Hebrews Lesson
142 December 11,
2008
NKJ
Psalm
119:9 How can a
young man cleanse his way? By taking heed according to Your
word.
Well, we did not have class on Tuesday night because of the
annual Pre-Trib Rapture Study Group meeting which meets every year around the second week or so
of December in Dallas, Texas. This year it was another good conference. The
conference has really expanded over the years. When I first began going back in
1998, there were about 40 or 50 in attendance, almost all of whom
were pastors, and/or prophecy teachers or professors in seminaries or Bible
colleges. Around 2001 or 2002 Tim LeHay got the idea
that we should open it up to anyone who wanted to come. Those who were the
actual members of the Pre-Trib Study Group would
still sit in the center front with tables and study aids and all of that.
The focus would still be the same in terms of presenting
papers and presentations of a scholarly nature. But there would be many, many
people who would be very interested in this kind of work – similar to
some of the Bible conferences and prophecy conferences that had begun in
England and some in the United States back in the 19th century.
There were the Aubrey Conferences in England in the 1830’s. There were some
others. There were the Niagara Bible Conferences here in the United States.
Moody had some conferences. It was through these prophecy conferences that the
teaching about the Second Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, the rapture and
dispensationalism became disseminated and became so popular in the United
States.
It was considered to be such a breath of fresh air in terms
of prophetic studies because the emphasis was on the immanency of Christ’s
return; but that there were no prophetic signs related to the rapture: that He
could come at any time, but there were no signs.
Remember in the 19th century you had various
groups who would set a time or set a date.
They would say, “This is when the Lord’s going to come
back.”
Then people would quit their jobs and leave their homes and everything
else and go sit on a mountaintop waiting for Jesus to come back and He wouldn’t
come back.
You still have people who do things like that – like
the guy who came out with his book in 1988, 88 Reasons Why Jesus Is Going to Return
in 1988. He didn’t return so
he wrote a book the next year 89 Reasons Why Jesus Will Come Back in 1989.
I understand that the guy is still around somewhere, but I don’t know that he
is continuing to edit his book.
That was the idea of the immanency of Christ’s return; but, it was a sign-less event, and was such a refreshing
wind of truth that it had a tremendous impact among evangelicals especially
since it came out of a fundamentalist background.
The original use of the term fundamentalist related to
conservatives who believed in the fundamentals of the Bible – that the
Bible was the verbal plenary inspired, inerrant, infallible Word of God, a
belief in miracles, a belief in the substitutionary
atonement of Christ, belief in the virgin birth, a belief in the literal Second
Coming of Christ.
Remember in the context of the 19th century that’s
the same time that the Bible was really coming under attack from what was
called higher criticism, liberal theology; liberal protestant theology coming
out of the European seminaries and universities where many churches in America
were sending their young men who left America believing in the fundamentals of
the faith and returning not believing in the fundamentals of the faith. That
set the stage for what became known as the fundamentalist modernist controversy
that began in the late 19th century and bled over into the 20th
century and sort of ended with the Scopes trial as sort of the death of the
fundamentalist.
But what was at the core that were these men – these
tremendous Bible teachers like Moody, R. A. Tory, C. I. Scofield,
Louis Sperry Chafer, and Blackstone and many others – who really had
prophecy at the center of their teaching ministry. Even though many people
wrongly used prophecy or abused it and made it some sort of sensationalist
thing, that is not necessarily true. People misuse the Bible all the time. Just
because they misuse the Bible doesn’t mean you don’t teach the Bible. So
misusing prophecy is no reason not to emphasize prophecy. But it’s amazed me how
down through the last century how many, many people have been saved by studying
or learning or hearing or reading about Bible prophecy. I think hundreds of
thousands have gotten saved reading Hal Lindsey’s book The Late Great Planet Earth and tens of
thousands if not hundreds of thousands or more have gotten saved reading the
Left Behind series that LeHay and Jenkins wrote and
many other books of that nature. So it has a tremendous usage apparently in
God’s plan for evangelism.
So this year we focused on a number of different things.
There was a man, a young British scholar just got his PhD last year named Dr.
Paul Wilkinson who wrote his dissertation on the rise of Zionism and
specifically Christian Zionism in Britain in the 19th century, which
is a fascinating read for a scholar; very interesting to study how that grew
and developed. He spoke on the relationship of John Nelson Darby who was the
first to truly systematize dispensationalism, the first to clearly articulate
the Doctrine of the Rapture – not that he’s the first.
