Cole Newton

Hold Fast to the Hope Set before Us: Hebrews 6:9–20

Since it is indeed impossible for God to lie, why did He make an oath by Himself to Abraham? The surface level answer is that He made an oath by Himself because there is no higher authority by which God can appeal. Going deeper, God made the oath as an act of condescension, to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose and that they might have a strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us.

Though we speak in this way, yet in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things—things that belong to salvation. For God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love that you have shown for his name in serving the saints, as you still do. And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.
For when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself, saying, “Surely I will bless you and multiply you.” And thus Abraham, having patiently waited, obtained the promise. For people swear by something greater than themselves, and in all their disputes an oath is final for confirmation. So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.
Hebrews 6:9-20 ESV
Because faith and hope are intimately bound together, Abraham could just as easily have been called the man of hope as the man of faith. Abraham’s entire life of faith was predicated upon his hope in God’s mighty promises to him. To be specific, God promised to give Abraham an offspring, to make him into a great nation, and give his offspring the land of Canaan. Abraham only saw the fulfillment of the first promise before his death, and even that promise came twenty-five years after God made it to him.
Of course, the Scriptures never attempt to portrait Abraham as a sinless man. He was just as needful of redemption as we are today. However, Abraham’s faith and hope in God’s word is worthy of our imitation, for like him, we too are called to believe God’s very great promise, that we might endure to the end just as he did.
Though We Speak in This Way: Verses 9–12
Though we speak in this way, yet in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things–things that belong to salvation. What ought to immediately notice about this verse is the distinct tonal shift, even calling his readers beloved, and that is not accidental, as if the author of Hebrews were manic-depressive. Being carried along by the Holy Spirit and out of love for his congregation, this pastor is using both the rod and the staff, both rebuking and comforting. Of course, we should be familiar with this pattern because it is how all parental discipline ought to look. The rod of correction is a physical warning against the death that lies at the end of the path of folly and disobedience. But punishment rather than discipline has been meted out if the path of wisdom and love is not presented immediately.
Similarly, we the readers of this sermon-letter have been stricken with the rod of correction. First, we were rebuked for stalling in spiritual infancy and needing to learn the same theological ABC’s over and over again. Then we were warned of what made spiritual immaturity so dangerous: it made one ripe for falling away from the faith. Indeed, last week’s warning against apostasy was intended to startle and awaken us from our spiritual drowsiness and lethargy, but as we noted, the author had no desire to incite despair in any of his reader, which we can clearly observe in this verse.
Here the author makes it clear that he has greater hope in the case of his readers. But his hope of better things pertaining to salvation is not unmoored or frivolous. Indeed, it can be all too easy to others saved simply from compassion and the dreadfulness thought of eternal damnation. The author is giving way to no such thoughts. His confidence in his readers ultimate salvation is rooted in their past and present fruitfulness, which is what he expresses in verse 10: For God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love that you have shown for his name in serving the saints, as you still do.
Notice first what kind of fruit the author described. They displayed love for God’s holy name by serving the saints. Their greatest devotion was toward the glory of God’s name, which ought to be true of every Christian. We see this in places like Ephesians 1 that make it clear that the purpose of our salvation is God’s praise and exaltation. However, we also ought to be reminded of this marvelous truth each time we pray through the Lord’s Prayer. As Thomas Watson noted, every petition in the Lord’s Prayer is necessary only for this life, but the first petition is eternal. God’s kingdom will one day come, His will shall be done on earth as in heaven, God Himself will be the eternal portion of His people, the tempter and temptation will be destroyed, and grace will reign forevermore. Yet even when we have no more need to pray for provision, pardon, and protection, we will still pray for God’s name to be hallowed, to be set apart and exalted ever higher. Indeed, there is no such thing as a Christian who does not cherish and esteem the name of God our Savior. Of course, that love is never wholly and perpetually pure throughout this life, but it is there and growing throughout the Christian’s life.
Yet their love for God’s name was displayed through their serving of the saints. Here we see a reflection of the two greatest commandments: loving God and loving our neighbor. They were doing that, and they were especially loving the saints, that is, their brothers and sisters in Christ. This likely referred both to their love for one another within their own congregation as well as their support of other congregations of believers in other cities. Indeed, I think it most likely that the author was sent out by them for that very purpose of serving some other group of Christians. This is just as crucial for the life of a Christian as the love for God’s name. Of course, our love for the saints is secondary to our love for God, but our love for God must always overflow into our love for God’s people. Christians are made saints, holy ones, because Christ died to redeem them. If God so loved the saints, how can anyone claim to love God and not also love what He loves? 1 John 4:20-21 makes this very point:
If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.
Next notice when the readers exhibited this fruitfulness. The words have shown point toward their past, but verse 10 concludes by saying as you still do, which brings their fruitfulness into the present. Both are key to the author’s confidence that they will not be among those who fall away from the faith. Although they have becoming dull of hearing and have not pressed on toward spiritual maturity, they have not been and are not yet like the land that only yields thorns and thistles after the rain. Instead, they are still producing a crop of righteousness for the benefit of the saints out of love for their heavenly Father.
But though his readers are still bearing fruit that they belong to Christ, their gradual descent into immaturity is still a real threat. Thus, after reminding them of their faithfulness in the past and in the present, he exhorts them regarding the future in verses 11-12:
And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.
It is fitting that the author exhorts earnestness in his readers. John Piper notes that:
The opposite of earnestness is drifting in the Christian life. “We must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it” (Heb. 2:1). Most “former Christians” drifted away from the faith rather than departing suddenly. As Jesus said, little by little “they are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life” (Luke 8:14). One of God’s remedies for this dreadful danger of drifting away is the abundance of warnings in his word to make us earnest or vigilant—or, as Jesus said, “awake” (Mark 13:37).[1]
Although he rejoices in their past and present faithfulness, the author’s desire is that their earnestness for the faith would continue until the end. He desires this because “Scripture knows nothing of biblical assurance or of salvation apart from an earnest pressing on with the business of persevering in faith in Christ.”[2]
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Strive to Enter That Rest: Hebrews 4:1-13

