Hebrews 3:1 ¶
Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider
the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus; 2 Who was faithful to him that appointed him,
as also Moses was faithful in all his house. 3 For this man was counted worthy of
more glory than Moses, inasmuch as he who hath builded the house hath more
honour than the house. 4 For every house
is builded by some man; but he that built all things is God.
5 And Moses verily was faithful
in all his house, as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were to
be spoken after; 6 But Christ as a son
over his own house; whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence and the
rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end.
Paul moves now from his glorifying of Christ
and the gospel to the example of Moses. Jesus was God in the flesh and was of
more importance than even Moses as the one who builds the house is greater than
the house. Moses was faithful and a trusted servant of God who spoke of things
which should come after him and his time. But from Christ is generated a
different kind of house than men build.
Psalm 22:30
A seed shall serve him; it shall be accounted to the Lord for a
generation.
We are that house, that family of God.
Ephesians 2:21 In whom all the building fitly framed
together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord: 22 In whom ye also are builded together for an
habitation of God through the Spirit.
1Timothy 3:15
But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave
thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar
and ground of the truth.
1Peter 2:5
Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy
priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus
Christ.
Ephesians 3:14 ¶ For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ,
15 Of
whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named,
Verse 6 can be perplexing. If we hold fast
seems like a conditional phrase that suggests salvation can be lost. However,
later, Paul will state that it is impossible to get saved, lose your salvation,
and then get saved again. Commentators like John Gill insisted that they that
have true confidence and faith will keep them to the end. Now John Gill is said
to have been a staunch Calvinist so his belief would have been then that those
who are truly saved will stay saved and stay faithful to the end. However, we
know many cases of children coming to God, then falling away, and then returning
later in life. My point is that we cannot judge whether a person is truly
saved. We can only know that if they go to their death rejecting Christ, even after
having prayed a prayer for salvation years before their apostasy, they probably
weren’t serious and weren’t truly saved in the first place. That’s simple
logic. A prayer of salvation is not a magic chant and has no power in itself if
the person who prays it is not sincere or doesn’t understand what they have
prayed.
So, sadly, if the person you love professed
Christ as a child, then turned away for much of their life, and rejected Christ
to their death, they probably weren’t serious and had no commitment in their
heart when they prayed the prayer of salvation. Perhaps they wanted to please
somebody, assuage some guilt, and get some physical relief from a problem or a
sickness but they had no true foundation in faith in Christ.
Apostasy, reaching for salvation and falling
away without it is one theme in Hebrews. We should consider it when we pray
with someone and then abandon them to the flesh, the world, and the devil. Did
they even know or consider what they said with their lips, in their heart. How
can they be true to Christ?
What is the condition of the following as
described by these verses?
Matthew 13:24 ¶ Another parable put he forth unto them,
saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in
his field: 25 But while men slept, his
enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way. 26 But when the blade was sprung up, and brought
forth fruit, then appeared the tares also. 27
So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst
not thou sow good seed in thy field? from whence then hath it tares?
28 He
said unto them, An enemy hath done this. The servants said unto him, Wilt thou
then that we go and gather them up? 29
But he said, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the
wheat with them. 30 Let both grow
together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the
reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn
them: but gather the wheat into my barn.
Matthew 13:37
He answered and said unto them, He that soweth the good seed is the Son
of man; 38 The field is the world; the
good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of
the wicked one; 39 The enemy that sowed
them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the
angels. 40 As therefore the tares are
gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world.
41 The Son of man shall send forth his
angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and
them which do iniquity; 42 And shall
cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.
43 Then shall the righteous shine forth
as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.
Matthew 7:21 ¶ Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord,
shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father
which is in heaven. 22 Many will say to
me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name
have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? 23 And then will I profess unto them, I never
knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.
2Timothy 2:12
If we suffer, we shall also reign with him: if we deny him, he also will
deny us:
13 If
we believe not, yet he abideth faithful: he cannot deny himself.
We will see that it can be possible to
consider the gospel, to reach for it in a manner of speaking but without
understanding or true submission, to even do the work of the church and what
are considered good Christian works in general and not be saved. We must
consider the importance of the commitment we made when we prayed asking Christ
to take over our lives. Did we even intend that? Or are we fooling ourselves?
Examine your own heart. What exactly do you believe?
Revelation 2:7 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the
Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of
the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.
