Clough Hebrews Lesson 19
Jesus Christ: The Faithful High Priest – Hebrews 3:1-6
Hebrews 3, we’re on the second section of
Hebrews. Hebrews 1:1 thru
Now in Hebrews 3:1 we come to the first section of this large section, and we’re just going to deal with the first 6 verses in chapter 3. These six verses have to do with Christ’s faithfulness; in other words, take that big title and this part is Jesus Christ is the faithful high priest. That’s the content of the first six verses. Now this is a direct amplification of what was mentioned in Hebrews 2:17, “that He might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to constantly make propitiation for the sins of the people.” In other words, what is in focus, unlike Paul’s epistles, Paul emphasizes the once and for all finished work of Christ on the cross whereas this epistle emphasizes Christ’s continuing work in His session, that Jesus Christ now, in His session, is fulfilling a ministry. So keep this in mind, this is more or less concentrating on the doctrine of the session, or Christ’s continuing work in heaven now.
Verse 1 begins with “Wherefore;” wherefore refers to what we have seen in the first two chapters; it refers to the fact that Jesus Christ has been shown to be the perfect man. Jesus Christ is shown to fulfill the destiny of man, Jesus Christ is the only man who has gone on and is now glorified and this taught us the point of sanctification. Sanctification, contrary to legalism, does not mean getting rid of sin. Sanctification means becoming fit for God’s presence and secondarily, on the way, getting rid of sin. But getting rid of sins, the sin pattern, is not the objective of sanctification. It that is your objective, that is legalism and you’ll never make it. Our objective is a higher goal, in other words, if we had never sinned we would still need to be sanctified because Adam was not created fit for God; he had to become fit for God by historic regenerated righteousness through obedience and therefore so do we, and sanctification has as its objective being fit for God’s presence, and of course that includes getting rid of sin but it doesn’t just include that.
“Wherefore,” now he says, “holy brethren,” and I want you to notice this, and this should encourage many of you; many of you have a very lousy image of yourself as a believer. Many of you are very apologetic for yourself; many of you feel that you can’t look another believer in the eye, you feel ashamed of yourself, you feel that you’ve blown it, that you’ve done certain things that offend other believers, and so therefore you can never have fellowship and so on, and your life isn’t worth a tinker’s damn, etc. This kind of attitude is the kind of attitude that was behind the epistle to the Hebrews; these people had a very similar view of themselves as believers. They were tossing in the towel, they were quitting under pressure. They were believers who had not seen Jesus Christ in the flesh, they were believers who for a long time had to rely on eyewitnesses and secondary eyewitnesses.
In other words, they were just like people in the 20th century; they did not have direct in themselves eyewitness data; they had to rely on someone else who saw Jesus Christ. So their faith was second hand and second hand faith was beginning to fall apart when they faced economic deprivations, when they faced various business pressures that were brought against them, when they faced various snide remarks that used to be made against the Hebrew Christian community. These believers were beginning to quit; they had a lousy image of themselves, and yet I want you to see that in spite of everything that is said about these believers in this epistle, the author is well acquainted with their lives, he calls them “holy brethren.” That is their position and no matter who you are, I don’t care how many sins you have committed, will commit or are committing, when Jesus Christ regenerates you, you, by position are in Christ. This means God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit are doing things for your or have done things for you. God the Father has foreknown you; God the Father has predestinated you, God the Father has called you, He has justified you, He has glorified you and He disciplines you. That is part of your position as a Christian and no person can take it away from you, now way. No matter what you do you cannot harm this position. This position is yours and it’s your fighting base. When the going gets rough you must go back to this position; this is positional truth, it never changes.
God the Son has done things for you, He has lived a perfect life and therefore His perfect historical obedience has brought about righteousness within humanity which is passed to you by way of imputation, just as Adam’s sin was passed to you by way of imputation. Christ’s righteousness has been imputed or credited to your account. That was credited to you in one second and on the second God the Father justified you and declared you as legally obedient to Him. This is your position of acceptance with the Father. So therefore you share Christ’s righteousness, you also share His death, you share His resurrection. You share His session and the authority of that session, that in Christ you are superior to all angels. You are superior to the principalities and the powers of darkness by virtue of your position in Christ.
Christ also lives and makes intercession for you and that particular work is the subject of this epistle. It’s one part of your positional truth, the intercessory work of Jesus Christ at the Father’s right hand. Now how does intercessory work function. Christ, in His intercessory works functions to keep you and to keep me saved. In other words, though we are eternally secure the eternal security doesn’t come about historically automatically; it comes about in history through a definite and continuing activity of our high priest, Jesus Christ. This is why Christ’s high priesthood is so very, very important.
