“Christian Resolutions_2020, Part X”
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We are continuing in our Series, “Christian Resolutions_2020, and our review and examination of Love, the first Fruit of the Spirit. Tonight, we will continue to review and examine that aspect of “love” as it was manifested by Christ. The basic order and flow of these manifestations are taken from Torrey's Topical Textbook. I did, however, supplement the basic headings with additional Scriptures, as well as a variety of Commentaries.
In a previous Installment, we read in Hebrews 7:25 that Jesus “is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.” In the Life Application Bible, after its commentary note, it provides a recommended cross-reference in Hebrews 9:24-28. Let us read it in its entirety to be able to be fully benefited with what the writer is trying to convey to us:
"For Christ has entered into heaven itself to appear now before God as our Advocate. He did not go into the earthly place of worship, for that was merely a copy of the real Temple in heaven. Nor did he enter heaven to offer himself again and again, like the earthly high priest who enters the Most Holy Place year after year to offer the blood of an animal.
If that had been necessary, he would have had to die again and again, ever since the world began. But no! He came once for all time, at the end of the age, to remove the power of sin forever by his sacrificial death for us. And just as it is destined that each person dies only once and after that comes judgment, so also Christ died only once as a sacrifice to take away the sins of many people. He will come again but not to deal with our sins again. This time he will bring salvation to all those who are eagerly waiting for him."
Of this, the Preacher's Homiletical writes, “One Spiritual Sacrifice is Enough.—The point of the paragraph is evidently this—if you have symbolical, teaching sacrifices, you must repeat your object-lessons over and over again. If you have a spiritual sacrifice, embodying the principle which you have been teaching, once will do, and there is no call for repetition; your whole energy can be put into applying, adapting, and working out the principle. Christ’s was a spiritual sacrifice; “once at the end of the ages hath He been manifested to put away sins by the sacrifice of Himself.” “Christ also having been once offered to bear the sins of many.”
I. Christ’s sacrifice is the better sacrifice.—So much better as is represented by the difference between the dumb, unintelligent animal, and the speaking, thinking, feeling man, who has both will, and affections, and religious instincts. The gift of an animal could not interest God or win His favour, save as it stood for something, expressed something, carried to God a man’s devotion and love. Then when a man was able to give that devotion and love directly, as Jesus Christ did, without the need of any animal to express His surrender, then we have the “better sacrifice.” When we have that better sacrifice to represent our devotion and our love, we can contentedly let the lower forms of sacrifice pass away. We are satisfied; we are now worthily represented; it is enough.
II. Christ, with His sacrifice, remains in the spiritual Holy of Holies.—The old high priest went into the second chamber, taking the blood of the goat, but he did not stay in there; only the few drops that were sprinkled remained there. He came out, and must needs go in again by-and-by, when gathering human wilfulness and sin had broken off, or made uncertain, the relations of the people with God. But our spiritual High Priest went into the most secret chamber of the “temple not made with hands,” took His sacrifice, which was Himself, with Him, and has never come out, and never will.
He, our Priest, is there; He, our sacrifice, is there. And our standing with God abides; it cannot be imperilled. It is a standing on the ground of His acceptance, of the merit of His sacrifice. It is a standing secured and maintained by His priestly mediation. There is no call for any repetition of the sacrifice, for any renewal of the atonement day. The day never comes to an end. That is the better, the all-satisfying sacrifice which God has always before Him. That is the all-sufficient priest, who never has to go into the Holy of Holies, because He is there, and abides there, ever ministering in His unchangeable priesthood.
III. Christ’s sacrifice is the climax of sacrifices.—For humanity it is the perfect sacrifice. It is inconceivable that man can ever have, to give to God, a better sacrifice than Christ gave. And it is as inconceivable that God, dissatisfied with that, can ever want another from man. And why? Because the absolutely perfect sacrifice which the creature man can make to God is “himself, and himself at the very best that man can possibly be.” But that is precisely the sacrifice which Christ offered to God. It was the “sacrifice of Himself,” the “Man Christ Jesus.”
