Names of God: YHVH, part 8. The unfathomable riches of Yavah given to the church; Heb 10:1-25; Rom 3:21-26.Title: Names of God: YHVH, part 8. The unfathomable riches of Yavah given to the church; Heb 10:1-25; Rom 3:21-26.
Heb 10:19 Since therefore, brethren, we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus,
Heb 10:20 by a new and living way [hodos: road] which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, His flesh,
Heb 10:21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God,
Heb 10:22 let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.
It is faith in the finished work of Christ that sprinkles us completely clean and so we have a genuine heart in full assurance of faith.
The typology is still strikingly Jewish. The high priest could not enter the Holy of Holies without first going through the full preparation ceremony in which he was thoroughly cleansed. He was washed with water and then dressed precisely according to the law, then he was anointed with oil, blood was put on his right earlobe, his right thumb, and his right big toe, and he was sprinkled with the blood as well.
Everything in the ordination ritual of the high priest of Israel in which he was cleansed was completely fulfilled by Christ. We may now enter as cleansed ones through faith.
All the rituals are gone because they are fulfilled in Christ. Anyone may now come as they are. They may be as dirty as possible, as low and sinful as they are capable and in a moment of faith they can walk into the heavenly Holiest place and behold the face of the Son of God without an ounce of guilt or condemnation. He has cleansed them and He will heal them and wipe ever tear from their eyes. Their conscience will no longer be stained with evil. They will see themselves as completely clean in Him.
Do we see how privileged we are to behold the face of God? Do we see how important it is to do so? If you are a believer, you have been gifted with the ability to converse directly to God and Him directly to you. It is not through a medium, but you are a royal priest and a part of a kingdom of priests. You may converse directly to God through His word. You may behold His face through His word.
2Co 3:17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. 2Co 3:18 But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.
God speaks directly to you through His word. You may pray to your heavenly Father at any time and from anywhere. You don’t need to go to a temple or any other designated place other than any private place available. You have a calling in life, given directly and only to you, and when you live and walk in a manner worthy of your calling, you are conversing with God and Him with you in the most intimate relationship. This was not available to the OT saints as it is now to the sons and daughters of God.
Heb 10:23 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful;
Hold fast or hold firmly to the faith that you have professed. The wavering for these listeners would be to leave the church and return to the old way of the Temple and the sacrifices. If they did, it might be that they only professed to believe in the truth of Jesus as Savior, but never actually did.
The faithful only see evidence that someone only professed faith and never did believe, but he can never tell for sure, only God truly knows.
One might ask how a Jew who really did believe might have forsaken the church and gone back to the Temple rituals, and the answer may lie in the fact that at the time, Jews who became Christians were greatly persecuted, and especially in Jerusalem. That does not condone it at all. It would have been a sign of great weakness, if not a complete lack of faith in Christ.
The Greek word translated “wavering” actually means to lean away or to lean back. The Jews were leaning back towards the OT due to the persecution.
The fleshly pull against these Jews was the Temple and the law, yet there is a pull towards something in every believer. We usually call it our weakness, but it can come in many forms and ways. We must keep worshipping God in our everyday lives so that we can always recognize it.
Col 2:18 Let no one keep defrauding you of your prize by delighting in self-abasement and the worship of the angels [Gnosticism], taking his stand on visions he has seen, inflated without cause by his fleshly mind,
Col 2:19 and not holding fast to the head, from whom the entire body, being supplied and held together by the joints and ligaments, grows with a growth which is from God.
Gnosticism was a very big temptation to the church at the time as it claimed to have the truth, but there are many such things in every generation and they vie for men’s hearts.
1Ti 1:18 This command I entrust to you, Timothy, my son, in accordance with the prophecies previously made concerning you, that by them you may fight the good fight,
1Ti 1:19 keeping faith and a good conscience, which some have rejected and suffered shipwreck in regard to their faith.
1Ti 1:20 Among these are Hymenaeus and Alexander [false doctrine of resurrection], whom I have delivered over to Satan, so that they may be taught not to blaspheme.
When something or someone makes a bid for your heart, present them to Christ [take them captive to the obedience of Christ] and let Him decide their worth.
You do this by weighing the worth of thing against the word of God. Remember that worship evolved from the word worth-ship, meaning to behold the worth of God. I behold Him in His word. It is the only source of His revelation, and I must do so under the teaching ministry of God the Holy Spirit. When something or someone makes a bid for my heart, I put them in the scales, so to speak, with the mind of Christ on the other scale, and then, and only then, can I truly understand it’s worth or lack of.
2Co 10:3 For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh,
2Co 10:4 for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses.
We are not to go around trying to destroy people and institutions that oppose God. Find me a place in the NT where we are instructed to do that? The fortresses destroyed are the ones that come against our souls and attempt to loosen our grip on our confession of hope; that which the writer of Hebrews tells us to “hold fast.”
2Co 10:5 We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ, |