Faith: True, Unshakeable Belief

I originally wrote this post about faith a couple weeks ago and forgot to post it. Since then there is another aspect of faith that I see in these verses that I would like to discuss in an upcoming post. So consider this post to be part 1…

In the last post we looked at the fact that what we truly need is to draw near to God and how Christ makes that possible, not just by providing forgiveness for our sin, but by cleansing our conscience so that instead of being ashamed and hiding from God we will desire God.

Many may think “that all sounds great, but my conscience still doesn’t feel clean. I feel guilty. The idea of drawing near to God is frightening.” That is where faith comes in. Faith is what makes belief in Christ’s sacrifice and the promises of God possible. Because if we don’t believe how can we lay hold of the promises? We cannot see the promises of God fulfilled in us unless we believe in God and trust that He will deliver on what He promises.

Why is it so important that we have faith? The last verse of Hebrews makes it clear:

³⁹But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls.
Hebrews 10:39

Without faith in God we will not have a clean conscience, thus we will shrink back from God and be destroyed. This is serious.

Thank God we have Hebrews 11, a chapter filled not just with an explanation of what faith is but many examples of faith in action. The chapter begins with a simple, but profound description of what faith is:

¹Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
Hebrews 11:1

Faith is complete conviction of what we hope for, knowing that someday we will see what for now we have to trust. It is complete, unrelenting belief that God will follow through on His promises. But it’s much easier to claim that we have faith than it is to live it out. Faith in our minds might mean that we go to church every Sunday and read our Bible every day knowing that there is a God out there who has something to say to us. And it is that, but if that is all that faith is to us then we are missing the boat.

What does faith look like in someone’s life? Let’s look at a couple examples from Hebrews 11. I discussed the faith of Abraham in an earlier post (which also has roots in Hebrews 11) as he obeyed God to the point of willingness to sacrifice his only son, but this time I particularly want to look at his faith as a sojourner, believing God’s promise:

⁸By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. ⁹By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise.¹⁰For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.
Hebrews 11:8-10

Consider that Abraham never had a house. His entire life he lived in tents, packing up and moving on as God led, onward to the promised land. This is weird to our 21st century American minds. Abraham never settled down? He never had a home? By faith Abraham was confident that he did have a home: the city built by God. And though he did not see that home while he was on earth, he had complete confidence that one day he would see it. The faith of Abraham completely changed the way he lived. He did not live the good life on earth. He lived as someone who was looking forward to something far better.

I fear that thought is so foreign to us. It is such a temptation to try to create a comfortable life for ourselves with a comfortable home and live like the here and now is all that matters. But it’s a huge mistake. We can look to Abraham as an example of someone who realized that and lived for a city built by God.

I love the verses that follow explaining the importance of Abraham and other heroes of the faith living as sojourners:

¹³These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. ¹⁴For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. ¹⁵If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. ¹⁶But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.
Hebrews 11:13-16

So one practical application of what faith looks like in our lives is that faith leads us to live for what is to come, not for the here and now. The second example that we see with Moses is an extension of this thought:

²⁴By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, ²⁵choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. ²⁶He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward.
Hebrews 11:24-26

Moses had a sweet life as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. He had everything a person on earth could want. But in faith he decided to identify with the Hebrews and take on the resulting punishment instead of identifying with the sinful Egyptian culture which had subjected the Hebrews to slavery. Can you imagine how difficult this was for Moses? Moses was a prince in Egypt, yet gave that completely up to follow God. “He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt.” He was “looking to the reward.”

So what are we looking to? Financial security? Wealth? A happy family? Those things pale in comparison to what we would be looking to if we lived by faith: we would be looking to the reward that God gives those who draw near to him. This challenges me to the core.

This faith that Abraham and Moses and the other people discussed in Hebrews 11 had was not just a belief. It resulted in endurance through all challenges because they had full conviction that what was to come was far greater than their “light and momentary afflictions.”

