From the Dead

Now may the God of peace who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you complete in every good work to do His will, working in you what is well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. (Hebrews 13:20-21, NKJV).

Nearly 2000 years ago, on this very day according to the Lunar Calendar, Jesus Christ rose from the dead. It is fitting that our journey through Hebrews lands us here and now.

He rose, not as a zombie, and not via resuscitation, but through Resurrection, never to die again – unique in all Cosmic history. He is rightly called in Scripture, the first born from the dead, and all those who believe in Him will follow in His footsteps.

A careful study of the Bible indicates that all three Persons of the Trinity were involved in this momentous event, with the Father, our God of peace, detailed here, while in the Gospel of John, Jesus speaks of the laying down of His life in this manner:

“No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This command I have received from My Father.” (John 10:18, NKJV).

And the Apostle Peter informs us of the Holy Spirit's part:

For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit, (1 Peter 3:18, NKJV).

There are other similar tripartite citations, as well, and this is also true of all the key elements of our redemption in that all three Persons of the godhead were involved in our creation, in forgiving our sins, in indwelling us, and in providing us eternal life.

While a profound mystery, it is clear that we mere humans are of immeasurable value to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. It is equally clear that these and other revelatory aspects of our Christian faith are from God Himself, rather than inventions of man, for no man could conceive of such things, nor would he envision such “complications” if he were attempting to “fabricate the faith”.

As C.S. Lewis has written, the very improbability of Christian doctrine lends it credence.

The word resurrection, from the Greek, anastasis (an-as'-tas-is), appears 40 times in the New Testament. It's meaning is simply the opposite ('ana') of being still or unchanging in death ('stasis'). The dead, by definition, are without life. Those who are resurrected as Christ was, are forevermore without death, in His company.

This is our destiny as followers of Jesus by faith, an astounding inheritance.

While it is true that all who are in the graves will come forth at His summons on That Day, only those who have believed will be brought into the resurrection of life, with the rest relegated to the resurrection of condemnation, an unthinkable alternative of eternal pain and suffering.

What does this mean to us today, this entirely unique past event?

Among many other things, it means that death has been conquered on our behalf. We were bound by the wages of sin, which is death, until Christ, the Sinless One, died in our place. Because of His righteousness, death could not hold Him, and because of His willing sacrifice, that righteousness is imputed to us by the only means available, faith. With that righteousness comes eternal life – the life bestowed upon us by Christ, who is the resurrection and the life.

It means that our sin is taken away and we are justified, just-as-if we were innocent of the rebellion and evil, which is inherent in our fallen natures.

It means that we need fear nothing in this life, or the next, because we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us and gave Himself for us.

It means that the last enemy, death itself, simultaneously the greatest offense and the greatest mercy in all existence, is powerless over us. It is the greatest offense because it is the antithesis of God's purposes in Creation, although the divinely anticipated result of sin. It is the greatest mercy because, through Christ's death, that un-payable debt of sin has been paid.

We know deep in our hearts that we are intended to live forever. From the age when we are first able to think, our own mortality is both always in front of us, and yet, on a fundamental level, unimaginable. The sight and experience of human death for the living is of monumental significance precisely because it is so alien to our innermost being.

No other religion requires the death of God to redeem His creatures. No other religion resolves the helplessness of man in the face of sin in such a way. No other religion demonstrates the boundless love and mercy of God in that when we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

But it is not only His death that is meaningful, but even more so His being raised to life again. For that is the proof of the efficacy of His sacrifice.

He partook of flesh, because we are flesh. He died because we are subject to death. But He rose again because He refused to lose us to the rebellion of sin. He loves us too much to see us lost forever.

Take advantage of that love today. Be shamelessly opportunistic and ask His forgiveness in sincere belief. It is your only hope.

Otherwise, the resounding cry of HE IS RISEN, is for you of no effect, and you will die in your sin.

A Good Conscience

Pray for us; for we are confident that we have a good conscience, in all things desiring to live honorably. But I especially urge you to do this, that I may be restored to you the sooner. (Hebrews 13:18-19, NKJV).

Read the focus verse again, and considerate it at face value and be amazed!

Speaking in the editorial “we”, the writer of Hebrews, officially anonymous, is confident of his good conscience. While at first this may seem an utterly arrogant statement, given the pervasive sin in the human heart - a heart so universally and desperately wicked (Jer 17:9) that even we ourselves cannot plumb the depths of its darkness - in reality it is a declaration of praise and a tribute to the ultimate superiority of Christ over all else.

The writer's conscience is good, not because of himself, but because the writer has been remade in his Savior's image, adopted into the family of God rather than imprisoned in the family of Adam, and is in all things desiring to live honorably.

These three things are only conceivable in Christ, and should be a tremendous source of joy to all who believe.

