Come and Go Sunday School Lessons with Dr. Frank Carver & Dr. Herb Prince “GOD HAS SPOKEN--Not Without Us!” at First Church of the Nazarene in San Diego, California, United States
GOD HAS SPOKEN
Not Without Us!
(Hebrews Thirty-Three)[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
II. Jesus’ Superior High Priesthood: Hebrews 4:14—10:18
III. Call to Persevering Faith and Acceptable Worship: Hebrews 10:19--13:25
- Exhortations to Persevere in Faith, 10:19—12:13
- Confidence and Perseverance in Faith, 10:19-39
- Worthy Examples of Faith, 11:1-40
- Training for Enduring Faith, 12:1-13
- Exhortations to Offer Acceptable Worship, 12:14—13:25. ]
Hebrews 12:1 So then, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us, too, put aside every impediment — that is, the sin which easily hampers our forward movement — and keep running with endurance in the contest set before us, 2 looking away to the Initiator and Completer of that trusting,[Hebrews 12:2 Habakkuk 2:4]Yeshua — who, in exchange for obtaining the joy set before him, endured execution on a stake as a criminal, scorning the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.[Hebrews 12:2 Psalm 110:1] 3 Yes, think about him who endured such hostility against himself from sinners, so that you won’t grow tired or become despondent. 4 You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in the contest against sin.
5 Also you have forgotten the counsel which speaks with you as sons:
“My son, don’t despise the discipline of Adonai
or become despondent when he corrects you.
6 For Adonai disciplines those he loves
7 Regard your endurance as discipline; God is dealing with you as sons. For what son goes undisciplined by his father? 8 All legitimate sons undergo discipline; so if you don’t, you’re a mamzer and not a son!
9 Furthermore, we had physical fathers who disciplined us, and we respected them; how much more should we submit to our spiritual Father and live! 10 For they disciplined us only for a short time and only as best they could; but he disciplines us in a way that provides genuine benefit to us and enables us to share in his holiness.
11 Now, all discipline, while it is happening, does indeed seem painful, not enjoyable; but for those who have been trained by it, it later produces its peaceful fruit, which is righteousness. 12 So,
strengthen your drooping arms,
13 and
so that what has been injured will not get wrenched out of joint but rather will be healed.
Hebrews 12:1-3: “Therefore, . . . let us run with perseverance the race that is
set before us, 2looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. . . . Consider him . . . so that you may not grow weary or lose heart.
They had a long obedience in the same direction.[A favorite saying of Hal Bonner, an NTS classmate, from the title of Eugene Peterson, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction: Discipleship In an Instant Society (1980). as reported by his nephew, Mark Lehman, who conducted his Memorial Service. Hal passed away May 5, 2014.]
Hebrews was written for people who have experienced life’s shipwrecks.[Anderson, Hebrews, 324. It is significant that the writer’s efforts to encourage the discouraged was based so thoroughly on Christology: Who Jesus was (a Son) and what he accomplished (purification for sins . . . sat down).]
Introduction
Phil Tyler, during the discussion of our previous lesson, “The Spirit of Grace,” mentioned that the final two summary verses of Hebrews 11 are related to our then theme of “the hidden Christ.” Such had not occurred to me. So we begin with a look at Hebrews 11:39-40 as both a transition from that lesson on “The Spirit of Grace” and as our introduction to Hebrews 12. The two verses read,
39Yet all these, though they were commended for their faith, did not receive what was promised,40 since God had provided something better so that they would not, apart from us, be made perfect.
If it is “not without us” that the ancient heroes of faith will ”be made perfect” in relation to the promises, “Where do we fit in?” The ancients are promised that they will share in the same access to God that we now and in the future will enjoy. What about these “unconscious Christians”?[Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison, Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, Volume 8, ed. John W. de Gruchy, trans, Isabel Best, Lisa Dahill, Reinhard Kraus, and Nancy Luiens (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2010), 489, 522.]
Three questions loom up before us: First, What did the ancients have? Since they did not have “what was promised,” how are we to view these heroes of the faith? Peter, as we have seen, went so far as to speak of “the Spirit of Christ within them” at work (1 Pet. 1:11). Peter looked back from the stance of one “sanctified by the Spirit” (1:2) through his inspired telescope at the presence of the Spirit of God among the ancients. He had heard their testimony as expressed by the Psalmist: “O God, . . .
Do not cast me away from your presence,
And do not take your holy [S]pirit from me (51:11).[NRSV does not capitalize either “holy” or “spirit.” NIV and NASB capitalize both. I would render the phrase as “holy Spirit” with “holy” functioning simply in the Old Testament setting as an adjective modifying the divine Spirit, that is, “the Spirit of God.”]
