Clough Hebrews Lesson 49

Summary of Hebrews – 1:1-10:18

We’ll start tonight with Hebrews 8:1. What I’m going to spend this time doing, since we have ended the first part of Hebrews, from 1:1 to 10:18 and we’ve gone through innumerable detail and I’m afraid people will lose the forest for the trees so for that reason I am going to go over the presupposition that this author uses in his argument, just try to tie this together into one. As a general overview, if you notice the worksheet, sections 1, 2 and 3, those are the three sections which we’ve just covered. And you’ll notice that this first part, up to 10:18, the superiority of Christianity is the basis for exhortation, and the point is that from this point forward, from 10:19 on you will see what exhortation, Biblical exhortation is like, after he’s laid this careful doctrinal base.

The first section, the second section and the third section form a progress; there’s a logical progress here and you want to look at it because this will show you something about the way a Hebrew thinks, at least the way the men thought who wrote the Bible. If you just back off for a minute and look at this big picture, the whole first section is basically talking about revelation of the Son. In other words, if you wanted to pick out one word it would be revelation, God has spoken to us.

The second section deals with the priesthood of the Son and the third section deals with the duties of the priesthood. So you see, you start with the general, the general idea that the son is revealed. Then you go to a specific, so what, you could say 1008 things about God the Son, which thing is said about God the Son, His priest-ness, that He is a priest. That’s the second section. So you go from the general to the specific. Then the third section is more specific than the second one. The second one said he was a priest, the third one goes into the specific duties of a priest. So you see this mode of argument, you’ll see it again and again and again in your Bibles. Get used to it; the Bible will give you a big general statement, then it’ll narrow it down to a specific and then it’ll tie it to even a tighter specific.

If you want a good background for what these Jewish people were facing I would suggest reading Arnold Fruchtenbaum’s new book, Hebrew Christianity. Read particularly chapter 3 in Arnold’s book, which deals with the history of Hebrew Christianity. Arnold was telling me about this when he came here, he had to do a lot of research to find out the history of the Hebrew Christian movement and one of the interesting things that came to light was how the Hebrews Christian got to be called a traitor; the unbelieving Jews refer to the Hebrew Christians as traitors. And this came about at two points, and I think this is relevant to understand the crisis that this author was trying to head off in this epistle.

The first time that the Hebrew Christians were classified as traitors to the Jewish nation was in 70 AD. Titus’ armies had surrounded Jerusalem… well, it was earlier than that, when Vespasian, his father, Titus’ father was Vespasian, Titus’ father Vespasian began the siege of Jerusalem around 68-69 AD and he got a call to become Caesar so he went back to Rome and left his son in charge and Titus finished off the job. But the Hebrew Christians, when they saw the armies of the Roman Empire gathering around the city of Jerusalem remembered what Jesus had told them, to get out, to flee the city. And then in a miraculous point, nobody knows why, but after they got all their siege works in place the Roman army, for some strange reason, for a period of about 36 hours, stopped the siege and the commanders recalled the soldiers from the siege works and they backed off. During those 36 hours the Hebrew Christians left Jerusalem, following what Christ had prophesied in the last of the Gospels, and because they left the city during the siege, the zealots sang in the city, then when the siege was resumed by the Roman soldiers, since the Hebrew Christians fled they were called the traitors.

Then in 132-135 AD there was the revolt of Bar Kokhba and this is the place where he was at first a nationalist leader and he gathered the Jews together to fight against the Romans. The Hebrew Christians joined them against the fight against the Romans, but then half way through the struggle there was a famous Jewish rabbi, called Rabbi Akiba, and Rabi Akiba declared that Bar Kokhba was the Christ and when Rabbi Akiba declared that Bar Kokhba was the Christ then the Hebrew Christians could no longer fight under that banner because Jesus was their Christ and they had to leave that battle. So at two points of history, 70 AD and 132 AD the Hebrew Christians deserted the Jewish nation—the Jewish nation thinks, out of Messianic consideration of the New Testament. And because they did so, forever afterwards in history the Hebrew Christians have been looked upon as a traitor by his fellow Jews, not just because he was converted to Christianity, but because he didn’t stick around when the battle was on to save the nation. But that’s the kind of situation that these people faced to whom this epistle was written. And you can read all the details in Arnold’s book. That’s the basis of the historical background.

Now I want to deal with the third section first so that’s why we’ll start at 8:1 and now we’re not looking at details. Now we’re backing off and trying to get the big picture. In Hebrews 8:1 we have the beginning of the third section. Tonight our major objective is not worry about details but let’s see how the guy argues his case. In verse 1 he summarizes the first and second section; he gives you the summary. “Now of the things which we have spoken this is the sum: We have such a high priest, who is seated on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens.” That is a summary statement of everything that’s come up to Hebrews 7:28, that last verse. There’s the recapitulation and summary, so he gives you the whole outline to his book, right there in one sentence, at least up to that point.

