Hebrews Lesson 130 July
3, 2008
NKJ Psalm 119:11 Your word I have hidden in my heart, That I might not sin against You!
(Reading of the Declaration of
Independence…
Many of those who signed the
Constitution lost their fortunes. Some lost their lives, and they did not lose
their honor because they were men of integrity who were willing to take a stand
and to do what was right no matter what the consequences were.
When the Declaration of Independence
was first voted upon and passed by the Continental Congress, copies were sent to
the newspapers. But, the way they expected it to be disseminated the most was
that they sent copies to every pastor in the colonies to be read from the
pulpits of the churches so that there the people would hear what they had done
in Philadelphia. There was never in their minds this modern secularist wall of
separation that modern 20th century judicial tyrants have imposed
upon the church trying to straightjacket pastors and churches from speaking out
in favor of or against political candidates or political positions.
This is something that has come to
an interesting head in recent months here in Houston. There was a pastor of a
church over in southeastern part of town who got in the pulpit and endorsed a
candidate for political office. One of the groups that runs around the country
trying to silence Christians sent a threatening letter to him telling him that
this violated their tax exempt status and that because of this he was going to
(this organization which I think is the Alliance for the Protection of the
Separation of Church and State)… that they were going to file a complaint with
the IRS. They did file a complaint with the IRS.
In May (the first week of May), a
group of pastors called the Houston Area Pastors Council met at a church in the
southeast part of town. I was at that particular meeting. At that meeting they
called a press conference. They called a press conference because this Council
for the Protection of the Separation of Church and State which is just a cover
organization to intimidate Christians and to try and keep the Bible or anybody
who is a Christian from utilizing their Christian belief system to evaluate or
critique what’s going on in the culture. Anyway, this organization is also a
non-profit 501 (C) 3 organization.
So at the press conference what we
did is we said, “Well, since you are using your 501 (c) 3 status illegally to
intimidate pastors so they can’t use their 1st amendment right of
free speech, we’re going to file a complaint with the IRS that you ‘re violating
your 501 (C) 3 status.”
That’s how we have to do it. We are
in a battle today. If we don’t stand up and if pastors don’t unite…I’ve been
pleased to watch this organization. This is the same organization – if
you’ve been watching the news that when this middle school principal in
Friendswood brought the CARE…I never can remember what that stands for - The
Council on Arab (something) Relations. Anyway, it’s been demonstrated it’s a
front organization and that they’ve been…money has been funneled through them
to terrorist organizations. You always see one of their guys trot out any time
something comes up where Muslims think that they’ve been offended.
So this principal because two boys
(one a Muslim and one not) were bullied by another boy. They were smaller than
the other boy. This larger boy picked up a couple of these younger kids and
turned them upside down in the trash can. I don’t know about you, but things
like that happened all the time when I was growing up. I mean boys are boys and
kids are kids.
So this principal who happens to
have a couple of Moslems in her extended family decided that this was really an
issue of antagonism directed toward a Moslem. One kid was; one kid wasn’t. So
she used that as an excuse to bring CARE in to propagandize the students. Well,
the Houston Area Pastors Council which is part of a national group that is
acting as a watchdog organization on things like this immediately was alerted
about this and they sent their representative over there and they began to raise
the proper legal issues with the Friendswood School District. It took about two
weeks for that principal to – she couldn’t get fired because of tenure,
but she got moved into a janitor’s closet somewhere.
Now HISD in their wisdom has picked
her up to be the new principal of Pershing Middle School over off of
Stella.
So we’re in a battle today because
people don’t understand what freedom is any more. You have the freedom to say
whatever you want to I guess, unless you’re a Christian and then you have the
freedom to go stand in a closet and keep your mouth shut. But pastors have
always had the right since the very beginning of this nation to be the voice of
conscience, the voice of truth, and to take political stands from the pulpit.
There are only two things (just for
your knowledge) that a 501(c)(3) organization cannot do.
