Monday, February 18, 2013

Hebrews 13:7-17


7 Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. 8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.

 

9 Do not be carried away by all kinds of strange teachings. It is good for our hearts to be strengthened by grace, not by eating ceremonial foods, which is of no benefit to those who do so. 10 We have an altar from which those who minister at the tabernacle have no right to eat.

 

11 The high priest carries the blood of animals into the Most Holy Place as a sin offering, but the bodies are burned outside the camp. 12 And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood. 13 Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore. 14 For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come.

 

15 Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise—the fruit of lips that openly profess his name. 16 And do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased.

 

17 Have confidence in your leaders and submit to their authority, because they keep watch over you as those who must give an account. Do this so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no benefit to you.

 

 

Dig Deeper

We live in a world that is in a constant state of flux.  It seems that everything changes and quite quickly as a matter of fact.  Clothing styles, hair styles, popular products, political views, you name it, it is ever-changing.  One need look no further than your high school yearbook to see how quickly styles change.  I can recall being in high school just a little over twenty years ago and enjoying going to the new video stores.  At first, my town of about 60,000 people had just one video store that I can remember.  Pretty soon, however, there were stores everywhere and they were always crowded.  They were extremely popular and started to get bigger and fancier.  Then, just as quickly as VHS tapes came on the scene and became the center of the entertainment lives of society in some ways, technology changed.  Suddenly DVD’s were all the rage and the video stores became even more popular.  But then one day I saw a little red vending machine box that was distributing movies, doing the same job that these video stores were doing.  Combined with the availability of movies via the internet, video stores were suddenly dinosaurs.  In the matter of one generation they went from not existing to the kings of the world, and now it is difficult to find a video store that is still open these days.  Things change quickly.

 

The world didn’t change at quite that dramatic of a pace for the original audience of Hebrews but it did still change.  At least their attitudes towards Christ seemed to be shifting.  And that is something of the point that the writer of Hebrews wants to bring home as he starts to draw his letter to a close.  They were once a thriving and sacrificial community despite the huge odds against them and the stiff persecution.  But many had faltered and now their knees were starting to feel week.  The whole letter has been centered around getting them fixated back on Jesus, who he is, and the superior nature of a relationship with him.  He is still the same Jesus that were once so willing to sacrifice for and so willing to do anything for.  The world around them had changed and perhaps the persecution had grown stiffer, but they had apparently changed some too.  Yet, Jesus is God and he never changes.  He is unwaveringly as deserving of the loyalty now that they once gave him.  And the gospel to which they were called?  Well, that’s the same too because Jesus is the embodiment of that gospel.  They once had undivided loyalty to Jesus and his gospel and they need to maintain that loyalty to the unchanging Messiah if they were going to finish the race strong.

 

As the author brings his incredible lesson to a close, he calls them to remember their leaders who initially preached the gospel to them.  They should recall what was preached and why they responded to it which would in turn motivate them to do the things that they did at first; to reinvigorate the convictions that they once held.  They should also consider the outcome of their way of life.  The word rendered “outcome” here was a figure of speech that referred to “closing out” or “finishing” and it appears that his point is that those who first shared the gospel with them had died.  But they should ponder the sincerity of their faith and perseverance and see that it was not in vain.  The word that was preached to them then was the same gospel that some were abandoning now.  The gospel hadn’t changed, they had.  The gospel hadn’t lost its power, they had lost their nerve.

 

But all they need to do is to consider Jesus Christ.  He is unchanging and the power of his life and his gospel have never changed.  Since God is the only being that never changes, this was surely a high description of their Lord and Savior.  He was none other than God and so to abandon him meant to abandon God.  But the logic here shouldn’t be missed.  The author is saying that when they accepted the gospel they did so because they knew it to be true.  To abandon it now would not mean that the gospel had changed or was no longer effective; something that perhaps they were starting to think.  Jesus Christ never changes and neither does his word.  So if they walked away from the faith now it would be a devastating commentary on their own faith.  They would not be leaving one thing for something better.  They would be leaving the only thing worth having because they refused to hold on to it.

