the new covenant through his death …” (Hebrews 9—13, p. 287).

In fact, in Ezekiel’s explanation of the New Covenant promises, in the first of the promises that we Christians experience under the New Covenant, he says…

I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. (Ezekiel 36:25)

There’s the image of cleansing, providing forgiveness of sins.  The next verse introduces the transformed heart that we will receive.

And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. (Ezekiel 36:26)

“Again and again the High Priest bathes himself in the laver of clear water.  But these things were ineffective to remove the real pollution of sin.  Only Jesus can really cleanse a man.  His is no external purification; by his presence and his Spirit he cleanses the inmost thoughts and desires of a man until he is really clean” (William Barclay, The Daily Study Bible Series, Hebrews, 120).  “Only Jesus can cleanse a man’s heart.  By His Spirit He cleanses the innermost thoughts and desires”  (John MacArthur Jr., The MacArthur NT Commentary: Hebrews, 263).

The reference to the “bodies washed with pure water” (v. 22) may be to water baptism as the outward sign of inward cleansing (cf. 1 Pet. 3:21).  However the radical cleansing that water baptism symbolizes (i.e., regeneration) may be primarily in view (cf. Ezek. 36:25; John 3:5; Eph. 5:26; Tit. 3:5-6).

So the analogy is that just as real water washes our bodies clean from dirt and grime so the spiritual water of God’s mercy and grace washes our hearts and souls clean from the guilt and shame of our sin.

You may be greatly burdened by your sin and miserable because of recent failures, but you can draw near to God when you say: 

“As bad and pathetic as my life currently is, by faith I lay claim to the cleansing power of Christ’s blood that washes me white as snow.  Shut up conscience! Speak no more to me of the evil I have done.  I know it all too well.  But Christ has washed my conscience clean.  Praise God!  So I will draw near to him to find all I need.”

The boldness with which we are to enter is not, first of all, a conscious feeling of confidence; it is the objective God-given right and liberty of entrance of which the blood assures us.  The measure of our boldness is the worth God attaches to the blood of Jesus.  As our heart reposes its confidence on that in simple faith, the feeling of confidence and joy on our part will come too, and our entrance will be amid songs of praise and gladness.  (Andrew Murray, The Holiest of All, 358)

It is ever the Holy Spirit’s work to turn our eyes away from self:  to Jesus:  but Satan’s work is just the opposite of this, for he is constantly trying to make us regard ourselves instead of Christ.  He insinuates, “Your sins are too great for pardon; you have no faith; you do not repent enough; you will never be able to continue to the end; you have not the joy of his children; you have such a wavering hold of Jesus.”  All these are thoughts about self, and we shall never find comfort or assurance by looking within.  But, the Holy Spirit turns our eyes entirely away from self:  he tells us that we are nothing, but that “Christ is all in all.”  Remember, therefore, it is not your hold of Christ that saves you—it is Christ; it is not your joy in Christ that saves you—it is Christ; it is not even faith in Christ, though that be the instrument—it is Christ’s blood and merits; therefore, look not so much to your hand with which you art grasping Christ, as to Christ; look not to your hope, but to Jesus, the source of your hope; look not to your faith, but to Jesus, the author and finisher of your faith.  We shall never find happiness by looking at our prayers, our doings, or our feelings; it is what Jesus is, not what we are, that gives rest to the soul.  If we would at once overcome Satan and have peace with God, it must be by “Looking unto Jesus.”  Keep your eye simply on him; let his death, his sufferings, his merits, his glories, his intercession, be fresh upon your mind; when you wake in the morning look to him; when you lie down at night look to him.  Do not let your hopes or fears come between you and Jesus; follow hard after him, and he will never fail you.  (Alistair Begg quoting Charles. H. Spurgeon in Pathway to Freedom, 228-9)

It is in the very act of entering into God’s presence that proves that we have a true heart, a cleansed heart.

God calls us to come into His presence, all the way in to the Holy of Holies.  The veil has been torn and the blood of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, has been shed, paying the penalty for our sins.  He calls us to come close, but He first drew near to us and dwelt among us, “full of grace and truth.”

After a serious car accident in Venezuela, Carlos Camejo was pronounced dead at the scene.  Officials released the body to the morgue and a routine autopsy was ordered.  But as soon as examiners began the autopsy, they realized something was gravely amiss: the body was bleeding.  They quickly stitched up the wounds to stop the bleeding, which in turn, jarred the man to consciousness.  Camejo said, “I woke up because the pain was unbearable.”  Equally jarred awake was Camejo’s wife, who came to the morgue to identify her husband’s body and instead found him in the hallway—alive.

Enlivened with images from countless forensic television shows, the scene comes vividly to life.  Equally vivid is the scientific principle in the morgue.  Sure, blood is ubiquitous with work in a morgue; but the dead do not bleed.  This is a sign of the living.

Thought and practice in Old Testament times revolved around a similar understanding—namely, the life is in the blood.  For the ancient Hebrew, there was a general understanding that in our blood is the essence of what it means to be alive.  There is life in the blood; there is energy and power.

This notion of blood and its power can also be seen in the language of sacrifice and offering found throughout Near Eastern culture.  Just as it was understood that the force of life exists in the blood, there was a general understanding of the human need for the power of perfect blood, a need in our lives for atoning and cleansing.  The blood of a living sacrifice made this possible temporarily, but God would provide a better way.

When Christianity speaks of Christ as the Lamb of God, it is a description [of the One] whose blood cries out with enough life and power to reach every person, every sorrow, every shortfall, every evil.  He is the Lamb who comes to the slaughter alive and aware, on his own accord, and with his blood covers us with life.  There is life in the blood of Christ, whose entire life is self-giving love; there is power, and he has freely sacrificed all to bring it near.

The Christian story tells of a time when we will bow before the slain Lamb who stands very much alive, though bearing the scars of his own death.  He is not dead and buried, but beckoning a broken world to his wounded side, offering love and life, mercy and power in blood poured out for you.

Some individuals have sought to rid Christianity of blood language, speaking only about Jesus’s love instead.  The blood of Christ, however, is integral to Christian theology.  If we lose the language of blood, we lose the gospel. The hymn “There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood” by William Cowper captures the role of Christ’s blood beautifully:

There is a fountain filled with blood

drawn from Immanuel’s veins,

and sinners plunged beneath that flood

lose all their guilty stains.

As our author in Hebrews begins the exhortatory part of his letter, he says…

19 Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, 20 by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, 21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. 23 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. 24 And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, 25 not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.

In making transition from instruction (1:1-10:18) to exhortation (10:19-13:25), the preacher assumes that the foregoing ten chapters, truly believed, ought to have produced a profound dual confidence: confidence in one’s access to God, and confidence in one’s advocate before God.

“This paragraph is actually a single sentence of continuous admonition, applying the truths developed in the letter and with all this in mind.  The first part (vv. 19–21) is causal (“since”), summing up God’s great gift from 5:1–10:18 with two privileges—first, what Christ has done for us (vv. 19–20, the bold entrance he has effected into the most holy place in the heavenly sanctuary); and second, what Christ has become for us (v. 21: “a great priest over the house of God”).  The author informs us what we have in Christ and then what we should do with it. This latter comes to us via commands (vv. 22–25), a string of three hortatory subjunctives (“let us” commands), which enumerate our responsibility.  Interestingly, the three center on the three main blessings—draw near in faith (v. 22), hold firmly onto hope (v. 23), and spur one another to love (vv. 24–25)” (Grant R. Osborne and George H. Guthrie, Hebrews: Verse by Verse, Osborne New Testament Commentaries (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2021), 209.)

Faith, hope and love, of course, are the great triumvirate of 1 Corinthians 13:13 and also were qualities that Paul looked for in all his churches.

“No old covenant worshipper would have been bold enough to try to enter the Holy of Holies in the tabernacle.  Even the high priest entered the Holy of Holies only once a year.  The thick veil that separated the holy place from the Holy of Holies was a barrier between people and God.  Only the death of Christ could tear that veil (Mark 15:38) and open the way into the heavenly sanctuary where God dwells” (Warren Wiersbe, The Wiersbe Bible Commentary: New Testament, p. 832).

Now, however, the author of Hebrews gives them three gracious invitations: “Let us draw near…” (v. 22), “let us hold fast…” (v. 23), “and let us consider…” (v. 24).  This threefold invitation is based upon our confidence to “enter the holy places.”  And this confidence rests upon the finished work of Christ.  We enter not through the blood of bulls and goats, but through the blood of Jesus Christ…into the very presence of God.

Our paragraph starts with the word “therefore,” indicating that this exhortation is based upon the realities that our author has established—the Christ is a better high priest offering a better sacrifice in a better tabernacle by a better covenant.  “In view of all that has been accomplished for us by Christ, he says, let us confidently approach God in worship, let us maintain our Christian confession and hope, let us help one another by meeting together regularly for mutual encouragement, because the day which we await will soon be here” (F. F. Bruce, The Epistle to the Hebrews, p. 244).