It was Himself as tested and proved, by the strains of a human life, and the agony of a painful and shameful death, to be the very best man that could possibly be. That cannot be repeated. It is a climax once reached, and it stands us for ever. Man has offered to God at last the sacrifice which God demands, and which through the long ages his sacrifices of bulls and goats did but vainly aim to reach. This is the “Lamb of God” who offered Himself for man, and, infinitely acceptable to God, “takes away the sin of the world.” It is not only the better sacrifice; it is the best. Let man think the matter fully out, and he will surely fail to conceive a better sacrifice for humanity than Jesus is.
IV. Christ’s sacrifice need not be repeated, because it fully accomplished its ends.—This is intimated in the reference to the judgment in Hebrews 9:27-28. Death and the judgment represent all the woes brought into the world by sin. A redemption can do everything else, if it can deliver us from the death we dread, and give us salvation in the day when our earthly life is Divinely appraised. This is the power of the redemption in Christ’s priesthood and sacrifice. “Because He lives we shall live also.” And when before the throne, He, our Daysman, will be there for us, not now having to deal with our sin, “apart from sin,” but to secure our full and final “salvation.”
Actual repetitions of the sacrifice of Christ there cannot be, there need not be, for the sacrifice is made once for all. Pictorial and symbolical representations of the sacrifice may be perilous, as suggesting doubts of the infinite value and sufficiency of the one offering once offered, which our High Priest is ever in the act of offering. The spiritual reality of the sacrifice needs to be fully realised, and then our interest in the historical occasion of the sacrifice, or the sublime occasion of the cross, would be felt to need no repetition in fact, and no pictorial or mystical reproduction. The “once” of the sacrifice is “once for all”; it is enough for ever.
Hebrews 9:24. Heaven itself.—It is manifestly not in accordance with the writer’s purpose to show that Christ has entered into the place of future bliss prepared for God’s redeemed people. By heaven itself he means the spiritual world, the realm of spiritual realities. Heaven itself is contrasted with the “holy places made with hands.” The tabernacle was a material tabernacle; Christ’s mediation belongs to the spiritual tabernacle. Priests ministered with material things, the patterns and pictures of spiritual, heavenly things; the great High Priest with the spiritual, heavenly things themselves. In the earthly tabernacle there was the symbol of the Divine Presence; in heaven, in the spiritual world, is the Presence itself. Christ’s work wholly belongs to the spiritual spheres.
Hebrews 9:23. The Better Sacrifice is Christ Himself.—After we have made the most of the ancient sacrificial system, we are still much in the dark as to the connection between the death of the sacrificial victim and the pardon of sin. The Levitical sacrifices did not deal effectually with the problem. They were merely putative atonements for artificial sins—for the ignorances or ritual errors of the people, not for their great moral transgressions. More light comes to us by reflection on the nature of the sacrifice by which the new covenant is inaugurated than from the whole Levitical system.
Here for the first time we have priest and victim united in one. Christ’s sacrifice is Himself. Here the virtue lies not in the blood, though that is formally mentioned, but in the offering of a perfect will through the eternal spirit of holy love. In this offering God can take pleasure, not because of the pain and the blood-shedding, but in spite of these. By the virtue of this offering God is reconciled to the world, and can regard with a benignant eye a guilty race. We are accepted in the Beloved, the Messianic King and His subjects being an organic unity in God’s sight.—Dr. A. B. Bruce.
Hebrews 9:24. The Ascension.—“Into heaven itself.” We celebrate on this day the foundation, or rather the first manifestation to the world, of a great kingdom, of which our Lord is the supreme Head. He who was a perfect Man, the Exemplar of all goodness, at His departure was only removed from us in respect of sensible presence, and did not cease to be connected with us; He was transplanted to an invisible throne in heaven, where He reigns over us now, the King both of the living and the dead. He reigns over the Church triumphant. He reigns over this world below in which man still struggles with temptation and sin.