Some people come along and say, “Well, Darby invented the
rapture.” But the rapture precedes Darby. There have been numerous findings in
the last 15 or 20 years especially related to men in the Pre-Trib Rapture Study Group who’ve gone back and had the
opportunity to go through and read and translate works that hadn’t been
translated or discovered before. There have been several documented instances
of men going back to at least the 5th or 6th century AD
who clearly understood that the church would not go through the tribulation. So
Darby just systemized it. That was a great message.
Then Roger Oakland who is the author of the book Faith Undone.
He’s had an apologetic ministry. I first met Roger back around ’89 or ’90 when
he was doing a lot of work on the New Age movement as well as
creation-evolution. He has had written and done some tremendous studies on the
emerging church. He did a presentation on apostasy and the emerging church. And
this is really interesting. I’m going to have to do some work on this myself
but how within Roman Catholicism there is the worship of Mary. If you go to
Fatima in Portugal that Fatima is the daughter of Mohammed. So there is this
connection being made between Mary and the worship of
Mary in the Roman Catholic Church and the worship of Fatima who is the daughter
of Mohammed and this is coming together and is seen as a possible precursor to
the religion of the end times as Islam and Roman Catholicism may possibly merge
around this. We’ve learned more about this over the years and focusing on the
Eucharist and the Eucharistic Christ. It’s not about Christ. The Roman Catholic
Eucharist isn’t about Christ. It’s about the Eucharist. It’s about the bread.
It’s idolatry and how this fits with the worship of Mary. This was very, very
interesting.
Then Wayne House gave a paper on Josephus and his writings
on the fall of Jerusalem and how that relates to the distorted interpretations
of the preterist.
In the afternoon there was Kevin Zuger
presented on the meaning of the word “to meet” in 1 Thessalonians 4:17.
We had a great banquet on Monday night where Joel Rosenberg
the author of the Last Jihad and The Copper Scroll and The Ezekiel Option and now Epicenter which is a non-fiction book
detailing what’s going on the Middle East and how this may be a precursor to
the events of Ezekiel 38 and 39 – the invasion of Gog and Magog into the Middle East detailing the fact that for the
first time in history there is an alliance between Russia in the north and Iran. This has never happened in history and
yet that is what’s at the core of the Gog and Magog
invasion in Ezekiel 38 and 39 and a number of different things going on there.
He was the speaker and did an excellent job.
Then I guess the next day John McClain gave a presentation
on the chronological and sequential structure of the book of Revelation.
Then the next day Dr. John Whitcomb who
is of Whitcomb and Morris fame writers of The Genesis Flood. He
has become sort of the elder statement of dispensationalism now that Dr. Walvoord is with the Lord. Dr. Whitcomb is about 84 or 85
now. He gave an excellent paper on the sacrifices in the Millennial
Kingdom.
Mike Gender did a paper on Roman Catholicism and Bible prophecy
a lot of which overlapped with what Roger Oakland had done in showing this
relationship between the worship of Mary and the worship of Fatima.
Then there was another presentation on the kingdom of God
and a discussion of current events.
Charlie Clough gave a great paper that went over the heads
of probably 90% of the people there. Several pastors looked at me afterwards
and said, “I don’t know that I understood anything he said.” It was truly a
great paper.
Then Tommy presented the same paper that he had done here at
Chafer last year on the meaning of earth dwellers in Revelation. So that gives
you a little overview.
Some of that will be available and papers will be posted up
on the Pre-trib.org and those papers will be posted up on that website. There
will be ways for some of you to get the tapes, MP3’s and videos and things like
that.
Okay, let’s go to Hebrews 9:3 for just a few moments before
we start to look at some other things. Now, just a little
word of insight for all of you who are sitting here. If you were here
last week, I began to do some introductory work on the meaning of the word kaphar
and atonement going back through the key events in the atonement once again the
Day of Atonement and how that relates to an understanding of Hebrews 9.
Then I didn’t get as far as looking into Colossians 2, which
I want to do tonight. Then when Sunday morning came along because we have the
mention of the altar, the horns of the altar in Revelation 9 related to the
beginning of the 6th trumpet judgment; I went back through this
again because we had to identify the altar of incense, its location, things
like that.
Now tonight we’re going to look at some things that are
repetitive from Sunday morning.
So someone may say, “Why are we getting the same thing over
and over again?”
The reason is (number 1) you need to hear the repetition.
Also remember that aside from those of you that are here tonight hundreds of
people are going to listen to these lessons and they’re going to study Hebrews
from beginning to end and they won’t hear what you just heard on Sunday
morning. Or, they’ll be going through Revelation from beginning to end and they
won’t hear the corollary lessons in Hebrews. So, you hear a certain of
repetition and redundancy from last Thursday to Sunday to this Thursday. But
those who hear these series in isolation from the other classes that I’m
teaching don’t get that level of repetition. So some of this material needs to
be in both series. That happens every now and then where I’m teaching something
and it seems like there’s a confluence. The force comes together and everything
fits and 3 classes in a row in three different books all talk about the same
thing. But that material needs to be there because of the fact that people listen
to these series in a different order than we experience them on our
Tuesday-Thursday-Sunday experience.
