Hebrews Lesson 61
August 3,
2006
NKJ Psalm 119:11 Your word I have hidden in my heart, That I might not sin against You!
We are in Hebrews 6. The last 3 or 4 weeks, which
often seems longer because somewhere along in there that got interrupted by a
trip to Israel and trip to Preston City and a few other things, we spent some
time discussing the doctrine of baptism which is crucial and important and part
of the teaching for the New Testament church. We are going to press on beyond
that phrase in Hebrews 6:2 and go into the next part of the opening section in
Hebrews 6. Remember the context here. This is a warning
passage. A warning passage by nature is serious. The author of
Hebrews is getting the attention of his hearers because they have as it were
stepped over the line. Their spiritual lives are in danger because they
have failed to take it seriously. They have gotten involved in carnality.
They have turned back to Judaism or they have taken the Word of God lightly. They
have become complacent not only about learning the Word, but also applying the
Word. As a result they have reversed course. This is the emphasis in the
warning that began in 5:11.
In verse 12 he writes…
NKJ Hebrews 5:12 For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to
teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God; and you have come
to need milk and not solid food.
That is not just academic learning. I am sure
they still understood some of the basic doctrines academically. It is a matter
of putting those doctrines into practice in their spiritual lives. This is
where they broke down.
NKJ Hebrews 5:13 For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of
righteousness, for he is a babe.
There is a lack of skill. We studied
that. Skill is application of the Word. It goes back to the Old
Testament concept of wisdom. Wisdom in the Hebrew mindset wasn’t the same
thing as Greek wisdom. In Greek wisdom it had to do with
philosophy. It had to do with being able to think through abstract
concepts. But in the Jewish mindset wisdom was something that was very
practical. It was being able take abstract principles and doctrines and apply
them to life in such a way that you produce something that was valuable,
something that was beautiful, something that honored and glorified God.
He goes on to say…
NKJ Hebrews 5:14 But solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that is, those
who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.
Again it is application. It is not just academic
understanding of what the Bible teaches or theology or doctrine. It is
taking those principles and consistently putting them into practice on a
day-by-day basis. Then he draws a conclusion. This is where we have
the warning. Actually the warning doesn’t begin per say until about verse
4. He draws a conclusion. The exhortation section began in
11. Out of that exhortation comes the warning. So we looked at verse
1. I am going to review the exegesis of Hebrews 6:1 so we understand the
flow of thought as we go from verse one to verse two and on down through three
and the beginning part of 4.
So he draws a conclusion.
NKJ Hebrews 6:1 Therefore, leaving the discussion of the elementary principles of Christ, let us go on to
perfection, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and
of faith toward God,
This is the New King James translation, but it lacks
some specificity. The main command here is to press on to
maturity. The verb is a present passive subjunctive. The idea in a
present passive subjunctive in a first person plural is where the author is
including the audience in his exhortation. We all need to do this. He
is not looking down his nose at these rebellious believers. He is saying
that we all need to press on because any of us at any moment can enter into
complacency, negative volition and begin to regress in our spiritual
lives.
The word is the Greek teleiotes indicating that the goal of
the Christian life is spiritual maturity. The goal of everything related
to the ministry of the local church is to take spiritual babies and provide
what is necessary through spiritual food, the teaching of the Word that which
is needed to press on to spiritual growth. That’s the core.
Therefore he is saying, “Let us press on to
maturity.”
In the English that is preceded by this participial
phrase which should be understood as an adverbial participle of means.
Literal translation:
Therefore by leaving behind the discussion of the elementary principles of
Christ we go on to perfection.
The participle which is translated “leaving” is an
aorist participle. The aorist participle because it is a past tense
participle precedes the action of a present tense verb. So that means you have
to leave behind basic doctrine before you can press on to maturity. You
have to be willing to go forward. It is a stepping out. It is a
forward momentum thing. You have to be able to move beyond basic doctrine
and basic application in order to press on to maturity.
The basic doctrine there is indicated by the phrase in
the Greek arche
which is the basis of the foundational doctrines related to Christ. It
is an objective genitive - the related doctrines, the related teachings about
Christ. So it should be translated “let us press on to maturity by leaving
the foundational teachings about Christ”.
