Hebrews Lesson 72
December 14, 2006
NKJ Isaiah 26:3
You will keep him in perfect peace, Whose
mind is stayed on You, Because he trusts in You.
Last week we continued our studies in Hebrews 6:9-11.
In verse 9 we read…
NKJ Hebrews 6:9 But,
beloved, we are confident of better things concerning you, yes, things that
accompany salvation, though we speak in this manner.
NKJ Hebrews 6:10 For
God is not unjust to forget your work
and labor of love which you have shown toward His name, in that you have ministered to the saints, and do minister.
NKJ Hebrews 6:11 And
we desire that each one of you show the same diligence to the full assurance of
hope until the end,
NKJ Hebrews 6:12 that
you do not become sluggish, but imitate those who through faith and patience
inherit the promises.
As we look at this set of four verses in a sort of bird’s
eye view, we notice that the direction that the author’s thought is moving is
in the direction of talking about inheritance. And in verse 12 the focus
is on those imitating those who through faith and endurance there literally,
(not patience, patience is makrothumia or long on
anger literally.) This is that concept of patience and waiting. This
is the idea of endurance which is a different concept. It is related, but
endurance is a different concept. It is staying under the pressure, staying in
the adversity using the problem solving devices to implement all of God’s
assets that He has given us, all of our spiritual assets with a goal towards
inheriting the promises. So we look at verse 12 and it is moving toward inheritance,
something future. You look at verse 11 in the first part. Verse 11
and verse 12 are one sentence in the original. And in the first part of
the sentence the writer expresses his desire.
We desire that each one of you show the
same diligence to a particular end.
There is a goal. There is a purpose. There is a
function. That is the assurance of hope until the end. So again it is a
forward looking proposition there. It is looking forward to what is going
to come, the ultimate fulfillment in the Christian life.
Now as we come to that first verse I pointed out last time
that he is stating that we can have confidence that despite failure God’s grace
always provides recovery. Whatever happens, whatever we do, however
complacent we become in the Christian life, if we become distracted with the
details of life for a year, two years, five years, ten years, 15, 20, 30 years
as long as we are alive God still has a plan for our lives. The writer
starts off stating this in very strong terms in verse 9.
But, contrast to the fact that in the previous verses he has
really reamed them out. He has given them a verbal rebuke and reproof because
of their complacency. He said that it got to the point that they needed
milk and not solid food. They have become dull or sluggish in hearing back
in verse 11. They needed to go back and eat spiritual applesauce and baby
food because they had become so complacent in the spiritual life that they had
actually regressed.
Then there is this extremely serious, almost threatening
warning that if they continue this way it will in human terms almost be
impossible to reverse course unless God permits.
Verse 3 emphasizes grace. God permits. God provides
the means to recovery. The trouble is people can get so reversed in their
spiritual life and end up living, thinking and acting like an unbeliever. It
just becomes like concrete on their souls. It does become virtually
impossible to recover because of the whole mechanics of carnality.
But he is confident of them that they haven’t gone that
far. There is potential. There is grace and they can recover.
He addresses them here with a term of endearment, agapetos, which is
translated beloved. It comes from the verb agapao which is one
of the two verbs used for love in the New Testament. It is a word that is
always used of an audience that is composed of believers. These are not
unbelievers which is the view that a lot of Arminians have about this
passage. Arminian theology is the theology that rejects eternal security.
That takes us back to a very lengthy ongoing debate that has occurred down
through the centuries between people on the one hand who stress and overstress
the sovereign control of God and on the other extreme you have those who stress
and overstress the individual responsibility and freedom of man. When you start
pushing either of these positions to their ultimate conclusion, you end up in
some tremendous heresy. For example on the Arminian side (we usually refer
to it today by the term Arminianism), it comes from the founder of Dutch
theologian who began to modify and change his views on Calvinism. His name
is Jacob Arminius. He didn’t hold to a lot of things his followers hold to
today. But that whole debate took place in the early 1600’s. But it
really goes back even further, back to the 4th century AD. There
was a debate Augustin or Augustine
(depending on whether you are a Catholic or Protestant how you pronounce that)
who was the bishop of Hippo in North Africa and a British monk by the name of Pelagius. Pelagius
held that every human being is born in the same state that Adam was born in
– totally free, no corruption from sin whatsoever. So there was no
inherited Adam’s original sin, no Adam’s original sin being imputed to
them. They were therefore totally free to choose righteousness and could
indeed do so.