That’s all. See the news media
doesn’t understand this and you will constantly read…There was an article
published on ABCnews.com last week that I sent them an email about because they
continue to promote the lie that it’s wrong for a pastor to make an
endorsement. Yet, this pastor in Houston who endorsed this one particular
candidate back in the primary back in March was …when that did go to the
Internal Revenue Service and the IRS reviewed it, they said he didn’t do
anything wrong. Pastors have every right to make statements like that. But we’ve
been intimidated for too long by the liberal socialist Left who doesn’t want to
hear about absolutes. So, there is going to be a pastoral protest, I think it’s
the 3rd or 4th Sunday in September, that pastors in this
country are being encouraged to get in the pulpit and endorse candidates. I
don’t know if I’ll do that. But I will certainly endorse biblically correct
positions.
There are always a few people. I was
amazed the last time we had a presidential election. I had been teaching on a
series related to the divine institutions and making it just about as clear as
I possibly thought I could make it – that one candidate was extremely out
in left field for numerous positions that violated the divine institutions and
the other one while he wasn’t at the very best he at least he wasn’t as bad by
half as the other one.
Well, in the middle of doing that
about two weeks before the election somebody in my church came to me on Sunday
saying, “Guess what. There was a woman in your congregation who called into a
political talk show the other day (a local one) and said that based on what her
pastor had been teaching about what the Bible said were the criterion for
elected officials that Christians should be voting for John Kerry.”
So I don’t know what happens between
my mouth and your brain, but there are some people who have things …have their
wires really crossed. I just wonder if some people even hear the gospel right
after that. That still shakes me up.
So, we celebrate our nation’s
birthday one more year hoping that we still have freedom in another year. But I
thought it would be nice and appropriate as we acknowledge and recognize the
freedoms that we have and it’s important for Christians…and I want to say this
because the question comes up. If we believe in separation of church and state,
why does a church – what is the reason that a church in America ...I mean
churches in Brazil don’t, churches in Indonesia don’t, churches in Australia
don’t; but why is it that churches in America honor military veterans on
Veterans Day - those who have given their life for service on Memorial Day? Why
should we honor state holidays? We believe in separation of church and state,
right? The reason we do is because in this nation uniquely at its founding the
government recognized the freedom of every individual to choose on their own
where, how and if they would worship and what church they would associate with.
That is why we acknowledge as Christians these national holidays, because we
recognize that government has been instituted by God; and we honor that. We
recognize that this government that we have grown up under, in this government,
in these United States, since the establishment of the Constitution has given
us the freedom to worship without government interference. So it is an
expression of our thankfulness and our gratitude for all of the blessings that
we have for the foresight and wisdom of the Founding Fathers of this nation to
establish such a government that would continue for this long and provide us
with the freedoms that we have enjoyed.
Now there has been an erosion of
those freedoms and we are aware of potential loss of even more freedom. But for
now, we still have these freedoms and potentially the right to turn things around.
It’s going to depend upon the people. But so far, as Francis Scott Key
recognized in the battle that occurred over Fort McHenry that even though the
battle rages over whether or not we will continue to be a free country, the
flag still proudly waves.
So let’s stand. Alan is going to
lead us in the Star
Spangled Banner.
(Congregation sings)
We have been studying for the last
several lessons the Tabernacle trying to understand where the focal point
becomes not just the earthly tabernacle, which becomes the shadow of the
heavenly tabernacle which is something we’re going to have to think through. I
mean I’m not sure what that is all about. There are questions about that that
I’m still working through as we approach that study. But to understand this, we
have to have a firm and solid foundation of what’s going on in the Old
Testament in terms of the Old Testament tabernacle that God revealed to Moses.
From what we learn in Hebrews, what Moses saw was a shadow image or a
reflection of that heavenly archetype. So we’ve been looking at the Tabernacle
in terms of its total composition. Then once we enter in through the gate (the
one-way entry into the presence of God), we have begun a study of the different
articles of furniture in the Tabernacle.
The first article of furniture we
focused on has been the brazen altar. The brazen altar is a type or picture of
the judgment of sin. It is a picture of substitutionary atonement – at
its very core the fact that at the cross Jesus Christ would bear the judgment for
us of our sin.