Then he gives an example of what those foundational
teachings are. The first is not laying again the foundation of
repentance. This is the Greek verb kataballo which has the idea of that which is
foundational. All of these words indicate the beginning stages of the arche (the
elementary principles) and kataballo relates to laying a foundation. Then we have the word
repentance.
Literal translation: Not
laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward
God.
You have a negative and a positive here. They
need to change their minds about the ritual in Judaism. In Judaism it was
surface. It wasn’t an internal reality. This is why Jesus accused the
Pharisees of being whitewashed sepulchers or whitewashed tombstones. They
looked great on the outside - a lot of ritual, a lot of religious activity,
prayer, going to the temple. They did all of the right things. They
were in Bible class two or three times a week. They looked good. They
had doctrinal notebooks lining their shelves. They could regurgitate the
vocabulary, but there was no internal relationship that was the result of
walking by the Holy Spirit, abiding in Christ, taking the doctrine and
internalizing it so that their thinking was transformed into the thinking of
Christ. So there is repentance from dead works and positive faith toward God,
trusting in God, and trusting in the Word of God, the foundation of which is
always grace. The Christian life is always based on grace.
Then it moves on to the next set of basics – the
doctrine of baptism. We looked at that last time because in some of your
translations that word baptizmos is translated “washings”. There is a lot of debate
among commentators. I had some professors at Dallas (usually the more
reformed ones) who took this to refer to ceremonial washing that were part of
Judaism. But you see this is why I made such an emphasis back in verse 1 that
if these are elementary principles about Christ and related to Christianity,
then this can’t be focusing on Jewish ceremonial washings exclusively. We are
not talking about the basics of Judaism; we are talking about the basics of
Christianity. So, Jewish washings wouldn’t fit. But there is a problem in
that the normal Greek word that is used for baptism whether it is talking about
the believer’s baptism or John the Baptist’s baptism or the baptism of Christ
is the word baptisma
with a ma
ending. The mos
ending refers to the ceremonial washings of the Jews. The ma ending
indicated the baptism related to the different Christian baptisms or the
baptism of Jews or the baptism of Christ. So you had these two different
words. The word used here is baptismos which normally indicates washings,
but it is in the plural which is really odd. So the reason he uses the
plural there is because they have to understand the distinction between the
Jewish washings and the legitimate baptisms. Among those we have studied 8
baptisms. They have to understand the difference between John the
Baptist’s baptism, the baptism of Jesus and specifically believer’s
baptism.
Last time we went through the use of baptism in the
book of Acts showing how the apostles and the early church understood Jesus
command to the disciples in Matthew 28:19-20. When he said to go and make
disciples by baptizing them and teaching them to observe all that I have
commanded you, those two elements – baptism and teaching – were
part of the apostolic mission. If you start in Acts 2 when Peter first
preached the gospel of grace and it is the birthday of the church and Holy
Spirit descended and you had the first baptism by means of the Holy Spirit, he
had 3,000 converts. Immediately they baptized all 3,000 converts. We
walked our way through Acts. We looked at Philip the evangelist both in
Samaria and down in the Negev as he witnesses and explains the gospel to the
Ethiopian eunuch.
As soon as the Ethiopian eunuch understands the gospel
and trusts in Christ he says, “Let’s find some water and get baptized.”
There is this immediacy there. It shows how they
understood that commandment. Then you get to Acts 19 where Paul is in
Ephesus. He runs into these disciples from John the Baptist and he asks
them by what baptism they were baptized.
They said, “John’s.”
He says, “Well, don’t you know about the Holy Spirit?”
They said, “No, we don’t know about the Holy Spirit.”
They didn’t know about Jesus so he explained the
gospel to them and immediately took them down and baptized them in the name of
Jesus. So all through this we see number one the immediacy of
baptism. But we have to understand that all of these people that we are
talking about so far in Acts were those who already had a pretty good
understanding of Old Testament doctrine and theology. They weren’t brand
new untaught pagans. But we also saw that when Paul was in Corinth he
baptized several families. He didn’t do most of the baptism work. He left
that to his assistants.