So we’re looking at this passage in Hebrews 9 and the focus
here is on the Day of Atonement and how that is fulfilled by what Christ does
on the cross and how the picture of the shadow that is seen in the Day of
Atonement itself and in the Tabernacle foreshadows the work of Christ on the
cross. But then as we look at the work of Christ on the cross (the finished,
completed work of Christ on the cross) and its explanation in the New Testament
primarily in Paul’s epistles; then we can go back and see aspects and
dimensions and features in the Old Testament festival and in the Day of
Atonement and in the worship of the Day of Atonement and we then get a better
understanding (better focus, better clarity) on what happens both on the Day of
Atonement and what was accomplished on the cross
So I pointed out last time that (and again on Sunday morning
that) the typical way in which we look at the floor plan of the Tabernacle is
like this with the golden altar of incense outside the Holy of Holies, outside
the veil and in the holy place. But Hebrews 9:3 states:
NKJ Hebrews
9:3 and behind the second veil, the part of
the tabernacle which is called the Holiest of All,
That is having in its possession…
NKJ
Hebrews
9:4 which had the golden censer and the ark
of the covenant overlaid on all sides with gold, in which were the golden pot that had the manna,
Aaron's rod that budded, and the tablets of the covenant;
We’ve gone through the material in both the Old Testament
and the New showing that it seems that the best explanation is that in the
Tabernacle itself the golden altar of incense was inside the Holy of
Holies.
It would look like this because it was designed that the
incense on the Day of Atonement would completely cover the Ark of the Covenant
so the High Priest would not look upon it. Just as a point of clarification
throughout the Old Testament the only priest that’s authorized to go into the
Holy of Holies was the High Priest. Aaron was the only one mentioned. There is
really little mention of the altar of incense after the Pentateuch. But in the
Pentateuch all the instructions are to Aaron and no one but Aaron ministers at
the altar of incense. He’s the one that goes in every morning and every evening
to change the incense to bring in the coals so that the altar of incense is
burning continuously throughout the day. So you didn’t have other priests go in
there.
By the time of the New Testament and the Second Temple, this
is where Zechariah is when he is ministering at the altar. He is the father of
John the Baptist. When the angel
appears to him and announces that he and Elizabeth are going to have a child
that will be John the Baptist and what his ministry will be. He just doesn’t
believe it so the angel strikes him speechless. He is unable to speak until the
child is born.
So because of that people have also brought up the question
up as to well, he’s ministering at the altar so priests were ministering at the
altar. But it’s clear from the testimony of others such as Josephus and Philo
and others that during the Second Temple period the altar was outside in the
holy place. Actually there is nothing in the Holy of Holies. I think that there
was a transition that occurred and because there was no Ark of the Covenant
during the Second Temple period, then that room was basically was not used at
all. There was no need for the altar to fill that room with smoke because there
was nothing to look at or to obscure so that other priests could minister at
the golden altar. For various logistical reasons they moved it out to the holy
place. We have clear evidence of that. Unfortunately I think that a lot of
people look at Second Temple testimony (eyewitness testimony) and then say that
must be exactly the way it was in the First Temple and in the Tabernacle when
we know that there were minor variations of this type between each of these
stages.
So we looked at those verses and if you go on down to verse 6
we read:
NKJ Hebrews 9:6 Now
when these things had been thus prepared, the priests always went into the
first part of the tabernacle, performing the services.
That is when everything was made ready for when the
Tabernacle was completed or finished.
That was the role of the priest. What the writer of Hebrews
is simply saying here is that the priest went in continuously into the outer
room into the holy place. They are changing the table of showbread. They are
lighting the oil for the menorah. But they do not go passed the veil; they do
not go into the Holy of Holies.
Then in verse 7 we read:
KJV
Hebrews
9:7 But into the second went the high
priest alone once every year, not without blood, which he offered for himself,
and for the
errors of the people:
That’s the King James Version translation. Your New American
Standard I think is a little clearer.
NKJ
Hebrews
9:7 But into the second part the high priest
went alone
once a year,
The “alone” there modifies High Priest and shouldn’t be
translated alone but should be translated “only”... only the High Priest. No
other priest goes in there; only the High Priest went in once a year. Look at
the whole thing. Then you have an explanatory clause.
not
without blood, which he offered for himself and for the people's sins committed in
ignorance;
So he goes in once a year to offer for the people’s sin.