God did give the Israelites a sampling of rest in the land of Canaan under the leadership of Joshua. Yet that rest did not last. Joshua 24:31 says, “Israel served the LORD all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua and had known all the work that the LORD did for Israel.” While that verse may sound pleasant, it is merely the calm before the storm. The book of Judges goes on to describe the ever-growing wickedness of Israel in the centuries following Joshua’s death. No, the rest that Joshua gave them did not last; therefore, another rest was needed.

Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it. For good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened. For we who have believed enter that rest, as he has said,
“As I swore in my wrath, ‘They shall not enter my rest,’”
although his works were finished from the foundation of the world. For he has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way: “And God rested on the seventh day from all his works.” And again in this passage he said,
“They shall not enter my rest.”   
Since therefore it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience, again he appoints a certain day, “Today,” saying through David so long afterward, in the words already quoted,
“Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.”
For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on. So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.
Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.
Hebrews 4:1-13 ESV
At the end of Israel’s forty-year wandering through the wilderness under the judgment of God, the exodus generation of men, including Moses, had all died off. Only Joshua and Caleb, the two faithful spies, would be the only two men over the age of sixty to enter the Promised Land. Under the leadership of Joshua, the book of the same name tells of how Israel took possession of Canaan by also acting as instruments of God’s judgment upon the pagan nations within that land. Their entering came with much striving, for they took the land by force. Yet by the end of the book in 21:43-45, we read:
Thus the LORD gave Israel all the land that he swore to give to their fathers. And they took possession of it, and they settled there. And the LORD gave them rest on every side just as he had sworn to their fathers. Not one of all their enemies had withstood them, for the LORD had given all their enemies into their hands. Not one word of all the good promises that the LORD had made to the house of Israel had failed; all came to pass.
As we noted last week, the exodus generation could have had those words spoken about them if they had only believed God’s word. Though Yahweh demolished the greatest nation on earth in order to rescue them from slavery, they refused to believe that the LORD would also defeat the Canaanites within the Promised Land. They heard the bitter complaint of the ten spies and resolved to return to Egypt. Only Joshua and Caleb lived to enter that blessed land because of their belief in God’s mighty hand of salvation. Thus, in 3:7-19 the author of Hebrews warned us against possessing a wicked, unbelieving heart like the exodus generation. Our present text is a direct continuation of that warning, still using Psalm 95 and the exodus generation as erroneous examples for us to learn from. Yet while last week’s text largely focused upon Psalm 95:7-8’s exhortation not to harden our hearts as we hear God’s voice today, these verses before us more focus upon Psalm 95:11’s recounting of God’s oath that that generation would not enter His rest.
ET US FEAR; LET US STRIVE // VERSES 1-11
Before we attempt diving into the particulars of these verses, we might find a word on their structure to be helpful. Verses 1-11 are bracketed by two exhortations that are essentially saying the same thing only with different words. Verse 1: Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it. Verse 11: Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. Verses 2-10 explain what that rest is (largely through five for statements in verses 2, 3, 4, 8, and 10) and exhort us again exhorts us not to harden our hearts (verses 6-7).
Right from the beginning, therefore in verse 1 ought to draw us back to the previous verse, 3:19, which reads: “So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.” By the context of chapter 3, we know that ‘they’ refers to the exodus generation and that they were unable to enter the rest that God was giving them through the Promised Land because of their unbelief. Now here in verse 1, the author turns that example upon us, saying, Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it. This verse is the thesis and the summary of our entire passage; however, the author endeavors to make his point clear through the remaining verses. Particularly, he will explain what the rest that still remains for us today is. After all, under Joshua, the children of the exodus generation did enter the Promise Land and, after executing God’s judgment upon the Canaanites, were given rest from their enemies. But clearly the Promised Land was only a picture of a bigger reality that is still before us today.
