Participants: Ty Gibson, James Rafferty
Series Code: BOTB
Program Code: BOTB00005B
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00:01 Thanks for staying with us on our continuing study in
00:03 Hebrews chapter 4, James where were we before the break 00:06 What is the next point that Paul is making here in Hebrews 4? 00:09 Well Paul has transitioned us here in Hebrews chapter 4 00:11 to a distinction or contrast between the Sabbath and 00:15 spiritual rest, between salvation and Jesus Christ, 00:17 and the fourth commandment the seventh-day Sabbath, 00:20 of the law of God. 00:22 And he is making this distinction because the Jews 00:24 made a mistake of choosing obedience to the law 00:27 over the Messiah, Jesus Christ. 00:29 They crucified Christ but was still very zealous to keep the 00:33 law of God and especially, specifically, the fourth 00:36 commandment, the seventh-day Sabbath. 00:37 They asked Pilate, in John 19 if they could take the body 00:41 of Christ off cross so they could go and keep the Sabbath. 00:44 They were rejecting, in a sense, salvation in Christ, in place 00:48 of that salvation of putting obedience to the law. 00:50 Paul is warning us, warning the Hebrews, warning the New 00:54 Testament believers, not to make that mistake. 00:56 He begins by pointing us back to the gospel in the 00:58 Old Testament as well as in the new. 01:00 And then here he begins to contrast the spiritual rest 01:03 we have in Christ with the rest of the seventh-day Sabbath. 01:08 He says here in verses 4 and 5 "For he spake in a certain 01:11 place of the seventh on this wise, And God 01:14 did rest the seventh day from all his works. " 01:15 That is the fourth commandment. 01:16 And again verse 5, "in this , If they 01:20 shall enter into my rest. " 01:21 That's the spiritual rest, that's salvation. 01:24 I think it's scary things, James, to think about it. 01:26 that we as human beings could be zealous law-keepers 01:31 or imagine ourselves to be such, and at the same time be missing 01:35 gospel, missing the whole point that God has put 01:38 in the law for us to understand. 01:40 I mean to think about the idea of being 01:43 religious without God? 01:44 Being Christians without Christ? 01:48 But it seems, according to Paul, it's entirely possible 01:52 and perhaps even highly likely, that we could build up a 01:55 religious ceremonialism, a religious legalism that's 01:59 actually contrary to the law of God while we think 02:03 that we are keeping it, the fact is, that the Sabbath 02:07 if rightly understood, is more then we have ever 02:12 thought that it could possibly could be because the Sabbath 02:15 is not only pointing to a finished work of creation 02:19 it's pointing to the finished point of grace in Jesus Christ 02:23 at the cross, so the Sabbath 02:25 points to both creation and redemption. 02:28 Absolutely, and Ty, we need to be careful also to remember 02:33 that while Paul is warning of a people, of a religion who chose 02:37 the law over Christ, he also is very emphatic about people 02:41 who chose Christ over the law. 02:43 People who say they have a relationship with Christ and do 02:46 not obey or keep the law of God, and you have those two extremes, 02:49 you have then in the world today you have them here 02:52 to be warned about in the context of Hebrews 4, 02:55 because what he does now, he continues on, as long as you 02:58 understand the distinction, as long as you know that we are 03:01 not saved by obedience to the law, but we are saved by Christ. 03:04 Through faith in Christ. 03:06 He continues on now to tell us that it is, the Sabbath is a 03:11 a reminder, is a sign, is a representation of our 03:15 salvation in Jesus. 03:16 We don't throw away the Sabbath, we don't disregard 03:19 God's law, we don't ignore the law of God 03:22 and say it was nailed to the cross. 03:23 What we do is allow the law of God to have it's proper place 03:27 in the salvation process, and what is that place? 03:29 The Sabbath leads us to rest in Jesus Christ. 03:33 As we cease from our works as God did from His, now 03:36 there's reasons why, this is very important, 03:38 because the Sabbath actually point to 03:40 salvation in two very significant ways. 03:42 It's no more the case in salvation rest that is foretold 03:49 and pointed to in the Sabbath. 03:51 That we would cease keeping the Sabbath, cast off 03:53 Sabbath because now we realize what it means. 03:56 Then we would cast off our marriage vows once we 03:59 made that commitment. 