God the Holy Spirit regenerates you, indwells you, baptizes you, and by the way, He baptizes you at the time you become a Christian, not afterwards. There is no such thing as the Holy Ghost baptism where you froth at the mouth, roll down the aisle as a post salvation experience. And I have met demonically influenced believers who have messed around with this Holy Spirit baptism and if you want to get under demonic oppression real fast just fiddle around with that kind of thing and you’ll have it, then we’ll spend 30 or 40 hours messing around to get you out from it. Sealing, God the Holy Spirit seals you and this is your guarantee that as the Holy Spirit seals you unto the day of redemption, He puts His stamp of approval on and that’s it. The Holy Spirit also makes intercession for you, according to Romans 8:26. He is the One who designs your individual program of sanctification, so if you’ve got complaints as to why the trials in your life are coming in the order they are, take it up with the Holy Spirit, He’s the One that made the prayer. So of all the three persons of the Trinity the Holy Spirit is the One that sets up your life so you will learn to the maximum how to appropriate God’s grace. He will petition for certain changes in your soul that He sees are needed in order to bring you into conformity to Jesus Christ. You don’t know how to make the prayer, I don’t know how to make the prayer, the person who led you to Christ doesn’t know how to make the prayer, no one else knows how to make these kinds of prayers except God the Holy Spirit.
That’s your position in Christ; now that position is your holiness, your positional holiness. You don’t have to go to a holiness group, you are holy, that’s what it says here, “holy brethren.” And if you were to know these believers you would say they are not holy. Now knowledge of positional truth will destroy legalism; as often as I have beat my gums in this pulpit about the divine viewpoint of sins, we still have people in this congregation that are going around snubbing their noses at other people in this congregation because of certain overt sins. Now, again, for the millionth time, sins fall into three categories: mental attitude sin, sins of the tongue and overt sins. Overt sins are the easiest to spot; they are the first ones you usually become aware of and if you are a religious person they’re probably the only ones you’ll ever be aware of, as long as you stay religious, because many religious people can never get it through their head that you take the overt stuff and those are the things that people are condemned for. And nine out of ten overt activities are pretty low on the totem pole as far as God is concerned. I do hours and hours of, really it amounts to needless counseling because what it amounts is it’s tutoring lessons in sanctification. But in all these cases I have never yet seen a case where God the Holy Spirit is making an issue out of some overt activity and I’ve seen everything gross that you can imagine.
Overt sins are not the things that God is emphasizing. Now every time I make that statement I hear it downtown or some place where I go, business circles and so, oh Clough teaches the people at LBC they can go raise all the hell they want to; that’s not what I’m teaching. I am teaching that mental attitude sin are more offensive to God than overt sin and that mental attitude sin are the root anyway of overt actions. In fact, in many cases in the Scripture the overt action is simply allowed by restraining common grace in the person’s life so bring to their attention the mental attitude sins and when they deal with the mental attitude sins the overt sins clear up. And you can only conclude from it that God’s not making an issue out of the overt sins. So remember, mental attitude sins are the most satanic sins that you can ever commit. Pride is the base, the autonomous attitude is the base. Mental attitude sins are the kinds of sins that Satan does. How can Satan fornicate? He doesn’t have a body to fornicate with. So it’s not a satanic sin, it’s a sin all right, but the point is, what is it that Satan can do that you can do? Be proud, so therefore which is the closest? Obviously mental attitude sins, so mental attitude sins are the most ugly and the most vicious kinds of sins there are. You remember that.
The next time somebody says does so and so
go to your church, do you know what they do?
I am so tired of hearing that and I defend my sheep, if somebody says
you know what so and so is doing, I say yeah, I know what so and so is doing, I
know more about him or her than you do.
I know all about it. Well how can
they be a Christian and do that? Oh yes
they are, in fact that’s why they’re there, in fact, we’re the only church in
town that has a relaxed enough attitude where they tolerate it. So when somebody fusses to you about the
quality of people, so and so does that and they go to
“…partakers of the heavenly calling,” that is positional truth again, what God the Father is doing. Positional truth, God the Father has called us “partakers of the heavenly calling,” there is it, that’s what God the Father has done for us; “heavenly calling” means the calling from heaven, it’s a euphemism, in a way, for the calling of the Father, calling of God. Jews, as history went on, referred to God less and heaven more and more. And so they would use the word “heaven,” sort of with a capital “H”, they didn’t have English but that’s what they meant, sort of a capital “H” meaning God the Father.
“Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, [Christ Jesus].” The key word here is “consider,” this word, this verb, katanoeo, noeo means mind or thought or think; when you have a prefix which is really a preposition, kata, it usually intensifies the stem. So katanoeo means to consider diligently; it is in the aorist tense which means this is a habit, “consider.” He could be calling them to consider this at point, an aorist looks at a point so as he’s preaching, remember Hebrews is probably deliverer orally in a synagogue of Hebrew Christians, and he was saying now you consider, right now, consider it, don’t wait till tomorrow, I want you to consider it now.
“…consider, the Apostle and High Priest,” now this tells us something because this man was faced with discouraged believers. And facing these discouraged believers he didn’t get them into a rah-rah program. He didn’t get them hustling; he didn’t get them doing 1008 different activities. This man got them to focus on the person of Jesus Christ. In other words, believers whose lives are defective have a defective Christology, that is a knowledge of Christ. Their knowledge of Christ is fouled up and therefore their lives are fouled up, not the other way around. Their lives are fouled up because their Christology is fouled up. They do not have the proper picture of Jesus Christ. And if were one of the kind that said “amen,” I would say it at this point because many times in counseling we find the root problem, even of demonic problems, is guilt, just simple guilt, where the believer knows that God is powerful, the believer knows that God can deliver, the believer knows that God can answer the promise but the believer is not convinced that God will do it in his case.
Now if you have that attitude, that’s guilt. That’s what I’m trying to show you as you go through this epistle. More of us have more guilt than we like to realize because we think of guilt as some horrible emotional contrition over a point act, but as we read and study this epistle guilt comes out in a hundred different ways, and one of the ways is the attitude that God won’t do something for you, when you know He can if he wanted to, but He just doesn’t want to in your case. He loves all the other believers, He answers their prayers but He just won’t answer your prayers because He’s just being mean to you. Now that sense of alienation and lack of trust in God in your case is your guilt and it shows you how the defective picture of Jesus Christ and this epistle is written for you because this epistle is written to straighten you out and to straighten your picture of what Christ is doing for you so you won’t have this uncertainty, this hesitation, this sense of no confidence so you just run into a problem and you get defeated about it.
Now this epistle is written to inspire confidence but please look at the way the author tries to inspire confidence and that is to “consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession.” Now the two titles that Christ bears in this context, “the Apostle and High Priest” focus on two ministries. The apostleship, more on the sense of a prophet; an apostle is one who is sent out to do something or to give a message. When it says Jesus Christ is our Apostle, He is the One who is sent out as the prophet. And “High Priest” means that He goes from man to God; the prophet goes from God to man and the priest goes from man to God. So put the two offices together and you have two-way communication. Jesus Christ is Apostle, He reveals God to us, and He is also High Priest and He brings us to God.
If you will visualize yourself in a moving group, we sing “onward Christian soldiers, like a mighty army, moves the church of God,” if you will visualize a mass of people moving with you in the mass, the mass being born again Christians, there is a leader at the front and the leader is Jesus Christ, that’s the Priest; He is leading, He is facing in the same direction we’re facing, His back is to us, His face is to God and He’s walking toward God and bringing believers with Him. That’s the role of the priest. So think of the priest as the one who brings you to God’s presence. So if the problem of alienation, it’s going to be a problem involving your relationship to your priest. And if it’s a problem of guilt it’s going to be a problem, basically, that has to do with the priesthood of Christ.
See, these doctrines aren’t just given in history for our entertainment; they’re given to solve practical problems of the Christian life. And you may have used confession, 1 John 1:9, all the rest of it and still have alienation in the sense that God hasn’t forgiven you. Again, it’s your failure to appropriate by faith the priest work of Christ. As we go through this pray that God would open your eyes to the truth that you particularly need to meet your particular problem.
“… consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Jesus Christ.” Now the word “profession” means their public profession, this is what they were proclaiming. In other words, consider, and take a look at this person that we’re always talking about. Now it’s our profession that we attach faith to this person, Jesus Christ. That’s the theory, that’s what the public message is, that’s the party line, but what this man says is that’s the party line but now in that party line let’s just hold it a minute and look at it ourselves. We’re busy telling the world about Jesus Christ, let’s just stop a minute and look at Jesus Christ. So it’s an appeal to just whoa, slow down, and look at what we’re saying. We confess Jesus Christ fine, now let’s take a bigger look and better look and longer look at this one we profess or one we confess.
