Hebrews Lesson
77 February 8,
2007
NKJ
John
17:17 "Sanctify them by Your truth.
Your word is truth.
We are in Hebrews 6 moving on to the next paragraph which is
really an explanation of what concludes the previous paragraph that is in
verses 11 and 12. So we need to pick
up the context. The end of the last section focused on the encouragement from
the writer to these stumbling, slow, questioning believers that have been on
the verge of giving up their Christianity and going back into Judaism. Here he
concludes and says…
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.
Here the idea of patience is not the word for endurance, but
the word for patience as used in James 5 a couple of times. It is used almost
synonymously with endurance, but it has a slightly different meaning. We
studied this and we were finishing up talking about inheriting the promises. We
covered this last time because this is the foundation for understanding the
explanation that comes up in the next paragraph. Now the next paragraph runs
from verse 13 down through verse 20. The function of this paragraph aside from
the fact that significant doctrinal references in it is to orient the reader’s
thinking to this concept of promise which is used in verse 12 and then is
repeated again in verse 13, verse 15, and verse 17. So we have an emphasis on
promise which is not yet fulfilled focusing again on the future. The function
of the section from 13 to 20 is to transition back from this reprimand that the
writer has given his readers because they have according to 5:11…
NKJ
Hebrews
5:11 of whom we have much to say, and hard
to explain, since you have become dull of hearing.
He broke off his discussion of Melchizedek. He was building
to a discussion of the importance of the priesthood of Jesus Christ as
priesthood after the order of the royal Gentile priesthood of Melchizedek. He
broke off suddenly in verse 11.
Then there is this exhortation and warning from 5:11 down
through 6:20. The warning section is from 6:4-8. So in this exhortation section
in the final paragraph he transitions back to the subject of Melchizedek, which
we see in verse 20.
NKJ Hebrews
6:20 where the forerunner has entered for
us, even Jesus,
having become High Priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.
So when he picks up in chapter 7 he picks up where he left
off in chapter 5, verse 10. So we get into this concept of inheritance which is
the verb form used here in this passage where it is an articular participle
– those who are inheriting the promises - indicating those Old Testament
saints that inherit the promises. Of course the premiere example is going to
come from Abraham. So we have 3 forms of this word that appear in Hebrews.
The forms of the word include…
Our second point is that inherit has the core semantic
meaning of possession, property, or ownership. This is particularly important
when we come to those difficult passages in I Corinthians 6 and Galatians
5:19-21 which you have this list of sins. It concludes by saying that...
NKJ
Galatians
5:21 envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries,
and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time
past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
At first blush too many people go to those passages and
think that inheriting the kingdom is synonymous with entering the kingdom or
gaining eternal life or being saved. But it is a different concept. It relates
to rewards. We have gone through detailed studies of that in the past. The core
idea to remember is that inheritance means possession, property, or ownership.
We have this mentioned in Hebrews 11:8 and 1:2.
NKJ
Hebrews
11:8 By faith Abraham obeyed when he was
called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance. And he
went out, not knowing where he was going.
There we learned that it doesn’t have the idea that somebody
has to die before you get the inheritance. That is typical in our culture and
in many other cultures. So to inherit, somebody has to die. But that is not the
concept in the New Testament. Maybe there is a secondary idea depending on the
context, but the primary idea is just possession.
Abraham in 11:8 has the land as an inheritance. Nobody died
and left it to him. In Hebrews 1:2 Christ is appointed heir of all things.
Nobody dies and leaves it to Christ. It is emphasizing ownership and
possession.
Our third point of summary on inheritance is that
inheritance in relationship to Abraham can be related to either the land
promise or the seed promise in the New Testament. It is always related to the
idea of the divine promise. Inheritance in relation to Abraham is based on
grace. It was God’s freely given covenant to Abraham that is the foundation of
his ownership of the land. Galatians 3:18 connects it. Inheritance is not based
on the law; it is based on the promise of God. Also Romans 4:13 and 14.