Do you remember what we saw in the last few weeks in vv. 14 and 17? 

“For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified” (Heb. 10:14).

Therefore, draw near to God!

“I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more” (Heb. 10:17).

Therefore, draw near to God!

As he begins, he assumes matter-of-factly in the opening phrase that his hearers have a proper confidence in their divine access: “Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh . . .” (vv. 19, 20).  Their confident access comes from the torn curtain of Christ’s crucified body.  The rending of Jesus’ flesh on the cross, which brought his death, perpetrated a simultaneous tearing from top to bottom of the curtain that had barred the way into the Holy of Holies (Matthew 27:51).  Now they walked confidently through the torn curtain of Christ, so to speak, into the presence of the Father.

Charles Spurgeon so eloquently says…

“For believers the veil is not rolled up, but rent.  The veil was not unhooked, and carefully folded up, and put away, so that it might be put in its place at some future time.  Oh, no!  But the divine hand took it and rent it front top to bottom.  It can never be hung up again; that is impossible.  Between those who are in Christ Jesus and the great God, there will never be another separation.”

Paul in Romans 8:38-39 encourages us:

38 For I am sure [that’s that confidence again] that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The inner courts of Herod’s Temple were accessible by 10 gates, through which only Jews could enter.  Inside there were several chambers and a courtyard where sacrifices were made.  At one end was the holy place, with the Holy of Holies separated by the curtain.

Whereas before they could only have surrogate access through the high priest, who slipped behind the curtain once a year for a heart-pounding few minutes, they now had permanent access through the blood and torn body of Christ.

https://nearemmaus.wordpress.com/2012/07/28/herods-temple/

This confidence lay in nothing that we have done—no amount of good deeds, not even a sincere heart—it has everything to do with what Christ has done for us, shedding His own blood.  This nicely complemented the preacher’s earlier encouragement: “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need” (4:16). They had deep confidence in their access to God” R. Kent Hughes, Hebrews: An Anchor for the Soul, vol. 2, Preaching the Word (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1993), 30.

“Drawing near” has been the concern of the plan of God ever since Adam and Eve were kicked out of the Garden of Eden.  How can sinful man recapture the joys of fellowship with God?  The key question, asked in Psalm 15:1 by David was “O LORD, who shall sojourn in your tent?  Who shall dwell on your holy hill?”  In other words, who can meet with God?  Well, the answer for centuries was through the tabernacle and then through the temple.  But now a “new and living way” has been opened up for us to have fellowship with God. 

Drawing near to God has been the chief concern of the author of Hebrews.  On three other occasions in Hebrews where our author encourages us to draw near.

“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” (Heb. 4:16).

“Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them” (Heb. 7:25).

“And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him” (Heb. 11:6).

There are several other NT texts that affirm the same thing, two of which are:

“For through him [i.e., through Christ] we both [i.e., believing Jews and believing Gentiles] have access in one Spirit to the Father” (Eph. 2:18).

“For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God” (1 Peter 3:18a).

Now, there are many people who are off limits.  The president, for one.  Supreme court justices.  Actors and actresses often have bodyguards, as do professional sports figures.  But listen to this:  the infinitely transcendent, more-important-than-anyone-else, almighty God of this universe, not only is approachable, but makes Himself approachable by the sacrifice of His one-and-only precious Son.

And we can approach Him boldly.

This boldness is a complete contrast to the way the High Priest entered the Holy Place under the Old Covenant.  “He went with fear and trembling, because, if he had neglected the smallest item prescribed by the law, he could expect nothing but death.  Genuine believers can come even to the throne of God with confidence, as they carry into the Divine presence the infinitely meritorious blood of the great atonement; and, being justified through that blood, they have a right to all the blessings of the eternal kingdom.” (Clarke)

The tense of the verb shows that we have this confidence as a continuing blessing.  It never fades or disappears.  We can never forfeit it or lose it.

We can enter God’s presence and fellowship with Him by means of “the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh” (Heb. 10:20).  Christ’s sacrifice provided a new and living way compared with the old, and now dead, way of the Old Covenant.  “The way” in this verse is not Jesus Himself, in the sense of Jesus being the way to salvation (John 14:6).  It is, rather, the way of direct access that Jesus opened for us through His death into God’s presence.

“The way to God is both ‘new’ and ‘living.’ It is ‘new’ because what Jesus has done has created a completely new situation, ‘living’ because that way is indissolubly bound up with the Lord Jesus himself” (Leon Morris, p. 103).

It is wonderful to have this real, anytime and anywhere access to God.  Sam Storms mentions several advantages to enjoying the immediate presence of God, that I want to close with today.

To draw near to God means that we have these privileges and blessings:

Prayer: God wants us to tell him everything; to cry out with our complaints and our needs and our gratitude and our confusion and our hopes for the future.

Fellowship: God wants to walk with us in a relationship of intimacy and openness such that when we sin, we would never think of running from him in fear but to him in faith.

Power: To draw near to God is to be a recipient of his power; to experience the very power that raised Jesus from the dead and exalted him to the right hand of the Father (Eph. 1:19ff.).

Protection: When we draw near to God, we enjoy his protection; we avail ourselves of the promise that no weapon formed against us can ultimately cause any harm; to draw near to God is to know and rest assured that “if God is for us, who can be against us?”

Enjoyment: Paul says in Romans 5:11 that because we have been reconciled to God through Jesus, we “rejoice in God.”  To draw near to God is to freely and openly and sincerely rejoice in his goodness and greatness and every other truth about him that we know.

Pleasures: In Psalm 16:11 we are told explicitly why we should seek the presence of God, for there and there alone we find “fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore.” 

Hear his voice: We draw near to God when we are open to hearing him speak, first and foremost in and through Scripture but also in those tender communications from his Spirit to our spirit.

Manifest presence: To draw near to God is to experience in an almost tangible way a heightened sense of his presence. Of course, God is always and everywhere present with us but there are times when that presence is manifest or intensified and we are enabled by the Spirit to feel and enjoy and sense it in ways never before known. 

Communion with God: To draw near to God is what the Puritans used to call having “communion” with God; feeling his love, knowing his commitment to our welfare, resting in the peace that he brings.

And the most amazing thing about this privilege is that God is the one who makes this possible.  He wants us to draw near and He wants to bless us with these multiple blessings!

God is the good news of the gospel.  Getting him.  Knowing him.  Seeing him.  Savoring him.  Enjoying him.  Relishing him.  Being satisfied with all that he is for us in Jesus.  Experiencing God himself in his presence and power and majesty and love.  God himself as our faithful friend and constant companion and ever-present lover and Lord is the gospel!Says Piper:

“And all of this is for our joy and for his glory.  He does not need us. If we stay away he is not impoverished.  He does not need us in order to be happy in the fellowship of the Trinity.  But he magnifies his mercy by giving us free access through his Son, in spite of our sin, to the one Reality that can satisfy us completely and forever, namely, himself” (Piper, “Let us Draw Near to God,” March 23, 1997).

We can draw near to God because Jesus voluntarily shed His blood, His life-giving blood, in our behalf.  That, and that alone, provides complete and final forgiveness from sins.

Perhaps you wonder, “Why will the holiness and majestic beauty of God not consume me but rather, as you suggest, thrill me and bring unparalleled pleasure and joy?”  The answer is because the blood of Christ has been shed and we need never, ever again fear the wrath of God!

That confidence has nothing to do with whether we have lived a clean and good life, but whether we have entered the “new and living way.”

We have “confidence to enter the holy places,” that is, the immediate presence of God, because Jesus died and rose again! He opened up for us “the new and living way” through the curtain, that is, “through his flesh” (10:19b).  It is “new” because it was previously unavailable to those living under the Old Covenant.  Only those who are members of the New Covenant experience this privilege.  And it is “living” because it is access through a person who is alive, a person raised from the dead who always lives at the Father’s right hand to make intercession for us.  And it is “living” because it is life that is imparted to those who avail themselves of it.

We ended our last session on Hebrews talking about how the New Covenant takes God’s external law and writes it on our hearts.  That, plus the presence of the Holy Spirit and a new heart, enables us to obey the law wholeheartedly.

Those new covenant provisions are found in Hebrews 10:15-18, a quote from Jeremiah 31:33.

15 And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us; for after saying, 16 “This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws on their hearts, and write them on their minds,” 17 then he adds, “I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.” 18 Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin.”

It is the provisions of the New Covenant, spelled out in more detail in Ezekiel 36:25-27, that enables us to obey the law out of a sense of delight rather than duty.

25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. 26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.

God graciously gives us a “new heart, and a new spirit,” a “heart of flesh” that is responsive to God.  He puts His “Spirit within [us]” and these provisions “cause [us] to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.”  This new, Spirit-driven life within us, enables us to do what we could not do before—obey God from the heart (Rom. 6:17).