Hebrews 3:2, “Who,” it says in the King James, “was faithful to Him that appointed Him, as also Moses was faithful in all his house,” should be “Who is faithful,” those of you who know you Greek, you look at that and you’ll see there’s an onta there, that is a present participle, “who is faithful,” and do you notice in this epistle now, this is about the fourth or fifth time the present tense has been used where you would expect an aorist. Remember we found a present tense in Hebrews 2:17, “to make propitiation.” We thought why that should be aorist, that should refer to that point, that finished work outside the city walls of Jerusalem 19 centuries ago, that point, act, finished, completed. But no, the author of this says no, we’re not talking about the finished work of Christ, we’re talking about the continuing work of His intercession as a priest, the continuing present tense work of Christ.
So “who is faithful to Him that appointed Him,” now this faithfulness of Jesus Christ is the basis for our victory, the fact that Jesus Christ is a faithful high priest. How is Jesus Christ being faithful tonight? Jesus Christ is leading us through spiritual warfare. So let’s review what Bob Thieme has called the operation footstool or the summation of the angelic conflict in the Church Age.
The first thing is that in this
dispensation the Church as the body of Christ is God’s instrument; not
Two, the struggle against Satan is made at two points, actually it’s made at three, let’s go through all three of them. The first one is the point of justification; that’s when you become a Christian. That is a tremendous loss for Satan, to have a person who is openly aligned with his kingdom and the kingdom of darkness, a citizen of this world, influenced by the presuppositions of our culture, and that person suddenly abandons these presuppositions and becomes one of the napalm fanatics, when that happens, that is a loss for Satan, so that’s at one point where there is a collision. Therefore, what can you predict? Great spiritual struggles will always be found in the field of evangelism, if it’s done correctly. Satan will either try to blow the contact, he will try to get the evangelist or the person doing the evangelizing to misrepresent the gospel, he will do anything in his power to confuse the issue because he knows he’s going to lose if this person gets saved, gets justified. So it’s a tremendous loss and don’t think you’ll just waltz out there without any opposition; you’re going to get it, that’s why you have to be trained before you go out there.
It’s foolish for Christian organizations to take somebody that became a Christian then turn him around and he’s witnessing two hours later. That is as immoral as taking a young man off the street and putting him in the trenches some place shooting. It’s the same kind of thing and it’s immoral. And God doesn’t do it, men do it, not God. Those of you who have been here a while and you’ve taken in doctrine, you’ve been moderately successful at applying it and God has given you spiritual growth, you know what I’m talking about because you have already found that doors of opportunity have opened that you haven’t opened, that you’ve been placed in situations in your business, in the office, on the campus, wherever you are, ready made. Now how did those things come about? Because God considers you qualified, that’s when you should witness; when the doors open and God gives you the opportunity.
The second area where Satan is attacking and the collision is real hot is certain key decisions in your life on obedience to the Word. It isn’t always a constant, there are rest periods, and you can go through the Christian life and have a time of rest and the pressure seems to be off you, and yet there are these times when it just seems like the house falls in, one thing after another, wham, wham, wham, wham, wham and you’re tempted to say I can’t take it any longer, I’ve reached saturation and so on. 1 Corinthians 10:13, God has always made a way of escape that you may be able to bear it so start looking, it’s there. But this is the other place where Satan constantly wants to create problems; getting you to be deceived as to what is the will of God and then when you do know the will of God giving you some secondary thing that usually looks very nice but just doesn’t happen to be the will of God.
And then third, which we have nothing to do is when Christ blows the whistle, the rapture. That’s going to be a surprise too. That’s why there’s no prophecy before the rapture because it’s going to be a sneak move and Satan is going to think he has everything boxed in and all of a sudden the whistle blows. So the rapture is another sneaky that Christ is going to pull and that’s not of our doing and we can relax about that. For most of us here tonight number two is the big deal, the constant struggle to keep an obedient submissive attitude to the authority of Jesus Christ.
Three, the Church Age terminates with the rapture, 1 Thessalonians 4:16 and following. The rapture ends it; from that point forward Satan can’t lay a hand on the body of Christ. That’s why he’s so furious during the Tribulation.