We are all made new in Christ. The old things have passed away and we are new creations. We are moment-by-moment being transformed into the image of Christ, and the completed work is guaranteed by God Himself.

We have been rescued from the slavery of sin and made permanently a part of God's family, legally, positionally, and in the end, experientially. All this by faith in His Son.

Now, we desire to do good and eschew evil. This is a supernatural occurrence, something that can only be true in a regenerated spirit. That is not to say that we succeed in that desire, but it is to say that the desire itself is a work of God, an aspect of the sanctifying He does within us after coming to faith.

This last point is irrefutable given Scripture's indictment of the unregenerate man. Note God's view of the unsaved:

As it is written: “There is none righteous, no, not one; There is none who understands; There is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside; They have together become unprofitable; There is none who does good, no, not one.” “Their throat is an open tomb; With their tongues they have practiced deceit”; “The poison of asps is under their lips”; “Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.” “Their feet are swift to shed blood; Destruction and misery are in their ways; And the way of peace they have not known.” “There is no fear of God before their eyes.” (Romans 3:10-18, NKJV).

But we are all like an unclean thing, And all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags; We all fade as a leaf, And our iniquities, like the wind, Have taken us away. (Isaiah 64:6, NKJV).

In contrast, do you see the reason for joy in the writer's statement above? He is not saying anything about himself directly, but is only stating the facts of his redemption through Christ. It is none of his doing and all the Lord's, and because that is so, it is certain “to take”. He is on the road to guaranteed eternal righteousness and therefore destined irrevocably for eternal life, rather than inevitable eternal punishment.

This is the joy of our salvation.

Note too his humble request for prayer, coupled with his longing to be reunited with the recipients of this wondrous epistle, to be restored to them the sooner.

What kind of prayer is he requesting? I suspect ones like these:

that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, (Ephesians 1:17-20, NKJV).

that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height-- to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. (Ephesians 3:16-19, NKJV).

And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in knowledge and all discernment, that you may approve the things that are excellent, that you may be sincere and without offense till the day of Christ, being filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God. (Philippians 1:9-11, NKJV).

There is no amount of penance that can cleanse a human conscience; no human act of contrition, no self-sacrifice, no self-inflicted punishment that can undo the guilt of sin, nor take away its stain.

But there is cleansing freely offered in Christ through his substitutionary death on the Cross. Through faith in His sacrifice, our sin is appropriated by Him, while, in return, we receive His righteousness. It is a transaction that could only have been performed by God Himself. Dare we hold onto any guilt in view of His miraculous grace and atonement?

It is sheer blasphemy and human pride to not let go of the guilt of our past. We have been forgiven by the most exorbitant act imaginable: Christ's sacrifice. To believe, feel or think otherwise is to declare that His work is insufficient.

Hence, like the writer of Hebrews, we are confident that we have a good conscience, for:

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9, NKJV).

Beloved, do not hold onto the past, nor the guilt of the past, but follow the example of our brother Paul:

Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3:13, 14, NKJV).

Submission

Obey those who rule over you, and be submissive, for they watch out for your souls, as those who must give account. Let them do so with joy and not with grief, for that would be unprofitable for you. (Hebrews 13:17, NKJV).

There are repeated calls in the New Testament to be submissive; to Christ, to each other, to governing authorities, to parents, to husbands, and here, to those in spiritual authority.

But submission in the Bible cannot be forced. It is not submission based on the the superior strength of the party being submitted to, but on the voluntary obedience to divinely ordained roles and responsibilities. It is submission out of love. Any other kind is coercion, and true Christian doctrine sees coercion as an abomination.

That this teaching has been misused throughout the history of the church is undeniable. Human beings crave power over other human beings. It is a fundamental drive ignited into flaming sin at the Fall of Man, but that neither makes such behavior right, nor God insisting on its proper implementation, wrong.

Submission to one another as designed by God is founded on mutual humility

Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. (Philippians 2:3, NKJV).

Be of the same mind toward one another. Do not set your mind on high things, but associate with the humble. Do not be wise in your own opinion. (Romans 12:16, NKJV).

This humility is not the false, pathetic kind used to manipulate others, but the honest acknowledgement of our strengths, weaknesses, spiritual gifts and differing roles in the church and home.

For as we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another. Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, let us prophesy in proportion to our faith; or ministry, let us use it in our ministering; he who teaches, in teaching; he who exhorts, in exhortation; he who gives, with liberality; he who leads, with diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness. (Romans 12:4-8, NKJV).

The brilliance of God's design for is people is unmistakable. If we in the church put into practice this plan with sincerity and diligence, harmony, effectiveness, stability and quiet joy are the results. We are aligning ourselves with what we are intended to become, and in so doing we advance individually and corporately toward that very goal. We become what we think and do.