When he wrote the epistle to the Corinthians, he said,
“Well I thank God that I didn’t baptize most of you.”
It wasn’t that he was upset that he did baptize any of
them.
He said, “I am glad that I didn’t baptize many of you”
because they were creating this division based who got baptized by whom.
Then I pointed out that when Paul wrote I Corinthians,
he wrote it at approximately the same time that the events in Acts 19 took
place when he baptizes those disciples of John the Baptist.
What do we learn from that? We learn that when Paul
later on in I Corinthians when he says, “I was sent not to baptize but to
teach and proclaim the gospel”, some people have taken that to mean that Paul
wasn’t supposed to baptize. That is not why he was sent. He was sent to
teach. Let’s think about that a minute. If he wasn’t sent to baptize - if
what he is saying, “I wasn’t sent to baptize at all. I was just sent to teach”;
then he wouldn’t have baptized at all. But he did. He baptized at
least three families specifically mentioned in the Scriptures.
Secondly, if he wasn’t sent to baptize at all why does
he make such an issue out of believer’s baptism with the disciples of John the
Baptist in Acts 19, the same time he is writing to the Corinthians dealing with
the issue there? In other words the evidence shows that for the Apostle
Paul baptism was important but it wasn’t his primary mission. That is what
he is talking about in I Corinthians 1.
“It is not my primary mission.”
He is not rejecting it as a secondary or unimportant
objective, but it wasn’t his primary mission. He delegated that responsibility
to his disciples. So the conclusion was that there is no basis anywhere in
the New Testament to indicate that believer’s baptism was a transitory,
temporary, or transitional ordinance. It is still in effect for
today.
So the phrase that we see here in Hebrews 6:2 related
to the doctrine of baptisms is that this delineation needed to be
made. This distinction between the Old Testament ritual washing of the
Jews which pictured cleansing and New Testament believer’s baptism which is a
picture of what God the Holy Spirit does to the believer in identifying him
with the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ in cleansing him in the
process of regeneration.
NKJ Titus 3:5 not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His
mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy
Spirit,
How? By the washing of regeneration and renewal
by means of the Holy Spirit.
So the whole imagery that Paul uses in Titus 3:5 when
he is talking about regeneration brings in the imagery of baptism. So
these things are connected. The whole concept of baptism by the Holy
Spirit, identification with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection, and
positional truth – these are real easy to understand doctrines, aren’t
the? They are real concrete. We move right through them,
right? No, they are really difficult. That is why God gave us the
ritual of water baptism. It is because it encapsulates this whole process so
that every time we see it (if it is properly done and properly taught) we are
reminded of the reality that took place in our own lives when we trusted Jesus
Christ as Savior and where God the Holy Spirit was used to cleanse us and enter
us into union with Jesus Christ.
But this is just basic stuff according to the writer
of Hebrews.
The next thing is the laying on of hands. Now
what is meant by the laying on of hands? This is really
interesting. When you look at the Scripture the laying on of hands has
several different uses. It was done when healing was the issue in Mark 5:22 and
Acts 28:8. When someone was being healed, then the person who was healing
them would lay hands on them. It was a picture of
identification. That is the ultimate picture there. Just as baptism
is identification, what you have when one person laid hands on another person
was that he was identified with that person.
You have the same thing happen in the Old Testament
when somebody was coming to the Temple. They were bringing a
sacrifice. They would do what? They would lay their hands on the lamb
or the goat. This was a sign that they were identifying their sins with
that sacrificial animal.
So once again laying on of hands like baptism
indicated identification.
But, since we have here in Hebrews 6:2 the association
of the doctrine of baptisms and then the next statement is the laying on of
hands; we can see that the writer is pairing these together. In the book
of Acts there is a connection between baptism and the laying on of hands. When
the apostles would baptize someone, that’s what they did. They laid hands
on them in the sense that there was this identification indicating that the
apostle understood that this person was to have trusted in Christ as their
Savior. Now they were identified together in the body of Christ. Again it
reinforced this whole idea that every single believer at the instant of faith
alone in Christ alone is entered into the body of Christ. We are now one in the
body of Christ. There is a constitutional unity among all believers
whether you are an American believer, or whether you are British or whether you
are Iranian.
