Clough Hebrews Lesson 55

Models of Faith: Abel and Enoch – Hebrews 11:4-6

Hebrews 11 is the famous chapter on faith, we have studied the first three verses which is the introduction to the chapter; not a definition of the prerequisites of faith, not a definition but a description of some of the things that are required. We found that chapter 11 uses the Biblical systems of motivation in that it uses the modeling technique of exhortation. Modeling is when you cite other believers under greater pressure than you are and you see those believers applying the techniques that you know, that have the same relationship with the Lord that you have and they were able to make it under more difficult situations than you are, therefore you are able to make it. That’s modeling. 1 Corinthians 10:13 is the key verse on the method, but Hebrews 11, the entire chapter is devoted to the method.

And we found that all the examples that we noticed in chapter 11, we didn’t study them all in detail of course, but just looking down, scanning the page, we found that all of these 9 illustrations out of the Old Testament were men who basically never lived, most of them, to see the visible kingdom of God on earth. They were people who saw only the promises, they were people who… by the way, most of whom were Gentiles, not Jews, they were mainly lone believers who did not have a large group to comfort them, to help them, to pray for them. And the principle is that if these loners, these people living in adverse circumstances and difficulty could make it, then the Hebrews Christians could make it as they lived in the first century.

The application of all of this, of course, is that the Hebrews Christians were not isolation. They didn’t have to be, if they were in isolation it was their own fault, but that they could take advantage of other believers and have a great time. We’re going to see some of the great times that these believers had beginning in verse 4 and as we study these it’ll be an excellent time to review a few of the basic doctrines, the doctrine of faith, the doctrine of justification, over and over and over, until these doctrines become second nature. This is the true Biblical picture of faith. You will find no one in chapter 11 going into the closet and contemplating their navel to work up a feeling of faith. You’ll find these people completely trusting in the objective history of the times and of God’s promises and of God’s Word. Nowhere in any of these verses does it tell you how somebody felt. All of these men, it said, are persistent believers.

Now keep in mind the introduction to chapter 11 is found in Hebrews 10:38-39; there’s where the man is getting his idea of faith. Chapter 11 is only an exposition and illustration of that idea. But you’ll remember in verse 38 he quoted Habakkuk 2:2-4 and that gave an example of what true faith was. True faith was patiently enduring, trusting that God would solve the problem. And Habakkuk said in his day, as you see everything go bad around you, “the just shall endure,” “shall live,” shall go on from day to day, “by faith,” and if any man cops out, God says I have no pleasure in him. So true faith is that which endures. Not that which is perfectly enduring, these people had their ups and downs but true faith will always endure. And it goes back to the concept that if a person is in Christ, then God the Holy Spirit has done certain things for that person. God the Holy Spirit has regenerated, He has indwelt, baptized, sealed, plus giving a spiritual gift, plus He does a few other things but at least that is the basics. And because the Holy Spirit has done and because the Holy Spirit constantly undergirds all of this, constantly motivates the spiritual gift, is constantly available for the filling of the Holy Spirit, that means that true faith ought not to fade out. It ought to keep with it.

Tonight we’re going to study the first two men, Hebrews 11:4-6, the first two great men who are cited as examples for us. Hebrews 11:4, “By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts; and by it he being dead yet speaks.” This is a quotation, it deals with quotes from only three verses of Scripture. Remember the Melchizedek example in this epistle; so often we have seen the Melchizedek example and we pointed out that most of the Melchizedekian example is only one verse out of the Old Testament. This man was such an excellent student of Scripture that he derived all of his doctrines from one verse. Now in this case, in verse 4, he only had three verses of Scripture, Genesis 4:2-4. So we might be familiar with that let’s turn back there and see the original Scripture.

Genesis 4:2-4, we’ll note certain things about the passage, then we’ll come back to Hebrews and watch how this man deals with them. In fact, we may have to go back and forth several times but at least if we go here first it’ll be easier getting grasp of the passage. Keep in mind the epistle to the Hebrews is written to believers under tremendous pressure; under economic pressure, political pressure, religious pressure, family pressure. And we as a nation are going to find out what pressure is like very shortly so pay attention to how Hebrews goes on here.

In verse 2, “And she again bore his brother, Abel.” “Habel” is the Hebrew word for vanity; the word is used in Ecclesiastes, “Vanity of vanities, saith the Lord,” “Habel Habelim” and the name for “Habel” means that by this time Eve knows that she lives in a fallen world—vanity. And without God personally made known through God the Son, all of life is vanity. Cut off from God, cut off from a vital personal relationship with God, every detail of life rots and so that’s the concept of Hebrew vanity. And so the man is named “Vanity.” “And Vanity was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. [3] And in the process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the LORD. [4] And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the LORD had respect unto Abel and to his offering. [5] But unto Cain and to his offering He had not respect. And Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell.”

Now here you have the dynamics of sin which are very important and we’ll pause a few minutes to review. Notice in verse 5 Cain has been rejected by God. It says he “was very angry;” there’s the man who’s rejected and excluded from God’s presence. “And his countenance fell,” his face fell, and this shows you the physiological response to sin. You see, sin begins in the human spirit but once it starts in the human spirit its effects are manifest in the body almost immediately and one of the places where it is most apparent is in the face, so in verse 5 the Hebrew pays attention to the facial expression. Why did the countenance fall? There was a change in his body, a change in his facial expression. So the human spirit, though the locus of sin in the area of the soul and so on, in the unseen realm, yet it isn’t it interesting that in the seen, physical, tangible realm, there’s an immediate effect.