 

It is the unchanging nature of Christ and the gospel that can cause Hebrews to exhort the readers not to be carried away by all kinds of strange teachings, evidently including ancient Judaism in that category as well.  We cannot overstate the challenge of that statement at the time this was written, even after three or four decades of Christianity.  Judaism was still a major influence on the lives of Jewish Christians and formerly God-fearing Gentiles (Gentiles that observed parts of Judaism without becoming circumcised among other things) that had become Christians.  But Judaism had now been moved into the category of religion with the coming of Christ.  It was now a choice between the grace of God found in the life of Christ and everything else, including the Jewish Temple system. 

 

Our author is about to give one more go at demonstrating the superiority of Christ to all other options and he does so here by outlining four advantages that Christians have that would be lost if they lost their grip and returned to Judaism or turned to any other savior other than Christ.  The first is that we have an altar.  The author does not directly state what that altar is, but he is most likely referring to the Cross (or the Lord’s Supper which represents the Cross).  Those who remain in the life of Christ can enter into and serve in the true tabernacle, the heavenly one, through the blood of Christ.  Those that don’t remain faithful to Christ, however, have no altar and no way to enter into that tabernacle. 

 

The second, that he is our disgrace to bear, is  a little more complicated point.  The point is that even during the Old Covenant the blood of animals purified the Holy of Holies but they were first sacrificed outside of the community.  In the same way, Jesus made his people holy through his own blood but he was also taken outside of the “camp,” which was the city gate of Jerusalem.  In that picture the writer sees a helpful comparison for the Christian life.  Jesus was exiled outside of the gate and crucified like a man scorned.  That was the intention of those that wanted him dead.  But they didn’t realize that they were doing to him what was rightly done with a cleansing sacrifice.  Thus, we need not be ashamed of how Christ died.  In the same way, when the readers of this letter were being shamed, persecuted, and rejected they could take comfort in knowing that this was the price to pay for being part of Christ’s people.  It shouldn’t bring them shame, though, but the comfort of knowing that they were simply bearing the same disgrace for the benefit of others that Jesus bore.  They were truly living his life.

 

The third advantage is that Christians have a city that is to come.  We can get caught up building our own castles that won’t last very long or focus on the Kingdom of God which will last for eternity.  The only city that will last is God’s Kingdom and that is the only one that makes sense to seek.  Taking a return to the physical Jerusalem and its impressive Temple would not be a smart move.  This point would have become even more powerful just a few years later when the Temple was destroyed by the Roman army.

 

The final element is that through Jesus Christ we have a sacrifice to offer.  Only Christians can now offer a sacrifice that God truly wants because we have entered into the only sacrifice that will ever be needed, the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ.  Lips that confess that Jesus is Lord and call on his name (Rom. 10:9, 13) by being baptized into his life (Rom. 10:13; Acts 22:16) and a life that responds to that mercy (Titus 3:4-8) by doing good and sharing all that God has given us with others is the sacrifice that God is looking for.  Only in Christ do we have that and only in Christ can we please God.

 

Verse 17 seems to hint that some of the problem was that they were no longer listening to their current leaders.  In verse 7 he called them to recall and hold to the teaching of their first leaders, the ones that had called them to the gospel.  Now he he encourages them to listen to their current leaders who were no doubt teaching and exhorting them to stay faithful to Christ.  They should, he says, “have confidence” or “obey” their leaders.  The 1984 NIV used the term “obey” while the newer NIV version’s “have confidence” probably better captures the essence of the passage.  Another good way of understanding the term is to “allow yourself to be influenced by.”  In their struggle, they had forgotten to listen to those leading them in Christ, and in so doing were rejecting the message that they had converted to when they first heard the gospel.  What benefit is it, after all, to constantly disregard, fight against, and refuse to have confidence in or be influenced by one’s leaders?  One should never follow blindly, but as long as the leaders are teaching the same core gospel that was preached to them at first, they should trust them and have confidence in what their leaders were saying over and above their circumstances or emotions. 

 

It is easy to let the wind and waves of life come and throw us about and change our convictions.  But we must always remember that we have a mediator who has never changed and never will change.  He made the final sacrifice for us and that is all that we will ever need if we just trust it to the end. 

 

 

 

 

Devotional Thought

Does your commitment to the Kingdom of God and the Gospel of Jesus look that same as it always has?  Is your zeal for God and his church every bit as much as it used to be?  Certainly our situations in life can change and that may impact certain things in our life, but it should never change our loyalty, commitment and zeal to God’s Kingdom.  If things have changed over the years perhaps it’s time to ask yourself if the Gospel has changed or have you. 

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