The other extreme is hyper Calvinism and high Calvinism
where you have limited atonement and Christ died only for the elect. The
hyper Calvinist view is you don’t even have to evangelize. The hyper
Calvinist position was most clearly articulated by a group of independent
Baptist pastors in the late 1700’s when a missionary came back from
India. His name escapes me right now. What was his name? He was the
father of modern missions. William Carey. When William Carey came
back from India he wanted to challenge the British to send missionaries.
After he gave his report to a group of pastors, one highly
respected independent Baptist pastor back in England at that time. The
independent Baptists were all hyper Calvinists.
He stood up and said, “Young man that is all fine and good,
but if God intended them to be saved, He would do it without your help or
mine.
That was their position that God directly saved people, not
indirectly through the means of individuals. Now today we get into different
manifestations of this whole debate. One of those manifestations is the
Lordship debate versus what has come to be called the free grace gospel. Free
grace is almost a redundancy. The term free was added because everybody
talks about grace. The Roman Catholics talk about grace. Legalists
talk about grace. All kinds of people talk about grace and they don’t have
any idea what it means. So the term free was added in that current debate
today in order to reinforce the idea that there are no strings attached to
grace. It is a free gift. People still have trouble understanding a
free gift.
Back when I was pastoring in a church where we had a lot of
kids years ago, I used to do children’s sermons about once a month. I
would have all the little kids come down and we would do a little object lesson. I
used to pull out a bill. Due to inflation, today I would probably take a
$5 bill.
I would says, “Who wants this $5 bill?”
Finally some kid would say, “I’ll take it.”
I would give it to him and say, “Fine. It is yours.”
They just couldn’t believe it. Of course that is the
whole issue with the offering for the gospel of salvation. It is a free gift -
no strings attached. So there has developed a debate in the last twenty or
thirty years that has really focused on these issues. Lordship salvation
comes out of the 5th letter P in TULIP related to
Calvinism.
The T stands for total inability (in the high Calvinist
sense) as opposed to total depravity. Total inability means man can’t do
anything at all and doesn’t respond at all even to common grace.
U stands for unconditional election.
L stands for limited atonement.
I for irresistible grace.
The P is for the perseverance of the saints.
In a high Calvinist Lordship view, the T means that if you
are truly regenerate then you will not commit certain sins, fall away
permanently or for a lengthy period of time or have any kind of extreme
carnality in your life. The real test of knowing that you are truly saved and
in the faith and regenerate is that you don’t turn your back on Christ or you
don’t commit certain sins. In fact there is one well-known Calvinist Bible
teacher. He is on the radio a lot. He is on the radio here in
Houston. He is a 5-point Calvinist and he has stated that if you are
committing sins and you die while you are committing those sins then you were
never saved. You are not part of the elect. It is not that you lose
your salvation; you just never had it. Because, if you were truly
regenerate; then you would not have been doing that. The example that he
uses is that if you were traveling somewhere, a lengthy distance on the Sabbath
(remember under the Mosaic Law. See they had problems with the Mosaic Law
too.) Let’s say you were flying from here to New York on the Sabbath and
the plane went down and you died, then you weren’t saved. You can’t know
that something like that won’t happen until you die. So there is no
assurance of salvation.
There is no certainty of salvation. We ended last time
talking about the fact that there are many people today who lack confidence,
lack certainty. This Greek word that is used here (peitho) is a word
that indicates absolute certainty.