Obviously by this time Jesus’ priesthood has been established. So now in verse 2 he moves on to the priestly setting, and as your outline indicates, three things: the covenant, the tabernacle, and the sacrifice. Now I want you to notice how he does it. In verse 2-3, “A minister of the sanctuary,” he calls Jesus, “and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man. [3] For every high priest is ordained to offer gifts and sacrifices; wherefore, it is of necessity that this man have somewhat also to offer.” Now can anyone see a presupposition in his argument, as he moves from verse 2 to verse 3 he exercises a certain kind of logic and it’s a very important kind of logic. Can anyone see what’s happening there; as the author introduces his third section. He’s proved Jesus is a priest but what does he do now to get into verse 3, he’s going to start saying things that Christ has to do. [someone answers] Who does? [reply] Okay, the congregation has been around a high priest, but what is the argument?

His argument is that Jesus… see, here’s what he’s proved so far, we’ll go back to test this one. He’s proved that Jesus equals a priest, now he’s moving one step further in his argument to say therefore Jesus has to do certain things. Now how can he say this? What, to be perfectly picky about this, what has he assumed. [someone answers] All right, he has assumed that everything you read about in the Old Testament about priests is valid for the grand finale. He has assumed that all that Old Testament detail is going to be fulfilled in the person of Christ, that when he talks about priests he’s not talking about any priests, he’s talking about the priests that would model from the Old Testament. The Old Testament would be the control here in the argument. So he’s assuming in verses 2-3 that the Old Testament law foreshadowed the final state of affairs. Now he doesn’t state that in verses 2-3 notice; he doesn’t state it, but it’s assumed. Now this is one thing we want to… tonight we’re going to concentrate and everything this author assumes is true is going to tell us a lot abut his method of argument, it’s going to tell us a lot about the way he’s going to argue from the Old Testament.

In Hebrews 8:2-3, when we have the argument that moves from Jesus equals priest to Jesus has to do X, Y and Z, we have a certain assumption underlying that argument. The assumption is that the Old Testament law foreshadowed the final state. Now he never states this directly here, he does it other places but he never states it directly here, it’s all assumed. Now this may look like a very, very small assumption but to support this assumption this man has a philosophy of history; there’s a philosophy that is presupposed in him and his thinking, it is a philosophy of history that is presupposed in his reader’s thinking. What would you characterize this philosophy of history? It’s a certain philosophy… in order to hold to this assumption, in order to hold to that assumption you have to have a certain philosophy of history and here’s where were going to get into some of the real root of the Old Testament and New Testament tonight. This is where it does matter what you believe and you don’t just go into a philosophy class and argue as though being a Christian doesn’t mean anything. It has tremendous philosophic overtures.

What were some things that you can say about how this man believes about how history moves? [someone answers] Okay, he believes in a supernatural creation by Jehovah, we know this because he’s schooled in the Old Testament, but can anyone link that fact or that doctrine to this specific assumption? What’s involved in that assumption? [someone answers] All right, that’s something, history has a definite plan. Now have some of you studied the myths of the ancient world enough so you know that this is a revolutionary assumption. In many, many cultures and times history has no purpose, it’s just cyclic, it just goes around and around and around. This is a peculiar contribution to man’s thought in the Scriptures, that history has a purpose. History does have a purpose. What else can we do to amplify this; what else is involved in this man’s philosophy of history?

[someone answers] All right, and expressed in one of God’s attributes in particular, God is sovereign. Very heavy on this, that God is sovereign over the entire historical process, such that when we deal with our friends in sociology and anthropology who are the worlds greatest relativists, such that the sovereign God can control data and behavior in cultures separated thousands of years apart in time. He can control the experience of Israel at 1400 BC such that that experience embodies characteristics which will then reappear in, say 40 AD. So for a gap of 14 centuries God is able to invest certain characteristics inside the historical process that will pop out later on. History is connected by a grand plan under the sovereign God. Said another way in more common terminology, this man believes that there are bona fide Biblical types…bona fide types, and since there is a typology of the Bible, the typology presupposes this flow of history, that history does have a plan, that God is sovereign.

Now this has certain corollaries to it. What would this man answer if you asked him about whether he considered it necessary that God’s revelation at every place in history correlate logically. If you posed that question to this author, what do you suppose this author would reply back to you? Is he for it or again it? This author would be very much for the rational and logical consistency in revelation. But notice what kind of a consistency; he holds to a rational consistency, say here’s the Old Testament revelation back here, here’s the New Testament revelation, and they are not in conflict, they can be rationally put together without logical contradiction. But notice something, and this is just a note in passing.

