One Hour. One Book: Hebrews

Carrie is wise to have called to your attention that the scriptures say that their wisdom is like silver and gold and the way you get silver and gold is mine it the way you do it is a lot of hard work so at this point in the year if these eleven hundred and eighty nine chapters look like a lot of work it's because there are a lot of work and they're intended to be and that's why it's easy to not study to show yourself and approve workman but the one who doesn't should be ashamed of themselves the number one problem we have in the church of jesus christ is the illiterate biblically illiterate christians we have people who have a sense of morality pressed into the mold of the world without a biblical understanding of what moves god's heart and without us being able to articulate a message we become faulty prophets and in the light of faulty prophets there is nothing but people who are receiving pieces of our message and can't tell what parts true and what parts not you're gonna have more confidence the more you know about god's word but you're gonna have to work harder at it too today i want to look at the book of hebrews so i'm gonna ask you to turn there and before I get into that I just want to start by asking you to take a moment and think about a case for messianic congregations and Messianic practice there are an awful lot of people in the world who don't understand why some Jews meet separately from other believers to have their own community of faith though they know Jesus as their Savior we call the Messianic Jews or a subset of messianism and and the idea is well there's neither Jew nor Gentile and what we said when we looked at Galatians was as it regards Redemption as it regards salvation that's true but as it regards lifestyle something as simple as tonight's pork loin you're coming over to have they couldn't eat and so the bottom line is I mean there is something perverse about us studying along than having pork-loin this evening but it was my wife's choice so bottom line is here's the thing the Messianic person is a person who has identified their Jewishness as part of their identity because God gave an identity through Abraham through Isaac through Jacob for all their generations and they see themselves as part of that but they believe that Redemption comes only through Jesus Christ through Messiah through Yeshua their Messiah and in doing that they are both believers messianic believers like the first group of believers in the New Testament they're Messianic believers but they're also Jews so contrary to what the Christian Church has told them since it went to Rome and became very Roman in very Western and contrary to the way that they hear it in many a church they're not going to buy a hand get a Christmas tree and start coming on Sunday because none of those things match the sanctification processes of being a Jew so they've got a problem Christians don't understand them and Jews don't understand them Christians don't understand it because there's neither Jew nor Gentile just get over here and and be a Baptist Presbyterian methodist whatever and Jews don't understand and because they believe in Jesus and how could you believe in Jesus and still be Jewish now there are some overt references in the New Testament too messianism for instance we saw in Galatians at the end of the letter Israel of God I don't think he's saying this is now the church I think God knows exactly what he means and the whole argument of Atonement law verses justification in the book is an argument with messianism the Judaizers are Jewish that's why they got the term judi Iser and so the idea that the Messianic messianism is mentioned as a specific subset but that's not the only place do you remember in James 1 1 it says that this is written to the 12 tribes that are scattered in this dispersion of Jewish people it's so and then later on it mentions their synagogues it's not a mistake it's that James was writing as the pastor of the Jerusalem congregation to Jews scattered all over the place I think it's pretty obvious that when Galatians 2 made the argument that Paul saw himself as the apostle to the uncircumcised while Peter was the apostle to the circumcised a reverse said I'm sorry where where they all saw themselves as divided between circumcised and uncircumcised Paul's finds himself out there speaking and saying there's two distinct communities here these are not the same community and I think that one of the key passages for me is that 1st Corinthians 7 passage we looked at where it says are you called while being circumcised that is are you called while having been a Jew then remain as you are if you're called uncircumcised as a pagan and come to Christ then remain as you are let everybody remain in the distinctiveness with which they were called so the notion that everybody should become one thing is very American because we want unisex we want unit everything we that's the notion of Americanism it can't be equal if there's any differences at all so what we have to do is make everybody exactly the same so that we can have one size fits all for everything well the problem with that is do you know how how quickly the New Testament could have been summed up the problem with the New Testament most of the New Testament is about the following subject you're made up of two halves of a table Jewish believers Gentile believers and you don't all have the same sanctification requirements that's what the New Testaments about you could have summarized all of this let's say the position of the most extreme Messianics is right that everybody should come to Christ and then keep the law the Judaizers our position well then couldn't you write all that in about three sentences in the New Testament and rid yourself of most of the letters why is Paul spending all this time to instruct the church when you already have the Hebrew Scriptures if that's all he's trying to say see Deuteronomy do that that would be fast right but instead he's got this intricate thing where he's trying to explain to Gentiles that they don't need to keep the law in Colossians 2 don't let those Jews tell you to keep Sabbath you don't have to but but Hebrews has written to a group of people who are Hebrews and it says there is to the People of God a Sabbath in Hebrews 4 and it is the day in which God rested not the first day in which Jesus was raised but the day in which God rested can I