Hebrews
Lesson 33 November 10, 2005
NKJ Psalm 25:21 Let integrity and uprightness preserve me, For I wait for You.
We are continuing our study in Hebrews. We are in
Hebrews 3. We will touch on Hebrews 3 briefly in order to get our bearings this
evening to make sure that we know where it is that we are headed, where the
writer of Hebrews was headed, and why he is saying what he is saying. Beginning
in Hebrews 3:7, the writer of Hebrews enters into his second major exhortation
and warning section.
NKJ Hebrews 3:7 Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says: "Today, if you will hear His
voice,
I have made the point several times as we have gone
into our study here that the writer has a didactic section and that didactic
section concludes with an exhortation and warning. In some of these as we get a
little further into the epistle, the warning section is not identical with the
exhortation section. For example in this section the exhortation and the
warning are the same. The entire section from 3:7 down through the end of
chapter 4 is both an exhortation and a warning. The emphasis is placed on the
quotation that comes out of Psalm 95.
NKJ Hebrews 3:7 Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says: "Today, if you will hear His
voice,
That is a direct quote from Psalm 95:7. Just as the
writer of the psalm was challenging his readers and hearers in Psalm 95 to
utilize the example of the rebellion of the Old Testament believers at Kadesh
to be an example to them in their spiritual life in preparation for the coming
of the Messiah, so the writer of Hebrews picks this up and by using that same
word “today” he is modernizing the application bringing it into his presence. He
says, “Today you need to listen.” He is addressing his hearers in the first
century. In the same way it makes the application more significant for us
because the same principle holds true that is contained within these
verses. So he draws the
exhortation.
NKJ Hebrews 3:8 Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, In the day of trial in
the wilderness,
That’s the major idea that hangs throughout this
passage. We are not to harden our hearts. Now we have to come to an
understanding of what that means – to harden your heart. That is part of
why I am going to do some background study this evening so that we can start to
pick up a little more of an appreciation for exactly what is meant by this and
what is not meant by this.
NKJ Hebrews 3:9 Where your fathers tested Me, tried Me, And saw My
works forty years. 10 Therefore I was angry with that generation,
And said, 'They always go astray in their
heart, And they have not known My ways.' 11 So I swore in My
wrath, 'They shall not enter My rest.' " 12 Beware, brethren,
lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the
living God;
The Lord is speaking.
The quote from Psalm 95:7-11 ends in verse 11. So he
is drawing an application in verse 12. So if we follow his line of thinking he
draws a conclusion out of the didactic section.
Therefore understanding the significance of Christ’s
role as the one who sets the precedence for our spiritual life and the one who
paid the penalty for our sins on the cross and then is elevated to the right
hand of God the Father as our high priest and He has suffered being tested, He
is able to aid those who are being tempted back in 2:18. He is drawing all that
he has taught related to the role of Christ in His present high priestly
ministry at the right hand of the Father. He says, “Therefore in light of that
don’t harden your hearts.” Then there is a quote that refers to the example
from the Old Testament. So he will make an application from the Exodus
generation and then he drives the point home in verse 12.
NKJ Hebrews 3:12 Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief
in departing from the living God;
The word there for departing is the word apostasy. It
is where we get our word apostasy in the Greek, apostosia. That brings a lot of questions to a lot of folks’ minds.
There are basically three positions that are taken on these warning passages. There
are three positions.
- This is referring to these are
Old Testament generation as people who thought they were saved, but they
weren’t. They thought they were saved but they fell into unbelief and
apostasy. The fact that they don’t enter into God’s rest indicates that
they weren’t ever saved.
- The Arminian position is the
position that they weren’t ever saved to begin with. That is that the
Exodus generation was not saved.
That is why they don’t enter into the rest. The apostasy here is
considered to be the fact that they are not saved.
- They are saved but they don’t
enter into the rewards and blessings that God had for them in time in the
Old Testament. That is how we understand the passage in the context of
Hebrews. This is a warning to genuine believers who are born again, who
are redeemed yet they failed to go forward in their spiritual life and
failed to take advantage of all the blessing and privileges that God has
given us. As a result of that the Old Testament generation didn’t enter
into the land. The Old Testament generation didn’t realize the blessings
that God had promised them in terms of entry into the land. The point of warning for us is
that we are to pay attention that and not fall into unbelief and not
depart from a life of walking by the Spirit in obedience to the Lord and
application of doctrine lest we jeopardize those blessings in time that
God has already established for us
or the blessings in the Millennial Kingdom.