In verse 7 is a classic response to and it deals with the whole problem of emotional disorders and psychological illness, psychosomatic problems and all the rest, principles, no [can’t understand word] in verse 7, “If you do well,” what God says to Cain, in other words, if you obey My words, if you operate by faith, and trust Me, shall you not be accepted? And you don’t do well, then sin lies at the door.” And the word “lies” means it crouches, ready to spring. And the word “sin” is not the word for sin offering, it’s a word that can mean that but here it doesn’t, here it’s talking about the sin nature. The sin nature lies at the door; the believer who is out of fellowship is in trouble. What God is saying is if you are outside and you’re in disobedience to Me, you have a sin nature and while you’re not filled with the Spirit, contemporizing it to the Church Age, if you’re not filled with the Holy Spirit then your sin nature is in control. Galatians 5, you’re either walking by the flesh or walking by the Spirit, and so when you’re out of fellowship and you don’t have the filling of the Holy Spirit to restrain the sin nature and the sin nature controls, the sin nature is always lusting for more and more control.

So it says “sin lies crouching at the door,” like an animal ready to spring. “and unto thee shall be his desire, and you must rule over him.” The concept is the sin nature constantly lusts to take over and that’s its desire, the desire is already there. This is what it means to be born damned miserable fallen creatures and that we have a nature that wants to take over and cause massive degeneration. But God says to Cain, you must learn to rule over him, and so since man has been given the commandment to subdue the earth, and since the body is made of the earth, the body is the first place to learn the great mandate of Genesis 1, “thou shalt subdue the earth” starts with your own nature and when you can subdue your own nature then you can subdue others and you can subdue the environment around you. If you don’t know how to subdue your own nature then you can’t subdue others or the environment around you.

That was what John Milton said of Oliver Cromwell, the reason why Cromwell, as a farmer, as a man who had no military experience whatever, the reason why he was so successful in battle wasn’t because Cromwell was an overbearing genius militarily, though he introduced some tactics in the battle of Naseby which he saw that were new, I was talking to a Colonel during the film and he was explaining how the double cavalry charge that you saw was a complete inovention of Oliver Cromwell and that’s what caught the other side off, but apart from that Cromwell was not a particularly ingenious type of person. The reason Cromwell was so successful, he was a plodder, he just kept at it and at it and at it and at it and at it. He wasn’t a particularly smart individual either but he just had the discipline to keep at something until it was finished. And that’s how he won, he just simply out-endured his opponents, that’s all. He had better training, he had better discipline, and he kept at it for a longer time and eventually he wore out his opponents. And this is always the mark of a good individual and John Milton said the reason was because he learned to do that over the years of his won sanctification. He learned to deal with himself that way, over and over, plodding, day in, day out, working with these problems in his sin nature. Thank God that he didn’t have a “deeper life” experience or they’d never have had a civil revolution in England that contributed something. Cromwell got it the hard way over many years, gradually he got his sanctification, and it paid off you see, because life is that way, real life.

All right, so God is telling Cain that you must rule over, and then finally the first murder in history in Genesis 4:8. One other point about this context before we go back to Hebrews is Genesis 3:24, the last verse of chapter 3, there’s something there that we’ll have to take note of also. “So He,” God, “drove out the man; and He placed at the east of the Garden of Eden cherubs, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep [guard] the way of the tree of life.” What this means is that in the ancient world between the time of the fall and the time of the flood, during that period of time on this earth, there was a place, the Garden, that still existed. The Garden of Eden did not disappear with the curse. Some people think that, it just disappeared. No it didn’t. It disappeared from man’s memories because man was excluded from the Garden of Eden, but day after day people in the antediluvian world could come up to wherever Eden was located in the topography of the ancient world, pre-flood, they could come up to that gate, like a giant toll gate, and they could come up there and they could peer in the other side but that’s as far as they could get. And so this entire civilization, between the fall and the flood, for hundreds and hundreds and thousands of years had a physical concrete illustration of separation from God. They couldn’t go [can’t understand word], to the way of life.

Keep that in mind because it has something to do with Abel’s sacrifice. Those men had a physical demonstration of separation from God because they were physically and geographically separated. It is as though the Garden of Eden was some place, say within driving distance, and you could drive up to the gate, and there’d just be angelic guards that would keep you away. And you knew that past those guards, in that garden, was God’s presence, was the tree of life that’s still there. The tree of life didn’t dry up and blow away with the curse; the tree of life was still there. If you had a pair of binoculars you could probably look the trees you could see it, but you couldn’t get to it, you were kept from it by these angelic guards. So this Garden was still there, the presence of God was still there, but there now was a barrier, a visible, tangible, physical, barrier.

Now let’s turn back to Hebrews 11:4 that’s the setting for Abel, the man who used the faith technique. It says, “By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain….” “By faith!” Now immediately we have a problem here that we’re going to have to ask and we will persistently ask until we get an answer to it. How does this author identify works done by faith and works not done by faith? How does this author know this? How does he know for sure that as he lists these particular incidents in these men’s lives that they are works done by faith and not works, say, done to impress somebody, done out of false motivation, done to earn brownie points, done to earn something else. How does he know for sure that what he was citing are genuine works of faith? Now you have to keep that in mind as we read if you want that answer. That answer is vital to understand all this. We’ll get to that answer, it’ll come in due time as we consider why and how this works out. Remember, this man isn’t teaching sanctification by works, so however we interpret this it can’t mean that. So what we have to understand is how come he comes so close to teaching sanctification by works when he doesn’t do it. What’s the dividing line, what keeps him from slipping over into the aorist of sanctification by works when it appears, at first glance, that he does come close to it, for isn’t all this chapter work after work after work after work after work after work. So let’s see how he does it.