It’s not that he went in once a year, but that he went in once a year for that
purpose. You have to look at the whole sentence structure and not just stop it
halfway through and say that means he only went in on the Day of Atonement. He
would take care of the incense on a regular basis. But again it was only the
High Priest who is functioning in that, not the priests.
Then verse 8 we read:
NKJ
Hebrews
9:8 the Holy Spirit indicating this, that the
way into the Holiest of All
That is the Holy of Holies.
was
not yet made manifest while the first tabernacle
It’s not made clear yet while the First Temple…
was
still standing
In other words they are looking at the shadow and the shadow
means that they don’t have a crisp, clear understanding of what all this is
representing. Sometimes we think
that in the Old Testament, the Old Testament believers had a very clear
understanding that the lamb meant that they understood that God would send a Messiah
and that Messiah was going to die for their sins. They didn’t understand it
that clearly. They understood that God was going to provide salvation for them,
but the mechanics and the details were not that clear. Remember it’s not until
Isaiah 53 that we have a clear explanation and revelation that He will be made
sin and He will die in our place, so that becomes a little more clear. But this
is much earlier than that so it’s still more obscure to them. Their trust is
really in God and that He will provide a solution. But the details of that
solution are not real clear.
If you would have gone up to them
and said, “See this lamb represents the Savior and just like the lamb is killed
the Savior is going to be killed and He’s going to be crucified,” they would
go, “Huh?”
To support that, just look at the disciples. When Jesus
shows up and he tells the disciples again and again and again that it’s
necessary for Him to die for the sins of the people, it just doesn’t get passed
their ears. They can’t comprehend it; it doesn’t make sense to them. That’s why
we talk about the fact that the Old Testament is a shadow of the reality.
I used the illustration on Sunday that if I were to get a
couple of you up here and we were to turn the lights off and had a bright
spotlight on you to cast a shadow up on the wall, there are certain things that
we would be able to tell about the person casting the shadow. We could probably
tell if they were male or female. We could perhaps judge by comparison and get
some idea of their size or their height or their proportion. We might get some
idea of their hair and what their hair looked like. But with that silhouette we
would not be real clear on a lot of details. It would be when the lights come
on and we see directly the person who’s casting the shadow.
That’s what is true of this. Again and again we have this
imagery that this is just a shadow based on the ultimate reality of the Temple
in heaven, the dwelling place of God in heaven.
We’ve seen in our study of Revelation that there’s the altar
in heaven; there’s the Ark of the Covenant in heaven – the altar of
incense that is – and the Ark of the Covenant. No other furniture is
mentioned in heaven in these visions of the heavenly temple also called the
Heavenly Tabernacle emphasizing the dwelling place of God.
So the Holy Spirit is teaching through these shadow images
in the Old Testament. In the progress of revelation, little bits are added down
through the centuries to fill out the picture so that by the time God sends the
Second Person of the Trinity on His mission as Savior, then they should have
enough information to be able to identify Him. That is what Paul refers to in
Galatians 4:4 when he says:
NKJ
Galatians
4:4 But when the fullness of the time had
come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law,
So then we looked at verse 9.
NKJ
Hebrews
9:9 It was symbolic for the present time in which both
gifts and sacrifices are offered which cannot make him who performed the
service perfect in regard to the conscience --
That word is teleios. It’s not the idea of
flawless. But it has the idea of “complete” in regard to the conscience.
NKJ
Hebrews
9:10 concerned
only with foods and drinks, various
washings, and fleshly ordinances imposed until the time of reformation.
To understand verse 9, you have to understand verse 10.
Verse 10 is focusing on the issue in the Tabernacle on the Day of Atonement. It
has to do with the sacrifices that are being brought to deal with the
unintentional sins that are committed by the Jews and by ritual uncleanness. So
that’s what he’s summarizing in verse 10. If they ate the wrong food or drink
or they didn’t go through the right ritual washings or there were unwitting
sins (involuntary sins) then there were these sacrifices that would cleanse
them ritually so that they could then come in and participate in the ritual and
that all of these rituals were just symbols of an ultimate spiritual reality.
I find that this is something that has confused a lot of
people. I mentioned that when we were at Pre-Trib the
last two or three days, that Dr. Whitcomb gave a paper on the sacrifices in the
Millennial Kingdom. I find that this still confuses a lot of people. I was
talking to some pastors who were there for the first time this time and they
just had never really understood that: that there were going to be literal
animal sacrifices in the Millennial Kingdom. Look at Hebrews and Hebrews says
that Christ is the completion of that. All those animal sacrifices in the Old
Testament pointed to Christ. The blood of bulls and goats couldn’t take away
sin; so why are we going to have animal sacrifices in
the future if Christ has paid the once-for-all sacrifices, which is what we
cover here in chapter 9?