That is why submission to those in spiritual authority is so important. The one prerequisite is that those pastors and elders must be first and foremost in submission to Christ. Then we, their congregation, are obligated to be in submission to them.

Leaders in the church are not to lord their authority. The rules of Christ's Kingdom on earth are quite explicit in this regard.

But Jesus called them to Himself and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those who are great exercise authority over them. “Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant. “And whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave-- “just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.” (Matthew 20:25-28, NKJV).

This then is the foundation of authority in the church – servant leadership. The example was established by Christ Himself.

All the titles of ecclesiastical authority in the New Testament reflect this pattern. Pastor, bishop, elder, and deacon are all derived from the concept of minister (Gr. diakoneo dee-ak-on-eh'-o), meaning “servant, attendant, domestic, to serve, wait upon; to attend to anything, that may serve another's interests”.

Do you see the counterintuitive beauty of that definition. It speaks to the way Christ rules over us.

In the world, authority is often heavy-handed and imposed from the outside with force or threat of punishment.

In the church, authority is based on love, godliness, and putting the other first. Disobedience has consequences, but these are the natural result of going against God's perfect design, like stepping off a cliff results in a calamitous fall, or putting your hand in the fire results in seared flesh.

The consequences are not imposed by force, but by the fundamentals of cause and effect of life in a fallen world.

For this to work as intended, the leaders in the church must ensure that their people are well-versed in God's Word. This, in turn, can only be accomplished by faithful exposition of the Bible verse-by-verse. It is the primary building block of godly living. It is what makes the body of Christ healthy and strong and able to withstand the inevitable assaults from the world, Satan, and our own “old natures”.

The saved have a purpose in this life, and when that purpose is done, we are taken home to be with Christ. The most effective means of accomplishing that purpose is to live life day by day according to God's revealed will. We are to be holding fast to what is good and abhorring evil. We are to be kindly affectionate to one another. We are to esteem others better than ourselves.

And we are to be submissive to those authorities God has placed over us.

If we practice this in humility and in an attitude of loving obedience, putting aside personal pride, and refusing to be conformed to this world, we cannot help but to fulfill God's purposes in our lives.

We cannot help to influence others for their good. We cannot help but be effective in our witness of Christ – by our words as well as our actions.

In short, if we obey the Manufacturer's specifications, we, as his creatures, will carry out what He intends intends, uniquely, for each one of us.

The joy and privilege of that is beyond measure.

The Sacrifice of Praise

For here we have no continuing city, but we seek the one to come. Therefore by Him let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name. But do not forget to do good and to share, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased. (Hebrews 13:14-16, NKJV).

Such is the inconceivable superiority of Christ that the ocean of animal blood shed over the centuries to appease a holy God for our unrighteous evil has been completely supplanted by the once-for-all spilling of His blood on the Cross. The centuries of Jewish sacrifice performed in the Tabernacle and Temple were temporary coverings of sin until His one sacrifice not only covered, but took away, the sin of the entire world... forever.

Now instead of a plethora of innocent animal sacrifices performed multiple times each day there remains only one category of acceptable sacrifice to God – the sacrifice of praise. This is an astounding transformation from mandatory death to willful, and verbal, acknowledgement of God's immeasurable goodness and mercy toward us.

Now, instead of the complex rituals of ancient Jewish religious practices, where every action by priest and penitent was spelled out in excruciating detail to be performed in proscribed places and at proscribed times, this superior praise is comprised of three simple components: heartfelt thankfulness, doing good, and sharing. Amazing!

Each of these aspects is worthy of deeper exploration for each reveals profound truths about our relationship with our Creator God through faith in His magnificent Son.

Human enthusiasm and sincerity is typically measured by the effusiveness and vociferousness of expression. The more delight and joy we experience the louder we become. A child's “cry of delight” when acknowledging a parent's gift is music to the parent's ears. When something is heartfelt it is almost impossible to keep silent. Sometimes even when intelligible words escape us, the lips must speak something to convey the irrepressible joy and gratitude we feel.

Think of a mother reunited with a lost child, or a young boy finding a lost and beloved dog, or a spouse greeting a soldier long away at war but now returned safe and whole. The cries and tears of joy are sacrifices of praise, the fruit of our lips.

It is not formulaic or ritualistic, but eruptive and spontaneous, representative of an overflowing heart.

That is to be the natural reaction to our glorious relationship with our God. Scripture is filled with such praise. The Book of Psalms is only one such compendium.

Doing good in our own strength for our own reasons and purposes under the impetus of reaping some kind of return benefit to ourselves in this life is NOT the doing good that pleases God. That kind of philanthropy is an abomination to God.

