Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable, and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? (Hebrews 2:1-3)

All of the warnings against apostasy in the Letter to the Hebrews are thought-provoking if not quite disturbing. Hebrews 2:1-3 is the first of these warnings. This passage begins with an exhortation in verse 1 to pay much closer attention to the gospel. Indeed it does not say, “Therefore we must pay attention,” or even “pay close attention,” but we are exhorted to “pay much closer attention.”

Pay much closer attention than what? Closer than we have before? Is this an exhortation to give more time and place in our busy day to the gospel than we have been giving to it? No, that is not the idea at all; the comparison is not with whatever attention we have paid the gospel until now.

The comparison is with the attention paid by God’s people under the Old Covenant to the law (verse 2). And how close was that?  The law of God was not something the people were only to consider as an important part of their lives; it was their life. They were to meditate on God’s law day and night, keep it ever before them (c.f. Deuteronomy 11:18), memorize it, sing it, live by it.

How much more then, argues the author of Hebrews, ought we who are under the New Covenant inaugurated by God’s Son to meditate on and live according to the gospel?

And how much worse is the neglect thereof (verse 3)!

Romans 8:3-4 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

The law of God seems to have a lot of power in our lives. And that would be good, if the main way we experience that power were to live righteous and holy lives. If you are a believer, you want to live a righteous and holy life, and if the law served to help bring that about, I think you would welcome it. And the law does help in that direction, teaching us what is “holy, righteous, and good” (7:12).

But the power of the law as we experience it in our lives is, for the most part, not helping us to live righteous and holy lives, but the opposite. In fact the law excites the sinful nature of our flesh, and we sin: So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin (Romans 7:25).

It is not that the law is sin or sinful or evil, no, for (again) the law is holy and righteous and good. But the principle of sin uses the law to bring forth sin in us; and “when sin is conceived,” says James, “it brings forth death” James 1:15). So the law that promised life proves to bring forth death (Romans 7:10).

It can seem like the principle of sin has quite a grip, especially as a conduit for sin to spring up in your life. Every time you sin, you feel that strong grip–and it uses the law to do it. It may seem irresistibly strong but that is not looked upon as a strength of the law by the Apostle Paul. He sees it as a weakness in the law, because of the flesh. He speaks of the law as being weakened, rather than strengthened, by the flesh.

The law promised life: For Moses writes about the righteousness that is based on the law, that the person who does the commandments shall live by them (Romans 10:5). But the law does not bring life, because it is weakened by the flesh; that is, weakened by the principle of sin in you that uses what promised life as an opportunity for sin. The law is holy and righteous and good, but the law is completely powerless to make you holy, righteous, or good. It’s like a mirror that tells you when your face is dirty, but it can’t help you clean the dirt away: For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin Romans 3:20.

At the beginning of episode 213 of The Simpsons (“Homer Vs. Lisa & The 8th Commandment”), eight-year-old Lisa Simpson is in Sunday School. The teacher is explaining the Ten Commandments to the class: “Ten Simple Rules, and if you’ll just follow them all your life, you’ll go to heaven!” The children seem happy to hear it, except for Lisa, who seems troubled. “Just asking, hypothetically,” she said, “What if we do not keep the commandments, where will we go then?”
The teacher became irritated. “You’ll go to hell, Lisa; is that what you wanted to hear? Now stop scaring the other children!”

Lisa was right to be scared, and she was right to scare the other children; for the law of the commandments not only fails to justify anyone, but being energized by the principle of sin, the law condemns everyone as a sinner. And yet, powerless as the law is to save anyone, and powerless as any one of us is save ourselves, Paul declares with confidence and joy in that There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus! (Romans 8:1)
But how can it be that you–if you are in Christ Jesus–are not condemned by the law? Perhaps Paul now offers Christ as a loophole in the law, an escape clause by which the law brings no condemnation? Not exactly. Rather, (verse 3), “God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do.”