Then our fourth point was that inheritance is also related
to rewards, for what is earned for service, whereas salvation is a free gift,
NKJ
Colossians
3:24 knowing that from the Lord you will
receive the reward of the inheritance; for you serve the Lord Christ.
So this gives us a summary of the concept of inheritance.
This under girds the passage. Hebrews 6:12 says again…
NKJ
Hebrews
6:12 that you do not become sluggish, but
imitate those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.
They became possessors of the promise. Now the particular
promise that he has in mind isn’t the land promise. It is the seed promise. In
verse 13 we have the explanation.
NKJ
Hebrews
6:13 For when God made a promise to
Abraham, because He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself,
“For” is the Greek word gar which always introduces an explanation. It
gives a reason for something. So we have just had a principle laid down in
terms of encouragement that to Church Age believers in Israel, these Jewish
believers are encouraged to follow the example of Old Testament saints.
Now where is that going to happen again? See this is how the
writer of Hebrews introduces the concept. He builds on it later on and builds
on it even more. We have had
Abraham mentioned once. He is mentioned a little more here. Then we are going to
have a whole chapter in chapter 11 where the writer of Hebrews is going to go
through all of these Old Testament saints and how they served as (according to
Hebrews 12:1) a great cloud of witnesses for us. So they served as examples in
terms of their orientation to the Lord Jesus Christ. Their orientation of
course was future, but the exhortation in Hebrews 12:2 is to keep our focus on
the author and completer of our faith, the pioneer of our faith who is the Lord
Jesus Christ. So this is where we first begin to see the idea introduced that
we can go back to Old Testament examples to form a pattern for our lives. Now
this is not in the sense of following the law, but in the sense that they were
using the same basic principles for spiritual growth and spiritual maturity
that we are. So we see this connection that even though there are differences
between the age of Israel in the Old Testament and the Church Age in the New
Testament, differences between the basic administrative mandate in the Old
Testament which was the law, and the New Covenant that supplants the Old
Covenant which is what we will get into as we get into chapter 9 and chapter
10. We start getting into the differences between the New Covenant and the Old
Covenant. There is still something that is the same in both dispensations. So
that gives us the pattern where we can go back and look at these Old Testament
examples. It is so important.
I try to emphasize this again and again that the Old
Testament takes the abstract doctrines that we have in the New Testament and it
puts them into shoe leather. It puts them into flesh and blood examples of
people’s lives. That is really important especially if you are teaching your
kids or your grandkids or you are teaching in prep school. You need to think in
terms of these Old Testament images for teaching New Testament doctrines. For
example, we have just seen what I have done that with confession on Tuesday
night. We go back and the premiere example of confession is in the Old
Testament is what happened on the Day of Atonement when you have the two goats.
One is for the sin offering; one goat is for the scapegoat offering. Then also
on the Day of Atonement you have the High Priest bringing the blood into the
Holy of Holies and putting it on the Mercy Seat as a picture of propitiation.
So it is these pictures that we have that serve as visual aids that help us
capture the significance of these important doctrines that we have in the New
Testament. We are going to see another one of those tonight in the background
for verse 14. So verse 13 is going to explain how by giving one example of how
one Old Testament believer had faith and patience to inherit the promise.
That’s what the next section is all about. So we come to 13 and we read…
NKJ Hebrews
6:13 For when God made a promise to Abraham,
because He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself,
What we have here is the beginning of this verse. “When God
made a promise” actually translates an aorist middle participle in the Greek epaggello. Epaggello means to make a promise,
give a promise or make a declaration. As an aorist participle it precedes the
action of the main verb. The main verb is given down at the last phrase –
He swore by Himself. Now when you have a participle like this at the beginning,
you have to determine what its relationship is to the main verb. So as an
adverbial participle it should be translated with the idea of “when”.
