Come and Go
Sunday school lesson with Dr. Frank Carver and Dr. Herb Prince at First Church
of the Nazarene, San Diego, California, United States for Sunday, 27 April 2014
GOD
HAS SPOKEN
The Rest of
Faith: “a sabbath rest”
Part Three
(Hebrews
Fourteen) [The following outline is
that of Kevin L. Anderson, Hebrews: A Commentary In The Wesleyan Tradition, New
Beacon Bible Commentary (Kansas City: Beacon Hill Press, 2013), 5-6.
I. Hearing the Apostle
and High Priest of Our Confession: Hebrews 1:1—4:13
A. Hearing God’s
Word in These Last Days: Jesus the Merciful and Faithful High Priest (1:1—2:18)
B. Hearing God’s
Word Today: Jesus the Apostle and High Priest of Our Confession (3:1—4:13).
1. Commitment
as Christ’s Partners, God’s House (3:1-6)
2. Entering
God’s Rest: Warning and Promise (3:7—4:13)
a. The
Peril of Defying God’s Voice (3:7-19)
b.
Warning Not to Fall Sort of the Promised Rest (4:1-13)
II. Jesus’ Superior High Priesthood: Hebrews 4:14—10:18
III. Call to Persevering Faith and Acceptable Worship: Hebrews
10:19--13:25]
Hebrews 4:
12 For the word of God is living and active, and
sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing of soul and
spirit, of both joints and marrow, and is able to discern the thoughts and
intentions of the heart.
13 There is no creature that is hidden from his sight, but all
things are naked and laid open before the eyes of him to whom we must give an
account.[World English Bible]
Hebrews 4:12: “Indeed, the word
of God is living and active, sharper
than any two-edged sword, piercing until
it divides
soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it
is able to judge
the thoughts and intentions of the heart”
Out of his
eternal silence God spoke the Word [Henri
J. M. Nouwen, The Way of the Heart: Desert: Spirituality and Contemporary
Ministry (New York: Random House Inc.,
1983), 49.]
‘Till by the
Spirit of faith reveal’d,
The Book is
still unread, unknown,
And opened by
the Lamb alone. [ Charles Wesley, Short Hymns o Select Passages of the
Holy Scriptures (Bristol: Farley, 1792), 1.324.
http://www.divinity.duke.edu/Wesleyan/texts/cw_published_verse.html. a two
volume work with an editorial introduction by Randy Maddox.]
The New
Testament . . . is not a riddle for you to solve
nor a magic
charm for you to use, but a message. [Paul S. Minear, A Preface to the New Testament,
reprinted in Georgia Harkness, The Dark Night of the Soul (New York,
Abingdon-Cokesbury, 1945), 187-189.]
Morning after morning I try to study the
sixth
chapter of Saint John and it is too
great.
I cannot study it. I simply sit still
and try to breathe.
[Thomas Merton, The Sign of Jonas (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich,
1953), 226]
Introduction
The preceding verses (vv.1-11)
presented us with a sabbatismos, “a sabbath rest,” which God calls
“my
rest,” first referred to in the imagery of the seventh day of creation
when “God
rested on the seventh day from all his works.” Christians, “those who have
believed enter that rest,” and yet, “a sabbath rest (sabbatismos) still remains for the people of God” and therefore
we are exhorted to “make every effort to enter that rest.”
It is helpful here to take up for a
moment Donna Tyler’s suggestion that we take a look at the terms for “rest”
involved in our study. In the process I discovered a biblically linguistic
richness I did not expect. We begin with Psalm 95:11, our writer’s springboard
text. There the Hebrew word is menûnchah
meaning “a resting-place, rest” translated in the Greek LXX and the New
Testament by katapausis that we will
discuss below. The Hebrew term used in Genesis 2:1, 3, is the verb shābat, “to cease, desist, rest” related
to the noun for the Sabbath (Shabbāt).
The verb shābat is always linked with
the seventh day in the Old Testament (Exod. 34:21, 16:30). Interestingly, the
Hebrew term menûnchah, “resting-place,”
in Psalm 95:11 occurs in Isaiah 66:1 where it is linked in the same breath to
the cosmos and to God’s house, the temple:
Thus says the LORD:
Heaven is my throne
and
the earth is my footstool;
what is the house that you would build for
me,
and what is my resting place?
The sole New Testament
occurrence of the Greek sabbatismos in
Hebrews 4:9 was discussed in the previous lesson on Hebrews 4:6-11. The other Greek
words for “rest” in Hebrews 3:7-4:11 are the noun katapausis (8x) and the verb katapauein
(3x) meaning “rest,” “place of rest,” and “to rest. Significantly, the noun katapausis occurs in Acts 7:49 as
Stephen quotes Isaiah 66:1. The specific connotation of the term katapausis then must be taken from
its context in Hebrews along with the
dual imagery reflected in Stephen’s quotation in Acts 7:49 of Isaiah 66:1. This
in turn takes us back to Genesis 2:1-3 with its cosmic/temple implications that
stir the imagination. Last Sunday we sought an answer from “rest” in Hebrews to the question of life after death, the hope
that is within us (1 Peter 3:15).