04:00 The fact is that the Sabbath is a powerful symbol and memorial 04:06 of the salvation work. 04:07 And that's precisely why Paul reasons here, that the Sabbath 04:11 remains, it is intact. 04:14 It is in place. 04:15 It is not cast aside precisely because it has salvation meaning 04:18 That is verse 9, and then verse 10 he says, "For he that enters 04:22 into his rest", that is the person takes hold of the 04:24 salvation that they have in Jesus Christ, he also ceases. 04:28 Now that word in the Greek means to Sabbath rest. 04:32 To cease is the same word that is used for the Sabbath. 04:35 Here in verse 10, he ceases, he takes the Sabbath from his 04:38 own works, as God did from His. 04:41 Where is he pointing to right here in this verse? 04:43 He's, yeah, definitely to Genesis Chapter 2. 04:45 He's directing us back to the book of Genesis. 04:48 He's directing us back to the creation week, to the story 04:51 of creation, Why is he doing that? 04:52 Hm, it's a powerful thing James, when we look at the Sabbath 04:56 with gospel lens, with gospel glasses, then we begin to 05:00 understand what the Sabbath means. 05:02 We recognize that actually, the Sabbath is the 05:06 antithesis of legalism. 05:08 It is the exact opposite, it's actually guards us against 05:13 legalism because salvation is represented by the rest 05:17 of the Sabbath. 05:19 So it's as if Paul is saying to us that God finished the work 05:23 of creation and it like manner Paul reasons, God finished 05:27 the work of salvation by Himself, purged our sins, 05:30 accomplished salvation in Christ. 05:32 In fact, when we look at the gospel of John and we see 05:35 the words of Jesus hanging on the cross where He cries out 05:39 "IT IS FINISHED," we realize that He spoke those words 05:44 on the cross on Friday, 05:46 The sixth day of the week. 05:48 That's right, just at sundown, and rested in the tomb, 05:53 on the seventh-day and then was resurrected, resurrection 05:57 morning, on Sunday the first day of the week. 06:00 And so what we see here, we see some parallels now. 06:03 First we see a contrast, in order for us to recognize not 06:07 to repeat the history of the Jewish nation, not to think 06:09 we are saved by the law, then we see parallels, then we see 06:13 Paul putting the Sabbath in the place it ought to be. 06:15 It's the sign of salvation, why? 06:17 Because when God created this world we weren't there. 06:20 When God created this world, we didn't help Him. 06:23 We were created on the sixth day, that is mankind. 06:25 We were created on the sixth day and the first thing that 06:28 God called us to do, the first thing He asked us to do. 06:30 Was to rest. 06:32 He created us and He said now I am going to give you the 06:34 Sabbath and I want you to rest in the Sabbath 06:36 I'm giving you the Sabbath as a memorial of what 06:39 I have done for you without you. 06:41 Everything that God created was for us, but none of 06:45 it was done with our help. 06:46 There wasn't anything we could point to and say, you see that 06:48 tree over there, God and me we did that together. 06:50 We couldn't lay claim to any of it, but God gave it to us. 06:53 The same with salvation. 06:54 God purged our sins by Himself. 06:56 He did it all without us but He did it for us. 06:59 And so the Sabbath reminds us that when we keep the Sabbath 07:02 we are reminded that we are entering into His rest, 07:04 His salvation. 07:05 That's why Paul is saying here it remains and when we take hold 07:08 of salvation we cease from our works the way He did from His. 07:11 In verse 9 again James, Paul very clearly says, there remains 07:16 therefore, a rest for the people of God. 07:21 And the word rest, there again, is Sabbath, another version says 07:25 there remains the keeping of a Sabbath to the people of God, 07:28 seventh-day Sabbath and the word therefore here is interesting. 07:32 Therefore, pointing to what? 07:35 Another w... well because of the salvation work that has been 07:39 accomplished by Jesus there remains a keeping of the 07:43 Sabbath for the people of God. 07:45 A lot of people today think that the Sabbath, 07:48 or Sabbath-keeping, is contrary to the gospel. 07:51 But in the context of Hebrews Chapter 4 is evident 07:54 is abundantly clear, that the Sabbath is in fact, the clearest 07:59 biblical symbol, the clearest biblical experience that we have 08:05 on a weekly basis that continually reminds us of the 08:10 grace of God. 08:11 Not reminding us of our works, but reminding us of His works. 