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Hebrews week #8 - Adam's Notes

Jesus is the WORD OF RIGHTEOUSNESS: He’s a better priest

KEY VERSES: 7:23 The former priests were many in number, because they were prevented by death from continuing in office, 24 but he holds his priesthood permanently, because he continues forever. 25 Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.

Started with background on Melchizedek

   ·      Genesis 14:17-24

   ·      Psalm 110:1-4

   ·      Hebrews 5:5-10

   ·      Hebrews 6:19-20

Notes

   ·      Read 7:1-28

   ·      Peace and Righteousness

o   King of Shalom à peace, completeness, wholeness, friendship

o   King of Righteousness à dikaiosune, scale of balance, God got it right and put mankind right with him, wise in that which is right.

o   Isaiah 32:17 “the work of righteousness shall be peace”

o   Psalm 85 “righteousness and peace have kissed each other”

o   James 3 “the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace”

KEY TEXTS

o   Romans 5 – Righteousness

o   Ephesians 2:13-22 – Peace

   ·      (Mirror 7:12) Melchizedek reveals a new basis for righteousness, related no to man’s effort to keep the law by his own willpower, but based upon the perfect work of Christ. This new law is called the law of faith (Romans 3:27), the law of perfect liberty (James 1:25), and the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:2).

   ·      The entire system of the OT law has been fulfilled in Jesus and has been taken out of the way (Colossians 2:13-15).

   ·      The annulling of the law (7:18) meant the abolishing of the current priesthood.

   ·      STEDMAN

o   This section asserts unequivocally that the death and resurrection of Jesus has introduced a new and permanent priesthood that brings the Levitical priesthood to an end and with it, the demise of the law of Moses.

o   The word enguos (“guarantee”), used only here in the NT, describes Jesus’ relationship to the new covenant.

o   We are saved completely by the work and prayers of Jesus.

o   Our Melchizedek is Jesus

§  God’s provision for help in our daily life

§  He’s incomparable in greatness

§  He’s inexhaustible in resource

§  His infinite in patience

§  He’s infallible in wisdom

§  He’s interested in all that concerns us

   ·      Jesus himself is the unique, human road into the very presence of God. When we get there, we can rest, since our access to God in the first place, and our welcome when we arrive, is guaranteed forever.

   ·      The thrust of all of this is to celebrate the fact that, with the coming and achievement of Jesus, God has brought into being the “perfection” which up until then had been impossible.

   ·      We who belong to Jesus are not dependent for our spiritual health and hope upon a system that cannot bring about perfection. We trust in the eternal, fully effective priesthood of the son of God, the Messiah.

This is the kind of High Priest we need! We do still sin from time to time, and we need to be able to turn to Him for spiritual help. As the Great High Priest, Jesus gives us all the grace we need to not sin. But if we do sin, He is our Advocate (1John 2:1-2) and he forgives us and restores us (1 John 1:9).

The priests who served under the law had humanity and weakness, but our High Priest has been perfected. Let’s avail ourselves to His grace.

Our New Priesthood

   ·      1 Peter 2:4-10

   ·      We are now a part of it since Jesus lives in us!

Jesus is the WORD OF RIGHTEOUSNESS: He’s a better covenant!

KEY VERSES:

   ·      7:22 This makes Jesus the guarantor of a better covenant.

   ·      8:6 But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises. 7 For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second.

   ·      8:13 In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.

Why would you play the video game when your favorite sports team is right there?

Notes

   ·      Read 8:1-13

   ·      The presence of a superior high priest in heaven demands a superior covenant if He is to minister effectively to God’s people.

   ·      The better covenant is ministered by a better Priesthood.

   ·      The better covenant is ministered in a better tabernacle (more in 9).

   ·      The better covenant is founded on better promises!

o   The promise of God’s grace.

o   The promise of internal change. (2Corinthians 3)

o   The promise of forgiveness for all.

o   The promise of eternal blessing.

   ·      The promises of Jeremiah

o   An inner understanding of truth

o   An intimate relationship with God

o   An absolute forgiveness of all sins

   ·      Mirror 8:12 “This knowledge of me will never again be based on a sin-consciousness. My act of mercy, extended in Christ as the new Covenant, has removed every possible definition of sin from my memory!”

   ·      Yes Jesus is ministering a better covenant that makes us partakers of a new nature and a new life that only Christ can give.

   ·      (WW) What the unbelieving Jew did not realize was that their religion had grown old and was about to vanish. AD 70 marked the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple by the Roman army. The Jews have not had a temple or a fully functioning priesthood since then.