For those of you who go on in the field of historical studies or philosophy or something like that, or if you just enjoy reading a lot of Greek philosophy, just remember that this is not the rational consistency that Plato and the Greek philosophers wanted to have. They wanted to build a rational consistency like you learned in plain geometry where you start out with axioms and then you build the theorems from the axioms and you build this big logical system that stands out from this axiomatic base. And they were talking about here developing a rationally consistent system. It’s not that; why isn’t it that. The Greeks thought that you could get comprehensive enough axioms then working on these axioms logically would produce truth and you’d expand it. Now why is it that that is not… that is NOT the idea here? This man holds to rational consistency but not like that. He doesn’t hold that you have a bunch of axioms and then you just squeeze them logically and the truth pops out on down the line.

[someone answers] All right, he would argue that the rational processes have fallen, though he doesn’t in this epistle. That’s true but can someone point out something about the Biblical flow of history that would argue that it’s not closed off like this. See, ideally the Greeks were looking for a system where once you generate your axioms you never have to bring any more axioms into the system to keep it going. What’s constantly being brought into the system? Let me draw two pictures here, and he influences our concept of logic. That’s why I’m going in this round about way tonight. The Greek says look, I’ve got axiom one, axiom two, dot, dot, dot, dot, here’s all my set of axioms. From those axioms I drive all my theorem; once you give me the axioms you don’t have to give me anything more, I can generate the entire system.

Now what’s different from that than this? [answers given] You’re closing in on it, can someone pull it together. [more said] Right. Now you see, the Greek idea was that these axioms were all like over-ripe fruit; the axioms included within themselves all the truth that would pop out in the system. All the time you’re generating these theorems here you’re not adding new truth, you’re just discovering what was in the axiom. The Hebrew idea wasn’t that at all; the Hebrew idea was God would give you truth one, then He’d give you truth two, then you’d be given truth three, you might deduce a few more truths out of that and then God would pump some more truth in. So the idea of the Hebrew was that God kept pumping truth into the system as you went along. He didn’t just load you up with a pile and then you squeezed it to get it out, like the Greeks. Rather God dribbled it in dips and dabs down the line, but everyone of these little dribbles fits together. That’s the difference between what we are talking about as the Bible being logically consistent and what the Greeks think about as a tight theoretical system. The Bible is not a tight theoretical system.

[someone asks question] The Greek axioms have all the basic truth in them. Go back to plain geometry. In plain geometry you could find a straight line, you define what an angle is, you define what a plain is, and you get your definitions, you get your axioms, you get your certain postulates, whatever they want to call them. After you’ve gotten that you don’t add new ones, you just keep working through the course developing more and more theorems on the previous material. So once the axioms are given to you it’s like you’re driving down a tunnel, nothing new comes in from the outside, whereas in the Hebrew concept of history God reveals here to Adam; God reveals new stuff to Noah; God reveals new stuff to Abraham, God reveals more stuff to Moses; God is constantly pumping truth into the system. And why? Because man’s finite, the Jew knows this. Now it’s true, given a couple of these truths we can operate on it with out logic and deduce other truths from it but we run out of gas after while.

So this author is looking at history logically in the sense he’s saying that here we have the Old Testament law, here we have what a priest does, and a priest, let’s put it in quotes, “is defined in the Old Testament Law.” Now he’s arguing that the definition of a priest is unchanging so that what that priest does, his general format, his general duties remains the same. But just knowing the Old Testament priest, I can’t deduce Jesus from it. Just knowing the Old Testament concept of a priest means well, it’s great, I know what a priest is but I’m perpetually left in limbo because one priest dies, another priest replaces him, he dies, another priest replaces him, I never get to the end of the thing, it just goes on and on and on and on and on. So God comes to the rescue with Jesus Christ and that’s a new input; the incarnation is a new thing that’s added, it’s happened in history.

Now we take this new event, the incarnation of Jesus Christ and His death, and then he adds that, this is truth 2, this is truth 1, and these two truths are consistent, but he’s not deducing Christianity just out of the Law. This book assumes certain things and we’ll see this again and again as we go on. But suffice it right here, all I want to point out to you is that the first assumption in moving from verses 2-3, and we could pick any other set of verses here if we wanted to but this is convenient, he has assumed that the Old Testament Law foreshadows the final state of affairs. To make that assumption he must have a certain philosophy of history. And that philosophy of history he has raises the hair on 20^th century historiography, that history goes on that way.