No, the doing good in view in this focus verse is the kind that springs from the heart, mind and soul without any thought of self. It is the kind that rushes to assist someone because of a supernatural empathy that is impossible to deny. I say “supernatural” because such selflessness is bestowed upon our recreated hearts as a spiritual gift from God, and is not part of “natural” emotional equipment.

This type of doing good entails surrender to His will in order to walk in those good works which He has prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. While it may involve herculean effort it is not expended in our own strength, but through the power of His Spirit within us. And regardless of the intensity of effort, we experience an underlying and indescribable joyfulness that emanates from the Throne of Heaven itself – a joyfulness in giving and grace that epitomizes the very nature and character of God. We do whatever He has set before us with joy because that is who He is – a joyful and merciful Being who delights in giving us the desires of our hearts.

Yet, this kind of doing good is not measured by effort or result, for, in truth, it is sometimes effortless and we may never know the end result this side of Heaven. For even something as easy as giving a drink of water to someone in Christ's name will reap tremendous reward from Him.

The final component of this sacrifice of praise is to share, and this opens up a wealth of possibilities. It is the selfless sharing of anything and everything merely for the sake of blessing someone in need. Nor is this limited to the sharing of material goods or services, but can (and does) involve sharing encouragement or support or simple kindness.

In doing so we are sharing the very love of God Himself, who gives us the privilege of being “His hands, feet, heart and mind” in a dark and fallen world.

In all these things He empowers us to fulfill His purposes, provides us with the very works of praise themselves, and promises to reward us as if it was all us when, in reality, it is all Him.

This is the God whom we serve!

Paul describes this perfectly in Romans 12:

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. (Romans 12:1, NKJV).

The God of Heaven, our Creator, our Redeemer, the living, eternal, all-powerful Sovereign of Existence could require anything at all from us and be justified in His demands, but what He wants, what He most delights in, is our joyous thankfulness in all the indescribably good gifts that He bestows. A thankfulness expressed from deep within the wellsprings of our being, without thought of self, but with regard only to Him and others.

This type of joy and gratitude is ONLY possible through faith in His Son. No other kind will do.

This World is Not Our Home

For here we have no continuing city, but we seek the one to come. Therefore by Him let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name. But do not forget to do good and to share, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased. (Hebrews 13:14-16, NKJV).

There is an undeniable longing in the human heart for something larger than itself, something permanent and secure and everlasting. That there is nothing in this life that meets those criteria does not in the least negate or mitigate that longing. It is there, like a chronic, bittersweet ache, and expresses itself in oddly poignant ways.

Like that nostalgia for an event or a circumstance that has never quite happened, a kind of phantom memory of something just beyond reach. Children experience it the most, and over time as they mature, come to associate it mistakenly with real past events, romanticized to be the thing missed, but not ever really making the grade. C.S. Lewis said it this way:

"It was when I was happiest that I longed most...The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing...to find the place where all the beauty came from."

That is what we inherently seek, “the place where all the beauty came from”, the desire for which is God's lure to bring us finally to Him through His magnificent Son, Jesus.

The corollary truth is that the place we seek, that mysterious home, is not here, at least not yet, and accepting that fact is key to living life effectively as a Christian in enemy territory. We may find temporary shelter and respite in this life, but our continuing city, that place of everlasting beauty and undying allegiance, is still future. It is not that we are not seeking it intensely enough, or that we have somehow lost our way. It is that it is not to be found in this world at this time.

But it is coming, or God is a liar, and we are the most miserable of men.

Yet God has shown Himself to be true and faithful, in His Word, in the lives of His children, and in the world at large. His promises are sure and certain, as demonstrated by fulfilled prophecy, by the witness of saints throughout the last 2000 years, and through changed lives here and now.

Men, women, and children have inexplicably reversed course, become new, repented of sinful living, and through no effort of their own, have turned toward righteousness – the natural outcome of a recreated heart, and a spirit made alive again through faith in Christ.

This means then that in this world, that longing for home can never be satisfied, but rather than lead to defeat and despair, this realization must be followed remembering the promise: it is coming. Strangely, when that day arrives, God will bring that Home to us, not the other way around.

In the meantime, we live knowing that everything in this world will not last. All that we consider good, and worthy and beautiful, will be replaced by that which is immeasurably better. Grand vistas of earth and sky today are mere shadows of that which is to come - and remain - forever. Reunions and homecomings and glorious joy now, are but vague whisperings and glimmers of our guaranteed unimaginable destiny.

Love of nation, love of community, love of accomplishment, love of family are mere tastes of future meals; tantalizing appetizers only, not to be mistaken for the true feast. So we declare with Paul,

...what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. (Philippians 3:7-11, NKJV).

