sermon: Hebrews: Its Background (Part Six)
John W. Ritenbaugh
Given 22-Sep-18; Sermon #1454; 66 minutes
Description: (show)
My sermon on Trumpets had themes within it that were fitting for both the Hebrews series and also for Trumpets, and I inserted them into that sermon on Trumpets because I wanted us to understand God has set His goal, and I wanted you to know for sure what God's goal is.
God's specific goal is far greater than the goals that we set for ourselves within His calling. His goal is briefly stated without explanation in I Corinthians 15, verses 27 and 28, and I am going to read them to you again. This is the resurrection chapter.
I Corinthians 15:27-28 For "He has put all things under His feet." But when He says "all things are put under Him," it is evident that He who put all things under Him is excepted. [That is, the Father.] Now when all things are made subject to Him, then the Son Himself will also be subject to Him who put all things under Him, that God may be all in all.
And there is God's goal ever so briefly stated. God is going to be in all.
Now, in spite of the greatness of the return of Jesus Christ and the resurrection of the dead at His return, that goal is stated as being that He is all and in all, and as I just about concluded that sermon, showing that eventually we are going to be at one with Him. That was Jesus' prayer that is given in John the 20th chapter.
As important as our resurrection is to us, and to God too, it is secondary to that point in the progress of God's work, that is, what He is doing directly to the time when He is all and in all. Then His work is done and He begins another task that I am sure that He is already planning for.
When we left off my previous sermon in my series of introductory sermons on Hebrews, we were briefly exploring who wrote the book. Now only God knows with complete certainty and it is not information that is vital to our salvation, but internal evidence within the Scriptures tends to point to the apostle Paul. Now I provided you there with evidence from both epistles by Peter in which he states Paul's clear contacts with Gentile-dominated congregations and the subject material discussed tying it to Acts the 15th chapter. In addition, the epistle to the Hebrews comfortably fits in with the assignment God gave to Paul as stated in Acts the 9th chapter, verses 15 and 16. I want to repeat that because I want us to be sure of what these men were doing at that time.
Acts 9:15-16 But the Lord said to him [that is, Ananias], "Go, for he is a chosen vessel of Mine to bear My name before the Gentiles, kings, and the children of Israel. For I will show him how many things he must suffer for My name's sake."
And so, Paul became known as the apostle to the Gentiles.
Therefore, regarding the author, I said in that sermon that I was going to proceed in that, but since it is not important to our salvation at all, I decided not to do it. I have decided not to proceed any further because identifying him does not really add to my purpose.
I have been focusing on showing you part of the reason why Hebrews was written and that "why" parallels the direction this era of the church seems to be headed. Is persecution of today's church of God on the horizon? Well, the answer to that is a very definite yes. I believe that going through this subject series is timely because antagonism against people sincerely calling themselves Christian without truly being one has been intensifying for many decades. It is being driven by the secularists united with the leftists who have in turn themselves unknowingly as willing servants of Satan and seized control of strategic positions in authority, in government, entertainment, education, and implemented concepts and practices that are definitely anti-Christ.
So in our culture here in the United States, and I am sure it is probably almost exactly or very nearly the same in all the other Israelite countries over there in Europe, that they have seized control of the culture and they are setting the standards of obedience to their dictums; and those people, the secularists, are not Christian. Very definitely. They do not even believe in many cases that God even exists and it is very definite that the leftists, who, incidentally brethren, I do not know whether you realize this, but they have taken control of the Democratic Party. I do not think there is any doubt about that at all, not in my mind.
They control, then, the news. They control, then, all of the antagonisms that there are against Trump. And I am no Trump supporter or anything like that at all. I do not mean to give you that opinion, but boy, he is being picked upon by experts at sedition and causing trouble within people. Now they sit, as one baseball commentator used to say, in the catbird's seat. And they are calling the shots very much so here in the United States of America and in my mind there is no reason for them to diminish at all. They are rather going to gradually continue to strengthen their hold on the operations of the culture here in the United States of America.
Now persecution happens because Satan is alive, active, and God has given him certain freedoms for the benefit of God's purposes as He builds His Family. Some persecution has already occurred, but what remains a mystery is when it will arrive. And when it does arrive, will it come with a much more violent force?
According to those who research into such things as Hebrews, though undated, internal evidence appears to the researchers to indicate in the mid-AD 60s is when it finally reached a printed stage. Now Hebrews is clearly addressed to the Hebrew people. But we must be careful to understand not to all Hebrews but only to the converted ones within the church. Like the other epistles that appear in the New Testament, those too were written to the church, and the same is true of Hebrews, even though it may have very well been written within that Hebrew nation.
Now people like the apostles, they were Hebrew people, and those Jewish and Levitical people converted through them, and I indicate those tribes simply because those were the three, along with Benjamin, who tended to live together in the nation of Judah. Jewish, Levites, Benjamites, and so forth. The rest of them, the rest of the tribes had long since disappeared into their lands of wandering.
Those Hebrew people who were converted were the ones who needed the instruction and encouragement Hebrews contains. They needed reassurance that they had not made a mistake by converting to Jesus Christ, and most of their problems were taking place within the family units. Now there was persecution out on the streets. We know that was taking place too. The apostle Paul was one of the major persecutors out there on the street, that is, until he was converted.
