Hebrews 3:7-19

Partakers of Christ

Last Sunday we looked at the preacher's exposition of his second point:  Jesus Christ is your merciful and faithful High Priest, who is far superior to even Moses of old.

The preacher compared Moses' faithful service in the covenant made at Mt. Sinai with Jesus' greater faithfulness in the fulfillment of a New Covenant.  Moses was indeed faithful as a servant within the household of God's people, but Jesus is faithful as the Son and rightful owner of the house, which He built.  Therefore, while Moses came with glory, that glory faded away and truly becomes no glory, with the rising of the Son of God, which far surpasses Moses (cf. 2 Cor. 3:7-11). 

It was because of Christ's greater glory that you have received greater promises that Moses could only dream of.  Therefore, those in Christ through faith are no longer simply servants in the house of God, but by God's grace you have become the very house of God, the very dwelling of God's Spirit.  In Christ, you are no longer a slave, but a son, an heir of God.

Now with greater promises come greater warnings from falling away.  If Israel refused to believe God in the wilderness, they would have died in the desert and never entered the Promised Land of Canaan.  But if you today refuse to believe in Jesus Christ, then you not only give up life here on earth, but you loose Heaven -- the true Promise Land that Canaan was only a pale picture of.  That's why the warning is all the more severe when faced with a decision of whether or not to believe in Jesus Christ. 

Through His perfect obedience you now have access to Heaven's throne.  Through His bloody sacrifice and atonement for your sin you now have the ability to enter into the true Holy of Holies and directly call upon the name of God in Heaven. 

Moses could never have provided such access to God for Israel.  While he spoke to God face to face, Israel could only have access to God here on earth, through a priestly representative, through the sacrifices of bulls and goats offered year after year after year.  And even then, they were never sure if they offered that sacrifice with a true heart and therefore always feared whether or not God would accept their offering.

But Jesus' obedience and sacrifice for you is perfect.  There is no doubt that God has fully accepted His Son.  And you now, through Jesus, can come before a holy God through faith in Him.  As the preacher says at the end of chap. 4:

Hebrews 4:14-16  14 Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess.  15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are-- yet was without sin.  16 Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

What you have in Christ is so much far greater than anything Moses could ever conceive of so that in Christ you have actually become the very living temple of God where God resides and where you meet Him through the Living Spirit of Christ.

But remember where the hearers of the preacher's sermon are at the moment.  Because of intense suffering at the hands of their neighbor's, they are contemplating giving up all of this.  They are really considering rejecting Jesus Christ and returning to Moses as their hope for eternal life.  And the preacher delivers his sermon with great intensity to cause them, as he says in v. 6, "to hold fast our confidence and the boast of our hope firm until the end."

In other words, since Jesus far surpasses Moses, then God has brought the way of Moses to an end.  The world has now crossed a line of no return.  There is no other way into God's presence than through Jesus alone.  And for us today, if God has brought Moses to an end, the very ordained covenant He made with Israel at Sinai, if Moses is no longer now that Jesus has come, how can we possibly ever think that some way of our own devising, through our own works, that we could ever appeal to God apart from Jesus Christ?

If God chose Moses to show Israel the way, ultimately pointing forward to Jesus Christ, and now that Jesus has come and Moses necessarily fades away, then how could we ever believe that God would ever accept anything but the atoning sacrifice of His Son for our sins?

As Peter said:

Acts 4:10-12  It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed.  11 He is "'the stone you builders rejected, which has become the capstone.'  12 Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved."

We need to tell the world that there is only one way to salvation and it is only through faith in Jesus Christ.  While that may not be a popular sentiment today, worrying about whether or not it tickles the ears of man will do no good for anyone on the day of Judgment.  Jesus Christ has come to set men free from sin and it is only through resting in His work alone that anyone has any hope of being saved.  Any other way than through faith in Jesus Christ, including even Moses, leads to eternal destruction.  That's what the preacher declares before all of us this morning.

Now to press the seriousness of their potential departure from Jesus Christ, the preacher compares their same decision now to Israel's decision in the wilderness there at Kadesh in the Desert of Paran (Num. 13-14).

You will remember the sad story that took place on that fateful day when the spies returned from the land.  God had ordered a man from every tribe of the sons of Israel to go into the land He was giving them on an espionage expedition.  When the spies return to the people after surveying the great bounty of the land, they brought back two reports (READ Num. 13:25-33). 

At this point, the people of God had two choices -- to believe God was able to deliver their enemies into the hands of God's people or unbelief.  Let's see what they decide (READ Num. 14:1-10).

This is how the author of Hebrews describes their response in our passage this morning:  READ vv. 12, 18-19).  The word for unbelief is very strong here:  Unbelief is not simply lack of trust or faith.  "It is the refusal to believe God.  It leads inevitably to a turning away from God in a deliberate act of rejection" (Lane, 86).

Now this was not the only time that Israel rejected God in their wilderness journey (READ Num. 14:20-25).  There is a long pattern in their history and as a result of their defiant rebellion and rejection of God's promise of salvation, they do not arrive at the goal of entrance into the land (vv. 17-19).

But that was the goal of the Exodus in the first place.  The whole reason why they were out there in wilderness was to prepare them for entrance into the land of Promise.  Without rest in the land, their hope of salvation would never arrive.  But why?  Why would they not obtain the gift that God had promised them?  Because they refused to believe!  They would not rest in God's promise and the entire generation died in the desert. 

