Jesus is the WORD OF RIGHTEOUSNESS
Hebrews
moves us towards maturity!
KEY
VERSES: 5:12 For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need
someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need
milk, not solid food, 13 for
everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he
is a child. 14 But solid
food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained
by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.
Hebrews 5:6- 5:10 refer to Jesus as a Priest
like Melchizedek, a priest of righteousness!
Notes
·
Read 5:11-6:12
·
Mirror 5:13 “The revelation of righteousness is
the meat of God’s Word.”
·
Spiritual Immaturity
o Apathy
toward the Word
o Inability
to share
o Baby
food
o (NTW) Learning more in big chunks or
small is a way of growing in strength, our life and our gospel work. Holding
back from learning (about righteousness) can come from a “false humility” of
not being good at understanding or a feeling of too busy to try. The writer
clearly implies that in a pretty short time, you ought to grow to a stage where
you can instruct those younger in the faith.
·
Righteousness
o (NTW) The writer longs for us to become
proficient in understand and using the entire message of God’s healing,
restoring and saving. He wants them to know their way around eh whole message
of the OT and the gospel, to be able to handle the message in relation to their
own lives, their communities and the wider world, and to see how all the
different parts of God’s revelation fit together, apply to all situations and
have power to transform lives and situations.
o STEDMAN 67-68
o The
cause of their immaturity is they are not acquainted with the teaching about
righteousness.
o The
insistence on Christ as our righteousness (1Corinthians 1:30, 2 Corinthians
5:21, Galatians 2:21, Galatians 3, 2 Timothy 3:16-17).
o “Ignorance
of having a righteous position in God’s eyes already through faith in Christ
has been the cause of much useless laboring to earn righteousness through the
centuries.”
o Legalism
tries to earn “brownie points.”
o Those
who are able to grasp solid food will give evidence of it in wise and wholesome
conduct.
o How
do we train ourselves to be able to understand the teaching on righteousness?
1. Begin
with the truth you already know but have not been obeying. No further light
will be given until you begin to obey the light you already have.
2. Review
the promises of God for help from on high to obey His word.
3. Claim
those promises for yourself.
4. Follow
this procedure whenever you become aware of areas of your life and thinking
that need to be changed.
·
A word on 6:14
o Train
your thoughts to distinguish good (word of righteousness) from bad
(works/law-based righteousness).
o 2
Corinthians 10:5
o Romans
12:2
o Context
gives insight to this verse.
·
Spiritual Growth (6:1ff)
o It’s
normal for Christians to grow.
§ First
enlightened.
§ Second
you experience God’s life.
§ Third
you share in the Holy Spirit.
§ Fourth
you taste the word of God.
§ Fifth
you encounter the Kingdom.
o Its
abnormal for them not to!
o We
never go back to learn the ABCs again once we learn to read!
§ Repentance
and faith are God Focused.
§ Baptism
and laying of hands are People Focused.
§ Resurrection
and judgment are Future Focused.
o (NTW) I fear there are many churches
and individuals, that need to go back to primary school. It’s not, I think that
they’ve learned the alphabet long ago and forgotten it. No: they haven’t ever
learned it in the first place.
o The
writer of Hebrews is getting ready to go someplace deeper than these truths. We
will not engage the ABC’s again.
·
Salvation Lost? Absolutely not
o 6:4-6
à He said that they
could not be brought to repentance WHILE THEY WERE TREATING CHRIST IN A
SHAMEFUL WAY. Once they stop disgracing Jesus in this way, they can be brought
to repentance and renew their fellowship with God. (participles/ING words)
o Galatians
6:1a Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression (similar in the Greek), you who are spiritual should restore him in
a spirit of gentleness.
o Hebrews
is a book of ENCOURAGMENT, and not discouragement!
o (NTW) What the author is really
saying/asking is have you made faith in Jesus your own deep down inside? He is
posing this sharp and uncomfortable question directly at us. Are we in danger
of turning our backs on our faith and joining the general (public) practice of
sneering at the gospel and the church?
·
My thoughts
o This
is about Grace and Law… NOT SIN.
o It’s
impossible to restore to repentance when someone has put himself or herself
back under the law.
o They
are in the process of practicing law (-ING words)… their hearts are hard, their
minds are dull, they are not allowing the word to dive deep into them…
o In
the midst of these practices, it’s “impossible” to get you to turn around and
pay attention to grace/righteousness.
·
Other Thoughts
o We
find, both inside and outside the church, an extraordinary ignorance of who
Jesus really was, what we should believe about God and the world, how the
entire Christian story makes sense, what the Bible actually contains, and how
individuals fit into it, and how our thoughts and lives should be transformed
by the power of the gospel.
o Faith
and work
§ Nothing
we can do can earn God’s favor. Grace remains grace. God loves us because He
loves us, not because we manage to do a few things to impress him, or to notch
up a few points on the heavenly scoreboard.
§ But,
the NT insists that what Christians do, having already been grasped by God’s
free love and grace, and relying in faith on further grace for every step of
the way, matters a great deal.
§ The
energy to do all that we are called to do comes itself from God working within
us in the power of the Spirit.
Parallel
Passages:
·
Romans 5-8 – Paul gives the emphatic answer: NO!
to losing salvation.
(Mirror 219) The mature are those who
know the difference between the shadow and the substance: between the futility
of the law of works and willpower to work righteousness, and righteousness
revealed by the faith of God in the finished work of Christ.