We live in an era today where people aren’t certain. They
aren’t sure about anything. Intellectuals for the last 100 – 150
years (or we could call them pseudo intellectuals) deny the certainty of
knowledge. They don’t have an omniscient God who can speak to them so they
can’t know anything for sure. But we can know things for sure. I
pointed out last time that this word is used in Romans 8:38-39.
NKJ Romans 8:38
For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities
nor powers, nor things present nor things to come,
NKJ Romans 8:38
For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities
nor powers, nor things present nor things to come,
So this word peitho indicates a
strong level of confidence or assurance.
We have the whole issue of assurance of salvation and how
much do you have to understand about assurance of salvation and about eternal security
in order to be saved. Some of you don’t know this, but in recent years a
debate has developed within the free grace camp. I am going to try to
chart this out. Over here we have had this battle between Lordship and over
here you have free grace. Now the problem with Lordship is they add
something to faith alone in Christ alone.
So they would say, in fact some of them will come right out
and say, “We believe that it is faith alone in Christ.”
But it is not alone because they are going to bring works
into the backdoor, not the front door. The front door is like a legalistic
Baptist who says you have to be baptized and you can’t smoke, drink, chew or go
with girls who do or dance or any of those things. So it is up
front. In the Church of Christ you have to believe and be baptized in
order to be saved. That is front door. This is backdoor. You have to
believe in Christ and if it is real faith, it will bring about certain
necessary consequent works. So it is not until you see the evidence of
that genuine faith that you can be sure that you are saved. You may not
know until you die that you haven’t turned you back on Christ. So it is a
back door works here. It is unstated. This is insidious. So they are actually
adding to the gospel. So they are truly teaching a different kind of
gospel.
In Galatians 1 Paul says twice that they would be accursed
if they would teach another gospel.
NKJ Galatians 1:9
As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel
to you than what you have received, let him be accursed.
There the Greek word is heteros meaning
another of a different kind. So it is adding something to the
gospel. At the free grace camp we have had another insidious development
take place. You have to be aware. I was talking with some friends
both at Pre-Trib and ETS and it seems
like in the last 30 years there are 1,000 more and different movements, icks, acts and spasms in the evangelical church than there were
30 years ago when we were in seminary.
Free grace started off with a wonderful statement. I
don’t know who came up with it, but their motto was faith alone in Christ alone
- faith alone, no works associated with it. All you have to do to have
salvation is to believe that Jesus Christ died on the cross for your
sins. It’s not faith plus baptism, faith plus any kind of ritual, faith
plus commitment, faith plus inviting Jesus into your heart, walking an aisle,
repenting; none of those things. Over the last 20-25 years some of the leaders
in the Free Grace Movement have done some fabulous work emphasizing the
importance of faith alone in Christ alone. No works! You are not
going to buy into this false statement that you often hear. Some of you
may have heard this: “While we are saved by faith alone, the faith that
saves is never alone.” Let me say that again. While we are saved by faith
alone, the faith that saves is never alone. Has anybody ever heard
that? It is that subtle backdoor works again. While we are saved by
faith alone, if it is genuine real saving faith then it is going to be
accompanied with works. It is never alone.
Now what has happened in recent years, if you go back and
you read in some of the literature this has always been there (But see a lot of
us were so focused on dealing with the Lordship issue that we didn’t spot that
there was something subtle going on in the background in a lot of the free
grace writings that kind of came up on us and bit us hard) is that faith
alone in Christ alone isn’t good enough. You have to have faith alone in
Christ alone with an understanding that you are getting eternal life. Eternal
is the key word there because what they are loading – just like the faith
alone in Christ crowd - the Lordship crowd sneaks works in there through the
back door. What happens here is they are loading up the word eternal with
some concept that it can’t be lost. So there is the emphasis that there
is some sense of eternal security or assurance of salvation no matter how nebulous
or implicit it may be. If it is not there you really didn’t get
saved. So this has created a lot of problems in certain circles. It
has become very divisive because you see the crowd that is now teaching this I
would say has added just like the faith alone in Christ alone crowd has added
that was wrong added evidential works. This crowd is adding eternal life
to the equation. They do it in a subtle backdoor manner. The result
is that if you believe in faith alone in Christ alone and you don’t bring in
the sense that you are accepting Christ for the result which is eternal life,
then you have an insufficient gospel. You are not giving people enough
information.