Four, during the Tribulation, during the period of the Tribulation, the Church is being prepared in heaven as the bride of Christ. The Church is being prepared, the Church is not called the bride of Christ until after the Tribulation. The Church is not ready for the marriage feast with Christ until she goes through in heaven the various judgments and the various passing out of rewards and the cleansing and so on.
The fifth point, beginning with the Second Advent we reign with Christ as king-priests. Beginning at the Second Advent the Church reigns with Jesus Christ as king-priests, Revelation 5:10. So there’s history, there’s where it’s going and the battle is on; an intensive battle is being fought all around you.
So when it says Jesus Christ “is faithful to Him that appointed Him,” it means Christ constantly, constantly, constantly is making key petitions for us. If Christ were to stop tonight and quit, like these Hebrew believers quit, like some of you quit, we would lose our salvation. Jesus Christ can’t quit and therefore He shows His faithfulness. He is faithful, it says, “to Him that appointed Him,” that’s the Father, “as also Moses was faithful in all his house.” Now how was Moses faithful in all his house. Let’s take two parts of Moses life, the prophet side and the priest side and see how Moses was faithful.
Turn to Exodus 3; Moses is picked out
because Moses was the founder of the kingdom.
From the human point of view it was Moses that set up the nation;
Abraham, it was his family but it was only a family; only with Moses do you
have the foundation of the actual kingdom itself. So Moses is the founder of the kingdom. God appears to Moses in the flaming bush and
I want you to understand here, look carefully, empathize with Moses, it’s not
every day you see a burning bush, but Moses, after realizing what the burning
bush was had the horrifying problem that God was calling him to set off a
king-sized revolt in the nation
Moses said in Exodus 3:13, “…when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers has sent me, they’re going to say, What’s his name?” a very obvious question because these people had lived for 400 years, they didn’t know anything about their spiritual heritage, probably didn’t even know who the name Abraham was. And Moses says now what do I do? What do I do in this thing, you tell me to do this God, what am I supposed to do? So God gives him His name, this is where Yahweh starts and God says in verse 16, “Go, and get the elders of the nation together, and say unto them, The LORD God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob has appeared unto me, saying, I have surely visited you,” and then He lets Moses in on what’s going to happen.
Then Exodus 4:1, “And Moses answered and said, But, they’re not going to believe me, they’re not going to hearken unto my voice, they’re going to say, The LORD has not appeared to you.” See, man’s nature never changes, mans skeptic then, people didn’t buy this miracle bit, you saw a burning bush, that’s a likely story, out in the hot desert you saw a burning bush, you probably was hallucinating out there, how does Moses know he saw God appear in a burning bush. They had all sorts of reasons, people were skeptics then and Moses knew it. He said what am I going to do? And so God said here’s some more empirical evidence and he showed him the problem of the rod and the serpent and so on.
And Exodus
But the point is that Moses didn’t want to be faithful and I take you this because it sounds like it’s the opposite of what I’m trying to prove, because I want you to realize that this doesn’t come easy. Moses was called upon with a revolutionary message to project into a generation that was hardened in their skepticism and God said you do it, I don’t care how hard those people are Moses, I told you I want you to do it, now just do it. Now that’s where we are placed in our generation. And you might think of Moses, the fear, this man is afraid to do this; you’re going to be afraid, I’m afraid, but when we go out we’ve got to rest in the confidence of the truthfulness of the Word of God and go out whether we’re afraid or we’re not afraid. That’s where faithfulness is developed in the area of the prophetic function; announcing and proclaiming the Word of God to men whether you’re afraid or you’re not afraid.
The other part of the story is found in Exodus 32, Moses faithful as a priest. The follow-up, by the way, to what I just showed you is that Moses finally did do it, with Aaron but he did do it. And by the way, that should give you assurance. See Moses didn’t perfectly obey God and yet don’t you see that he’s called faithful. God would like us to be 100% obedient but He knows we’re not going to be and even when we’re less than that He still calls us faithful. You don’t have to bat a thousand to be known as a faithful believer. You can relax about that; Moses wasn’t batting a thousand, anywhere near a thousand and yet he goes down in pages as faithful.
Exodus 32:9, here’s where Moses is faithful as a priest. Remember now, what is a prophet? A prophet goes from God to the people. What is a prophet afraid of, generally afraid of? The people. He’s coming out of God’s presence to a people and so he’s afraid of moving into the people, so the problem with being a faithful prophet is dealing with your fear of man. Now the problem of the priest is exactly the opposite. He comes from man and he goes to God and his problem is dealing with his fear of God. So both ways you’re dealing with fear; fear of man going one direction and fear of God going the other direction. So now look what happens.