The reason is that the sacrifices never had to do with the
real spiritual relationship between the Old Testament Jew and God. They had to
do with a ceremonial and ritual relationship with God. So we have to draw this
distinction between the ceremonial and the ritual coming into God’s presence
and the real spiritual coming into God’s presence.
Let me illustrate. David is out with the sheep. David sins.
Does David have to run to Jerusalem and offer a sin offering before he can
confess his sin and get back in fellowship? If he has to always bring a sin
offering to get back in fellowship in terms of his real relationship with God;
then before he gets back to the sheepfold in Bethlehem he’s sinned again he’s
got to turn around and run back to Jerusalem. He has another sin offering and
then he turns around and he’s almost out of Jerusalem and he sins again and he
has to turn around and run back. He’s never going to get home or he’s going to
be winning the Olympics before long because he’s running back and forth.
You know how often we have to confess the same sins
sometimes. So there is this distinction. David could be out with the sheep,
sin, confess his sin; he’s back in fellowship with God. That has to do with his
real relationship with God. But the next time he goes to Jerusalem to the
Temple there has to be a ceremonial cleansing of that sin so that he can
participate in the ceremonial ritual in the Tabernacle. That is a physical
picture of what happens in the spiritual realm. But these have to be kept
separate. Now the purpose for the physical rituals and the sacrifices was to
provide ritual cleansing for participation in the rituals in the Tabernacle
– the feast days so that when sinful men, sinful priests come before a
holy God there has to be this visible ceremonial sacrifice depicting an
ultimate spiritual reality.
In the future Temple that is in Jerusalem, Ezekiel clearly
defines a ritual sacrificial system. But it’s not Levitical.
There are differences between the ritual that’s going to be in the Millennial
Temple and the ritual that’s in the Mosaic Law. This really bothered the rabbis
back in the intertestamental period when it came to
deciding whether or not the book of Ezekiel should be included in the canon.
They felt like there were these contradictions because they thought that
Ezekiel was really talking about the Levitical
Tabernacle, the Levitical temple and the Levitical priestly ministry and sacrifices and not
something prophetic.
So one of the rabbis it’s said burned through 100 barrels of
oil. He had one lamp. You don’t put a whole lot of oil in that lamp so to burn
100 barrels of oil means you are locked away in that room by yourself for an
awfully long time. After you’ve been in there in
isolation for 5 or 6 years burning through a 100 barrels of oil you can just
about make any contradictory statements say the same thing. So he worked out
this very fantastic system of correlation between Ezekiel’s sacrificial system
and the Levitical system to satisfy the rabbis and
they accepted Ezekiel into the canon. But they had a primary hermeneutical or
interpretive malfunction. That is, they didn’t recognize that Ezekiel was
talking about this future temple that would come about and there would indeed
be this change of sacrifices because the ultimate atoning work of Christ on the
cross was completed; but these other sacrifices had to do with ritual cleansing
of the Zaddokite priests serving in the Millennial
Temple.
Here you have these fallen Jewish priests. They have sin
natures. They’re going to have infractions of the Law and sin when they’re
serving in the Temple. They have to be ritually cleansed to carry out the
rituals to fulfill the same picture that we have in the Old Testament
temple.
So anyway, as Dr. Whitcomb was presenting this paper and going
through this he also went through some of the same material on atonement that I
presented and had come to the same conclusion that the idea of kaphar
for atonement is the word that emphasizes more the idea of cleansing than it
does the idea of covering.
So just to review, I pointed out that:
Colossians 1:12-14 is an important passage, and let’s go ahead and turn there right now to Colossians 1. But the
key passage is in the second chapter of Colossians. So turn over to Colossians
and we see that in the first part of Colossians, in Colossians 1 starting in
about verse 13 and then going down to verse 23, we have an explanation to some
degree of the work of Christ on the cross as it correlates to the person of
Christ on the cross. As we go through this, I want you to see the connection
between these words.
In this diagram I’ve taken a pentagon here that represents
the concept of atonement. We have these 5 different facets to that word that we
see in various dictionaries and explanations. We have redemption, expiation, propitiation,
reconciliation, and forgiveness. As you approach the cross, you can approach
the cross from different directions. There are some that come and the concept
of redemption (that Christ paid the price for you) is what the Holy Spirit uses
to get their attention and to bring them to an understanding of who Jesus is
and what He did and to believe on Him. Others come from the direction of
forgiveness or expiation. The fact that they are forgiven of sin, that there is
a guilt, a problem with their conscious; they have this inherent understanding
of their guilt before God and the sin in their life. So forgiveness is that
doctrine which the Lord uses to bring them to salvation. For others it may have
to do with justification, propitiation. In the Reformation period was a time
when justice and law was a very dominant idea in society. So the doctrine of
justification by faith alone was a very strong doctrine that resonated with
people where as we live in a very subjective age today that emphasizes relationship
and relational dynamics. So reconciliation becomes a concept that resonates a
lot with people in our culture.
