Gift Returns
OVERVIEW:
The life and sacrifice of Jesus is a gift of God. But after studying this gift for a while, can it be returned for something more desired? Yes, absolutely.
The book of Hebrews attaches significant conditions of obedience and perseverance in order for the gift of Jesus’ sacrifice to be a just substitute for one’s sins. But a gift is not earned or purchased. How can a true gift have conditions?
Perhaps this contradiction is resolved when realizing that the gift is more than the blood sacrifice of Jesus which bridges the chasm separating man from God. This gift also unites a believer with Jesus – in His death, His burial, and His resurrection. And, by the same power by which the Almighty raised Jesus from the dead, He provides new life in the believer enabling him to obey and persevere to the end.
NOW FOR MORE:
American Christianity often stumbles after the forgiveness of sins by the death of Jesus. One hears John 3:16- “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” –they profess belief in Jesus, and continue with their life, confident that they have escaped the fires of hell.
I contend that this forgiveness of sins is only part of this remarkable gift. Rebellion against our Creator put us at odds with Him. Like that tiny mouse defiantly ‘flipping off” the inbound eagle, by choosing to pursue life our way, we choose, perhaps inadvertently, to become enemies of God.
But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! Romans 5:8-11 NIV.
While I was flipping God the finger as I zoomed past doing things my way, His fist crushed me. Wait, that is what I would do to another driver as they cut me off and ‘flip me the bird.’ But God, in an action that defines love, provided the last sacrifice needed, Christ’s death, to avert my destruction from His “fist” of justice. Although choosing to live according to what I felt was right made me at odds with my Creator, the death of Jesus made it right between me and my Creator.
Does this make sense so far? If you think my illustration of the defiant mouse is too crude, of the two greatest commands – to love God with all you got and to love others as yourself – which one have you conveniently ignored this week? And remember that Jesus clarified that our selfish sexual fantasies and vengeful thoughts towards another carry the same weight as doing them. So with that clarification, how often have you violated one of God’s greatest commandments this week? Now multiply that by the 52 weeks in a year. This is just a glimpse of your sin which has been justly removed from your record by the death of Christ. But this is not the end.
How much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through His life!
Our Father did not only reconcile us through the cross, but He also ‘saved’ us through His life. This is the part of the Good News that American Christianity often forgets until passages such as Hebrews 6 jump in front of our progress.
For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they again crucify to themselves the Son of God and put Him to open shame. Hebrews 6:4-6
That is not what Jesus said, is it? Did not Jesus tell Nicodemus in John 3:16 that “whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life”?
True; almost. A couple of sentences later, Jesus tells Nicodemus:
Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God. John 3:18-21 NIV
Believing in Jesus precedes choosing to live by the truth that is revealed in the light. This is what separates those whom Jesus knows and those whom He does not know.
Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’ Matthew 7: 21-23 NIV (See also Matthew 13 and Matthew 25:31-46)
In my view, these were not ‘evildoers’, but the leaders in the contemporary Christian church. Me, maybe I helped another cast out a demon but no rememberable miracles. Where does this leave me?
Perplexed. But slowly untangling the questions.
Back to Hebrews 6. The writer speaks about people who have ‘been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come’. My initial assumption was that these were believers in Jesus. But considering the Israelites, their religion and history, they had been enlightened by receiving the commandments of God. They had literally tasted of the heavenly gift in the manna provided by God every morning. Or what about those who had feasted on the boy’s lunch of fish and bread. Or of the water turned into wine. As to the Holy Spirit, we know from their history that many Jews were anointed by the Holy Spirit for a time. Or what about miracles like water from the rock, or the blind seeing, or the deaf hearing – where these not all works of the Holy Spirit. And did not the Israelites have the good word of God, written down by Moses and the other prophets. As to those who have tasted ‘the power of the age to come’, I think of the ten lepers Jesus encountered in Luke 17. All ten were cleansed of their leprosy, but only one returned, a despised Samaritan, to thank Jesus. But all had tasted of His power.
Thus, I contend that these people are the ones that enjoyed the hors d’oeuvres but never went into the banquet to personally meet the Bridegroom.
Consider these other passages that speak about those who did go into the banquet.
Take care, brothers and sisters, that there will not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart in falling away from the living God. But encourage one another every day, as long as it is still called “today,” so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have become partakers of Christ if we keep the beginning of our commitment firm until the end. Hebrews 3:12-14
And having been perfected, He became the source of eternal salvation for all those who obey Him, being designated by God as High Priest according to the order of Melchizedek. Hebrews 5:9
I am fortunate that I am not limited by the length of a scroll, but I fear I am limited by your attentiveness. Acts 20:9 tells of Eutychus, a young man sitting in a window, ‘who was sinking into a deep sleep as Paul talked on and on. When he was sound asleep, he fell to the ground from the third story.” I don’t think I would want my name being part of the story because I fell asleep listening to the Apostle Paul, but I do understand if you are dozing off about this point.
When you are alert, read Romans 6:2-14 and note how being baptized into the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus results in a new creation that is now dead to sin and alive to God – by the same power that raised Jesus from the dead.
Endeavoring to Practice His Presence,