Shortly after the armistice of World War I, Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse visited the battlefields of Belgium.  In the first year of the war the area around the city of Mons was the scene of the great British retreat.  In the last year of the war it was the scene of the greater enemy retreat.  For miles west of the city the roads were lined with artillery, tanks, trucks, and other materials of war that the enemy had abandoned in their hasty flight.

It was a lovely spring day.  The sun was shining, and not a breath of wind was blowing.  As he walked along, examining the war remains, he noticed leaves were falling from the great trees that arched along the road.  He brushed at a leaf that had fallen against his chest.  As he grasped at it, he pressed it in his fingers, and it disintegrated.  He looked up curiously and saw several other leaves falling from the trees.  Remember, it was spring, not autumn, nor was there enough wind to blow off the leaves.  These leaves had outlived the winds of autumn and the frosts of winter.  Yet they were falling that day, seemingly without cause.

Then Dr. Barnhouse realized why.  The most potent force of all was causing them to fall.  It was spring—the sap was beginning to run, and the buds were beginning to push from within.  From down beneath the dark earth, roots were sending life along trunk, branch, and twig until it expelled every bit of deadness that remained from the previous year. It was, as a great Scottish preacher termed it, “the expulsive power of a new affection.”

This is what happens when God writes his will on our hearts.  The new life within pushes the deadness from our lives.  Our renewed hearts pump fresh blood through us.  The life of Christ in us—the same life that said “Behold, I have come to do your will, O God”—animates us!

The life that is inside—the empowering life of the Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ—now motivates us to will what Jesus willed, the will of God!

But how did we get to that position?  How is it that the law came to be written within us?  That is the second aspect—the eternal aspect of God’s forgiveness.

First, the sacrifice of Christ made the New Covenant possible.  The Lord said through Jeremiah, more completely quoted in Hebrews 8, that this internal empowering of life could come about For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more” (Hebrews 8:12)

It is a tremendous feeling to know that our sins have been totally forgiven.  We do not have to continue to feel guilty because of the sins of our past.  This verses say God “will remember [our] sins no more.”  The same is true of any sin I commit either today or tomorrow.  God will not remember it.

Clara Barton, organizer of the American Red Cross was known not to harbor resentments.  She was asked by a friend regarding an incident that had happened earlier to Clara, “Don’t you remember the wrong that was done you?”  Clara answered calmly, “No, I distinctly remember forgetting that!”

Clara Barton willed to forgive and forget.  But God does even better.  He really does forgive and forget—“I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.”

That that is exactly what God does; He chooses to remember it no more.  Do you believe you believe it?  Or do you truly believe it?  Believe it!

Sam Storms explains:

It’s important for us to remember that God does in fact “remember” many things and we should be grateful for it.  Frequently in the OT we are assured that God remembers his people, the promises he has given them, and especially the covenant that he has made with them (see Pss. 74:2; 105:8, 42; 106:45; 111:5).  But when it comes to our sins, well, that’s another matter!

You and I certainly remember our sins and evil deeds, all too often! We can’t shake free from them.  They nag at our hearts and haunt us and torment us and oppress our souls. There is a constant piercing of the conscience.  And the only way to break free from that remembrance is to remind ourselves that God does not remember!

God doesn’t gain knowledge. God doesn’t lose knowledge.  He neither learns nor forgets. He knows all things instantly and eternally, now and forever.  So, when he says he won’t remember our sins he means: “I’ll never bring it up and use it against you.  I’ll never take your sins into consideration when it comes to determining who is granted entrance into my eternal kingdom.  I’ll never appeal to your sins as grounds for condemning you.”

There is obviously a difference between “forgetting” and “choosing not to remember.”  Forgetting is unavoidable.  It happens by nature, not by choice.  You can’t choose to forget.  It just happens.  It doesn’t require any effort to “forget” something.  You get busy, distracted, tired, and things slip from your mind. 

This is not what happens to God. God cannot forget in the literal sense of the term and certainly not in the same way you and I do.  God doesn’t suffer from mental lapses.  His mind is infinitely perfect and powerful.  Rather, God willingly chooses “not to remember.”  Thus, it isn’t so much that the knowledge of our sins and lawless deeds has been erased from God’s mind.  Rather, God promises to us that he will “not remember” our shortcomings and sin.  He will not remind himself of our failures.  And he will not remind us of them.  They play no part in determining or shaping our relationship with him.  He will never throw them in our face or subtly drop hints about the ways we’ve failed. (https://www.samstorms.org/all-articles/post/when-god-chooses-not-to-remember-hebrews-101-18)

Because of the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ, God exercised His judgment against my sins against His Son, thereby making it possible for God to forgive me of my sins.  My sin record was wiped clean because Someone else paid for it.  That paved the way for God to give us His Spirit to dwell within His people, who then writes the laws of God upon our hearts (cf. Ezekiel 36:26-27; 2 Corinthians 3:3; Galatians 4:6).

Thus, because Christ did God’s will, doing what God wanted Him to do with the body that had been prepared for Him—living a perfectly obedient life, dying in our place on the cross—now we, having been forgiven, are enabled now to do God’s will, and to do it because we love God and love to obey Him.

Whereas Chapter 8 showed that the forgiveness preceded the internal aspect of the covenant, Chapter 10 shows that the forgiveness continues.  Christ not only makes the New Covenant possible; He also makes it eternal.

Our author further clarifies that not only our sins, but our “lawless deeds” are no longer remembered, showing that everything from sins to lawless deeds do not nullify His covenant towards us.  It is probably his way of saying that no kind of sin causes God to abandon His people once they belong to Him.

Literally, God says here that He will “no, not” remember their sins.  A double negative is poor English, but wonderful Greek!  It emphasizes this in such a way as to say, “there is no possible way that God will remember this or hold it to your account.”  It is impossible.  The sacrificial system stood there as a constant “reminder” of sins for people (Heb. 10:3), but the sacrifice of Jesus Christ causes God to “remember” them no more.  If God has forgotten our sins, then we can put them out of our minds.

Charles Spurgeon reminds us: “The Christ who died on Calvary’s cross, will not have to die again for my new sins, or to offer a fresh atonement for any transgressions that I may yet commit.  No; but, once for all, gathering up the whole mass of his people’s sins into one colossal burden, he took it upon his shoulders, and flung the whole of it into the sepulcher wherein Once he slept, and there it is buried, never to be raised again to bear witness against the redeemed any more for ever.”

Finally, the writer says, “Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin.”  Note the air of finality here—a completed sacrifice and complete forgiveness.  Where there is forgiveness of “sins and lawless deeds,” the summation of all our offenses against a holy God, then there is no longer any need for further offerings for sin because what those offerings pointed to—full and final forgiveness through the Lamb of God—has already been granted by the one offering of Jesus Christ on the cross.

The Old Testament sacrifices, in other words, are rendered worthless and obsolete.  What they pointed forward to has been fulfilled by Jesus Christ.  Through the cross, believers under the New Covenant receive God’s total forgiveness!  If you have total forgiveness in Christ, why go back to a system that could never provide that?

This text once again eliminates the unbiblical doctrines of purgatory and penance, because there is no longer any need for sacrificial actions that would merit forgiveness from God.  All of these unbiblical practices detract from the merit of what Christ did on the cross, devaluing His sacrificial death for us.

His death obtained total forgiveness for every believer.  His death perfected us for all time.  His death sanctifies us once for all.  His death completely takes away the guilt of our sins.

To believe in purgatory, a place in the afterlife in which we are “purged” of our impurities and sins, and to practice penance and indulgences is very much like going back to the old Jewish sacrificial system!

The work of Jesus for atonement is finished.  If it is not enough for us, then nothing will be.  “God has set forth Christ for you as guilty sinners to rest on; and if that is not enough for you, what more would you have?  Christ has offered himself, and died and suffered in our stead, and gone into his glory; and, if you cannot depend upon him, what more would you have him do?  Shall he come and die again?  You have rejected him once; you would reject him though he died twice.” (Spurgeon)

I’ve used this illustration before, but imagine a young man who falls in love, but he and his lover are separated by distance for a while.  He, however, has a beautiful photograph of her that he gazes at every day.  Finally, the two of them get married.  He still has the photo, but now he has something much better—her physical presence, a living, breathing, loving person.

But imagine one day, he starts behaving rather strangely.  He stands before his wife clutching that old photo to his chest.  He tells her, “I appreciate you but I’ve really missed your photo, so I’m going back to it.”  He passionately kisses the picture and goes out the door mumbling, “Oh, how I love you, dear photo.  You’re everything to me” (adapted from Kent Hughes, Hebrews: An Anchor for the Soul [Crossway], 2:19).  We would rightly conclude that this guys dipstick reads a quart low!