So this has created a problem in our own backdoor with
Chaffer Seminary. One of the faculty members was emphasizing this and we had to
deal with that a lot this last year. Those are long processes to try to
deal with any kind of subtle error that creeps in. We have to keep the
gospel pure. What they are doing is adding to the gospel the notion of
eternal life. It is not enough to believe in Jesus for justification. I
trust in Christ for the forgiveness of my sins, I don’t have eternal life. I
didn’t mention it so I am not going to get saved. If I just believe in
Jesus for justification with no mention of eternal life, then I am not going to
get saved.
I believe that God in His omniscience is so great that He
knows what I am trusting in my thinking for salvation. Even if I don’t say
it the right way, even if I pray a silly prayer like inviting Jesus into my
heart (that’s not biblically correct) but if in my thinking I am trusting in
Christ alone for salvation God is going to save me. He doesn’t come down
and say that you have got to be a theologian with a PhD in Greek and Hebrew and
say the right words in the right order in order to get saved. What is
important is that in your thinking, in your volition you are trusting in Christ
alone. You are recognizing that He is the only way to salvation. So you
don’t have to front load the gospel with assurance of salvation. In fact
we were talking about this.
The multiplication of organizations is without end. That is
a paraphrase of Solomon in Ecclesiastes who says. “To the making of books there
is no end.”
I was talking to Fred Liebrand who is the
pastor of North Eastern Bible Church in San Antonio. I don’t know what his
title is – director, executive director of the Free Grace Alliance. We
were talking about this last week and then an older pastor (I respect him
because of what he has done. He has done a lot of things. He is a
great guy, a nice guy. He is the one guy who comes to the Pre-Trib every
year. He is the pastor of an Assembly of God church in Charlotte, North Carolina)
His name is Joe Chambers. Joe will tell you right off the bat that he is a
classic Pentecostal. He does not believe in eternal security. He
believes that Christ died for his sins. So according to this view, he is
not saved because he doesn’t understand eternal security. If you go into
the mission field and you go into Eastern Europe, 90% of the Christians in the
former Soviet Union were never taught eternal security. They didn’t
believe it. They are as Arminian as they can be. You can lose your
salvation. So that means that none of those people who trusted in Christ are
ever going to go to heaven because they didn’t understand eternal
security. This is the most absurd thing in the world. It is something
that we have to be aware of so that we can fight it.
Now there is no sense of any of this in Hebrews. The
writer of Hebrews is encouraging them that even though they have failed
miserably, it doesn’t mean that they need to re-examine themselves to see if
they are in the faith. They know that they are saved because they trusted
in Jesus Christ as the Messiah, the promised Savior from the Old
Testament.
So because of that they are saved and he is confident that
God’s grace can solve their problems of carnality and they can recover.
The question here becomes, what is the significance of these
better things. Better than what? Better things have a future
orientation.
The better things are the things that accompany
salvation.
Here is a corrected translation of the verse. We hit
this last time.
Literal
translation:
But beloved concerning you we are convinced of better things that are related
to your salvation.
So the better things are related to soteria. We ran into that word back in
the first chapter of Hebrews in Hebrews 1:14. We ran into it again in
Hebrews 2:3 where the writer makes the statement…
NKJ Hebrews 2:3
how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation,
In those passages I said the writer’s focus is not on being
saved from the penalty of sin today, but the focus is future realizing the full
salvation including future rewards and inheritance. That fits the thrust
of this passage in verses 9 and 10. So he says that we are convinced of
better things that are related to your destiny. That salvation destiny
that God has for every single believer in the realization of his future
position and rewards as a king and priest in the coming kingdom.
So this brings into our discussion the whole issue of
rewards. II Corinthians 5:10 says...
NKJ 2 Corinthians 5:10 For
we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may
receive the things done in the body,
according to what he has done, whether good or bad.