So that is the backdrop. The problem is that for many
of us that we get into conversations with folks and get into questions with
people. They ask, “What you do with this passage?” Or they will talk about
especially Hebrews 6. We will get there. They go to these passages and say,
“Well doesn’t that mean that you can lose your salvation?” So we have to
understand how to answer those questions. Remember that Peter says that we
always have to be ready to give an answer to the hope or the confidence that is
in us.
That is for every believer - not just for pastors or
evangelists. We can’t just say that it is in the Bible. We have to be able to
give an answer, a defense, a logical rational defense based on the Scripture
for why we believe what we believe. If someone asks, “Why do you believe that a
person can’t lose their salvation?
What about people who claim to be believers or Christians but they are
murders or they commit this act or they commit that act. How can you say that
that person is a Christian?” So you go to passages like this to help understand
God’s grace. God’s grace is never dependent on what we do, how we act or the
sin in our life because the sin is paid for completely by Christ on the cross.
In order to work our way through this passage and also
to provide background for the rest of chapter 3 and all of chapter 4, in fact
this is going to provide you with the Old Testament background for the next
several chapters. I thought it would be good to do an review and overview of
what happened to Israel at the time of the Exodus. So we will go through several points to trace out what
happened in the Old Testament.
First of all, Israel was in slavery. After Jacob and
the boys moved from Judea in the land of Canaan down to Egypt at the time of
the famine when Joseph was the vizier or the second in command in Egypt, they
were ensconced and protected in the land of Goshen. The Egyptians hated the Jews. The Egyptians were some of the
most arrogant, racially proud people in the ancient world. They didn’t want to
intermarry with anybody else. They couldn’t stand to be around any other
races. They thought they were just
hardly a notch removed from deity. They didn’t want these Semites from up in
the land of Canaan coming and living with them and eating in their restaurants
or shopping in their stores or anything else. So they isolated them in the land
of Goshen. For some 300+ years the seventy that came down into Egypt with Jacob
were increased exponentially by the Lord in His grace. Within that period of
time and it has been demonstrated mathematically to be possible the population
of the Jews increased from 70 to somewhere between 2 and 3 million. You have to
grasp that number.
What is Houston now? I think Houston is about 3 ½
million. So that is a little bit larger than the number of Jews that came out
under the Exodus. That is a huge number of people. Moses really had his hands
full. You think of all the logistics of trying to move 2 ½ to 3 million people
through the wilderness. Now how do we come up with those numbers? We come up with those numbers because a
census was taken at the beginning of the book of Numbers that enumerates all of
the adult males over the age of 20 so they know how many will be in the
military. They are getting ready to go into the land to conquer it. There is a
census taken at the beginning of Numbers. There is a census taken at the end of
Numbers. There are approximately 650,000 males between the ages 20 or
over. If there are 600,000 male
and if there is one female for every male that means you are up to 1.2 million.
If every couple has just one child you are up to 1.8 million. If every couple
has two children you are up to 2 ½ million. So that seems to be a fairly
conservative estimate for the population of the Jews. People question that because of the horrendous logistics,
but remember God was in the business of working miracles through the desert
areas. The Scriptures make it clear that their shoes didn’t wear out. Their
clothes did not wear out. God provided them with food on a daily basis so that
Moses didn’t have to figure out where the closest Safeway or HEB was. He didn’t have to figure out how to
provide food for people. God miraculously took care of them on a day to day
basis. When they came out of
Egypt, they came out as a result of God’s discipline on the Egyptians for the
way they treated Israel and their refusal to release them from slavery.
General structure of events at this time
- There were 10 plagues to
deliver or redeem or save (Those words are used in various passages.) the
Jews from slavery in Egypt. Each one of the plagues became increasingly
more horrific for the Egyptians.