Now when did this happen? This happens in Geneses 22 and
that is where the quote comes from in verse 14. The other thing to note that we
get out of the original and you don’t pick up in the English is that the name
for God has an article with it in the Greek. The article in the Greek functions
very differently from the article in English. It doesn’t mean that it should be
translated “the God”, but it is a use of the article that is defined as the par
excellence use of the article where the article is used to point to the noun
that it is associated with to indicate that the noun is in a class by itself.
So you don’t translate it “the God”. It emphasizes that the noun is a distinct
entity, different from anything else. It is in a class by itself. So the
emphasis is going to be on this uniqueness of God. We see this brought out by
the grammar. Look at how the verse reads.
There is nothing greater than God.
So, God couldn’t say, “Here is how I am going to swear this
oath so that you will know that I am going to do it.”
There was nothing superior to God that He could use as a
pattern or as an ultimate criterion. So He swore by Himself. So the main phrase
here that God swore by Himself indicates that uniqueness of God. He is
completely distinct from His creation. He is the creator. Everything else is
the creation. Even the grammar by using this definite article with a noun reinforces
that uniqueness and distinctiveness of God. So the focus is on the fact that
God’s word is enough. In order to reinforce the certainty of the promise, He
swears this oath on the basis of His own character. The oath that He expresses
is actually a little bit larger than the quote in verse 14. But we see that in
verse 14.
NKJ
Genesis
22:17 "blessing I will bless you, and
multiplying I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heaven and as
the sand which is
on the seashore; and your descendants shall possess the gate of their
enemies.
The
Hebrew quotes it and quotes it directly out of the Septuagint, the Greek
translation of the Hebrew Old Testament.
NKJ
Hebrews
6:14 saying, "Surely blessing I will
bless you, and multiplying I will multiply you."
So it is quoted “surely” which is a better translation. I would challenge both translations.
“Blessing I will bless you” is a literal translation of the
Greek; but in the Hebrew you don’t have what we would call a participle or a
gerund (blessing and multiplying). What you have in the original is the same
kind of construction that you have back in Genesis 2:17, which was wrongly
translated “dying you will die.” What you have is an infinitive absolute in the
Hebrew that duplicates the main verb. The main verb is usually an imperfect
tense of the verb. This is a Hebrew idiom that expresses the certainty of the
action. It is not “blessing I will bless you.” Blessing is a gerund or it is a
participle. It is like a long term action like running or shopping or eating.
This is something that takes place over a long period of time. How do you say
eating I will eat? What does that really mean if you parse it out? It doesn’t
mean anything. By putting the participle there in front of a finite verb in the
English, it doesn’t say that there are two different blessing that happened
there or two different kinds of multiplying. In Hebrew idiom it is simply a way
of expressing the absolute certainty of the idea. In the past I have gone
through every use – there are about 25 of these in the book of Genesis.
They just don’t make sense in this kind of construction in English. It should
have been translated as the English tried to do by introducing the word
surely...
Literal
translation: Surely (or
certainly) I will bless you and multiply your descendents.
That is the force. It is God. It is the strongest possible
way God can put this to say that you have absolute unconditional certainty that
this is going to happen.
In Genesis 22 it expands this by saying…
NKJ Genesis
22:17 "blessing I will bless you, and
multiplying I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heaven and as
the sand which is
on the seashore; and your descendants shall possess the gate of their
enemies.
This is an idiom indicating conquest because the gate of
these cities was like city hall. That is where all of the transactions took
place. That is where judicial decisions were made. That is often where any sort
of land transaction was recorded. To possess the gate of their enemies means to
conquer the cities of their enemies and take over complete control. Now this
goes back to the Abrahamic Covenant in Genesis 12:2c-3 where the Lord said to
Abraham...
NKJ
Genesis
12:2 I will make you a great nation; I will
bless you And make your name great; And you shall be a blessing.
NKJ
Genesis
12:3 I will bless those who bless you, And I
will curse him who curses you; And in you all the families of the earth shall
be blessed."
“Families of the earth” refers to the Gentile nations.
