Life Project Blog

In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And have you completely forgotten this word of encouragement that addresses you as a father addresses his son? It says,

“My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline,
and do not lose heart when he rebukes you,
because the Lord disciplines the one he loves,
and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son.”

Hebrews 12:4-6

Our author moves from the high ground of the first 3 verses into an area that isn’t quite as warm and fuzzy… or is it?  Remember who he is writing to, Jewish Christians in Rome during the time of Nero’s persecution.  These brothers are enduring very difficult times, times most of us can hardly imagine.  This whole letter has served to encourage them to persevere, to hold on to their faith in Christ, and to recognize that whatever the current crisis may be, it is never worth throwing away our future hope to avoid it.  Now, the author takes a different approach: Discipline.

Notice that right off, he paints discipline as a positive.  To receive the discipline of the heavenly Father is to have our sonship confirmed!  Have you ever thought of it that way? I hadn’t until about the third or fourth time I studied this.

As we struggle with sin… and yes, we all have that struggle in one form or another… we have not resisted (sin) to the point of shedding our blood (being killed).  Even for the original recipients, this statement must have been obvious.  Then the word of encouragement, that we receive discipline because we are God’s children… Take a minute to reflect on this quote from Proverbs 3. Early on in this letter, we rejoiced at the thought that through Christ, we have been made His sons and daughters, remember? We are co-heirs with Christ!  As sons and daughters normally do, we come under the authority and discipline of Father.  Are we still rejoicing?

Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? If you are not disciplined—and everyone undergoes discipline—then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all.

Hebrews 12:7-8

I have three children, all grown now, and when they were growing up, they were subject to my discipline.  There were times when they were punished.  There were times when I lectured them, times when I scolded them and times when I pleaded with them. As they grew, some of my methods changed because their understanding changed.  There were times with all of them when I had to step aside and let them get hurt so they could learn the hard way a lesson they were slow to learn by other means; this was the worst for me.  Oh, how much it hurt to step back and let them do something stupid; how hard it was to force myself not to say “I told you that would happen!”  (I sometimes failed at this point, by the way) Of course, there were times when they blamed me for not stopping them when they set out to do something they knew better than to do.  Maybe this sounds familiar to you parents out there… maybe this sounds familiar to all of us in our relationships with God also.

Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of spirits and live! They disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.

Hebrews 12:9-11

Our human fathers did their best with us in most cases, as I did my best with my kids.  But neither I nor any other human father was always right, no human father did as good a job for their children as our heavenly Father does with us.  The sad truth is that for many, the concept of a loving and merciful father is hard to comprehend because of the imperfections of their human father, yet the truth remains that our heavenly Father is love itself.  He is able, willing, and more than capable of guiding us along through this great adventure that is our lives… this “race” we are in.  Yet, from time-to-time we are much like any stubborn teenager, slow to learn.

Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. “Make level paths for your feet,” so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed.

Hebrews 12:12-13

A word of encouragement!  Yes, may we learn, may we come to see the way that we should go. May we be like the young person who is willing to be taught, rather than like the one who is certain that they know everything already.  May we accept our Father’s lessons and discipline and learn and grow quickly, and run our race straight to the finish line.

By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had embraced the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, even though God had said to him, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.” Abraham reasoned that God could even raise the dead, and so in a manner of speaking he did receive Isaac back from death.

Hebrews 11:17-19

What an amazing thing Abraham did when God told him to sacrifice Isaac!  The author brings this out in these verses, and let’s just stop and think about it for a moment.  God’s big promise to Abraham was that he would have offspring greater in number than the stars in the sky and the sand on the shore, pretty amazing considering his age.  The greatest promise of all was that through his seed, all nations of the earth would be blessed, and when the son of promise finally comes along, nothing short of a miracle in itself, God tells Abraham to sacrifice him… and Abraham was about to do what God had told him to do; now that is putting faith into action!

I can’t imagine what Abraham must have been thinking… I really can’t; but our author tells us, and apparently it occurred to Abraham, that if God made this promise, and then told him to kill the boy, God must have a plan to raise Isaac from the dead. His faith was so strong, he wasn’t thinking that God had changed His mind. So, in a way, he did receive Isaac back from the dead, for at that critical moment, poor Isaac was a dead boy walking.

By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau in regard to their future.

By faith Jacob, when he was dying, blessed each of Joseph’s sons, and worshiped as he leaned on the top of his staff.

