Hebrews 6:15-20 PRBC Evening Service May 23, 2010

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Finishing up chapter six, getting ready to dive into the real meat of the book over the summer months.

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We continue in our studies this evening in the book of Hebrews, Hebrews chapter 6.
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We were here this morning. We know that we were looking at the latter half of this chapter.
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With the Lord's help we will finish up this chapter this evening. And we'll have a number of opportunities in July to press forward with our study of the book of Hebrews.
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Getting into some very meaty material. I would say chapters 7 through 10 might be some of the most in -depth discussion of the high priesthood of Christ.
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The sacrifice of Christ. The atonement. The effect of the atonement. It is going to be challenging.
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There are two ways about it. I hope you are excited to pursue this study. We are in chapter 6.
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We have already looked at verses 9 to the end this morning. We'll pick up with verse 13 in our reading this evening and read to the end of the chapter.
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For when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself, saying,
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Surely I will bless you and multiply you. And thus Abraham, having patiently waited, obtained the promise.
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For people swear by something greater than themselves, and in all their disputes an oath is final for confirmation.
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So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath.
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So that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us.
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We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain where Jesus has gone as our forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.
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Now we saw this morning that here the writer is encouraging us, and he is encouraging us to press toward, show zeal toward obtaining that full assurance of hope until the end.
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Hopefully you saw that term, hope, that was in verse 11 repeated just now in the reading we had.
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It will become very important to us. And then he has once again directed our attention away from ourselves and to God as the one that is worthy of our faith, worthy of our trust, and that once we understand the character of God, once we understand that he is, his purposes are unchanging, then we can have true abiding faith in him that results in patience.
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And he's given as an example what happened in God's giving a promise to Abraham.
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When he gave that promise to Abraham, he had nothing greater to swear by than himself, and so he made that promise to Abraham.
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And there is a brief discussion of the fact that people swear by something greater than themselves, and all their disputes and oath is final for confirmation.
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So in verse 17 then, when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath.
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Now, notice once again, we just started touching on this verse this morning. God willed to do something.
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He willed to provide a demonstration, a proof of the fact that he was the one making the promise.
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And he wanted a certain people, notice the heirs. He wanted to demonstrate this to the heirs.
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Now, we saw that same group up in verse 12. The heirs of the promise are those, those who through faith and patience become heirs of the promise.
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And so God wants to make sure that a certain people, the heirs of the promise, have a clear demonstration from him that he has an unchangeable character to his purpose.
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An unchangeable character that cannot change. And we concluded this morning by asking the question, what would it be like if we had a
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God who changed? What if we had a God in whom there was variableness and shadow of turning, to use the language from James that has been enshrined in our hymns.
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What if we did not have any promise that our God was the same from year to year?
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What a tragedy that would be. And yet, when we think about it, that is what the vast majority of the human family has had to deal with down through history.
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The gods of the peoples around Israel were very changeable. Those gods, you had no way of knowing how they were going to act.
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There was no standard of justice. There was no eternal purpose that they were working on, especially due to the fact that they themselves came out of the creation.
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They weren't the creators of all things. They were subject to forces outside of themselves.
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And so, they were changeable, they had to adapt. But sometimes
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I think especially there's a danger amongst those of us who regularly hear the word of God within a consistent context, that we will take for granted these tremendous divine truths, that actually we have become the heirs of ourselves.
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The idea that God is unchanging, that he has a purpose that he is pursuing.
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That's not just an idea that makes us feel good. It is the very essence of the promise of the gospel.
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Think about it. If that was not the case, then the cross was a huge tragedy.
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Because, evidently, God committed himself to a course of action there, but who knows, maybe something might come up that would cause him to go, oh, you know, that really wasn't the best way of doing things.
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Can we even begin to contemplate such a thought?
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And yet, sadly, there are many who, because they don't embrace the entirety of biblical revelation, really have no way around seeing
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God in that way. But that's not what the writer here would have us to see. God desired to give to us a clear demonstration, to the heirs the promise of the unchanging nature, the unchangeable character of his purpose.
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That Greek term, you've heard it used, like metastatized, when something changes, when something mutates, they're all related to the same root.
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There can be no mutation of God's purpose. There can be no change into another direction of God's purpose.