What folly to leave one’s living spouse for her lifeless portrait.  On the one hand, you “possess” a living person of so many inches, of a definite weight, with her own aroma, brimming with thought and action.  But you leave her for her lifeless photograph with its fixed and sealed expression.  What an absurd thought!

The fact that God will remember our sins no more, then, not only enables the New Covenant, it is a vital component of life in the New Covenant.  If we are to live as New Covenant followers of Jesus Christ, trusting, loving and obeying God, then we must grow in our understanding and appreciation of that fact that God forgives all sins all the time forevermore.  It is one of the things that the Holy Spirit, given to us as part of the New Covenant, communicates to our hearts.

Romans 5:5 tells us that one of the benefits of being justified by faith, rather than being justified by our own efforts, is that “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”

God wants us to enjoy Him and enjoy doing His will, and He provides everything we need in order to do that.  Joy is what the Old Covenant, working from the outside in, could never motivate.  But the Holy Spirit now lives inside us, showing us God’s full and forever forgiveness, God’s amazing grace towards us and God’s lavish love towards us, showing us God as He truly is, showing us His laws to be what they truly are (for our good, for our flourishing), leading us away from resentment into joyful gratitude.

If He truly is this kind of God, then doing His will becomes not a chore but a true delight.  His will can be trusted and enjoyed as we live in it.  If we know Him well, we will want to obey Him.  And if we know Him well, we will trust Him more.

An 85-year-old woman, looking back on her life, wished that it had been different.  In her words, it is evident that she longed for a New Covenant kind of life.  She wrote, in a note titled, “If I had my life to live over again”: “I’d like to make more mistakes next time.  I’d relax.  I would limber up.  I would be sillier than I’ve been this trip.  I would take fewer things seriously.  I would take more chances.  I would climb more mountains and swim more rivers.  I would eat more ice cream and less beans.  I would perhaps have more actual troubles, but I’d have fewer imaginary ones.  You see, I’m one of those people who live sensibly and sanely hour after hour, day after day.  Oh, I’ve had my moments, and if I had to do it over again, I’d have more of them.  In fact, I’d try to have nothing else.  Just moments, one after another, instead of living so many years ahead of each day.  I’ve been one of those persons who never goes anywhere without a thermometer, a hot water bottle, a raincoat and a parachute.  If I had to do it again, I would travel lighter.”

Because Christ did God’s will, culminating in the offering of His body on the cross as an effective and complete sacrifice for our sins, we ourselves may do God’s will, and enjoy doing it.  As the truth of God’s love for us settles in our hearts, communicated to us by the Holy Spirit, we too, like David, like Jesus, come to God, eagerly and willingly, and say, “Behold, I have come to do your will O God…”

“In the words, No more offering for sin, we reach the conclusion of the doctrinal part of this great epistle to the Hebrews.” (Philip Newell) What follows after is mainly exhortation.

The long section on the high priestly ministry of Jesus ends here (7:1—10:18).  Priestly ministry was such an important part of old Israelite worship that the writer has given it lengthy attention.   The writer showed that Jesus is a superior priest compared with the Levitical priests and that His priesthood supersedes (has replaced) the Levitical priesthood.  He also pointed out that Jesus serves under the New Covenant that is superior to the Old Covenant.  Furthermore, His sacrifice is superior to the animal sacrifices of the Old Covenant.  Finally, Jesus’ priesthood brings the believer into full acceptance with God, something that the former priesthood could not do.  It could not make us “perfect.”  Therefore, the readers would be foolish to abandon Christianity to return to Judaism.  Likewise, contemporary believers are also foolish to turn away from Christ and the gospel.

A young boy decided to read a book from the family library while his Christian mother was away.  While reading the book, he came across the phrase “the finished work of Christ.”  It struck him with unusual power. “The finished work of Christ”…If the whole work was finished and the whole debt paid, what is there left for me to do?”  He knew that answer and fell to his knees to receive the Savior and full forgiveness of sins.  That is how J. Hudson Taylor, founder of the China Inland Mission (now Overseas Missionary Fellowship International), was saved.

In our study of the book of Hebrews we’ve been looking at the contrast between Christ’s effective sacrifice of Himself versus the ineffective sacrifice of animals.  If we want to please God; if we want to be perfect, that is having our conscience cleansed; if we want to live without guilt and shame, then we must approach God through Jesus Christ.  There is no other way.

That contrast continues in Hebrews 10:11-14

11 And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. 12 But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, 13 waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. 14 For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.

This paragraph offers the answer to the problem posed in verses 1 through 4.  We saw in those verses the complete inadequacy of the sacrifices offered by the priests.  Here we see the complete sufficiency of the sacrifice offered by Christ.  Notice all the contrasts:  many priests versus Christ as our one High Priest; many sacrifices versus the one sacrifice of Christ Himself; repeated offerings versus the one offering for all time; and one you might have missed: notice that (verse 11) “every priest stands daily,” but when Christ has made his single sacrifice he (v. 12), “sat down at the right hand of God.”

The reference to sacrifices in verse 1 was to the sacrifices of the Day of Atonement; here it is to the daily sacrifices.  There is simply no animal sacrifice available or imaginable that would ever suffice to take away sins.  The sacrifices under the Old Covenant could never cure the sin problem, leaving us as a patient who continually needed the medicine, or like a weed that only has its head plucked out, not the root.

The priests “stand” to offer sacrifices day after day, time after time; they never sit down in either the tabernacle or the temple settings.  Significantly, there are no chairs in the tabernacle—no provision whatsoever to sit down.  This shows that their work is never complete.  One can sense the futility in these words.

Jesus, on the other hand, offered only one sacrifice that was effective “for all time” (10:12).  The words “for all time” are the same that are translated “continually” in verse 1, where it was said that the priests offer sacrifices “continually.”  The priests had to offer sacrifices “continually,” but only Christ’s sacrifice has a “continual,” or everlasting, effect.  Our salvation, therefore, is a “done deal.”  Our perfection is accomplished. And in the timelessness of eternity our holiness will go on and on.

In contrast to the priests, who stand, Christ “sat down at the right hand of God,” indicating that his work was done.  It was finished.  It’s not simply that Christ sat, but sat “at the right hand of God,” the throne.  It was a place of high honor and privilege.  As we have seen elsewhere in the book of Hebrews, Christ is the royal priest.  Having now taken his throne as king, the sacrificial phase of his priestly ministry is complete (while His intercessory ministry still continues).  These verses in Hebrews affirm the idea that Christ’s sacrifice was enough.

Hebrews 1:3

After making purification for sins [on the cross], he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,

Hebrews 8:1

Now the point in what we are saying is this: we have such a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven,

And Hebrews 12:2

looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

Being seated at God’s right hand means at least three things here:  First, is that His work is done.  It is completely finished.  There is nothing left to do for the forgiveness of sins.  He does not “stand daily” to offer sacrifices for sin.  The one sacrifice of His own body was perfectly complete, it was completely and eternally effective.

“For all time” (v. 12) can modify either “offered one sacrifice for sins,” or “sat down at the right hand of God,” or both.  Both stress the finished work of Christ.  English translations favor the first reading.

Second, it means that God is satisfied with His sacrifice.  God honors Christ with the seat at His right hand to show how fully He is satisfied with the debt for sin that was paid by Christ.  This is a great picture to encourage us that our sins are fully dealt with.  F. F. Bruce said, “”A seated priest is the guarantee of a finished work and an accepted sacrifice” (The Epistle to the Hebrews, p. 239).

Third, it means that Christ, together with His Father, is the sovereign ruler over all His enemies.  They have been defeated already and that victory will culminate in the future.  That’s what verse 13 stressed:  He is “waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet.”  In other words, everything Christ died to accomplish will be accomplished.  No enemy can hinder His work in the end.  The atonement was utterly complete, the Father was utterly satisfied; and all the enemies will fall utterly before the reigning Christ in heaven.

The author could have ended the quote (again from Psalm 110:1) after the reference to Jesus’ sitting at God’s right hand, but he adds (10:13), “waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet.”  This goes back to 9:29, and the second coming of Christ, when He will rule and reign over the whole earth.

He may have done this for two reasons.

First, he didn’t want his readers to grow discouraged because of the cross, as if it represented a defeat for God.  Perhaps their unbelieving Jewish friends were taunting them for their belief in a crucified Messiah.  If Jesus is really Lord, then why do His people suffer persecution and martyrdom?  The author says, “Just wait!  The day is coming when Jesus’ enemies will all become His footstool, just as Psalm 110 predicts.”

Second, the author may be giving a subtle warning to his readers.  If they abandoned the faith and went back to Judaism, they would be placing themselves on the losing side in history.  They would be making themselves enemies of Jesus, and that’s not where you want to be, because Jesus’ enemies are headed for certain defeat and judgment. (https://bible.org/seriespage/lesson-28-total-forgiveness-hebrews-101-18)

While the priests kept “performing” their duties, Christ “waits.”  He is waiting “for his enemies to be made his footstool.”  Those enemies are Satan, his demons and all who oppose the reign of Jesus Christ.  One day every knee will bow.