Incidentally I am hearing a lot of reports recently
about a tremendous underground movement in Iran where hundreds of Iranians are
coming to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. In the last week I have
gotten three or four different reports. Doug was telling me about an
Iranian believer at his work. He goes to a church where there is a whole
group of Iranian believers who go back to Iran a couple of times a year and are
involved in witnessing and involved in evangelism. Then I was talking with
Charlie Clough last week. We have been doing some work for the pastor’s
conference for next year which is going to have a heavy emphasis on Islamic evangelism.
He was telling me about an elder that he has mentioned several times who is
Iranian. This elder at his church who is Iranian keeps up with family and
friends still in Iran. He was telling Charlie last week that this is biggest
news item in the world today. The news media is oblivious to
it. There are hundreds if not thousands of Iranians who are trusting in
Jesus Christ as their Savior. In the midst of all of that, I received this
month’s or this quarter’s newsletter from the publication Voice of the Martyrs which is a
publication put out dealing with Christians in areas where there is a lot of
suffering and persecution for Christians. In this edition all of the
articles were focusing on what is going on today in Iran. So this is
something to pray about.
Now I know I got your curiosity up. We have got a
couple of speakers nailed down for the pastor’s conference next year. A
couple of nights we are going to have Pat Cate speak. Some of you know who
Pat Cate is. He is originally from Houston. He married the daughter
of Dick Summy. Dr. Summy was the chaplain of Dallas Seminary when I was
there. Dr. Summy was the third pastor of Berachah Church. Pat Cate
has been supported as a missionary by Berachah, by Bethel, by Spring Branch,
and several other churches here. He is probably in his late 60’s or early
70’s now. He was in Iran for at least 15 or 20 years. He and his family
had to evacuate from Tehran in 1979. He has been operating out of Pennsylvania
the last 15 or 20 years as the Executive President of a world-wide mission to
Muslims. He will be speaking.
Then I also have secured Ergen Cantor who is the
President of Liberty Seminary. He and his brother are
well-known. They both have their PhD’s in systematic theology. They
were raised Muslim. They have written a number of books dealing with Islam and
Christianity. Right now they are writing a commentary on the Koran from an
evangelical Christian perspective. It will be quite a useful tool for
believers who are trying to witness to Muslims. So we have that to look
forward to. That gives us a little insight into some things that are
coming up.
There are a lot of things going on around the world
that we need to pray for – that people are learning the gospel and
hearing the gospel. One day I had a bunch of conversations and afterwards
I couldn’t remember who told me this. In Afghanistan right now they are
having the highest number of conversions at the first hearing of the gospel of
any country in the world. What that means is that they are responding. The
first time they hear the gospel they trust in Christ as their
Savior. Those who study these things say that most people respond after
they have heard the gospel explained four or five times. They need the
repetition. But in Afghanistan there is a big movement. Why is
that? I think it is because (and the thing that most people who study
these things say) there is such an environment of hate, hostility and
repression that people are getting sick of it and are responding to the love of
the gospel and the love of God as opposed to this hateful, tyrannical,
fatalistic Allah of Islam.
Back to our passage. The laying on of hands
indicates the identification of the individual with the person who is laying on
hands. It was associated with baptism by the apostles in many of the
passages - for example in Acts 8:17-19 when Phillip is in Samaria, Acts
9:12 after Paul’s salvation, and Acts 9:12 and 17. In Acts 19:6
Paul lays hands on those disciples of John the Baptists who represent Old
Testament saints.
Also laying on of hands would take place when an
officer of the church, a pastor or a deacon was ordained. It indicates
identification. There is a unity between the person laying on hands and
the person who is having hands laid on. That is the point I was bringing
out earlier. The unity of the body of Christ—the world-wide body of
Christ is still being put together by God the Holy Spirit. You have
passages in the pastorals such as I Timothy 4:14, 5:22, and II Timothy 1:6 that
all speak about the laying on of hands. But what we have here in Hebrews
is the mention of laying on of hands in such close proximity to baptism that it
would indicate this identification that is very similar to what happens in
baptism.