Verse 2 begins the author’s explanation with our first for statement: For good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened. God declared good news to the exodus generation through liberating them from slavery and promising to bring them into the Promised Land, and we have received a similar and even greater good news since Christ, the greater Moses, came to liberate us from our sin and to give us life everlasting. However, the proclamation of that physical gospel did not benefit the exodus generation. While there is some debate on exactly how the final phrase about faith ought to read, Dennis Johnson summarizes the point: “hearing God’s voice brings wrath, not benefit, to those who refuse to receive the message with submissive trust.”[1]
But, as verse 3 notes, we who have believed enter that rest, as he has said, “As I swore in my wrath, ‘They shall not enter my rest.’
From all we have seen, it is clear that [the writer] is confident that those who truly believe will not come short of the promised rest. In fact, he here asserts that those who have believed are now entering into it (this is the implication of the present indicative of εἰσέρχομαι). In their case, this now actually is happening. They are not waiting to enter. They are entering. Here, in confirmation of this confidence, the writer cites again the divine oath against unbelief from Psalm 95: “As He has said: ‘So I swore in my wrath, “They shall not enter my rest.”’”[2]
But how is that oath against the exodus generation a confirmation of the rest that present day believers are already entering into? The writer is expecting us to make an inference from the contrary. Though the exodus generation had the promised rest before them, they failed to reach it because of their unbelief; therefore, unlike them, we who have believed are entering that promised rest.
The final sentence of verse 3 through verse 5 now ties that promised rest not merely onto the land of Canaan but back to God’s inauguration of the Sabbath at the end of creating the world:
although his works were finished from the foundation of the world. For he has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way: “And God rested on the seventh day from all his works.” And again in this passage he said,
“They shall not enter my rest.”
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Their God Is Their Belly | Philippians 3:19

The United States is a society of abundance, we tend to often be quite indulgent as well. Indeed, we live in a breeding ground for belly-worship. Our society places very few limits on our consumption of stuff, so we are left to our own self-discipline and self-control. Of course, I believe that this freedom is better than the alternative, but such freedom undeniably reveals the truth of humanity’s sinful nature.

their god is their belly
Philippians 3:19 ESV

What does Paul mean by belly here? The stomach or appetite, as some translations read, represents our instinctual and base-level desires, our hungers, cravings, and lusts. For the ancients, the belly was the most animalistic part of all humans, and we tend to agree with them, even is subconsciously. After all, how often do you have a gut-feeling about something? Do you ever question whether or not you should just go with your gut? Have you ever felt the fluttering in your gut while in the throes of infatuation? Our gut is our primal nature, working beyond the confines of logic and reason and, because of sin’s corruption, always longing for things forbidden. For this reason, we must learn the twin arts of self-control and self-discipline, teaching our head how to keep the stomach on a leash. Christians are especially charged to do this.
But not so for these enemies of the cross. Instead of treating the gut’s cravings with a proper amount of skepticism, they elevate it into their god. Does this mean that they hold formal worship services to their own stomachs? Probably not. But worship is not exclusive to churches, temples, synagogues, mosques, and the like. Worship is simply devotion, a life dedicated to one’s deity. To worship a god is to obey it, follow it, yield to it, and serve it. Because we know the one true God, who created all things, and we know that He has love and grace toward us beyond measure, we Christians joyfully offer up our lives as worship toward the God of the Bible. Our Sunday gathering is a piece of our worship, a highly significant piece but a piece, nonetheless.
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Question 3: How Many Persons are There in God?