“By faith Abel offered,” aorist tense, it’s one particular sacrifice, or one incident that he was beholding and that is, of course, pointing to Genesis 4:2-4. He doesn’t have any information beyond Genesis 2:2-4, all the thought that you have in Hebrews 11:4 came out by the Holy Spirit working in this man’s heart after he read Genesis 4:2-4. “By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice,” now what does he mean by “a more excellent sacrifice” than Cain. It doesn’t say a bigger one, it just says a better one. Now it’s interesting, and it looks like, probably, why Abel’s sacrifice was accepted was that it was a sacrifice of life. Here’s Abel, here’s Cain; Cain offered plant life, Abel offered animal life. Animals have a spirit and a spirit plus the body equals life. Plants do not have a spirit, they just have bodies and therefore they are not equal to life by the biblical definition of life. The Biblical definition of life is breathing body and if the body isn’t breathing then it doesn’t have life as far as the Scriptures are concerned. It’s not talking about biological definitions of life, it’s talking about Biblical definitions of life.

So what we would call the boundary between the inorganic world and the organic world, the boundary between the mere organic world and going into large molecules and then going into the cells, the Bible doesn’t make any sharp discontinuity, anywhere on the lines in the inorganic up to the reproducing cells, it continues almost as though… it speaks almost as though it’s a continuum, but where the Bible does draw the discontinuity is after you get up to the cells, after you get up to the reproducing cells, somewhere along the line where breath becomes evident. Apparently the acquisition of the central nervous system allowing for the indwelling of a spirit, and when that point is reached, then we’re talking about life.

All right, now it appears that Abel’s sacrifice was better but we must be careful, that’s only an appearance, the Bible does not dogmatically say it. And it’s interesting that this author who has so much to say about blood sacrifice doesn’t take this opportunity to point out blood sacrifice. So all we can do is stop where the text stops; it says “a more excellent sacrifice than Cain,” and we have to stop there. In what ways it was more excellent we can guess, but we can’t be dogmatic.

“…by which he obtained witness that he was righteous,” now Muslim tradition says Cain, Abel, [can’t understand word] by fire from heaven, that he and Abel had their offerings out on this altar and a bolt of lightening came down and blasted Abel’s and nothing happened to Cain’s. Now we can’t be sure whether that’s just a read out from the Elijah story or not, we don’t know. It’s conceivable, some physical way clearly showed that God had accepted one sacrifice and not the other.

Now notice too it says what the witness was about. What is the witness about? Notice what’s happened here and read very carefully because a tremendous point is being made here and you’ll use it if you don’t see what words he uses and what words he doesn’t. To make sure you get the point turn back to Genesis 4. He takes part of that verse and he does something with it and I want you to see what he does with it. He does it twice, in Genesis 4: and 4:5, now we’re learning, the author of Hebrews is a master Bible teacher and we can learn a lot about interpreting the Bible by watching how he interprets the text. The author of Hebrews wasn’t like a lot of modern Christians who run down and malign the teaching of the Word of God and prefer hand-holding groups and a few other things. The author of Hebrews was not a hand-holder. The author of Hebrews was a man who studied the text, hour by hour.

Can you imagine this man saying or having someone say to him, “don’t study the Bible too much because you’ll get spiritually fat.” Probably he would have replied there’s no danger, because he had taught and taught and taught and taught and you can see how far along this man was in his understanding and comprehension of Scripture compared to the average run of the mill believer today. That’s why it’s taken us so long to go through the thing. He gave this original address in about 35 minutes; we have been about 35 months going through this thing. And he expected… he expected his hearers to understand him. He didn’t expect to take 35 months to understand the epistle. He expected those people… they didn’t take notes, he expected them to understand him as he spoke, every reference, he expected his hearers to know cold, every place in the Old Testament, he expected his hearers not only to know the place, he expected his hearers to know the exact context. He expected his hearers to have advanced theology so they could absorb this. That was just assumed that his hearers would do this. And then he chewed them out in verse because they were getting tired keeping up with him. You see the tremendous advance that this man had made. Next time somebody trots up with that lamebrain excuse about you can get spiritually fat taking in too much Bible you are talking to a nincompoop, some jerk who just became a Christian and probably was put out by Christians leaders out witnessing five minutes after he’s trusted the Lord and he’s got a spiritual fathead that he hasn’t got rid of yet. And you might be just the one to deflate him a little, take him to Hebrews and say well, since you know so much, would you mind sitting down here and explain Hebrews 10 to me, just try chapter 10, we won’t bother with the rest, just take the next ten minutes and explain to me the contents of Hebrews 10, then I’ll know that you know enough so that I’ll respect your opinion. Try that next somebody comes up to you with that line.

All right, Genesis 4, the end of verse 4 and the beginning of verse 5, “And the LORD had respect unto Able and to his offering.” Now watch what’s going to happen here. I’m going to write this out and then we’re going to flip back to Hebrews and watch how he changes it? “the LORD had respect unto Able and unto his offering.” Now look in verse 5, “But unto Cain and to his offering,” notice the dual object in both cases, “to Abel, to his offering.” “To Cain and to his offering.” Now come back to Hebrews 11:4 and watch what he’s done with it. And notice in the original Hebrew which comes first, the offering or the man?