What baptism is is a picture of this identification with
Christ and the identification of the new convert with the body of
Christ. This is all basic, basic, basic doctrine.
NKJ Hebrews 6:2 of the doctrine of baptisms, of laying on of hands, of resurrection of
the dead, and of eternal judgment.
Then we come to the next phrase in verse 2, the
resurrection of the dead. This is an interesting phrase. I did a
little work on it today because what you have in the Greek is a plural noun for
the word dead. Some have been tempted to translate that “resurrection from
the dead ones”.
Actually the reason it is plural in the Greek was that
this is just the idiom. In English the noun dead is a collective noun sort
of like the word crowd. You have a singular crowd, but a crowd is made up
of a multiplicity of people. You don’t talk about crowds unless you are talking
about this crowd over here or a crowd over there. So in the English you
have collective nouns. Every language has collective nouns. In Greek
the idiom was to talk about all of the dead with a plural noun. But in
English we would translate it with a singular noun because by translating it
“the dead” we understand it is a collective noun referring to all of the dead. In
this mention of the resurrection of the dead is a reference to the future
resurrection of everyone. Notice we move from the foundational doctrines
related to salvation, repentance from dead works and faith toward God. Then the
second pair is the doctrine of baptisms and the laying on of hands. Those
connect together. Then the last two focus toward the future - the
resurrection of the dead and of eternal judgment. There is a resurrection
and then there is judgment. I Corinthians 15:42ff is the central passage
in the New Testament dealing with the doctrine of resurrection.
There we read…
NKJ 1 Corinthians 15:42 So also is
the resurrection of the dead. The body is sown in corruption, it is raised in
incorruption.
We have almost the same phraseology there –
resurrection plus the plural of the word dead.
What we have in verse 42ff is the general principle of
resurrection. The body (referring to the physical body) is sown in
corruption. We are all born fallen. We are in Adam. Our bodies are
subject to the physical consequences of sin. Our body is sown in
corruption. It must be raised in incorruption. The corrupt mortal
human body cannot go into heaven. It is sown in corruption; but it is
raised in incorruption. We will receive an incorruptible resurrection body
at the rapture.
NKJ 1 Corinthians 15:43 It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness,
it is raised in power.
Our physical body is sown in dishonor because of
sin.
NKJ 1 Corinthians 15:44 It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. There is a
natural body, and there is a spiritual body.
Then Paul makes the statement that there is a natural
body and there is a spiritual body. What does he mean by that? He
means the natural body in context is related to the body of dishonor. It is
related to the body of weakness. It is related to the body of corruption. He
builds these parallels all the way through. You have corruption for the
natural body and incorruption for the resurrected body, dishonor for the
natural body and glory for the resurrection body, weakness for the natural body
and power for the resurrection body. Natural body – spiritual body
fits that pattern. So he is not talking about a natural body in the sense
of a physical mortal body and the spiritual body is some ephemeral ghost mist
floating through the air like Casper the Ghost. It is a spiritual body in that
it is related to the dimension of heaven.
Then we read verse 45.
NKJ 1 Corinthians 15:45 And so it is written, "The first man Adam became a living
being." The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.
So there is a distinction between the present body and
the future body.
Paul concludes.
NKJ 1 Corinthians 15:46 However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural, and afterward the
spiritual.
There is a necessary progression.
NKJ 1 Corinthians 15:47 The first man was of the earth, made of dust; the second Man is the Lord from heaven
So the resurrection body is going to have certain
features similar to our present corporeal body, but it will have other features
and characteristics that are quite a bit different that will allow us to live
in the heavenly dimension.
NKJ 1 Corinthians 15:48 As was the
man of
dust, so also are
those who
are made of dust; and as is the heavenly Man, so also are those who are heavenly.
That continues the contrast between the mortal
corporeal fallen body that we are born with and the heavenly.
NKJ 1 Corinthians 15:49 And as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the
image of the heavenly Man.
