Hebrews 4:14 - 6:20
1. Sympathetic roles
A few years ago I went to TAFE to study a Certificate in Social Welfare. It was a night time course and on the first night there, we had about 40 people huddled into this over-crowded classroom. And the teacher up the front asked us all a question: Why do you want to go into social welfare? And some people said it was because they wanted to help people, others said they felt it was a nice thing to do or some even said it was an important part of being a Christian. I of course, said something along the lines of “because my boss made me take the course”. Far and away the most popular answer though, maybe 15 of the 40 people said “Because I had massive struggles in the past, I now want to help those in a similar situation.” Whether it was drugs or homelessness or dropping out of school early, most people said that because they had been through it themselves, they were sympathetic and in a perfect position to understand the hardships involved in overcoming it. 4 weeks later, all but one of those 15 students dropped out. Of the rest of the students, who were less sympathetic, most of them made it through to the end of the course. But 14 of the 15 sympathetic students dropped out. It was because it was too close to home. All the struggles and all the temptations that went with formerly being a drug addict or a criminal or whatever came flooding back. They were sympathetic, but they were unable to deal with it.
In tonight’s passage which was read to us before we get a look at the role and the characteristics of the great high priest. And the writer offers us a contrast between your regular high priest and Jesus. You see many similarities, emphasising Christ’s humanity. But we will also see some important differences, emphasising his divinity or deity as well. We get a bit of a description of the job in ch 5, verses 1 and 2. In v2 it says “He is able to deal gently with those who are ignorant since he himself is subject to weakness”. In other words, the high priest has to be someone who can understand the struggle of sin and temptation. Jesus is quite similar. The first thing that he tells us about Jesus is in 4:15, “he is able to sympathise with our weaknesses, was tempted in every way”. Because Jesus was fully human, he was not immune from temptation. We are probably all familiar with the Temptation of Christ in the gospels where for 40 days Jesus was in the desert tempted by the devil. But even more than that, every day he faced the same temptations, the same threats that we face each day. But in v3 we are told that the high priest has to first offer a sacrifice for his own sin, before representing everyone else. Jesus is different though. In 4:15 adds that though he was tempted in every way, he was without sin. In my TAFE course 15 students thought that being able to understand, to sympathise was all you needed. Jesus not only understood what it meant to be tempted, to suffer weaknesses, he stood firm, he was obedient. Christ is our sympathetic Saviour.
In the Old Testament, you couldn’t just apply to become a High Priest. You couldn’t just see the job ad in the paper and think, “oh yeah, I’ll have a go at that!” No, you had to be appointed by God. And it was exactly the same for Jesus. This job though, had a price which you see in ch5 v7. The writer of Hebrews takes us back to a time a few days before Jesus death, to the blood, sweat and tears in the scene of the Garden of Gethsemane. If you were to search through the gospels for a passage showing just how human Jesus is, Gethsemane would be close to top of your list.
It was there, where Jesus prayed to God, where he was perhaps most tempted throw in the towel, where he begged God to take this cup away from him, where he asked with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death and he was heard because of his reverent submission. Well Christ’s prayers were certainly heard and in the gospel of Luke we hear that God sent someone to strengthen and aid his Son. In a time of turmoil, his prayers were heard. If anyone then, knows what it is like to experience doubt and fear and pain in prayer, Jesus is the man. If when we pray and beg to God for help, beg for God to take action, Jesus the High priest has already been there. In our darkest hour, we know that Christ can understand for he has already been through his darkest hour. And in the middle of the garden, even through the tears, he concluded his prayer, if you remember - yet not my will but yours he said. (pause)
But Jesus is no mere man, certainly he’s human but 5:5 reminds us of a quote the author has already used in this book – a quote from Ps 2. “You are my Son, today I have become your father”. In case we had somehow forgotten, he reminds us that Jesus is the Son of God, he is God himself on earth. Because of this, in v6 and 10 he states that Jesus is designated by God to be a priest forever in the order of Melchizadek. Mmmm (nods head) Melchizadek you say? ….yeah, he was a good bloke wasn’t he? Everyone’s favourite person from the Old Testament. So just who is Melchizadek?? Allow me to humbly point out to you v11. We have much to say about this, but it is hard to explain because you are slow to learn.