But as you go through the first
chapters of Leviticus, there are 5 different sacrifices that are outlined
there. So I put together just a summary chart for us. I’ll probably expand this as we go, but just to remind us of
these 5 offerings – the burnt offering, the meal offering, the peace
offering, the sin offering, and the guilt offering. The only offering of the 4
that was bloodless was the meal offering.
The meal offering was an offering to
God of the finest of meal. It could be mixed with oil. It could be baked. It
could be fried. It could be broiled and it would be brought to the altar and
there it would be consumed completely as a memorial to God’s grace. It is
called the meal offering or a tribute offering. What all of these have in common is the idea of sacrifice -
the blood offerings that is = burnt, peace, sin and guilt offering. They all
have at their base a picture of substitutionary atonement.
The burnt offering is the
foundational one and it is a picture of the complete payment for sin because
the entire offering was consumed upon the altar. In each (in that the one), who
brings the sacrifice puts his hand upon the animal indicating a transfer or
identification of sin indicates the nature of that payment is that of substitution.
The peace offering which is a
picture of our fellowship with God…
It is a shared meal. Part was consumed upon the altar and the rest is
shared with others in the family – friends, the priests. This was a
celebration that the one bringing the offering now had peace with God. It is a
picture of reconciliation.
The last two offerings (the sin
offering and the guilt offering) both speak of forgiveness. The focal point of
the sin offering is on purification for unintentional sin whereas the focus of
the guilt offering is purification for specific sin. They each have a slightly
different orientation, but the focus there again is substitutionary atonement. So
the first thing that happens, the first place of action and activity inside the
courtyard, is the burnt offering.
But something else would transpire
at the beginning of each shift as it were, as the priest would come in to
prepare the sacrifices and the work at the offering. The first thing that a
priest would have to do would be to go to the second piece of furniture that is
inside the courtyard and that was the laver. The laver was made out of bronze and it was filled with
water. The priest would come in and he would wash his hands and wash his feet
before he could serve at the altar.
So we need to take a look at the
significance of the laver. This pictures Christ as the one who cleanses us from
our sins.
Now the laver really isn’t mentioned
that much in Scripture. There are a few passages I’m going to mention here in
Exodus. There is briefly mentioned in terms of the consecration of the priests
in Leviticus 8 and it’s mentioned in terms of the architecture and the
construction of the Solomonic Temple, and then some changes that were made to
it a little later on…two or three verses in Kings. That’s it. It’s not
mentioned anywhere else. But, it’s important to pay attention to what is going
here because the laver is designed to teach a crucial principle for the
spiritual life.
In Exodus 30:17-20 we have the order
from God for the construction of the laver.
NKJ Exodus 30:17 Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying:
NKJ Exodus 30:18 "You shall also make a laver
The Hebrews word is kiyyor.
of bronze, with
its base also of bronze, for washing.
Now bronze as we saw earlier speaks of
judgment. It withstands the fire of judgment, the brazen altar. It speaks of
judgment here and so something related to judgment takes place at the laver in
terms of the cleansing. It’s got a base of bronze for washing.
You shall put
it between the tabernacle of meeting and the altar. And you shall put water in
it,
Now the Hebrew word I want you to
pay attention to in the original Hebrew text is that word for washing. The verb
is rahas.
It is a generic or broad based term. It can refer to washing your hands or it
can refer to taking an entire bath. The Hebrew word itself does not distinguish
between partial washings and complete or total washings. That comes though when
you have the Septuagint. The Septuagint, remember, is translated between
approximately 200 BC and 100 BC. It was a translation of the Hebrew Old
Testament into Greek because the Jews in the exile (the Jews in the Diaspora)
had lost their facility with Hebrew and so they needed to have the Scriptures
in the language that they were familiar with so they could understand it. So
the rabbis decided to translate the Old Testament into Greek. The story was
that 70 rabbis in 70 days translated the Scriptures from Hebrew into Greek.