So I Corinthians 15:42-49 emphasizes the reality of
resurrection. When we come to the last phrase (I want to tie these two
together), it relates to eternal judgment. When we talk about what the
Bible teaches about eternal judgment, we have to recognize first of all that every
human being is born under condemnation. This is seen in John 3:18
NKJ John 3:18 "He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not
believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the
only begotten Son of God.
At the instant of birth every single human being is
born with the imputation of Adam’s original sin and guilty of Adam’s original
sin and under condemnation. The only thing that moves a person from
condemnation to acceptance is belief in Jesus Christ according to this
passage.
So every human being is born under condemnation and
would remain under condemnation until they believe in the Lord Jesus
Christ. If they die physically before they put their faith in Christ, they
are still in a status of condemnation. This is what the writer of Hebrews
refers to in Hebrews 9:27-28. This is a great verse to use against the
whole doctrine of reincarnation, which is no more that pagan recycling.
NKJ Hebrews 9:27 And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment,
You are not going to die and come back as a lizard and
then die and come back as a mouse and then die and come back as a
horse. In the Japanese scheme of things the very worst thing that can
happen is that you die and come back as a woman. That is worse than coming
back as a lizard, mouse or anything else. They haven’t quite made it into
the 20th century when it comes to understanding the equality of the
sexes I guess.
Speaking of reincarnation you have to realize that the
whole doctrine of Hindu reincarnation has been sanitized for the American
public. Most Americans think that if they get reincarnated they come back
as another human being. They might not have all of the benefits that they
have now. They might have to come back as somebody who lives down in the
ghetto somewhere. They might have to come back as somebody in a third
world country. But that is not the real doctrine of reincarnation. In
the real doctrine of reincarnation you come back as lower life forms. You
come back as lizards, snakes mice, cows and all these other things. That
is why some animals can’t be eaten – you might be eating your
grandfather.
The Scripture teaches that it is appointed for men to
die once and after this the judgment. Now if you died physically and then
you are going to be judged, what has to happen in between? Well you have
to come back to life somehow so you can stand before the judge and be
evaluated.
That is why the writer of Hebrews in verse 2 connects
the resurrection of the dead. It isn’t talking about just believers. It is
talking about all are going to be resurrected in the different resurrections,
but all will be resurrected and face eternal judgment – eternal
evaluation. Believers will face the Judgment Seat of Christ. Unbelievers
will face the Great White Throne Judgment. Every unbeliever remains in the
grave until the end of the Millennial Kingdom when they are resurrected.
NKJ Hebrews 9:27 And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment,
NKJ Hebrews 9:28 so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who
eagerly wait for Him He will appear a second time, apart from sin, for
salvation.
That is the resurrection of believers. For Church
Age believers that occurs at the rapture which is what we have been studying on
Sunday morning. Every Church Age believer alive or dead is taken to be
with the Lord in the clouds at the end of the Church Age at the event known as
the rapture. Old Testament saints and tribulation martyrs are resurrected
at the end of the tribulation period. That is the second stage in the first
resurrection. But unbelievers get resurrected only once and that is at the
end of the Millennial Kingdom.
Revelation 20:12-15 gives us the description of what
happens at the Great White Throne Judgment. John says…
NKJ Revelation 20:12 And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, and books were
opened. And another book was opened, which is the Book of Life. And the dead were
judged according to their works, by the things which were written in the books.
Now this judgment does not include at least in the
context any believers.
Somebody asked me the other morning, “When do
millennial saints get their resurrection bodies?”
By inference they get it at this time. The Scripture
doesn’t say. When are they evaluated for rewards or blessings? It would
probably be at this time, but that is just an inference. The Scripture
never addresses that particular issue. It never states when that
occurs. So we just have to infer that. What we do have described in
Revelation 20:12-15 is the judgment of unbelievers.
These are the books that list all of the works, all of
the production of these individuals. Now when we look at the end of this
what we see is that they are evaluated according to their works. The term
works isn’t a technical theological term. We have good works; we have bad
works. As believers we have works that are done by the Holy Spirit and we
have works that are done in the flesh. But, works is just a generic term
for production. So what happens at the Great White Throne Judgment is that
every individual that is there is evaluated according to their
production. In other words, how good is your production?