make the argument that there's plenty in the New Testament there's plenty in the Bible that acknowledges that there is going to be a messiah in the Hebrew Scriptures are there not Messianic statements that Messiah is coming Isaiah 53 and what not okay so if God who planned the book who meticulously gave the details if God who planned from Genesis 3 already to have a seed as Messiah always had the plan of having a messiah then why did he tell them to keep Sabbath for all their generations and - instead of until Messiah comes why would he say forever if what he meant was until Messiah comes that's the same God who's planning the Messiah it's the same timeless God who wove it all together but he doesn't he says these things you will do for all your generations forever my argument is what he told the Jewish people is not entirely canceled out by Jesus so how does it how does the church deal with this well what it does is it just makes Israel into the church it just replaces one with the other then says Jesus canceled it all out there's a couple of things I would say about the case for messianism one of them is that we have to acknowledge the unique and unique practices that were commanded by God for the identity of the Jewish people historically that is one of the things we have to do is we have to separate out the types of law because Jews understood different types of law and so the vertical law or atonement law is not the same thing as constitutional law found in Deuteronomy if you make them all one thing and make the law a monolith and Jesus canceled the law that you might as well take out much of the first part of your Bible because it doesn't inform you at all in second Timothy 3:16 becomes ineffective the second thing I would say is that you have to understand the national salvation message of Jews Christians are Westerners I mean today the dominant Christian religion is a religion of the West it doesn't we haven't permeated the far-east and that there aren't Korean Christians that are vibrant there certainly are but but the message as it's been formulated in Christianity has largely been in the hands of the Roman Roman background greco-roman thinkers of the West and they absolutely treasured individuals individualism and I think you know that you grew up in a place of treasures individualism but to a Jew it's a collective society and the problem is that there's a difference in the way they understand salvation for Jews they don't pray that I can be saved they pray that we our people can be saved their understanding of salvation is nationalized yours is personalized and so trying to make them one thing and one replace the other but it becomes well we're really Israel except for we're individualist Israelites means you have so torqued that message around you can no longer make sense of much of the New Testament let me say this one of the big problems is that we have trouble in the church and you're gonna hear this when people come at you and they say the law is done away they're gonna have problems validating specific unique practices that were authorized allowed or maintained by Jewish people and they're going to say well in the New Testament all those things were canceled for instance they're going to go to acts 10 and in acts 10 they're gonna see a sheet lowered down and they're gonna say there was not kosher food on there arise kill and eat Peter I can't I only eat in kosher delis I can't eat this stuff arise kill and eat I can't this isn't kosher arise kill and eat and he's frustrated cuz it's Peter and everything happens in threes right now here's my point the Christians read that and go see what used to be kosher is now okay to eat but Peter keeps insisting he can't eat it and if you go to the next chapter he actually finds himself in front of Cornelius saying what people God has said are clean are clean say hey give me some ham or some shrimp you know because God says I can eat what I want no he said I couldn't come to you but people God said are clean are clean so clearly he thought it wasn't about the food it was about the people okay the other thing is that there will be people that will make the point while in acts 15 you know when they got together in the Jerusalem Council they said hey you don't have to keep all these laws but what acts 15 says is we won't make Gentiles do them it doesn't say anything about what Jews are going to keep on doing we will apply we will not apply these laws to them is implying that we will maintain them for us is there's an easier way to say that it's all gone none of us have to do it that's not what they said they said they don't have to start so here's the reason I'm making such a big deal is because some of you're sitting there going why is he making a big deal out of this I'm fundamentally teaching you something that you're gonna walk into Bible study after Bible study and be told is wrong Jesus did away with all that you're gonna hear it over and over it's not true and when you can disintegrate the distinctions between Jew and Gentile the next distinction they'll go after is between male and female they're really not interested in bond and free yet but when we get slavery back they'll get that one - in other words the distinctions are not wrong they're right the fact that God doesn't let everybody do everything doesn't make God undemocratic it makes him God he's not interested in making everybody available for everything but we are living in a church that absolutely believes that everything has to be available to everyone and no one should have a distinct practice and what I'm saying is the message of the New Testament can be thrown out if that's the case the fact is that in Colossians 4 Jews were told to keep a Sabbath on the seventh day and it I mean in Hebrews four Jews were told to keep the Sabbath on the seventh day and in Colossians two they were told not as Gentiles not to allow the Jews to tell them to do it so now you got half the table doing something the other half doesn't do do you understand why it's hard to have a church dinner in the first century and the fact of the matter is that they are told to that's why that's why when Eutychus fell out of the window that's why when he fell out it was an end of Sabbath meeting was a Saturday meeting at the end of Sabbath what are they having a Saturday night meeting at the Incept they're Jews that's when they make they didn't know you were all supposed to go lockstep