At the foundation of the Abrahamic Covenant (you knew this
was coming) you have land, seed and blessing - the three elements of that
promise. God promised Abraham a specific piece of real estate, that he would
have a seed of descendents and that through them He would bless all of the
nations. So we have the Abrahamic Covenant and the blessing component that is
laid out in Genesis 12 is then restated several times in Genesis 15, 18, and
then finally it is reconfirmed. The final statement of it for Abraham is given
in chapter 22 which is where this quote comes from. Hebrews 6:14 isn’t coming
out of Genesis 12; it is coming out of Genesis 22.
If you remember when we went through Genesis, I talked about
the fact that the New Testament goes to Abraham for various different ideas and
various different doctrines. He goes to Abraham as an illustration of
justification by faith at the beginning of the believer’s new life. It goes to
Abraham for illustrations of spiritual growth. This is what we see in Hebrews
12. He goes to Abraham as an example of the mature Christian who has passed
those various tests leading up to spiritual maturity and vindicates his faith
by that maturity test that he passes. This is how Abraham is referred to in
James 2. Abraham is also the father
of missions and several other things that we covered there. What we have here
is the focus on Abraham in terms of his spiritual growth and spiritual maturity
because the quote comes out of Genesis 22, which is the thirteenth and last
test that Abraham went through in his spiritual growth process. There are no
more tests for Abraham recorded in Genesis after Genesis 22. When we come to
Hebrews 6:15 we read…
NKJ
Hebrews
6:15 And so, after he had patiently
endured, he obtained the promise.
There are a couple of things that we ought to note here in
terms of the Greek structure. The words “and so” translate a little Greek word houtos. This
is the same word that begins John 3:16. Most of you know John 3:16.
NKJ
John
3:16 "For God so loved the world that
He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish
but have everlasting life.
That really doesn’t communicate what the Greek says. When
you have this word at the beginning of a sentence it often means “in this
manner” or “in the way” or “in the way that I am about to tell you” or “in the
manner I am about to tell you something happened.” So John 3:16 should be
understood as…
Literal
translation: For in this
manner God love the world; He gave His Son.
That is how God loved the World. It is an adverb in the
Greek indicating what follows in the text. So here we have the same text. It is
the same thing that we have in this text.
I am going to give you an illustration of how Abraham had
faith and patience and patiently endured and obtained the promise.
The second thing we note is that we have the same kind of
construction that we have in verse 13. We have an aorist participle preceding
an aorist verb which indicates that the action of the participle to endure
which is the word makrothumeo again which should be translated patience. That
precedes the action of the main verb which is to obtain the promise. So it
should be translated “after having been patient he received something or he
obtained it.” That word for obtain doesn’t mean purchase. We just got through
talking about kleronomeo
and those cognates meaning possession. You would think that if you read in the
English “obtain” that it has to do with something like purchasing the
possession. But don’t get that idea at all. Obtain is a bad word to use in the
English because for us it has this purchase concept. The Greek word is epitunchano
which means to be successful in achieving or gaining your goals or your ends.
So here it has the idea of finally reaching that goal of realizing the
promise.
The promise that is mentioned here is the promise related to
the seed. Let’s think a minute about Abraham. Let’s go back and kind of review
it a little bit in our minds. God comes along and He gives a promise to Abraham
related to the fact that he is going to have children.
“You are going to have a promised son.”
Abraham is getting pretty old. Fifteen years go by and there
is no seed.
Sarah comes along and says, “I have got an idea. We can make
this happen. I can’t have children, but why don’t you try Hagar? We are going
to use a little substitute here and try to work this out on our own energy and
in our own effort.”
So Abraham has a child with Hagar which is Ishmael. That is
not the child of the promise. I skipped one. We have Eleazar. The first thing
he tried to do is use his servant as the seed.
God said, “No.”
He reiterated the promise to him and established the
covenant with him. Then we have the attempt with Hagar.
Then God says, “No. It is not Ishmael. Ishmael is not the
seed. You will have a son from you and Sarah.”
