Repentance from dead works and faith toward God
Reading Ps 32; Mt 15:1-9
Introduction
Last time we saw that a passage can look straightforward when we read it superficially; obscure when you look at it more closely and then straight forward again when you read it in its context, bearing in mind its original audience!
Doing this we saw that the references to the doctrine of baptisms and laying on of hands were not references to the NT practices, but to those of ceremonial washing and the symbolic transfer of sin from the sinner, or the whole nation, to the sacrifice in the Tabernacle or Temple.
As a general rule interpretation of difficult passages should begin with the straight forward, not the obscure texts. Starting from the obscure is the origin of a lot of heresies, but that is exactly what I have done here! If my conclusion that the middle couplet refers to OT doctrine is right, what of the others? If they don’t easily fit then we should be guided by them and not the more obscure ones.
Repentance from dead works
Repentance
The first couplet is repentance from dead works and of faith toward God. But what is repentance?
• A change of mind, accompanied by regret and sorrow that leads to a change in behaviour.
• An about turn.
An essential part of the gospel in OT times
Ezek 33: 11 ‘As I live,’ says the Lord GOD, ‘I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn, turn from your evil ways! For why should you die, O house of Israel?’ 12 "Therefore you, O son of man, say to the children of your people: ‘The righteousness of the righteous man shall not deliver him in the day of his transgression; as for the wickedness of the wicked, he shall not fall because of it in the day that he turns from his wickedness; nor shall the righteous be able to live because of his righteousness in the day that he sins.’
13 "When I say to the righteous that he shall surely live, but he trusts in his own righteousness and commits iniquity, none of his righteous works shall be remembered; but because of the iniquity that he has committed, he shall die. 14 "Again, when I say to the wicked, ‘You shall surely die,’ if he turns from his sin and does what is lawful and right, 15 "if the wicked restores the pledge, gives back what he has stolen, and walks in the statutes of life without committing iniquity, he shall surely live; he shall not die. 16 "None of his sins which he has committed shall be remembered against him; he has done what is lawful and right; he shall surely live.
The elements are all there:
• turning from sin
• doing what is lawful and right
• making restitution
• giving up reliance on our own righteousness
Of course repentance is equally important in the Gospel:
Jesus began to preach and to say, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." Mt 4:17
"Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord Acts 3:19
They glorified God, saying, "Then God has also granted to the Gentiles repentance to life." Acts 11:18
But why does is it say repentance from dead works?
The term is only used twice in Scripture, here and in Heb 9:14 how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? But that doesn’t explain the term.
Perhaps the answer can be found in Rev 3:1 "to the angel of the church in Sardis write, … "I know your works, that you have a name that you are alive, but you are dead. I think these are the works of someone who is going through the motions – performing rituals, giving money, etc. in an attempt to satisfy God and earn His favour.
This naturally links with the reference to washings. The Pharisees and Sadducees were masters of taking such OT practices and turning them into convoluted rituals – as we saw in Mark 7 last time. They got hung up on the ceremonial, but completely missed the underlying lessons about personal holiness, purity and kindness. It is well summarised in the words of Isaiah (29:13) as quoted by Jesus in Mt 15: 7 "Hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy about you, saying: 8 ‘These people draw near to Me with their mouth, And honour Me with their lips, But their heart is far from Me. 9 And in vain they worship Me, Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’"
God’s warning is clear: There is a way that seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death. Pr 14:12 & 16:25. So these are called dead works because they are carried out by those who are religious, but unsaved. They are works that come from death, but they also lead to death, because people rely on them instead of the work that Jesus did when dying on Calvary’s cross.
Sadly there are still so many religious folk today, who focus only on ritual and ceremony while forgetting God and what He really wants altogether.
So what does God want us to do with these dead works? It is very simple, He commands us to repent from dead works. This means we have to turn away from all attempts to save ourselves. All of our good deeds come from a heart that is dead to God and lead to complete spiritual death. When we turn away from these dead works we can then turn to God and the way that He has prepared.
Faith
Repentance meant turning away from their reliance on dead works to follow the example of their forefather Abraham by putting their faith utterly and completely in God. For what does the Scripture say? "Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness." Ro 4:3 (cp Gen 15:6)
I don’t want to spend too long on faith tonight as we shall come back to it in more detail – if we ever reach chapter 11. But let’s take a few minutes to think about what we mean by this term. Like many other great words we use them often without really thinking what they mean.
If repentance is the negative side of salvation – turning away from – then faith is positive the turning to and going on. Repentance from dead works is giving up what we had, or thought that we had. Faith is trusting ourselves and our future to someone else. It involves total reliance on this person. Let me give you some illustrations:
A young boy had a large, white cat who loved to climb trees. When he got to the top, however, he could not get down and would let out a howl that could be heard throughout the entire neighbour. One day when his parents were away, the boy heard that familiar howl and decided to rescue the cat himself. He doggedly climbed the tree until he reached the howling cat. Then he discovered that he also couldn’t get down either! When his dad arrived he heard his son’s cries above those of the cat. As his father helped him down there came a point when the boy’s short legs would not reach the next limb. When his father said, "Jump son." he jumped into his father’s arms, knowing he had never failed him.
A man was lost in the desert and was near death for lack of water. Eventually he came across a pump with a canteen hung on the handle and a note, which said: "Below you is all the fresh water you could ever need, and the canteen contains exactly enough water to prime the pump."