Our belief in Christ, the call to make disciples, our salvation, and our prayers are all rooted in the triune nature of God. The Trinity, brothers and sisters, is not a doctrine to be left to the theologians for scholarly discussion. This is the nature of our great God and Savior. This is who the one true and living God is. And the Trinity is infinitely practical to us as we strive in all things to know and love Him more deeply through His Word.

After briefly defining what is God, we now come to the doctrine of the Trinity. To be honest, for several years the phrasing of Question 2 perplexed me (which reflects the fourth question of the Westminster Shorter Catechism). To ask what instead of who makes God seem impersonal. However, we must remember that God is a title; therefore, Question 2 is answering what we are describing with that title. Question 3 is essentially asking who God is, for even the question itself ascribes personality to God. In the Old Testament, God revealed His name, Yahweh, to Israel, and in the New Testament, He has revealed a deep mystery behind His holy name. We call that mystery the Trinity: there are three persons in the one true and living God.
Although this mystery is profound, it is not complicated like a sort of divine mathematical formula. As we defined God in Question 2, we believe that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are each fully God. They are the same in substance, equal in power and glory. Furthermore, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are three distinct persons, so that the Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is not the Father. However, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are not three Gods, but together are united as the one true and living God. Indeed, as Matthew 28:19 notes, this is God’s name. Yahweh is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
How can three be one and one be three? There is the profundity and the grand mystery that must be received by faith. Of course, if God really is infinite, then we should not expect to be able to fully explain every aspect of His divinity. Rather, we ought to bow our heads in humble gratitude that He would reveal such a marvelous truth to us at all.
Of course, since the Trinity is a mystery that will forever elude our full comprehension, many Christians avoid thinking about it at all.
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The Apostle and High Priest of Our Confession—Hebrews 3:1-6

Our hope and confidence is the heavenly calling that we share because Jesus shared in our humanity to bring us to glory with Him as the captain of our salvation. Our boasting is in love and might of our great Savior and that He is our merciful and faithful high priest who is able to help us whenever we are tempted.