So then finally, after ten years when Abraham is 100 and
Sara is 90, Sarah got pregnant and had Isaac. So then Isaac is growing up and
this is finally the seed that God has promised. There have been all of these
various tests that came along in the mean time.
You get to chapter 22 and God says, “Okay. Now you are going
to have the son that I promised you and you will go sacrifice him.”
That is his final test. That test is what he passes in
chapter 22. This is when God reaffirms for the last time the covenant promise
with Abraham which is the quote that we have in verse 14. So that tells us
where we are headed.
Now there are a couple of other things that we ought to note
here to pick up the significance of verse 15.
So after he had patiently endured.
The patience, the endurance is first; and then you realize
the promise. After this test in Genesis 22 there is no longer a test for Abraham
related to the seed. He now can
rest in confidence. He knows that Isaac is going to live. He can relax. The
next thing he is concerned about is making sure that Isaac has a wife.
Now when we look at this word makrothumeo, there are two ways we can
understand this. The first time I read this and after I read it for a couple of
times, I was wrestling with this because I thought about “after he patiently
endured”. I am thinking in terms of the totality of Abraham’s life. Was he patient when he tried to make
Eleazar his heir? Was he being patient when he tried to make Hagar the mother
of the promised seed? That doesn’t fit the idea of patience. It turns out that makrothumeo
can have one of two ideas. One is to wait patiently over the period from the beginning
of the promise. That doesn’t apply. But the other idea is to patiently endure
during that particular test. That is what we see exemplified with Abraham in
that final Genesis 22 test. He has a relaxed mental attitude. Up to that point
we don’t see Abraham relaxing in the grace provision and promise of God.
He always seems to be saying, “Okay God. You promised me a
son. Let me figure out how I can make that happen.”
But finally when he gets there, God says, “Sacrifice him.”
Abraham doesn’t say anything but, “Yes, sir.”
He is very relaxed and puts everything together and heads to
Mt. Moriah in order to sacrifice Isaac.
So let’s turn in our Bibles and go back and review what
happens in Genesis 22.
This has always been one of my favorite episodes in the Old
Testament because it is such a perfect picture of the whole concept of
substitutionary salvation.
NKJ
Genesis
22:1 Now it came to pass after these things
that God tested Abraham, and said to him, "Abraham!" And he said,
"Here I am."
So some time has passed between the birth of Isaac and this
time. Now he is a young man. He is anywhere from 15 to 30 years of age I
think.
It makes a point out of the fact that this is a test. Almost
any decision you make in life is a test in one sense. You have to decide
whether or not you are going to apply or if you are going to do it out of your
own energy and your own ability. In that sense almost any decision that we make
as we plan our day, as we conduct our business, as we respond to whatever
things happen during the day whatever people do, that’s a test. It is an
opportunity to apply the Word or not apply the Word. There are specific tests
that God brings into our lives that are designed to move us to the next stage of
spiritual growth. We have identified 13 of those in the life of Abraham.
So God brings this final test to Abraham. He decides to test
Abraham and he calls to him. The word here for test is the Hebrew word nasa. It
means to test, try, or approve. It’s similar to the New Testament word dokimazo
which means to prove the value of something. It’s not there to show where you
are going to fail, but how you are going to succeed. The quality of you
spiritual growth is evaluated. So God tests Abraham. Abraham responds.
He says, “I am here.
I am ready.”
NKJ
Genesis
22:2 Then He said, "Take now your son,
your only son Isaac,
whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt
offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you."
In the Hebrew it is unusual. God doesn’t just give him a
mandate. He starts off and the best way to translate is “Abraham, would you
please take your son.” It is a very polite expression. I think it indicates
that God recognizes how serious this is. This is not a trivial request. This is
going to be a tough situation for a father to take his son and offer him as a
human sacrifice.
So He says, “Abraham, would you please take your son.”
He repeats it with emphasis – your only son, Isaac -
your only Isaac. Why? Because He is emphasizing that this is the seed.