to the day of the resurrection that comes much later and what happens is the later bulldozes the earlier and now all the sudden they're wrong for doing what they do in the text one of the things I want you to understand is that we have to demonstrate the boundaries of unique practices that were limited to the Jewish people for their identity for instance Sabbath let me just give you a simple verse that anybody who brings this up you can use Exodus 31 17 Exodus 31 17 says the Sabbath is between me God says and Israel forever now I'd like you to pick that apart exegetically and figure out how it's not between me and Israel forever it's between me and Israel or believers or the church and it's the seventh day or the first you see what we're doing the minute you step away from the literal understanding of Scripture you start into an allegory and then things aren't what they say they are up is down left is right wrong is right and you end up where we are in the 21st century Church this is Exodus 31 17 so we have to acknowledge that there is a danger in in dismantling the wall between sanctification law of Jews and Gentiles it is the first wall the second wall is the dismantling of the wall between men and women and it is rampant in the church today now I say all that to get you to the letter to the Hebrews first of all can we acknowledge there is one that it's not to all Christians of all times in all places the reason is written to the Hebrews is because it requires a high understanding of the law and because it's written about Messianic Jewish problems so the reason I spent the last five minutes convincing you there were messy Jews is you don't need a letter to them if they don't exist okay this is a difficult narrative when you get to Hebrews it's a difficult narrative and it's difficult because there's widespread unfamiliarity with the Epistle because of a superficial association of Judaic background in the Christian faith and the principles of the law what I mean by that is that an awful lot of people skip stones right over top of the entire Hebrew Scriptures to get to the New Testament and they don't know what the law is or the separation of the law and so they look at the atonement law and lump it together with the other law and now they got laws being cut and God used to think it was wrong now he thinks it's right and that logic is being used extensively in the church to erode righteousness and holiness and distinctiveness I'm going to boldly say something that a lot of my colleagues will disagree with the literal understanding of Scripture is the only thing that's gonna make you distinctive the more you allegorize in the more you try to soften the edges so that we can be very congenial with the world the less distinct we will become and here's the thing there is Rui a rising tide and call for tolerance and there's a rising need for distinctiveness I don't want you to win the world by becoming so much like them they can't tell the difference between you and them nor did God in the New Testament so I'm going to look at this and I'm gonna go wait a minute there are applications of the law to the Jewish believer that are different applications than the law to me do you see what I just said we've been learning the principle approach to Scripture we've been learning that you take the principle of the law because what jesus said in matthew 5 6 and 7 is you heard me say this but what I meant was this I meant the principle behind it not just what I was saying you can kill with an axe or with a gun but you can also kill with a mouth I want you to see the principle behind it but for a Jewish believer since their sanctification processes are often regarding continuing to do the things God told Jews to do sometimes the principle that they get out of the law is different than yours how how would the principle let's say this half is my a chef and this is my pig eating pig in come-to-jesus half okay so do you want me to switch sides so you can be the Jewish chef that I mean because I keep doing this to you all right my Jewish half how is how you're going to read the constitutional law going to affect your life differently than the way these folks are gonna read Deuteronomy for you in order to form a national society and national goals you will use them in very literal very concrete ways for you you're not going to form that but you're going to use the principles behind them to inform the way you do what you do does that make sense so yes yours is fuzzier than theirs because you have the principle behind it and you have both the principle and a literal truth of it that makes this uncomfortable another thing that makes Hebrews difficult and and the whole thing I'm trying to set up here is why is there a letter to the Hebrews why do they need one because they have a different set of problems than then pig eating pagans that came to Jesus there are many Christians who do not accept the notion of the Christian scriptures being related to specific groups of people I told you there are sectarian documents that James and Hebrews are specifically written to Messianic Jews whereas books like first Peter are specifically written to Gentile gypsies migrant workers traveling through what is now central Turkey that the fact that there are different letters written to different people cause confusion let me show you the confusion get in your car drive south on 27 look at the billboard as you exit to the south of Sebring and it will say sunday is the mark of the beast Saturday's the day we should worship and they'll quote it right out of Hebrews four and forget that the book is written to Hebrews and everybody reading that bulletin-board central Florida less than one-tenth of one percent will be Hebrews in other words they're selling the right thing to the wrong group and the confusion comes because they say well it's in the New Testament that means it's for us wait a minute all Scripture is god-breathed and profitable it's all informative to your doctrine however it's written to who it's written to and so the can I remind you that when Paul got to Jerusalem in Acts 21 do you remember they said to him Paul there are thousands of Jews who know Jesus and are zealous for the law did he then whip out a declaration of well they should stop is that what he did they have heard Paul that you are teaching Jews not to do the things in the law having come to Christ so what does he say well that's absolutely