Exodus 32:9, “And the LORD said unto Moses, I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiff-necked people. [10] Now therefore let Me alone, that My anger may burn hot against them, and that I may consume them: and I will make of thee a great nation. [11] Then Moses besought the LORD his God, and said, LORD, why does your wrath wax hot against Thy people, whom Thou has brought forth out of the land of Egypt with great power, and with a mighty hand?” And the chapter goes on to describe Moses’ intercession. Moses, in other words, stood up to God. Do you see that both of these roles demand guts. The prophet has to stand up to men, the priest has to stand up to God. Whether you’re proclaiming by lip the gospel of Jesus Christ in an evangelistic situation, whether you’re proclaiming truth of the Word of God to believers who don’t want to believe you, you have to be faithful. If you’re a priest and you come before God and you bear the sins and you’re confessing them and you’re making intercession, you have to have diligence before Him. Both roles demand this confidence. Now that’s what it’s talking about.
Turn to Numbers 12 for a summary of Moses because one of these verses in Numbers is used, one of these verses is used and requoted in Hebrews. And here’s the payoff because here’s where it all comes out as to what the application of this author is. Now he ties the two roles together now; Numbers 12:1, look at the situation and mentally make a note in your head, Moses is acting as Christ acts, okay, typology, Moses is a type of Christ. Now watch what happens here.
“Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Ethiopian woman whom he had married.” He had married a colored woman, in case you can’t decipher the text, that’ll blow your mind, some of you; Moses set the precedent, so if that’s one of your pet hang-ups, what’s good enough for Moses is good enough for anybody. Moses married an Ethiopian woman, it created a stir in the social circles. And one of the biggest mouths that was maligning Moses for doing this was none other than his glorious sister, Miriam. So, [2] “They said, ahs the LORD indeed spoken only by Moses? Has He not spoken also by us?” Now what it this? This represents… watch how gossip works. See, Moses does something up here, whether it’s right or wrong is not the issue, the issue is, Miriam is mouthing about it, maligning, making gossip and Moses has done this thing. Moses happens to be the authority, so what does this gossip, in effect, amount to? It’s undermining Moses’ authority. Moses is the one appointed in command and whether Miriam or Aaron like it, that’s tough; Moses is the one that God has picked to be in command. And God hasn’t sacked him yet and as long as God leaves him in command then they are to obey and to submit to Moses’ authority. So they try to undermine it. “And the LORD heard it. [3] (Now the man Moses was very meek,” that doesn’t mean weak, it means meek, it means he recognized his place in the chain of command, “above all the men who were upon the face of the earth) [4] And the LORD spoke suddenly unto Moses, and unto Aaron, and unto Miriam, Come out, all three of you, to the tabernacle of the congregation.” Imagine what a scene this was. All of a sudden, whoof, all three of you, report!
Now they all three very gingerly go out to the Tabernacle, [5] “And the LORD came down in the pillar of the cloud, and stood in the door of the tabernacle,” this is one way that every pastor wishes would happen to all the gossip and maligning that goes on, the Lord just handled it real quick. “… and called Aaron and Miriam, and they both came forth. [6] And He said, Hear now My words: If there be a prophet among you, I the LORD will make Myself known to him in a vision, and will speak to him in a dream. [7] My servant, Moses, is not so,” in other words, he’s just not a prophet, he was a special person higher than a prophet, “My servant, Moses, is not so, who is faithful in all My house. [8] With him will I speak mouth to mouth, even apparently [plainly]” it means clearly, “and not in dark speeches; and the similitude of the LORD shall he behold. Therefore, then, why were you not afraid to speak against My servant, Moses?”
Now what’s the issue. The issue is whether or not they are going to respect Moses’ authority. [9] And the anger of the LORD was kindled against them, and He departed. [10] And the cloud departed from off the Tabernacle; and behold, Miriam was leprous, white as now: and Aaron looked upon Miriam, and, behold, she was leprous. [11] And Aaron said unto Moses, Alas, my lord, I beseech thee, lay not the sin upon us, wherein we have done foolishly, and wherein we have sinned. [12] Let her not be as one dead, of whom the flesh is half consumed… [13] And Moses cried out, [unto the LORD, saying, Heal her now, O God, I beseech thee],” Moses had a fantastic grace attitude. Verse 13 is one of the greatest verses of that chapter. If it would have been me I’d say great, keep her there. She worried about my black wife she can revel in all her whiteness. She wants to be white, it’s such a beautiful color to her, let her be white. [14] “And the LORD said unto Moses, If her father had but spit in her face, should she not be ashamed seven days? Let her be shut out from the camp seven days, and after that let her be received in again. [15] And Miriam was shut out form the camp seven days: and the people journeyed not again till Miriam was brought in again.”