So in practical terms, we hold onto the things of this world, to the places of this world, lightly, because this world is not our home. We are sojourners, pilgrims, and transients.

In holding lightly, we are also to seek the one to come. Our time in this life is to be filled with forward-looking purpose. No matter what our circumstances, or our situation here and now, these are not, and cannot, be permanent. Instead, I am to

...press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3:12-14, NKJV).

Beloved, are you suffering now? Not only will it end, but in its place will be joy unspeakable.

Are you oppressed now? One day you will rule and reign with Christ.

Are you in need now? One day you will be the inheritors of all the riches of God.

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. (Romans 8:18, NKJV).

Can you see the power this knowledge can provide? Not power to dominate, but to endure, if not happily, then surely with a foundation of joy that surpasses all understanding.

We are children of the Most High God. He purchased us out of the slavery of sin and death with the blood of His Son on the Cross.

He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? (Romans 8:32, NKJV).

Armed with His promises, nothing in this temporary and Fallen world can defeat us, for we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.

For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38, 39, NKJV).

Bearing His Reproach

We have an altar from which those who serve the tabernacle have no right to eat. For the bodies of those animals, whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin, are burned outside the camp. Therefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered outside the gate. Therefore let us go forth to Him, outside the camp, bearing His reproach. (Hebrews 13:10-13, NKJV).

He is despised and rejected by men, A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. (Isaiah 53:3, NKJV).

If you have never been despised as a Christian, then you have either remained silent about Jesus, live in a cloister, or have lived your life of faith in such a way that there is no discernible difference between you and the world.

This is true because the unbelieving world hates Christ. He said it would and it does. Now this does not mean that it happens 24/7, or that the intensity of contempt is unbearable, or that the hostility is always overt, but it does mean that you can be certain you are not as accepted in the world as you might have been before becoming a follower of Jesus. And those who are most contemptuous may be in your own family, or even members of your own household. It happens. It is supposed to happen.

I am not speaking of the contempt you may receive for being obnoxious, or bitter, or unkind, or boastful, or demonstrating any number of other common and pervasive human failings. That's your doing. No, the reproach mentioned in the verse above is solely due to Christ being pure and beautiful and majestic and good, and you being His follower with His Spirit within you. This is true because the world is evil and hateful in its horrid rebellion against God. It hates everything about God (the true God of the Bible), and everything about you, because you are His.

If this hasn't been your experience, then maybe you are not being attentive. Or maybe you should examine yourself as to whether or not you are in the faith.

Open your eyes and ears, and if you are concerned about your popularity and acceptance, prepare for being crushed. In other parts of the world, Christians are beaten and imprisoned and killed. If, in the West, you are being sneered at, or spoken against, or mocked, count your blessings. It could be much worse.

However, it does hurt. It hurts when family turns against you. It hurts when you are excluded or spoken of behind your back. It hurts when you suffer public humiliation. It hurts when, through no fault or action of your own, your are despised and rejected.

But know this, you are in good company, for:

“Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. “Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. (Matthew 5:11, 12, NKJV).

This equation is what makes Christians an unbeatable force for good in the world. We are never commanded to do violence, but to love and speak the truth. We are never commanded to exact revenge, but to leave vengeance to the Lord. We are never commanded to return evil for evil, but the opposite. And when all of this evokes even more intense hatred from the world, well, that is to be expected, for this world is not our home. We are citizens of Heaven.

How then are we to react to the enmity of the world? Simply put, like Christ.

When reviled He did not revile in return.

He forgive those who drove the nails through His hands and feet, and lifted Him on the Cross to suffer excruciating death.

He loved the unlovable, and forgave the unforgivable, and He did so with the complete assurance that such was His Father's will.

At the same time, He was fierce in His condemnation of evil. He overturned the tables and cages in the Temple and drove out the profiteers with a whip of cords. He called those who were falsely religious hypocrites and vipers. And He did not hesitate to stand for what is right and good. Even His mother and siblings thought He was crazy.

He is our example and He never compromised for the sake of not making waves. His entire earthly ministry was a gigantic tsunami, and He knew it would end in persecution and death, but He did it anyway.

His motivation was filial obedience and love.

So to bear His reproach means that we should expect the same. While there will be some who see Christ in us and are converted and become members of our eternal family (closer and far more loyal than blood relations), there will be others who will hate us passionately, and will overlook no opportunity to disparage us and cause us pain.

Even among our own family and friends.

But in the end, none of that matters, for the only thing of importance is Christ within us, the hope of glory.

His warnings to us should be heeded. We should expect betrayal and contempt. It happened to Him. It will happen to us. That is what He meant by counting the cost. To ignore the warnings is to be blind-sided by the attacks that will come.

Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. (1 Corinthians 15:58, NKJV).