What ought to be our feelings who know that our Lord and God, who reigns in heaven, is man too—that He is man now, and will be for ever in the fulness of glorified human nature? Different feelings possess us as we contemplate this glorified human nature in Christ our Judge, or our Intercessor. How would great numbers of men who follow their wills in this world, pursue through life an avaricious and selfish scheme, give all the strength of their faculties to gain worldly ends, but who do it all under a specious outside, and have explanations and justifications of their own conduct to themselves, feel if they knew that they had to undergo an examination and an estimate from a very wise, sagacious, and discerning man here, in this world?
Would they not immediately be in a state of the most painful fear and apprehension? The Man Christ Jesus now scrutinises these men. However we may fear the countenance of man, we cannot escape being judged by One who is man. What a motive this ought to be to us to examine ourselves, to be true to ourselves, not to tamper with our own consciences, not to cloak our sins, not to dissemble and walk in crooked ways! But we also celebrate the entrance into heaven of our Mediator, Intercessor, and Advocate. He sits there as High Priest to present to the Father His own atonement and sacrifice for the sins of the whole world.
He thus sits as High Priest and Mediator between God and man because He is man. He who is man could plead for man. It is our Lord’s supreme place in the universe now, and His reign now in the worlds visible and invisible, which we commemorate in His ascension. We are specially told in Scripture never to think of our Lord as having gone away and left His Church, but always to think of Him as now reigning, now occupying His throne in heaven, and from thence ruling over all. This day especially puts before us our Lord in His human nature, because it was in that He ascended up to heaven. As Judge, He sees into all hearts; as Intercessor, He pleads our cause.—J. B. Mozley, D.D.
Hebrews 9:27. The Death-law for Humanity.—“It is appointed unto men once to die.” In this man does but take rank with the animals, and share natural conditions with them. The law of creation is that the living things, vegetable and animal, shall have possession of the earth in a constant succession, no one creature holding possession long, but producing its successor, and then itself passing away in what is called “death.” So far as man is an animal, there is nothing to be said. It would be a woe for creation if man broke into the natural order as an exception.
What has to be seriously considered is—How does the death-law affect man as a moral being, a being into whom is breathed a Divine life? This subject demands a treatise, and it can receive but a hint. At first sight we incline to think that God might have arrested the death-law, and given man an immortality on earth, in which he might grow into moral perfection. The reader must think out how certainly, for various reasons, moral man could never have reached moral perfection here on earth. The death certainty and uncertainty are the mightiest moral forces acting on man.
Hebrews 9:28. Christ bearing the Sins of Transgressors.—In what sense or manner is it that Christ bears the sins of the world? They were not put upon Him, or transferred to Him, so as to be His? That is impossible. Guilt is a matter so strictly and eternally personal, that nobody can be in it but the transgressor himself to whom it belongs. Apart from him it is nothing. Christ does not bear our sins in the sense that He bears our punishment. Everlasting justice forbids any such commutation of places in punishment. It is not conceivable that Christ bears our sin, in the sense that the abhorrence of God to our sin is laid upon Him, and expressed through and by means of His sufferings.
How can God lay abhorrence upon what is not abhorrent? Christ, in bearing the sins of transgressors, simply fulfils principles of duty or holiness that are common to all moral beings, and does it as being obliged by those principles. If there is any fundamental truth in morals, it is that there is no superlative kind of merit or excellence; that so far as kind is concerned, the same kind is for us all, and there is no other. We are not then to look for some artificial, theologically contrived, never before heard of kind of good in the bearing of sins, but simply to look after what lies in the first principles of religious love and devotion, as related to the conduct of all.
I. A general answer is this—that Christ bears the sins of the world in a certain representative sense, analogous to that in which the priests and the sacrifices of the former altar-service bore the sins of the people worshipping. The phrase, “he shall bear his sin,” or “bear his iniquity,” when applied to the priests and sacrifices, cannot mean that they have the guilt actually put upon them: the words are to be taken in an accommodated, ritually formal sense, where the same thing is true representatively;
the design being to let the people feel or believe that their sins are being taken away, as if put over upon the priests or upon the head of the victims. When the iniquities of Israel were put upon the head of their scape-goat, and he was driven out into the desert, they knew not where, there was neither any sin upon the goat nor any punishment. The reality of the whole matter stood in what was representatively signified, viz. the removal and clearance of their sin.”