Now what is that? A person who violated Moses’ authority was disciplined by exclusion from fellowship. Now that’s the principle; rebellion against authority means they are going to be excluded from fellowship. Now let me just add a little principle here because you are all going to see this sooner or later. And maybe you’ve seen it already. You’ll find believers that can never settle down in a local church. You’ll find them in this city, they’ve always got an excuse why they can’t settle down inside a local church, I’ve got to do this and I can’t stand that and all the rest of it, they’ve always got an excuse. Some of them are legitimate, but you mark my words, that kind of believer who can’t settle down in a local church is one who can’t accept authority. 99 times out of 100 you’re talking to a person who cannot respect authority and not only can they not respect authority but that’s why God will not even allow them to be in a local church. They’d mess up the local church, get rid of them.
All right, turn back to Hebrews 3 and we’ll make the application to Jesus Christ. We’ve got the picture, we’ve seen what a priest is, we’ve seen what a prophet is, we’ve seen that both of these offices were combined in Moses, we’ve seen that Moses was faithful, not perfectly but faithful, he was meek, he recognized his weakness and his place in the plan of God, that’s all that God required. And now Hebrews 3:2 again, Jesus Christ is faithful to the Father, “as Moses was faithful in all his house.” Now His is the Father’s house. [3] “For this man,” that’s Jesus Christ, “has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses,” now what was the glory that Moses was accounted worthy of because the last part of verse 2 is a quote from Numbers 12, that’s a verse we just read over there? Moses was faithful in his house.” Now in the context, what was Numbers 12 all about? Failure to submit to authority, wasn’t it.
What do you suppose the inkling is there in verse 3. “For this man,” Jesus, “is counted of more glory than Moses,” that means you ought to respect Christ’s words, Hebrew Christians, more than you respect Moses’ words. See, Moses was the savior of the Jews. And what this verse says is you’d better believe Jesus Christ more than you do Moses because Jesus Christ is your high priest and Jesus Christ may not vengeful, Moses wasn’t a vengeful man, but do you remember what happened to Miriam and Aaron when they bad-mouthed Moses? What’s going to do when you bad-mouth His Son? Don’t bad-mouth the Son or you’re going to be in trouble. Now this comes down to us in such verses as John 3:18; John 3:36, “He that believes not in the Son of God is condemned.” Why is he condemned? Because he hasn’t believed. In other words, failure to submit to the words of Jesus Christ is an insult to God’s authority; it means any person who does not submit…, any person who does not submit to the authority of Jesus Christ is rebelling against the authority of the God of the universe. It’s as simple as that; that’s what this verse is teaching.
Hebrews 3:3, “For this man was counted worthy of more glory than Moses, inasmuch as he who has built the house has more honor than the house. [4] For every house is built by someone, but He that built all things is God.” The picture of the house and the builder, which was prominent in classical Greek literature, was used here, except in this case the word “house,” oikos, is the word which means the same thing as the Hebrew, it means a literal building or it can mean a family and in this case, obviously it refers to a family, the nation Israel and in this case born again believers.
Hebrews 3:5, “And Moses verily was faithful in all his house, as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken after,” that is, his life itself was a type of the work of Christ. [6] “But Christ as a son over His own house, whose house we are,” now just pause there for a moment, I want you to look at something. Small point, those of you taking Greek, here’s where you can make a contribution. “Moses was faithful in all his house,” verse 5, “Christ as a son over His house,” what are the two prepositions used there, two different prepositions. What’s the one used in verse 5, “Moses was faithful in all his house,” do you follow that, do you see en, Moses was faithful in his house,” this is the preposition in, but look at how the preposition shifts when you come to verse 6, see the shift? A whole doctrine is in that shift of prepositions, “Christ as a son over His house,” what’s the preposition there? epi, over, what does that say? Moses was in the house, Christ is over the house. Moses was faithful in the house, but Moses himself was part of the house, that is, he was part of saved humanity. Moses was in the group, faithful but still in the group. Jesus Christ is not part of the group, He stands over the group. He is not part of saved humanity, He didn’t have to be saved. He wasn’t fallen. So Jesus Christ is over the house as the son.
