Day 355 (Hebrews 1-6) - Year 6
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Hey Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble and I'm your host for The Bible Recap. Today we have a mystery on our hands. We don't know for sure who wrote this book or who they wrote it to. There are a few credible theories like Paul or Luke or Barnabas or Apollos. All we know is that whoever it was ran in the same circle as the apostles. But if we don't know who wrote it, then why was it canonized as scripture?

The primary reason is that the early church fathers accepted it as scripture. We'll link to an article with more info on that in the show notes. It seems to be written to Jewish Christians, it references the Old Testament a lot, and it is a treatise on the supremacy of Christ, which is probably why it's a crowd favorite. It has its fair share of heavy lifting, but it's so worth it. Right out of the gate, the author is laying out rich theology.

I'm ready for the altar call, and we've only read four verses.

The earth and the heavens will wear out someday, but Jesus will remain unchanged forever despite both of his homes being done away with and made new. The author tells his readers to not let all of this escape them. God the Son came down to earth to live as a human, and God the Father has made everything subject to the Son who created it all at the Father's command, and he controls it all.

Right now, it doesn't look like everything is subject to him, but someday we will see his authority and control fully expressed. One of the ways we'll see that is when he deals with Satan, like 2.14 says. It requires a little bit of unpacking, though. It says Jesus died so that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil.

Here are two things worth pointing out. First, the word destroy means render powerless, so it's less annihilation and more shutting it down. Second, does the devil have the power of death? Isn't God in control of all that?

Yes, Satan holds the power of death the way your dog holds its chew toy. It only has it when you let it, because ultimately you're the one in control of the chew toy. Everything Satan does, he does on a leash. And because of Christ's supremacy over all of that, you and I have been set free from the fear of death. Another thing that jumped out at me here is what the author says in 2.1. We must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it.

It reminded me of a quote from D.A. Carson where he points to this kind of drifting. He said, "...people do not drift toward holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance. We drift toward disobedience and call it freedom. We drift toward superstition and call it faith."

We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation. We slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism. We slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated. Yikes.

Chapter 3 says the Father appointed the Son to this role, and the Son fulfilled that role perfectly. And part of that role is the building of God's house, His church, and He dwells in us. Because of this, the author urges his audience to remain firm in the faith, because if we do, it's evidence that He truly lives in us. Verse 14 says it like this,

In other words, those who truly know God will continue to believe in Him. They will not fall away. And those who fall away are those who never truly knew Him. They have hearts of unbelief, not new hearts. Their hearts have been hardened by the lies sin tells. The author begs his listeners to pay attention to their hearts, to see which direction their hearts are moving. Are they getting softer or are they becoming hardened by sin? According to 4.2, just because we hear and agree with the truth doesn't mean we've believed it and accepted it at a heart level.

Christ's work was finished before the foundation of the earth, and because of his finished work, we can rest. And because of his finished work, we can approach the throne of the Father to pray with confidence. We don't have to be afraid. We are accepted, not reluctantly, but joyfully. He wants to help us and show us mercy. We have an open invitation to draw near to him.

In chapter 5, the author makes some Old Testament connections that are rich. He connects Jesus to a priest named Melchizedek, who is just as mysterious as the book of Hebrews, if not more. If you weren't with us in the Old Testament, or if you were and you want a refresher on the significance of Melchizedek, check out the video and article we've linked to in the show notes. The author begs them again to pay attention. He says at this point in their relationship with God, they should actually be teachers, but that they're still working on the basics.

The problem is they haven't grown in discernment. They can hardly tell good from evil. They need to be trained and practice what they're learning. He continues this line of thought in chapter 6 by saying, so let's do this. Let's get out of the Jesus crib and start learning how to walk. We've already laid the foundation here.

You already know about repentance and baptism and the resurrection and eternal judgment. You've got the basics down. Now let's start building on those basics so you can actually grow up as a believer. Then he goes into a section that has been the topic of much debate and confusion because it sounds like he's saying a person can lose their salvation. And if he's saying that, then he's also saying they can never repent and return to Christ. Yikes.

While there are some weighty warnings in this section that we want to pause and reflect on, we want to make sure we're reflecting on it rightly by seeing what it's actually saying. Like with all of Scripture, we interpret these verses through the rest of Scripture.

This section about the person falling away is pointing to a person who does not know Jesus. He has experienced Jesus like Judas did and maybe even affirmed that he believes in Jesus, but his heart hasn't been transformed. He's like land that received a lot of good rain, but still only yielded thorns, not fruit. The seed of the gospel fell on bad soil. He doesn't have a new heart.

The author goes on in the next verse to say, He makes a clear distinction here that the preceding verses aren't about them. They aren't about a person losing their salvation. They're about a person who never had it. And for those people, there is literally nowhere else to turn because Christ has already been sacrificed and his sacrifice was final. So it's Jesus or nothing.

But for the believer, verse 11 says they can have full assurance of the hope that is only in Christ, a hope that anchors our soul. We'll link to a few things in the show notes that may be helpful if you want to dig into this further. My God shot was in chapter 5, where the author reminds us that God deals gently with the ignorant and the wayward.

This isn't talking about a rebellious person raising his fist to God. This is talking about an uninformed person who doesn't know better or someone who has wandered off on accident. God shows mercy to his kids in both of those situations.

I love this because I spent a lot of my life being terrified that God was out to get me for any accidental sins I committed. I was worried that if I made a mistake or misunderstood His direction, I would ruin everything. I had this idea that God's will was like a target, and if I wandered off into the outer rings, I'd ruin my chance at having a happy bullseye life.

I have no idea where I got that idea. Not from Scripture, that's for sure. Scripture never talks about the center of God's will or the edges or the rings like it's some kind of skee-ball in the sky. Instead, Scripture says God's Spirit lives in me and works in me according to His will.

Philippians 2.13 says, It is God who works in you both to will and to work for His good pleasure. He's guiding me, convicting me, keeping me. Philippians 1.6 says, He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. He's not giving up. And when I'm ignorant and wayward, He's not shocked. He factored that in. What a relief. He's where the joy is. ♪

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