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He has given us his promise in Christ Jesus, and you know, being 2 ,000 years down the road,
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I'm glad it doesn't change. Because it would make a lot of people, I think, a lot of modern people today, wonder how things that were written 2 ,000 years ago can be relevant to us.
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Well, if you have a God who's the creator of all things, and 1 ,000 years to him is as a day, and a day is 1 ,000 years, it hasn't been that long ago to him that he gave these promises, and he has promised that his promises won't change.
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Notice that it also says, he guaranteed it with an oath. And it's interesting, there's an echo here that unfortunately, we might not see in English.
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This is a rather unusual term, to guarantee, that actually has within it the context of a mediator.
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This is going to become very important beginning in chapter 7. He's going to build on this, that this guarantee he's provided was normally one that was provided by an intermediary.
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And that intermediary is going to become the intercessor, who is Jesus Christ, who becomes himself the guarantee of a better covenant.
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And the author's moving toward the demonstration of the supremacy of the priesthood of Christ, and the supremacy and better nature of the new covenant.
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Remember, sometimes we get so into the text that we need to step back and go, what's the whole purpose here?
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It's really been the same from chapter 1, the demonstration of the supremacy of Christ in all things, there's nothing to go back to.
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All the pressure being placed upon the Hebrew Christians to go back and offer sacrifice, there's nothing to go back to.
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And so he has guaranteed the promise with an oath, so that, by two unchangeable things, two unchangeable things, using the exact same terminologies to talk about his unchangeable purpose, now it's by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie.
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We who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hopes set before us.
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Well, what are the two unchangeable things? Well, the first is the promise itself, and the second is the guarantee he's given us.
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And so it's impossible, in these things, for God to lie. If God could lie in these things, then there would be no reason to trust any divine revelation, there would be no reason to believe that God has given prophecy, or that God has been involved in the history of the people of Israel, or any of the things that, interestingly enough, the
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Jewish apologists might be using to try to get you back, try to get you to offer sacrifice, you'd have to undercut your own position to accept those things, because if God could lie in this, then he could lie in anything.
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Maybe the entire of the Old Testament is a lie. I mean, once you admit to the character of God inconsistency and untruthfulness, how are we supposed to know anything?
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He could be deceiving anybody. But it is the very character and nature of God, it is impossible for him to lie.
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He has promised, and he has given an oath, by himself, of the validity of his promise.
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But notice that there is this interesting phrase, and it sort of just pops in here,
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We who have fled for refuge. We who have fled for refuge.
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Now the whole discussion up to this point has been about oaths, and the unchanging purpose of God, and faith, and patience, and inheritance of the promises, and all of a sudden we have this interesting, rather strange and interesting phrase, the ones who have fled for refuge.
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And this has created a fair number of interpretations, but it would seem to me, you can go back and look at various strands of the
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Old Testament revelation, there were the cities of refuge, those who had sought refuge in those cities, they had engaged in manslaughter accidentally, and you had a place of refuge you could go, the family would not be able to come after you in those specific places, some have made a connection to that.
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But it also seems, in light of what comes afterwards, this idea of an anchor that is within the veil, within, again looking at the tabernacle, we'll look at that in just a moment, that maybe is just simply the seeking of refuge in God.
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Seeking refuge in Him from our sins, seeking refuge in Him from the pressures of the world, the flesh and the devil as we often put it.
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But there is a specific people, so that we who have fled for refuge, might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope that has been set before us.
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Refugees are people looking for hope. When you've seen the heartbreaking pictures of refugees fleeing from war, they have almost nothing left, they're frequently carrying the entirety of their physical possessions on their back or in their arms, maybe pushing a cart along.
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They have that dark look in the eyes, and they're looking for refuge, they're looking for a safe place.
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There's danger all around them, and they need a place where they can begin to rebuild hope.
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And so maybe this is the best description, that those who have sought refuge in God, that they might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope that has been set before us.
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Strong, very same term, encouragement here, is the term that is used of the
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Holy Spirit, in John chapter 14. The parakletos, the paraclete, who comes alongside and encourages, gives guidance.
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Here that we might have a strong encouragement, those who have fled, to hold fast, hold fast that hope which has been set before us.