Coming Out

We have an altar from which those who serve the tabernacle have no right to eat. For the bodies of those animals, whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin, are burned outside the camp. Therefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered outside the gate. Therefore let us go forth to Him, outside the camp, bearing His reproach. (Hebrews 13:10-13, NKJV).

It has been said, “there are only two kinds of people in this world, those who divide people into two categories... and those who don't.”

A pithy saying, but based on a false premise and a false corollary. In reality, there are only three kinds of people, and in the order of their advent these are: Gentiles, Jews, and the church.

Everyone is from one blood, descended from the first human couple (even secular geneticists recognize “mitochondrial Eve”). Until Abram was called out of Ur of the Chaldees and renamed Abraham, all of Eve's descendants for the next 2000 years comprised “the nations”, or more accurately, “Gentiles”.

Then Abraham became the Father of the Jews by physical lineage (and the Father of the Faithful by example), followed some 2000 years later, by the ekklesia (church) of Christ, where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave nor free, but Christ is all and in all. (Colossians 3:11, NKJV).

To advance (for advancement it surely is – but not by our own efforts) from either of the first two groups into the third, requires a full-fledged “coming out”, a conscious, volitional transition that leaves behind all that was valued before (position, privilege, pride-of-membership, comfort, familiarity, conformity). It is no small thing, and Jesus acknowledges this, and warns about the cost.

“For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it-- “lest, after he has laid the foundation, and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, “saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ “Or what king, going to make war against another king, does not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? “Or else, while the other is still a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks conditions of peace. “So likewise, whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be My disciple. (Luke 14:28-33, NKJV).

“If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple. “And whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple. “So likewise, whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be My disciple. (Luke 14:26, 27, 33, NKJV).

Therefore “Come out from among them And be separate, says the Lord. Do not touch what is unclean, And I will receive you.” (2 Corinthians 6:17, NKJV).

However, the result far exceeds the price.

But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ (Philippians 3:7, 8, NKJV).

Note what the Apostle Paul writes in that last citation: everything and everyone else in comparison to Christ, is rubbish. The word in the original Greek is dung.

Coming out from the world is not only essential for being a disciple of Christ, but it is the best decision and action that mortal man can undertake, for the world is evil and hateful and filled with death.

“The world cannot hate you, but it hates Me because I testify of it that its works are evil. (John 7:7, NKJV).

“If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. “If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. (John 15:18, 19, NKJV).

Coming out is also the only course away from damnation into eternal life.

Now this does not mean isolation, but separation. We are to be in the world, doing the works that our Savior prepared beforehand that we should walk in them, but not of the world, and the distinction is crucial, for

...[do] you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. (James 4:4, NKJV)

Popularity, conformity, and comfort with and in the world is a deep and abiding temptation. That, combined with human pride is a deadly spiritual toxin that prevents many from being saved.

In the end, it is death.

If you are not being persecuted in some fashion because of your faith, if you are not made to feel like a stranger in a strange land, if your unbelieving friends and family are not holding you in varying degrees of contempt and in some way letting you know that they consider you the offscouring of the world, then examine yourself to see if you are in the faith.

If your witness as a follower of Jesus Christ, however imperfect it may be, does not result in loss or heartache or discomfort, then your are either uniquely blessed, or not being the salt and light that Christ has commanded His disciples to be.

We are to be different, not because of outward piousness or false spirituality, but because of inward transformation. We are to speak the truth in love, despite Jesus guaranteeing that doing so would make us hated.

Some have said that the church needs to conform to the world, to become seeker-friendly, to modify doctrine and practice so that it fits more readily into modern culture. By this theory, we are to “cut all that chatter about sin and death, salvation and sacrifice, righteousness and truth, heaven and eternal punishment”, and thereby soften the message and make it more palatable.

But this is a strategy from the pit of Hell, and is exactly the opposite of what the church should do. It is also the primary reason why the visible church has so little influence on the actual daily living of so many who profess belief in Christianity.

Anemic, watered down doctrine has the same effect as any diluted cure; it gives the impression of effectiveness while leading to death and ultimate eternal despair. It is snake-oil and sugar water, good for nothing.

To dispense such a remedy, however lucrative it may be, is a monstrous crime. To proclaim that God forgives everyone whose good deeds outweigh their bad, or whose quiet and private religious belief does not make those around them uncomfortable or feel the burden of conviction, is to foster unconscionable evil.

The proclamation of the gospel of Christ, and the living out of faith in His death and resurrection should not be done in a closet. It should be shouted from the rooftops. It is supposed to make people squirm, and to fill those with the hardest of hearts full of contempt and hatred toward those who humbly live for Christ.

It is the only coming out that has any meaning or eternal benefit.