Therefore, holy brothers, you who share in a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession, who was faithful to him who appointed him, just as Moses also was faithful in all God’s house. For Jesus has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses—as much more glory as the builder of a house has more honor than the house itself. (For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.) Now Moses was faithful in all God’s house as a servant, to testify to the things that were to be spoken later, but Christ is faithful over God’s house as a son. And we are his house, if indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope.Hebrews 3:1-6 ESV
In our study of Exodus, we have noted repeatedly that the events of that book are the most important in all of the Old Testament. Genesis is a theological prologue, written by Moses so that Israel always remembers that Yahweh is the one, true God and the great promises that He made to their fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. From Leviticus onward, the Old Testament is all about God’s faithfulness to Israel despite their repeated failures to be the kingdom of priests that He established them to be. The entire Old Testament is the story of God redeeming a nation out of slavery in order to be His own treasure possession.
And Moses was the mediator of that deliverance and that covenant. The LORD worked through Moses to rescue His people from their slavery and then similarly worked through Him to give His laws and commandments to His people. Even though (or perhaps, because) Moses was very meek, God exalted Moses in Egypt, making him like God to Pharaoh with Aaron serving as his prophet (Exodus 4:16). And before the tenth plague, we were told: “Moreover, the man Moses was very great in the land of Egypt, in the sight of Pharaoh’s servants and in the sight of the people” (Exodus 11:3).
Even though the Israelites repeatedly grumbled against Moses, they also revered him. At his death, God Himself buried Moses’ body, likely to prevent the idolatrous Israelites from worshiping Moses’ bones, and we are then told:
And there has not arisen a prophet since in Israel like Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face, none like him for all the signs and the wonders that the LORD sent him to do in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh and to all his servants and to all his land, and for all the mighty power and all the great deeds of terror that Moses did in the sight of all Israel.Deuteronomy 34:10-12
Indeed, Moses seemed to understand something of his uniqueness in the history of redemption, for one of the chief prophesies given to him about the coming Messiah is found in Deuteronomy 18:18: “I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him.” Only the Christ would be a prophet like Moses, who governed God’s people like a king, gave them God’s word like a prophet, and mediated between God and His people like a priest. Abraham, David, and Elijah are similarly towering figures of faith; however, even they do not bear the gravitas of Moses.
Since Moses is a prophet without an equal in the Old Testament, it makes sense that the author of Hebrews would establish Jesus’ superiority to him next. If the original recipients of this sermon-letter where indeed Jewish Christians being tempted to revert back to Judaism, the author is warning them here against returning back to Moses whenever we now know the One of whom Moses spoke and foreshadowed.
Consider Jesus—Verse 1
Because Hebrews contains some the sharpest warnings of the whole New Testament, it can be tempting to let those warnings dominate how we view this marvelous first century sermon. Yes, the warnings found in Hebrews are particularly startling; however, the authors words of encouragement are equally as comforting. And we are greeted with some of those comforting words at the beginning of our passage: Therefore, holy brothers, you who share in a heavenly calling, consider Jesus…
The command, of course, is to consider Jesus, but we should not lightly pass by what the author calls his readers. There are three items to note here.
First, just as Jesus is not ashamed to call us brothers, so does the author call his readers brothers. This indicates that, despite all the warnings that the author will give, he believes his readers to be fellow Christians, members of the household of God alongside him, and part of his eternal family.
Second, he calls them holy. As we have noted before, holiness is properly understood as an attribute of God. He alone is holy, for there is none like Him. Our holiness is secondhand because it means that we belong exclusively to God. Having been redeemed by Christ, we are made holy in Him because we are adopted into God’s people.
Third, he says that they share in a heavenly calling. This calling is God’s ultimate design for redeemed humanity to inherit salvation and reign in dominion over creation under Christ our King. It is heavenly but not in the sense of being ethereal or abstract, as we might use that word today. Rather, throughout Hebrews, the author repeatedly points to the heavenly realities as being more real than those of earth. This life is the vapor; the life to come is substance. Thus, to share this heavenly calling is to partake in that which is most true.
This threefold description applies to all who are in Christ today as well. You may not feel holy. You may not feel worthy to be called a brother or sister in God’s family. You may think that you are unfit to share in that heavenly calling. And if so, you are right. In one of my favorite scenes in the Narnia books, Aslan asks the young Prince Caspian:
“Do you feel yourself sufficient to take up the Kingship of Narnia?”
“I-I don’t think I do, Sir,” said Caspian. “I’m only a kid.”
“Good,” said Aslan. “If you had felt yourself sufficient, it would have been a proof that you were not.”
Something similar should be present whenever we speak of our salvation. Just like claiming to be wise is one of the surest indications of being a fool, thinking ourselves worthy of such marvelous truths is strong indication that we do not yet understand the gospel. Instead, as Dennis Johnson notes: “they ‘share’ in this glorious calling because the Son came to ‘share’ their fragile flesh and blood (2:14), and thus they are ‘companions’ of the Anointed One (1:8-9; cf. 3:14).”[1] It is only by Jesus’ sharing in our suffering under the curse of sin that we are able to share in the honor and glory with which He has been crowned. Even on the last day when we judge angels in our glorified and sinless bodies, we will forever give Jesus all the glory for working our redemption and glorification. Thus, our hearts should not swell with pride to hear such things said about us; instead, such beautiful truths should set our eyes with renewed wonder at Jesus, which is precisely what the author intends for us to do.
Looking at verse 1 in its entirety, we read: Therefore, holy brothers, you who share in a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession… The command to consider Jesus is at the heart of this verse, and I would argue that it is at the heart of the entirety of Hebrews. This really is the great purpose and aim of the letter. Yes, the author repeatedly emphasizes that Jesus is greater than every aspect of the old covenant; however, all of those comparisons are subservient to this supreme command: consider Jesus. But what does the author mean by consider? Robert Paul Martin explains:
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Question 2: What Is God?