Let me show you another argument in this third section, see if we can pull out some more of this. Look at Hebrews 8:6, now he has another kind of argument he uses here, we’ve seen this over and over again but let’s just look at it how it shapes up right here. “But now He obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also he is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises.” Compare with Hebrews 9:1, “Then, verily, the first covenant had also ordinances of divine service, and an earthly sanctuary,” dot, dot, dot and it goes on. He is showing here… and then come back and look at Hebrews 8:7, “For if that first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second.” All right, what’s his argument; the Old Testament, he says, gave us a covenant. The covenant defined the priest for us, that’s true he says, I’m getting a lot of information out of the first covenant, but what does he see that is wrong with the first covenant, in the sense it’s not the final word. What is he looking for particularly; what data does he bring to show that that first covenant is just going to sit there and spin like a car stuck in a rut, I mean, it’s nice, it’s got a lot of power but it’s not going anywhere. What specifics does he point out about it. [someone answers]

All right, one thing is that there is a repetition of atonement, over and over and over and over. That’s one thing. But right in this context, in fact between the two verses I just cited, 8:6 and 9:1 is another thing that he brings to the surface here. What is his other argument, that there’s something screw in the Old Testament, in the sense it’s not wrong but … [someone says something] All right, he holds to the fact that there is a worldly sanctuary and he therefore says not, minus eternal, it can’t be eternal. Now why can’t a material, a worldly sanctuary be eternal. Be careful here we don’t drift over into Platonism. He’s not saying that a material sanctuary, necessarily, can’t be eternal. What is he saying; can someone refine this carefully so we don’t get into heresy. [someone answers] All right, he’s talking not necessarily about a material sanctuary per se but a material fallen sanctuary per se. That’s what he’s talking about and in this present material order of things everything is falling apart and decaying. Remember Hebrews 1 he cited everything waxes old and decays; so there, see, he’s got the fall involved in it.

You see why you want to know that divine viewpoint framework; it comes up again and again and again and these guys don’t got… they don’t treat it like our little chart up here and say we are now going to the second event, the fall. They just kind of pull it into the argument on you so you kind of have to be on your toes. That’s another thing, but right in this context is another thing that he points out is wrong with the Old Testament covenant. [someone answers] It’s not able to affect the proper results but what prophetic feature of the Old Testament is he looking at right here? [someone answers] Okay, now why did you need another one; in other words, the man isn’t arguing that because I need another one I’m going to foist a second one on top of the Old Testament. Rather, his argument is there’s something in the Old Testament that says there’s a second one coming. What? What is it about the Old Testament itself that argues the Old Testament is going to be replaced? The covenant. [someone answers]

All right, that’s his major argument of this passage, that the Old Testament itself looked forward to a replacement. The Old Testament forecast a replacing covenant and where’s that famous place in the Old Testament where that happened? Where’s this guy, he quotes this passage four or five times in this epistle, it’s one of his big things. [someone answers] Jeremiah 31, better know that address. That’s the place where the New Testament is forecast in the Old Testament. This is where God announces He’s going to bring in a New Covenant and so he says the seeds of the future state are already sown inside the Old Testament structure. So these are his arguments in Hebrews 8:6.

[someone says something] Yeah, we can look back and say that but had you asked the believer under the Old Testament whether the protoevangelium forecast a new covenant he couldn’t be that precise. We’ve got to be helped by God. The protoevangelium, to go back to our analogy of the Greek wasn’t a super fat axiom that everything could be deduced out of the protoevangelium in Genesis 3:15. The protoevangelium was a partial announcement of what was going to come to past and we have to sit passively by as believers looking to God to say some more. And He did say some more in Jeremiah 31. True, we can look back and say that.

[more said] They had an idea but they didn’t know too much about it. They must have, a sensitive saint in the Old Testament knew that the Law was temporal, I mean, you can tell the way David’s treating it in the Psalms but they didn’t know how it would all end. They just trusted that Jehovah would work it out. Like for example, it you want to be perfectly frank, we really don’t know too much about the Second Advent, in spite of what all the books and prophecy say. We know certain things about the Second Advent but there are lots of things we don’t know what’s going to happen. We sit here in history and we’re passive to the process, we don’t know when Jesus, how Jesus, what is He going to look like when He comes back. Well, we’ve got pictures in the book of Revelation but that doesn’t really give us too much of a clue. I’m sure when Jesus comes back there won’t be any problem identifying Him but the point remains is that right now… right now we can’t draw a picture of what it’s going to look like because that’s God’s secret, He’s keeping that for His own time and then He’ll show us what it’s going to look like. But you see, history is always alive to things like that, it’s an open kind of thing.

Okay, so we’ve seen this first assumption, we’ve gone to Hebrews 8 and we’ve seen the idea of how he introduces the covenant, and we could go to Hebrews 9:1-10 and show how he introduces the tabernacle, but I will speed things up to get to the point. We’re working on our second assumption for the evening. His argument, remember, first in chapter 8, the first part of it was, Jesus Christ is a priest, therefore He must do certain things. Our first assumption was that history is typological, that God embodies characteristics at a time earlier, which will pop up in history a time later.

