Daily Bread: Thurs 18th, Dec, 2008

The Bible passages can be read here:

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/

We continue in the Book of Hebrews, Chapters 5-8

Heb 5:5 So also Christ did not exalt himself to be made a high priest, but was appointed by him who said to him, "You are my Son, today I have begotten you";
Heb 5:6 as he says also in another place, "You are a priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek."

We start with the principle of humility. Jesus humbled himself and was therefore exalted. His Father gave him his position as High Priest over the New Covenant.

Heb 5:7 In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence.
Heb 5:8 Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered.
Heb 5:9 And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him,
Heb 5:10 being designated by God a high priest after the order of Melchizedek.

We see that Jesus relied upon his Father while on Earth praying to him and asking him for all his needs. Jesus was heard because he was obedient to God and reverenced his Father.

Jesus was eternally perfect. This means his perfect obedience in life, his perfect life, death and resurrection made him as a man perfectly in obedience to God. This was accomplished because he was perfect before.

Heb 5:14 But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.

The principle of growing in ones faith, in what one can understand in his walk. We also see that discernment is a sign of maturity, something that is sadly lacking in the modern church, where things are accepted even if they oppose God's word.

Heb 6:1 Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God,
Heb 6:2 and of instruction about washings, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment.
Heb 6:3 And this we will do if God permits.

Not that we leave the Gospel behind, we do not. The Gospel is a priceless Jewel we behold all through eternity, nothing beats it. Yet we must understand who we are, who God and Christ are, what he has done and what we did in response. We then assured of our salvation therefore follow Christ and grow in faith and Grace.

Heb 6:4 For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit,
Heb 6:5 and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come,
Heb 6:6 and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt.
Heb 6:7 For land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it, and produces a crop useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God.

This does not talk of losing ones salvation. This books is written to Messianic Jews, in the context of them being Israel. The write compares being in the church to Israel being in the wilderness. You can be attached to the covenant people of God without being saved. Salvation depends upon God after all, therefore its continuation relies upon God, not man. If man had to keep his salvation he would lose it every second. Also God gives eternal life, not conditional life.

Heb 7:21 but this one was made a priest with an oath by the one who said to him: "The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind, 'You are a priest forever.'"
Heb 7:22 This makes Jesus the guarantor of a better covenant.
Heb 7:23 The former priests were many in number, because they were prevented by death from continuing in office,
Heb 7:24 but he holds his priesthood permanently, because he continues forever.

Because Jesus is the eternal God, his service as High priest is eternal, his work for us was complete at the tree, his intercession now lasts forever.

Heb 8:7 For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second.

The Covenant was not meant to completely save us in the sense of the New. It was to point towards the essence of the New, the Lord himself.

Heb 8:8 For he finds fault with them when he says: "Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah,
Heb 8:9 not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. For they did not continue in my covenant, and so I showed no concern for them, declares the Lord.
Heb 8:10 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

Man has a wicked heart, it needs to be replaced.

Heb 8:11 And they shall not teach, each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,' for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest.
Heb 8:12 For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more."
Heb 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.

God sent his lamb, the one who takes away the sins of the whole world, they were merely covered under the Old until the embodiement of the New came, Jesus.

Now he has removed our iniquities from as as far as the east is from the west, that is infinity!

Martin R Gough