Now the last part of verse 6, the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints, one of the clearest parts of the New Testament, “whose house we are, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end.” “Whose hose we are if,” in the Greek there are various constructions, when you have this kind of a thing in the protatis, ean plus the subjunctive, it is what is known as the third class, the third class condition means if, maybe yes or maybe no. The first class is yes, the second class is no, the third class is maybe yes or maybe no. So it’s important to always study conditional clauses in the Greek. “If,” it’s a third class here, that means theoretically it is possible, and we’re going to get into this right now, as to the endurance of the Christian. “If and we may or may not hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope [firm unto the end,” the confidence means confidence in public, the rejoicing of the hope means what we’re boasting in, we’re boasting in our salvation in Christ, that we are going to be eternally secure, that Jesus Christ is going to save us from all sins, all judgment, and we have perfect acceptability with God the Father, that’s our hope, that God’s plan is going to come to an end, it’s going to be victorious, Jesus Christ is going to completely cleanse us from all sin and have us in a state of perfect redemption, that’s our hope, that’s our rejoicing.
Now this author is saying it is possible to start off with the hope and lose it. Now does this teach loss of salvation? No it doesn’t. What the verse teaches is that the true born again believer will endure. You say what about the sin unto death? That’s part of their endurance, the very fact that they raised hell and are clobbered is a sign of their salvation. But if you have a person who is a believer and continues on, he may have his ups and his downs, but if he is a believer God is not going to let him go.
This verse has another very, very sobering application, however, and here is the sobering application. This is why we’re so strong on why you’ve got to be very careful when you do our evangelizing. This verse teaches it was possible to simulate conversion. It is possible to see someone who looks as though they have accepted Christ and really haven’t. It is possible, in other words, to have phonies. Now it’s true, those of us who are genuine believers have the testimony of the Holy Spirit, this is taught in Romans, but it is very possible to have phonies. I think one of the most interesting things I’ve ever noticed about the New Testament is that God did not accord the apostles the gift of discernment as to whether a person was a believer or not. Nowhere in the New Testament do we find that particular gift. The apostles had to rely on the fruits of an enduring life because in every epistle this doctrine occurs.
Now stated, here’s what it says, the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints: True regeneration is proved by the ultimate success. True regeneration is proved out by ultimate success.
Two, this does not mean perfectionism, this simply means endurance. It doesn’t mean that you’ve got the endurance, it just means that God keeps after you, because He never lets you rest.
Three, it is possible, therefore, to have a phony conversion, and this is why it is so dangerous to pressure someone into a decision for Jesus Christ without adequate understanding of the issues, because under the social pressure of the situation, you get a couple of people around and they can force somebody to pray and receive Christ or do whatever they do in a particular group and it doesn’t mean any more than the birds and the bees, it doesn’t mean a thing, not a thing. All you’ve got is a fouled up mess because now you can’t tell if a person’s a believer or not. One of the verses which you can go to if you like to see how this works out is 1 John 2:19 where John says they went out from us to show that they were never, never of us. They are not losing what they had, they never had it to begin with.
Four, this is the basis for two parables that are very famous, the wheat and the tares and the sower of the seed. Those two parables are about the perseverance of the saints; the wheat and the tares grow up together. Why are they growing up together? Because the tares mimic the wheat and they’re not separated for a while. And the sower, the seeds sprout and seem to show fruit, and later die away. This is the Jewish way of looking at it.
Five, and this is the most important point of it all and this is the point that this author is trying to get through, the key manifestation of your salvation… the key sign or evidence of your salvation is not how many good works you do. The key sign of your salvation in your confidence in the forgiveness of sin. That’s why he’s picking at this guilt. The key sign is the confidence, inwardly, that your sins are forgiven, that tonight if you were to die apart from all the sanctification that’s needed in your life, you know about it, you know your faults, you know where you fall down, you know all the sin patterns, you know all the crud, in spite of all that if you were to die tonight would you be acceptable to God the Father. Do you have that confidence of forgiveness of sins. Now if you don’t you can talk to someone here or you can talk to me but you should have that confidence of forgiveness of sins, that the key. And that’s what agitates this author, and that’s what he’s saying, that if we are in Christ’s house, and we have a faithful priest, part of that priest’s ministry to us will be to produce assurance of the forgiveness of sins, and if Christ hasn’t given that, we have some problems that ought to be checked.
Father, we thank You….