All things exist because of Him, but He is not the deistic idea of the great Watchmaker, forming the cosmos and then leaving creation to its own devices. No, God actively upholds and sustains His creation. He spoke light into being, and light continues to shine throughout the universe because God is still speaking. Paul affirms this truth to the Athenians by taking the words that a pagan poet used to describe Zeus and rightly applying them onto the one, true God: “In him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28).

Although this is the second question, it is perhaps the most important question that we could ever seek to answer. The reasons are many, but perhaps the most important is given to us by Jesus whenever He was praying to the Father in John 17:3, which says: “And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” God is not merely the granter of eternal life; rather, knowing Him is eternal life. Also, by implication, to be ignorant of God is to be divorced and cut off from life everlasting. What then could be more important than knowing God? And what better place to begin than with the question before us: what is God? The answer that the catechism gives contains three sentences, which easily gives a three part structure to our meditation.
First, “God is the creator and sustainer of everyone and everything.” This truth is so fundamental to our understanding of the person and the very idea of God that it expressed clearly within the first verse of the Bible: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). As many scholars have noted, the phrase ‘heavens and the earth’ is a merism that means all things, just as a common merism used today is to search high and low for something, which means to look everywhere. Thus, with its opening words, the Bible establishes God as our Creator, and it reinforces that truth continually. Consider Psalm 100:3 as an example: “Know that the LORD, he is God! It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people and the sheep of his pasture.”
But notice that He is not simply our Creator; He is also the Sustainer. All things exist because of Him, but He is not the deistic idea of the great Watchmaker, forming the cosmos and then leaving creation to its own devices. No, God actively upholds and sustains His creation. He spoke light into being, and light continues to shine throughout the universe because God is still speaking. Paul affirms this truth to the Athenians by taking the words that a pagan poet used to describe Zeus and rightly applying them onto the one, true God: “In him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28).
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Question 1: What is Our Only Hope in Life & Death?

There is nothing more comforting and more hopeful than belonging, body and soul, both in life and in death, to God and to our Savior Jesus Christ. We find it sometimes impossible to work ourselves into a sweat for our own health, yet Jesus sweat drops of blood as He worked eternal redemption for us. He loves us far more and far better than we love ourselves, and as our Creator, He knows what is best for us far better than we do. 

This first question is clearly inspired by the first question of the Heidelberg Catechism, which reads:
Q. What is your only comfort in life and in death?
A. That I, with body and soul, both in life and in death, am not my own, but belong to my faithful Saviour Jesus Christ, who, with His precious blood has fully satisfied for all my sins, and delivered me from all the power of the devil; and so preserves me, that without the will of my Father in heaven not a hair can fall from my head; yes, that all things must work together for my salvation. Wherefore, by His Holy Spirit, He also assures me of eternal life, and makes me heartily willing and ready henceforth to live unto Him.
As you can see, the heart of both questions is the same, yet significant changes have been made to both the question and the answer. In regard to the question, the word hope has replaced the word comfort, and I believe that change was a wise one for the 21st Century. Today comfort carries almost exclusively the connotation of nurturing care for the purpose of easing someone’s sorrow or distress. Yet the word originally meant nurturing care for the purpose of strengthening someone through sorrow or distress. The shift is subtle but still significant. The biblical view of comfort is certainly the latter and original meaning. Indeed, as our Comforter, the Holy Spirit does not ease our afflictions throughout this life; instead, He strengthens us to endure them.
Because of the linguistic change of the word comfort, hope is probably a more necessary word today. Biblically, hope is faith and confidence in what is still to come. Indeed, Hebrews 11:1 entwines faith and hope together. Faith is the present assurance of hope, and hope is the future telos, or goal, of faith. Thus, while the opposite of faith is unbelief, the opposite of hope is despair, and the typical Western individual has been locked in Despair’s prison for some time, as ever-rising antidepressant prescriptions continue to indicate.
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Fear Not, Abram, I Am Your Shield | Genesis 15:1

God speaks to Abram with grace, gentleness, and love. If Abram was afraid of Chedorlaomer returning to exact vengeance upon him, God promises to be his shield. If Abram was still concerned about the treasure that he refused from the king of Sodom, God reassures that his reward will be very great. This is how God responds to us as well. Too often, we become like Abram, questioning and doubting God and His promises, but God responds to us with love and grace. 