right no that's not what he says he says well what do we do about that and they said well take Val go to the temple take eval pay for four guys veils and publicly show that you're not against Jews keeping Jewish things after they know Jesus and Paul's whole point was I didn't sacrifice I didn't circumcise I'm sorry I'm trying I'm struggling with words today I didn't circumcised Titus because he came from this side of the table pig eating pagan come to Jesus but I did circumcised Timothy because he came from this side of the table he had a Jewish mama and as a result I circumcised one and not the other that's not hypocrisy that's the difference between the two kinds of people at the table the the Epistle to the Hebrews has been a battleground let's just be honest this book is really hard the author is uncertain he's unknown the occasion is unstated the destination is disputed and there are a lot of matters that like that that make people upset with the book but they're really periphery matters they're not at the heart of the books importance at the heart of the book's importance is the fact that although they didn't know who wrote it and although they didn't know who was receiving it per se they still accepted it in the Canon how was that possible with so many things against it how did it get in it got in because of the powerful testimony of what this work had that this written work literary work had done in the hearts and minds of Jewish believers it was so powerful that they couldn't deny that God was at work in it okay let's do a couple things you can write on the entry sheet for Hebrews number one of them is the author and the answer is short answer is we don't know the author doesn't state his name but we assume the audience knows him if you look in chapter 13 verse 19 or chapter 13 verse 22 and 23 that means all the way at the end of the book in the last chapter if you look at it it looks like whoever's writing this they know this writer now the first the first reason that we think that's the case is you understand that when Scrolls were made they rolled them up and on the inside what you have is you have the outside where the author is being written down and the text is on the recto side but the verso side which is on the what we would call the outside has the author and who it's - well the problem was the front side was what was preserved and we lost what was on the back so we're not saying that no one ever knew who wrote the book we're saying it wasn't preserved for us what we do know is that the very first author outside the New Testament that cites Hebrews as a New Testament work is Clement and Clement of Rome in the years about 96 in the Common Era that's the first time we have him and by the way he doesn't just mention it he cites it over and over and so as a result we know that by 96 by the end of the first century this book is already well known and has been distributed widely and he doesn't make any claim as to who the author is he just talks he just quotes from the book that's all he does he doesn't tell us how he knows who wrote it or anything else now a number of it different authors have been proposed paul heads the list clement of alexandria says this paul line authorship was explicitly denied by Origen 2nd century and we the fact of the matter is we just don't know we do know that in around 200 there's a set of documents that is called the corpus polina which is the body of work of Paul and it's included in it in 200 so that's why some people think Paul wrote the book fact of the matter is we just don't know other names we've been suggested Tertullian suggested Barnabas Luther suggested a policy I'm gonna suggest something totally different than all the rest of them because I'm a weird guy I actually think that this is a statement of the Jewish messianic leadership I actually think that this is more than one author that this is a compendium document and the reason I say that is when I was studying the book I couldn't get away from all these wee sections like two five five eleven six nine they keep saying the author says we repeatedly throughout the epistle and it's collective like a Hebrew compendium document would be in other words this is the rules for the Hebrew community scattered abroad like James was writing to those scattered abroad Hebrews is written and the author very seldom uses the first-person singular but he does use it in thirteen let me suggest that there's a group document of which one person is the leader author and that leader author uses the eyes when the eyes come up but the Wiis are the rest of the community I think this is an official document of the elders of the Jerusalem messianic community spread to the Jerusalem community to the Jewish community outside of Jerusalem now when does this come up well I believe that the beginning point for the earliest date of this has got to be the mid-60s when Paul is executed in my view it may be as late as 67 if it is in fact Nero doing the executing it has to be in 267 beginning of 68 because he doesn't get back from Greece until then so one of the reasons I say that is if you listen to 12 for it says you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin kind of a tip-off that some people have shed blood to stand up for Jesus and in thirteen seven it says remember those who led you who spoke the Word of God to you and consider the result of their conduct imitate their faith it seems to me that that Peter and Paul perhaps have been killed and that's why they're getting these strong letters remember the guys who stood up for us and remember how they ended and you do the same stand up and if it means your death that's what you do obviously it has to be between mid-60s but what's the ending date well it's got to be sometime before 90 because if by 96 they're quoting from it somebody had to have time to distribute the book so it's got to be between the 60s and 90s and that makes good sense I I would say that there's something else too I think it's before 70 why do I think it's before 70 because the Levitical system in the book is spoken of in the present tense the offerings are happening when the writers writing in other words if the temple had already been destroyed in 70 they would have said what we used to do they're not saying what we used to do they're saying what we're doing and because it's current it seems to me it's going to be between the mid 60s and 70s where I'm gonna