- The final plague was the angel
of death. God said that this would be the final plague. The angel of death
would come and pass over or go through the land and the firstborn of every
household would die. However if someone were to take a lamb that was
without spot or blemish and sacrifice the lamb and spread the blood on the
door posts of the house, then the angel of death would pass over that
house. That is the origin of the word Passover. It goes back to the event
where the angel of death passed over the house. So the households where
there were believers trusting God to deliver and save them from that
event, they would take a lamb without spot or blemish and sacrifice it and
put the blood on the sides of the doorposts and across the top and a
picture of how Christ would come as the lamb of God to take away the sin
of the world. If you were to connect the dots you would have a cross. It
is a type of the cross and it is a picture of how Jesus Christ would come
as the Lamb of God to take away the sin of the world. So anybody who
trusts in the lamb at the Exodus event would not experience death in their
household. In the same way anyone who trusts in Christ as their savior has
eternal life and will not die.
In the final plague the angel of death would take the life of the
firstborn. For those who applied the blood of the lamb there was the
Passover. This is described in Exodus 10 and Exodus 11.
- As a result of that and the
loss of his first born, the pharaoh releases the Jews from slavery. He
just about commands them to leave the land. So they depart but he has second thoughts and starts to
pursue them. They get their back up against the Red Sea. In the Hebrew it is actually the
Reed Sea so we don’t know its exact location. It’s not identical what you see on a map when you see
the Red Sea.
- God led the people by way of
the Reed Sea when they had their back up against the water, no place to
go. Then pharaoh and all of his chariots have them trapped. They were
chasing them. The people panicked and complained to God. God delivered
them. Throughout this time God is guiding them with a pillar of cloud by
day and of pillar of fire at night. Think of yourself as a Jew. I want you
to put yourself in their position. What are you are seeing empirically on
almost a daily basis? You are seeing the miracles of God. All through these consecutive
plagues you are seeing God’s judgment on the Egyptians because these
plagues are not affecting the Jews in Goshen. It is selective. So their
animals are protected. Their flocks, their herds are protected. Their sons
are protected by the blood of the Lamb. So it’s clear that God is
protecting them. Once they are released and they are going through the
wilderness, there is this miraculous supernatural guidance that takes
place. You could stand there and see the cloud during the daytime and the
fire at night.
- The Pharaoh pursed them. The people
are complaining to Moses. “Why did you bring us out here to be destroyed
by Pharaoh? He’s going to wipe us out. We are all going to be killed now.”
It shows that despite the fact that they see these miraculous events on a
day to day basis, as soon as adversity comes, they start complaining
groaning and griping to Moses and to God. They don’t trust Him. But God
rescues them anyway by parting the Red Sea. So they escape by God’s
miraculous deliverance. Now that must have been an awesome thing to see. The
wind comes and blows the water back.
Instantly the ground is dry. Now that must have taken some time to
get 2 ½ to 3 million people across the Red Sea and then to the other side.
Then pharaoh’s army pursued them. God stopped the wind and the waters came
back and wiped out pharaoh’s army. It was a tremendous thing to see. What’s
the people’s response? Well, they were trusting God at this point. We will come back to that in a
minute.
- From the Red Sea they spent
three days in the wilderness of Sur. So they have to move through the
wilderness for three days.
They arrive at a place called Marah, which is from the Hebrew word
meaning bitterness. There the waters are bitter, probably some sort of
alkaloid substance that has made the water bitter. What did the people do?
They start groaning and complaining again. They put the Lord to the test. The
Lord had Moses throw a tree into the water to make the water sweet. So
Moses takes his tree and throws this tree into the water and all of a
sudden it is drinkable. There is a lot of water here. This is not some
small well. This is a huge watering hole where the water has turned
alkaline. Now again this is described as a test. God is testing them. These
are various adversities that the people are encountering along the way. Of
course the purpose of a test is to reveal the doctrine that is in their
soul. With them it is the lack of doctrine in the soul and their failure
to trust the Lord.
- From there they go to a place
called the 12 Palms. Then they pass from there on to the wilderness called
Sin. That is not sin that you think of in terms of disobedience to God. That
is the short form for Sinai. In modern times we would probably call this
the wilderness of Sinai down there in the Sinai Peninsula. A third time
they complain. They start griping and moaning about the food. “God there just isn’t enough food
here.” So God provides manna in Exodus 16:2f . Not only that, He also
tells them that in the evening He would bring them quail. In the morning
they would have manna. I like to think that manna would taste like a good
hot Shipley donut. It was fresh every morning and it was good. People who
don’t live in Houston have no idea what I am talking about. But if you are
a native Houstonian and you ever move away from here you know what it is
like to come back and have a nice Shipley donut. I used to wake up some
mornings when I was in Connecticut and my mouth would water. I couldn’t
wait to get back to Houston and have a Shipley donut. It got kind of
boring after awhile because day in and day out they had the same thing for
breakfast. So once again they complained.