But the ultimate hero of faith is Jesus Christ:

¹Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,²looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
Hebrews 12:1-2

Jesus is the founder and perfecter of our faith. He is the only thing that makes it possible for us to have faith. The heroes of faith in Hebrews 11 endured much but Jesus endured the cross. Without that truth, faith is meaningless. Faith always comes back to Jesus Christ. We must believe with all our hearts that Christ’s work has made the way to God, giving us a true eternal home in the city that God has built. If we truly believe that, it will change our lives both now and forever.

How Can We Draw Near to God?

Hebrews contains a unique mix of rich theology about Christ and practical urgings and exhortation to the reader. The further that we go through the book of Hebrews, the stronger that the connection between these two formats becomes, to the point that one provides the understanding needed to interpret the other.

In Hebrews 7 we find the author first bring up the term “draw near to God”:

Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.
Hebrews 7:25

Powerful, comforting words. But how can we draw near to God? How can we desire to be near Him instead of hiding from Him in shame? This is an all-important thing to consider as Hebrews 10 warns of the alternative:

For,"Yet a little while,
   and the coming one will come and will not delay;
³⁸ but my righteous one shall live by faith,
   and if he shrinks back,
my soul has no pleasure in him."
³⁹But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls.
Hebrews 10:37-39

Everything rests on whether we draw near to God or shrink back and are destroyed. So what is it that keeps us from drawing near to God? The easy answer is sin. God is a righteous judge and if He sees sin in us, then surely we will be too scared to draw near to Him. Legally, that’s the issue. But it amazes me to find that Hebrews looks at this problem from a different perspective as well: the fact that we have a guilty conscience that is ashamed and shrinks back from God. Not only is there the problem of sin which makes it legally impossible for us to be near God, there’s the problem of our guilty conscience which makes it impossible for us to want to draw near to God.

Hebrews 9 talks about the priests in the Old Testament and how the sacrifices then do not accomplish what Christ has accomplished. I expect the reason given to be that the sacrifices do not provide true forgiveness of sins (which is true), but surprisingly that’s not what the author of Hebrews focuses in on:

According to this arrangement, gifts and sacrifices are offered that cannot perfect the conscience of the worshiper.
Hebrews 9:9b

It’s the conscience of the worshipper that the author focuses on. Why? Because without a clean, guilt-free conscience we cannot draw near to God. I should pause here to say that we may devise many ways to try to deal with the problem of conscience on our own. We can live in denial of our guilt, we can try to go so far as to sear (kill) our conscience so that it will no longer haunt us. No doubt these are the popular methods of today to deal with the problem of guilt. I know because I’ve tried both and it left me empty. Why? Because I still had a guilty conscience that made me shrink back from God. I could not draw near to Him.

Like pretty much all of the dilemmas and problems that Hebrews exposes, the answer to the problem of a guilty conscience is Christ. Thank God Hebrews doesn’t just leave us there to figure out the answer on our own. Hebrews continues this theme of conscience in several passages as the book continues. Right after we learn that earthly sacrifices cannot purify man’s conscience, the author reveals what can:

¹¹But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) ¹²he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. ¹³For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, ¹⁴how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.
Hebrews 9:11-14

It’s Christ! The perfect sacrifice, God’s only Son, who can cleanse our conscience. Not only can He make us right before God, He can clean our conscience. And I would go so far as to say that if He only did one, what use would the other be? Justification in God’s sight would be pointless if we shrink back from Him out of guilt. A clean conscience would be worthless if the reality remained that we are sinners in the hands of an angry God (Hebrews 10:31). We need both to draw near to God and Christ has provided it!

As a result Hebrews 10:19-23 is beautiful music to our ears and heart:

¹⁹Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus,²⁰by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, ²¹and since we have a great priest over the house of God, ²²let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. ²³Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.
Hebrews 10:19-23

All who have faith in Christ (that will be the topic of the next post) have a great, unshakeable hope: a clean conscience that not just allows, but makes  us desire to, draw near to God. Through faith in Christ His sacrifice is applied to our hearts and we have confidence to draw near to God. I’d like to close with these confident words from James:

⁸Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
James 4:8

Jesus is The Word

I started studying Hebrews a few weeks ago, largely because the first three verses grabbed me to such a degree that I felt like I must see and understand what follows. Those first three awe-inspiring verses are as follows:

¹Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, ²but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. ³He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.
Hebrews 1:1-3

Those verses are packed with meaning and questions and my goal with this post is to share (at least as I see it) how these verses should leave us in complete awe of God.