place the date now the the readers by the way the title to the Hebrews was found as early as the middle of the second century on the document the writer the writer doesn't have it in the document it doesn't say you know so-and-so to the Hebrews but it's very clear when you're reading this that only those who are already absolutely convinced to the greatness of Judaism would care about the book you can't make an argument that Jesus is better than Judaism to people who don't care about Judaism okay they got to be Jewish or they're not going to care about the argument so the basis of the argument is Jesus is better than the atonement law set up in the Levitical code well that means that the person must believe in the Levitical code and either be a proselyte to Judaism or be born a Jew okay when you think about the contents if you sit down and read all thirteen chapters which you have done it may not be hot in your mind but you've done it let me just say that there are five things I yeah all of these come from the document itself these aren't from commentaries it's just my observations about as I'm reading through first it appears to me that it's being written to a group that began with great enthusiasm for the gospel but now they were falling away from their faith in Messiah does everybody see how I could say that when you read through the book it appears as though they're Messianic synagogues are shrinking the number of people attracted to Yeshua Jesus the Messiah is shrinking not growing okay that's my argument second it also appears to me that the followers of Jesus appeared to feel pressured as outcasts among their countrymen as Jews and they're facing mounting pressure to reconsider the claims of messianism and return to the fold of non Messianic Jews I think these people are under pressure to come back to the flock I think that they were born and raised Jews they went off believing in Jesus formed their own synagogue communities began to fall apart and Jews are coming upon them Judaizers are coming upon them to draw them back into mainstream Judaism and say you had your little time with that whole Jesus fellow but let's get back to reality the reality is atonement law and I think Galatians is written as an argument that these guys are permeating also the Gentile community and trying to pick them off as well so let me say it this way Hebrews to me is actually Galatians 2 Messianics Galatians is an epistle of Hebrews to the Gentiles it's a group of people that are going out as Jews trying to pull in Gentiles under the temple and under the rabbinic system and and that would be Galatians or in Hebrews it's a group of people going out and trying to get people who were born and raised Jewish back into the fold knock off all the Jesus stuff and let's get back to it that's what I think this audience is the third thing I picked out was a number of them began to feel the record concerning Jesus didn't stand up to the questions posed by rabbis I think what happened is you have to under stand the way Jews teach in a Jewish world everything's an argument so you come in and you're arguing constantly and I think what they realized is as they were looking at the epistles they had and as they were looking at the early release of the gospel records that some of the questions being asked by the popular rabbis of their day couldn't be answered by the record that they had and they were becoming embarrassed that Jesus didn't stand up to the test I think that number for some of the respected leaders in their own group were wavering or perhaps even defecting from the group think about that tifany think about if you had somebody who was a a messianic leader came and reached you for the message of the gospel and then they left and decided Jesus wasn't really Messiah the leaders were jumping ship I don't think we realize how effective the Judaizers were in pulling Jews out of the movement I think a lot of people started got on board with Jesus got excited about the message and then found themselves unable to answer the questions being posed by their neighbors and an embarrassment they faded back let me give you a contemporary example because all of you will understand it how many of you have friends from youth group that were dynamic Christians at one time they went to college and there's no faith left how did it happen they got involved in questions that exceeded their ability to answer them based on their knowledge of the text can I just offer this one little bone just because you don't know the answer of the question doesn't mean the question isn't answered it might mean you just haven't asked the right person it could be that you haven't done the right study a quick could be you haven't read the right book but don't conclude because you're sitting in a room and somebody corners you with something you don't know that therefore your faith is destroyed that's exactly what happens we go into secular universities and there are professors that are aimed at trying to take shots at your faith asking you questions that they actually even know the answer to but they're not going to tell you they know you don't and that will destroy your faith so the fact of the matter is when we open up this book the fifth thing is there's a demoralized group they're lacking direction they need correction they need instruction they need gentle rebuke and with a little closer examination I believe you can read the text and examine it to the point where you can work backwards and start seeing what the problem is now in an epistle we've been doing different kinds of literature and in the law you know there's a certain bracketing that we do and in a biography by now you should know how to set the goal posts and line the field and and break it up into acts and scenes when we get to an epistle the Epistle is like a prescription the prescription will do you absolutely no good at all no one eats the prescription and feels better the prescription only does you a good if you follow it you take it in and and so these epistles are like prescriptions written based on symptoms so let me say it this way an epistle is like the answer to a question but the problem is what's the question because you don't know what the question is the answer won't help you and so you know it's like saying and here is my truth that I want to give you the number for oh how deep what does it mean who knows what's the question that's the answer but what's