“This is the one that I promised that we went through (25
years of spiritual growth development) before you were finally ready for Me to
give you what I had promised you 25 years earlier.”
Now what I am going to ask you is to take him (the product
of all these years of development) to the land of Moriah and offer him there as
a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.
The command there to go to the land of Moriah is the same
form of the verb that you have in 12:1 where God commanded Abraham to go and to
leave his parents. It indicates that he is to go alone. This is a test for him.
Just as he was tested initially to trust God and leave the land of his fathers
and to go to the land that God would show him, now he is being tested in
relationship to the seed. This is the final test so there is a certain
parallelism there. He is asked to offer Isaac as a burnt offering, an olah. It is
from the Hebrew word meaning to go up, to climb, or to ascend. It is the idea
that when you offer burnt offering the smoke from the offering ascends up to
God. So olah
always refers to a burnt offering where you kill the sacrifice and then you
have wood piled around the altar and you burn it and everything burns up and
goes up to God. So God isn’t saying just go up there and slit his throat as a
sacrifice.
God is saying. “Go slit his throat, kill him and burn him
and completely destroy everything.”
Now the Old Testament doesn’t really tell you what is going
on with Abraham’s attitude other than it shows this immediate compliance of
Abraham where he gets Isaac. They get a servant to go with them part of the
way. But Hebrews 11:17-19 gives us Abraham’s thought processes. By faith Abraham
does this. Now remember what verse 11 said in Hebrews 6. “By faith and
endurance he inherited the promise.”
Now the focus in 13 and 14 is on the patience – by
faith and patience. Here in 11:17 we have the faith aspect - by faith. That is
by means of the doctrine that Abraham has learned, he finally has come to
realize by Genesis 22 that God is the God of His word. God has faithfully
fulfilled every promise that He has made to Abraham and God is completely
trustworthy. He can trust God with everything. God promised him a seed. So he
is sitting there thinking that if God promised him, then in order for God to
fulfill the promise that even if I kill him, God is going to bring him back to
life. That is exactly what the writer of Hebrews said.
NKJ
Hebrews
11:17 By faith Abraham, when he was tested,
offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises offered up his only
begotten son,
NKJ Hebrews
11:18 of whom it was said, "In Isaac
your seed shall be called,"
NKJ Hebrews
11:19 concluding that God was able to
raise him up,
even from the dead, from which he also received him in a figurative sense.
So what Hebrews 11 is showing us is that Abraham is relaxed
because he has figured it out. God said that his seed is going to come through
Isaac and there is nothing that is going to prevent that. Even if he slits
Isaac’s throat and has to burn the body to fulfill the command to offer up an olah to God,
God is going to bring him back from the dead. That is the only way that God can
fulfill His promise and God always keeps His word. So he has tremendous
confidence. With that confidence in God, he has a relaxed mental attitude about
the whole thing. He can move through the whole situation with a tremendous
degree of calm.
NKJ
Genesis
22:3 So Abraham rose early in the morning
and saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his
son; and he split the wood for the burnt offering, and arose and went to the
place of which God had told him.
Again we have a burnt offering. Six times this word is
restated in the text to make sure we understand that it is a burnt
offering.
Every time I see this word I am reminded about the story
over in Judges 11 that deals with Jephthah. Jephthah made the vow that he is
going to offer his daughter as a burnt offering.
Every mamby-pamby evangelical comes along and says, “You
know, he is a great hero of the faith. He isn’t going to offer his daughter as
a sacrifice. He did something else.”
But this word never indicates it means anything else. They
miss the purpose of many of those Judges stories, which is to show that on the
one hand these guys trust God at key moments; but then at other times because
everyone is doing what is right in their own eyes, they completely blow it.
Sound familiar?
So burnt offering means burnt offering.
NKJ
Genesis
22:4 Then on the third day Abraham lifted
his eyes and saw the place afar off.
Now this shows how God ties everything together. Mt. Moriah
is later identified in Chronicles as the place where Solomon builds the temple.