Everything that now hinders our progress towards fulfilling God’s purpose for our lives will one day be eliminated.  There will be no obstacles to our perfection.

Everything that God wills, everything that Christ died for, will be accomplished.  His priestly offering makes God’s royal conquest possible.

Beginning with the word “for,” verse 14 explains why no further offering for sin is necessary.  It is because Christ’s offering for sin was completely effective.  By Christ’s singular offering “he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.”  The word “offering” here refers to the death of Christ (cf. v. 10).

“Made perfect” he writes this time, using one of his favorite words.  In 2:10, 5:9, 10:14, 11:40, 12:23 he uses the verb.  In 6:1, 7:11, 12:2 it is the noun and in 9:11 the adjective, always with the thought of completeness in mind.

Now, this is exactly the opposite of what the old covenant could accomplish.  The old covenant could never make anyone perfect, but the sacrifice of Jesus Christ perfects “for all time those who are being sanctified.”  God’s goal is for us to become like Jesus Christ (Romans 8:29) and His sacrifice makes this possible.  In fact, it makes it inevitable.

The verb tenses here are quite intriguing.  Christ “has perfected” us, in the past, but in Hebrews 6:1 our writer had said “let us…go on to maturity,” literally, “to perfection,” placing perfection in a yet-to-be-determined future.  And, in this verse (10:14) we are also “being sanctified” (present tense), although Hebrews 6:10 said we “have been sanctified,” in the past.

This verse is bringing together two vital truths:

First, positionally and in God’s eyes we are already truly perfect!  We are completely, totally and finally forgiven of all our sins and God has imputed Christ’s righteousness to us so that He now sees us as saints with no condemnation (1 Cor. 1:30; Rom. 8:1).  We are perfected now in the sense of verse 17 as God says, “I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.”

But second, the practice of believers on a day-to-day basis is that we are “being sanctified” on a constant, ongoing basis.  We are growing in holiness every day.  God has “granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness” (2 Pet. 1:3), everything we need for life and godliness.  This aspect of sanctification is performed through the New Covenant provision of verse 16, “I will put my laws on their hearts, and write them on their minds…”

Something more is achieved by Christ’s death than the removal of guilt.  We have been sanctified.  And the verb is in the perfect tense.  It is actually done.  Our sanctification is perfectly accomplished by Christ for all time.  (Raymond Brown, The Bible Speaks Today:  Hebrews, 178)

Our positional standing before God as saints, fully sanctified, is granted instantly the moment we put our faith in Jesus Christ.  The practical outworking of our sanctification is worked out over a lifetime of faith and obedience.

This verse means that you can have the assurance that you now stand perfected and completed in the eyes of your heavenly Father, not because you are perfect now, but precisely you are not perfect now but are “being sanctified,” “being made holy” before God.

Bob George has written, in his book Classic Christianity: “Relentlessly the New Testament hammers home the message that Jesus Christ offered Himself as one sacrifice for all time.  When will we believe it?  In contrast to the Old Covenant priests who are pictured as “standing” and making continual sacrifices, Christ is shown as having sat down.  Why is He seated?  Because “It is finished” (John 19:30).  The writer of Hebrews reaches the climax of his argument in 10:14, “Because by one sacrifice He has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.”  Jesus Christ has done it all! (Bob George, Classic Christianity, pp. 65-66).

Does that sound too bold?  Is that kind of thinking out of bounds?

Bob George continues, “Notice that it doesn’t say we act perfect; this is talking about identity.  But the Bible says that through Jesus Christ we have been made totally acceptable in the eyes of a holy God!” (Classic Christianity, p. 66)

Hebrews 10:14 tells us that we have been made perfect forever.  There is nothing left to do.  Anything short of this kind of faith is not faith in the gospel.  When we believe that we have to do something to make ourselves acceptable to God, we are believing in an anti-gospel.  It is not “good news” because we can never be certain we have done enough good to outweigh the bad we’ve done.

But if Christ has offered up one sacrifice for sins for all time, if He has sat down because there’s no more work to be done, then that means we can take a seat as well and rest in the work that He has done in our behalf.

We don’t have to be like the priests, offering up ultimately ineffective sacrifices day after day, year after year.

• We can stop trying to kill off sinful parts of ourselves in the hope that God might be satisfied.
• We can stop trying to sacrifice ourselves.
• We can stop trying to pull ourselves together and discipline ourselves to do the right thing.
• We can stop punishing ourselves and stop trying harder and harder again and again and stop asking God to help us in our effort to be adequate before him.
• We can rest in the finished work of Jesus Christ.  Like our high priest, we can sit down and rest from our working to satisfy God, reflecting on the amazing grace of Jesus Christ in doing all the work for us.

When this happens, something amazing happens:  We will actually start doing the will of God from the heart.  And that is where the New Covenant comes in!  The rest of chapter 10 focuses once again (see Hebrews 8) on the New Covenant and its provisions.

As Christians under the New Covenant, a common question is: What place does the law have in my life?  Certainly we already know that the law does not save us, only Christ’s sacrificial death does that.  But what about as a guide for our daily lives?

Andrew Farley, in his book The Naked Gospel, says, “So if the Scriptures say that the law has no place in the life of the believer, the most logical question is this: If the law isn’t our moral guide, then what is?  As Christians, we have an inborn desire for our behavior to turn out right.  In fact, the desire to please God is what drives some to embrace the error of law-based living” (Andrew Farley, The Naked Gospel, p. 90).

He goes on to say, “Fortunately, God hasn’t taken us out from under the law and left us with nothing.  When we believe, the Holy Spirit lives in us.  The Spirit produces fruit through us as we depend on him.  But it’s important to recognize the ‘system’ that the Holy Spirit uses in place of the law.  He operates through a radically different system, namely, one called grace” (Andrew Farley, The Naked Gospel, p. 90).

Verses 15-18 re-introduce us to the New Covenant provisions:

15 And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us; for after saying, 16 “This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws on their hearts, and write them on their minds,” 17 then he adds, “I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.” 18 Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin.”

This is a quotation from Jeremiah 31:33.  But notice that the Holy Spirit “bears witness” in the present, through the prophet Jeremiah, who wrote in the past.  This tells us that not only did the Holy Spirit inspire Jeremiah to write these words in the first place, but also that the Holy Spirit is currently speaking to them (and us) through the words of Jeremiah.  The Scriptures, though they were written long ago, still speak to us today.  We still need the ministry of the Holy Spirit to illumine the Scriptures to our hearts.

The Spirit here speaks of the New Covenant.  The writer dealt with this in Hebrews 8, there quoting Jeremiah more fully.  Here he is summarizing and putting into in a chronologically order to illustrate the two aspects of the New Covenant.

The first aspect is the internalizing of God’s law.  In the Old Covenant.  The Lord “put” His laws in the temple and “wrote” them on tablets of stone.  In the New Covenant he puts them “on their hearts…and on their minds.”  These words “heart” and “mind” refer to the inner person.  When the Lord gave His laws to Israel, He did so in an external way designed to penetrate the hearts of the people.  But the people’s hearts were hard and they rejected the Lord and His laws.  Their “obedience” turned out not to be obedience at all, but rather compulsive, perfunctory adherence void of any trust or love.

The New Covenant, brought about by Christ, changes all that.  Mostly, it changes human hearts, giving them a new, softened hearts; something the Old Covenant could not do.  Now our hearts can love and trust God and that love and trust enables us to obey God so that we can perform His will wholeheartedly.

The author may have cited this part of the New Covenant promise to preempt any criticism from a Jewish reader to the effect that setting aside the Law (10:9) would lead to lawless living.  “Not so!  God’s people are marked by an obedience from the heart.”

Our pleasure and our duty, though opposite before,

Since we have seen His beauty, are joined to part no more

To see the Law by Christ fulfilled, and hear His pardon voice,

Transforms a slave into a child and duty into choice.                 — John Newton

Last week we were looking at Hebrews 10, verses 5-10, examining Christ’s intention to become flesh and enter this world with a body made for sacrifice.  All of this would show more magnificently what would satisfy God’s desires and complete His will.

5 Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, “Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body have you prepared for me; 6 in burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure. 7 Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come to do your will, O God, as it is written of me in the scroll of the book.'” 8 When he said above, “You have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings” (these are offered according to the law), 9 then he added, “Behold, I have come to do your will.” He does away with the first in order to establish the second. 10 And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

The word “will,” which is the Greek word thelema, is found in verses 5, 7, 8, 9 and 10.  It is obviously a key concept in these verses.  What is God’s will?