the question so what I want you to do is what's called reversal of narrative whenever you study an epistle reverse the narrative just read it and say okay if this is the answer what was the question and I'm gonna give you 10 questions in this book that I see and you might see others and I'm okay these are not inspired this is the Randi reading in the white spaces version okay I I'm saying I see 10 questions that are asked and answered as a result of this narrative so go to chapter 1 and let's see if we can very quickly pick out what some of these questions are the idea is that there are 10 questions that inquiring Messianic Jews want to know the answer to and in Chapter 1 he opens up with a question that how do we how do we know from scriptural evidence or from record that Jesus was both the savior and God in human skin and he lays out a case that God never called an angel his beloved son and he never allowed angels to receive worship and he only said to to Jesus you have an everlasting throne and and God said the Sun laid the foundation of the earth and and God never said that a an angel would sit at his right hand so that in Chapter 1 he's building the case to answer the question how do we know that Jesus is both God and Savior he's called creator he's given a position above any other position and he's worshipped and no one else has that now in chapter 2 he goes on and he says well okay let's say that Jesus came and he really is from God and we're willing to concede that why didn't he come as some kind of angel of the Lord like appeared to Joshua something really cool like the angel that appears to - Daniel why does he appear just as a guy why not an angel I mean that makes a lot of sense and yet when you look at chapter 2 verses 1 to 4 he said look God in Messiah was trying to take through a man to reconcile the world that men had destroyed God put man in management and then gave a man the opportunity to save Adam was a man the second Adam is a man and he's trying to use a comparison that is also picked up in the middle part of chapter 2 and and what he says is because God put a man in charge of the world in chapter 2 verses 5 through 9 he redeemed the world through a messiah who was also a man and he chose that a man with sanctify men and in a lot of ways even though an angel might seem more powerful might seem more incredible in in a lot of ways we can identify more closely with Messiah because he was a man in chapter 2 verses 16 to 18 he says an angelic form simply wouldn't do it because he wanted a child of Abraham to do the work of a priest and reconcile the God of Abraham to his people and so it makes sense that he would use a man from the sons of Abraham in order to do this besides which he could have gone on and explained all the way back in Genesis that it was actually a child that was going to be born in genesis 3:15 it was going to be the seed of a woman that was going to be the messiah there certainly is sufficient evidence elsewhere in Scripture then in the first six verses Chapter three the question is I I will concede that he is not an angel I will concede that he's a man but why not a man like the stature of Moses somebody you know some very cool very powerful dominating figure from Hebrew past and one of the things that he points out is that while Moses was called a servant Messiah was called a son Jesus was called a son and that of the two in the Roman world that he's writing to they would know that the highest servant is still far lower than the lowest son and so there's a huge difference in in the the stature of these two individuals then when you get to the fourth question this becomes a complex question it's cut into two places in chapter 3 verse 7 to 4:13 and then again in chapter 5 11 through 6:17 and and the reason that this has so many verses dedicated to it is because of the incredibly powerful emotional strain of this particular question and the question is alright okay I believe it Jesus came but if our message is true why is it that so many are starting off with us and falling away in disbelief there's there's a powerful sense of response that has to has to be played into this because here's the thing there are people that were joining the movement of Jesus and then they were defecting away Yeshua had come salvation had come and then awhile later they find themselves back in mainstream Judaism working on the old atonement program with the blood of bulls and goats and they've pulled away from the cleansing program of Jesus and that's that's really hard if you're a young believer and you were one to Jesus through somebody at Sabbath school and then you find out that they no longer believe Jesus is Messiah that's a powerful statement to sort of suggest you followed the wrong thing remember we often follow the person who shared the gospel with us first and then follow the gospel second and so it became an important problem well in chapter chapter 3 the last part of chapter 3 you see that he makes the argument that defection is not a new problem in fact if you go back into his three of our fathers Moses was grieved most by the people who started out of Egypt that is they were following the salvation of God but then they got al out into the desert and they refused the provision of God and ended up buried in the desert and so he compares those who start into salvation with Jesus and then end up back into the mainstream atonement principles of the synagogue under Levitical law and suggest that they're never going to have the rest that they're supposed to have there is supposed to be a rest for the people of God and it's supposed to come through the one-size-fits-all paid for all time permanent sacrifice of the blood of Jesus and then in Chapter five later on it jumps to chapter five verse 11 and in my view what he's saying is look you better listen to what I'm saying here I want to go deep with you but you're staying way up here on the surface and and there is no plan B if you're not gonna follow Jesus there is no other plan I can't give you some new gospel that I've kind of pulled out of a new plant there isn't one and one of the things he says in one of the passages that I think is so very hard in Chapter six is look you're not listening and if you try to start off seeking salvation through Messiah Jesus and then you walk away from that and you're expecting to be able to - to walk in and out you can't and by the way there is no other plan