The temple is built. The threshing floor of Araunah is right on the same spot.
So you see this pattern that the Holy of Holies is set on the rock that is at
the center of the Dome of the Rock now. That is where the Holy of Holies was in
Solomon’s Temple. That is the site where Abraham offered Isaac. Now the Moslems
want to say that it is where he offered Ishmael, but they never do get anything
right.
NKJ Genesis
22:5 And Abraham said to his young men,
"Stay here with the donkey; the lad and I will go yonder and worship, and
we will come back to you."
On Sunday mornings we are going to be studying this whole
concept of worship. This is one reason I wanted to go back through this. It
connects several of our studies together. The word for worship here is the word
hishtafel imperfect of saha. In the hishtafel it means to prostrate oneself, to bow down.
It is the position of the lowest slave to the highest superior. The concept is
expressed in Persian customs where an equal would kiss the cheek of an
individual. Someone who is a notch or two below would kiss the higher officials
hand and then the lowest slave (the one down at the bottom of the food chain)
almost grovels. That is the core word that is used for worship in both Old
Testament and New Testament. There is something in the mentality of an American
because of our emphasis on the value of the individual and the equality of all
people and democracy. We haven’t grown up in a monarchy where you have all of
this protocol where people virtually grovel before the monarch. We lose this
concept in our understanding of worship. Yet this is the core biblical idea. We
are just a lowly creature before the great creator God of heaven. The core idea
of worship is submitting everything in our thinking to the authority of God.
That is the ultimate idea of worship. That is what he is saying. We are going
to worship. We are going to do exactly what God says to do and completely
submit everything that we do to the authority of God, even if that demands the
sacrifice of Isaac. So we will worship.
Notice what Abraham says then.
“We will return to you.”
It is a third person plural of both verbs.
So he has great confidence that they are going to go up
there.
“I am going to offer Isaac as a burnt offering and God is
going to raise him up from the dead and we are coming back.”
So he has tremendous confidence and relaxation in this test.
But Isaac kind of catches on to this and he says in verse 7…
NKJ
Genesis
22:7 But Isaac spoke to Abraham his father
and said, "My father!" And he said, "Here I am, my son."
Then he said, "Look, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?"
He said, “Wait a minute. We have got everything for this
burnt offering, but where is the sacrifice?”
NKJ
Genesis
22:8 And Abraham said, "My son, God
will provide for Himself the lamb for a burnt offering." So the two of
them went together.
This guy is as calm and relaxed as he can be. He has figured
it out. As I pointed out in the last couple of lessons, what makes the
difference between these great heroes of the faith and many of us is that they
finally figure that it is all about God and it is not about us. It is not an
issue anymore. Abraham figures that out and so he knows that God is going to be
faithful to His word no matter what He asks him to do. So he is just going to
do what God wants him to do and let God take care of the situation.
NKJ
Genesis
22:9 Then they came to the place of which
God had told him. And Abraham built an altar there and placed the wood in
order; and he bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar, upon the wood.
I have often wondered what happens here. The Holy Spirit
glosses over this.
Abraham says, “Okay son. You are the sacrifice and we have
to put you on the altar. So just to make sure that you don’t panic at the last
minute, come over here and turn around and let me tie your hands behind your
back and let me put you on the altar on the wood.”
This has to also say something about Isaac’s authority
orientation to his father and to God and his own spiritual maturity at this
point that he is going to do this.
I wonder if Abraham had to say, “Okay. We are going to have
a little teaching moment here. Remember that you are the child of promise. God
said that it would all come through you. God has always fulfilled His word so
that no matter what happens, we know that we are both going to walk out of here
because God is going to be true to His word.”
Great teaching moment!
NKJ
Genesis
22:10 And Abraham stretched out his hand and
took the knife to slay his son.
The word there for slay indicates the kind of violent action
necessary in a sacrifice. This is the typical word used in sacrificial
narrative.