You have to have three things in order to get into
heaven.
Now when Jesus Christ died on the cross for the sins
of the world, He paid the penalty for every single sin in history in
actuality. This always gets into a little bit of discussion about the
extent of the atonement – whether Jesus died for everybody without
distinction, without exception or whether He died only those who are going to
be saved. Follow me on this.
One of the first questions that comes up is what kind
of substitution is it? Is it a real substitution? Did Jesus really die for
the sins of the unbeliever who is always an unbeliever? If he always
remains an unbeliever and never trusts Christ as Savior and if Jesus died for
his sins, why isn’t he in heaven? That is what I am going to
answer. He doesn’t get to heaven just because his sins are paid
for. Remember, three things have to happen – his sins have to be
paid for, he has to have perfect righteousness, and he has to have eternal
life.
When Christ died for the sins for the world, some
theologians came along in the context of the Reformation and said, “Well, we
can’t accept the fact that Christ died only for elect because there are too
many passages that say that Christ died for everybody.”
So there was a Calvinist theologian at the seminary in
Sal moor, France by the name of Moses Amyraut. His theological position is
known as Amyrauldianism. The Amyrauldian position is nothing more than a
hypothetical atonement. That means Jesus died for you if you
believe. If you don’t believe He didn’t die for you and you go to hell for
your sin. There is a problem with that. Classic Amyrauldianism is
usually the position that people take who are called four-point
Calvinists. They will usually express it this way. Jesus Christ’s
death was sufficient for everybody, but it was effective only for the elect.
Now I have heard people on both sides of the argument use that definition which
makes it confusing.
Let’s say that I go all the way through life and I
don’t trust Christ as my savior.
Before I die someone explains the gospel to me and
says, “Christ died for your sins.”
I say, “Well, I don’t believe that.”
Then I go to hell. I am in the Lake of
Fire. This is after the Great White Throne Judgment.
Somebody days, “Why are you here?”
“Well, Christ didn’t die for my sins. I am here
paying the penalty for my sins.”
That would mean that Christ didn’t die for
them. If I had accepted the payment before I died, then it would have been
applied to me and He would have died for my sins. But if I don’t accept it
and if I go to the Lake of Fire to pay the penalty for sin, then that means
that Christ didn’t die for my sins. This is sort of a backdoor limited
atonement.
I will resolve the problem by the way I am explaining
this. When we breakdown salvation into those three issues (the first is
the penalty of sin, the second is possession of righteousness, and the third is
eternal life) what happens is that Christ truly and actually substitutes for
everybody.
He pays their penalty so that the unbeliever has his
sin penalty paid for him; but because he doesn’t believe in Christ, he doesn’t
receive the imputation of righteousness and he doesn’t have eternal
life. Without perfect righteousness he can’t get into heaven. Without
eternal life (which is not only a never ending life but also quality of life),
he doesn’t have the capacity to enjoy heaven. What happens at the Great
White Throne Judgment substantiates this. The dead are judged according to
their works by the things that are written in the books.
What are written in these books are all the things
that they do. It’s not their sin. Sin is paid for. Christ paid
the penalty of sin in all actuality. It is a real substitution. It’s not
this phony hypothetical substitution that Amyraut came up with. It is a
real substitution. Their sin is truly and actually paid for. But now
because they didn’t trust Christ and they don’t possess His righteousness, God
is going to show that they don’t have enough righteousness to meet His absolute
perfect standard.
So, all of their good deeds are piled up. Some
people’s piles won’t go very far. Other people’s piles are going to go
pretty far depending on how good and moral they were as unbelievers. They
are going to have good works. But when they are all piled up, they won’t
even come close to the first tick on the ruler because man can’t produce the
perfect righteousness of God.
NKJ Isaiah 64:6 But we are all like an unclean thing, And all our righteousnesses are like
filthy rags; We all fade as a leaf, And our iniquities, like the wind, Have
taken us away.
