Hebrews 4:14 – 5:10 – Our Great High Priest
Hebrews 12:2 Let us look unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
This message was a prelude to the saints of Community Baptist taking the Lord's Supper.
Heb 9:11-14 Christ has appeared.
Heb 9:15-22 Christ is the Mediator of the New Covenant.
Heb 9:23-28 Christ is a better sacrifice.
Holy
People, not holy places
In John 4, Jesus went to
Samaria to meet the woman at the well. The following conversation is
foundational to the topic at hand.
John 4:19-24 (HCSB) “Sir,”
the woman replied, “I see that You are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this
mountain, yet you Jews say that the place to worship is in Jerusalem.” Jesus
told her, “Believe Me, woman, an hour is coming when you will worship the
Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what
you do not know. We worship what we do know, because salvation is from the
Jews. But an hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will
worship the Father in spirit and truth. Yes, the Father wants such people to
worship Him. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit
and truth.”
A major point of all
religions other than the one true one is that they have sacred places they must
meet for worship. YHWH had met with the ancient Hebrews in the tabernacle. Their
males went to Jerusalem three times a year to meet with God. Pagans built temples
and altars at which they had to worship. In Acts 19 we see the pagan temple of
Artemis (or Diana, depending on your translation) – the place was important.
In the passage from John
4, Jesus continues to introduce His kingdom by pointing out contrasts between
it and what was being made obsolete. “Believe Me, woman, an hour is coming
when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.”
This statement would have shocked both Jew and Samaritan, whose religions were
based on sacred places. The kingdom of Christ is not of this world (John 18:36)
and His people are to worship anywhere and anytime, as long we worship Him in
spirit and truth. This is what YHWH desires – not ritual discipline to be at
the temple at the right time.
During the ministry of
Jesus and His apostles, we read of them engaging Jews in the Jewish synagogue
(a system of worship developed outside of the canon of Scripture) but not
worshiping with the Jews. When the saints met for worship, there is no record
in Scripture of special places they were to meet. There are records of what
they did and Who they worshiped.
We read in the Psalms how
the people of Israel sang about meeting in the house of God. We read in the New
Covenant passages how we are the house of God. Certainly, Christ’s cryptic
words “destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up again,”
refer immediately to His bodily resurrection. But the Apostles of the New
Testament also understood Christ’s bodily “temple” in a metaphysical
sense as a transcendent type of the corporate body of the elect who, as
Christ’s spiritual “body” or “temple,” were “raised up
together” and “made to sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.”
(Eph 2:6) Thus James describes the salvation of Jews and Gentiles as the
rebuilding of “the tabernacle of David” (Acts 15:16); Peter refers to
the regenerated church as “living stones … built up a spiritual house”
(1 Pet 2:5); and Paul, as we have seen in Ephesians, depicts the present state
of the church as a “building fitly framed together” which constitutes
the “holy temple of the Lord.” (Eph 2:21)
The first ten verses of
Hebrews 9 details how the tabernacle was a symbol for that present time, when
ritual offerings which could not perfect the worshipers’ conscience were made.
Verse 10 sums it up: “They are physical regulations and only deal with food,
drink, and various washings imposed until the time of restoration.”
Physical things relate to earth-bound religions. The time of restoration refers
to the coming of the kingdom that was inaugurated by the death and resurrection
of Christ Jesus. Verse 11 declares Jesus the high priest of the good things
that have come – the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands
(that is, not of this creation). The tabernacle in the wilderness was a
sacred meeting place for the Hebrew people. Later they would sing about
worshiping God in His house – the temple they had built. Another sacred place.
Each child of God being a living stone, being built up into a spiritual house
has no attachment to any geography. The places God’s redeemed meet to worship
Him is not important; having the people He has redeemed worship Him in spirit
and truth is.
