Confidence

Many people may not know that the term “con”, as in “swindle” or “deceive” is actually a shortened form of the word, “confidence”. A “con-game” is a “confidence-game”, at least that’s how it’s played. Someone uses their projected sense of confidence to deceive another, or others. But, when we hear the word “confidence”, we don’t immediately go to that negative inference. And that’s good, because confidence is good.

In fact, an argument could be made that the reason such deceptions work is only because of the attractiveness of confidence. People can be thought of as having an innate desire for confidence. The alternative is fear. The greatest solid basis for confidence is Jesus.

Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Hebrews 4:14-16 ESV

Jesus instills confidence in His disciples, or at least in His sincere disciples. And it is this confidence that the writer of Hebrews is trying to use as an inducement to faithfulness. Entering the rest of chapters 3 and 4 is only possible through faith (Heb. 4:3), and part of what is enjoyed in this “rest” is confidence before our Savior (Heb. 4:16).

Views either for or against eternal security miss the point here. The point for the author, the goal he’s trying to accomplish, is the perseverance of his audience. Arguments about the state of a person’s salvation while they walk this earth is outside the view of the author. He wants these Hebrews to make it across the finish line, and into the eternal rest of our Savior.

Jesus is the One, the High Priest and Apostle, making the rest of God accessible. We experience that rest when we respond to the access through faith. Part of how we experience this rest here-and-now is through our ability to approach Jesus’ throne with confidence. There is a future aspect, but there is a present aspect as well, access to Jesus.

So, what is our confidence based on? It has to be based on something for us to be convinced of its validity. Our confidence is based on Jesus’ example. That may sound peculiar, but Jesus laid out a path for us to follow (see my last entry The Walk). Our confidence is experienced as we obediently follow the obedience of Jesus:

Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him, being designated by God a high priest after the order of Melchizedek.

Hebrews 5:8-10 ESV

The writer here isn’t concerned about theological arguments about the immutability of God any more than he is exploring eternal security. His point is that Jesus laid out a path for us to follow, and we too are to be obedient, we are to be made perfect, we too are to follow the role to which our Creator has designated for us. In so doing, we live out our faithfulness, experience the rest of God, and confidently approach the throne of Jesus.

That’s the lesson I see in these chapters. Hebrews hasn’t been about what I thought it was about. It has held challenges I didn’t expect, and made assertions I didn’t expect to find. I’m sure I’ll find a lot more as I go along. As you read chapters 4 and 5, what do you see through this “knothole” of Scripture?

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The Walk

I have been wrestling with a few things in my heart lately. They are a mixture of something I found in Philippians, recent sermons heard in my church, and my recent study of Hebrews. Actually, it also includes what I hear as a consistent theme in modern church music.

The problem is described pretty well in Hebrews 4:1-2:

Therefore, let us fear if, while a promise remains of entering His rest, any one of you may seem to have come short of it. For indeed we have had good news preached to us, just as they also; but the word they heard did not profit them, because it was not united by faith in those who heard.

Hebrews 4:1-2 NASB

Here’s the problem: what does it mean to unite the truth of Jesus with faith? According to the letter of James, faith without works is dead (James 2:17-18). But what of works? Clearly, works are not what saves us (Ephesians 2:8-9), and yet works are what we were created to do (Ephesians 2:10). So, what are we supposed to be doing? What works fulfill our purpose?

And this is an important question because failing to find that answer endangers our finding the final rest of our Savior (Hebrews 4:1). This question of what we are supposed to be about is crucial to our “Walk with God”. Think about this enormous elephant in the room: Belief in the Cross of Jesus does not save us in and of itself. Are you now horrified, and ready to burn me at the stake as a heretic? Well, wait for it…

The cross of Jesus makes it possible to enter into a relationship with our Creator. The barrier of our sin, of our rebellion, of all our twisting of His work in human history has been removed in the work of Jesus on a Roman cross. All debts are paid at the Cross of Jesus, and, in truth, we are finally free. And if Jesus had only died on that Roman cross, our sin would have been paid for, but He didn’t only die on that cross.