1John 5:4
For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the
victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. 5 Who is he that overcometh the world, but he
that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?
Hebrews 3:7 ¶
Wherefore (as the Holy Ghost saith, To day if ye will hear his voice,
8 Harden not your hearts, as in the
provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness: 9 When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and
saw my works forty years. 10 Wherefore I
was grieved with that generation, and said, They do alway err in their
heart; and they have not known my ways. 11
So I sware in my wrath, They shall not enter into my rest.) 12 Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of
you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God. 13 But exhort one another daily, while it is
called To day; lest any of you be
hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.
14 For we are made partakers of Christ,
if we hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the end; 15 While it is said, To day if ye will hear his
voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation. 16 For some, when they had heard, did provoke:
howbeit not all that came out of Egypt by Moses. 17 But with whom was he grieved forty years? was
it not with them that had sinned, whose carcases fell in the wilderness?
18 And to whom sware he that they should
not enter into his rest, but to them that believed not? 19 So we see that they could not enter in
because of unbelief.
Here is Paul’s source verses from Psalms for
verses 7 through 11.
Psalm 95:7 ¶
For he is our God; and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep
of his hand. To day if ye will hear his voice, 8 Harden not your heart, as in the provocation,
and as in the day of temptation in the wilderness: 9 When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and
saw my work. 10 Forty years long was I
grieved with this generation, and said, It is a people that do err in their
heart, and they have not known my ways: 11
Unto whom I sware in my wrath that
they should not enter into my rest.
The disobedient and unbelieving Jews would
not enter in God’s rest, the Promised Land. Paul is warning these Jews who
profess to be followers of Christ that they may fall short of salvation and
eternal life by an unbelief that lays beneath the surface making all of their
professions of faith a lie.
I have known people who professed faith in
Christ at a young age but when the desires of youth and the pull of ancient
pagan philosophies like atheistic evolution and the gnostic communist cult attracted them by justifying their baser
lusts proved that profession a lie. Accepting Christ does not involve a magic
chant but a commitment. Paul is giving a stern warning here and it applies to
us, as well. Do we push our small children into making a “decision for Christ”
when they have no root within themselves? Do we nurture and grow their faith as
they grow? What about the drug addict who just wants to be free of his
addiction but doesn’t even consider the basis of the Christian faith in who
Christ is and what He did? Then, when temptation rears its ugly head sin draws
them back into their iniquity and one day they even admit they never actually
believed.
In verse 14 we have the word confidence
which should be linked to our faith.
Hebrews 11:1 ¶ Now faith is the substance of things hoped
for, the evidence of things not seen.
And those who hold this faith to the end are
saved but not those who claimed faith and then rejected it. Let me give you an
example. This is from a famous science celebrity.
A
noted evolutionary biologist, Edward
O. Wilson, wrote a book entitled Consilience
in which he writes in chapter one about the joy he felt when he found and
believed in the theory of evolution and the unity of all sciences with that
atheistic determinism as their foundation, well unquestionable fact more than
theory to him with the following as part of his journey to atheism;
On
a far more modest scale, I found it a wonderful feeling not just to taste the
unification metaphysics but also to be released from the confinement of
fundamentalist religion. I had been raised a Southern Baptist, laid backward
under the water on the sturdy arm of a pastor, been born again. I knew the
healing power of redemption. Faith, hope, and charity were in my bones, and
with millions of others I knew that my savior Jesus Christ would grant me
eternal life. More pious than the average teenager, I read the Bible cover to
cover, twice. But now at college, steroid-driven into moods of adolescent
rebellion, I chose to doubt.
Was this young person ever saved? As I said,
the prayer of faith is not a magic chant. If there is no true belief behind it
what is it? As I noted before if a child professes Christ to please their
parents or pastor and goes off on a lifelong denial of Christ and then dies
will they be in Heaven? Examine yourselves.
Paul then recounts his comments earlier in
the chapter and makes parallels between the Wilderness journey of the Hebrews
and the Jewish Christian of his day. We would do well to consider this. We had
a lot of people who attended churches in the 1800s who never became a member.
We have a lot of people who sit in the pews today fooled by easy-believism and
no, I’m not talking about proving you are a Christian by your impeccable moral
virtue. I’m not talking about your struggles, your failures, or your doctrinal
errors meaning you are not really a Christian, or even how many times you
attend church. I’m talking about what do you believe? What is the nature, the
very foundation of your faith.
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