I want you to pay attention to this word here. The word
here that is translated deeds is a word that we are going to study in a
minute. It is the Greek word ergon. It means works. I pointed out last time as we
wrapped up that Christians always have a problem with works because we are
saved by grace and not by works. So works are bad. But, are they always
bad? No, they are not always bad. When you are fighting a battle
against people who are constantly emphasizing works it is really easy to think
that works are always bad. But the word ergon as we will see
is a neutral word. Right here we are going to be recompensed. That is
a positive word meaning that we are going to receive reward for works. That
is not talking about salvation.
NKJ Ephesians 2:8
For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God,
NKJ Ephesians 2:9
not of works, lest anyone should boast.
This is talking about production that occurs after
salvation. So they will be recompensed for works in the body according to
what he has done. Literally there is the Greek word prasso meaning what he has practiced whether
good or bad. This is a reference to the judgment seat, the Bema
Seat.
This is a well known site in Corinth, the site of the Bema
seat where the magistrate would sit and hear cases and make decisions. In the
background you see the Accra Corinth which is the high point of Corinth where
they have the ruins of the temple up on top. So it is the raised or
elevated seat where the magistrate or tribunal would sit and make
decisions. But I don’t really think that Paul is thinking about the
judicial bema seat as much as he is thinking about the athletic one.
This is a picture of the stadium at Delphi where they have
the famous Oracle of Delphi. Located in the middle of the stadium there
are some different looking seats. This was the bema seat at Delphi where
the judges would sit and judge the athletes. Remember in I Corinthians 9
Paul uses the running of a race as a metaphor for receiving rewards. He who
runs well receives rewards. He who doesn’t becomes disqualified. So
the athletic judges would sit on a bema seat also. I think that is
probably the metaphor for the Judgment Seat of Christ more than the judicial
– not that it doesn’t have a judicial impact. Remember justification
is resolved at the cross. This has to do with rewards and awards for
excellence in the Christian life.
The context of II Corinthians 5 is the walk of the Christian
life. In verse 6 we read…
NKJ 2 Corinthians 5:6
So we are always confident, knowing
that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord.
NKJ 2 Corinthians 5:7
For we walk by faith, not by sight.
We what? We walk by faith and not by sight. Then
in the next verse it talks about our walk is going to be evaluated. It is
this walk by faith that is so important for us to understand. That is the
Christian life. How do we walk by faith in the Christian life rather than
on the basis of empiricism? Verse 8 reads…
NKJ 2 Corinthians 5:8
We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be
present with the Lord.
NKJ 2 Corinthians 5:9
Therefore we make it our aim, whether present or absent, to be well pleasing to
Him.
So that should be our motivation as we want to please the
Lord.
Now let’s go back to our text. The background for all
of this discussion on rewards is the Bema Seat of Christ.
NKJ Hebrews 6:10
For God is not unjust to forget your
work and labor of love which you have shown toward His name, in that you have ministered to the
saints, and do minister.
Let’s put that together with verse 9. In verse 9 he
says…
NKJ Hebrews 6:9
But, beloved, we are confident of better things concerning you, yes, things
that accompany salvation, though we speak in this manner.
How can he be confident? Well, he is going to give you
an explanation. That is that first word “for”. In the Greek it is the
Greek word gar indicating - I have made a statement. Now I am going to
explain why I can make that statement.
The explanation is based on the character of God. It is based
on the fact that God is. Then we have a double negative. God is not
unjust. In the English two negatives cancel out each other and make it a
positive. But by using the negative he really strengthens the
statement.
He is saying, “God is righteous and just.”
He is emphasizing that for his hearers. It is on the
basis of God’s absolute perfect justice that we know He is not going to forget
whatever it is that we have done positive in terms of our walk by the Spirit,
being filled with the Spirit, producing divine good - that the divine good that
we did in the past even if we fail miserably and go into carnality - that
divine good is still divine good and it is still ours. It is not taken
away from us. God does not unjust to forget our work and labor of
love.