A missionary in Africa experienced great difficulty in trying to translate the Gospel of John into the local dialect. He faced the problem of finding a word for believe. He continued to do his best, but he always had to leave a blank space when he came to that particular word. Then one day a runner came panting into the camp, having travelled a great distance with a very important message. After blurting out his story, he fell completely exhausted into a nearby hammock. He muttered a brief phrase that seemed to express both his great weariness and his contentment at finding such a delightful place of relaxation. The missionary, never having heard these words before, asked a bystander what the runner had said. "Oh, he is saying, ’I’m at the end of myself, therefore I am resting all of my weight here!’" The missionary exclaimed, "Praise God! That is the very expression I need for the word believe!" And so he was able to complete his translation.
We have to give up our own efforts, any hope of saving ourselves. Coming to the end of ourselves, we must trust ourselves entirely to God’s grace.
In passing, I want to emphasise that the OT saints were saved by faith, just as we are today. As Heb 10:4 says it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins. And that was just as true in OT times as it is today. Saving faith then, differed only in that it looked forward to Christ and His perfect sacrifice as they were prefigured in the OT sacrifices and ritual.
Resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment – 6:2
The final couplet was well covered in the OT too. Do you remember the argument between the Pharisees and Sadducees concerning the resurrection? The Sadducees didn’t believe in the resurrection – this hopelessness made them sad, you see!
Do you remember how the Sadducees tried to ridicule Jesus and His belief in the resurrection with the story in Mt 22 of the women who married 7 brothers, one after another, as all 7 died? They asked Jesus: 28 " in the resurrection, whose wife of the seven will she be? For they all had her." Jesus had no time for their phoney logic: 29"You are mistaken, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God. 30 "For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels of God in heaven. 31 "But concerning the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was spoken to you by God, saying, 32 ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living."
Apart from the Sadducees, belief in the Resurrection was clearly orthodox Jewish teaching as shown by: Martha: "I know that he (Lazarus) will rise again in the resurrection at the last day" Jn 11:24. And by Paul’s use of the division between the Pharisees and Sadducees. "Men and brethren, I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee; concerning the hope and resurrection of the dead I am being judged!" 7 And when he had said this, a dissension arose between the Pharisees and the Sadducees; and the assembly was divided. 8 For Sadducees say that there is no resurrection—and no angel or spirit; but the Pharisees confess both. Ac 23:6
Job and David certainly believed in the resurrection:
25 For I know that my Redeemer lives, And He shall stand at last on the earth; 26 And after my skin is destroyed, this I know, That in my flesh I shall see God, 27 Whom I shall see for myself, And my eyes shall behold, and not another. How my heart yearns within me! Job 19
But God will redeem my soul from the power of the grave, For He shall receive me. Ps 49:15
The truth of resurrection and coming judgement was also explained to Daniel by the archangel Michael: many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, Some to everlasting life, Some to shame and everlasting contempt. 12:2
It is sad that these elementary, timeless truths are coming under fresh attack today, and that from within the Church not even from those outside. Because people consider the prospect of eternal judgement to be inhumane they twist scripture in an attempt to undermine it. Surely Jesus words in Mk 9 (44,46,48) when he described Hell as the place "where ‘Their worm does not die, And the fire is not quenched’ ought to settle the matter! (See also Lu 16:23)
The word hell is used 13 times in the NT. In11 of those references the speaker was Jesus. The loving Saviour warned about the real, dreadful dangers of eternal judgment in hell. We should treat His warnings as seriously as His wonderful promises to those who put their faith in Him.
What then are the elementary principles of Christ and foundations?
So all six of the items in this list fit are key parts of OT revelation, but that still leaves us with a problems. If they are OT revelation then surely they can’t also be the elementary principles of Christ referred to in v1. I think this refers to the truths that are expounded in the first 5 chapters. He regarded these truths about Christ’s person and nature as elementary – glorious, but elementary. That must be right, for if we don’t have a proper grasp of Christ’s glory, person and work then we can’t properly understand the gospel.
That still leaves the foundation referred to in v1. If the 3 couplets are not foundational gospel truths, what are they? I think that the writer was thinking of OT revelation and ceremony as the starting place from on which Christ built, when He preached the Gospel. Christ didn’t destroy OT revelation; He fulfilled it and built on it. When the author warned the Hebrew believers not to lay the foundations again, I think he was saying that OT revelation and ceremony had fulfilled its purpose. If they turned back to Judaism, he was warning them that they were going back to a system whose time was over. They would be forsaking the substance for the shadows. His intention was to go on to explain something of the OT typology and how it was fulfilled in Christ and His work.
Conclusion
We must not think that these verses are irrelevant, because they were addressed to wavering Jewish believers. They are still a challenge to us to be sure of our foundation – spiritually speaking. These foundations are the same now as they were in OT times. While we must not focus on these truths to the exclusion of the remainder of His revelation, neither can we ever afford to become detached from them. If our lives are not built firmly on the foundation we shall find they come tumbling down when storms and earthquakes come our way.
Our Christian lives began when we:
• repented from dead works and put our faith in God alone;
• enjoyed the cleansing from our sin because we recognised that it had been taken away by the Lamb of God through His death at Calvary.
And it is the hope of the resurrection of the dead, looking forward to being with our beloved Saviour that helps us go on. In doing this we need not fear eternal judgment, for Jesus has already graciously borne the penalty of our sin in our place – though we should warn others.
Having these basics right, let us go on to perfection – ie maturity. May our foundations never be undermined by doubt, or buried by meaningless rituals or ceremonial. All that matters is Christ, His glorious person and finished work and our worship and service.
God willing the writer will lead us on in the knowledge of Christ and His heavenly priesthood. Christ has opened the way into the Holy of Holies, and wants us in to dwell there with Him. All this, and much more, is explained in the remainder of this wonderful book.