Our Altar

We have an altar from which those who serve the tabernacle have no right to eat. For the bodies of those animals, whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin, are burned outside the camp. Therefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered outside the gate. Therefore let us go forth to Him, outside the camp, bearing His reproach. (Hebrews 13:10-13, NKJV).

Altars have been a part of human history from the beginning. Even from a secular viewpoint, the earliest hominids left behind evidence of ritual platforms endued with religious or spiritual significance. These were entirely focused on the need to propitiate angry deities who sought to punish mankind for its unapproved behavior.

It is fascinating how pervasive such beliefs were, arising all over the globe, across cultures, widely variant religious beliefs, practices, vast geographical areas, and levels of civilizational advancement. Evolution cannot explain such commonality of thought and practice, but the Bible can, and does.

The inherent need to somehow make up for bad behavior, to placate powers beyond human control and understanding, the need to, in some way, offer sacrifice to forestall or prevent judgment is as natural to human behavior as avarice, greed and lust. It is a powerful impulse and remains to this day, and is expressed in any number of obvious or covert ways.

From self-inflicted suffering, to guilt-assuaging charity, to silent bargaining with the Universe, even the most rabid atheist feels, and acts upon, this ubiquitous need. It is part of our cellular make-up, an integral component of our emotional-spiritual DNA.

And it is all futile and useless.

The only sacrifices that had any effectiveness were ordained by God for the Jews of the Old Testament, and even these were only prefigurements of the one Sacrifice that would, once and for all, placate the Creator's righteous wrath against His creatures' unrighteous rebellion – the sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross.

With the exception of the sacrifice of consecration, which was completely burned, the ancient Levitical offerings entailed eating a portion of the slain animal or produce in the vicinity of the altar upon which the gift was presented. The best parts of the animal or the first-fruits of the field were consumed in the presence of God, as an acknowledgement that He was the Person who was sinned against, while simultaneously acknowledging Him as the provider of that which was being offered in payment.

He both established the cost of sin and was the Source of the means to settle the debt, as He did with Abraham and Isaac, and by giving His Son to die on the Cross.

In the Old Testament economy, the priesthood of Israel was given the remainder of the sacrifice as payment for their service in the Tabernacle, and later in the Temple.

In contrast, our altar is of a completely different nature, based on the immeasurable superiority of our Sacrifice, the Lord Jesus. His death did not provide mere atonement (the covering up of sin, for that is what atone means), but complete elimination of the stain and debt of sin.

No other sacrifice was possible or needed after that one superb act of filial obedience and divine love on His part. And therefore the figurative altar of that sacrifice, the Cross, is utterly unique and irreplaceable, and can be approached only by those who place their complete faith in Christ. To everyone else, it is unapproachable.

The right of access, then, is inviolable and irrevocable. It is reserved for neither Jew, nor Greek, but for the church of Christ alone.

That is the bad news.

The good news is that everyone is eligible to be granted that right if they cease depending on anything else but Christ to satisfy God's wrath against sin.

But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. (John 1:12, 13, NKJV).

Now the modern, “enlightened” world rejects this reasoning, considering it archaic, superstitious nonsense. If God exists at all, in their thinking, He would not be so arcane and bloodthirsty. Instead He would be more like what they imagine themselves falsely to be.

What they fail to understand in their arrogance, is that God is not the God of their own imagination, but the transcendent, eternal, all-knowing, and all-powerful Creator of existence. He gets to set the rules, and while He gives them the freedom to disobey those rules, He promises to exact judgment on those who do.

And he also provides the only vehicle of escape from that punishment, faith in His Son's sacrifice on the altar of His love.

Profitless Doctrines

Do not be carried about with various and strange doctrines. For it is good that the heart be established by grace, not with foods which have not profited those who have been occupied with them. (Hebrews 13:09, NKJV).

Because Jesus is unchanging (Hebrews 13:08), His teaching is unchanging and is established forever. Consequently there are no new doctrines needed or possible for the Christian faith. Nonetheless, these abound, and anticipating this, the writer of Hebrews gives this plain, common sense warning about the illogic of being enticed by the inferior teachings of men.

While we may not understand fully all the tenets of the New Testament, (in terms of the depth and richness of God's eternal purposes) we can only concur with what has been said by expositors throughout church history, “the main things are the plain things”.

Thus, the best protection against being carried about with various and strange doctrines, is immersion in the truth. We are to be steadfast, immovable, rooted and grounded, holding fast the word of life so that we do not fall prey to the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting and the trickery of men.

This does not mean we are to fear such error, for it has no power against the truth, but we are to guard against it in the same way that a diligent householder guards against threats to the security and safety of the house: with eyes and ears open, and ever-ready access to the armory of the Word of God.