08:15 So here is where it makes sense too, 1 John 3:4 says, "Sin is 08:19 transgression of the law. " 08:20 It says in all the gospels, of course, that Jesus came to 08:24 die for our sins. 08:25 He came to die because we transgressed the law. 08:27 Now if the law could just be done away with, 08:29 why does He need to come and die? 08:31 Jesus died in order to uphold the principles of God's law. 08:35 The principles of God's law are based on love. 08:37 Love to God and love to our neighbor. 08:39 So when we discard the law because we say Christ died 08:43 for us we are undermining the very foundation of 08:45 the government of God. 08:46 And so what Paul is saying here is that Jesus Christ came to die 08:49 for our sins, to purge our sins. 08:50 He did it, He accomplished by Himself for us, therefore the 08:54 Sabbath can remain. 08:55 If there is no sacrifice for sin if Jesus didn't die for our sins 09:00 if that price has not been paid, then the law is in this, this 09:04 questionable situation, because if the law remains 09:07 we have to die. 09:08 But because Jesus died for us, the law can remain because 09:12 Jesus had paid the price for our transgressions, 09:14 the law can remain. 09:15 And this is reversed thinking to a lot of minds today. 09:19 We don't understand it, we don't grasp it, Paul grasped it. 09:22 He understood it. 09:23 He saw Christ and He saw faith in Christ as paramount, 09:25 but he also saw a people. 09:27 And John saw them too, and John, in Revelation 14:12, who not 09:31 only had faith in Christ, but keep the Commandments of God. 09:33 And that's the key, back up in Chapter 4 of Hebrews, 09:38 and verse 2, one of Paul's main points is, that the Jews, 09:43 in the Old Testament experience, they heard the gospel, 09:47 they saw it played out in the types, shadows and symbols. 09:50 But it wasn't mixed with faith. 09:52 And this faith that he is calling us to mix our experience 09:56 with is represented in the Sabbath. 10:00 The Sabbath is a faith experience, because the Sabbath 10:04 every seventh-day we keep the Sabbath we are testifying 10:07 to ourselves, to God, to the Universe, to the world, that we 10:11 believe that God achieves the work of salvation. 10:16 And we are saved by grace alone through Jesus Christ. 10:18 Not of works less any man should boast. 10:21 Now James, one of the main themes of the Book of Hebrews 10:24 is the new covenant. 10:25 And I find it interesting that in Isaiah Chapter 56, 10:29 it's very powerful because 10:32 Isaiah clearly tells us that the new covenant, and the 10:38 formation of the New Testament church, under the new covenant, 10:42 will be a Sabbath-keeping body of believers. 10:46 Okay where is that? 10:47 In Chapter 56 of Isaiah, "Thus says the Lord," verse 1, "Keep 10:51 justice, do righteousness, keep My salvation, 10:54 for My salvation is about to come, and My 10:57 righteousness to be revealed. " 10:59 That... the Messiah is coming, is going to bring righteousness 11:04 and salvation, verse 2, "blessed is the man who does this and 11:08 the Son of Man Who lays hold on it," salvation, 11:12 and who keeps the Sabbath from defiling it, and keeps his 11:17 hands from doing any evil. 11:20 So New Testament Christian church, under the new covenant, 11:25 Isaiah prophesied that it will be a Sabbath-keeping 11:29 body of believers. 11:30 This is Hebrews 4 all over again, this is not just 11:33 a whole covenant, this is new covenant, I mean New Testament. 11:36 This is Hebrews 4, this is the same truth we are reading right 11:38 here in Hebrews 4. 11:39 We've got salvation, we've got the Sabbath, 11:41 take hold of salvation, keep the Sabbath. 11:43 This is the same principle, I mean Paul is simply 11:46 expounding upon Isaiah 56. 11:48 Further on James, in Chapter 56 of Isaiah, it becomes even more 11:52 evident that the Sabbath is linked with the new covenant 11:54 and New Testament Christianity. 11:56 This is first brought out down in verse 4, 11:59 Where it says very clearly that Eunuchs, which are Gentiles, 12:02 are to keep the Sabbath. 12:03 and then it says at the end of verse 4, 12:06 that those who please Me will lay fast hold of my covenant. 12:10 And then in verse 6, very clearly, Gentiles believers 12:14 everyone who keeps from defiling the Sabbath, 12:16 and lays hold of My covenant. 12:21 Clearly friends, the Sabbath is pointing to the new covenant. 12:26 And we have the privilege of entering into that salvation 12:30 rest with the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. 12:31 Until next time, God bless. |
Revised 2014-12-17