Paul, in the letter to the church in Philippi wrote the following, summarizing the life of Jesus:

who, although He existed in the form of God,
Did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped,
But emptied Himself,
Taking the form of a bond-servant,
And being made in the likeness of men.
Being found in appearance as a man,
He humbled Himself
By becoming obedient to the point of death,
Even death on a cross.
For this reason also, God highly exalted Him,
And bestowed on Him the name
Which is above every name,
So that at the name of Jesus
Every knee will bow,
Of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
And that every tongue will confess
That Jesus Christ is Lord,
To the glory of God the Father.

Philippians 2:6-11 NASB

The quote is from the New American Standard, but I put it in the poetic structure of the Nestle-Aland 27th Edition Greek Text. This is likely from an early Christian hymn, which means it was supposed to be familiar to the church. Yet Paul begins his quote by commanding them to “Reason yourself to the same conclusion reached by Jesus.” (my translation of Philippians 2:5).

From this hymn, we learn that Jesus essentially did three things, three things Paul wants the people of the Philippian disciples to do:

1. Jesus empties Himself of His equal form and nature of God (v.7)
2. Jesus took the form of a servant (v.7)
3. Jesus humbled Himself becoming obedient to death (v.8)

The basic pattern of Jesus is made up of these three things. And Paul goes on to describe three examples of people, familiar to the Philippian disciples, who lived these three things out: Timothy (Philippians 2:19-22, servant), Epaphroditus (Philippians 2:25-30, obedience to the point of death), and Paul, himself (Philippians 3:3-11, emptying himself).

What this means for us is that we are designed to live out this pattern as well. It is good to celebrate the Cross of Jesus. But, let’s continue on to celebrate the Resurrection Power of Jesus at work in us to follow the pattern of Jesus. When we stop, content to be “saved”, we fail to continue on walking with Jesus in the garden in the cool of the day (Genesis 3:8). And according to Hebrews 4:1,2, this means we fail to reach the Garden at all.

The purpose of the Cross of Jesus is to bring down the barriers erected in the Garden of Eden. Now we can empty ourselves of the oppressive weight of all our power and achievements. The barriers to becoming a servant have been destroyed. And our obedience is made possible through the blood sacrifice, once for all, of our Apostle and High Priest (Hebrews 2:14-3:1).

I have been called by my Master to three things. I have been called to wait, to worship, and to walk before Him. I have been enabled to do these three things because my Master knows my name, He loves me, and He has my back.

Regardless of how you express it, you are called to walk with Jesus, daily. And this walk is characterized by a cross of your own. To carry it, we empty ourselves and become a servant. Then, and only then, can we carry our mark of obedience toward death, even the death of a cross. What this looks like for you will depend on Jesus. For Peter and John, they had to leave their nets. For the “Rich Young Ruler”, he had to sell all he had and give the proceeds to the poor. What will “emtying” look like for you?

The House of the Faithful

The use of metaphors is Scripture is pervasive. It has to be. Considering the difficulty of communicating spiritual realities using temporal/physical terminology, there is truly no other way. This use of metaphor makes it difficult for those who want to apply the “scientific method” to spiritual truths to do so. Of course, lots of things they take for granted can’t be subjected to the scientific method either. Like things they believe to be millions or billions of years old. seriously? How could they know or even test such a theory over merely 0.1% of that time. But it’s generally accepted just the same.

Anyway, the use of metaphor and simile is ancient, and its use in Scripture is pervasive. The writer of Hebrews uses “house” as a metaphor in chapter 3. But the writer moves through several different uses of “house” as a metaphor in 6 verses:

Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the Apostle and High Priest of our confession; He was faithful to Him who appointed Him, as Moses also was in all His house. For He has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses, by just so much as the builder of the house has more honor than the house. For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God. Now Moses was faithful in all His house as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken later; but Christ was faithful as a Son over His house — whose house we are, if we hold fast our confidence and the boast of our hope firm until the end.

