Hebrews 3

Therefore.  Today’s passage begins, once again, with therefore.  The last section of chapter 2 dealt with Jesus becoming a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.  The rest that follows is in light of that declaration, the key declaration of chapter 2.  But chapter 3 has a large quote stuck smack in the middle of it.  So, let’s go to Psalm 95 first, and see the context of that Psalm, then return to Hebrews and see how the writer of Hebrews contextualizes that Psalm.

The theme of chapter 3, perhaps the whole book of Hebrews, is true faith.  True faith is a faith placed in the correct place.  Faith always has an object (hint: look up to blue letters just above.) Before we jump back into the Old Testament, notice the first half of verse 7 first, Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says….  The writer is stating that the Holy Spirit was speaking the words of Psalm 95.  Jumping to John 14-16, we know that the Holy Spirit always speaks of the redeeming plan of God through Jesus Christ.  Therefore, the writer of Hebrews is saying that Psalm 95 is in some way about Jesus.  Now, we are almost ready to go there.

Psalm 94 is going to be our starting point.  Read it now.  Since we are already in chapter 6 of Hebrews, some of this is going to sound terribly familiar.  As you read Psalm 94, ask yourself to whom the Psalmist is speaking in verse 8.  Understand, O dullest of the people!  Fools, when will you be wise?  Now, just for a second, go peak at Hebrews 5:11.  About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing.  It is probably obvious that dull is not complementary.  One last section of Psalm 94 before we move on: verses 14-15.  For the Lord will not forsake his people; he will not abandon his heritage; 15 for justice will return to the righteous, and all the upright in heart will follow it.  I want you to hear these images, and just let them register for now.  Later, we will put all the images together into a collage, and from there a larger picture will emerge.

Psalm 95:1-7a fits in nicely with the Psalms of praise before and after.  But stuck into this string of praise, is 94 and 95:7b-11. 

Today, if you hear his voice, 8 do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness, 9 when your fathers put me to the test and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work.  10 For forty years I loathed that generation and said, “They are a people who go astray in their heart, and they have not known my ways.” 11 Therefore I  swore in my wrath, “They shall not enter my rest.”

Now, in Bible study, we learned that these words refer to events in Exodus 17:1-7.  But the key to this passage is the issues of hearts and rest.

Let’s go back to Psalm 94 and see that God will not abandon his heritage, and then in Psalm 95 that the fathers put God to the test, and he loathed them for it.  This is tough stuff.  Whenever I hear nominal Christians suggest that Jesus loves me, and he just wants me to do my best, or that God loves the sinner, but hates the sin, I think of passages like this. The fathers of that generation of Israel put God to the test, and He loathed them for it.  That sort of gives pause to how we choose to pray, does it not?  What is going on in those verses?

Now, for the heart, we are asked not to harden our hearts, because justice with return to the righteous, and all the upright of heart will follow it.  Upright is a virtual synonym for righteous in this phrase.  So, this all sounds like a command.  But what we have to realize is that this is Psalms, the center of the Old Testament.  David wrote many of these Psalms.  The covenants are all in play at this point, as we are prior to the Diaspora in redemptive history.  The key point is that the Sinai Covenant, or Mosaic Covenant, is a conditional covenant.  Do this and ye shall live; do it not and ye shall perish.  This is a Law passage.  What happened to Israel later in redemptive history?  They failed at keeping the Law, and were therefore thrown out of the promised land.  So, who then, ultimately are the righteous, the upright of heart?  We know from Psalms 5, 10, 14 and 36,  Isaiah 59 and 64, and Romans 1-3, that no one is righteous, no, not even one.  Look at Ecclesiastes 7:20.  Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins.  So, who are the righteous, the upright of heart?  No one.  No one qualifies.  That is the point of the Law.  After the Fall, no one is capable of fulfilling the Law. 

But, we also have the part about God not abandoning His heritage.  Which covenant is still intact after the Diaspora?  Stop looking at Moses, and set your eyes upon Abraham.  That covenant is a royal grant that is guaranteed by God.  Upon what basis was Abraham deemed righteous?  Was he obedient to the Law?  I would remind you of the episode with his wife in Egypt.  He is declared righteous because he believes in the promise of God.  He did not earn this declaration by his works.  He did not deserve this declaration.  He received this declaration based upon his faith in the promise of God.

Reformed theology, and remember that the Episcopal Church is a reformed church, understands that the Bible is pounding away at the notion that the heart is evil, that man is not capable of good.  So, when we are told not to harden our heart, we are being asked to do the impossible.  All that we are capable of doing as fallen people is to turn away from God and harden our hearts.  It is God who seeks us.  God, through the power and work of the Holy Spirit, gathers the sheep and gives them the gift of faith.  We, the elect, receive that faith in the work of Jesus on the Cross and his propitiation on our behalves, by the power of the Holy Spirit.

And now, finally, let’s go to Chapter 3, starting with verse 12.   

Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. 13 But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. 14 For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end. 

Remember who the audience of Hebrews is: a believing community of Christians, who are predominantly of Jewish heritage.  The faith of the elect is through the power of the Holy Spirit.  Therefore, that is a faith that cannot be turned aside.  Jesus will not lose even one of his flock.  So, who then can these others be who are able to harden their hearts?

The answer is within that word that follows along from Old Testament to New Testament, describing the set of people known as believers: remnant.  To understand this whole comment, the Calvinist doctrine of visible and invisible church is helpful.  Suppose instead of church, we are talking about the Old Testament covenants.  There are clearly benefits to being a Jewish citizen during the time of David, unless your name is Uriah.  But while all Jewish citizens share in these same benefits, only a few are both in the family of Israel and also believers in the promise of God to Abraham.  Most of Israel viewed the covenants through the conditional covenant of Moses at Sinai.  Therefore, the object of their faith was on their own righteousness (or perceived self-righteousness) rather than upon the righteousness that is a gift from God through his promise as it is made known to us by the power of the Holy Spirit.  Therefore, there were some who benefited from being with the overall covenant community, but were not, in fact, a part of that remnant of whom the Bible speaks.  In the same way, the church is full of a group of people who benefit from being members of that community.  But some of them may not believe in the gospel of Jesus Christ.  They might not have been given the gift of true faith through the power of the Holy Spirit.  These people would be sitting in church on Sunday, and listening to the sermon given by the writer of Hebrews.  These people are not true believers.  They will harden their hearts towards God.  This is the natural state of man.  Except for the Holy Spirit and His gift of belief by Mercy and Grace to the remnant elect, there we would all be, everyone of us.

So, who falls away and who holds fast to their faith in Jesus’ redeeming work and propitiation on our behalf to the end?  The people who give lip service to the gospel, but lack true believe: those will fall away.  The people who have received the gift of true faith in Christ’s redeeming work: those will persevere to the end, but not of their own doing.  It is only by the power of the Holy Spirit that it is possible for anyone.

Now, look at verses 16-19.  Who were those who rebelled in the time of Moses?  Who were the ones who persevered and entered into His rest?  Verse 19 says: So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.  It’s right there in the text.  Belief is the criteria for boldly claiming the inheritance. 

In chapter 4, we are going to discuss this idea of His rest.

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