- As they continued on their
journey to Sinai, they came to the next place called Rephidim. Now there
is another test related to water. Notice how many of these tests relate to
logistical grace provision – food, water and daily sustenance. The
people complained again. We read in the text that they were testing the
Lord. Exodus 17:3. It is at this place that two names crop up that are
important for understanding the long range history of Israel because they
always go back to this event. This place is called Massah and Meribah. Massah
comes from the Hebrew word that means despair. The LXX
translates it with the Greek word peirasmos.
It is the Greek word for testing or temptation. It is a place of testing. God
is testing them with the fact that there is no water. Another word that is
used to describe this place is Meribah. Meribah means a place of strife or
contention. The LXX
translated this with the Greek word loidoresis
a place of reproach abuse or reviling. So Massah indicates the fact that
God is testing them and Meribah reveals their response. They were
complaining and griping and contending with God over the fact that they
didn’t have any water. God at that point directs Moses in Exodus 17:3 to
strike the rock in order to get water. He is to strike the rock in order
to get water. He is to take his staff and to hit the rock to get water. The
text simply says that he did it. He took the staff and he struck the rock
and out came water. Now this must have been a pretty significant flow of
water. This isn’t like going out in the back yard and turning on your
garden hose. A garden hose wouldn’t do a lot for 2 ½ million people. This
is a significant flow of water. There is a river coming out this rock that
is going to flow out into the desert. It would provide enough sustenance
for all the people. This is a major miracle. Think about what the Jews
have seen. You are one of these 2 ½ million people and you are going
through the desert and you have already seen the ten plagues in Egypt. You
have had your back up against the Red Sea. You have seen God deliver you
miraculously at the Red Sea. You have seen the daily provision of manna
every morning and the quail every night. You have seen God turn the water
that was bitter into water that is now pure. Now you have come to Massah
and Meribah and God is going to provide water out of a rock. Day after day
almost, they are experiencing God’s gracious provision in phenomenal ways.
Yet they continue to complain.
- After they leave Meribah and
they are on their way to Sinai, they have a problem. They immediately run
into one of the most hostile groups of people in the ancient world. This
is a marauding band of terrorists. The size of the Amalekite hoards was
quite large – several hundred thousand. Ancient records indicate
that they migrated across the northern part of what we call Saudi Arabia
today. They were moving in the direction of Egypt. Some people think that
these are the Hyksos that eventually after this battle move on into Egypt
and wipe out what is left of pharaoh’s army. It has already been
decimated. The Egyptians were
in a state of extreme weakness after losing their crack troops in the Red
Sea. That’s another story. The Amalekites are constantly a problem for
Israel up until David finally defeats them. Saul almost wipes them out in
I Samuel 16 but he doesn’t do a full job. For that he is punished. That is
the episode (I just love it) that Samuel lops the king’s head off. The Bible is so vivid. I just love
these images. People today in political correctness wouldn’t put any of
this fun stuff in the Bible. So God gives them this great victory. This is
the place where God tells Moses that as long as he raises his arms the
Jews will have victory. But if he drops his arms then they will lose. So Aaron
stands on one side and Hur stands on the other side they prop his arms up.
He would hold his arms up for awhile and the Jews would win. It is almost
like a football game. Things are going this way and then his arms get
tired. Then the Amalekites are winning and he picks them up and it goes
the other way. Finally they prop him up so the Jews have victory. It is
another picture of God’s miraculous deliverance. Here is one of the worst most evil most vicious
experienced military forces in the ancient world that come across a bunch
of ex-slaves that couldn’t fight their way out of a paper bag. No military
training and very little organization yet they are defeated because the
battle is the Lord’s and the Lord gives them victory. The picture that I
want you to see is that there is adversity after adversity and what happens?
God provides the solution. What do they do every time they face the
adversity? They gripe and complain. I know that it doesn’t remind you of
anybody that you know, but every now and then it reminds me of a few
people that I know. Remember it is only a test. It’s only a test.