You can almost see the author chomping at the bit – eager to tell them all about this priest Melchizadek – but he stops very suddenly and tells them that they are slow to learn in the verse you just read. In fact, he gets so distracted, that he doesn’t get back to Melchizadek until pretty much chapter 7. So, I will leave Melchizadek and let Ted fill you in on that next week. What’s so important, that distracts the author for over chapter?
There was a story I read the other day, about 2 friends who were sitting in a pub watching the eleven-o’clock news at night. A report comes on about a man threatening to jump from the 20th floor of a downtown building One friend turns to the other and says, "I’ll bet you ten bucks the guy doesn’t jump." "It’s a bet," agrees his buddy.
A few minutes later, the man on the ledge jumps, so the loser hands his pal a $10 bill. "I can’t take your money," his friend admits. "I saw him jump earlier on the six-o’clock news."
"Me, too," say the other buddy. "But I didn’t think he’d do it again!"
It’s a classic joke isn’t it? The reason why it works is cos humans are notoriously slow learners. We are often doomed to learn the same thing over and over and over again – which is the same problem the Hebrew church faces as we go onto our next point.
2. Standing firm
Their church is full of people who are slow learners. In fact, in 5:12 he says that although they should have been at the stage of being teachers, they were still struggling with the basics. Not only were they slow learners, they lacked maturity. Everything they had learnt, they were going over and over and over again and never moving forward. Just as babies need milk, sooner or later they need solid food as well. Yet this church had slid back in their understanding of what it meant to be a Christian. So God willing, they will move past the basics. Now, this passage is particularly important to understand correctly. It is not saying that once you have understood the death and resurrection of Jesus you should move on and only ever look at it at Easter. The passage is clearly instructing readers to build upon their basic understanding, to grow as Christians – which is why he issues his warning in 6:4-6. Let me read it to you:
It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, 5 who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age, 6 if they fall away, to be brought back to repentance, because to their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace.
Controversy seems to always follow this passage. If you are a Bible Study leader, and one week you haven’t prepared anything…just ask your group can a Christian fall away and you will have at least an hours worth of heated debate right there. You we, we read that and our first question is “So is it possible for a Christian to fall away?”. This is unfortunately the wrong question. A better question to ask is one of context. Let’s start with the historical context. We have already learned that this book is written to a specific group of people at a specific time, facing specific dangers – namely they’re Jewish people who had converted to Christianity. They were people who had moved from the old covenant, to trust in the new covenant. These were true converts – they had tasted the heavenly gift, they had shared in the Holy Spirit, they had seen and experienced all that God offers to his people. Yet they were under enormous pressure and suffering persecution to revert to the old way of thinking.
Within the context of the book, this is not the first time that the author has mentioned the phrase or idea of falling away. In the first chapter, he comprehensively shows that Jesus is even better than angels, and follows it up with verse 1 of chapter 2: We must pay more careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away. Or again, after showing that the unbelief of the Israelites in the desert resulted in God’s wrath he warns in 3:12: See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. You see, the author does not ask the question can Christians fall away….he actually assumes it. In chapter 10 he comes back to a similar question and concludes then that anyone who has known the grace of God, but rejected it – he tells us that “it is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God”. It is a very real danger, which the author warns his audience about. Which is why the great catch-cry of Hebrews is Jesus is the best……but the author often follows this statement up with a therefore….Jesus is the best, so therefore fix your eyes on him. Jesus is the best, so therefore let us hold firmly to the faith we profess, let us cling to him, so that we do not fall away.