Now come back to 11:4 and watch what happens. “By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that” his offering was acceptable? No, “that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts,” the “God testifying of his gifts” is a means for testifying that the person was righteous. Now that’s the interpretation that this man is putting on the Genesis text. In Hebrew you have a very simple syntax; in Hebrew you use and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, you don’t have subordinate clauses. You have coordinate clauses but not subordinate clauses, at least you don’t have a lot of them. Hebrew is mainly coordinate, dot, dot, dot and dot, dot, dot, and dot, dot, dot, and dot, dot, dot. But what he is doing is he is saying had respect unto Abel and he is treating this whole thing as a subordinate clause, by means of having respect to his offering. She has taken the original coordinate clause, which is the Hebrew text, and he has run it through his fantastic brain under the illuminating power of the Holy Spirit, under his apostolic authority or co-apostolic authority as a writer of the New Testament canon and he says the Hebrew was very, very simple, but the Hebrew contains something that you didn’t see before, that the Lord had respect primarily to Abel, not to his offering. He had respect to Abel because and through and by means of having respect to his offering.

So there’s a very key point made in the middle of verse 4, “he obtained witness that he,” literally, “is righteous,” present tense, “that he is righteous.” And notice, it is the verb to be, not… there’s two words in the Greek, eimi and ginomai, this one means to become, this one means to be. Now question: if the author had said in verse 4, “by which he obtained witness that he had become righteous,” what would it mean, versus “he obtained that he is righteous.” [someone answers] Well it might not be salvation by works but it could certainly throw the door wide open to that, because what would it be saying? That at the point that he offered the sacrifice he became righteous. And that would throw us right into the middle of a problem here, this would be salvation by works or at least it would open the door to it, somebody could come through, aha, see, when did Abel become righteous, he became righteous when he offered his sacrifice, see sanctification by works. Now that would be a tremendous risk if he had used that word. But with a high precision of all the New Testament, as the writers are so careful to do, they use words precisely and he doesn’t use ginomai, he uses eimi. And what does eimi mean?

Not using ginomai but using eimi, the simple verb to be, how do you interpret it now as to Abel’s righteousness. Let’s look at it this way? If it was ginomai, here’s a time line, here’s the time that Abel does his little sacrifice bit. All right, ginomai means he became righteous at that point. But ginomai isn’t used, eimi is used in verse 4, so what does eimi mean? [someone answers, he’d been righteous all along but at that point God gave suitable witness of his righteousness.] Everybody hear that? Here’s the point. Abel comes along and he offers the sacrifice; God has respect to the sacrifice, how He does it, bolts from heaven, we don’t know but in some physical, tangible way God has respect to that sacrifice, He recognizes it. All right, when He recognizes it He says Abel, you are righteous, not you have become but you already are. And it shows that Abel has been righteous before he offered the sacrifice. The sacrifice and God’s recognition of it was only an expose of the righteousness that Abel had already been credited with.

Now what similar character have we recently studied in family training program where you see the same thing? Abraham, and what are the two points in Abraham’s life? What chapters? [someone answers] Okay, now he’s not even declared righteous in Genesis 15, it just says he is righteous there. So at least it’s very clear cut that by Genesis 15 Abraham is a justified man; Abraham possesses absolute righteousness. Abraham has the righteousness of Jesus Christ credited to his account but in Genesis 22 when he offers his son, what happens? What’s the importance of offering his son? What does that show about Abraham’s righteousness. Remember what James says? [someone answers] All right, he showed the righteousness through that work but the work didn’t get him the righteousness. The work only showed the righteousness.

Now make that distinction, it’s a crucial distinction and if you don’t make it, throw out the New Testament because you’ve got a conflict between Paul and James; you’ve got to make that distinction and once you have carefully made that distinction you will not be sucker for the Campbellites and a few other people who have never got grace straight. Always make the difference between the work and the righteousness; the righteousness precedes the works, it is shown forth through the works, but the works don’t add to the righteousness. The works only reveal the righteousness that is already there in the work. So it shouldn’t be anything new or hard but Abel is a tremendous [can’t understand words] to this thing. So Abel obtained, and the word “obtained witness” is aorist, at that point there is a witness that comes into history that he is a righteous man.

Now there’s an offshoot on this whole thing that may be of interest to some of you people who may have trusted the Lord but you can’t tell when you trusted in life and you had some experience and you thought that was when you trusted the Lord but then after you became a Christian you wondered, well, maybe I accepted Christ way back some place. This is very interesting because probably it’s the same kind of thing, is that somewhere way back you may have accepted the Lord, you may have been regenerated and you kind of waltzed on here until some time you got with a group of Christians and maybe you responded to a gospel invitation at this point and then you really began to grow. And you wonder sometimes after that, did I become a Christian here or did I become a Christian back here. Well, if that’s the case then you have a very parallel thing to this, where you possessed righteousness before this, that response to the gospel invitation only was the evidence that you were righteousness, that was only the manifestation that you had the righteousness. So it’s the same thing here, maybe Abel didn’t know for sure at this point, maybe he never thought about it, but when he got this signal from heaven that his sacrifice was accepted he knew it as well as everyone else in history. So the witness was obtained, chiefly the witness, of course, isn’t to the individual, it’s to the other people involved because the norm in the case is that when you are justified you know it.

“By faith,” then, “he obtained witness,” see the “by which” in verse 4; the “by which” can refer to the sacrifice or faith, I am taking all those “which’s” and “by it” and all those subsidiary clauses to refer to faith. Verse 7 you have a “by which Noah condemned the world,” it’s not the boat, it’s the faith. So I take it therefore that all those “by which’s” refer back to faith, not to the sacrifice. So “by faith Abel obtained witness that he was righteous.”

Now here’s another thing to point out about this picture, lots of stuff in here. What do you notice about the role of faith here? Is this verse saying what so many Christians say, that if you believe hard enough your faith gives you something. Now suppose you have somebody in your apartment, in your home, and they’re all fouled up, they think of faith as some sort of a quantity, something like a magnetic power and you wind up and so many [can’t understand word] and all of a sudden it just absorbs things, it causes things to happen. Now that’s the concept of faith that some people really have, that faith is something in itself, that faith is doing the doing, that faith is some sort of a spooky oriental power that slurps everything up.