First of all note that God has done something. He has not sat back, letting nature take its course, so to speak, as the heavy weight of sin drags you down, down, down, finally to hell. Nor is God fuming at you from above, waiting for an opportunity to pounce on you for your sin–if he were, he has no need to wait, he can do that anytime. Rather than pounce, and judge, and destroy, God has taken action to save you from the condemnation of the law.

What action? What has he done? Has he said, in regards to your sin and violation of his commandment, “Oh, that’s okay; I like you, don’t worry about it”?

No! The Apostle Paul would no doubt say to that, “By no means!” (c.f. Romans 3:3-4). It would violate God’s own holy nature to wink and nod at your sin; and certainly most unjust to wink at your sin, but punish the sin of others. No, divine justice must be satisfied; the righteous requirements of the law must be fulfilled.

What then did God do, to satisfy his righteous law and set you free from any and all condemnation? He sent “his own Son…” (3). This is no technicality. This is no loophole. This is God’s love, poured forth in action and sacrifice, that God so loved the world, that he sent his one and only Son (John 3:16). He sent him “in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh” (3).

The law demands satisfaction through condemnation and judgment for sin. In Christ Jesus, the condemnation due you for your sin, demanded by the law, has been satisfied; the debt has been paid, in and upon the Son of God who came into this world for that purpose: to take upon himself the likeness of sinful flesh and to bear the condemnation for your sins in his own body. Now there is much to say about all of this, and I want to say a bit about this phrase, “in the likeness of sinful flesh.” I think first of all we should understand that phrase in the light of Hebrews 4:15:

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. 

The office of high priest began with Moses’s brother Aaron. Under the old covenant, Aaron the high priest, on the Day of Atonement, was to offer up the blood of bulls and goats as sacrifices for sin. A new covenant was foreshadowed in the rituals of the old, for it is not possible for the blood of bulls and goats to atone for sin (Heb. 10:4).

That is why under the new covenant, Jesus our great high priest, offered up his own blood as the Lamb of God (John 1:29) to atone, once and for all, for your sins and mine. The Lamb of God could only atone for our sins being “in the likeness of sinful flesh.” His blood of the atonement must be of the same sort as the sinner, that is, human. You do not have the blood of bulls or goats running through your veins, but human blood; and for human sin the atonement must likewise be human.

Hebrews 2:14-18 Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. For surely it is not angels that he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham.

Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.

“In the likeness of sinful flesh” means Jesus had a human nature just like ours, fully human, but without sin and without a sinful nature. Don’t think that because Jesus did not have a sinful nature that he could not have sinned. He was tempted, really and truly, in his human nature, and could have sinned, but did not. He stood firm in temptation where our first father, Adam, did not.

Neither should you think that because Jesus did not have a sinful nature, that he could not be a real and true representative of you and me who do have sinful natures. He did not need to have a sinful nature, because man was not created with one. The man who fell in Eden–Adam–did not have the sin nature until after he transgressed. So the saying, “To err is human,” is not entirely true. The sinful nature is not part of what it means to be human. The sinful nature was acquired in the fall, in the corruption of Adam’s nature and all creation when he sinned.

Jesus died to deliver us from every aspect of our sin–from the guilt for our sins, and from our sinful nature. In the resurrection you will be raised with a fully human nature, but without sin or a sinful nature, and glorified to live forever.

(I’ll give you a moment to reflect on that magnificent truth and to glorify God.)

in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled

Little and often-overlooked phrases are like tiny keys to open the understanding of the text. You already might be on the lookout for such key phrases as “therefore” and “but”. I recommend you add this phrase: “in order that”. The underlying Greek word will almost always be hina–indicating purpose. The purpose of Christ’s sacrifice was to satisfy the righteous requirement of the law on your behalf. That is why there is “now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus”: the condemnation required by the law has been satisfied, according to the law, in the atoning sacrifice of the Son of God, who gave himself to suffer that condemnation upon himself in your place.

in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

The last part of verse 4 is not an add-on to the gospel message. Paul is not saying, the righteous requirement of the law is fulfilled in us who are not only in Christ but who, in addition, walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. It is not a separation of Christians into classes of those who walk according to the Spirit and those Christians who walk according to the flesh (i.e., “carnal Christians”). It is not a separation but the definition of a Christian: one who is in Christ Jesus and who walks not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. Paul does not here nor anywhere else teach any such thing as “the carnal Christian”.