First is the fact that in the Old Testament God spoke through the prophets. He used various means and ways, but it was always that God had a man to deliver his message. This was good and it was certainly by His grace that he revealed Himself to us though anyone at all.

Now, in these last days, God has spoken to us, not through his man (prophet) but by His Son. And there is something very special about His Son because He is appointed by God the Father as heir of all things (because He is the Son) and – here’s the amazing part – God the Father created the world through His Son.

If you’re like me at this point you may be thinking, “Wait a second. I don’t remember Christ creating the world. Wasn’t it God the Father who created the world?” Well, let’s look at Genesis 1:

¹In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. ²The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
³And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.
Genesis 1:1-3

So the question is where is Christ in the creation? We see God the Father and we see the Holy Spirit (Spirit of God) but we don’t explicitly see Christ (the Son). Or do we? In pondering this question another account of creation came to mind from the gospel of John:

¹In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ²He was with God in the beginning. ³Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.
John 1:1-3

According to this passage through the Word (notice the capitalization, that’s important) all things were made. And even before creation the Word was with God and the Word was God. The Word was Jesus Christ. So in looking again at Genesis, creation can be summarized as God spoke and it was. And what did God speak? The Word. God the Father spoke The Word. He spoke His Son. He created the world through The Word. Hebrews 11 affirms this thought:

³By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.
Hebrews 11:3

I don’t know about you, but that blows my mind: God creates though His Word – The Word – Jesus Christ. Not only that, but looking back at Hebrews 1:3 Christ upholds (sustains) the universe “by the word of his power.” In other words, if The Word ceased to be or was false we would cease to be. It is only in Christ by the power of His word that we continue to exist from second to second.

This is an incredible truth and if that was all there was to this we would be blessed beyond belief, but it goes even farther than this.

¹⁴And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
John 1:14

The Word, God’s perfect Son, became flesh – became a man. Can you imagine the risk of this? Of course, God is sovereign and knows all things. He knew that His plan would work – that death would be defeated and that Christ would become our eternal priest who makes it possible for us to draw near to God. But honestly (and this is all hypothetical) based on the fact that The Word is what God uses to create and sustain the world, I believe that if Christ sinned while He was on earth we would all cease to be. The Word would no longer have been perfect and true.

Of course we know, however, that’s not what happened. Christ lived a perfect, blameless life and then took the full weight of death and sin upon Himself for all who would believe. By The Word becoming flesh and perfectly living out The Word of God now there is a way to God. Hebrews 1:3 is the summation of what John 1:14 points to:

³He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.
Hebrews 1:3

Lord willing next post I will dive into how Christ made it possible for us to draw near to God. But for now, just know that He did. Our God is truly worthy of worship. Amen.

Melchizi-who?

If you read the last post I made, you will recall that Hebrews chapter 6 ends with these words: “We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor for the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.”

God’s oath fulfilled in Jesus is a steadfast anchor for our soul and gives us access to God (holiness). I understand that and it’s awesome. Then the chapter ends with the confusing words “having become a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.”

I have Googled Melchizedek and found a wide variety of thoughts about who he was (almost all contradict each other). There are only three places in the Bible that Melchezedek is mentioned. They are:

Genesis 14 after Abraham rescues Lot:

¹⁸And Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine. (He was priest of God Most High.) ¹⁹And he blessed him and said,
"Blessed be Abram by God Most High,
Possessor of heaven and earth;
²⁰and blessed be God Most High,
   who has delivered your enemies into your hand!"
   And Abram gave him a tenth of everything.