Today, what this rich range of images
(divine-resting place, temple, cosmos) signifies for the Christian, the author
of Hebrews brings inescapably and penetratingly all the way home to his
readers—and to us. In our present text, verses 12-13, the author points us to
the practical “how” of an authentic partaking of our now freshly defined
“heavenly calling.” As we conclude our study of Hebrews 4:1-13 our author
proclaims
III. [ Our previous two lessons on this passage
constituted points I (3/23/14 on vv. 1-5) and II (4/6/14 on vv. 6-11).]
A
Living Word
4:12-13
12Indeed, the word of God is living
and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul
from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and
intentions of the heart. 13And before him no creature is hidden, but
all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an
account.
1.
These two verses, one
sentence in Greek, constitute “an eloquent conclusion” to Hebrews
1:1—4:13 that[“forms the capstone . . . to the entire sermon up to this point.” Anderson,
Hebrews, 145, 129] Two different meanings of that great Greek word, logos, open and close our text: “the word (ho logos) of God . . . we must render an account
(ho logos).” That “the word of God” is “living” takes our
minds back to “the living God” in 3:12. [“Take care, brothers and sisters, that none of you
may have an evil, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God.”]
So what does the author mean here by “the word of God”? The Old
Testament?
[2 Timothy 3:16-17: “All
scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for
correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to
God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.”] The
Incarnate Word? [John 1:1: “In the beginning was the Word, and the
Word was with God, and the Word was God.”] Yes! We are here reminded
of 1 John 1:1:
We declare to you what was from the
beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have
looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life--.
In his first epistle the apostle John
proclaims “the word of life.” At first glance this phrase refers
to the apostolic message, that is, the message of life. But to stop with the
message per se misses the beauty and
power of the John’s witness. This message of
life that he clothes in language reminiscent of the prologue of the Fourth Gospel,
“in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with
God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1), is not
just a message but a life that
embodies that message.
In John’s Gospel the stress was on the
person of the Word, but in 1 John, as
he delays until verse 3 the specific mention of Jesus, the emphasis shifts to
the life itself that is inconceivable
apart from the incarnate Son in whom it is imparted. In John’s perspective, the
“subject matter
and the person are identical in a unique fashion: to speak of the subject matter is to speak at
the same time of the person.” [ Rudolf Bultmann, The Johannine Epistles,
Hermeneia, tran. R. Philip OI’Hara, ed. Robert W. Funk (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1973), 8.] This “life,” truly “heard, . . . seen,
. . . looked at, and touched,” was
inconceivable apart from the incarnate Son through whom it came. [This comment is dependent on Rick Williamson, 2,
& 3 John, New Beacon Bible Commentary (Kansas City: Beacon Hill Press,
2010), 55-56, and on an unpublished lecture given in 1977]. This helps us understand Hebrews’
intent in 4:12-13. Let us look.
We
remember the terminology of speaking and hearing so far in Hebrews: “Long ago God
spoke . . . he has spoken in a Son” (1:1-2); “attention to what we have heard .
. . the message (logos) declared through
angels” (2:1-2); “the things that would be spoken later . . . as the Holy Spirit
says . . . who were they who heard” (3:5, 7); and “the message (ho logos) they heard” (4:2). Thus
the “word
of God” in our text is first of all the word as spoken, a word that is meant
to be heard and obeyed. It is a word that comes from “the living God,” a word that
is itself in turn “living and active” as is God himself! A spoken and declared gospel “word” whether in
witness, teaching, or proclamation (these three can hardly be separated), by
the power of the Spirit is intended to be and can be heard: “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your
hearts” (3:7, 15).
To the Jewish mind, rooted in the Old
Testament prophets, once a word (dabar)
was spoken, it takes on an independent existence, and once spoken cannot be
disregarded. Biblically, “the word of God” by its essential nature is purposeful
and active in the lives of those who hear:
“so shall my word be that goes out from my
mouth;
it
shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I
purpose,
and succeed in the
thing for which I sent it.” [Isaiah 55:11].
2.
As a sermonizer, the writer to the
Hebrews includes the inherent nature of Christian preaching. Our text not only
inform us of the “How” of God’s rest, but also of the “Why” of the preachers’
supreme privilege of Sunday after Sunday standing before folk dealing be known only as
it is proclaimed,” wrote the London Methodist pastor W. E. Sangster, well-known in
our heritage, in his delightfully powerful little book, Power in Preaching. [W.
E. Sangster, Power in Preaching (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1976 [1958]),
21. ]
A half century earlier also in London
the pastor/theologian Peter T. Forsyth had written in lines now famous, “With preaching
Christianity stands or falls because it is the declaration of the Gospel. Nay
more—far more—it is the Gospel prolonging and declaring itself.” [P. T. Forsyth, Positive Preaching and the Modern
Mind (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1980 [reprint from1907 edition by A. C.