That’s why it’s called the Septuagint related to 70. It’s often abbreviated
with the Roman numeral LXX for seventy. So you’ll often see that abbreviation
in different places. In the Septuagint the rabbis who all understood the nuance
of the Hebrew text did not translate rahas with the same Greek word every time. They
understood that in some passages it was a complete washing or bathing. In other
passages, it was only a partial washing like the washing of hands or the
washing of feet. So when they translated the Hebrew into Greek, they
distinguished between these two types of washings. This is very important to
understand because of how the Lord Jesus Christ is going to use this later
on.
In Exodus 30:19 we read:
NKJ Exodus 30:19 "for Aaron and his sons shall wash their hands and their feet in
water from it.
There the Greek word is nipto. Nipto is the
word that simply refers to a partial washing – the washing of hands, the
washing of feet. In fact the root is used to describe the laver itself.
NKJ Exodus 30:20 "When they go into the tabernacle of meeting, or when they come
near the altar to minister, to burn an offering made by fire to the LORD, they
shall wash with water, lest they die.
Notice the penalty. Failure to wash
their hands and their feet, failure to have this partial cleansing every time they
entered into the service in the tabernacle would result in the death penalty.
God is really making a point here that these guys have to wash their feet and
their hands every time they come in. They walk through the gate. They wash
their hands. They wash their feet before they can start cutting up the animals
to put them on the altar before they go into the tent of meeting. Before they
do anything, the first thing they have to do is they have to wash their hands
and wash their feet. It’s a picture of confession of sin. You know “how dull
and boring and mechanical” somebody might say. I’ve had people say that.
“Every time you start Bible class
you always start with silent prayer. You say basically the same thing. We have
confession of sin. It’s so mechanical.”
Well, that’s how you teach things.
It’s called pedagogy. You go through things over and over and over again
because on the one hand people need to be reminded of its importance; and on
the other hand there are new people coming in who haven’t quite learned how
significant this is. In the Old Testament the importance of experiential
sanctification (because that’s the key word that we’re going to see here)…
The Old Testament uses the word to be
set apart, to be sanctified, to be made holy. It’s the Hebrew word qadash which
is the counterpart to the New Testament word hagiazo. It has this idea of
experiential or ongoing sanctification. Before the priest can serve God, they
have to be experientially set apart to serve God for that day. The fact that it
had happened the day before or the day before or that they had been completely
bathed sometime in the past is another issue.
Now when you look at the Exodus
30:21, the text goes on to say:
NKJ Exodus 30:21 "So they shall wash their hands
Nipto
and their feet, lest they die.
Repetition is the key to learning.
When the Holy Spirit repeats things, you have to pay attention.
And it shall be
a statute forever to them -- to him and his descendants throughout their
generations."
Then we skip to the next passage.
That’s all Exodus 30. That’s all we have is those verses 17-21.
The next mention we have of the
laver is in 38:8. It adds something new about its construction. What was it
made from? Okay. It’s made from bronze, but where did they get the bronze.
NKJ Exodus 38:8 He made the laver of bronze and its base of bronze, from the bronze
mirrors of the serving women who assembled at the door of the tabernacle of
meeting.
So it’s made from mirrors. So when
you would come up to the laver and you looked through the clear water, what are
you going to see? You’re going to see a reflection of yourself. This is a
function of the Word of God.
I want you to hold your place here
and turn to the New Testament with me to the 1st chapter of James.
Now the first chapter of James (all the way down through 2:13) puts an emphasis
on the application of the Word.
“Don’t be a hearer only” - which
means don’t just come to Bible class, listen, take notes and accumulate a lot
of intellectual knowledge about the Bible. You have to have intellectual knowledge about the Bible
before you can apply it. That’s the trouble today.
People say, “Ah, we know too
much.”
If we only applied a tenth of what we
know, just think what great believers we would be. We don’t apply a tenth of
what we know about any subject in life.
The more we know (the more the totality of our knowledge)… we only apply
about maybe on tenth of 1% at any given time. So the more the total knowledge,
the larger that one tenth of 1% is going to be.
So you continue to learn and grow
and you will apply more. But people don’t want to learn. I can’t tell you how
many times….
Years ago I was in a church and I
see, “Oh, we just know. You dump so much knowledge on us. It’s like an
information dump.”
Well, you just don’t want to learn
anything do you?
So James emphasizes. He doesn’t say
don’t be a hearer of the Word.