Hebrews 3:1-6 NASB

In verses 1 through 6, the term “house” occurs 7 times in the NASB, ESV, and KJV translations. Other translations follow suit, using either “house” or “household” in the same places. But the meaning of “house” changes. In verse 2, the reference is to the ministry of Moses. The house can either be God’s house, or Moses’, but the reference is still to the ministry of Moses, and whether it was in the tabernacle (God’s house) or among the people (God’s people as a house) is not obvious. There are even other options for interpretation. The part that is clear is that the ministry of Moses is in view.

The second reference to house in verse 3 contrasts the builder versus the actual house built. More glory goes to the builder than to the house itself. Rather than debate the validity of this assertion, let’s look at the use of metaphor. If “house” still refers to the ministry of Moses, which is possible, then the “builder” of the “house” has greater glory than the “house”. Or, the One who gave the ministry to Moses is greater than the ministry Moses performed. But the reference to “house” could refer to the tabernacle, a topic taken up by the writer later on. It could also refer to the establishment of the people of Israel, or even other options. I believe it’s more likely that it continues to refer to the ministry of Moses, but, because of verse 4, none of the other options diminishes the contrast. God is the Builder, regardless of what “house” refers to.

So, does “house” continue to refer to Moses’ ministry in verse 5? Because, if so, then “house” switches to refer to the ministry of Jesus in verse 6, and then again to refer to us in the same verse. It could be argued that it remains a reference to Jesus’ ministry since we are the result. And yet, I believe that the writer uses a construction in a way that seems to change the metaphoric meaning. He expands it from “the activity and purpose of Jesus”, to “those who have chosen to live out Jesus’ pattern”. The relative pronoun, “of which” or “of whom” precedes “house”, and is in a different grammatical form than house. House is the “subject” and “of whom/which” is a possessive relative pronoun. In English we might say, “a house of whom are we”, or “we are a house of whom” based on the verb number.

So, who’s completely lost, or has completely lost interest? Here’s the point: the ministry of Jesus is greater than the ministry of Moses, but neither ministry guarantees success of those ministered to, namely us. Read back over it, and see if you see something different, but it seems to be the writer’s point that, the superiority of Jesus does not guarantee that His followers will not rebel against Him.

Since it’s clear (to me) that the audience hasn’t rebelled, at least not yet, it seems that this is a warning not to go down the path of rebellion. Whatever it is that defines that path, it’s yet to be taken by the audience, but they are in danger of taking it. They are Hebrews in a Greek-speaking place (they use the Septuagint for Scripture). Could it be that they are pushing back against the rise of Gentiles in the church, their inclusion into the “People of God”, and perhaps even the eclipse of the Jews in importance within the church? If so, what are their options for protest? Could it be rebellion against the good news which they accepted at first? It’s not easy to decipher that as the potential rebellion, although that has been posed by commentators for centuries. It’s certainly possible, maybe even likely.

So, what about today? Isn’t change within the church one of the most difficult things for churches to survive? Don’t we tend to love things the comfortable way they are? Who doesn’t like “homogeneous” congregations? Don’t we all like those “like us”? Who wants to give up all they have achieved to change, and possibly start all over? And yet, to prevent the change, to fight against it, to avoid losing our “house”, we fail to enter our Savior’s “house”. Those who failed to enter the “rest” were those called to leave their own settled lives and endure change. They wanted their own “house” and did not enter God’s house. We too have that choice, to do things our own way, what we like, where we are comfortable or have influence. Our Savior wants us to focus on Him, His house, His purpose, and His methods.

Perhaps, like Joshua, we need to hear the challenge to choose this day whom we will serve, which set of “gods” we will follow. Will you follow Jesus? If we choose Him, will we continue to endure the changes that will inevitably come? Will we persevere as a disciple to the end?