Verse 5 tells us that God does not desire, or will, and that is more animal sacrifices and offerings.  Twice, in verses 6 and 8, we find in quoting Psalm 40, that God takes “no pleasure” in these sacrifices.  Christ, however, came “to do” God’s will (vv. 6, 9).  He substituted the passive sacrifice of the animals with a voluntary and obedient sacrifice of Himself.

Verses 5-10 makes three points.

First, the cross was the direct will of God.

The cross was no accident or an unforeseen tragedy that took Jesus or the Father by surprise.  It was not a temporary setback that God figured out how to turn for good.  Rather, the cross was God’s predetermined plan, before the beginning of time, to deal finally and fully with our sin.

The Son of God determined to come into this world as a man with a human body subject to death, would live a completely obedient life in that body, and then would die as the sacrifice that the justice of God demands as payment for sins.

We know that it was God’s will for Jesus Christ to die upon the cross, first of all, because of the many prophecies concerning the cross, so much so that Jesus Himself predicted His own death on the cross (Mark 10:33-34).

The Old Testament confirms this in a passage that will seem very strange to our ears.  In Isaiah 53:6, 10 we read, “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned–every one–to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all” and then in verse 10 we read, “it was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief…”

It was God’s will to crush His Son on the cross.  “Amazing pity, grace unknown and love beyond degree.”

There is a great mystery here that we must submit our thinking to: even though God ordained the cross, down to the minute details (e.g., casting lots for Jesus’ clothing), He is not in any way responsible for the sin of those who crucified Jesus.

As Acts 4:27-28 puts it: “for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel,to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.”

These verses establish both man’s voluntary decision to crucify the “holy servant Jesus” and God’s sovereign plan, so that they did “whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.”

Not only did God plan it, but his “hand” made it happen.  As John Piper explains, “The hand of God ordinarily stands for God’s exerted power—not power in the abstract, but earthly, effective exertions of power.  The point of combining it with ‘plan’ is to stay that it is not just a theoretical plan; it is a plan that will be executed by God’s own hand” (Spectacular Sins, p. 104).

By coming into this world specifically to go to the cross, Jesus not only provided sacrifice for sins that we need.  He also provided a supreme example of resolute obedience to the complete will of God (something these Hebrew readers and we ourselves need today).  As Luke 9:51 points out, Jesus “set his face to go to Jerusalem” and He didn’t allow anything to deter Him.  As Jesus prayed in the garden, “not My will, but Yours be done” (Luke 22:42).  We cannot imagine how difficult it was for the sinless Son of God, utter purity, to be made sin for us.  We know the pain of a foreign object piercing into our bodies, but that is miniscule compared to the intense pain of sin being laid upon the perfectly holy body of Jesus Christ.

And Jesus delighted to do God’s will.  He didn’t grudgingly give up His life, but voluntarily laid it down.  In fact, He joyfully sacrificed Himself for our good, as Hebrews 12:2 reminds us.  Kent Hughes reminds us, “Our Lord did not obey the Father grudgingly or under duress but with joy!  Later, in 12:2, the writer tells us that Jesus endured the cross “for the joy that was set before him.”  The angels sang at the Incarnation (Luke 2:13ff.) because they were reflecting and expressing Christ’s joy.  He had come to die, and that could logically have produced an angelic dirge.  But the angels gave out an anthem instead, because of the anthem of Christ’s heart—“Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come to do your will, O God.’”  There is “in Deity Itself the joy of obedience: obedience which is a particular means of joy and the only means of that particular joy.”  Jesus willed to be subordinate to God!

But His determined obedience to do God’s will, no matter how difficult it may be, teaches us to commit ourselves to obey His will, whatever the cost we may have to pay.  You don’t decide to obey God at the moment of temptation.  It has to be a rational commitment that you make before you find yourself facing temptation.  Jesus, before He entered this world as a baby, made this decision to have a body and to be perfectly obedient to His heavenly Father.

But even more important than the example of Christ in how we might fight against sin and disobedience is the fact that His obedience can now be credited to our account.  As 1 Corinthians 1:30 says that Christ “became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption.”

Christ’s perfect obedience is what satisfied God’s wrath against our sin as Christ bore it on the cross and now credits that obedience/righteousness to our accounts, thus making us positionally “perfect.”

Second, we see that Christ’s obedience to God’s will at the cross set aside the Old Testament sacrifices once and for all.  Verse 9 says, “He does away with the first in order to establish the second.”

Folks, you cannot mingle the two!  You cannot combine our obedience to Christ’s obedience and get something better.  That is what Paul warned the Galatians about and what our author is warning his readers about.  Christ plus anything is not something better, but something that doesn’t work at all!

It is so important that we hear and believe and rest upon the reality that we are saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.  My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness; I dare not trust the sweetest frame but wholly lean on Jesus’ name.  On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand.

Our author in Hebrews 8:13 said that the old was “obsolete” and “soon to disappear.”  Hebrews 7:18-19 reads, “For on the one hand, a former commandment is set aside because of its weakness and uselessness (for the law made nothing perfect); but on the other hand, a better hope is introduced, through which we draw near to God.”

The New Covenant is that better hope.  Christ is the “end of the law” (Romans 10:4) and we no longer draw near to God on the basis of rules and performance.

Aren’t you glad?

When the psalm states that God did not desire or take pleasure in sacrifices (Heb. 10:5-6), it reflects a frequent theme even in the Old Testament, that God never really desired sacrifices for their own sake.  Rather, the sacrifices should always have reflected a repentant heart (cf. 1 Sam. 15:22; Psalm 51:16-17; Isaiah 1:11-13; 66:3-4; Jere. 7:21-23; Hosea 6:6; Amos 5:21-24; Micah 6:6-8).  God is displeased when people go through the outward motions of worship, then and now, when their hearts are still harboring sins that they are unwilling to forsake.

In modern terms, you can go to church and partake of communion, but if you are still living in disobedience to God or if you are covering some sin in your heart, God is not pleased with your worship.

In vv. 5, 6 and 8 he mentions four types of offerings, representing the entire breadth of the sacrificial system, effectively saying “no matter what you offer, it is never enough.  It does not automatically please God.”

But the author’s main point is not to get his readers to make sure that they offer animal sacrifices with a good heart, but rather to see that the sacrifice of Jesus Christ has replaced the Old Testament sacrificial system.

Christ, by His sacrifice, totally pleased God.  That righteousness is credited to the account of those who believe in Jesus Christ so that God counts them righteous (2 Cor. 5:21) and considers them “saints.”  And, it makes it then possible for these believers to do God’s will, because that righteous Christ is now living in us and by faith He can live His righteous life through ours (Gal. 2:20).

Thirdly, we see in vv. 5-10 that by Christ’s complete obedience to God’s will at the cross, we receive perfect standing before God once and for all.  Perfect obedience is what is required, but we could never give it.  Jesus Christ did live a life of perfect obedience and offered that life in payment for our sins.  That perfect righteousness is credited to our account.

That is the point of Hebrews 10:10.  The author of Hebrews uses “have been sanctified” to refer to “inward cleansing from sin” and “being made fit for the presence of God, so that…[we] can offer Him acceptable worship” (F. F. Bruce, The Epistle to the Hebrews, p. 236).  “Have been sanctified” is the Greek perfect tense, signifying a past action that has continuing results.  In other words, through the offering of Christ’s perfect obedience on the cross, and our confidence in that, His perfect obedience, His entire dedication (sanctification) has been credited to our account AND it now has the effect of sanctifying our thoughts, attitudes, motives, words and actions in our day-to-day interactions.

By way of contrast with the often-repeated Old Testament sacrifices, the one and only offering of Christ on the cross conveys to believers perfect standing before God for all time.  It can never change.  This refers to our position before God, not to our daily practice.  As we will see in 10:14, even though we are perfect in our standing before God, we are still progressing in our growth towards holiness which befits His glory.

However, this is truly how God sees us now.  He sees us “in Christ” and clothed with the righteousness of Christ.  He sees us as “saints” even though we do not always act saintly.  Therefore, it is important that we see ourselves this way.  It is vital that we base our sanctification on our justification and not vice versa.  In other words, we must believe our new standing before God and on the basis of that strive for holiness.

The author especially wants us to see that the Old Testament sacrifices could not completely remove guilt and make us holy (10:1-4), and that Christ’s sacrifice on the cross removed the sacrificial system and provides for our perfect standing before God (10:5-10).

Paradoxically, God does want a sacrifice after all, but only one—the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.  That is the only sacrifice that pleases God.

I hope that you can see that God can be trusted.  God says, “I want your body.”  We may wonder, “Can I trust God with my body?”  God is good and wants us to trust His good will for us.  He wants us to will His will and His will for Christ was for Him to offer up His body for us.

If we are ever going to move toward offering our bodies to God, we have to see God as trustworthy.  But what He did for us in Christ reveals His heart for us—doing everything necessary for us to be pleasing to Him.  In these last two verses, we see that the will of the Father and the will of the Son are both “for us.”