Matthew Henry adds, “1. From the places in which the sacrifices under the law, and that under the gospel, were offered. Those under the law were the holy places made with hands, which are but figures of the true sanctuary, Hebrews 9:24. Christ's sacrifice, though offered upon earth, was by himself carried up into heaven, and is there presented in a way of daily intercession; for he appears in the presence of God for us. He has gone to heaven, not only to enjoy the rest and receive the honour due to him, but to appear in the presence of God for us, to present our persons and our performances, to answer and rebuke our adversary and accuser, to secure our interest, to perfect all our affairs, and to prepare a place for us.
From the sacrifices themselves. Those under the law were the lives and blood of other creatures of a different nature from the offerers - the blood of beasts, a thing of small value, and which would have been of none at all in this matter had it not had a typical respect to the blood of Christ; but the sacrifice of Christ was the oblation of himself; he offered his own blood, truly called, by virtue of the hypostatical union, the blood of God; and therefore of infinite value.
3. From the frequent repetition of the legal sacrifices. This showed the imperfection of that law; but it is the honour and perfection of Christ's sacrifice that, being once offered, it was sufficient to all the ends of it; and indeed the contrary would have been absurd, for then he must have been still dying and rising again, and ascending and then again descending and dying; and the great work had been always doing, and always to do, but never finished, which would be as contrary to reason as it is to revelation, and to the dignity of his person:
But now once in the end of the world hath he appeared, to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. The gospel is the last dispensation of the grace of God to men. 4. From the inefficacy of the legal sacrifices, and the efficacy of Christ's sacrifice. The legal sacrifices could not of themselves put away sin, neither procure pardon for it now power against it. Sin would still have lain upon us, and had dominion over us; but Jesus Christ by one sacrifice has made an end of sin, he has destroyed the works of the devil.
III. The apostle illustrates the argument from the appointment of God concerning men, and observes something like it in the appointment of God concerning Christ. 1. The appointment of God concerning men contains in it two things: - (1.) That they must once die, or, at least, undergo a change equivalent to death. It is an awful thing to die, to have the vital knot loosed or cut asunder, all relations here dropped at once, an end put to our probation and preparation state, and to enter into another world. It is a great work, and it is a work that can be but once done, and therefore had need to be well done.
This is matter of comfort to the godly, that they shall die well and die but once; but it is matter of terror to the wicked, who die in their sins, that they cannot return again to do that great work better. (2.) It is appointed to men that after death they shall come to judgment, to a particular judgment immediately after death; for the soul returns to God as to its judge, to be determined to its eternal state; and men shall be brought to the general judgment, at the end of the world. This is the unalterable decree of God concerning men - they must die, and they must be judged. It is appointed for them, and it is to be believed and seriously considered by them.
The appointment of God concerning Christ, bearing some resemblance to the other. (1.) He must be once offered, to bear the sins of many, of all the Father had given to him, of all who should believe in his name. He was not offered for any sin of his own; he was wounded for our transgressions. God laid on him the iniquity of all his people; and these are many, though not so many as the rest of mankind; yet, when they are all gathered to him, he will be the first-born among many brethren. (2.) It is appointed that Christ shall appear the second time without sin, to the salvation of those who look for him.
[1.] He will then appear without sin; at his first appearance, though he had no sin of his own, yet he stood charged with the sins of many; he was the Lamb of God that bore upon him the sins of the world, and then he appeared in the form of sinful flesh; but his second appearance will be without any such charge upon him, he having fully discharged it before, and then his visage shall not be marred, but shall be exceedingly glorious.
[2.] This will be to the salvation of all who look for him; he will then perfect their holiness, their happiness; their number shall then be accomplished, and their salvation completed. Observe, It is the distinguishing character of true believers that they are looking for Christ; they look to him by faith; they look for him by hope and holy desires. They look for him in every duty, in every ordinance, in every providence now; and they expect his second coming, and are preparing for it; and though it will be sudden destruction to the rest of the world, who scoff at the report of it, it will be eternal salvation to those who look for it.”