- Then after defeating the Amalekites
they come to Sinai. That is where they hear the voice of God delivering
the law. If they would have had one of those Olympus digital recorders
like I have in my briefcase, they could have plugged it into their laptop
and recorded the voice of God in mp3 and preserved it for posterity. This
isn’t something that they are hearing in their heads. It is no some
subjective experience that in their morning devotions. God spoke to them
in their heart. That’s not what is going on here. They hear the voice of God.
It scares them to death. They are so fearful that they tell Moses that
they can’t handle this. They tell Moses to go up the mountain to get the
rest of the law because they were scared to death to even hear the sound
of God’s voice. So there is empirical evidence of God’s relationship with
them. While he is up on Sinai they complain again and they fall right back
into carnality. Aren’t they a lovely bunch? They aren’t any different from
the rest of us.
- They rebel by having Aaron
build the golden calf. They worship the golden calf. God comes down and there is
another episode where God disciplines those who worship the golden calf. That’s
in Exodus 32:1-35. Then they move out from Sinai to Kadesh Barnea and the
land that God graciously promised them because He gave it to Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob.
- Then we come to Numbers 11. As
they are approaching the land there is this episode outside the camp where
the people start complaining again. God punished them with this series
that appears to be grass fires and brush fires that surround the
camp. It seems to threaten
them with destruction. So they immediately turn to Moses and cry out for
deliverance. Moses prays and God stops the burning. This place is called
Taborah. Numbers 11:1-3. Not much is said about that particular incident. It
is another instance where they are complaining about God’s provision.
- Then they start complaining about
food again. They complained about food every time they turned around. They
wanted to go back. The Egyptians must have had tremendous cuisine at that
time because the Jews wanted to go back and have the tasty meats, leeks,
garlic, and seasonings. It was sort of like when I was living in
Connecticut I was always wanting Mexican food. You couldn’t get good Mexican
food up in New England. So I was always complaining that we couldn’t get
good Mexican food. Then I would think about this episode. They would complain
about the food. God graciously supplies food for them. It was an
overabundance of quail. They all get sick. In the process Moses recognizes
that there is an administration problem so God gives him authorization to
establish a chain of command to delegate various responsibilities to
various leaders. The people become ill because of their hunger lust.
- Just after that Miriam and
Aaron lead a little rebellion against Moses. God zaps Miriam with leprosy.
Some sort of bacteria that starts eating her skin away. She becomes a
lovely sight. Almost instantly within a nanosecond Aaron repents. He
confesses and gets right back with God before it hits him. Once again
Moses intercedes and prays. God says He will relent on Miriam but she must
be outside the camp for a week. It is another instance of the people
rebelling against God’s provision of leadership.
- Then you come to the major
failure which is what took place at Kadesh Barnea. They are on the southern
border of the Promised Land. This is it. This is the big event. So God
tells them to send in spies – one spy from each of the 12 tribes. They
were to go on a long range reconnaissance patrol and find out what the lay
of the land was – not to see if they could take it as I pointed out
last time. God said, “I have given this land to you.” But 10 of them don’t
know how to exegete the Word of God and they don’t know how to interpret
it literally. So what they hear is God telling them to go into the land to
see if they can take it. So they come back wining and complaining and thinking
that they can’t do it. There are giants in the land. There are too many
people. Their cities are all fortified. They don’t realize as we learned
later from Rahab that the inhabitants of the land know all about how God
brought them out of Egypt They know all about the Red Sea. They know
everything that has been going on in the wilderness. The people in the
land are scared to death that they are getting ready to get completely
wiped out and destroyed by the God of the Jews. But the Jews have no trust
in God and they wimp out. So God finally swears at that point as we saw
last time that this generation will not enter the land. It is an
accumulative effect. There has been disobedience and complaining and
grumbling all the way along. It is not over yet.
- There are two more failures
that occur. There is the rebellion led by Korah, Nathan and Abiram covered
in chapters 16-22 which God has to discipline greatly. God has to kill
several thousand of people in that rebellion.