Then verse 12. At the last minute God stops him and says…
NKJ
Genesis
22:12 And He said, "Do not lay your
hand on the lad, or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since
you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me."
You see, Abraham believed God. It is not the belief of God
that was accounted to him as righteousness in Genesis 15:7. This is the James
2:24 passage where now he is believing God as a vindication of the whole
spiritual growth process revealing his spiritual maturity.
Of course we have to remember that fear of God isn’t merely
respect. This shows how much our culture influences how we think about these
things. We don’t want to think about fearing God; but if you were ever dragged
to the principle’s office when you were in about the fourth or fifth grade, you
understand what fearing God is about to some degree. You know that there is
accountability. That is what the concept of fearing God is. It is a respect for
who He is as the creator. There is this sense of dread because we are
accountable to Him. It is the fear of God (that sense of awe and
accountability) that is the beginning of wisdom that the writer of Proverbs
talks about several times.
NKJ
Genesis
22:13 Then Abraham lifted his eyes and
looked, and there behind him was a ram caught in a thicket by its horns. So Abraham went and
took the ram, and offered it up for a burnt offering instead of his son.
This is the picture in the Old Testament for substitutionary
atonement. The ram is offered as the burnt offering instead of Isaac. I
remember when I was a young kid at Camp Peniel and every night we would have a
camp fire. They would tell Bible stories. I always remember (this is one of
Gordon Whitelock’s favorite stories to tell) because it burned itself into my memory year after
year - him telling this story that Jesus Christ is the ram that is sacrificed
in our place. It is such a perfect picture of salvation.
NKJ
Genesis
22:14 And Abraham called the name of the
place, The-LORD-Will-Provide; as it is said to this day, "In the Mount of The LORD it
shall be provided."
NKJ Genesis
22:15 Then the Angel of the LORD called to
Abraham a second time out of heaven,
This is where we get the quote that is used in Hebrews
6.
NKJ
Genesis
22:16 and said: "By Myself I have
sworn, says the LORD, because you have done this thing, and have not withheld
your son, your only son --
This is what Hebrews 6:13 refers to.
That is the third time we have that phrase.
NKJ
Genesis
22:17 "blessing I will bless you, and
multiplying I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heaven and as
the sand which is
on the seashore; and your descendants shall possess the gate of their
enemies.
The promise that is referred to here is not the land promise
but the promise related to blessing and seed. The blessing would come through
his seed.
Literal
translation: I will certainly bless you and certainly multiply your
descendents as the stars of the heaven and as the sand which is on the
seashore.
NKJ
Genesis
22:18 "In your seed all the nations of
the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice."
By faith (trusting God) and by patience and by the way he
has such a relaxed mental attitude – from the time God called him to take
his only son to sacrifice him on Mt. Moriah until the very end of the process
– he never panicked. He never got impatient. He never lost his relaxed
mental attitude. He had a constant focus on God’s character and God’s promise
and God’s faithfulness to His promise. As a result he obtained, he realized the
promise. God reiterates it for the last time. It is securely Abraham’s. This
brings him to that final stage of spiritual maturity
Now let’s go back to our passage in Hebrews 6.
NKJ
Hebrews
6:13 For when God made a promise to
Abraham, because He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself,
NKJ
Hebrews
6:14 saying, "Surely blessing I will
bless you, and multiplying I will multiply you."
NKJ
Hebrews
6:15 And so, after he had patiently
endured, he obtained the promise.
Now we are going to have another explanation that develops
in verse 16. We have a principle introduced at the beginning of verse 16.
NKJ
Hebrews
6:16 For men indeed swear by the greater,
and an oath for confirmation is for them an end of all dispute.
So now the focus is going to be on what God does in His action of swearing by Himself. So this shifts the focus from the concept of inheriting the promise to the God who is behind the promise. We will see that emphasis on God in the next 5 verses, from 16 down to 20. That will set us up for understanding the high priesthood of Christ. So we will come back to verse 16 next week.