Jesus' Love Is Expressed by His Sending the Spirit
We love God, but He loved us first. John 14:15-17 If ye love me, keep My commandments. And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.”
The Life Application Bible says of this: "Jesus was soon going to leave the disciples, but he would remain with them. How could this be? The Counselor—the Spirit of God himself—would come after Jesus was gone to care for and guide the disciples. The regenerating power of the Spirit came on the disciples just before Jesus’ ascension (20:22), and the Spirit was poured out on all the believers at Pentecost (Acts 2), shortly after Jesus ascended to heaven.
The Holy Spirit is the very presence of God within us and all believers, helping us live as God wants and building Christ’s church on earth. By faith we can appropriate the Spirit’s power each day. The word translated “Counselor” combines the ideas of comfort and counsel. The Holy Spirit is a powerful person on our side, working for and with us."
Of Jesus' sending the Holy Spirit to dwell in us, Matthew Henry adds, “Christ not only proposes such things to them as were the matter of their comfort, but here promises to send the Spirit, whose office it should be to be their Comforter, to impress these things upon them. I. He premises to this a memento of duty (John 14:15): If you love me, keep my commandments. Keeping the commandments of Christ is here put for the practice of godliness in general, and for the faithful and diligent discharge of their office as apostles in particular. Now observe, 1. When Christ is comforting them, he bids them keep his commandments; for we must not expect comfort but in the way of duty. The same word (parakaleō) signifies both to exhort and to comfort.
2. When they were in care what they should do, now that their Master was leaving them, and what would become of them now, he bids them keep his commandments, and then nothing could come amiss to them. In difficult times our care concerning the events of the day should be swallowed up in a care concerning the duty of the day.
3. When they were showing their love to Christ by their grieving to think of his departure, and the sorrow which filled their hearts upon the foresight of that, he bids them, if they would show their love to him, do it, not by these weak and feminine passions, but by their conscientious care to perform their trust, and by a universal obedience to his commands; this is better than sacrifice, better than tears. Lovest thou me? Feed my lambs. 4. When Christ has given them precious promises, of the answer of their prayers and the coming of the Comforter, he lays down this as a limitation of the promises, “Provided you keep my commandments, from a principle of love to me.” Christ will not be an advocate for any but those that will be ruled and advised by him as their counsel. Follow the conduct of the Spirit, and you shall have the comfort of the Spirit.
[1.] You shall have another advocate. The office of the Spirit was to be Christ's advocate with them and others, to plead his cause, and take care of his concerns, on earth; to be vicarius Christi - Christ's Vicar, as one of the ancients call him; and to be their advocate with their opposers. When Christ was with them he spoke for them as there was occasion; but now that he is leaving them they shall not be run down, the Spirit of the Father shall speak in them, Mat_thew 10:19-20. And the cause cannot miscarry that is pleaded by such an advocate.
[2.] You shall have another master or teacher, another exhorter. While they had Christ with them he excited and exhorted them to their duty; but now that he is going he leaves one with them that shall do this as effectually, though silently. Jansenius thinks the most proper word to render it by is a patron, one that shall both instruct and protect you. [3.] Another comforter. Christ was expected as the consolation of Israel. One of the names of the Messiah among the Jews was Menahem - the Comforter. The Targum calls the days of the Messiah the years of consolation. Christ comforted his disciples when he was with them, and now that he was leaving them in their greatest need he promises them another.
The giver of this blessing: The Father shall give him, my Father and your Father; it includes both. The same that gave the Son to be our Saviour will give his Spirit to be our comforter, pursuant to the same design. The Son is said to send the Comforter (John 15:26), but the Father is the prime agent. (3.) How this blessing is procured - by the intercession of the Lord Jesus: I will pray the Father. He said (John 14:14) I will do it; here he saith, I will pray for it, to show not only that he is both God and man, but that he is both king and priest.