“Continuity” rather than “discontinuity” would be a word Peter would use to describe the relation of his faith to theirs. Certainly, by the Spirit of God, the ancients knew the presence of God. So far so good, yet they “did not receive what was promised.”
Thus, the second question confronts us: What did the ancients not have? Simply put, what they were experiencing had not yet reached its promised goal. The shadows in their walk with God were not yet dispensed by the light of the Son, that is, they did not know the full revelation of the heart of God in his Person and in his Work. They needed yet to possess fully what was already hidden in their hearts and imperfectly expressed in their lives. For them with us God has “provided something better.”
Here is where we fit in with the third question: What do the ancients need us for? In our preacher’s terms as it is coming clear, it is with us, the New Testament Christians, “that they” will “be made perfect.” The heroes of faith need us because we have been privileged to walk with God yonder side of the Incarnation. We have been introduced by grace through faith to him who, “although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered; and having been made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him” (5:8).
It is open to us to know by faith the one who “entered into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf” (9:24). “It is by God’s will that we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all” (10:10). “By a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are sanctified” (10:14)—not only “better” (10:40), but the best! The faithfulness of the ancients can now be seen in the revealed light of what their faith and experience finally and fully meant. Together with us they are made perfect; they are now “the spirits of the righteous made perfect” (12:23). Viewed now from the perspective of what we have received in Jesus, they “are counting on us to finish the race.” [Anderson, Hebrews 314, The next line reflects his quotation of Origen: “Abraham is still waiting to obtain the perfect things. Isaac waits, and Jacob and all the prophets wait for us, that they may lay hold of the perfect blessedness with us.”]
Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and all the prophets have waited for us to fully grasp the promises. They are expecting us to successfully “run”
I.
The Race
12:1-2
We pause for a moment to remind ourselves who the people are whom the author has in mind as he writes. We quote Anderson:
Hebrews is addressed to a house church of Christ followers who were once fervent in their commitment to Christ, regardless of the cost of discipleship. . . . In the past they faced public insult and injury with courage. They accepted the plunder of their possessions with a smile. The entire community helped share the burden of suffering and rallied round those who were imprisoned on account of their faith. But a fresh wave of hardships caused many to be paralyzed by fear and immobilized by discouragement. Many of them had all but given up hope. Some had begun to cut their ties with Christian fellowship, choosing not to attend regular church worship gatherings.[Anderson, Hebrews, 324.]
Now to the race that such discouraged folk are encouraged to run. It is an unusual kind of race in that the readers are urged to look to Jesus:
1“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, 2looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.”
In the light of the author’s last words in his litany of faith-heroes, “God had provided something better” for both past and present people. The writer’s first word is an emphatic “therefore,” or as Johnson translates, “for this reason.”[Johnson, Hebrews, 313.]
The preacher’s reason starts with the great “cloud of witnesses” that surrounds his Christian readers. The imagery suggests that the faith-heroes are spectators, cheering on their favorite contenders in the race. But they are far more than spectators, they are “witnesses”! They are men and women who throughout the long and tortured history of the people of God were “commended for their faith.”
As Anderson writes, the ancients’ “testimonies of triumph and tragedy in faith provide an interpretive framework for the listeners’ own struggle.”[Anderson, Hebrews, 316.] The faithfulness of the ancients with their limited vision can serve as a great encouragement to the recipients of Hebrews whose vision is far greater. They can look to Jesus who “endured the cross . . . and has taken his seat at the right and of the throne of God”.
The author exhorts his runners in the faith first to “lay aside every weight”; he is calling to mind the marathon race in the Olympic games of his own day. They are to “strip down,” excess clothing is to be set aside, everything that will hinder their hoped-for performance is cast off. I can’t help but wonder, What is it for you and me? Attitudes/dispositions? Behaviors? Relationships? Involvements? Or better, what extraneous weight do we carry along on our Christian journey? What useless baggage?
Most important to be done away with or kept at bay is “the sin that clings so closely.” In the light of the warnings that have threaded their way, some subtly and others not so subtly, throughout Hebrews, beginning with “how can we escape” and the recent “there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins,” the sin that “so easily entangles us” (NASB) is essentially the sin of unbelief. [The passages are 2:1-4; 3:7-18; 4:1-12; 5:11-14; 6:4-9; 10:26-31.] This is the never far-off sin!