Now what can you show from this verse, using the example that’s here in the text, to show that that’s beside the point, Abel’s faith isn’t what’s doing the doing. Specifically how does he obtain witness? Let’s just suppose the Muslims are correct in their tradition, wherever they got it from. Let’s just suppose that it really happened that fire came down from heaven and blasted this sacrifice. Now the point is, who caused the fire to come down from heaven? Abel or God? God did. He did it in response to faith but the faith didn’t pull the fire down. Now I don’t know, it should be obvious from the study of the Word that this is so but you watch it, someday when you get a chance to listen to some healing campaign or something like that, and you watch, when those men refer to faith, and listen to how they use it, and about 50% of them are all screwed up, they always have this concept that faith is something and that all you have to do is glug, glug, glug, glug, glug, take a lot of faith and things are going to happen. The faith itself is doing the doing. But that isn’t what’s happening here. Abel’s faith is nothing; it’s nothing, it’s what God is doing. God sends the fire down from heaven to consume the sacrifice.

So when you see “by faith he obtained witness” it can’t be in the way most people think of it. It has to be in an approving sense, by faith in the sense that God approved of his faith, and because God approved of his faith God showed respect to his sacrifice. But the doer is God, not the person with the faith. And that’s the point the author is making here. Once Abel offered the sacrifice it was rest, complete faith-rest from that point on. He did nothing except sit there, absolutely nothing, a perfect faith-rest, all he did was breath. He kept breathing so he’d be alive to see what would happen. But there’s always this, and God did the rest, completely.

Let’s go on; after he uses this first clause of the Hebrew, remember what that clause said, He “had respect unto Abel and unto his offering,” now the author comes back at the end of verse 4, “God testifying,” and the word “of his gift” is a direct quotation from Genesis 4, we can tell by the way it’s written in the Greek. So now he’s quoting the last part of this, “unto his offering,” that’s the quote that you see here at the end of verse 4. So he’s quoting the second coordinate clause, second coordinate phrase here actually here, in this case, the second coordinate phrase is brought in as an adverbial phrase, “God testifying of his gifts.”

Then he says a second thing, faith did two things for Abel. “By faith … he obtained witness that he was righteous,” and this means he was justified, Abel was justified, doctrine of justification just so we don’t forget.

Three points of the doctrine of justification. The first point is that justification must answer what two basic needs of man? How are those two basic needs of man pictured in the Genesis narrative, very simply? What must man have as a result of the fall and as a result of creation, he has two needs, both of which must be met by justification? What are they? [someone answers] All right, take care of the sins in order for righteousness, but how is this pictured in Genesis, those words aren’t used. [someone else] All right, minus the weeds and the thistles and plus the productive herbs. Now think of the agricultural picture always, then think of the theological language and lingo that you want to attach to it. But stay with the text, stay with those simple illustrations. When you go to teach your children this, when you go to illustrate it, if you’ve trained yourself to stay with the simple illustrations you’ve got it, you’ve got ready-made illustrations right from the Word. So these are two things, faith… this become a problem of sin, this becomes a problem of +righteousness. So justification properly defined must answer these two. Said another way, Christ must be Savior and Completer; Savior—Jesus Christ must be the man who fulfills me, who fulfills my manhood, who completes my manhood as well as the one who saves Me. It’s not just Christ as Savior, Christ does a lot more than just save from sin. That’s fantastic and little appreciated but even less appreciated is the fact that Jesus Christ completes man.

The second point of justification is that justification is due only to Christ’s imputed righteousness … ONLY to Christ’s imputed righteousness, not to the Holy Spirit’s righteousness in the heart not to some tingling religious emotion in the heart, even good religious works in the human heart the reason why the pearly gates are thrown open to people. Admission to heaven is by means of crediting Christ’s righteousness to our account and where does this take place? In heaven or in the heart? In heaven. Therefore, in evangelism when we hear all this about inviting Jesus into your heart business, we’d better be careful if we’re going to use that terminology for every time you use that word, thirty times you ought to talk about Jesus Christ in heaven, the balance ought to be about thirty to one, over Christ’s work in heaven versus Christ’s work in the heart, to have a balanced gospel.

And finally, justification is lasting and perfect and it’s the basis for eternal security because it’s based, not on the human heart, which is incomplete, even in sanctification, but it is lasting because it is based on Christ’s perfect work in heaven.

There’s justification. That’s what it means when Abel was declared righteous. “God testifying of his gifts,”

[tape turns] now we have the “and,” now there’s another thing that the man picks up in that story from Genesis 4. How many of you can think of the other elements that happened after the murder, in particular what God said to Cain, and can you remember what that was and how that relates to this last clause of verse 4. [someone answers] That’s right, and it’s very anthropomorphic in Genesis, turn there and see how anthropomorphic that is, it’s written so strongly in Genesis 4 that if you didn’t have doctrine from other passages you would think that the blood is still alive, very, very strong language in Genesis 4:10. You see how the author makes it strong, powerful. “God said, What have you done? The voice of thy brother’s blood cries unto Me from the ground.” God says it’s like the blood as it drips into the soil speaks [Clough raises voice] —murder—to Me. And this same theme of verse 10 is repeated in the Mosaic Law.

