Hebrews and the Word

-
Meditation on Hebrews 4:12-16
" It is not lawful for the Church to ordain any thing that is contrary to God's Word written...." Article XX

How do we know about God except He has given us His Word? We know about Him through His Word ? " For the word of God is living and active & sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit of both joints and marrow, and quick to discern the thoughts and intents of the heart." Hebrews 4:12

But as I thought about this and agree with it that the Word is written, is not the Word Christ Himself? John 1:1 reminds us that the Word was with God and is God....and this is talking about Jesus for He became flesh and dwelt among us. 1:14 The Word , Jesus, is a great High Priest who has passed into the heavens, the Son of God.

We have a structure and strong deliverer , not sand, but a House built upon the Rock, and as ST Paul said, " and the rock was Christ" I Corinthians 10:4

If you take out the Word from the Word you have sand. No matter how much we protest it cannot be possible to build a structure without a foundation. How many of us have seen that house on the weather channel that stood the hurricane? It is the only one left standing.

The real question below foundation is , " by what authority?" As we said in the opening, no doctrine in this Church can contradict the Word written, or " it is not lawful."

2. Because we have a strong foundation and the Word who is Jesus we can go to Him with boldness in times of need. " I need Thee every hour" may be appropriate here. He knows, and cares about our situations and difficulties. We know but forget so too often.
" It is because we know our High Priest to be sympathetic and victorious that we can draw near to Him in resolute confidence. His throne is the seat of divine and omnipotent power, and it is the source from which boundless grace is bestowed. We draw near to that throne to obtain mercy, for we are conscious of our sin; we draw near to receive grace, for we confess our weakness. Nor shall we ever be disappointed as we put our confident trust in our sympathetic Savior, our victorious and ascended High Priest." The Epistle to the Hebrews Charles R. Erdman

There is no greater Throne anywhere to replace the Throne of grace.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Balancing our Romans 5 Justification with holiness in the life Romans 6

-
  A Balance to Justification Romans 6     Last week we discussed the area of grace in the operation of our salvation.  We saw in Romans 5:1-8 that salvation, we call it justification is by faith through the un-merited grace of the Eternal Trinity. Without peace with God we have no eternal life.  That peace with God and the person of Christ is there as we develop relationships with other Christians in the Church. This is what was so important. "That is to say, in the Christian community we do not relate to one another “immediate[ly],” we relate to one another mediately – through the “mediation of Christ.” For that reason, we love others not directly, but for Christ’s sake."  Article on Life Together by Bonhoeffer.    We said in summary we are not seeking a rules-based Christianity necessarily,  but have grace to access to God through His life-changing Gospel of the good news, that Christ died for the ungodly, and we were all that before Christ came to us.  We did not come to H
Read more

Walk worthily Philippians 1:27

-
  Worthily   Philippians 1:27 Some of my favorite vs are in the Philippians letter.  1:6, "  being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ" 1:21 " For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain." Ch 2 talks about unity through humility and being like Christ, doing things with the mind of Christ.Ch 3 is great too about our citizenship being in heaven and awaiting the Savior from heaven, Jesus Christ who will transform our lowly bodies at the Resurrection Ch 4 may be the best with not being anxious and to cast all our care upon Him and not being anxious.  But in vs 27 of ch 1 we are exhorted to " walk worthily of the gospel of Christ"    As a noun, axiom refers to a statement that is accepted as true and serves as the basis for argument or inference. It can also mean an established rule, principle, or self-evident truth.  Walk worthily of the Gospel of Christ, v. 27 recognized as
Read more

The Vine and the Branches John 15

-
  John 15.  The Vine and the Branches   This is obviously a well-known part of the teaching of Jesus.  Every time I come to it, I gain something new from it.  It makes sense because Israel too was known as a vine.  Unfortunately Israel did not always behave in the way God required of them.  " He looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes." Is 5:2  If we are part of the vine and the branches we too know this all too well. Our intentions may be pure but somehow we act in such a way that we do not experience God's peace.  It usually has something to do with us, not God, for His calling and purposes are always good. 1.  God calls us as He did with the people of Israel.  They did not follow before His call of them individually and as a people.  We too are called to Him .  Vs 16 " Ye have not chosen me, but I have chose you and ordained you, that you should go and bring forth fruit." We cannot be proud or boastful for we know before we
Read more