That is where we get into this word “work” again. But
now it is compounded with a synonym kopos meaning
labor. It is not just doing something in terms of work. It is
laborious. It is putting forth a significant effort and it is qualified of
course by the word love. So we have work and labor there. Then at the
end he brings in twice the idea of service with the word minister in that you
have ministered to the saints and do minister. They have been ministering
in the past and they are still doing that.
So let’s break this down. We look at the essence of
God.
Essence of God
Sovereign
Righteousness –
standard of His character
Justice - the
application of that standard
This makes up the cornerstone of His integrity.
Love – that is
the expression of that standard toward mankind so that these are not
contradictory to one another at all.
Eternal life
Omniscience - He knows all
the facts, all the data, all the factors. Nothing escapes His attention.
Omnipresence - He is present
to His creation all the time.
Omnipotence
– He
is able to do that which He intends to do.
Veracity - He is
absolute truth. That is the fourth element in His integrity. Righteousness
and justice as the psalmist says “are the foundation of your throne. Mercy
and truth go out from it.” That is the core, the bedrock of God’s
integrity.
Immutability - He never
changes. That is another element that is closely related to righteousness and
justice. His faithfulness, that He never changes. He is always faithful to
His Word.
So as we look at these concepts, we have to start with
God. That is his argumentation. As he is thinking about how to
encourage them, he takes them to God himself, to God’s essence. He doesn’t
start off with some sort of abstract principle. He doesn’t start off by
encouraging them from something in their day-to-day experience.
He starts off by saying, “Let’s go back to the absolute
character of God. God is not unjust.”
Some people refer to general revelation as natural revelation because it is through nature. That is not a good term at all. It has too many negative nuances. It is general revelation.
NKJ
Psalm 19:1
To the Chief Musician. A Psalm of David. The heavens declare the glory of God;
And the firmament shows His handiwork.
Romans 1 talks
about the fact that we see God’s invisible attributes. His invisible
attributes are displayed through the creation. We see His power and it is
enough to convict man of the truth of such that he has inescapable
responsibility in responding to that revelation that he is held accountable
for. But it doesn’t tell you anything more. You can’t look up at the
stars and tell what is right and what is wrong. It includes God, man, and nature.
Non-verbal revelation deals with God. It deals with man. It deals
with nature. It must be interpreted though by means of special revelation.
What do I mean by that? That general revelation has to be interpreted by
means of special revelation. If you go to the writer of Proverbs, the
writer of Proverbs is always going to nature to draw certain analogies.
One of the
analogies that he goes to for teaching industriousness and hard work and saving
for the future is the ant. I don’t know how many of you had those great
little ant colonies things growing up. I didn’t but some of you people
enjoyed that. You can observe a lot of things about the ant colonies social structure
just by observing them. One of the things that the writer of Proverbs
observes is that they are very industrious – all day, in season and out
of season they work hard and they are constantly storing things for the
future. So he goes under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit to that one
aspect of the ant’s social structure and he utilizes that as an analogy to
encourage people to work hard, to be industrious and to save for the
future. But he does it because under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit he
is told what he can legitimately use and tie in as an analogy. There are a lot
of things about ant social structure that you wouldn’t want to use. You
have one queen and a whole lot of guys. You don’t want to take that and bring
that over into application to marriage. So you have to have a framework
for discerning how you interpret general revelation. So, special
revelation is verbal. It is specific and it gives us the ability to interpret
general revelation. But what we do know is that the Scripture is clear
that we can know enough from special revelation so that man is without excuse
in terms of the knowledge of God.
NKJ
Romans 1:18 For
the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and
unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness,
NKJ
Romans 1:19 because
what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them.
NKJ
Romans 1:20 For
since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that
are made, even His eternal power and
Godhead, so that they are without excuse,
Have you ever
seen something that is invisible? Sure you did. When you became God
conscious. From the world around you, you clearly saw the invisible
attributes of God.