Now we have a new argument: his argument is the Old Testament unfinished state, the Old Testament leaves you in an unfinished situation. That, he says, leads to the necessity for a completion. Now behind that little piece of logic there’s a second assumption. It’s to tide much with the first one; what is it? Just because the Old Testament is unfinished does that by itself necessitate that it’ll ever be completed. Not necessarily unless what is true? What would have to be true to move from here to here? [someone answers] All right, God has to have a history with a goal in it; it can’t be this kind of thing, history doesn’t go round and round. History in the Bible is this way and that’s the Biblical view of history. This is the view of the Greeks; history just goes round and round, but the Biblical idea is that history is progressing toward a climax to a conclusion and this is the great broad assumption this man has. That’s the second assumption for the evening. So let’s look at these, we’re going to tie all these assumptions together and then we’ll see one grand view of this man, we’re just building this kind of inductively.

First assumption: that God has this overall plan, the sovereign God in history, so that he ties all history together. The second one is that history is progressing toward a grand climax. Now in Hebrews 9:11, here’s a little neat way he argues and I want you to see how he argues and then how he checks himself; he’s a very interesting person. You see, in Hebrews 9:1-10 he has talked about the covenant. Hebrews 9:1-10 has dealt with the covenant, the covenant is going to be replaced. Now after that, he then deals with the tabernacle. The tabernacle is going to come up. The covenant is early, chapter 8:1-13, chapter 9:1-10 is the tabernacle. You see, if the covenant is going to change, where was the Old Testament instructions on the tabernacle. The tabernacle group that’s working on building us this little modern tabernacle, where are they going to get the stuff on how to build a tabernacle from? The Mosaic Covenant, aren’t they. All right, if the covenant is going to change then the tabernacle must change. So he moves from the covenant change to the tabernacle change. Then he moves from the tabernacle, Hebrews 9:11-10:18, to what went on in the tabernacle. So the sacrifice is going to have to change.

So far this has been kind of a deduction now, he’s getting involved in one of these deduction streaks. He’s proved from Jeremiah 31 that the covenant has to change. He then deduces that the tabernacle is going to have to change, and then he kind of deduces and half-induces that what goes on in the tabernacle, the sacrifice is going to change. But then you recall last time in Hebrews 10:15, after he got to the end of his argument he went back and checked himself. He went back and he says, “Whereof the Holy Spirit is a witness; after he had said before, [16] This is the covenant that I will make with them,” and what’s that quote? Jeremiah 31. Now look what he’s done; he started with Jeremiah 31, he deduced the tabernacle change and the sacrifice, basically out of the Jeremiah 31 passage. Now when he gets done deducing he goes back to the same passage and pulls in another verse out of that passage, which is the last word, verse 17, “And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more,” and he says see, don’t you see, we can go back and check ourselves, Jeremiah 31 and sure enough, there had to have been a sacrifice to permanently remove sin and it’s implied right there in the very structure of Jeremiah 31.

So he arrived at his answer two ways; he started with Jeremiah 31 and deduced, then after he deduced the sacrifice he went back and he found it plainly stated. So you see the richness of approach this guy uses. He’ll go back and he’ll quote a passage, then he’ll quote another passage, start deducing, then he’ll cross check it. The man is a very, very thorough student of the Old Testament.

Now I want to tie up to this point, since we’ve worked with the third section, I want to tie all these assumptions together, we talked about his philosophy of history, now we want to talk about even more basic than his philosophy of history, what were the particular beliefs that the Hebrews had in history that caused them to come up with this philosophy of history? The things that characterized Israel, that cut them off completely from all the other cultures? What are the Jews known of in history? [someone says one God] All right, monotheism and associated with monotheism is the doctrine of creation, that God is the Creator, it goes together with monotheism, creatorship. That plus what else? Remember, that base, the [can’t understand word/s] there’s one God, that He is the Creator, that He has certain characteristics to Him, sovereignty, righteousness, justice, dot, dot, dot, the essence of God. That gives him a base for his philosophy to history, but then he must have one more thing in order to get the progress in history. What is that thing that he needs?

[someone answers] Verbal revelation, okay, and what about the verbal revelation that he needs. God has to talk to him but what does God in particular have to say to get history moving toward a goal. [someone answers] All right, an election basically is a promise. So you’ve got the God or promises or the covenant-making God. That is the basis of the Biblical philosophy of history. The attributes of God and the fact that He is a covenant-making God. [someone says something] Yes, but when God made a covenant to Abraham the covenant includes the response; it is absolutely certain that the descendants of Abraham will respond ultimately to God’s promise. God is sovereign and He tolerates no competitors. It’s not man and God sitting down together jointly to run history. There’s only one drive in this cosmic cause and God’s at the steering wheel.