so if you don't accept this one I have nothing to offer you whatsoever one of the things he goes on and says in chapter 6 verses 9 to 17 is I want to offer you some encouragement - you have to move on to completion God remembers the work of the person not who just starts out but the one who stays with a God promised Abraham a great promise but he had to wait you didn't get it instantly so in the history of the Jewish people whether it's it's Moses who suffered from the defection or Abraham who had to last in patience all through the story what we know is you can't always get a snapshot of right now and determine our story is right because it's working well that's important for the church to remember it's important even to because sometimes people think of it's not working today it's never gonna work and not every day goes well and that doesn't mean you're doing the wrong thing it might mean you're just at a bad snapshot of where you belong now the fifth question picks up right after that and this is a question that would only be asked if you are Jewish you would never think of this question as a non Jew but in 414 to 510 and then again in 618 to 83 a very long section to decide how to share with you how is it that you're claiming Yeshua Jesus is a priest and how can you claim he does the work of a high priest when he's not a Levite so he's not by birth eligible to be an earthly priest and he's not an ironic son a son of Aaron so he's not able to be in the high priestly lineage how could he possibly how can you claim that he's a priest and a high priest how can that happen and in chapter 4 he makes the argument though he's a man he came as the high priest and he endured the tests of a man and it's important that you understand his priesthood he functions as a priest he bids us to the altar it is it is part of what he did but in chapter 5 priests are normally chosen by men they're conferred the honor of the priesthood by other men and he says but God spoke conferring honor on Jesus this is my son and that trumps all earthly conferences of power and then he says in chapter 5 verses 6 through 10 don't you remember before there was an ironic priesthood there was another priests milk acidic and popping into the Genesis narrative was Melchizedek who you don't know a whole lot about where he comes from you don't know about a lot about where he's going but he was a priest of the Living God Abraham knew that and what you need to know is spiritually speaking from the from the spiritual line of Melchizedek comes our high priest Jesus and since that Melchizedek II and priesthood predated Aaron and predated the Levitical system it supersedes the Levitical system and it actually operates outside of it and so it's possible that we have a messiah who comes after the order of melchizedek and is possible that he is high priest even though he doesn't belong to the normal natural order of men were he on land were he back in Judea in the first century while the temple is operating he would not have had the birth qualifications to serve in the temple he didn't in an ironic Jesus would be raising a lamb and his father Joseph would keep that lamb unspotted and they'd stand in line and Joseph and Jesus would stand there holding hands and here's our little lamb and we get our lamb checked in and the whole time this is going on Jesus is the one who knows it's his temple and he's the lamb but he's going through all of the steps of it because this is an explanation of what the whole substitutional atonement system operates like well one of the problems is okay so now that we have our own high priest and he has his own temple up in heaven does the temple on earth have any value for us now and when you get to chapter eight eight four two nine ten any Jew would ask should I go stand in line at the temple is there any value to the temple think about it because part of the temple system wasn't about atonement it was about celebration it was about Jewishness it was about festivals and feasts it was about show mean it's a party you know all of these special kinds of festivals that you did was celebration it wasn't all about sins so the question is does the temple have any value now well if you look at eight four and five it says Messiah what would would be looking and he's a he would say look at the picture of what I've done in heavenly places you look through chapter eight and and and our Messiah belongs to a better priesthood and he's busy working out a new covenant and high priest had to go and make offerings for themselves but our high priest he is perfect and therefore it he doesn't have to here's what's important he didn't make an offering for himself he made an offering of himself and that made his offering better but in addition to that all of them in nine seven through ten and here's the key to the answer to this question all of them all the things you see in the temple I believe Jesus would say today look at that in the first century while it was operating look at that look at how it shows an example of what I've done in heavenly places in other words Jesus didn't come with disdain toward the temple because it was an earthly system he didn't stand there and go you know look at that high priest you know I'm sinless and he's not he wasn't he had set up the system with flawed men and knew exactly what it was and yet he said look at the beautiful pic look at those Lambs dying look at the picture of substitutional atonement you need to see that now if you're a Jew in chapter 9 verses 11 to 14 the problem is you've always taken care of the dirt of your sin in the never fully finished atonement system of the Levitical law and so now all of a sudden we're gonna go jesus paid it all all to him I owe and we're not going to go stand in line at the temple anymore and so they're gonna feel dirty about that and so 911 911 214 is is are you sure my sin is dealt with because I feel really dirty not going to the temple remember that Judaism had in it something that we lack the the benefit of working so hard at the atonement system raising a spotless lamb bringing it in following all the regulations the benefit of that cooperative nature of walking with God was you felt like you were involved and now Jesus took that place for us and now we walk in and we see this hygienic looking cross and we remember that he died for us but it's something we say so often it becomes almost routine and now we don't see the graphic