Introduction to Hebrews part 3 Statistics of Hebrews: 13 Chapters, 303 verses, 6,913 words Not the longest book in the bible, but a very important book. It is complicated to a lot of people. One of the more frequent controversies is the authorship of the book. There has also been confusion over the warnings in Hebrews. This book is a favorite book for people who want to believe you can lose your salvation because there are warnings about that issue in this book. It is necessary to learn about these issues and these verses of controversy and to learn how to deal with them dispensationally. That will take away the threat to you about losing your salvation. These warnings do have a particular impact on the people they are written to. When you are faced with these types of problems, turn to the bible for the answer. That is how we turn to the Lord for the answers. It is interesting to watch people start to read the bible, then turn to other books to tell them about the bible. If you went to a book store and purchased a cook book, you wouldn't say to yourself, "I need to go back and buy another book about the cookbook so I can understand the cookbook." You would read the cook book. Likewise, if you wanted to use a recipe from the cook book, you wouldn't go buy another book to cook that particular recipe. You would simply read the cook book containing the recipe. You would use the contents or the index and figure out where to find things in the book (How the book is designed) and then go after the information you desire. The Lord has given us teachers to teach us the bible. I teach. . . on radio, tapes and in the assemblies. Another way of teaching is to write a book. We have many books that teach the bible - called commentaries. It is a way of communicating with the people we can't physically reach to teach. One good thing about literature is that, no matter where you send it, it says the same thing it said when it was sent out. It never changes its mind. You could send out a missionary and never be sure of what he is saying. When a visiting missionary comes to my pulpit and asks me what he is "allowed" to say or not say, I give him liberty to say what he wants to say. That is the best way to find out whether they are teaching correctly. That is why I don't require people that preach here to use the King James Bible. I tell them, when they ask, to use whatever they are comfortable with. Then you can know what they do use. If a man comes here and uses the King James Bible simply because he believes we want him to we would never know what he really prefers. Also, I can trust you to know when someone is teaching an apostate doctrine because they are using an apostate version of God's Word. I don't fear someone polluting your mind because I have taught you correctly. I would not knowingly invite someone in here who would teach you wrong but it can happen and if you are well taught in truth, you will be able to withstand error. Paul said, By manifestation of the truth, we commend ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God. So being built up in truth, you are able to discern whether something commends itself to you. So we do have teachers and they can teach by the written word - books. However, the message here is that you should not turn to a teacher or a book without reading the bible itself. When that happens there is a tendency to lift the teacher or writer to a heroic position over the Word of God. The goal is that we all appreciate TRUTH. It is interesting, therefore, when people want to find truth, they tend to go everywhere but to scripture. If there are some problems in a book like Hebrews that you don't really know how to answer, and everybody has a different wind of idea out there, you just need to go to the Lord. That's what he wants you to do. The way to do that is to prayerfully consider the words on the page in the Book. Now we will study more about what we do know about the book of Hebrews; then the difficult matters will take care of themselves as we go along. If you focus on what we do or can know, you will find the rest of it will take care of itself. (Heb 1:1-2 KJV) God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, {2} Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; The Book of Hebrews is the words of the Lord Jesus Christ spoken to the nation Israel. You recognize that just by reading the book. (Heb 3:1) Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus; Who is the one sent from God (apostle) and the high priest of our profession (of the doctrine we espouse)? Jesus Christ. This book is the words of Christ to the nation Israel. (Heb 12:25-29 KJV): See that ye refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven: {26} Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven. {27} And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain. {28} Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear: {29} For our God is a consuming fire. It is the words of the Lord Jesus Christ that he sends to the nation Israel, speaking them to Israel as pertaining to her kingdom and the kingdom program they are a part of. If you go back to chapter two you will see how it fits in, bringing Time Past and The Ages To Come together.
(Review Time Line - Time Past, But Now, Ages To Come).