- Then the last rebellion is the
sin of Moses and Aaron. Because Moses and Aaron disobeyed God in the same
way that the rest of the nation has, God is going to punish them the same
way. They are going to be prohibited from going into the land. In this particular incident they
do not have water. Moses goes to God and God says to speak to the rock. Instead
of speaking to the rock he comes back to the people and he gets angry. He
speaks out of anger. That is not what happened in Exodus. Exodus says that he was to strike
the rock and he struck the rock. Here he gets angry. He accuses the
people. That is not what God told him to do. He speaks of himself and
Aaron with the pronoun “we”. He implies that it might not happen by
putting it in a subjunctive case. It casts doubt on whether God will actually
provide the solution. It makes it look like it is up to him – Aaron and
himself - rather than God. The way that he structures his statement
implies that it might not happen.
Then he disobeys God. Instead of speaking to the rock, he strikes
the rock. But God in His grace still provides the water. There are consequences for his sin
and failure. They are prohibited from entering into the land.
That gives us a framework for understanding the
history of Israel of their movement from the Exodus up to the time of the
beginning of the 40 years in the wilderness. That is roughly what happens in
the last two events. That’s the beginning of 38 more years that they are going
to spend wandering in the wilderness before they are allowed to enter the land.
That’s what provides the back-drop for understanding the psalms that is quoted
in Hebrews 3.
Now I pointed out the last time that the rebellion
that is referred to here is that final act of disobedience and disbelief that
takes place at Kadesh Barnea.
The question is in light of all of this failure in
light of all of these years of grumbling and complaining and every time they
had an opportunity to trust God it seems like they failed, were the Jews in the
Exodus generation saved? Are these people saved and not getting rewards or are
they unsaved? That is the real issue that comes up. It is a major issue in this
whole debate between people who hold to free grace which is our position. That
is the current theological terminology for what we believe – that
salvation is by faith alone in Christ alone. It’s not enhanced by good works in
the beginning. It’s not necessarily demonstrated by good works on the back
side. That is how lordship salvation seduces people. It says that if you are
really saved then you will produce works that are in keeping with your
salvation. But all that does is introduce works into the back door. It is a
back door works oriented system. It’s not really faith alone. If it is real
faith, you have to have works accompanying it on the backside. That’s not
grace. That is work oriented salvation.
So now we have to answer the question that I raised in
the beginning. How do we know that the Exodus generation was a generation of
mostly believers? How do we know that? They don’t act like believers like most
people do. That’s what you will hear. Did you hear what so and so did? How can
he be a Christian? They may not have any theological training or understanding
but what they have just articulated is the lordship salvation position. How can
that person be saved? Look at what they did? They lied. They had an affair. They
performed some criminal activity. They’re homosexual. How can they be a
believer? Very easily. They trust in Christ as their savior. Christ died for
all those sins just like He died for all of your sins. Some people don’t have
overt sins that are socially unacceptable. They get away from their self righteousness
but not before God. So how do we know that the Exodus generation was a
generation of mostly believers?
First of all, we have to understand what salvation was
based upon in the Old Testament. In the Old Testament salvation was based upon
faith alone in Christ alone just as it is based on faith alone in Christ alone
today. Today though, we look back on a historically accomplished salvation that
took place on the cross in approximately 33 AD. Jesus Christ died on the cross. He
paid the penalty as a substitute for our sins so that salvation is by faith
alone in Christ alone. But what about all those people who lived before
Christ? Some people think that
they were saved by obeying the law. Some people think that is why God gave the
law.
I remember when I was just a young pastor in my first
church I made the point that the Ten Commandments had nothing to do with today
and I thought half the church was going to take me out and crucify me. I
thought everybody understood that. I didn’t realize how poorly most Christians
are taught in relation to the Ten Commandments. If we just look at the events
that have gone over in Israel’s history from a perspective related to
salvation, it is in the Exodus event that they are delivered from slavery that
they are given the law. It is only after they are delivered from slavery that
they are given the law. The deliverance from slavery, as we will see in a
minute, is a picture of redemption from the nation. They are only given the law
and the Ten Commandments after they are “saved” as a nation.
The Ten Commandments weren’t given to them in slavery
but for their life style after being delivered from slavery. So in the Old
Testament salvation was a matter of faith alone in the future promise of a
deliverer. Remember that we say faith alone in Christ alone. Christ is the
anglicized form of the Greek word christos,
meaning the anointed one. Christos in
the Greek is the translation of the Old Testament word mishyak which we anglicize as Messiah.