As priest he is ordained for men to make intercession, as king he is authorized by the Father to execute judgment. When Christ saith, I will pray the Father, it does not suppose that the Father is unwilling, or must be importuned to it, but only that the gift of the Spirit is a fruit of Christ's mediation, purchased by his merit, and taken out by his intercession.
The continuance of this blessing: That he may abide with you for ever. That is, [1.] “With you, as long as you live. You shall never know the want of a comforter, nor lament his departure, as you are now lamenting mine.” Note, It should support us under the loss of those comforts which were designed us for a time that there are everlasting consolations provided for us. It was not expedient that Christ should be with them for ever... they must disperse, and therefore a comforter that would be with them all, in all places alike, wheresoever dispersed and howsoever distressed, was alone fit to be with them for ever.
[2.] “With your successors, when you are gone, to the end of time; your successors in Christianity, in the ministry.” [3.] If we take for ever in its utmost extent, the promise will be accomplished in those consolations of God which will be the eternal joy of all the saints, pleasures for ever. 2. This comforter is the Spirit of truth, whom you know, John 14:16, John 14:17. They might think it impossible to have a comforter equivalent to him who is the Son of God: “Yea,” saith Christ, “you shall have the Spirit of God, who is equal in power and glory with the Son.” 1.) The comforter promised is the Spirit, one who should do his work in a spiritual way and manner, inwardly and invisibly, by working on men's spirits.
(2.) “He is the Spirit of truth.” He will be true to you, and to his undertaking for you, which he will perform to the utmost. He will teach you the truth, will enlighten your minds with the knowledge of it, will strengthen and confirm your belief of it, and will increase your love to it. The Gentiles by their idolatries, and the Jews by their traditions, were led into gross errors and mistakes; but the Spirit of truth shall not only lead you into all truth, but others by your ministry. Christ is the truth, and he is the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit that he was anointed with.
He is one whom the world cannot receive; but you know him. Therefore he abideth with you. [1.] The disciples of Christ are here distinguished from the world, for they are chosen and called out of the world that lies in wickedness; they are the children and heirs of another world, not of this. [2.] It is the misery of those that are invincibly devoted to the world that they cannot receive the Spirit of truth. The spirit of the world and of God are spoken of as directly contrary the one to the other (1 Corinthians 2:12); for where the spirit of the world has the ascendant, the Spirit of God is excluded.
Even the princes of this world, though, as princes, they had advantages of knowledge, yet, as princes of this world, they laboured under invincible prejudices, so that they knew not the things of the Spirit of God, 1 Corinthians 2:8. [3.] Therefore men cannot receive the Spirit of truth because they see him not, neither know him. The comforts of the Spirit are foolishness to them, as much as ever the cross of Christ was, and the great things of the gospel, like those of the law, are counted as a strange thing. These are judgments far above out of their sight. Speak to the children of this world of the operations of the Spirit, and you are as a barbarian to them.
[4.] The best knowledge of the Spirit of truth is that which is got by experience: You know him, for he dwelleth with you. Christ had dwelt with them, and by their acquaintance with him they could not but know the Spirit of truth. They had themselves been endued with the Spirit in some measure. What enabled them to leave all to follow Christ, and to continue with him in his temptations? What enabled them to preach the gospel, and work miracles, but the Spirit dwelling in them? The experiences of the saints are the explications of the promises; paradoxes to others are axioms to them.
[5.] Those that have an experimental acquaintance with the Spirit have a comfortable assurance of his continuance: He dwelleth with you, and shall be in you, for the blessed Spirit doth not use to shift his lodging. Those that know him know how to value him, invite him and bid him welcome; and therefore he shall be in them, as the light in the air, as the sap in the tree, as the soul in the body. Their communion with him shall be intimate, and their union with him inseparable. [6.] The gift of the Holy Ghost is a peculiar gift, bestowed upon the disciples of Christ in a distinguishing way - them, and not the world; it is to them hidden manna, and the white stone. No comforts comparable to those which make no show, make no noise. This is the favour God bears to his chosen; it is the heritage of those that fear his name.
This concludes this Evening's Discussion: “Christian Resolutions_2020, Part X”
This Discussion was originally presented “live” on March 11th, 2020.
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