But the word atonement that God uses in the Old Testament
(or the word kaphar rather that he uses in the Old
Testament) is such a broad term that it includes all of these different facets
as it’s used to explain the dynamics of Christ’s work on the cross..
We go to Colossians 1:13. Looking at Colossians 1:13 we
read;
NKJ Colossians
1:13 He
Who is God the Father…
has
delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His
love,
So Paul is writing this from the perspective of one believer
to another. He’s not talking about what the cross has done for unbelievers.
He’s talking to believers about what God has done for believers, the dynamics
of salvation and how that should change the way you’re thinking and the way
you’re operating. He’s writing to a group of believers who are still being
influenced by the human viewpoint concepts of the Greek culture around
them.
So he’s starting with this doctrine of the cross to help
them understand that this isn’t just abstract theology. But this should change
the way you live. You shouldn’t continue to live like the unbelievers in the
culture around you.
So he starts off with this interconnection between what God
did through the cross and why that means that Christ who did it must be fully
God.
So he writes:
NKJ Colossians
1:13 He has delivered us from the power of
darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love,
NKJ
Colossians
1:14 in whom we have
A present tense reality as believers.
It’s not that some of this may apply to unbelievers; but he’s only talking about
what we have in Christ as believers.
redemption
through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.
I want you to pay attention as we read through some of these
passages what all gets accomplished through His blood. We’ve studied the
Doctrine of the Blood of Christ before and we understand that this isn’t
talking about His physical blood; all the components
of red blood cells, white blood cells, plasma, hemoglobin and all of that. The
term blood is used as a metaphor for death because in the Scripture it is the
shedding of blood that is a picture of death. The life is in the blood. So
that’s the metaphor. That’s the picture. So it’s through His blood. Or you
could do a simple word definition to make it more literal – through His
death.
But what do we have? We have redemption. It is His death on
the cross that paid a price. That’s the concept of redemption. It purchased
something. But then we have a phrase that follows it that for all intensive
purposes in the English as well as in the Greek appears to be an appositional
phrase: the forgiveness of sins.
Now if I were to poll the congregation to give me a
definition of forgiveness the one that will most likely bubble up is one that
is similar to what is in Webster’s Dictionary and Oxford English Dictionary. That
is a view of forgiveness that is subjective in orientation. We think of
forgiving someone as not harboring ill feelings towards them, not being bitter
or angry or harboring hatred towards someone. That’s what we mean by
forgiveness.
That’s not what’s meant here. That’s why I think it’s
confusing because if you think of forgiveness as not harboring anger or hate
towards somebody, how can that be synonymous with paying a price? See, it
doesn’t fit. Redemption is the forgiveness of sin. So somehow the idea of
forgiveness is equivalent to the idea of redemption or purchasing something or
paying the price for something. So we have to bring that together.
The problem that we have is that we have a false
understanding of what forgiveness is. When you get into what we will look at in
just a minute (Colossians 2), we see that forgiveness is defined as canceling a
debt or paying the debt. That’s what redemption is. It’s paying the price.
That’s the idea that’s emphasized there in forgiveness. It’s canceling a debt
whereas a sin is viewed as incurring a debt against God. It is the debt that
God wipes away. Nothing is owed God.
In terms of personal relationships sometimes we’re offended
or somebody treats us ill, we think they owe us something. Well, forgiveness is
wiping out that sense of them owing us something. They don’t owe us anything.
There is no sense of repayment that has to be made. The debt is wiped out.
That’s the idea of forgiveness.
In verse 14 here we see that the foundation of these salvation
doctrines is on redemption and forgiveness. Now verses 15 down through 19 focus
on the person of Christ: that in order to do what was done on the cross (paying
the price so that sins could be wiped out) He had to be God. He is the image of
the invisible God, the first born of creation.
NKJ
Colossians
1:15 He is the image of the invisible God,
the firstborn over all creation.
He is the creator. He carried out creation.
NKJ Colossians
1:16 For by Him all things were created that
are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or
dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and
for Him.
He’s eternal.
NKJ
Colossians
1:17 And He is before all things, and in Him
all things consist.
NKJ
Colossians
1:18 And He is the head of the body, the
church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things
He may have the preeminence.
NKJ
Colossians
1:19 For
it pleased the
Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell,
He’s fully God. He has to be fully God in order to do what
He did on the cross.