picture of our own sinfulness that you see in things like a lamb being bled out in front of you so Verte in chapter 9 verses 11 to 14 he says I feel dirty are you sure this is taken care of and then 9 15 to 10 18 he deals with the eighth question is my inheritance secure if they cast me out does that mean God subtracts my inheritance because the high priests has thrown me out of the temple do I still have a future and and he argues that the writer argues that Yeshua died but not until he left eternal her inheritance through his will with us and in order to get an inheritance someone has to die you don't get your inheritance till the one I had of you dies and so he says Messiah did that on our behalf and turned it over to us through a blood sacrifice of himself and it's true Moses used animals but Yeshua offered himself and Levitical law offered a temporary solution in chapter 10 verses 1 to 4 but God in fact offered through Messiah a permanent solution it's entirely appropriate that our sacrifice being the guarantee of our inheritance is accepted just as well or even better than any previous one because he alone completed the work and sat down and we have a messiah that's done more not less and while you're feeling like you might be losing your inheritance you actually have a more secure inheritance not a less secure inheritance all right we get to the ninth question and the question is it's another form of an earlier question up here they were asking why are people falling away if what we're just saying is true here it's why are we suffering why is why isn't it going well listen any responsible faith community has to answer the question why do bad things happen to good people what why if we're doing right is this not working out and so if our message is true why are we suffering and has God abandoned the Jewish believer and and the answer of course is no we have to take advantage of what Yeshua is done and draw near to him in chapter 10 we need to encourage one another to stay on the path we need to do this together we need to to recall the early days we need to be unafraid to be mocked out faith in God's Word is what pleases him and then he goes on and says let me just show you a history of the believers in the past and how it worked out for them and he gives us this Hall of Fame of faith in chapter 11 and as he goes through that Hall of Fame of faith you come to the conclusion that things didn't look really good when they were doing it either it's in retrospect you can see God's hand in it not in the moment in fact in chapter 12 he says we have to run the race with all that crowd watching us but knowing that we're not looking at the crowd we're looking at the author and finisher of our faith and we're running toward him and we have to remember God is like a loving father the corrects us so that when we undergo correction that's not a bad thing that's a good thing one of the things he encourages is that we have to remember that there's a marvelous inheritance for people who will look toward the Messiah and then he says you're not like Mount Sinai way back in the first shovel out the first feast of weeks 50 days after the Passover you're not like that first time when the Torah was given and the mountain rumbled and the trumpets sounded from God you're like you're like a heavenly Jerusalem you're like a whole different mountain Mount Zion and and and you're like what's happening with the coming of the Spirit that came into Jerusalem and actually began the process of writing the law on the heart so at the end of chapter 12 he sort is he comes to him and says act like you know God beginning of chapter 13 love brothers be hospitable care for prisoners keep yourself pure don't be covetous be content obey and follow the congregational leaders he's trying to make the point that it should be working out and if they should be doing this together when under attack believers have to lock arms one with another and they have to encourage one another to stick by this stuff it's not just what the Spirit of God does in the Word of God it's also what the body does and then the last one sort of picks up on that same argument in chapter 13 verses 9 to 14 he says why are we cast aside who should we identify with now if you know anything about Jews you know that it's absolutely important to them to have an identity a communal identity and so he says in 39 be identified by your grace not by any set of rules he says in verse 10 marked the line around believers make your fellowship with believers not with those who are genetically of same background but those who are of your community of faith and then in verses 11 to 13 he says you know we can live outside the camp if they kick us out we can live outside the camp remember we're a messiah was crucified was outside the camp in fact our whole movement started outside the camp at a place of death not at a place of life and and we can manage that if we will understand that we will take a stand for Messiah even if it causes us to be cut out now with the rest of the verses he sort of winds down his argument but I think what you'll see is that Hebrews actually answers 10 questions at least by my count maybe there are more but 10 questions that inquiring Jewish people wanted to know Messianic Jews and from the second century onward this scroll always had written on it for the Hebrews it was a circular letter that was sent out from I believe the Jewish leadership to Jews all around in the early messianic community the only place you would see a substantial messianic community today there are several in Florida there are some in the United States a few in Europe but mainly this is now a Middle Eastern phenomenon in Israel itself and you see Jews who trust in Messiah Yeshua to be their Savior and at the same time they want to live their Jewish identity because although there's neither Jew nor Gentile as it regards salvation after salvation as it regards sanctification there's certainly differences between people who were told to keep Sabbath forever and people who were never told the start and so there's a whole separate issue that they have to deal with don't lose heart I'm coming back I went away to find the place for today and I'm coming back leave the light on you already too

Channel: One Hour. One Book.

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Length: 56min 1sec (3361 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 21 2013