So the preacher stirs the hearts of his hearers to alarm them to the decision they too are about to make.  Before quoting from Ps. 95, he begins by saying the Holy Spirit says (v. 7).  In other words, what was often quoted by the Israelites as they assembled for worship, speaks to these Hebrew Christians today and even to you today (READ vv. 7-11).  Through Ps. 95, the Holy Spirit is speaking to you this day.  Do you hear His voice?  Are you careful to give attention to His Word?

Do not be like the children of Israel in the wilderness on that day when they rejected the Word of the Lord.  For you have received an even greater promise than the promise of Moses.  You have received the promise of Heaven itself if you hold fast to Jesus Christ.  That's why the preacher says in v. 12 make sure that you do not respond to Jesus Christ in your wilderness experience the way the children of Israel responded to God in the their wilderness experience. 

Now, remember what caused Israel to reject God -- they were confronted by the trials of life before them.  They feared this world more than they feared God.  In the same way, the Hebrew Christians that the preacher is addressing in our passage this morning fear the trials of life and the persecution they are facing. 

But you too face all sorts of trials and temptations in this life.  How are you going to stand in the hour of trial?  Who will you believe?  Who will you trust?  The preacher says to you this morning, "Do not be of an evil and unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God."

But notice that the avoidance of turning away from Christ is not simply an individual matter (READ v. 13).  The early church met daily to break bread from house to house, continually devoting themselves to the teachings of the apostles, and fellowship and prayer (Acts 2:42, 46) and the preacher exhorts them that when they come together they are to daily encourage one another not to be hardened in unbelief.  Notice that the preacher takes the "Today" from Ps. 95 and applies it to his present day hearers, "Today is the day of salvation in Christ.  Do not harden your hearts to Him."

And what are they to encourage one another in?  What are they to use to one another to build one another up so that they do not become hard hearted?  (READ v. 14).  "You have become partakers of Christ."  That's it.  This is your firm and absolute guarantee of eternal life.  You have been joined together with Christ.  What is the one thing that will keep our hearts from becoming hardened to God's promise of salvation?  What are we to preach constantly, day-by-day to one another that we do not turn away from God? 

"You belong to Jesus Christ!"  The gospel is our sole focus.  And as long as the day is called "Today" you are to remind one another that enjoy an eternal relationship with Jesus Christ.  As the preacher said in vv. 1-2, because of Christ's faithfulness and sanctifying work, you are holy brethren to the Lord, partakers of a heavenly calling who look alone to Jesus, your Apostle and High Priest.  It is because of His faithfulness to God as the Son over His house that you have a firm foundation upon which the house of your life is built.  Look to no other.  Rest not in your own works or in the works of another.  Consider Jesus your merciful and faithful high priest and rest in Him alone, firm until the end.

Remember how the children of Israel who rejected God's promise at Kadesh, decided among themselves to elect a new leader who would take them back to Egypt.  In the same way, these Hebrew Christians are on the verge of rejecting Christ and electing Moses to lead them back into bondage under the law.  Paul had to warn the Galatians of this same tendency:

Galatians 4:19-21  19 My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you,  20 how I wish I could be with you now and change my tone, because I am perplexed about you!  21 Tell me, you who want to be under the law, are you not aware of what the law says?

Galatians 5:1-4  It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.  2 Mark my words! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all.  3 Again I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law.  4 You who are trying to be justified by law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace.

This was not only a danger in Kadesh, but it continues to be the constant danger today.  Do we turn away from Christ and trust in the works of the Law or do we hold fast to Christ and rest in His work alone? 

Israel made their decision at Kadesh:  they provoked God to anger (v. 16a), they sinned against the Lord who had marvelously delivered them from Egypt (v. 17), they were disobedient in that they did not believe the Lord (vv. 18-19) and the result was that they did not enter God's rest.  Instead, they wandered in the wilderness for 40 years until they died in the desert.  They failed to receive God's glorious promise of a new land, flowing with milk and honey, because they did not have faith -- they did not rest in the promise of God.

Think about what those Israelites passed up!  A land of their own as a gift from God.  A land free of their enemies and oppression.  No more wandering in foreign lands.  No more threats of wild animals and sleepless nights.  They were going to be given a home, where every tear was wiped from their eyes, no more mourning, or crying, or pain.  No more the fear of death at the end of an enemy's sword.

But they refused all of that to go back to Egypt.  These Hebrew Christians are actually contemplating the same thing:  refusing Christ to go back to Moses.  And you and I are constantly tempted to look to this world and all its glitz and glamour, putting our hope and trust in man, fame, and the vain pleasures of this world.  Which will you choose this day?  For God now offers you in Christ a new heaven and a new earth -- that you would be the house of God, that He would forever dwell in you -- that you would be His people and He would be Your God and He will come and wipe every tear away from your eyes, and there would no longer be any death, there no longer will be any mourning, crying or pain. 

Jesus Christ is standing before you as your merciful and faithful High Priest.  By grace you have become partakers with Him.  Believe it.  Rest in Him.  Encourage one another each day with this good news and together hold fast the beginning of your assurance until the very end. 

Amen!

-SDG-