After these things the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision:“Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.”
Genesis 15:1 ESV

This is an interesting follow up to Abram’s militant exploits of the previous chapter. After coming into a decisive and miraculous victory from the hand of God, we would expect to see Abram exceedingly glad and rejoicing in the LORD, yet this is not the case. From a vision, God tells Abram not to be afraid. We can presume that God would only tell Abram this if Abram was actually feeling fearful.
The phrase “after these things” directly ties the present chapter with the former, so we have a good understanding of Abram’s circumstances. Perhaps Abram was considering the enemies that he made within chapter 14. He chases Chedorlaomer and his followers quite a distance; however, nothing prevented them from returning to enact vengeance upon Abram. Maybe Abram thought he made an enemy of the king of Sodom by declining his offer. Either way, it seems to me that Abram’s fearfulness likely resulted from being exhausted. In the events of chapter 14, Abram traveled great distances, and we can only imagine how long his campaign lasted. Exhaustion has a way of bringing to the surface all of our deepest fears.
It could be easy for us to read about Abram’s fears and wonder why the man of faith was so afraid. After all, if faith is trusting God, should a follower of God ever truly be afraid? Does not such fear indicate a lack of faith?
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Those Who Fear You Shall See Me & Rejoice | Psalm 119:74

To see someone else fixing their hope firmly upon God through His Scriptures strengthens my resolve to do the same. That is why the author of Hebrews spends all of chapter eleven giving his readers portraits of Old Testament saints who endured great trials, hoping in God’s promise that they never saw fulfilled while on earth. That is also why good biographies ought to be the regular reading of every Christian. We who fear God have great need to looking at those who have hoped in God’s Word.

Those who fear you shall see me and rejoice,because I have hoped in your word.
Psalm 119:74 ESV

I recently wrote a reflection on the first question of the New City Catechism, which asks, “What is our only hope in life and death?” The answer is a thoroughly biblical statement: “That we are not our own but belong, body and soul, both in life and death, to God and to our Savior Jesus Christ.” Amen! I am not my own; rather, I belong to my faithful Savior, who suffered death upon the cross in order to reconcile me back to God. What greater hope could ever be expressed, to be held safely in the arms of the Good Shepherd?
Yet as with all of the Christian life, our steadfast hope in Christ has both a vertical and horizontal component, which should not be surprising since Jesus placed all of God’s law upon the same axis. Fulfilling the law requires loving God supremely and loving our neighbor as we do ourselves.
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Consider Jesus: An Orientation to Hebrews

Seeing the persecution taking place elsewhere (especially through ministering to the imprisoned Timothy) and receiving word from the other elders of your church’s fears, your pastor wrote down a word of exhortation, a sermon to be read to his beloved congregation. Holding that sermon in his hands, the elder begins to read: “Long ago, at many times and in many ways…”

You may notice that this sermon is rather short. That’s because I read Hebrews in its entirety, only giving these brief thoughts before and after that reading. Since Hebrews is a written sermon, I felt it was necessary to hear it read during our gathering for worship on the Lord’s Day, as its original recipients likely first heard it.
Imagine that you are a Jewish Christian in the first century gathered for worship with your fellow Christians on the Lord’s Day.
Several years ago, you came to believe that Jesus of Nazareth is the long-awaited Messiah, the Christ, the Seed of woman, the Offspring of Abraham, and the Son of David. As revolting as the very thought once seemed to you, you now look with mixture of love and horror at Jesus’ crucifixion, for it was there that Isaiah’s perplexing prophesy was fulfilled: God’s suffering Servant bore His people’s sins, becoming a curse to free us from the curse of sin. Now, instead, of worshiping with your fellow Jews on the Sabbath, you gather with other Christians, many who are also Jewish, on the first day of the week, the Lord’s Day as you now call it. You do this because Jesus rose back to life on that day, and this weekly gathering is a perpetual reminder to your whole church that you worship a living Savior, who will come again to judge the living and the dead.
Several years ago, whenever you were still a new Christian, you felt the fires of persecution firsthand. Like your Lord, you were mocked and reviled. Many of your brothers and sisters in Christ were thrown in prison and would have starved to death if the church did not take turns bringing them food, yet each visit brought fear that you would be imprisoned as well. Your property was even plundered by those whose minds have been darkened by the ruler of this world to hate the God of light. Some gathered with you still bear the scars of the beatings they received for bearing the name of Christ.

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