Unbelief, defined bottom-line as “lack of trust,” is the sin of sins, the sin that leads to all others. It is the sin that starts one down the road to apostasy, and can end there—a complete falling away in life and faith. Richard Taylor put it well: “the chronic tendency to unbelief . . . constantly exposes them to apostasy.”[ Richard S, Taylor, “Hebrews,” Beacon Bible Commentary, Volume10, ed. Albert F. Harper (Beacon Hill Press of Kansas City, 1967), 155.] Black can become white in such a conscience. The apostle John all through his gospel and letters sums up the Christian life with two clear, direct, and all-comprehensive commands: “Believe and love” (1 John 3:23).
Marathon runners keep their eyes on the course laid out ahead; they are determined to stay “on track.” Just so is it with the Christian runner, proclaims the preacher. But the track is different in that the runner’s eyes are now fixed on a person, another runner—“Jesus, the one who runs ahead of them and has already finished the race that is the life of faith.”[Johnson, Hebrews, 317.]
Our author describes Jesus as he did earlier to his readers as “the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.”[We examined these terms in “Hebrews Seven (1/5/14) on which we rely in what follows. In 2:10 the writer calls Jesus “God . . .should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through sufferings.” The Greek word archēgos, is difficult to translate into English. Along with NRSV’s “pioneer,” some suggestions are “leader,” “captain” (KJV), and “author” (NASB). Anderson, Hebrews, 94, examining the term’s usage outside the New Testament, chooses the term “champion”: “Jesus is the ‘champion who imitates and perfects our faith.’” The Greek term combines the noun “beginning” (archē) and the verb “to bring or lead” (agō). The context in Hebrews would favor the sense of leading the way, one who goes “perfecting” of the human Jesus for his priestly role. Jesus became qualified for the representation before God of all humanity with whom he fully unites himself by submitting himself to a perfecting process the means of “sufferings.”] He proclaims him as the source, the preparer, the end, and the completion of our faith.[See 2:10; 5:9; 10:10 and 14. of Jesus, who “by the grace of God” tasted “death for everyone,” and in whose wake we follow. Jesus is also the “perfecter”our “salvation.” This “perfecting” work includes both our way to salvation and what we experience in that salvation! The Greek verb teleiosai means to make something complete, whole or adequate. In the LXX it has special reference to the ordination of priests (Exodus 29:9-35). The author’s use of the perfection language speaks to the “qualifying,” the “finishing,” or the “perfecting” of the human Jesus for his priestly role. Jesus became qualified for the representation before God of all humanity with whom he fully unites himself by submitting himself to a perfecting process the means of “sufferings.”] The one we look to away from all others is the “Jesus” who lived among us as fully one of us; we fix our eyes on him as the exemplar of our faith! We keep “on track” with the “faithful” Jesus who, running ahead of us, has successfully finished the course we are on!
The Hebrews author’s readers had faced difficult times in the practice of their faith: “you endured a hard struggle with sufferings” (10:32). And they anticipate tough times ahead. The writer encourages them to focus their eyes on the one who has finished their race, the one who for “the joy that was set before him” of the prize of “bringing many children to glory” (2:10) “endured the cross.”
With this brief, only here in Hebrews, designation of the cross as the instrument of Jesus death, the preacher has him across the finish line. But in that culture it was the most shameful of deaths. Jesus, however, as result of his death, reverses this disgraceful perception as he takes “his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.”
Jesus won his race; he sits in the victor’s seat with its laurels, the flowery wreath is around his neck. The victory of the race of faithful faith belongs first to him and then to those who look to him as they run the race that he has ran. This is the “better” that God has provided so that the faith-heroes of old will not “apart from us,” but with us will “be made perfect.” This is the encouraging word of the writer to the Hebrews to his readers as he exhorts the discouraged church to “run with perseverance the race that is set before” them.
Why does the writer toss in the phrase “with perseverance”? As the author continues to insist, “looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith,” this great and thrilling and often grueling marathon of faith will at times demand strenuous
II.
Endurance
12:3-13
This passage continues the theme of 10:32-39: “For you need endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised” (v. 36). These verses fall into three movements, a transition (vv. 2-4), the discussion of divine discipline (vv. 5-11), and a concluding final exhortation (vv. 12-13).
First, the transition (vv. 3-4) continues the attention to the one who “endured the cross” with “consider him:”
3Consider him who endured such hostility against himself from sinners, so that you may not grow weary or lose heart. 4In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.