Now these two things, the reason why I’m hanging in here with these two things for so long and kind of stretching you out on these assumptions, I want you to see something that we’ve just done, and whatever subject you study and whatever argument or discussion you get in, watch what has happened. We have dealt down here with details, from verse to verse, verse to verse, verse to verse, you can lose the forest for the trees. So then I went back and I dealt with the outline and then back of the outline we examined the man’s logic, and in back of the logic we examined the assumptions that he was making. And in back of those assumptions stood a theological premise. Now don’t you ever let anyone fool you in any classroom or any discussion, everybody is coming to you with a theological premise… everybody! And the case in point where Christians get hood-winked is in the area when they start talking about evolution and creation, it’s like one very common thing, evolution is scientific, no theological premises involved, but creation, that thing, that’s religion. Bologna! Every area of man’s thought has a theological premise involved and you’re going to spin your wheels if you argue down here, even if you argue down here, even if you argue here, you’ve got to go all the way back to the theological premise that that person has, otherwise you’re going to sit there and you’re going to argue, argue, argue, argue, discuss, discuss, discuss, discuss, discuss and get absolutely no where until you can expose the theological premise of the individual.

Now, going back to a very contemporary thing, evolution hood-winks people into think it’s compatible with Christianity because evolution has something that looks like something this man has in his history. What is it? What does evolution have that makes it look like it goes along with this guy’s philosophy of history. [someone answers] All right, evolution has progress in it. Now here’s an amazing thing; you know where evolution got its progress from? It basically is stolen from the Christian system. On logical basis, evolution has just pure Chance going nowhere. But embedded across this is this idea of progress. And the idea of progress and sheer Chance can’t go together. There’s an internal problem here. Now it’s a bastard version of Christianity is what we’re dealing with and it’s a bastard version because this progress now becomes what, instead of a covenant-making, covenant-keeping God, what is this progress? [someone answers] Yeah, and in particular is it a person-God that talks to you? [someone answers] It’s just a cold impersonal “it.”

Now look what’s happened, and Christians throw away their heritage, they’ve stripped off the idea of progress from the Christian system, and the idea of progress only makes sense if you have a God who is personal, who is infinite, who makes His covenant and keeps His covenant and He moves history toward to fulfill that. And then we have people that rip this off, it’s a rip-off, the original rip-off, and bring it over, stripped of God’s character and trying to enjoy the fruit of the Christian system without the God of the Christian system. Now we could go on and on with that but my point is just go back and remember this simple point that we’ve learned here tonight. I want to show you some more things from Hebrews but please keep this in mind.

When you discuss, get deeper than what you’re used to working with. Don’t argue too quickly or hastily with someone. If you have to write a paper in a course, some of you will have opportunities, hours and hours of study time ahead of you in college that you can use, you can redeem, by choosing topics to write when you have the option to do so, choosing papers in high school in these areas where you can kill two or three birds with one stone; you can get your assignment done and you can come over and start working with how this impinges on the Christian set of presuppositions, what is the theological premise behind this. You can train your mind to grapple with these problems, you can interact and start being a warrior for the orthodox faith and at the same time get your classroom assignment done, and many students have done this. We’ve got about 30 papers in the library that have been done by students at tech that have deliberately chosen in their courses papers to write in this area; kill two birds with one stone.

Now let’s go back to something else, let’s go back to the first section; we’ll skip the second section because the argument there is basically a repetition of the first section. In Hebrews 1… [tape turns] obviously he’s talking about God the Son, Jesus Christ. But I want you to notice how he does it. In verse 5 what does he quote? He’s talking about Jesus Christ; look at Hebrews 1:5. What does he quote there? Anybody know there that’s taken from? [someone answers] “Thou art My Son” is Psalm 2 but the next one, “I will be to Him a Father” is 2 Samuel 7. In verse 6, how does he talk again. Some of you have a little letter, look over in the margin and find out what is that quote from. [someone answers] Psalm 97. In verse 8-9, “But unto the Son he says,” where’s that from. [someone answers] Psalm 45. Verse 13, what’s that from? [someone answers Psalm 110] All right, this man doesn’t have a New Testament does he. He only has these Old Testament passages, and from these Old Testament passages his argument is this. Old Testament Messianic passages prove the absolute supremacy of Messiah.

Now there are two assumptions in this argument; he doesn’t state them but he’s made them. What are they? Well, when I asked you where these passages were quoted you all cited me Old Testament passages. Now when you were citing Old Testament passages and supposed we were in a discussion in the first century and you had your scroll open to Psalm 47 or whatever it was and you started saying see, that’s what the Son says, what were you assuming? [someone answers] Yes, that but even after we agree on that what have you assumed. What have you assumed about all these passages that you’ve cited. [someone answers they were written by God not by…] Okay, yes, that’s all these assumptions are involved but there’s one critical assumption and you’d get into this, you’d be sensitive to this if you were arguing with a Jew, particularly who knew his Old Testament. [someone answers] All right, one assumption in here, that these passages are Messianic. Do you notice that he never justifies that assumption, throughout this whole epistle. Now this is a remarkable thing. He never defends these passages as being Messianic. He assumes everyone agrees they are Messianic, which tells you what about first century Jews and their exegesis of the Old Testament?