We can see the heart of Christ in His words to His Father.  He assessed our condition.  He realized that the animal sacrifices would not take away our sins.  But He wanted us.  So, He spoke to His Father, and the writer of Hebrews take us back in time to that scene and gives us front row access so that we may see and heart what it was really like, what Christ really thinks of us and what He proposed to do—the sacrifice He made—for our sakes.  Let’s make sure we hear these words accurately, and let them penetrate our hearts.

We couldn’t do God’s will, so Jesus determined to do it for us.  Animal sacrifices ultimately couldn’t do the job, so Jesus took on a human body so that He could sacrifice Himself for us.  So, when we hear the words, “Behold, I have come to do your will, O God,” we know that Jesus uttered those words in response to our utterly helpless condition and determined to do whatever it took to bring us to God.

In Romans 5:6 Paul reminds us of our powerlessness to change our condition. He says, “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.”  We couldn’t make ourselves righteous.

Romans 8:3-4 emphasizes this: “For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh,in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”

We could not, through the law, fulfill the righteous requirement of the law.  But God has done what we, in cooperation with the law, could never do.  And He did that “by sending his own Son.”  Jesus Christ took on a body in order to do this, “the likeness of sinful flesh” and died “for sin” thereby “he condemned sin in the flesh” so that that “righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us…”

This sanctification that Christ provides, came through the “once for all” sacrifice of His body.  “And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all” (v. 10).  Jesus’ sacrifice “once for all” is emphatic, and the writer wants us to see that its results are equally final, for the phrase “we have been sanctified” refers to an enduring, continuous state (perfect tense).  Our salvation is a completed thing—a “done deal.”

“It is finished” (Jn 19:30).  Does the divine law require for our acceptance perfect submission to the will of the Lord?  He has rendered it.  Does it ask complete obedience to its precepts?  He has presented the same.  Does the fulfilled will of the Lord call for abject suffering, a sweat of blood, pangs unknown, and death itself?  Christ has presented it all, whatever that “all” may be.  Just as, when God created, His word effected all His will, so when God redeemed His blessed and incarnate Word has done all His will.  In every point, as God looked on each day’s work and said “It is good,” so, as He looks upon each part of the work of His dear Son, He can say of it, “It is good.”  The Father joins in the verdict of His Son that it is finished; all the will of God for the sanctification of His people is accomplished.  (Charles Spurgeon, Spurgeon Commentary: Hebrews, 276)

In that sense, our sanctification is a “done deal.”  Nothing else is needed.

This argues against both the idea that one can lose their salvation—it is a done deal—and the Catholic idea of the continued sacrifice of the body of Christ in the Mass.  F. F. Bruce says, “The heavenly high priest has indeed a continual ministry to discharge on His people’s behalf at the Father’s right hand; but that is the ministry of intercession on the basis of the sacrifice presented and accepted once and for all, it is not the constant or repeated offering of His sacrifice.  This last misconception has no doubt been fostered in the Western Church by a defective Vulgate rendering which springs from a well-known inadequacy of the Latin verb.”

What concerns the author most is the law’s inability to “make perfect those who draw near to worship” God (v. 1).  The “perfection” he has in mind does not involve a “lack of flaws” but, rather, a state of right relationship with God, in which the worshipers are once and for all cleansed from sin and delivered from a nagging sense of guilt.  The fact that the old covenant system could not deliver in this regard, as demonstrated by offerings made year after year, shows the need for a better system.  (George H. Guthrie, The NIV Application Commentary: Hebrews, 326-7)

In another sense, our sanctification is an ongoing process.  It is the process of beholding Jesus through the Word, believing that He can live His righteous life through us, and becoming more and more like Him in our daily behavior.

But it is vital that we build our progressive sanctification on the foundation of our positional sanctification, otherwise we will be fooled into thinking that our salvation is based upon our efforts, or our efforts plus faith in Christ.  Definitive, or positional sanctification is given to us the moment we believe and will not be taken away.  Progressive sanctification is the day-to-day application of that position to our daily decisions and interactions.

How is it possible to have a clean conscience, to no longer struggle with guilt?  Israel sacrificed animals in an effort to clear their conscience, but the author of Hebrews shows that this did not really do the job.  Instead, it merely reminded them, year by year, that they were sinners.

Hebrews 10:1-4 states:

1 For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near. 2 Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness of sins? 3 But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year. 4 For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.

The author of Hebrews points out that the law “has but a shadow of the good things to come” and therefore it “can never…make perfect those who draw near” through yearly sacrifices.  Instead, they remain conscious of their sins because the sacrifices remind them of their sins every year.

“All they are is a reminder of sin.  So far from purifying a man, they remind him that he is not purified and that his sins still stand between him and God” (William Barclay)

Verse 4 categorically states, “for it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.”  Something else had to happen for sins to be taken away.  That solution for sin and a guilty conscience was presented in Hebrews 9:26, “he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.”

If you want your sins taken away, it only happens because Jesus Christ sacrificed himself on a Roman cross and satisfied the wrath of God that demanded a payment for our sins.

Animal blood has no permanent ability to take away sins.  God designed the system of animal sacrifices to point ahead to His ultimate provision through the sacrifice of His own Son.  Animal sacrifices could “cover”(kophar, from which we get the concept of “atonement”) sins; but could not “take away sins” in a final sense.  What is “impossible” under the Old Covenant is now possible through Jesus Christ.

As eternal God, the self-sacrifice of Jesus Christ has infinite value.  As a human being, His sacrifice can atone for human sin in a way that the blood of animals never could.

Leon Morris says this word “‘Take away’ (aphaireo) is used of a literal taking off, as in Peter’s cutting off the ear of the high priest’s slave (Luke 22:50), or metaphorically as of the removal of reproach (Luke 1:25).  It signifies the complete removal of sin so that it is no longer a factor in the situation.  That is what is needed and that is what the sacrifices could not provide” (p. 96)

Just as ineffectual as the animal sacrifices Israel offered are the sacrifices we make to try to appease God.  We don’t kill animals, but we may try to kill off the sinful parts of ourselves in hopes that God may be satisfied.  We try to carry it out by ourselves, on ourselves.  We try to pull ourselves together and discipline ourselves to do the right thing, and when we don’t, we just try harder, or we ask God to help us—all in an effort to be adequate before God.  But we’re never even satisfied with ourselves, so like the priests of old, we try again and again.

The Rev. Arthur Dimmsdale, the tragic figure in Nathanial Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, offered up such self-sacrifices to assuage his guilt.  Hounded by guilt for committing adultery, “He kept vigils, likewise, night after night, sometimes in utter darkness; and sometimes viewing his own face in a looking-glass, by the most powerful light which he could throw upon it.  He thus typified the constant introspection, wherewith he tortured, but could not, purify himself.”

It is interesting that the word “reminded” (10:3) is the same Greek word used in the institution of the Lord’s Supper, where Jesus says, “Do this in remembrance of Me” (Luke 22:19; 1 Cor. 11:24).  While we are instructed to examine ourselves and confess our sins before taking the elements, the gospel transforms our remembrance from one of guilt to one of grace (Philip Hughes, A Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews [Erdmans], p. 394).  The Lord’s Supper reminds us that the penalty we deserve for our sins was put completely on Jesus Christ.  His death accomplished what the blood of animal sacrifices never could accomplish, namely, it took away all of our sin and guilt!

A. W. Pink asks…

“Why did God appoint unto Israel sacrifices so ineffectual? … First of all, they served to keep in the minds of Israel the fact that God is ineffably [too great to be described in words] holy and will not tolerate evil. They were constantly reminded that the wages of sin is death. They were taught thereby that a constant acknowledgment of their sins was imperative if communion with the Lord was to be maintained. In the second place, by means of these types and shadows God was pointing out to them the direction from which true salvation must come, namely, in a sinless Victim enduring in their stead the righteous penalty which their sins called for. Thereby God instructed them to look forward in faith to the time when the Redeemer should appear, and the great Sacrifice be offered for the sins of His people. Third, there was an efficacy in the O. T. sacrifices to remove temporal judgment, to give ceremonial ablution [cleansing], and to maintain external fellowship with Jehovah. They who despised the sacrifices were ‘cut off’ or excommunicated; but those who offered them maintained their place in the congregation of the Lord” (p. 531)

The old covenant simply could not “make perfect those who draw near” (v. 1). It was good, as far as it went. But it was frustratingly inadequate.

Therefore, God did for us what we could not do for ourselves.  He sent His Son Jesus Christ to live a perfectly obedient life and then stand in our place on the cross, taking the punishment for our sins and satisfying God’s wrath against our sins.

Now, in verses 5-10, we are introduced to a conversation which took place between God the Father and Jesus the Son before Jesus came into the world.