Do any of you remember a procedure that was used in the Mosaic Law and had to be used by the local government for unsolved murder, that’s based on this same concept? [someone answers] And you remember what particular is peculiar about the sacrifice they offered in that situation? [reply] Well, but it had to be a special ground, it had to be offered on the wadi where the rains would come and wash the blood off, and so when these men would come they would come to the site of the crime but then if the crime was committed, say here, and there was a little wadi or stream maybe 50 or 100 feet away, they’d take the offering over there and they’d kill it and let the blood from the offering go into that wadi, and it’s a sign that the land must be washed of the blood. Now the picture is that the land itself can be defiled.

I was talking this week to someone about soil and it’s interesting that one of the reasons why Israel went into the captivity is because they didn’t take care of the soil. For seventy years God says each one of those years stands for a Sabbath when your farmers farmed the land I told them to give the soil rest. And you were so interested in producing cash crops if you didn’t take care of your soil and so you’ve let the soil go down and down and down, I’ll kick you out of here and nobody is using the soil for seventy years, until the soil gets its minerals back, until the soil is rested, then you can have it back again. So the soil is a precious thing to God. And He wants the soil clean, and it can be defiled, and this is a theme that you’ll encounter again and again in Scripture. It is defiled by time; it can be defiled by poor agricultural practice, but in Genesis 14 it’s defiled by murder. Now you think of the unsolved murders in this city. And just think of what God’s estimate is of the soil, say in Lubbock county.

Let’s turn back to Hebrews 11, it’s that that he says in the last part of verse 4, “And by it, he being dead, speaks.” By what? By faith. Now what does this mean? Well, how did Abel know he was righteous? What did God do? He recognized his sacrifice instead of Cain’s. All right, then what does this refer to at the end of verse 4. Why does the author make a point of this? Because God made a point of it. In Genesis 4 God made a point of Abel’s blood. Why did He make a point of Abel’s blood? Because the blood of Abel was the blood of a righteous man. Turn to Matthew 23:35. I knew some Christian parents who lost a child and the circumstances would suggest murder although it wasn’t declared murder, and these particular people used this same concept, they just confronted the people they though had murdered their child and simply said that her blood is on the ground and it speaks, even if the court, even if the D.A., even if the Justice of the Peace doesn’t agree to this, the blood speaks. And it’s a legitimate point. God has respect for the blood of His own people and in Matthew 23:35, “That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zechariah, … whom ye slew between the temple and the altar.” Do you know who said that? Gentle Jesus. Doesn’t that sound like a revenge tactic? You wonder why the tribulation is going to be a tribulation. You wonder why the tremendous judgment to pour out upon the earth? Part of it is because the blood that’s been spilled on the ground cries out. [can’t understand word/s] never can figure this out. In this particular part of the country everybody gets all upset over films and books that have sex in them but they can go right out of here and see violent films and that’s okay. I always laugh at this inconsistency. In God’s Word both adultery and murder are equally bad, one’s not more than the other. What’s everybody got a hang-up on the sex bit and they don’t have a thing on the violence, that’s okay. Very interesting; watch it, it’s an inconsistency of the culture. That’s where the culture is completely screwed up, completely anti-Biblical, not consistent at all, and yet these people scream and yell, we want X [can’t understand word], we want R, we want this and we want the rating and we want something else. And the ratings are not at all related to violence. They’re related to sex, so it’s very interesting to watch how unbiblical and inconsistent things are.

Okay, turn back to Hebrews 11, that’s Abel, and notice about Abel, let’s go through now, the faith technique and see how Abel used it. What are the four things of faith? First, that it depends on the divine viewpoint foundation plus a promise. What promise did Abel have in which he probably trusted? What was at least one promise we know he had? [someone answers] How could he have believed in Jesus Christ, where’d he get the gospel from? [someone answers] All right, Genesis 3:15 is his promise. That was taught to his mother; Eve probably taught him the gospel because she had the doctrine, though Adam could have too. That was the promise and we know that Abel had available to him a divine viewpoint foundation from his father. God told his father all about creation. So he had all the information necessary to start off believing. Cain did too; both of those boys grew up in the same family, had the same promise and they had access to the divine viewpoint framework, they knew of God, they could go out every day if they wanted to to the edge of the Garden of Eden and look inside and Adam and Eve could say see sons, right in there, that’s where it started. Maybe they could even talk to the cherubs, maybe he’d stop waving his sword long enough to carry on a conversation, we don’t know. But they had all this data, all this accessibility.

The second thing about faith; faith cannot be directly observed, you can only watch the way it changes behavior, so behavior modification. Now in this case we can say what was the difference in Abel’s behavior and Cain’s? That difference is the manifestation of faith. All right, you can think through, Cain had a basic autonomous heart. In Jude 1:11 he has said the way of Cain is said to be the false religion, that man will design his own way to come to God. Cain dictates to God where God will meet him and on what terms God will meet him. Every person you talk to that rejects Jesus Christ as the only way, truth and the life, is basically a dogmatist; he is a dogmatist because he insists that he dictate the terms of meeting with God rather than God. So next time somebody comes to you and says I think you’re a bigot. Why? Because you believe that Jesus Christ is the only way, that’s bigotry. And what you can say is I think you’re a bigot because you believe that man can dictate to God the terms of the meeting. You’re an autonomous bigot. Then send them a dictionary to find out what it means.

The third point is that faith has a resting side and a doing side. Now where did Cain, what did Cain [?] do and where did he rest? [someone answers] All right, didn’t he have to prepare the sacrifice, he had to kill something, he had to kill, he had to bring it to the altar, he had to build the altar, he had to leave it there. All right, he rested in the sense that he couldn’t do anything. His faith wasn’t a hyper magnate that slurped up God’s fire or something; he just rested, the faith was doing something, it was causing him to just rest completely on what the Lord would do. Okay.