So we see then that within the context of the book, those who fall away – who revert to Judaism - aren’t just taking a small step backwards. They are essentially rejecting Jesus all over again. They are once more joining the crowd on the hill as they watched Jesus hang on the cross and shouted “crucify him! Crucify him!”. By falling away, they are subjecting him to public disgrace all over again. Once they have done that, v4 says in no uncertain terms, that it is impossible to be brought back again. It…. Is….. impossible….. (pause)
They are sobering words, aren’t they? Does this mean that for us, that so long as we don’t revert back to Judaism we will be fine? So long as the blokes resist the urge to go out and get circumcised, there is no danger of falling away? To read it that way, would be like someone spitting in Jesus’ face all over again. The author issues a warning to his readers not to abandon the hope found in Jesus Christ. That warning is as true today for us, as it was for them. In answer to the question can Christians fall away, many respond with the simple answer, “DON’T”. But what about YOU? What is the one thing in your life which puts you most in danger of falling away? The one thing that is most likely to slowly ebb you further and further away from the truth? The illustration used in v7-8 shows what happens to those who have received the blessing of God but produce nothing….they will be burned! Is it your career pulling you away? Your family? Your pursuit of pleasure before you die? Whatever it is – this passage says that you have a stark choice. Either you do nothing about it, slowly fall away and are burnt. Or you get rid of it, move on and mature as a Christian. Make no mistake – this will mean some hard choices, but the author is all too aware of what is at stake here.
3. The double certainty (6:9-20)
Yet straight after this, v9 states: Even though we speak like this, dear friends, we are confident of better things in your case—things that accompany salvation. He is not just confident, he is doubly certain as we move to the third point! How is that possible? How can he give this serious warning and yet express his unchangeable, unshakeable confidence? Because of Abraham. It seems an odd jump in logic for us, but he turns to Abraham by way of example. For when God promised Abraham that he would have many children things were looking pretty bleak. He and his wife were both nearly 100 and the chances of them having one child, much less a whole nation of children, weren’t looking to good. But God promised it to them. Now ordinarily, to make a promise unbreakable, people would make an oath to guarantee it. But God first of all can’t lie. So by making an oath, he is saying we all know that I can’t lie, but I especially can’t lie about this promise. Abraham was doubly confident. We too, can be doubly certain of the promise of salvation. Cos of v19-20. We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, 20 where Jesus, who went before us, has entered on our behalf. He has become a high priest forever. For the early Christian church, a great symbol of the sureness of their salvation lay in the symbol of the anchor. That’s what the high priest does. He guarantees it. That’s what Jesus does. We can be confident in our salvation, not on the basis of anything that we have done, but on what Christ has done for us. Yes, the author has just issued a serious warning, but he is in no doubt about the sureness of salvation in Jesus Christ. He is so confident in fact, that he claims to have seen behind the curtain in the temple.
In the OT, the temple was divided into sections, so that people were not just cut off from God, they were protected from God. The further you got into the temple, the fewer and fewer people were allowed to go in, because it was so dangerous to be close to God. In the final section of the temple, leading to the Most Holy Place, there was a curtain that only the Great High Priest could go beyond. And he could only go in on a certain day, at a certain time, iun a certain day. Anything diverting from this, meant that you would meet certain death. In fact, even if you did it right, there was still a chance you could die. It was a dangerous thing to approach God. The Most Holy Place was designed so that 99% of people could not go beyond the curtain. In the NT, Jesus is our great high priest, and on that cross, Jesus tore open the curtain leading to the most holy place. Through his death and resurrection we now have unlimited access to God himself. Through Christ’s sacrifice, there is no doubt about our salvation. For we have a high priest who has gone through the heavens, we have a high priest who can sympathise with our weakness, yet was perfectly obedient, We have a high priest who torn open the curtain! 4:14 Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. No longer do we need to tremble as we move further and further through the temple, hoping that death does not meet us as we approach God. For we have a high priest who has already faced death, that we might approach God and declare in the words of that great old hymn: Bold I approach the eternal throne and claim the crown through Christ my own. Let me pray.