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That very hope is then described in an incredible way, that I think is probably one of the most beautiful pictures in all of the book of Hebrews, and hence all of the
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Bible. That is verse 19. We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul.
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Anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our way out.
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Now here once again, I'm tempted, I'm not sure when to do this.
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I'm not sure if I should maybe make it a Sunday school lesson or something like that, because I'm not sure how to make it a sermon.
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But over the next couple of chapters, we will either have to take some time to go back into the
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Old Testament. I know that the next time when we talk about Melchizedek, we'll go back and we'll read in Genesis, we'll read in the
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Psalms, and we'll look at the references to Melchizedek. There aren't very many of them. But in this situation, what we would need to do is to go back and refresh our minds.
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I will use the term refresh our minds, because certainly we've all studied at one point or another the makeup of the tabernacle.
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The makeup of the tabernacle. Because the writer of the book of Hebrews uses the tabernacle rather than the temple itself as the paradigm, as the example of the earthly in comparison to the heavenly.
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And the readers of Hebrews certainly would have understood how that was laid out, where the veil was, what was outside the veil, what was inside the veil, what exactly was in there.
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This was a part of what any Jewish person of the day would have understood, even though almost none of them would have ever seen these things except for the high priest himself, who would go in that one day on the day of atonement,
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Yom Kippur. But there was great teaching about these specific things, what was there, what its purpose was, what it represented, etc.,
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etc. And this is part of the Old Testament revelation. These things were built and placed where they were upon the commandment of God.
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And so, at some point we're going to have to look at that, because at this point, that is brought into the narrative.
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Because when it talks about the inner place behind the curtain, we're talking about the holy place.
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Sometimes it's called the holy of holies, but that's just, again, because we're translating a
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Hebrew idiom into English in a way that isn't necessarily the proper way.
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That is, the Hebrew would say the holiest place by calling it holy twice, the holy of holies.
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That just simply means the holiest place. And so, it's talking about that place where atonement would be made, where the covering would take place.
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And so, the writer here draws for us an unusual picture. One might say it definitely mixes metaphors, because there were no anchors in the context of the tabernacle.
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But an anchor isn't necessarily just what you would have on a seagoing vessel, though that's the first thing that crosses our minds.
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We think of that huge anchor that can hold that large ship in place in the midst of the strong winds and things like that.
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But we use the term in other ways as well. Someone who is a climber uses the term anchor a lot.
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They use them as they're climbing the rock face, and they tap them in, and they put their ropes through, and these become an anchor, something very important, obviously, for someone who does something like that, which
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I can guarantee you that's one thing I could never do. I can't climb up a ladder to a roof, let alone hang off a rock face someplace, and I have no idea how anybody else can.
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But being that as it may, here we have a description of something that holds fast, that's described as sure and steadfast.
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Sure and steadfast. Now, interestingly enough, one of these terms, the same term that is used by Paul in Colossians, when he talks about our being grounded in Christ, there is no moving.
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When you're building stuff, if you're trying to anchor something down, and you can visibly move, obviously your anchor is not strong.
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And therefore, when the forces of nature come along, what you're building might be in grave danger.
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I had an illustration of this recently. A couple of weeks ago, Kelly and I were driving home, and at the same time, we looked over our house, and there's this huge gaping hole.
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And the gable had been ripped off the side of our house. You know, that bent type thing that allows the air in and out that we have to have in here.
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And Phoenix and I went out there, and I'm looking at it, and it's just gone. And I finally found it.
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It was in pieces. And the metal was bent. And man,
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I was getting ready to call the cops, because what else could have done this? The metal's all bent up, and somebody had to have been trying to break in the house through the roof,
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I guess. But before I did that, I decided to go over to the neighbor's house and ask if they had seen anything.
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And I says, oh, yeah. You know, I knocked on your door a couple of times, couldn't find anybody home. But a few days ago, a dust devil came through.
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And it was a big one. And it just ripped that thing right off your house.
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My mom had just pulled into the driveway, thought it was going to hit her right in the windshield. Just missed, landed in our front yard, and exploded.
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I'm like, wow. I went across the street, picked up the neighbor's big blue recycled bin, and threw it on his roof.