He says, “Be a hearer and a
doer.”
Add something to it. Don’t just
collect information, but apply it.
He gives an illustration. He says in
1:22:
NKJ James 1:22 But be doers of the word, and not hearers only,
deceiving yourselves.
See the person who just comes and
listens collects a lot of information about the Bible but doesn’t really think
about its application.
Now I remember years ago sitting
next to somebody in Bible class and they were taking notes. Just because of the
way we were sitting in Bible class, my eye naturally fell on their notes. I
noticed that when they took notes that if the point was expressed in an
impersonal third person sort of construction, they converted it into a first
person construction. “I need to do this.” Every point that was given they
converted that into “I need to do this” if it would make sense that way.
I thought, “Boy. That really makes
it personal, doesn’t it?”
That’s convicting. Let’s move
on.
NKJ James 1:22 But be doers of the word, and not hearers only,
deceiving yourselves.
When you only listen to the Word and
you’re not thinking in terms of “how does that impact” or “how should that
change the way I think, the way I relate to people, the way I respond to
situations, how is that going to change me fundamentally?”; then you’re in self
deception. You’re just getting information and you’re not thinking terms of:
this information is designed to change me.
Then James gives an illustration. In
fact what’s interesting is I was talking to a pastor just this morning. We meet
weekly.
He was telling me, “Have you ever heard
anybody interpret James this way?”
He related the fact that he had
somebody in is congregation come up and say, “Well, a hearer is somebody who
shows up at Bible class. A doer is a person who really understands what it
says.”
Application is not related.
I thought, “Boy! That sounds like
the objector over in James 2.”
Maybe you ought to respond by
saying, “What do you do with the next verse?”
The next verse says:
NKJ James 1:23 For
Explanation
if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer,
Applier of the Word
he is like a man observing his natural face in a
mirror;
NKJ James 1:24 for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of
man he was.
So what James is saying here is you
wake up in the morning and you go into the bathroom and you look in the mirror
and you’ve got bed head. Your hair is going in 40 different directions and you
need a shave. You’ve got that stubble starting to show up. See that’s the value
- as we look a little fuzzier around the edges as we get older and our eyesight
goes… I look in the mirror and I can’t tell if I’ve shaved or not for four
days. That’s the trouble. I had a beard for so many years when I didn’t need to
shave. I look in the mirror and I don’t notice that I haven’t shaved. Sometimes
I’ll get somewhere… I did this the other day at Bible class.
“I didn’t shave today”.
I don’t look in the mirror and see
myself anymore.
So this is a person who looks in the
mirror and says, “You need a shave. Your hair is crazy. Okay.”
Now what do you do? You go fix
breakfast, have a cup of coffee and forget what you looked at. Well, that’s the
person who is a hearer and not an applier, not a doer. The person who is a
hearer and a doer responds to that.
You look in a mirror and say, “Ah! I
need to comb my hair. I look crazy.”
If you are a lady you need to put
some makeup on. I need to shave…whatever it is you recognize that as you see
truth in the mirror, that truth tells you that you need to change something
about yourself. The Word of God reflects reality and so we see that which needs
to conform to truth.
When you come to the laver, what is
reflected in the mirror of the laver is the sin of the individual. He sees
himself as he is. So there is a recognition there that we need to look at
ourselves, look at the reflection of ourselves to see if there is sin there. If
there is sin there, we need to confess it. That’s the point of
application.
So it’s made out of a mirror because
we need to look and examine our lives and to see if there is sin there. If
there is, we need to confess it.
Now the next time we have the laver
mentioned is in Exodus 40. This is at the consecration of the priest when he
first enters into service. The laver is mentioned.
NKJ Exodus 40:7 "And you shall set the laver between the tabernacle of meeting and
the altar, and put water in it.
NKJ Exodus 40:12 "Then you shall bring Aaron and his sons to the door of the
tabernacle of meeting and wash them with water.
NKJ Exodus 40:13 "You shall put the holy garments on Aaron, and anoint him and
consecrate him, that he may minister to Me as priest.