Now Paul comes back to the subject of what Christ did in
verse 20. He writes:
NKJ
Colossians
1:20 and by Him to reconcile all things to
Himself,
Who does the reconciling? God does the reconciling.
by Him, whether things on earth or
things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross.
Now it is very important to understand this. As we look at
this idea of making peace, it’s related to reconciliation both in verse 20 and
in verse 21. So the grammar here is important. The grammar here is very
important. What we have here is a statement.
NKJ
Colossians
1:21 And you, who once were alienated and
enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled 22 in
the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, and blameless, and
above reproach in His sight --
The participle there precedes the action of the infinitive
to reconcile. The infinitive to reconcile is a present infinitive, which is
used as your main verb. So the action of having made peace precedes the action
of reconciliation. So peace comes before reconciliation. We’re reconciled by
making peace. Look at other passages related to reconciliation.
Hold your place and turn over to 2 Corinthians 5:18-19.
NKJ
2
Corinthians 5:18 Now all things are of God,
Who performs the action of reconciliation there? God
does.
who
has reconciled us to Himself
It’s a complete action.
through
Jesus Christ,
And Paul goes on to say:
and
has given us the ministry of reconciliation,
That’s what we’re announcing when we evangelize – that
God has reconciled us to Himself. That is, that God was in Christ reconciling
the world to Himself. When did that occur? Does that
occur at the cross or does that occur when an individual understands the gospel
and believes in Christ? When was God reconciling the world to Himself? Is this
objective or subjective? This is objective. It occurred when Christ was on the
cross. When Christ died on the cross God is reconciling the world to Himself so
that the position of the world in relation to God changes because Christ died
on the cross for the sins of the world.
It’s not talking about what happens when somebody trusts in
Christ as their savior and that relationship changes experientially, it’s
talking about the objective payment that occurs on the cross that reconciles
the world to God so that the position of the world, the relation of the world
to God is not the same after the cross as it was before the cross. So God was
in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not
imputing their trespasses to them and has committed the word of
reconciliation.
So we announce this reconciliation to man so they can then
trust in Christ as their savior. So that’s reconciliation in relation to the
whole world and in relation to what happened at the cross, not what happens
when somebody believes in Christ.
Now let’s go back to Colossians1 again as we wrap up there.
That peace is made t the time of Christ’s death on the
cross. That is what Paul is saying there. He’s able to reconcile all things to
Himself. That includes everything.
NKJ
Colossians
1:20 and by Him to reconcile all things to
Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace
He’s already made peace first.
through
the blood of His cross.
… the death of Christ on the cross.
So that’s when peace is made.
Then verse 21:
NKJ
Colossians
1:21 And you, who once were alienated and enemies
in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled 22 in the
body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, and blameless, and above
reproach in His sight --
What he’s talking about there is the same thing he talks about
parallel passage in Ephesians 2:11ff is that because Gentiles were excluded
form the Law – now that the Law has been completed and Christ has died on
the cross then gentiles and Jew alike are reconciled and the law is not the
issue anymore. Jew and Gentile can both come to the cross on an equal footing.
There’s not a difference there.
Now let’s turn over to Colossian 2. Let’s skip down to verse
13. You will recognize the wording here is parallel to what Paul says in
Ephesians 2:1. In Ephesians 2:1 Paul says:
NKJ
Ephesians
2:1 And
you He made
alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins,
Then he goes on and lists some other dynamics related to
carnality. Then finally when he gets down to Ephesians 2:4 he says:
NKJ
Ephesians
2:4 But God, who is rich in
mercy, because of His great love with which He
loved us,
NKJ
Ephesians
2:6 and raised us up together, and made us sit
together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,
He’s saying the same thing here; but he says it a little
differently. He adds some different dynamics. He says:
And you, being dead in your trespasses
and sins….
Is that what it said? No. See it’s a little difference. Why?
He’s got a different audience. He says:
NKJ
Colossians
2:13 And you, being dead in your trespasses
and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made
alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses,
Oh. Does that mean it’s a sin to be uncircumcised? No.
What’s he talking about? You’re a Gentile. You’re not Jewish and you’re not
under the Law. You are a gentile who was formerly excluded, but now you are
reconciled and brought near because of what Christ did on the cross. Does that
mean you’re saved? No. But it means that position that relationship that God
had with Gentiles in the Old Testament is different now because of what Christ
did on the cross.
Now we have to pay attention to the verbiage here a little
bit and the Greek grammar. It’s very important to understand this. The words
“being dead” there are actually a participle. It is a present participle. The
main verb comes after that introductory clause – “He has made us alive
together.” Just underline that in your Bible. That’s your main clause. That’s
what he’s talking about. That is your finite verb. That’s your main thought.