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I don't think that's a dust devil. I think that's called a tornado, personally. I guess there are a lot to differentiate between the two at that point, when it can just rip stuff right off of your house like that.
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But that's exactly what it did. So obviously, it was not anchored appropriately. And the temporary one we put in wasn't anchored very well either.
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But it wasn't able to withstand. Maybe it's just because it's almost 40 years old, and things got old over time.
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It was no longer sure and steadfast. And that force of nature came along and destroyed it.
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When we're talking about a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, what a picture is presented for us here.
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We're told that we have a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul. And clearly the writer is communicating to us that he recognizes that there are great forces that come against us, that come against our faith.
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The writer is not in any way underestimating the force that can be brought against the
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Jewish Christians by their family members. And others would say, come back, come back, give up on this strange
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Christianity stuff. It's never going to last. Come back. They're not underestimating the kind of force that can be brought to bear upon someone like that.
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And I'm looking into the faces of many people who have experienced many things in their lives that you never expected could have the kind of strength to bring doubt, despair, confusion into your life.
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And if we think that we are the ones who are going to provide the steadfastness against the forces that come against our souls, then we are very foolish.
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It is the scriptures that tell us God provides the sure and steadfast anchor.
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We don't provide it. God provides it. And He provides it in the work that He has accomplished.
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Notice, this sure and steadfast anchor of the soul is a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain where Jesus has gone as our forerunner on our behalf.
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I hope you see, my friends, I hope I am making it clear to you that the sure and steadfast anchor of our soul is based in what someone else has done.
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It is not based in our accomplishment. It is not based in us.
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It is a finished thing. Now the writer is going to expand on this in the most glorious fashion over the next couple of chapters.
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Until we get to Hebrews chapter 9 and he talks about our intercessor who has entered into the holy place once for all having obtained eternal redemption.
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There he intercedes on our behalf and he is able to say with the uttermost because he ever lives to make intercession oh, the glory that is brought out but here we just start to see a part of it this sure and steadfast anchor of the soul is intimately connected to what
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Jesus Christ has done in His sacrifice.
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Do you see how strong an argument that would be in the context of Hebrews? For the people are being told
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Ah, he was just a false prophet. That death he died.
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He died at the hands of the Romans. It was a disgusting way to go. And yet the
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Christian message is it was all according to God's plan. It is a fulfillment of what the prophets had said and by that one sacrifice
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He has entered in. You see the high priest could only enter in briefly once per year.
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Just for a moment to offer that sacrifice and then he had to come out.
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He could not stay there. That repetitive nature is going to become extremely important in what's going to come after this.
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But instead of that high priest in and out, in and out never staying there.
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Temporary visits. We have a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain where the vast majority of these
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Hebrew Christians could never have gone themselves because they weren't the high priest. But now they have gone in the place of another where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf.
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United with Him our hope then goes to the very presence of God.
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You see how this is an argument of the supremacy of the
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Christian faith over the shadows that preceded it. Do you see the argument?
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Can you put yourself in the place of these people who first heard this when they start to realize that in my union with Christ and His having entered into the very presence of God His sacrifice accepted.
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Raised from the dead demonstrating God has accepted His sacrifice. He's entered into the heavenly place in the true
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Holy of Holies of which the earthly is but a shadow. And since I'm united with Him then
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I have been brought in that same language of the Apostle Paul into the heavenlies itself.
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Seated in the heavenly places. Is that not Paul's terminology in Ephesians 2?
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Yes, that's the terminology. And so our hope is not in ourselves.
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You have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. Therefore think on the heavenly things because that's where your hope is.
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A hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain. You're no longer left outside.
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I wonder how many of these Hebrew Christians had stood in Yom Kippur.
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Had drawn near to worship at the temple. And they had stood outside and they had watched as the sacrifice they could smell the stench of the flesh.
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They see the smoke rising and then they see the very brightly robed high priest entering in to the holy place.
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And there they stood. They could not go. He can only go as their representative.
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They could not enter in. The Christian message is in Christ our forerunner we have as we are united with Him entered in.
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That hope that is the fulfillment of God's promises is a sure and steadfast anchor for the soul and unlike all those who stand outside our anchor is rooted in the finished work that allowed
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Him to go in and not just for a moment and come back out. He is seated.