The spiritual is always
greater than the temporal. Our citizenship is in heaven (Phil. 3:20) and those
whose main focus is on temporal things are enemies of the cross of Christ
(Phil. 3:18 & 19). The point is that whether we have large barns that
satisfy our soul or put our treasures into grandiose buildings for saints to
gather in, having our focus on earthly things is damaging to our souls. If we
have been given much, we ought to give much; whether it’s money, time, love, or
fellowship. This is how we use temporal wealth – to aid those who are hurting,
not build grandiose buildings to impress people.
Phil 3:13-15, 20-21 (HCSB) Brothers, I do not consider myself to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what is ahead, I pursue as my goal the prize promised by God’s heavenly call in Christ Jesus. Therefore, all who are mature should think this way. And if you think differently about anything, God will reveal this also to you. … our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. He will transform the body of our humble condition into the likeness of His glorious body, by the power that enables Him to subject everything to Himself.
My Gay Conundrum
(This was written around 2008)
In many ways, I am a curmudgeon, refusing
to cooperate with the culture on a host of issues. The push for euphemistic
terms in all aspects of society particularly gripes me – from “sanitation
engineers” to “gays”; I see no reason to go along with the subtle, evil scheme
to redefine the terms that describe life.
Having said that, here’s my “Gay Conundrum”:
In 1999, I bought a used Ford
Escort station wagon; it was purple (very much like the one in the picture).
While my car was a deep, rich shade of purple – opposed to a light, soft shade
– many in my circle of family and friends had fun telling me my car was “gay”.
One brother in Christ gleefully called this car (upon which were several bumper
stickers witnessing for Jesus) my “LAMBDA mobile” (look up LAMBDA on the
Internet if the significance of this term is lost on you).
In 2000, my employer was laying
people off. A VP, with whom I was friends and related to in Christ Jesus, told
me how he was pressured to “protect” homosexuals during the layoff as he was to
do so with historically protected minorities. He joked that his best protection
against being laid-off was to declare himself “gay”. I told him that I embraced
the “gay” label – with the explicit acknowledgment that my use of the term
hadn’t fallen into the Humpty Dumpty redefinition process. Coupled with my
driving a purple car, how could I lose? At any rate, he and I both survived the
RIF. I gaily drove on in my purple chariot, not offended by the comments of
friends and family who made fun of my car. Dark purple, as any student of
ancient history knows, was a sign of royalty and honor. And that little purple
Escort wagon was the best car I had owned. And it had a luggage rack on the
top!
Until the summer of 2006. A young
woman, driving her first car, blissfully ran through a red light and smashed
into the driver’s side rear of my beloved car, rendering it “uneconomically
repairable” – with increasingly debilitating electrical failures.
As news of this tragedy spread,
my dear friend who labeled my car “LAMBDA-mobile” told me I should file a
“hate-crime” report with the police and the homosexual activist crowd.
Certainly, this blatant attack on the public declaration of my gayness was a hate
crime!
Here’s the rub: I do not subscribe to the Orwellian view of “hate crimes”. A.) What are non-hate crimes to be called? “Love crimes”? B.) Motive should not be a constituent of the crime, but a consideration in the punishment. “Hate crimes” is a PC accommodation of Orwell’s infamous “thought crimes”. (If you have not read George Orwell’s 1984, correct this deficiency at once!)
So here I sit: a gay man whose
LAMBDA-mobile was taken away too early. What’s a gay man to do? Sadly, my
replacement car is a non-descript but tasteful silver – not “gay” at all. Has
my identity been stripped from me? Has the “hate-crime” committed against me
taken that away? No – a thousand times no! A man is not defined by his car. He
is defined by his motorcycle!
Just kidding about that last part
(although my dear wife of more than 30 years would agree that I spend too much
time with my motorcycle).