The fourth point is that faith is orientation to grace. From what we read in Genesis, how, just using your imagination, thinking a bit here loosely, how do you think Abel could be graphically made aware that he was not acceptable to God as a child. Remember he’s a child, he grows up, maybe this happened in his teenage years when he was finally killed but as a child, what experiences in his environment that you saw in Genesis might have told him and him very, very aware that he didn’t have what it takes to meet God face to face? What did he have in his environment that you don’t have in yours? This physical tangible thing that he could have seen in his environment that would have constantly reminded him that he could not get into God’s presence. The cherubs. The last verse of Genesis 3, that’s how he knew he was guilty and that’s how Cain knew he was guilty. Both those boys knew they were not acceptable to God in any way because of the constant angelic guard around the Garden of Eden, and that was the place where you had to go to meet God. And you couldn’t go because the angelic guards were there, and we’re thrown out, we’re tossed out of the Garden of God.

Now, knowing that and realizing that, those two brothers reacted violently in two different directions. One of them recognized that the initiative must come from God; the other one said the initiative must come from man. Cain was a man who was trying to reach up to God; Abel was a man who said Lord, I have nothing, reach down to me. That’s the difference between those two men; one was oriented to grace, the other is oriented to works, and it’s been forever the same way and the way of Cain is the way of apostate religion. So goes Jude 1:11.

All right, Hebrews 11:5, very quickly we’ll finish with Enoch. “By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death, and was not found, because God had translated him; for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God.” We know the story of Enoch; the story of Enoch was the man who was in the antediluvian age. Turn to Jude, verses 14-15, now here is a rare place in the Bible, in the New Testament, but in Jude 14-16 we have new data that is not given to us in Genesis and comes to us from extra-Biblical tradition brought into the canon by the Holy Spirit at this point. A speech is given, one of Enoch’s sermons. In the book of Genesis we didn’t even know that Enoch was a preacher. But he was. “And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam,” obviously the author here, Jude, being Jesus’ brother, did not accept an allegorical interpretation of Genesis. It says the seventh from Adam, the seventh literal man. “… prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of His saints, [15] To execute judgment upon all,” Enoch was prophesying of the Second Return of Jesus Christ before the flood.

Now verses 14, 15 and 16 of the book of Jude is just a tiny, tiny, tiny piece of a vast, vast amount of literature that was written close to the time of Jesus Christ about Enoch. 1 and 2 Enoch are two collections that you can read in the apocryphal literature about the supposed teachings of the prophet Enoch. Now they are not inspired, they are not the Word of God so you can’t go dogmatically say that that’s exactly what Enoch said but we do know that there was available in Jesus day a tremendous amount of apocalyptic that centered on primarily one person, Enoch. For some reason Enoch…even at Qumran it’s the same story, the Qumran scrolls, Enoch is the key figure, it’s Enoch who is the one who introduces the concept of prophesy to mankind. It is Enoch who is given by God the entire schemes of the ages. It’s Enoch that talks about the end of the world. It’s in Enoch where you have the concept of the millennium for the first time. So Enoch is declared to be the man that has all this prophecy and writing.

Now it Hebrews 11:5 says “Enoch was translated,” he was a man who just disappeared from the face of the earth; there’s a lot of tradition of why he was and so on, one tradition goes that Enoch had become so pure in his doctrine that God didn’t want him contaminated, which is kind of far-fetched. But anyway, he got a safe ride some place, “that he should not see death, and he was not,” now the word “was not found, because God had translated him,” is a quotation from Genesis 5:24, “because God translated him.” “He was not found because God translated him,” he’s quoting Genesis, “For before his translation he had this testimony, that,” (quote) “he pleased God.” “That he pleased God.”

Now if you look in your King James text there it doesn’t say… it says “he walked with God,” the reason is that when the Septuagint was translated they interpreted “walk with God” as that “he pleased God,” synonyms, the idiom means the same thing. And this writer is using the Greek Old Testament, not the Hebrew Old Testament. So, “that he pleased God,” same as “he walked with God.” So “By faith Enoch was translated.” Now again, is faith in Enoch’s heart what causes this angel or whatever it was to come down and lift him up? No. God caused the angel or whatever it was to come down and translate Enoch, but his faith isn’t a substance that mysteriously does the work. His faith is just an attitude toward God who does the work. God’s the doer, not the faith itself, God is the doer.

[Genesis 5:21, “Enoch lived sixty and five years, and begot Methuselah. [22] And Enoch walked with God after he begot Methuselah three hundred years, and begot sons and daughters. [23] And all the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty and five years. [24] And Enoch walked with God, and he was not; for God took him.”]

Now Hebrews 11:6, I want to get to verse 6 before we quit tonight because this is the diagram of the logic of the argument. So far you may have wondered something, if you’ve been thinking. He doesn’t seem to prove his point, does he? What was his point? To prove that these men were using faith. How has he proved his point? Anybody see how he’s proved it? He has, incidentally but it’s not apparent. Without using the material in verse 6, without using the material in verse 6 how do you think he’s proved his point. Remember his point, he’s got to show these men used faith. What has he shown, pretend now, that you don’t buy; you don’t buy the argument that he’s shown that these men of faith, at least what has he shown in each case so far? What has he shown? [someone answers] Yeah but can somebody tie that together, what’s the force of all this miracle business. [someone answers] All right, in both Abel’s case and in Enoch’s case you had two clear cut illustrations of what happening? God miraculously showing that He was pleased with those men. So what the author has shown is that God was pleased. Now apparently he hasn’t shown why God as pleased, all he’s shown in one thing, that God was pleased with these men.