Psalm 110 (by David):

⁴The LORD has sworn
   and will not change his mind,
"You are a priest forever
   after the order of Melchizedek."

And then Hebrews 7 provides probably the most information about Melchizedek in scripture:

¹For this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the Most High God, met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him, ²and to him Abraham apportioned a tenth part of everything. He is first, by translation of his name, king of righteousness, and then he is also king of Salem, that is, king of peace. ³He is without father or mother or genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but resembling the Son of God he continues a priest forever.
⁴See how great this man was to whom Abraham the patriarch gave a tenth of the spoils! ⁵And those descendants of Levi who receive the priestly office have a commandment in the law to take tithes from the people, that is, from their brothers, though these also are descended from Abraham. ⁶But this man who does not have his descent from them received tithes from Abraham and blessed him who had the promises. ⁷It is beyond dispute that the inferior is blessed by the superior. ⁸In the one case tithes are received by mortal men, but in the other case, by one of whom it is testified that he lives. ⁹One might even say that Levi himself, who receives tithes, paid tithes through Abraham, ¹⁰for he was still in the loins of his ancestor when Melchizedek met him.

So it’s not a lot of information to work from, but it’s quite interesting. Based on what scripture provides there are a few things we know about Melchizedek:

1. His name means righteousness and peace.
2. He is a man (see verse 6).
3. He has no family line.
4. His priesthood is greater than the Levitical priesthood (that’s why Hebrews goes to such great lengths in explaining how Abraham tithed to Melchizedek).
5. He is a priest forever.
6. Everything about his priesthood points to Christ.

I believe this last point is the most important. The details of Melchizedek and how he came to be are not that important to know. What is important is that scripture shows that he was a priest of The Most High God, was outside of the Hebrew genealogy (he was around before there were Hebrews) and is a priest forever. If there’s one thing to remember about Melchizedek it’s that he is a priest forever, a picture of Christ who was to come.

Hebrews 7 makes it clear. Jesus Christ did not come as just another priest in the long line of Israelite priests (who always came from the tribe of Levi). Jesus was born from the tribe of Judah and is not a priest because of his lineage, but instead because of his eternal quality:

¹³For the one of whom these things are spoken belonged to another tribe, from which no one has ever served at the altar. ¹⁴For it is evident that our Lord was descended from Judah, and in connection with that tribe Moses said nothing about priests.
¹⁵This becomes even more evident when another priest arises in the likeness of Melchizedek, ¹⁶who has become a priest, not on the basis of a legal requirement concerning bodily descent, but by the power of an indestructible life. ¹⁷For it is witnessed of him,
"You are a priest forever,
   after the order of Melchizedek."

Why is Melchizedek in the Bible? Because if Jesus served as a priest in the order of Levi we would have no hope! His sacrifice would not be eternal. It would not last and it certainly could not save wretched sinners such as you and I. It is only because Jesus Christ is a priest forever (pointed to by Melchizedek) that we have any ability to draw near to God:

²³The former priests were many in number, because they were prevented by death from continuing in office,²⁴but he holds his priesthood permanently, because he continues forever. ²⁵Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.

Not only is Christ’s priesthood forever. His sacrifice is forever. And not only that, but His sacrifice is Himself. As we discussed before it is God’s oath that makes this possible, to create a people for Himself though our Forever High Priest Jesus Christ:

²⁶For it was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens. ²⁷He has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of the people, since he did this once for all when he offered up himself. ²⁸For the law appoints men in their weakness as high priests, but the word of the oath, which came later than the law, appoints a Son who has been made perfect forever.

So what does this mean for us 21st century Christians? It means that what God has done through Christ lasts forever, that by sacrificing His Son at Calvary we can have a relationship with the God who created us. It means that when we are God’s, we cannot be stolen away. When Christ’s blood atones for our sin, that lasts forever. It means that we can have supreme confidence that God’s work in us through Christ and the Holy Spirit cannot be stopped if we are His.

Melchizedek was no accident in scripture. He points straight to our eternal, unchanging, mysterious God.