I am struck by the insanity of
defining crimes by attempting to see into the perpetrator’s mind and make his
mental state a crime unto itself. Does one man’s hate for another make the
taking of life or property any worse? In our post-modern culture, where the
only truth is that perceived to be truth by hearer, it’s nigh impossible to
convince any authority that facts matter more than perceptions. This is the
fundamental reason so many churches are awash in false teaching and why
education is a train wreck. People have lost the ability to think, the schools
have not been teaching children to critically examine anything. This
environment cannot help but give birth to “zero tolerance” policies that
criminalize boys who “shoot” one another with their fingers or a banana.
Co-opting the word “gay” to mean homosexual is another
symptom of this mindset. People taking offense at anything they would rather
not hear is another. All these things – hate-crimes, “gay” conversations,
zero-tolerance, thin-skinned offended folk – are the outworking of a
post-modern mindset where meaning is assigned by the receiver of the
information and no moral absolutes exist. This brings me to an interesting
quote I saw on the Internet recently – with no idea who said it. But it pulls
all this gay conundrum of mine into perspective and brings it full circle.
To be offended by what someone else says is
your own choice, as you don’t have to care about what other people think, and
nothing has actually happened to you.
Information merely passed from their [sic]
mind to yours.
In other words, you actually want to stop
certain information from being communicated. You must believe that you have
some sort of right to dictate not only what people can and can’t communicate,
but they can and can’t think.
To be offended is to take the first step in
being a totalitarian megalomaniac.
If any of us were honest, we would admit to holding to one or more ideas that fit into that ugly picture painted in the quote above. The recent hub-bub about florists and pizza parlors that refuse to service homosexual weddings shows how many “conservatives” have fallen into this unfortunate world of political correctness. These well-meaning people have drawn their line of support for these businesses based on religious expression and the freedom we have in that arena. They ignore the fundamental rights being trampled on – freedom of association and ownership of private property. 20 or 30 years ago countless businesses had signs displayed notifying patrons of the store owner’s right to refuse service to anyone. The market taught them which policies were beneficial. Now, “conservatives” ignore the Constitutional issues, agreeing that government ought to enforce “antidiscrimination” – meaning businesses cannot refuse service to anyone. The government should not discriminate – they are funded by everyone. Privately owned businesses are free to discriminate (even though we have laws that forbid it); yet the only discrimination allowed in this new version of Wonderland is against those who are accused of having historical advantages – either real or imagined. Facts don’t matter. The inferred or assumed injury is judged by how serious or outrageous it sounds, not by the facts of the matter.
When it’s all said and done, I am not as gay as I was 10 years ago. This world has lost its mind and I’m weary of it. But in the larger scope of eternity, that’s a good thing – for all who are truly in Christ, this world is not our home. The trials and craziness we experience here serve mainly to remind us of the Fall and how serious sin is – that which infects us and that which we do. So the message for my fellow saints is simple – fix your eyes on that which is unseen, remember His words, from John 14:13 (ESV) “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.” And that’s really good news for all those who are in Christ Jesus.
From 1 September.
Here's a snippet from the message:
As the faithful son over all of God's house, Jesus is superior to Moses – but not contrary to Him. As Moses is a type of Christ, so was the Exodus a type which foretells the redemption we have in Christ. In Luke 9:31 the death of Jesus is called an exodus; He is, according to 1 Cor 5:7, the true Passover; in 1 Pet 1:19 Jesus is the lamb without spot or blemish. Jesus was in Acts 7:38 the One who gave Israel living oracles in the wilderness; their baptism into Christ is the anti-type of Israel's passage through the Red Sea (1 Cor 10:1); our spiritual feeding on Christ in the Lord's Supper is the anti-type of Israel's nourishment by manna and water from the rock (1 Cor 10:3). Christ, the living Rock, was their guide through the wilderness (1 Cor 10:4); the heavenly rest that awaits the saints is the counterpart of the earthly Canaan rest of Israel (Heb 4). This typology was pressed on early Christians, telling them and us that Israel's rebellion and punishment in the wilderness was preserved for our instruction (1 Cor 10:6); Jude applies this to Christians from the fact that “the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe.” (Jude 5)