It’s not our works of unrighteousness, but our works
of righteousness. So the dead are going to be judged according to their
works. Their works aren’t good enough to receive perfect righteousness, to
measure up to perfect righteousness, God’s absolute standard; so they can’t get
into heaven. And they don’t have eternal life so they are
condemned. Why? Because they didn’t believe in Christ. Believing
in Christ is the only way to get the imputation of perfect
righteousness. That is why John 3:18 says….
NKJ John 3:18 "He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not
believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the
only begotten Son of God.
Belief in Christ is the only way that you get perfect
righteousness and eternal life.
NKJ Revelation 20:13 The sea gave up the dead who were in it, and Death and Hades delivered
up the dead who were in them. And they were judged, each one according to his
works.
Not according to sin, but according to works.
NKJ Revelation 20:14 Then Death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second
death.
Death and Hades refer to the holding place where all the
unbelievers went between physical death and judgment.
NKJ Revelation 20:15 And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake
of fire.
The Book of Life refers to those who have perfect righteousness
and those who have eternal life. So they are condemned because they did
not possess perfect righteousness and did not have eternal life. So that
resolves the issue of how Christ can truly substitute for the unbeliever, fully
pay his penalty and why he still goes to the Lake of Fire - not to pay the
penalty for his sins but because he failed to do what God said to do in
trusting Christ as his savior. And because he is not qualified to go into
heaven, he remains condemned and goes into eternal condemnation.
Then we come to Hebrews 6:3
NKJ Hebrews 6:3 And this we will do if God permits.
Wait a minute. What will we do if God
permits? Remember the command? Let us carry on to maturity. What
is the problem? The problem is that the writer of Hebrews is dealing with a
readership that is at best in doubt about whether they are going to continue to
grow spirituality. At worst they have already hit the slippery slope and
they have slid down into a reverse of their spiritual growth. They are
backslidden and they are in complete and total carnality and rebellion against
God. They are in the worst case scenario.
So when we come to verse 3, it is a future tense of poieo.
That is, we will press on. He qualifies it and
says, “if God permits”. In other words there is a real warning and danger
here that we can reach a point-of-no-return in terms of our rebelliousness
where God finally allows us to sink into the pit of our own rebellion and
carnality, die the sin unto death, and lose rewards and what ever position
responsibility we might have otherwise had. That is the seriousness of the
warning here.
He indicates this by saying, “This we will do if God
permits.”
The word translated here “if” is not the normal word
that we expect which would be the Greek particle ean. It has a suffix per added to
it.
Eanper intensifies the
condition. What he is saying is that we can do this only if God
permits. Maybe He will; maybe He won’t. It is a third class condition. God
may not allow us to reverse course and to start pursuing spiritual growth
again. And now he is going to explain that.
A lot of people say, “Wait a minute. You mean God
may finally get fed up with our rebellion and let us slide on to self destruction?”
Yes, that is true. He lays down a principle and
an explanation in verse 4.
NKJ Hebrews 6:4 For it
is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted the
heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit,
NKJ Hebrews 6:5 and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come,
NKJ Hebrews 6:6 if they fall away, to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify
again for themselves the Son of God, and put Him to an open shame.
That is what he has been warning about all
along. Don’t fall away. Instead press on to maturity.
Then there are 5 categories listed.
In other words there is a serious warning here that
the believer can reach a point-of-no-return in his decline into rebellion
carnality. It appears that it will not be possible for them to reverse course
at least by any human means.
This is a complicated passage of exegesis. There
are a lot of people who go to this section to try to argue that you can lose
your salvation.
That’s not what it is talking about at
all. Salvation isn’t the issue here. The issue here is - are you
going to press on to spiritual maturity or regress in spiritual rebellion to
the point where aside from a special work of God renewal is impossible? That’s
the thrust.
We are going need to take some time to break each
phrase down so that you understand what is being discussed here and where we
can understand very clearly that he is talking about the fact that these are
believers, not unbelievers. These are believers and it is talking about
the danger of spiritual regression. So we will come back and look at
that. Verses 7 and 8 talk about the judgment that comes to those in
spiritual regression through the imagery of dry earth, drinking in the rain,
producing fruit and also producing thorns and briars. So we will have to
get to that next time.
Let us close in prayer.