When the rabbis translated this into
the Septuagint, they didn’t translate it with nipto. They translated it with louo. This is
the initial bathing, the complete washing of the priest. He was bathed from
head to toe. This is equivalent to positional sanctification.
Now what does that mean? Those are
big words. It means that our position before God is completely sanctified. God
looks at us (as the believer as our position for the believer in the Church
Age)…our position in Christ is that we are completely cleansed of all sin. We
are completely forgiven positionally. But this doesn’t have to do with the
day-to-day experience of our Christian lives. That’s the point of comparison.
At the beginning of Aaron’s ministry, he’s positionally cleansed. They are
bathed from head to toe. Then, they would put on their sanctified, set-apart
garments. They were anointed and consecrated so that they could serve as
priests.
Now there are other things that
happened as well related to different sacrifices and offerings. When we get
into our study of the priesthood we will look at those. But for now what I want
to do is look in the last 4 minutes…Tomorrow’s a holiday we’ll take 10 minutes.
We’re going to look at how Jesus picks up on this terminology in John 13. This
is as they come together to celebrate the Passover the night before the Lord
goes to the cross. He is with the disciples in the Upper Room. Jesus took the
position of being the servant. The servant would come to wash the feet of the
guests that would come in. But, he’s taking this to a new level and he’s going
to use this to teach a principle.
So turn with me if you will to the
13th chapter of John. I’m just going to make a couple of quick
points here because it’s fairly obvious. Then we’ll see how all of this
connects.
NKJ John 13:1 Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour had
come that He should depart from this world to the Father, having loved His own
who were in the world, He loved them to the end. 2 And supper being
ended, the devil having already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot,
Simon's son, to
betray Him,
So Judas is an unbeliever. He’s not
just having the devil put ideas into him. That would be demon influence. But
later on it says that the devil goes into him – eiserchomai, the same word used for
demon possession. So he is an unbeliever.
NKJ John 13:3 Jesus,
knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had
come from God and was going to God,
4 rose from supper and laid
aside His garments, took a towel and girded Himself.
So now after supper He is going to go through this
process of washing their feet.
NKJ John 13:5 After that, He poured water into a basin
The word for basin there is related
to nipto.
and began to
wash the disciples' feet, and to wipe them with the towel with which He was girded
So He goes from Matthew to Thaddeus
to James. Each one sits there and says, “Well, this is interesting”, watching
Jesus watch their feet. He would wash their feet, wipe them off with a towel
that He had.
Then He comes to Peter. Peter has
been watching this. Peter’s not so sure that the Lord… remember Peter is the
one who realizes Jesus is the Christ the Son of the Living God. He’s not so
sure this is the right thing for the Lord to be doing.
So in Peter’s wealth of human
viewpoint, he says:
. 6 Then He
came to Simon Peter. And Peter said to Him, "Lord, are You washing my feet?"
We would put it, “Lord, why are you
washing my feet?”
7 Jesus
answered and said to him, "What I am doing you do not understand now, but
you will know after this."
“I’m picturing something. I’m depicting something in action, but
you don’t understand it right now. But, you will later. But, right now you’re
not going to understand the full import of this.”
NKJ John 13:8 Peter
said to Him, "You shall never wash my feet!"
“I’m not going to let you do this. You
may be having a teaching point here or an analogy but I’m not going to let you
do it.”
Jesus answered
him, "If I do not wash you,
Nipto –
all these so far that’s the only word used, partial washing.
you have no
part with Me."
Now that word “part”…in English we
tend to think of it like an actor has a part in a play. He has a role in the
play. Too often that’s the idea that we get. The Greek word here though is the word miras. Miras is a word used in legal literature
usually wills and testaments (last wills and testaments) to indicate the
portion of the inheritance that’s designated to a person.
When the prodigal son comes to his
father and says, “Hey dad! I want to go live my life. I want to leave here. I
want to go have fun. Give me my share of the inheritance.”
The word that he uses there is miras. It’s
the same word that’s used here. "Part" is a bad translation.
Jesus is saying, “If I don’t wash
with you, you have no share of inheritance with Me.”
That’s a powerful statement. It
impacts Peter.
