Now picking up where we left off before interjecting from "The Two Covenants" written by Andrew Murray, which we hope will shed some light on what we're sharing.
Well, all that says is: that God in His Sovereignty can keep things secret so far as men are concerned until He is ready for them to understand. So it was not time for these men to know that He was going to be put to death, and they were not to know that He was to be raised from the dead, although prophecy was full of it. But these men couldn’t put all that together, and so when all this took place (you know the events around His crucifixion), Peter vowed up and down with curse words and swearing that he never knew our Lord. The others evidently scattered like quail. They had no idea that He was going to be raised from the dead, and when Mary Magdalene went to the tomb in John chapter 20, what did she go for? Well, to anoint the corpse, because she had no idea that He was going to be resurrected from the dead.
And yet He had spoken it three times throughout His earthly ministry, but God did not open their understanding. So Mary Magdalene goes to the tomb with the idea of anointing Jesus’ body, as was the custom, and low and behold the tomb is empty. And on top of that, she still doesn’t think He’s raised from the dead, but rather somebody must have robbed His tomb. So she runs back and finds Peter and John and says, "They have taken away the Lord out of the sepulcher, and we know not where they had laid him." By now Peter and John are all shook up, so what do they do? They run to the sepulcher, and when they get there they go in and see the evidence, the linen clothes lying there as if the body came right out of it. The head napkin folded up, so they had the evidence. And then that’s where we previously quoted the verse, "For as yet they knew not the Scriptures that He must rise again from the dead."
Now here’s the reason. Even though Jesus explicitly told them what was going to happen, they understood none of these things as we saw in verse 34. But we see they weren’t supposed to because God kept that from them. Now the reason we always point this out so graphically over and over, is because when Paul comes along and claims that all of his revelations had been kept secret, we can understand then why all of Paul’s revelations were hidden from the Twelve disciples, and everyone before them. and in fact many in our day are still under the same veil because they are not hearing or listing to the Holy Spirit. They had been kept secret in the heart and mind of God until He was ready to reveal them to this man, the Apostle to the Gentiles in this Age of Grace. From the first day when the Hebrews were given the Holy Spirit and then the message of Paul's teaching was spread about to the Gentiles, we're to be trained by the Holy Spirit just as the Lord Jesus and the Apostle Paul was both of them being our forerunners or examples.
We have to remember that the Bible is a reflection upon God's dealings with man in progressive stages of revelation. It shows how God sets up man in order to teach him his need, and dependance upon God. Remember that all of humanity is in slavery to sin and death, or in chains of iron to Satan and God wants to free His creation and man from that bondage. God uses a word that many are afraid of because they've heard or been taught wrongly by ignorant men. This term is used by Paul many times in at least three forms, they are stewardship, economy and the feared word dispensation. All mean the same thing, or depending on it's usage or placement in the sentence structure, it may have a slightly different meaning. But basically it means to dispense: as a doctor dispenses medicine to a patient. In each case of God's usage He reveals the ground rules and the limits or penalty for breaking those rules. Each period of this action have been named for the ruling factor of that period of time. The simplest one was at creation with Adam, "innocence" because man had no knowledge of good or evil and the condition, "do not eat of the fruit," the penalty separation from God or death.
Now back to Hebrews and Paul's efforts to keep the converted Jew from returning to his old Jewish habits. Anyone who had been steeped in a religion or a cult for a lifetime can get a good understanding of where these Jewish people were. They were being pulled into this whole new concept of Paul’s revelation of the Grace of God, but on the other hand they were being pulled back into Judaism. Which is to remain under its ministration of death and mans need of holiness. Paul's teachings as seen here in this Epistle is the revealing of the promised New Covenant which has many titles within the old testaments writings. But this one it being the Covenant of Grace because its in Grace that it is found. Remember it’s not easy to let go of something that you’ve had a whole lifetime of being steeped in. So this is the whole thrust of the Epistle of Hebrews, to show, yes, where they had been was good as was possible, that the Law was good - I mean after all it had carried Israel for 1500 years. But now, this tremendous Grace is so much Better. So this is what we’re going to be showing throughout the Epistle of Hebrews. For example the angels were great, but Christ is Greater. The Aaronic priesthood was good, but the priesthood after the order of Melchizedek is far better, because it is Eternal, or Everlasting.
So, all the way through this book, Hebrews is going to be directed to those kinds of Jews who are primarily not able to make up their minds to make the break from Judaism. But as we study all the rest of Scripture, it is also for our learning as Gentile believers. Always remember, too, that once we get into Paul’s doctrine of Grace, there is now no difference between Jew and Gentile. So even though it’s directed to the Hebrew, it is also directed to us. In other words, God is always true to His own Word.
Hebrews 2:3a "How shall we escape,…" Well escape what? Come back with us now to Malachi chapter 1. That’s the last Book in the Old Testament so that’s real easy to find. And this is the question that we’re going to answer, "How shall we escape?" Now of course the "we" is speaking of the whole human race in general. Yes, it’s written to Hebrews who could not make up their mind to come on in, but it’s also written to unbelieving Gentiles, which of course we were. See, we can never take ourselves out of the picture. Now as believers and now receivers we’ve already escaped it, haven’t we? We don’t have to worry about the indication or the wrath of God, because all of that’s been laid on Christ for all of us who have received by believing. But we’re still part and parcel of the human race who in one way or another were faced with this something to escape from. Remember this is the Old Testament, and we’re still dealing here with the tribes that surrounded Israel, and in this case it’s Edom, the offspring of Esau.
Malachi 1:4 "Whereas Edom said, We are impoverished, but we will return and build the desolate places; thus said the LORD of hosts, They shall build, but I will throw down; and they shall call them, the border of wickedness, and, the people against whom the LORD has indignation (for how long?) forever."
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