That is an aorist tense verb which means he’s looking at it
in terms of past action - what has happened in the past. He’s talking to them.
They’re believers. They were
regenerated in the past. Now he brings in regeneration there, but that’s a
subjective change that occurs when we trust Christ as savior.
Now the interesting thing there is that participle that is
translated “being” is a present participle. But it’s connected to an aorist
tense verb. Now I know I’m getting into some technical grammar here, but in
Greek what that means is the tenses of participles don’t have anything to do
with time. The tense of a participle has to do with its relationship to the
action of the main verb. So a present tense participle means the action of the
participle is taking place at the same time as the action of the verb. So the
action in the past of the verb was, "you were made alive". At that
time of being made alive, your status was you were spiritually dead. So that’s
why even though it’s a present tense particle, it’s translated as a past tense
participle.
having
forgiven you all trespasses,
Now isn’t that an interesting phrase there.
When did He forgive you of all trespasses? Did that happen
when you trusted Christ as your Savior? Or did that happen at the cross? See we
look back at Colossians 1:13-14 - redemption happened at the cross. Redemption
is equivalent to forgiveness and that happened at the cross. Forgiveness
occurred at the cross. It didn’t occur when you trusted Christ as your savior.
When were your sins forgiven? When were they wiped out? When were they
cancelled? Not when you trusted Christ as your savior, but when Christ died on
the cross in roughly 33 AD.
So sometime in the indefinite past before He made you alive,
He forgave you. This idea there is that the forgiveness participle there is a
participle of means that explains how He was able or the basis of why He was
able to make you alive together with Him by having or by forgiving you all
trespasses.
Then you have another participle at the beginning of verse
14 that’s translated having wiped or having cancelled or having obliterated…
NKJ
Colossians
2:14 having wiped out the handwriting of
requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us
Literally it’s certificate of indebtedness. So we have a
debt against God, but it’s wiped out. It’s forgiven. But when did that happen?
That participle has a timeframe to it. It should be translated, "He made
us alive together by forgiving all trespasses when (that’s the temporal idea)
He wiped out (or when He cancelled) the certificate of debt that that was
against us which was contrary to us".
When did he do that? Well, he explains it in the next clause
And He has taken it
That is the certificate of debt.
out
of the way, having nailed it to the cross.
That last phrase removes all doubt as to when the
forgiveness occurred. The forgiveness is the cancellation of debt and it says
that the certificate of debt was nailed to the cross. It didn’t get nailed to
the cross when you and I trusted Christ as our savior. It got nailed to the
cross when Christ was on the cross. What this passage is telling us is that the
sins are wiped our, blotted out, obliterated. They are viewed as a debt against
God.
Nearly every commentator you read will say that this is
referring to the Mosaic Law. Well, weren’t people sinning before the Law? Sure
they were. It is viewing sin - man’s sin - His deficit because of sin is viewed
as a debt against God that is wiped out, obliterated at the cross so that man
can’t pay that penalty. That aspect, the objective legal penalty, is paid for
by Christ on the cross so that God’s relationship to man is changed. That’s
what the whole focus of the Day of Atonement is – is depicting that.
As far as the Jews are concerned all the debt of sin that
piled up from one Yom Kippur to the
next is now dealt with, paid for. God’s justice is satisfied by the application
of the blood on the mercy seat. Then when the High Priest would come out and
put his hand on the scapegoat and identify the sins of the people, confess them
and they were identified with that scapegoat. That scapegoat is then taken far,
far away into the wilderness and let go so it can never find its way back. That
depicts the fact that no matter what we’ve done, it is not the issue. It’s been
paid for.
Now what’s important about that (at least theologically) is
it helps us to understand the extent of the atonement and answers that problem.
But the issue is either Christ truly, really, genuinely paid the penalty for
every person sins so that the sin of everyone that sinful debt is cancelled.
But it’s the application of that that must happen to change our experience
because we are stillborn spiritually dead. That certificate of debt is not the
issue anymore because that was nailed to the cross. But we are still born under
condemnation. We’re born spiritually dead. We’re born without righteousness and
until that changes a person can’t have a relationship with God. They’ll remain
condemned. That’s what happens in salvation. We recognize that Christ paid the
penalty in full and it was nailed to the cross. That’s the picture of
atonement.
Now next time I want to come back and address the issue of
the extent of the atonement a little bit in terms of the reality of why this is
paid objectively in full. It’s paid in full. That’s what Christ says at the end
– tetelestai – it’s paid in full. Nothing can be
added to that payment. But if we don’t accept the payment, then there’s no
internal change in us that must transpire in order to have eternal life and in
order to be with God in heaven.
So we’ll look at that next time.