We are like a parenthesis between the Gospel of the Kingdom and the coming of the Kingdom on Earth - The Mystery, The Body of Christ. Hebrews deals with the Ages To Come and relates to Time Past. Both are periods relating to Prophecy. We need to make a contrast in your thinking between the Book of Hebrews and the Book of Romans. In the Pauline Epistles there are nine written to local churches, four to Pastors of local churches. Romans through II Thessalonians are designed to lay a doctrinal edifice in the heart and soul of the believer to establish them in what God is doing today. Likewise in Hebrews - Revelations there are nine epistles written to the Circumcision believers there. Those nine epistles compare to the nine Pauline epistles in that they also lay doctrinal edifice. Example: Romans explains the cross to us; the meaning of the cross. It explains what God has done through the cross in forming the Body of Christ and establishing the program of Grace. The book of Hebrews does exactly the same thing for the Circumcision believers. Hebrews also focuses on the cross, establishing the cross as the basis of God's provision for the nation of Israel receiving her kingdom. The whole purpose of God in every age is the Lord Jesus Christ and the important thing about Christ is his cross work. How does that cross work relate to us and how does it relate to Israel? The cross work and the propitiation that is in Christ relates to us in a way somewhat different than in its application to the nation Israel. Therefore the book of Hebrews explains how the cross work applies to them just as Romans explains how the cross applies to us. I and II Thessolonians are the last of the nine Paul wrote to the local churches. They focus on the coming of Christ for the church and our relationship to his coming, just like the last of the Hebrew Epistles is the book of the Revelation. It too focuses on the coming of Christ in relationship to the kingdom program. So if I want to know about the coming of Christ in relation to the Body of Christ, I would go to Thessonlonians and find the details of it there. If I want to know about his coming for the kingdom saints I would go to the book of the Revelation. Revelation is the key to the prophetic program in all the Old Testament. Compare the contrast, consistent with the two dispensations. In Romans, God sends out a new word to all nations, with no distinctions between them. (Rom 1:3-5 KJV) Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh; {4} And declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead: {5} By whom (the RISEN Christ) we have received grace and apostleship, for obedience to the faith among all nations, for his name: This means Paul's apostleship was different from the twelve. The twelve apostles were commissioned as such during the earthly ministry of Christ (as opposed to the heavenly ministry of the RISEN Christ). [Matt. 10.] After his ascension into heaven Paul is saved on the road to Damascus by the Lord and commissioned as an apostle by Christ right then. He was transformed from Saul of Tarsus, the rebel, to Paul, the Apostle of Grace. Verse five tells what that apostleship is for: In Hebrews, instead of something new going to all nations, you have a last word being given to one nation. Hebrews 1:2 - Hath in these last days spoken unto us. . . One final plea and call to the Jewish nation. (Heb 2:1-4 KJV) Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip. {2}For if the word spoken by angels was stedfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward; {3}How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him; {4}God also bearing them witness, both with signs and wonders, and with divers miracles, and gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to his own will? In other words, we have had the word (we got it through the angels), we had the law and now we have this last warning and message from the Lord. So the contrast in Romans is there is something new going out to all the nations where in Hebrews, it is one last plea to one nation. Notice in Romans 10 when the message is sent out to all nations there is no distinction between the nations. No national distinction is recognized and honored in the Book of Romans. (Rom 10:12 KJV) For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him. You couldn't say that in Time Past - back in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John or in early Acts - saying there is no difference between Jew and Greek - because there was a difference. The whole definition in Ephesians 2 of what Time Past is shows a distinction between Circumcision and Uncircumcision. The only way to have no difference is for there to be a dispensational change where the middle wall of partition between the two is taken down and then there is no difference; the ground is level and ALL men are cut off. For the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him. Romans 3:29 - Is he the God of the Jews only? Well, in Time Past, he was. Ephesians 2:12 says the uncircumcision were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world: . . . BUT NOW, (Romans 3:29 KJV) Is he the God of the Jews only? is he not also of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also: You see, there's been a change in the program dispensationally. The middle wall of partition has been removed. That is the whole basis of things in the book of Romans. But when you come to the book of Hebrews, everything in that book is addressed to Hebrews as a special class of people. Israel is addressed as distinct from everyone else. They are identified as the heirs of the promise made to Abraham. In Chapter 8 he talks to them about making a new covenant with the House of Israel and the House of Jacob. The name of this book itself tells you the flavor of the book. These people have a special program as a special people honored by God distinct from every one else. Even if you believe that Paul wrote the book of Hebrews, you still have to deal with the fact it was written to different people than was the book of Romans. When the writer says, "We have access into this new and living way", he is not speaking to or about you. When he says, "Let us go on. . ., he is not saying you. He is speaking to Israel based on the promises God made to Israel when you were specifically excluded from the promises. (To Abraham) Remember also that Hebrews deals with the cross dispensationally and doctrinally for us. How is it that you and I, who once were outcasts, are now able to be reconciled to God? How is it He is now our God also? Romans tells us: it is through the fall of Israel that salvation goes to the Gentiles for to provoke them to jealousy, (Rom. 11:11) that God concluded them all in unbelief that he might have mercy upon all. (11:32) It's Romans 3:21 that tells you, But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; 22 Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: NOW there is a NEW WAY that the righteousness of God is being revealed.
(Rom 3:23 KJV) For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; 24 Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: 25 Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; . . . that word propitiation is a wondereful bible word meaning a fully satisfying payment. The justice of God is angry because the righteousness of God has been violated. God's holiness is made up of two attributes:
Propitiation steps in and satisfies God's justice. That is, of course, the cross work of Christ, the shedding of his blood. (vs 25 - above ) 26 To declare, I say, at this time (BUT NOW) his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. There is a dispensational issue there. Paul came along with a secret revelation. There is information he has been given (from the Risen Lord) about the cross work of the Lord Jesus Christ that no one prior even knew about. (1 Cor 2:8 KJV) Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. So God could not have revealed this information back in the past (TIME PAST) about the propitiation that was to be accomplished through the death of Christ at Calvary. Now that it has been accomplished (not immediately, not back in Time Past) but in due time, (when the time came that God chose to do so) he revealed it through preaching communicated to us through the Apostle Paul. (Titus 1:2-3 KJV) In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began; {3} But hath in due times manifested his word through preaching, which is committed unto me according to the commandment of God our Saviour;
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