Armstrong and Son]), 5].
As the Apostle Paul sums it up in
Romans 10:13-14,
“Everyone who calls on the name of the
Lord shall be saved.”
But
how shall they call on one in whom they have not believed? And how are they to
believe in one of whom they have not heard? And how are they to hear without
someone to proclaim to them?
True biblical preaching that brings home “the Holy,” Jesus atoning death on the
Cross, “the holiest place of the Christian faith,” to the human
heart in order that sin and grace may be brought home [This sentence is dependent on P. T. Forsyth, The
Cruciality of the Cross (London: Independent Press, Ltd., 1909), 24, 15]. takes a
miracle—the grace of the Holy Spirit present and speaking. As Hunter interprets
Peter Forsyth, the Word of God is
God revealing himself by word and deed to man. This
revelation is consummated in Christ and his atoning cross. Christ is God’s
unique and revealing Word [as is the Christian proclamation] . . . because
through it the living Christ interprets his finished work. . . . The Word is
Christ his Son; as it comes from Christ, through his church, it is the
apostolic gospel interpreted by the Holy Spirit; and the Bible itself becomes
the word of God when, by the Spirit’s power, the historic grace of God in
Christ is mediated to believing men. [ A. M.
Hunter, P. T. Forsyth (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1974), 48].
3.
Our writer defines this “living and
active” power of the proclaimed word in its many expressions as sharper than any
two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from
marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” The image of a
“two-edged
sword” is used in scripture for the power of speech: “from his mouth
came a sharp, two-edged sword” (Rev. 1:16). [See also Revelation 2:12, Psalms 149:6, and
Proverbs 5:4] The sword’s “piercing” power “until it divides
soul from spirit, joints from marrow” “may reflect Platonic psychology and
physiology,” but “more likely, Hebrews is pointing simply to the division of our
inner self into its most fundamental component parts.” [Anderson,
Hebrews, 146].
Whatever human psychology and
physiology may be involved, the author’s point is that the “word of God . . .
“is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” The sword of
God’s word is able to judge us at the “deepest, vital core of the human
person”; it reaches to “the center of human intellectual, emotional, and
moral life.” [ Anderson, Hebrews, 147.] It is ultimately before God as he
speaks through a proclaimed word—public sermon, personal witness, or the
reading or hearing of the biblical text, that “no creature is hidden, but all are
naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account.” Sooner or later, and it might as well
be sooner, we all before the “eyes” of a holy God, must come to terms with our moral
and spiritual accountability to God in Christ. We must give “an account,” a logos of our lives—and for our hearts! [See 13:17;
1 Peter 3:15; 2 Corinthians 5:10.]
Conclusion
The word of God as such in all its
forms is a privileged gift of grace to us, given to enter, to permeate, and to
transform every element of our human persons. As it comes to us through the
Scriptures, this grace is beautifully expressed by David Whitelaw as he shares with
some of his personal friends this confession in his search for his life anew
after the loss of Myrna:
The Scriptures
are compelling for the primary reason that they enable me to look life in the
eye with a rugged sense of reality. . . . What the Christian Scriptures bring
to me is the direct immediacy of the God who speaks through his Word by his
Spirit in my own heart. . . . I find
myself being offered the mindfulness of Jesus of Nazareth who walked the
pathway of obedience as a human being. He walks now in my shoes as it were, all
the way even to the death of the Cross, thereby fusing together sheer delight
in doing the will of the Father with the supreme duty of paying the price of
doing the next right thing. [David P. Whitelaw, “Memo to Myself”
(February 10, 2014), in an informal document shared with his friends].
The two
disciples on the road to Emmaus, after exclaiming to themselves, “Were not our hearts
burning within us . . . while he was opening the scriptures to us,” returned to
the other disciples and announced, “The Lord has risen indeed.” Luke as
narrator sums up their experience with “they told what had happened on the road,
and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.” Later with all
the disciples as Jesus appeared in their midst Luke reports that “then he opened
their minds to understand the scriptures.” [Luke 24:32, 34, 35, 45].
Is it really
true with Peter Forsyth that the great, the fundamental, sacrament is “the Sacrament
of the living Word,” the sacrament that “gives value to all the other
sacraments”?
[Forsyth, Positive Preaching, 6, 7]. One cannot
separate “Word and Table”!
Indeed, the word of God is living and active, sharper
than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints
from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And
before him no creature is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes
of the one to whom we must render an account. [W. T Purkiser, Hebrews, James, Peter, Beacon
Bible Expositions, volume 11 (Kansas City, Missouri: Beacon Hill Press, 1974),
17, sees here “ a marvelous instance of the ‘self-authenticating’ character of
divine inspiration.”]
We dare not leave this
great passage on the rest of God for his people (4:1-13) without returning to
the invitation of Jesus in Matthew 11:28-30:
“Come to me, all you who are weary and
burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me,
for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For
my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
or
“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on
religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show
you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it.
Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting
on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”[The
Message]
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