Perhaps, one of the strangest doctrines in existence, one that has been around since the Fall in Eden, is that we are capable of saving ourselves. This is the foundation for legalism and it is deadly. It is the height of human arrogance and unreason, and if it gains the least foothold, it spreads like an enervating fungus, defiling the soul with spiritual pride.

That is why in the verse above, strange doctrines are coupled with the eating, or the not eating, of specific ritualistic foods. We know that the Levitical dietary restrictions of the Old Testament served two primary purposes – they kept God's people apart from the world, and they provided daily reinforcement of the concepts of “clean and unclean”.

However, these strictures were completely abrogated by the grace revealed in the New Testament, for the Law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. His atoning death made all things new and clean, so that the new contrast between the works of the Law, and salvation by grace alone through faith alone were equally reinforced by daily living. Yet, some could not put away adherence to outward laws, and, instead continued to be occupied by that which had been rendered obsolete. The temptation of the old and comfortable proved too strong for many, preventing them from fully embracing the “new” law of faith.

In the end, their unbelief, for that is what it was, resulted in their rejection of the promised Messiah.

Another enticing, but unequivocally false doctrine is Darwinian Evolution, which is the theory (dogma, really) that states that all Causality came about solely by chance over time. In essence, this false scientific premise states that some postulated Quantum Singularity, at some distant “time” in the past, exploded, and, in the process, created time and space and all the elements of primordial matter. These, in turn, through random happenstance over eons, “evolved” into galaxies, stars, planets, and ultimately, us.

The reason this impressive sounding idea is so alluring is because it brilliantly feeds the maw of human pride (mankind is accountable to itself only), while simultaneously rendering us as a kind of potluck result. We exist not because we are special, but because we aren't. And because there is No One and Nothing outside of Materiality that had anything to do with anything, we can go about our business of becoming the gods we have always wanted to be since the Garden, without regard to the true and living God.

Aside from the inherent utter despair this philosophy leads to due to its fundamental acknowledgement that there is no purpose, intelligence, or direction to anything, it provides the one thing a Christ-rejecting world so self-destructively desires: an argument for dispensing with a Creator. Doing so at the expense of all purpose and meaning in life is considered only a small price to pay.

Almost as good, and in someways even more brilliant, is the heresy of Theistic Evolution. This is the idea that while a Creative Intelligence may have started the whole thing, she/he/it has no interest in anything other than sitting back and watching the drama unfold – less despair, perhaps, but equally allowing for supernatural non-interventionism. Thus, dispensing more or less entirely with the God of the Bible, while retaining some semblance of overarching, but passive, authority.

There is no good reason to hold either of these fallacies as true, but reason and rebellion against God have little to do with each other. Both of these strange doctrines gives man the illusion of control and non-accountability to a Deity, with the unspoken corollary that we ourselves will eventually fill that post.

It requires more faith and suspension of reason to believe in Macroevolution than it ever would to believe in Special Creation by a Personal Deity. Everything in the Universe, from the Cosmological Constants, to the contradictory results of Radioisotope Dating, to the irreducible complexity of the simplest organic cell, flies squarely in the face of mindless, or “passive” Creationism.

The purported long ages of both the earth and the Cosmos are being addressed with new cosmological theories, extensions to Relativistic Physics, and hypotheses regarding gravitational time dilation, with earth at the center of a created Universe.

And regardless of whether these latest Creationist origins theories serve to explain fully all the scientific data at our disposal, it is clear that the Theory of Evolution does not. The dirty secret kept from popular culture is that Evolution is a paradigm on the brink of complete collapse. Even its staunchest proponents are beginning to realize (and admit) it is woefully inadequate in accounting for the most fundamental questions of modern physics. That is why we here about such imaginative pseudo-scientific constructs as Dark Matter and Dark Energy. These are the mathematical necessities required to “fill the gaps” in the whimsical Big Bang tales.

The bottom line of this exhortation in Hebrews, then, is for each of us to realize that there is no profit in denying truth. God has spelled out clearly what we must do to be saved, and among the most important steps is to cease being willfully deceived.

It is a profitless endeavor to turn aside from the truth of God to the gossamer imaginings of fallible man, knowing that ultimately, rejecting His truth ends in eternal calamity.

Instead, we should cling to that which was revealed to us through His Word, and in the ministry of His Son's propitiatory work on the Cross.

Finally, understand that all doctrines regarding faith and godliness that are sourced outside the recognized Canon of Scripture are neither authoritative or inerrant. These are, like all things man-centered, corrupt and corrupting, profiting nothing.

Ultimately, unless you are firmly anchored in the truth, you WILL be carried about by your own understanding and by “popular wisdom”. Jesus Himself said it best:

“But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: “and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall.” (Matthew 7:26, 27, NKJV).