In other words there is canonical and non canonical revelation. By non-canonical I mean that there was information that God revealed to Jeremiah and to Ezekiel and Daniel and even further back to David and to Abraham that was not intended to be inscripturated and preserved through the centuries. But nevertheless because it came from God it was just as inerrant and infallible and true as if it were inscripturated. In other words revelation doesn’t have to be inscripturated for it to be infallible and inerrant. So there are two types of special revelation that which is recorded and that which is not recorded. Special revelation covers the same parameters as general revelation. It talks about God. It talks about man and it talks about nature. But special revelation is communicated propositionally. Now what do I mean by that? We lose these terms. Nobody today talks this way. A proposition in logic is a statement that can be falsified or verified. That is what a proposition is. A question is not a proposition. Is it going to rain tomorrow? You can’t prove that one way or the other. It is going to rain tomorrow. Now you see that is a proposition. You can prove it. It is either going to rain tomorrow or it is not going to rain tomorrow. Go to the store. That is a command; that is not a proposition. Can you prove it or disprove it? No, you can’t. But a proposition makes a statement about the nature of reality. Another word for that is truth. So the Bible communicates propositionally. It is not there to generate emotions in you.
It is not there
to give you a big warm fuzzy so that you can go to an emerging church and sit
around on a sofa and have a big group hug and all go home and say, “Wasn’t it
good to have been in church today?” That is where things are headed.
The problem
with autonomous arrogant man is man wants to say, “I have to know everything
about something before I can believe it.”
He will never
believe anything.
So we look at the essence of God. The focus in Hebrews
6 here is on the righteousness and justice of God that God is just. You
have problems in your spiritual life. You have failed. You have disappointed
God. You have committed who knows what kinds of sin. Nothing is
irreversible. God’s grace is always present if God permits as we read back in
verse 3.
It is His justice. He is going to deal with you in
light of what you have done. There is the Greek word epilanthano which means basically to forget or not
to remember or to ignore something. So God is not unjust to forget. It
applies to the word adikios which is that
word unjust. Adikios comes from the
root dike meaning righteous or
just. We get dikiosune, dikaioo, that whole word group for justice, righteousness, and
justification.
Now God remembers three things here in this passage. He
remembers your work first of all. So work is a good thing. It is the
kind of work. You always have to look at that qualification. The
second thing He remembers is your labor of love. This is an interesting
phrase here. You can look at this. It is a genitive phrase. It
could have the idea of loving labor where the genitive is describing the kind
of labor. I don’t think that is what it is doing here because then it
seems redundant to work - your work and your loving labor and then later on
ministry. Then another way that this genitive could be understood is a
labor resulting from love. I think that is what it is talking about
here. Because Jesus made the statement that the new commandment for the
Church Age is that we should love other believers as Christ loved us. So
this is a labor that is motivated by love for God first and foremost. As
we develop that love for God then we mature in our love for people. So we
have personal love for God and then unconditional love for all mankind. So
it is a labor resulting from love.
This leads to ministry in the congregation. That word
translated ministry is the Greek word diakoneo. That is
the verb diakonos. It is a noun which relates to service. It indicates
someone who is functioning in a capacity of helping others to perform duties,
assisting them. It refers to people in the body of Christ who are carrying
out special duties in the body of Christ – for example those who teach
the Word, those who are in offices. We call them deacons today. They carry
out various responsibilities within the local church. So to understand
this we have to understand how these three things work together. So that
leads us to the doctrine of work. So we will start off looking at the
basic word here.
Doctrine of
Work
NKJ
Matthew 5:16 "Let
your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify
your Father in heaven.
So there is a
place for good works (This is divine good) that brings glory to God not self-glorification.
NKJ
Luke 11:48
"In fact, you bear witness that you approve the deeds of your fathers; for
they indeed killed them, and you build their tombs.
“Fathers” refers to the previous
generations of Jews. “Them” is the prophets.
So these were sinful deeds.
Galatians 5:19
talks about the works or the deeds of the flesh. It is that same word
ergon.
NKJ
Galatians 5:19
Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery,
fornication, uncleanness, lewdness,
So works here
describes sinful works.