The listeners are now addressed directly as the author shifts from the first person plural “we . . . us” (vv. 1-2) to the second person plural “you.” The readers are urged to compare their present “struggle”[The imagery here may refer to the more violent sports of boxing and wrestling or it may suggest Jesus’violent death by crucifixion. Anderson, Hebrews, 318.] with the greater sufferings imposed by the “hostility . . . from sinners” that Jesus endured. They, unlike him, “have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.” Perhaps they “yet” will! Thus the exhortation “to endure”: “Consider him . . . so that you may not grow weary or lose heart”
The second movement (vv. 5-11), described by Johnson as “critical to understanding both the Christology of Hebrews and its vision of discipleship,”[Johnson, Hebrews, 321,] takes us to the imagery of the ancient gymnasium where physical, mental, and moral training takes place:
5And you have forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as children—
My child, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, or lose heart when you are punished by him; 6for the Lord disciplines those whom he loves, and chastises every child whom he accepts [Prov. 3:11-12].
7Endure trials for the sake of discipline. God is treating you as children; for what child is there whom a parent does not discipline? 8If you do not have that discipline in which all children share, then you are illegitimate and not his children. 9Moreover, we had human parents to discipline us, and we respected them. Should we not be even more willing to be subject to the Father of spirits and live? 10For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share his holiness. 11Now, discipline always seems painful rather than pleasant at the time, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.
In the background is the Greek education system (paideia) that prepared young men for the responsibilities of full citizenship in Greek society. With this the preacher’s concern becomes “divine education.”[Anderson, Hebrews, 319,] The five occurrences of paideia and cognates in the passage, translated as “discipline” in both noun and verb forms, are our sure clue.
In line with his characterization of the whole of Hebrews as “my word of exhortation” (13:22) the writer quotes Proverbs 3:11-12 as his determining “exhortation”[The writer’s introductory line is best viewed as a rhetorical question:” “have you have forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as children?”]:
My child, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, or lose heart when you are punished by him; 6for the Lord disciplines those whom he loves, and chastises every child whom he accepts.
The designation “Child” in the Proverb’s quotation and its following application in Hebrews along with “children” is literally here and in Proverbs “son” and “sons,” making the author’s point more easily grasped.[While NRSV’s gender inclusiveness gains something for today’s readers, it often loses a preciseness of meaning and sacrifices ancient cultural reference for contemporary application.] The point is, that in the education that God provides, he is not treating the Christians as human fathers treat their sons, “rather, God is treating them ‘as sons,’ that is, as God’s own sons.”[Johnson, 321.] For God, with Jesus as “the pioneer and perfecter” of their faith, is “bringing many sons to glory,” therefore, “Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers” (2:10-11, NIV). With the text from Proverbs, as the preacher spins it out, is the theologically significant “essential link between Christology and discipleship.” [Johnson, 321. This characterizes the whole of Hebrews, it is at the core of what thedocument isdoing.]
Crucial to the proper understanding of God’s discipline “for our good” is its purpose, “that we may share his holiness.” More than education in moral virtue, such discipline is “participation in the holy life of God.”[Anderson, 322.] It is “divine education” par excellence! God is working us over into his likeness: “we will be like him, for we will see him as he is” (1 John 3:2). “Discipline,” when God is in it, is a good word in spiritual formation!
What the readers “at the time” experience as more painful than pleasant contains within it the realities of the future; it later “yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.” Righteousness and peace characterize the messianic age, their effective presence in the life of Christian folk are signs that the Kingdom of God has come corporately and individually.[Ps. 85:10; Isa. 9:6-7; 11:3-9; 32:17, Rom.14:17.] Character, the holy character that comes with “the maturation of the ethical life through divine discipline,”[For some strange reason I cannot find the source of this quotation] is what matters in “the end”!
The third movement of our passage (vv.12-13) constitutes a concluding command to the “exhortation” from Proverbs and its application to the Hebrews congregation as they anticipate and dread renewed suffering:
12Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, 13and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed.
The author returns to the athletic imagery of the race. The exhortation to endurance and faithfulness is a call to face the exhaustion of the race with courage and to keep their feet pointed on the straight course, on the track that Jesus ran lest an off-the-course crooked and rough terrain cripple them. Only thus will they undergo their necessary healing in this life, and are enabled to anticipate the final fulfillment of the promises.
Conclusion
For the Hebrews readers to undergo such Fatherly discipline as sons and daughters is the sure sign that they belong to the household of God, that they are legitimate members of the Christian community.
In the face of tough days ahead within the larger civil community, as they look to Jesus who “endured the cross, disregarding its shame,” and “consider him who endured such hostility against himself from sinners,” they will enjoy the “something better” (11:40) that allows the ancient heroes of faith to “be made perfect,” yet Not Without Us!
For their sakes as well as ours, we too endure faithfully in the marathon of grace. We “run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.”
____________________________
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