By faith Joseph, when his end was near, spoke about the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt and gave instructions concerning the burial of his bones.

By faith Moses’ parents hid him for three months after he was born, because they saw he was no ordinary child, and they were not afraid of the king’s edict.

Hebrews 11:20-23

Take a close look at these “by faith” verses…. very close.  What do they all have common, other than “by faith”? It’s no trick, there is a clear pattern…

Each one of these “by faith” incidents is directly related to covenant faithfulness.  The main things mentioned about Abraham related to the land promise. In the verses above, it’s the son of promise. Isaac and Jacob verses are referring to their covenant birthrights. Joseph was concerned about the exodus, also a promise of the covenant. Moses was no ordinary child, because God would make another covenant with him… and later we’ll see more about Moses.

All of these people were imperfect, and the truth is that some of them were very imperfect.  All, however, placed their priority on their covenant relationship with God, over all else, and when things were tough, that’s where their hearts were to be found.  The really big question is this: What does that tell us about God’s priorities in relation to our sins?

In case I haven’t made this quite clear enough, let’s go about this in a slightly different way.  None of the patriarchs was a saint.  A few of them were a mess, and I’m including Abraham in this group.  How many times did he allow Sarah, the woman who was to bear the son of promise, go into the harem of a pagan king?  Not once, but twice!  Now I haven’t been so perfect in my lifetime, but I most certainly have never done anything like that, have you?  Probably not… Yet Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness, because Abraham, in spite of his faults, placed his highest priority on his covenant with God; in this area, he was faultless.  The same can also be said of his son and grandsons.

Back to the original recipients…  Everything in this letter is in the context of covenant. Just think about all of the amazing things we’ve learned about the New Covenant in Hebrews. Think about what we’ve learned about our relationship with God in Hebrews.  With all of that in mind, can you see what an insult it would be to God if we, after all He has done, and after all He has given to us, would turn our backs and walk away from this covenant relationship when the going got tough? You see, these warnings aren’t so much about our petty sins which are already forgiven anyway, they are about protecting and maintaining our covenant relationship with God.

It’s something to reflect upon, I should think.

 All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.

Hebrews 11:13-16

“These people,” Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and their families, lived in a time and place where the fullness of God’s promises to them had not entirely come to pass. They looked forward to complete fulfillment to their dying days, but they did so with joy, for the fulfillment of God’s promises was never in doubt; they lived by faith. They saw from a distance, but they held on. You’ll recall that our author said that the Old Covenant worship was but an illustration, a shadow of the reality to come. Here the author uses the words “at a distance” to describe the same thing, for the reality of all of God’s promises came in the person of Christ.

There’s something really interesting developing in these verses, something that is very relevant for the original recipients of the letter, and very relevant for us as well.  Did you notice that the author keeps pointing out that they were foreigners? They were strangers in a strange land when Abraham and his household entered the promised land, for there were already people there with a different culture, different language, and different values.  Abraham had followed God to a place he didn’t know, and where the inhabitants didn’t know him. But that isn’t the point the author is making. Notice verse 13, “…they were foreigners and strangers on earth.” It wasn’t just that they had left Ur and travelled to Canaan, they had left the kingdom of this earth, and entered a covenant with God. They were no longer like the other people in a way that is much more significant than mere language and culture, for they have become people of God, in an environment that was in rebellion against God. Returning to Ur wouldn’t bring them home, for they were no longer citizens there, their orientation was now a heavenly one, and they could only look forward to the day when it became a reality.

Now, consider the implications of this upon the Jewish Christians in Rome during Nero’s persecution.  Even if they had lived in Rome all of their lives, even if the State recognized them as Roman citizens, they had been transformed into citizens of a different realm, for in Christ they had become citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven.  They were now strangers in a strange land, a land that was in open rebellion against God… and Rome was acting the part.  Rome persecuted them because they were of God now; that’s what the world does, and it should surprise no one. Yet through this trial, they had thus far remained faithful to their new Kingdom, and in the course of that, they had declared a testimony for Christ, and as we now know as we study the past, the Gospel spread rapidly by their testimony of faith in Jesus, even in the face of terrible persecution.  Thus, God was not ashamed to be their God.

The historical context of this is very interesting, but it also cries out to us in an important way.  What is it telling us…?  It tells us that we too, are strangers in a strange land, for no longer are we citizens of an earthly nation; we too are citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven, and we too have a role to play in its development. As Paul tells us, we are its Ambassadors here on earth; what will our testimony be?