- So their salvation was based on
the anticipation of deliverance of the Messiah - that God would provide a
deliverer, a prophet like Moses but greater than Moses. It was through
that deliverer that they would be saved. It is still faith alone in Christ
alone. It is just that they are looking forward to salvation and we are
looking backward to salvation. But the object of faith is still the same.
It is always the object of faith that has the power. It is not the faith
itself that has power. It is the object of faith that has power. It is the
promise of God that you believe. It is the work of Christ that you
believe. It is the object of faith that has the power. The Mosaic Law was
never given to provide justification. Justification is Paul’s favorite
word to describe salvation. It was never used that way. A couple of verses
that you can latch on to to focus your thinking. Galatians 2:16 begins
with a causal adverbial participle. It should be translated, “Because we
know that a man is not justified by the works of the law.”
NKJ Galatians 2:16 "knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but by
faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we might be
justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law; for by the works
of the law no flesh shall be justified.
A man
could never be justified by the works of the law. It would be impossible is
what Paul is saying. It is the object of faith that is important. It is what Christ did on the cross. It
is not expressing doubt on Paul’s part. It is expressing the potential result
of the faith that we have believed than we might be. There is a certainty
there. To believe is to be justified by faith in Christ. Can he make it any
clearer? Three times in there he says that the works of the law can’t justify. No
matter how good we are not matter how obedient we are it doesn’t cut any ice
with God. The issue is do we possess the same righteousness that God possesses.
That means absolute perfection not the tiniest flaw. This is clear in
Philippians 3:8-9.
NKJ Philippians 3:8 Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the
knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all
things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ 9 and be
found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is
through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith;
In the
previous context he described all the things that he achieved as a Pharisee. He
was born into Judaism in the tribe of Benjamin. He has gone through the most
excellent training of the Pharisees. He is a Pharisee of the Pharisees. No one
had a reputation that surpassed Paul’s. No one had a mind that was sharper than
Paul’s. No one understood the law better than Paul. He counted everything he
did on his own as lost. That’s not rubbish. That is an anemic word in the English
for what the Greek says. Horse manure is a polite way to put it. It counts
everything as dung. All those good works, all that morality and all that
religious ritualism is nothing but dung compared to what Christ gives us. Phil
3:9. It is not what we do. At the instant of salvation God gives you Christ’s
righteousness. That’s why He justifies you. It is justification by faith alone.
Because you trust in Christ God imputes to you Christ’s righteousness and
declares you just because you possess the righteousness of Christ. Were these
Old Testament believers coming out of Egypt justified? Let’s look at what the
Old Testament says.
- When the people first heard
Aaron they believed and they bowed low and they worshipped. We see this in
Exodus 4:30-31. That’s really a summation at the end of the chapter. This
is when Aaron and Moses first come to the people. Aaron is Moses’
mouthpiece. Moses describes how God called Moses to be their deliverer. Aaron
spoke.
NKJ Exodus 4:30 And Aaron spoke all the words which the LORD had
spoken to Moses. Then he did the signs in the sight of the people.
NKJV Exodus 4:31 So the people believed; and when they heard that the
LORD was concerned about the sons of Israel and that He had seen their
affliction, then they bowed low and worshiped.
So once
again there is empirical data supporting his position, his contention that
Moses is going to be the deliverer. How do the people respond? The people
believed. This is something interesting. We touched on this a little bit
Tuesday night when we saw the faithful servant of Abraham go back to the homeland
to find a bride for Isaac. Every time God answered a prayer he bowed his head
and worshipped. He prostrated himself literally. The word means to worship. It
is the idea of expressing gratitude to God for His provision. That attitude
where we express thanks to God when He provides for us and answers our prayers
is worship. That’s worship. We get such crazy ideas today that worship is
singing a bunch of songs that make you feel a certain way and make you emote a
certain way. But you don’t find that in the Scriptures. It has to do with
orientation to God and His grace and humility and expressing what God has
provided for us. The people here believed God. The word that is translated
believe is a word that’s familiar to us. It is the Hebrew word aman. We relate it even in our language
today as the word amen. It has a cognate in almost every language in the world
by the way. I think it is evidence that an early form of Hebrew was probably
the original language spoken in the garden and through ancient history before
the Tower of Babel. It’s a hiphel
imperfect. It means to trust, to believe, to rely upon something. It’s used
throughout the Old Testament to express a condition of salvation. In fact in
Genesis 15:6 we are reminded that Abraham had already believed God and it was
imputed to him as righteousness. That’s the Old Testament foundation for the
doctrine of justification. It is the same principle that we saw Paul describing
in Galatians 2:16 and in Philippians 3:8-9. That is that when we trust Christ
whether it was in anticipation as in the Old Testament or looking back in the
New Testament, when we trust Christ God imputes or reckons to us His
righteousness and declares us to be righteous. This is the same terminology
that is used in Genesis 15:6. In fact six times the word aman occurs in Exodus 4. At the beginning of the chapter, Moses
doubts the people would believe him.