For this man to survive the kind of argumentation he’s using, what does it presuppose about the synagogue? [someone answers] That they accepted these passages as Messianic, right. All right [more said] prior to Jesus, yes. And indeed now we know they did from Qumran; Qumran has straightened out a lot of thinking on this because we’ve got a beautiful case situation in the non-Christian community sitting over here and we can tell how they’re studying the Old Testament and sure enough, they take these passages as Messianic. So notice this, this is an assumption. The modern Jew, who denies that these passages are Messianic, denies them because of Christianity, but the Jews before Christianity popped on the scene were very quite openly Messianic about these things. You see the point, the shift that’s happened in history since this. Originally the Jews very opened, oh yeah, that’s talking about Messiah, the only discussion was whether Bar-Kokhba or Jesus was the Messiah. But there was no question about these quotes referring to Messiah.

Now there’s a second assumption in here and that is that Jesus is the Messiah. Right? You notice he never defends that either. Show me one place in this epistle where he defends that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah. He doesn’t. He presupposes his readers already accept that Jesus is the Messiah. And using those assumptions he’s going on to show them something about the Messiah, namely not His identity but His supremacy, that the Jewish from the Old Testament, if Jesus is taken for granted that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah, then we can prove from the Old Testament Messianic passage which he would say you all accept. I can prove, he would say to you, I can prove that Jesus of Nazareth therefore is the supreme authority. [someone says something] No, to these people who read this epistle. [more said] Because they would accept a different concept of what the Messiah was. Think back in the Gospels, what kind of Messiah were the Jews looking for? [someone answers] A kingdom now Messiah, right? And not necessarily the fact that he was going to be God, there was a lot of question in first century circles whether Messiah was divine; some just thought of Messiah as a great prophet, like Isaiah or somebody like that. Now there was no question that by this time in these Jewish communities Jesus of Nazareth had been associated, in their minds, maybe not with the rest of the Jews, but to whoever read this epistle there was no problem here on that question. The problem they had was knowing Jesus the carpenter was indeed this Messiah, now what about Messiah, what can we learn about Jesus’ character, His cosmic character. See the difference.

Now how does that differ from the Gospel of John, most of you have read the Gospel of John, what was John written to prove? That Jesus was the Christ. So John faced an entirely different method and John argued a different way. How did John argue differently than this guy? Just think back to the Gospel of John over and over. How does John argue his case? [someone answers] The sign, the prophetic sign, and he goes into details in Jesus’ life. What in Jesus’ life have you read about in Hebrews? Maybe one or two things but it hasn’t been much of a study in Jesus’ life has it; it’s all been developing this detail out of the Old Testament. So the assumption here is that Jesus Christ is the Messiah, that those Old Testament passages are Messianic, and we could go on and deal with certain things there.

Now let’s raise one question at this point. Where do you suppose this man, we answered this question when we went through the passage but we were involved with so many trees I’m sure we lost the forest. Where do you suppose, and this is just a guess, but kind of putting things together in this epistle, where do you suppose this man got his whole idea of topological interpretation of the Old Testament? Where do you suppose he got that idea from? What passage is he most fond of quoting? Psalm 110. And of what event in the Bible does Psalm 110 speak of? Another passage in the Bible, Melchizedek, which comes from Genesis 14. What had already happened by the time Psalm 110 had been written? Typological interpretation was already begun, wasn’t it. God Himself, inspiring through David, was taking details out of Genesis 14 and developing a whole picture of Messiah.

Turn back to where we did that, in Hebrews 7, remember that passage? In Hebrews 7:3, we spent a whole evening on that verse. What did we say in Hebrews 7:3, Melchizedek, “Without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days nor end of life.” Now, we said Melchizedek indeed was a man, he did have a beginning of days, he did have a father, he did have a mother, what’s the point here then in verse 3? [someone answers] It wasn’t recorded in Genesis 14 and so Psalm 110 is building a doctrine about Messiah from the way the Holy Spirit reported history in Genesis 14. So typology had actually begun in the Old Testament. This man is just consistent to the Old Testament’s own interpretation of itself. He’s not inventing a new system of interpretation.

Here’s the point, to run over it again to see what happened. Let’s pretend there were all sorts of details about Melchizedek. Here’s his father, here’s his mother, here’s his age, here’s his history, here’s his state in Jerusalem and here’s his activities with Abraham. One, two, three, four, five, six, six different things you could know about Melchizedek. In Genesis 14, if we believe inspiration, the Holy Spirit wrote it, what did the Holy Spirit leave out when He went to record Melchizedek? He left out his father, left out his mother, left out his age, left out some of his history, left out a little bit about the state but he carried these two over. Now what this author is arguing about, why, when you come to Psalm 110, Psalm 110 looks at this and says hey, look at this, the Holy Spirit put that in, the Holy Spirit knocked this out; there was something significant in the way the Holy Spirit reported the event. And that is being used to develop what doctrine about Christ in Psalm 110, and so this author just goes on a little bit further. So I’m justifying the man’s interpretation, he hasn’t invented it, this is not something that happened in Alexandria or something.