   ·      Other thoughts

o   We must learn to distinguish between the copy and the reality.

o   This was key as the approaching destruction of Jerusalem and the temple (in 70) was immanent.

o   If Jesus was better than the Temple and its priesthood, how much more is he BETTER than many things which so easily distract us from the single-minded devotion to Jesus.

Podcast for week #7 of HEBREWS is now live!

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Hebrews WEEK #7 - Detailed Notes

Where did we start this class...

Crescendo: Why study Hebrews today?

   ·      If you are not captivated by Jesus, then you’re only captivated by knowledge and theology.

   ·      If you are not captivated by Jesus, then you will never grow.

   ·      If you are not captivated by Jesus, then something else has become an idol in your life and you’ve forgotten what is important.

Jesus is better than anything else: If after I said that, you thought, “I need something deeper than just the story of Jesus.” Then, you don’t understand AT ALL how amazing He truly is.

The answer to their persecution was the revelation of Jesus.

   ·      Hebrews is only a hard book if you take your eyes off of Jesus.

   ·      A book that reveals the goodness of God and the gift of His son.

   ·      The revelation of Jesus is ongoing…

   ·      Because the Father is infinite.

   ·      And Jesus is the revealed Father.

   ·      And the Spirit shows us more of Jesus.

I believe we will learn something NEW every time we open this book, every time we study and every time we come together.

Peeling back the layers of the Revelation of Jesus.

Jesus is The Word of Power (1:3)… THESE WERE ALL COMPARISONS

   ·      Jesus is better than the prophets. (1:1-4)

   ·      Jesus is better than the angels. (1:4-2:18)

   ·      Through the use of Psalms the author shows Jesus better than David.

   ·      Jesus is better than Moses. (3:1-3:19)

   ·      Jesus is better than Joshua. (4:1-13)

   ·      Jesus is better than Aaron. (4:14-5:10)

Jesus is The Word of Righteousness (5:11-6:12)… we cannot move into the reality of Jesus unmaking or re-making everything without understanding righteousness.

   ·      Jesus is a better promise. (6:13-20)

   ·      Jesus is a better priest. (7:1-28)

   ·      Jesus is a better covenant. (8:1-13)

   ·      Jesus is a better tabernacle (9:1-28)

   ·      Jesus is a better sacrifice. (10:1-18)

·      Wrapping up the WORD OF RIGHTEOUSNESS

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.

(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.

Jesus is the WORD OF RIGHTEOUSNESS

He’s a better promise! (not “better than” HE is the better promise!)

The Promise of Salvation

   ·      Hebrews 6:9

   ·      Ephesians 1:13-14

KEY VERSES:  6:13 For when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself, 14 saying, “Surely I will bless you and multiply you.”

Notes

   ·      Read 6:13-20

   ·      Many of us are not making the spiritual progress that we should, but we need not fear condemnation (Romans 8:1).

o   God’s promise (13-15)

o   Gods oath (16-18)

o   God’s Son (19-20)

o   His promise of righteousness is HIMSELF!

   ·      There are 2 facts that make it impossible to prove God wrong:

o   The promise of redemption sustained throughout Scripture

o   The fulfillment of that promise in Jesus

·      (WW) Believers must go on to maturity, and God has made it possible for us to do so. If we start to drift from the Word (2:1-4), then we will also start to doubt the Word (3:7-4:13). Before long, we will get dull toward the Word (5:11-6:20) and become lazy believers. The best way to keep from drifting is to lay hold of the anchor! Anchor heavenward! How much more secure can you (your salvation)be?!

     

   ·      Christian faith is trusting – and going on trusting through thick and thin – in the God who made unbreakable promises and will certainly keep them.

Our ANCHOR will release us into bold FAITH:

   ·      Matthew 10:16-31

   ·      James 1:2-4

   ·      1 John 5:4-5

   ·      Jesus is our promised righteousness better than any other promise… made by God and ratified in Himself.

   ·      This frees us to live through His perspective and not our own.

(NTW) We are not promised that there won’t be any storms. Indeed, the provision of a secure anchor implies that there will be. What we are promised is that we will be kept safe.

Another thought on anchoring in Jesus.

   ·      The sermon on the mount (Matthew 5-7)

   ·      Beatitudes: Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness (5:6)

   ·      Your righteousness must be better than the Pharisees (5:17-20). Jesus fulfills the law in order to be able to give us His righteousness.

   ·      Seek my Kingdom and Righteousness (6:33) and the ability to live the life described in Matthew 5-6 are yours because Jesus will be living through you.

   ·      ANCHOR in His teaching on this and your foundation will be firm (7:24-29)

HEBREWS 7

·      Now the author is free to take us deeper into the understanding of Melchizedek that he introduced all the way back in chapter 5.