Paul is simply bringing his teaching together as he moves the argument along. In other words, it is what Paul has said before: justification must be followed by sanctification. Sanctification must flow from justification. They are not the same, but you do not have one without the other. You are justified in the sacrifice of Christ for your sins (v. 3 and the first part of v.4). Your sanctification–the holy life, the life in the Spirit–necessarily follows. And so here Paul is just defining further what a Christian is. If you are a Christian, then by virtue of that fact, you “walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”

I have to confess a great weakness and fault. I must constantly contend with a tendency to judge and criticize others – most especially for what I perceive as amazing self-centeredness, inconsideration, and rudeness. I find these traits glaringly and rudely shoved in my face in nearly every interaction with the general public – at work, at the grocery store, the post office, restaurants, out and about – people who apparently have no idea whatsoever that anyone other than they themselves exists.

They utterly ignore anyone and everyone else, unnecessarily blocking and hogging aisles in stores, lanes in traffic, conveyor belts at the grocer, lines at the bank or post office; letting doors close on other people (this especially inflames me when done to the elderly and infirm), loud and public profanity even around little children, inappropriate and loud talk on cell phones, etc. I’m sure you don’t need further illustrations; you see the same behavior whenever you venture into the public arena. They want what they want, they’ll do what they’ll do, and they have no concern whatever whether their actions affect someone else.

Who the heck do they think they are!? Didn’t their parents care enough about them to teach them how to be civil? Don’t they care that they are hastening the end of civilization? And condemning their children to mindless barbarianism?

My problem is worse than than their unspeakable narcissism, rudeness and thoughtlessness; and that is, my exasperation and anger. I acknowledge to myself that surely I do the same, but then again I’m pretty sure that I at least try to be aware and considerate of others, and even inconvenience myself for the sake of civility and common sense, much less my Christian duty to love my neighbor.

So I’m like the Pharisee, thanking God that I’m not like that ingrate over there.

I’m also aware that I daily develop a nugget of anger within me that I must also daily dissolve in self-reflection and prayer. Though I think they are thoughtlessly sinning against others (and me), my anger is also sinful – more so, I think, because I am obliged to love and forgive them, and to not hold grudges.

In my prayers this morning I took the matter to the Lord – not only my sinful reactions, but seeking to understand how “everyone” can be so blindly self-centered. And I think the Lord gave me a glimmer of insight. Many of them are blind. They are in great spiritual darkness. The world, the flesh and the devil have swallowed them up in unbelief, darkening their hearts and minds. Their outward behavior reflects what is in their hearts: blindness.

I mean, they act as though they are blind, and so I think, they are. They don’t see, because they cannot see. Rather than anger and frustration at their not seeing anything, I should have a merciful sense toward them like I would have toward a blind man stumbling.

I don’t know, that too seems more than a little condescending. Poor, blind, self-centered, little idolaters that don’t know any better. That can’t be the right attitude either. At least I’m trying to work it out.

Any ideas?

From time to time I am privileged to preach at one of our city’s retirement homes. This is the message for June 10, 2012:

This message is called The Revelation of Jesus Christ. But this message is not from the Book of the Revelation. I will draw instead on other passages from the NT. I call this message The Revelation of Jesus Christ because the only way that anyone can know Jesus is by revelation from heaven.

 You can certainly hear and learn about Jesus from reading the Bible, from evangelists and ministers preaching the gospel, and from other people who share Jesus on a personal level. Yet the only way that you yourself can know Jesus Christ is by revelation from heaven.