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His work completed. That becomes our hope.
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Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf. Into the holy of holies.
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Having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. Now this whole section contains a foreshadowing of the arguments of chapters 7, 8, 9, and 10.
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In essence is sort of a well a trailer for those of you who seen trailers of movies.
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It's put all together in one spot and that's what you're going to get. Very frequently you got all the good stuff right there and the rest of it really doesn't worth going to see but that's how it works.
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That's not the case here. This is a brief summary that is going to be expanded out.
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The whole issue of the typology of the tabernacle and then especially having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.
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As I said this morning, this signals the end of the digression. I mentioned at the beginning this morning 5 .10
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talking about Melchizedek but you've grown dull of hearing. You need exhortation.
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You need warning and then encouragement. And so from 5 .10 until now warning and encouragement.
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Now we're back to Melchizedek. You could read through 5 .10, skip to here and the argument would continue.
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And so that's where we are. But this idea of having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek will become central to the writer's defense of Christ's role not only as sacrifice but as high priest who then offers that sacrifice and guarantees the application of that sacrifice for those for whom he's given himself.
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Now, normally this is where a lot of modern evangelicals start becoming distracted because the argumentation that is going to be presented in chapter 7 and following again requires us to look at the
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Old Testament and see it as an authoritative revelation and follow carefully the argumentation that is being presented because it's not necessarily easy to follow.
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But when we do we get some of the clearest, most compelling argumentation and presentation and revelation on God's purpose in the sacrifice of Christ answering the why questions of anything in all the
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New Testament. Of anything in all the New Testament. And so it will be well worth our effort to dig in and it will take digging in to get the gold from this text but it is there for the taking.
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And so isn't it interesting? It strikes me as very ironic that the chapter in Hebrews that is most often cited as evidence against the ability of God in Christ to save perfectly
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Hebrews chapter 6 See? You can be a true Christian at once. The very chapter that is so often used in that way is the chapter that finishes by talking about a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf.
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I almost never hear that discussed. I don't know why. I don't understand why.
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I don't know why this isn't phraseology that's on the lips of Christians far more often than many texts that are because I can't think of anything more encouraging anything that would give more of an exhortation to godly living and to live to glorify him than to think about what these words mean.
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Certainly in the dark hours of our life we search for that sure and steadfast anchor of the soul.
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But it should also be in the bright daylight hours in the days of rejoicing and happiness something that causes a joy that the world can never understand.
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These are treasures my friends that should overshadow and outshine anything that the world could ever offer us.
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A tremendous promise has been given to us. Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf united with him, his sacrifice accepted.
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What a tremendous promise has been given to us in these words. So as we think about this you will speak to many family members and friends who struggle with the message of Hebrews.
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I couldn't help but just thinking just now I was talking about those who misused this text
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I remember very clearly a debate with a man I'll be debating again three times this fall a former
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Protestant, now a Roman Catholic who in one of those debates very clearly and forcefully emphasized to us true sons of God will be in hell.
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True sons of God will be in hell. Of course my response to that is well then you have
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Jesus Christ who's in hell. Because you have a man -centered gospel you don't have the gospel of Jesus Christ who never fails to bring those entrusted to him to glory.
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That is truly one of the major issues that divides the biblical gospel from all the substandard, sub -biblical and anti -gospels that exist in our world today and as we dig into this text we will grow in our confidence and understanding that that is the case.
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A confidence and understanding of the gospel itself. It is truly exciting, I hope it is exciting to you as well.
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Let us close the word. Indeed our gracious heavenly father we cannot find the proper words to express our thanks for what you have done in Christ Jesus.
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We cannot find the proper words to even begin to express the joy that is ours as we contemplate the fact that we have a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul.
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A hope that has gone all the way to the holy of holies in Jesus Christ.
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Help us to find in these truths our greatest joys.
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May the things of this world indeed grow strangely dim as we consider what you have done for us in Christ.
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May we be a people focused upon your truth who live in light of it and as such are bold in our proclamation of those truths to others.
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Thank you for this day when we have been able to meet together. Thank you for meeting with us.
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Be with us in this next week of service and ministry. May we bring honor and glory to the name of Jesus Christ in all that we say and do we pray in his name.