NKJ
John 3:19 "And
this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved
darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
So here you have evil works.
You also have the term works modified
by the genitive phrase law.
NKJ
Romans 3:20 Therefore
by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law
is the knowledge of sin.
The works of
the law are moral or immoral? They are moral. The law is good. It
is holy and righteous Paul says in Romans 7. So you can do morality that
has no value. It is just good. It is just moral. There is nothing
wrong with it. It has no spiritual significance. It is not going to
get you saved and it is not going to get you anywhere, because it is generated
by the flesh.
Matthew 23:5
talks about the religious works of the Pharisees. They were good
people. They were the religious conservatives of their day. They do
all of their deeds to be noticed by men. So they have wrong
motivation. They are concerned about religious activities, but they had no
eternal value.
4. Then
we have works used for spiritually positive things that are produced in a man’s
life. Works in I Corinthians 3:13-15 is actually used in different
senses.
NKJ
1 Corinthians
3:13 each one's work will become clear; for the Day will declare
it, because it will be revealed by fire; and the fire will test each one's
work, of what sort it is.
That is his
production. That is the totality of everything that you think, say, and do. Each man’s work
will be evident at the Judgment Seat of Christ.
So twice in
that passage it is used to refer to the totality of their production, both good
and bad.
NKJ
1 Corinthians
3:14 If anyone's work which he has built on it endures, he will receive a reward.
That is divine
good. That is the work that is produced by the Holy Spirit in our lives
that has ongoing value so it is rewardable. But it
is still work. It is laborious at times. Ministry can be laborious at
times.
NKJ
1 Corinthians
3:15 If anyone's work is burned, he will suffer loss; but he
himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.
This is the
negative. This is the human good. It could be sinful or it could be human
good. It just burns up.
Now a couple of
more passages related to works in the believer’s life.
NKJ
2 Corinthians
9:8 And God is able to
make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in
all things, may have an abundance for
every good work.
In other words
God has given all you would ever need through His word and through His
Spirit.
So there is
nothing wrong with doing good deeds if they are done in obedience to the Word
of God and in the power of the Holy Spirit because that is divine good.
Remember Ephesians 2:8-9.
NKJ Ephesians 2:8 For
by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God,
NKJ Ephesians 2:9 not
of works, lest anyone should boast.
Stop there and you think works aren’t any good. But
look at the next verse.
NKJ Ephesians 2:10 For
we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God
prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
Our works didn’t get us created in Christ Jesus. Salvation
by faith alone in Christ alone, but we are created for a purpose, to perform
divine good, to walk by the Spirit, to apply the Word of God which God prepared
beforehand so that we would walk in them.
NKJ Ephesians 4:11
And He Himself gave some to be apostles,
some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers,
NKJ Ephesians 4:12
for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of
the body of Christ,
You see the pastor is to equip the saints to work. What
kind of work? Work of service. That is the same word we find in our
passage in Hebrews 2:10, diakonia. So the
pastor through the teaching of doctrine builds up and matures the body of
Christ so that they can be engaged in ministry.
Then one last verse here.
NKJ Ephesians 5:11
And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose
them.
So once again we go back to “don’t participate in unfruitful
deeds but participate in fruitful deeds.” All of these are connected
together in I Thessalonians 1:3 the same way we have in Hebrews 5:10.
NKJ 1 Thessalonians 1:3 remembering
without ceasing your work of faith, labor of love, and patience of hope in our
Lord Jesus Christ in the sight of our God and Father,
That sounds like an oxymoron doesn’t it?
It’s work that comes from faith. Because we trust God we are going to do what God says to do and serve others and a labor of love because we are motivated by personal love for God. We are going to labor in the ministry – whatever that ministry is that God has given each one of us, not necessarily the ministry of the local church because there are a lot of different ways in which you utilize whatever gifts the Lord has given you in different ways. Then the writer of Hebrews connects that to steadfastness of hope, that future focus which is what we will come back to talk about next time as we get into verses 11 and 12.