5 Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, “Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body have you prepared for me; 6 in burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure. 7 Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come to do your will, O God, as it is written of me in the scroll of the book.'” 8 When he said above, “You have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings” (these are offered according to the law), 9 then he added, “Behold, I have come to do your will.” He does away with the first in order to establish the second. 10 And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

In summary, these verses are telling us that Christ’s bodily obedience and sacrifice are now established in place of animal sacrifices.  This is what sanctifies us.

It is God who provided the appropriate sacrifice and not man.  This is a quotation from Psalm 40:6-8 in the Greek version of the Old Testament, the Septuagint, and it is applied to Jesus Christ in His incarnation.

In Psalm 40 David is speaking to God, so here we have God’s Son, the greater David, in recognition of the problem with humanity, lying helpless in their guilt, speaking to the Father upon His entry into the world.  These then, are intimate words, spoken between God the Son and God the Father, and the writer of Hebrews lets us listen in.

What a high place this gives Scripture!  Our pre-incarnate Savior quoted Psalm 40 as being prophetic of his thoughts at his human birth. 

Note the parallel statements and how Christ took on a body to do God’s will (v. 9) and “by that [same] will” something wonderful happened to us—“We have been sanctified [set apart, dedicated to God] through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

The emphasis here is not upon our obedience (or disobedience) but upon the complete obedience of Jesus Christ, from before the incarnation (by which Christ came into the world) to his death (v. 10).

Beginning with the word “consequently,” the writer explains how Christ understood the inadequacy of the sacrificial system, recognized what needed to be done and decided to do it.

He realized that God was not “pleased” with the animal sacrifices (v. 8), but was pleased with his bodily sacrifice for sins.  Why?  Because he delighted to do God’s will.

So here Christ announces his conclusions and intentions, “when he comes into the world,” which implies his pre-existence before his life on earth.  1 Peter 1:20 speaks of this, saying that His sacrifice was determined before the creation of the world, “He was foreknown before the foundation of the world…”  The Apostle John concurs, explaining about unbelievers in the tribulation in Revelation 13:8 that “everyone whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who was slain.”

The phrase “a body have you prepared for me” is not found in the original quotation.  Psalm 40:6 in Hebrew reads, “you have given me an open ear.”  Our author is quoting from the Septuagint.  Apparently, the Greek translators rendered an interpretive paraphrase of the Hebrew text, using a part (the ear) and expanding it into the whole (the body).

While some would believe that this refers to the practice in Exodus 21:1-6 that describes the actions of a master whose servant did not want to be set free, but rather continued to willingly serve his master.  The master bored a hole through the earlobe of the servant, which was a sign that the servant preferred to remain with his master.  The idea is that our Lord was like a willing servant.

The problem with that explanation is that only one ear was bored, while the verse (Psalm 40:6) speaks of both ears.  Furthermore, the verb used in Exodus 21 means “to pierce,” while the verb in Psalm 40:6 means “to dig.”  The picture is rather that of God’s opening the ears of His servant so that He would be obedient to the cross (Isaiah 50:5ff).

The Septuagint rendering puts the emphasis on God’s preparing a body for Jesus so that He would offer the suitable sacrifice for our sins, thus supplanting the Old Testament sacrifices.  Neither the sacrifices nor the law could accomplish the redemption that was needed.  And thus God sent His Son.

Paul says it like this in Romans 8:3

For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do.  By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh,

Upon His flesh God condemned sin.  Jesus paid for our sins on the cross!

This need for a body also reminds us that all that we have to offer to God is our bodies (Romans 12:1), so that Jesus can now live out His perfect obedience through us.

Whatever the explanation may be, Christ said in essence, “My Father, the Old Testament sacrifices have proven unsatisfactory, so you have prepared a body for me, that I might become a pleasing sacrifice.”  (The author reiterates this idea in verse 8, noting that the Father was not pleased with the old sacrifices although they were “offered according to the law.”)  The fact was, though God had instituted blood animal sacrifices (Exodus 24), he had never been pleased with them and did not see them as ends.  He had established them as object lessons to instruct his people about the sinfulness of their hearts, his hatred of sin, the fact that sin leads to death, the need of an atonement, and his delight in those whose hearts were clean and obedient and faithful.  But there was nothing appealing to him in the sight of a dying animal.  God had no pleasure in the moans and death-throes of lambs or bulls.  What he did find pleasure in was those who offered a sacrifice with a contrite, obedient heart. (Kent Hughes, Hebrews, Volume 2, p. 23)

Not only was Jesus given a body in which to show His obedience to the Father, but His will was aligned with that of the Father.  Having verbalized what the Father wanted—Jesus Christ’s sacrificial death—our Lord now states his joyous resolve: “Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come to do your will, O God, as it is written of me in the scroll of the book’” (v. 7).

Our Lord did not obey the Father grudgingly or under duress but with joy!  Later, in 12:2, the writer tells us that Jesus endured the cross “for the joy that was set before him.”  The angels sang at the Incarnation (Luke 2:13ff.) because they were reflecting and expressing Christ’s joy.  He had come to die, and that could logically have produced an angelic dirge.  But the angels gave out an anthem instead, because of the anthem of Christ’s heart—“Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come to do your will, O God.’”  There is “in Deity Itself the joy of obedience: obedience which is a particular means of joy and the only means of that particular joy.”  Jesus willed to be subordinate to God!

It is true that this was not an easy choice.  He struggled in the garden.  But His own will was absorbed in the divine will.  It was His pleasure to say, “Not my will but yours be done” (Lk 22:42).  It was His meat and His drink to do the will of Him that sent Him, and to finish His work.  Although He was Lord and God, He became a lowly servant for our sakes.  Although high as the highest, He stooped low as the lowest.  The King of kings was the servant of servants that He might save His people.  He took upon Himself the form of a servant, and girded Himself, and stood obediently at His Father’s call.  (Charles Spurgeon, Spurgeon Commentary: Hebrews, 272)

“To do thy will, O God is the aim of the perfect man. It has only partially been fulfilled by even the most pious of men, except by Jesus. What was seen as the most desirable aim by the psalmist, becomes an expression of fact on the lips of Jesus” (George Guthrie)

The point of these passages is not that God hated sacrifices, but that He does not want ONLY sacrifices and that He does not want them FOREVER.  They were designed, by their very nature, to be temporary and to be anticipatory of that which would come later.  He takes pleasure in the One who came to do His Father’s will (10:7).  The Son came to do the will of the Father and to accomplish that which would ultimately give pleasure to the Father.  Do you remember what took place at the baptism of Jesus?  A voice was heard from heaven: “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well‑pleased” (Matthew 3:17).

The writer of Hebrews makes clear that there was nothing wrong with the sacrifices, for they were “offered according to the law” (10:8).

The writer of the book carefully cites the prophecy from Psalm 40 and then he goes back through it to pick out the part he wants to underscore.  The portion he wants to emphasize is that the coming of the Messiah as a replacement to the Old Testament sacrifices was a part of the will of God.  Now that Christ has come, the Old Testament sacrifices are no longer needed.

The old system, the Old Covenant, is no longer in place.  Now that Christ has come a new era has dawned.  Now, forgiveness comes through Jesus Christ and His offering of His own body on the cross.

When Jesus came in fulfillment of God’s will, he did away with the “first” system in which sacrifices were offered repeatedly, and in its place established a “second” and superior way to atone for sin: namely, the blood that Jesus himself shed on the cross.  The “first” is thus a reference to the Old Covenant of Moses and the “second” is a reference to the New Covenant of Jesus Christ.

The author introduces the results of Christ’s willingness to do God’s will by saying, “And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all” (v. 10). Jesus’ sacrifice “once for all” is emphatic, and the writer wants us to see that its results are equally final, for the phrase “we have been sanctified” refers to an enduring, continuous state (perfect tense). Our salvation is a completed thing—a “done deal.”

Our sanctification – our being set apart to God – is founded on the will of Jesus, not our own will.  It is founded on the offering of Jesus, not on our own offering or sacrifices for God.

It is important for us to understand what the author of Hebrews means by being “made perfect” and “sanctification.”  In both cases he is not referring to our present lifestyle, that we live perfectly and saintly; rather he is referring to our position in Christ.  Because we put our faith in Jesus, the Holy Spirit baptized us into Christ and God sees us now dressed in His Son’s righteousness.

“Indeed it can be said that sanctification in Hebrews is almost equivalent to justification in Romans, both referring to our position, not to our condition.  But there is this vital difference of standpoint: that justification deals with position in relation to God as Judge, while sanctification deals with position in relation to our fellowship with God and our approach to Him in fellowship” (W. H. Griffith Thomas, Hebrews: A Devotional Commentary, p. 125. Cf. Dods, 4:344; Hodges, “Hebrews,” p. 804)

Next week we will examine some more of the results of God’s perfecting work through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.