Now one final concluding remark and to do this we’re going to have to go to a verse chain, beginning in Hebrews 3. Some people will argue, and we’ll get into this in the Daniel series, that therefore, because this man is so typological and so spiritual in his interpretation of the Old Testament, therefore ALL interpretation of the Old Testament ought to be spiritualized, in particular all prophecies of the millennium ought to be spiritualized, and therefore we would come to amillennialism. And the argument behind amillennialism is that you spiritualize; in other words, there’s not going to be a literal, political, social kingdom, but all that is just natural hard imagery that should be spiritualized to refer to the Church. And they say, after all, haven’t you just got through saying that the author of Hebrews spiritualizes, he’s a typological interpreter?

Now how are you going to answer that? [someone answers] All right, the first thing that’s very obvious, Jesus Christ is not a spiritual idea, He was a physical person. What great New Testament doctrine, what great key New Testament doctrine has never appeared in the epistle to Hebrews, that has a lot to do with breaking down this idea of the spiritual other-world-ness. [someone answers] No, that’s appeared, remember we taught the hypostatic union out of chapter 1 here. What happened to Jesus after He died? He rose again from the dead. Was that a spiritual resurrection? It was a physical resurrection. Have you seen it prominently discussed in the epistle to the Hebrews and if not, why not? What’s happened, what’s wrong, not wrong in the sense there’s a reason for it, but why do you suppose this author just blasé, just moves right on, doesn’t bother much with the resurrection?

What about Christ’s person, I mean, there’s 8500 different things about Christ’s person he could discuss. He’s had to narrow his field of discussion down, hasn’t he. If you take all of Christology, that is, all the doctrine of Jesus Christ, what particular part of Christology has this man concentrated on over and over and over again. Contrast the way he does it with the Gospels, for example. [someone answers] Yes, he’s concentrated on His sacrifice, but as far as Christ personally being… that’s true, His work, but what’s the other thing that we’ve seen here. You don’t see this other thing discussed much in the rest of the New Testament. [someone answers] The heavenly ministry of Jesus Christ right now. Think of how many pages we’ve spent talking about what Christ is doing now, interceding for His brethren. That is a topic that isn’t developed, except in Romans 8. So the reason this man spiritualizes is because he is treating Christ’s present heavenly ministry. He’s not treating Christ’s resurrection, he’s not treating Christ’s life and he’s not treating Christ’s millennial kingdom or His Second Advent. So you can’t generalize this spiritualized method for all the doctrine; it’s all right for the thing that he used it for, this is legitimate. But it’s not legitimate to just take this and run with it in every doctrinal area. [someone says something] That’s right, Hebrews is one of the most important epistles for your every day Christian life because it’s telling you what Jesus is doing now for you.

And that we may end in a good contrast to see this, I want to show you a verse chain here. Look at Hebrews 3:1, “Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus.”

Hebrews 4:14, “Seeing, then, that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession.”

Hebrews 6:4, “For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Spirit,” dot, dot, dot.

Hebrews 7:26, “For such an high priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens.”

Hebrews 8:1, “Now of the things which we have spoken, this is the sum: We have such an high priest, who is sat on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens.”

Hebrews 8:5, “Who serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things, as Moses was admonished of God when he was about to make the tabernacle, for, See, saith he, that thou make all things according to the pattern shown to the on the mount.”

Hebrews 9:23, “”It was, therefore, necessary, that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified with these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.”

Hebrews 11:16, “But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly one, wherefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God; for He has prepared for them a city.”

Hebrews 12:22, “But ye are come unto Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels.”

See this author is always talking about the heavenly sphere. Now, then, what has this man tried to tell us, if we lined up all the ages of the Bible, here’s the cross, here’s the resurrection and ascension, here’s Christ’s Second Advent, here’s the millennial kingdom, here’s the Old Testament, what has he tried to say about this particular Church Age? What is the chief characteristic of the Church Age that marks it off from the other ages in the past? Where’s the object of believer’s attention. In the Old Testament it was on the tabernacle. [someone answers] Okay, and where is His ministry now, every one of these verses? Heavenly, heavenly, heavenly, heavenly, heavenly, heavenly. So in the spiritual sphere there is the great battle. This is the angelic conflict, the conflict that’s going on in the Church Age is basically a spiritual conflict involving powers that in some way, it’s much different than it was in the Old Testament. Christ Himself is doing battle in the unseen realm around us. It’s taken 19 centuries to finish the battle but it’s been going on and on and on and on.

And this author would insist, as much as he is talking about… his word “heavenly” is akin to the way we use the word “spiritual,” isn’t it strange, how many times has he mentioned the Holy Spirit? The only time he’s mentioned the Holy Spirit is when he’s cited Scripture, isn’t it. Now isn’t that interesting, compared to some of our friends in other places. Next week we’ll deal …