Now operating in this argument, the conclusion of the argument is: therefore they had faith. Now what’s the missing presupposition of the argument. It’s a syllogism, it’s got a minor statement, you’ve got the conclusion, where’s the major statement? [someone answers] All right, you’ve got to have… this is assumed, that faith pleases God, and without that presupposition his argument falls. He’s using that presupposition all during the time he’s making this argument. But if you look carefully, for I said that chapter 11 began in chapter 10, where did he get the first presupposition? Anybody see, he gave it to us once, kind of quickly. [someone answers] All right, Hebrews 10:38, that’s where he got it. He quoted Habakkuk, and he said in the time of pressure, in the time of trial, God is pleased only with the person who hangs in there looking to God. So therefore, he says, faith pleases God, God was pleased with these men, therefore they had faith.

Now to show the argument he stops the whole deal right here in verse 6, he breaks his discourse, and he introduces his argument to make sure we all see these three steps. So that’s what verse 6 is all about, and that’s where we’re going to stop, at the end of verse 6. Now verse 6 is an injection into the argument to make sure everybody followed his point and to show why he’s arguing the way he is. “But without faith it is impossible to please Him; for he that comes to God must,” now here is where you have Biblical faith defined if you want to get… it’s not a technical definition but it’s the closest definition you’ll find in the Word of God. Verse 3 wasn’t a definition; verse 3 just said what faith is involved with. But here we have something that kind of tightens up a definition of faith. “He that comes to God,” that means he approaches to God, “must,” and he uses the Greek word dei, it means it is logically necessary, that’s what that word means, “it is logically necessary to believe,” now it’s important, there are a lot of Greek word for necessity, this one is the Greek one for logical necessity. In other words, faith must always involve these two points… must always involve these two points and then he gives them

The first point, that God exists, “that God is,” in other words, you can’t come to God if you’re not sure that He exists, and it’s not any God, this is not a God exists, but He, the God of the Bible, exists. We’re not interested in proving a God exists, we’re only interested in showing the God of the Bible exists. So we have proved that God exists, that’s the first thing. You must be aware, therefore, God-consciousness, you must be aware of God’s existence. Now do you see why I have insisted over and over and over and over and over and over and over when you work with small children you don’t get them to invite Jesus into their heart right away. You get them to emphasize and you concentrate on the attributes of God first.

Take them out at night, have your little children look up at the sky and point out God’s lights to them. Anything where can show God-consciousness, when you see a rainbow, you’ve got plenty of chances in Lubbock to see rainbows, it’s not like you’re living in some smoggy east coast city where you never see a rainbow; people don’t even know about Noah’s covenant, you can’t see it, but here you can see a rainbow. If you want to know where to look for a rainbow, look in the opposite, 180 degrees from the sun is where it’s always find. In the afternoon it’ll be in the east, in the morning it’ll be in the west. So you see a rainbow get your kid out there, drill him, Noahic Covenant, tell me about it kid. And get him to associate the doctrine with that thing in nature. See, root his faith into every day experience. All right, God’s existence, it doesn’t say anything about inviting Jesus into the heart. Now we get there, but that’s not where you start. Here is where you start. And you don’t get to Jesus until you make sure they understand this. If the child doesn’t understand God’s existence, forget it, as far as talking about Jesus. He’ll be all screwed up. I once asked some kids what’s the first book of the Bible? Jesus.

All right, the second thing that you have to have in order to believe biblically is: “that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.” That He blesses those who come to Him. So that God enjoys man, or God is pleased with man. Now if you want to talk philosophically, there is the ontological base or metaphysical base of faith, that’s the first statement, and the moral or ethical base of faith is the second statement. Faith has both an ontological and an ethical side. And it means that both God’s existence and the fact that He’s pleased.

Now just looking at that for a moment and seeing that, how can you predict, based on what you now see of faith, how can you predict, say you’re on the Eden side of the fall, what is the fall going to do to both of those points to make faith impossible for the fallen man without some help from his friend? How is the fall going to wipe out both of these? [someone answers] All right, but notice which of the two points is affected first by sin. Which of these two points? The moral part of faith is always the first part to go. Now you remember that, very interesting; this is always the part to go first and it always is due to man disobeying God. If you meet somebody who’s depressed, oh, I can’t believe any more, I just have intellectual doubts all over, I used to believe everything, now I don’t believe anything. Do you know what they’ve just told you. They’ve gotten down where this has been wiped out because they first let this get wiped out. And the reason they’re having intellectual doubts is because they had moral disobedience first. And after they had moral disobedience, then it was that they had intellectual doubts. Sure man had intellectual doubts after he got excluded from God’s presence, but why did he get excluded from God’s presence? Sin. So sin always underlies intellectual difficulties.

Now it doesn’t mean that we pick on people with intellectual difficulties, say aha…. It’s not that at all because we’re all sinners; we try to work with the intellectual difficulty but we don’t work with the intellectual difficulty as though that’s the only problem; it isn’t the only problem, it’s only part of a bigger problem, a moral problem. Show me a person who’s gone from Christianity into despair and into doubt and I’ll show you a person that knew God’s will and violated it at point after point.

Okay, so these are the two points of faith and we’ll pick those up next time, but notice his argument now from verse 6. Verse 6 is that this faith is what pleases God; you’ve got to logically have that, he says, or you can’t even make the move to come toward God. You’ve got to first believe that He’s there and that He pleases, and then… then you can come to Him, and that pleases God, these men pleased God, therefore that’s what they had. I might also point out one other thing, when God goes to work on you in grace, at the point of gospel hearing where does He work first. Right here… now you struggle with this problem, but basically the Holy Spirit starts here. He starts soothing with the fact that Jesus Christ has died for men’s sins; God has made a move to cancel out this rejection problem. Now we’re open to consider other things.

Father, we thank You ….