But by the end of the chapter they do believe him. They believe and that
is indicative of their salvation.
- Their belief is followed by
worship and obedience. This indicates that they are trusting the message
of God. That’s the foundation for salvation. You see this in Exodus 4:13
and 12:27.
- Again they believe at the Reed
Sea. This time you have it connected with the word jesua. Jesua is the
Hebrew root word for the name Jesus. In fact Jesus in Hebrew is jeshua. Jeshua is another form of Joshua. This is only the second time
that the word jeshua is used in
the Old Testament. It’s the noun salvation. The significance is emphasized
here by the lack of usage.
The conclusion in that event is that God saved Israel that day. So
they believed God at the Red Sea and He delivers them. He saves them.
- They believed when they saw the
deliverance.
NKJ Exodus 14:31 Thus Israel saw the great work which the LORD had
done in Egypt; so the people feared the LORD, and believed the LORD and His
servant Moses.
Now what
is interesting about this phrase is that again you have that same word aman. The New King James says that they
believed the Lord. But literally in the Hebrew it says that they believed and
then there is this little preposition b. The Hebrew word preposition for “in”
is a single letter b. If you take that and put it into Greek it is the phrase pisteuo eis. Pisteuo eis is the phrase that John uses over and over and over
again in John to express the condition for salvation - to believe in the name
of Jesus. So the Old Testament terminology that is used in Exodus is the same
terminology used in the New Testament. That indicates that the people believed
in YHWH. They are indeed saved.
- In the song of Moses we see
that Moses connects this salvation with the words for redemption and the
word for being purchased. He connects these together in his song of praise
given in Exodus 15. These three ideas of salvation redemption and being
purchased are linked together.
NKJ Exodus 15:2 The LORD is my
strength and song, And He has become my salvation; He is my God, and I will praise Him; My father's God, and I will exalt
Him.
NKJ Exodus 15:13 You in Your mercy have led forth The people whom You
have redeemed; You have guided them in
Your strength To Your holy habitation.
NKJ Exodus 15:16 Fear and dread will fall on them; By the greatness of
Your arm They will be as still as a
stone, Till Your people pass over, O LORD, Till the people pass over Whom You
have purchased.
That is
the Hebrew word qanah that means to
buy, purchase or acquire something. Incidentally that is the root word for the
name of Cain back in Genesis 3. Eve called her son Cain because she had
acquired a man from the Lord. It is a synonym for redemption and purchase. So
once again Moses is linking all of this together. The people are redeemed. They
are a generation of saved Jews.
- Now the final comment that
locks all of this together comes out of the New Testament with the writer
of Hebrews. This is in Hebrews 11:29 All the way through you are talking
about believers. You have Adam. You have Noah. You have Abraham, Sarah,
Isaac, and Joseph. They are all believers. Then we get down to 11:29.
NKJ Hebrews 11:29 By faith they passed through the Red Sea as by dry land, whereas the Egyptians, attempting to do so, were drowned.
He puts
them in the company of a whole mass of believers down through the history of
the Old Testament. They are understood by the writer of Hebrews to be a saved
generation. They have passed through the Red Sea by dry land.
Our conclusion is that they are a generation of saved
people. They are believers. But they are a rebellious bunch of believers. They
don’t want to trust God on a day to day basis. Whenever adversity hits they
complain, they gripe and they do anything but trust God. So the warning for us
is not to be like the Exodus generation; but when we hit adversity in our life,
we are to trust God and He is going to provide the solution for us. He is
always going to handle the adversity. That’s what provides the backdrop for
understanding the principle in this chapter.
Now we will close in prayer.