NKJ John 13:9 Simon Peter said to Him, "Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head!"
“Give me a bath!”
So he goes from one end of the
spectrum to the other.
NKJ John 13:10 Jesus said to him, "He who is bathed
Louo – that’s
that word that described the complete washing of the high priest at the
beginning of his service; but it only happened once – at the beginning.
needs only to
wash his feet,
Nipto.
but is
completely clean; and you are clean, but not all of you."
That implies that he is only
partially clean prior to the partial washing. The issue here is cleansing and
the noun here is katharos
related to the verb katharizo.
We say I John 1:9:
NKJ 1 John 1:9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and
to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Cleanse us – katharizo.
That’s that idea.
The important thing in I John - some
years ago there was a controversy and this comes up every now and then –
do we really need to confess our sin?
Some of you remember there was a lot of discussion a few years ago about
this. Everybody focuses on “ Well, it seems like confession is legalistic.” I’ve
heard that many times. Why don’t you confess your sins? They miss the point.
The emphasis in I John 1:9 isn’t on confessing. The issue is cleansing. What do
you do with post salvation sin? If you don’t need to be cleansed of it, then
does it have any impact on your relationship with God?
Trust me in any relationship you have
whether it’s marriage, whether it’s a parental relationship, whether you’re the
child or the parent, work relationship -
if you do something that offends the other person in the relationship,
then something has to be done to clear that up before harmony is restored.
That’s just the way life is.
It’s the same thing with God. To
think that, “Oh, I can go out and I can sin the 7 deadly sins or whatever and I
don’t have to confess them or do anything just trust that God is going to
automatically forgive me because Jesus died for me” is a recipe for
licentiousness - much more so than people think that I John 1:9 is “just
confess your sin and it’s okay” is a recipe for licentiousness.
Using I John 1:9 means every now and
then at least you have to think about whether there is any sin in your life. If
you don’t have to confess your sin, you’re automatically forgiven because
you’re trusting God to automatically do it; you’d never have to think about the
sin. You would really make hay of all the sunshine so to speak.
NKJ John 13:10 Jesus said to him, "He who is bathed needs only
to wash his feet,
but is completely clean; and you,
He says to Peter….
are clean
Actually it’s not just “you” to
Peter. It’s a “y’all” there. It’s a plural. “Y’all are clean” meaning all of
the disciples. Y’all are clean.
but not all of
you."
In other words there is one of you
who isn’t positionally cleansed i.e. there’s one of you that’s not saved. But
the rest of y’all are all completely clean and positionally saved.
Then John explains what he meant by
this.
NKJ John 13:11 For He knew who would betray Him;
He’s speaking about Judas.
therefore He
said, "You are not all clean."
That is you are not all positionally
cleansed or saved.
Then verse 12:
NKJ John 13:12 So when He had washed their feet, taken His garments, and sat down
again, He said to them, "Do you know what I have done to you?
NKJ John 13:14 "If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to
wash one another's feet.
This is a picture of not only divine
forgiveness but also forgiveness one to another. That’s what he’s going to end
up teaching after he identifies the betrayer and kicks Judas out between verse
18 and 30. Then He gives the new commandment that we are to love one another as
He has loved us. That relates to the grace orientation of forgiving one another
which is what He has illustrated. He is illustrating divine forgiveness.
When Jesus washes partially (nipto) and says, “You are all already bathed (louo) so you
are all clean; he is using the same terminology and drawing a connection (a
continuity) between the Old Testament priesthood service and the New Testament
priesthood service and that there’s an underlying principle. That is for a priest to serve God he
has to be in sanctified relationship. When we sin that experiential
sanctification is broken. We become in terms of sanctification - we become
unclean. But, when we confess our sins God is faithful and just to forgive us
our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness so that we can then
continue in our Christian growth and Christian service.
So the laver is a picture and
reminder of the fact that the believer needs to be confessing sin and needs to
have ongoing cleansing in order to be able to serve God. It is a daily and
significant thing that the believer needs to keep close watch on his sins.
With that we finish the outer
courtyard. Next time we’ll come back and look at what is going on inside the
Holy of Holies.