Thursday, January 17, 2013

The Epistle to the Hebrews part CCCI

Starting at Romans 3:26 we'll pick it back up where we left off.

Romans 3:26
"To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus."

It’s something that anybody can do. There are no strings attached. That’s what makes it so simple. That God, the Righteous One, Who paid the price of redemption for every human being, through the finished the work of the cross. That we, in turn, might be the One who He justifies, sanctifies makes righteous and holy by His ontological presence within us. Anyone who believes, then receives by faith and by faith sees himself in that finished work. God has promised to do all that we in and of ourselves can NOT do, Christ's essence within us restored by faith does the works of God and thereby God gets all the glory do Him. It’s that simple. And oh, my goodness, as I have used the illustration over and over since we’ve come past Hebrews chapter 1, that twice in all of Biblical history, starting back in Genesis, God did something so perfect, so immaculately perfect, there wasn’t anything He could do but sit down to show that it was finished. The first one was creation and He looked at creation and everything was so perfect, there wasn’t anything He could correct.

In fact, I asked, "How many of you have built a new home and, after you’ve moved in, you have to call your contractor back to correct mistakes?" I had one guy, my father-in-law who could have really nodded his head. He wasn’t the guy who had the new home built - but he was the contractor! He knew only too well what it was to go back and correct little errors that they had made. Truth is that he never finished the house inside or out. So his boys were left with the work of fixing what ever was needed whether it be a cupboard door that didn’t fit or something like that. My point is that God didn’t have to do that. It was perfect and He sat down. The second time was, as Hebrews places it, that when He had purged us from our sin, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty. And again, why? Because the work of redemption and then our salvation, is all contained as the work of the cross is so perfect there isn’t anything He could do; it was all done. Sin, death and religion had been judged and destroyed in the action of Jesus who was declared God's Christ through His obedience, as it had been written before the foundation of the world.

Then I use this analogy. How would you like to have a little two-year-old come along, after you had a brass lamp or say the lower part of a glass windowed front door and after it was perfectly polished, and smear it up? Well, that’s what man has done with God’s perfect plan of salvation. They have smeared it all up with their additions of "do this" and "do that's" of mans religion. But religion had its roots all the way back in the garden when Adam ate of the forbidden fruit as we endeavored to explain earlier and elsewhere in this study. So mans religion has marred the perfect work and the finished work of the cross. For John's book of Revelation when understood reveals the out workings or continuum of Christ and God's doing battle through the enigma of the interim between Christ's return to glory and giving of His Spirit to man and His second coming. The very thing that Daniel had seen and heard but was told to seal up unto the end. When the sons of God would by way of revelation see and hear what the Spirit is saying through the prophecy written by John.

How it must break the heart of God when He has made it so available that no matter who it is, no matter how vile they are, or how steeped in a false cult or religion they may be - the moment they believe in the finished work, God justifies them! He declares them just. He declares them righteous. God sanctifies them. He calls them His sons and heirs. And He through the ontological essence of Christ's Spirit begins the out working of His, so Great a Salvation. The re-establishing of His Divine character within us, which Adam lost through his disobedience. Oh, that’s beyond natural human comprehension and I don’t expect people to understand it, just believe it and receive it; God will take care of all the rest. Just believe it. So now, if you’ll come back with me to Hebrews, maybe that verse will just jump off the page at you the next time you see it.

Hebrews 12:23c
"…and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect,"

He’s the "Judge of all and the spirits of just men," or righteous men. That’s what the word "just" here means. "Of righteous men made perfect." That is in God’s eyes. Not in the eyes of men, but in God’s eyes, the righteous Judge. Its the action and activity of God restored within us by the ontological presence of His Holy Spirit. Not a religious act because God will share His Glory with NO man. As if man could glorify God in his own merit or self-righteousness or acts of piety. This has long been the teachings of religion for religion don't get what is meant by "we're to live by faith and faith alone". Religion wants to add what ever pleases it to this thusly nullifying God's action. Now let’s move into verse 24, and this would be numbers 6 and 7 of our seven items that are in the area of the spiritual, now, instead of the physical, earthy realm. Verse 24:

Hebrews 12:24
"And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel."

No comments:

Post a Comment