 Let’s look at a few passages from the Bible to see how this is so.

 The first passage I want to look at is from Galatians chapter 1. Our pastor, Rob van Kooten, has been preaching from Galatians, so I’d like to start there. The Apostle Paul wrote:

 For I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man’s gospel. For I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ. (Galatians 1:11-12)

 You probably remember Paul’s story from the Book of Acts chapter 9, when he was then called Saul, breathing out threats and murder (the Bible says) against followers of the Way–against Jesus, who is the way, the truth, and the life. On the Damascus road Saul was struck down by a blinding light, and Jesus appeared to him, saying, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?”.

 Jesus revealed himself to Saul as risen from the dead, and shining in glory from heaven. From then on Saul was Paul, the passionate believer, missionary, and apostle of Jesus Christ. How did it happen?–by revelation from heaven.

 You say, yes, but that was Paul. He saw the blinding light of Jesus from heaven and believed. But other people–certainly people today–do not experience a revelation of Jesus Christ like he did. True enough. But let’s look at another passage where the revelation was less spectacular to the senses. It was given to one of Jesus’ disciples: Peter. The story is found in the Gospel of Matthew.

Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” (Matthew 16:13-16)

Listen to what Jesus told Peter after he said that. Mind you, Jesus did not say, “Well of course, Peter. You have walked with me these several years. You have seen miracles–calming the stormy sea, feeding multitudes with only a few fish and few loaves of bread. You have seen me cast out demons and heal the sick and the infirm. What other conclusion could you come to, Peter, but that I am the Christ, the Son of God?”

No, he did not say anything like that at all.

And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.” (Matthew 16:17)

Isn’t that an amazing statement! Flesh and blood had not revealed it to Peter. It was not his earthly senses–though no doubt what he had seen and heard provided the context for understanding. But Jesus said that the only way that Peter knew who he was–the Christ, the Son of the living God–was by revelation from the Father in heaven.

In fact when Peter went back to trusting his flesh and blood, trusting in what he thought best, he told Jesus not to go to Jerusalem where he would be crucified. “That shall never happen to you!” he said. Jesus then gave Peter the strongest of rebukes in verse 23, saying,”Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”

Even here we could say, yes, but that was Peter. And he did see, after all, marvelous things done by Jesus. But let’s look at another passage, where this time Jesus referred to those who do not see and yet believe.

You know the story: the third day after Jesus was crucified and buried, he bodily rose from the grave, and showed himself alive to his disciples. In John chapter 20 we read:

 Now Thomas, one of the Twelve, called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.”
Eight days later, his disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.”
Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” (John 20:24-29)

Jesus said that those who do not see the risen Christ with their physical eyes, and yet believe in him, are blessed.

Indeed after Jesus was raised up into heaven 40 days later, no one could see him any more. Yet belief and faith in Jesus Christ has spread from that day to this, and to every nation, tribe, and tongue.

And that happens, my friends, when the gospel is preached; and when the gospel is preached, God reveals the truth of it, the reality of it, Christ himself–supernaturally, by the Holy Spirit. It is divine revelation from heaven.

Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. (1 Peter 1:8-9)

That’s how it is for you and me, my friends, if you believe. Even though you do not see him, you believe. It was not by flesh and blood, but the Father in heaven has revealed his Son, Jesus Christ, to you: Christ crucified and resurrected for the forgiveness of sins. By the faith that comes from heaven, you trust in him, your sins are forgiven, and you have eternal life.

One day, you will leave this world where you do not see him, and you will enter into heaven, where you will see him.

Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. (1 John 3:2)

Brothers and sisters in the Lord Jesus Christ, what a wonderful sight awaits our eyes in that great and glorious day. Let us be thankful today, then, for the revelation of Jesus Christ, from heaven to our own hearts and minds, for our salvation and his glory. Amen.