Now here is something that I just found out within the past two weeks as I was preparing this sermon. The term Hebrew has an interesting spiritual meaning. Now those of you who have a great deal of biblical knowledge know that the Hebrew families of people were named for Eber, they descended from him. And it was not just the Israelite people who descended from Eber, but many other tribes as well. Now this meaning that I am going to give you for the word Hebrew is not to be applied in this sense to that family of Hebrew people.
I want you to turn with me to Genesis. An interesting thing I used to wonder about this, and when I came across this, I thought, hey, how about that? To me it was interesting, just a little item that we do not stop to think about too often.
Genesis 14:13 Then one who had escaped came and told Abram the Hebrew, for he dwelt by the terebinth tree of Mamre the Amorite, brother of Eshcol, brother of Aner; and they were allies with Abram.
It is very clear even before we got to this place in the book of Genesis that Abram was a Hebrew. Why did God identify him as Abram the Hebrew? Now those people surely knew that. But here he is singled out as Abram the Hebrew. Here is what I found. According to the Interpreter's Commentary, the term Hebrew means, "the crosser." If you look this up in Strong's Concordance, you are not going to find it. This took a great deal more research and energy to find out what this word really means. The crosser, as one who crosses a river, a desert, or another formidable boundary or barrier from one side to another.
Thus the term Hebrew describes one or a group that crosses something that divides, be it a geographical thing as in a river, a mountain, or a desert, or even an idea or a religion or a way of life. Abram is clearly identified in God's Word as the one who crossed, and he is also identified as the father of the faithful.
Now here is a thought. Is it possible that God is teaching us that Abram crossed from a normal carnal person living by means of carnal things to one who was converted and crossed to living by faith? You see, if you pick that up in that context, you will find that he stands out in the way that a converted person would act in such a situation. He put his little army together, trusted God in faith, and they defeated the five kings with only 318 men in their little army. They were no doubt overwhelmed in terms of the number that they were up against, but this man was living by faith.
If that is so, can it be understood of carnal things to be one who converted to living by faith and that the epistle to the Hebrews is an epistle to those who convert, who cross like Abram to live by faith? Just a thought, but he very definitely is singled out as one who crossed.
We are talking about who the book of Hebrews applies to. Let us go back into the New Testament again because I want to get it straight in our mind and we have it clearly understood that the book of Hebrews was not written to the Hebrews as a race of people descended from Eber. It was written to a church, a very select group of people who had become converted. And so we find here in Mark the 13th chapter, verses 35 through 37 there is just one word we want to pick out here.
Mark 13:35-37 "Watch therefore [Jesus is speaking], for you do not know when the master of the house is coming—in the evening, at midnight, at the crowing of the rooster, or morning—lest, coming suddenly, he find you sleeping. And [here comes the word] what I say to you, I say to all: Watch!"
The key word in that little three-verse section there is the word all. And it applies to the book of Hebrews, the epistle there, and to whom the book of Hebrews was written to. Christ's words are to be accepted by all in the church! The book of Hebrews is written to the church, not to a family or many families descended from Eber. The epistle to the Hebrews is inspired. It is Christ speaking, so this epistle was passed around to all the congregations. Its instruction was most certainly not restricted only to Jewish Christians, but to all Christians, and that included whether they were Gentiles or whether they were of the Israelite families. Hebrews is, though, fully intended for all Christians because the instruction is vital to everyone's salvation, but it went first to aid the Jews because of what was happening to them both spiritually and culturally within their nation because of their faith in Jesus as Savior.
I think I told you in another sermon that what was happening was that the converts to Christianity were being excluded by their families from any contact whatever with what was going on at the Temple. And so brethren, they were cut off. And because they converted they were losing their jobs, they were losing their families, they were losing all contact of respect that would normally be given to people who were neighbors and so forth. They were cut from the community. Because all action, especially spiritual action, came from the Temple.
That is one way of looking at that problem. I do not know whether I am going to get to it, but that is only one way of looking at it. They lost contact with the Temple, but what did they gain as a result? That is what the book of Hebrews was for, to show the people what they gained in giving up the contact with their families and with the Temple. So the book of Hebrews is fully intended for all Christians because it is Christ speaking there.
Please turn to Hebrews chapter 5, verse 12. We want to find out a little bit about the people—the Hebrews—that this was written to. And so we find something here in verse 12. It is not a great big thing.
Hebrews 5:12 For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God; and you have come to need milk and not solid food.
What does that tell us? That tell us that the Hebrew converts, since this is written to the congregation here, were not young in the faith. In some cases they probably would be considered as old timers in the faith, especially as compared to some Gentiles. Now information like this right here helps date when Hebrews was written and also what the congregation consisted of.
Now we are going to go back to the book of Acts again and I want to fit this into a time element. Remember I mentioned here, it helps us to date things as to when the book was written, and so Acts 8, verse 1. Look how early this is in the book of Acts.
Acts 8:1 Now Saul was consenting to his death. At that time a great persecution arose against the church which was at Jerusalem; and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles.
When I was going through this before, the history that is contained here, Acts 8:1 seems to imply AD 30-40, shortly after Jesus' resurrection, the Day of Pentecost, the giving of the Holy Spirit, and it is not so far away from that occasion as the apostle Paul was still persecuting the church. Now if we were to come through there, again we are still looking at what the congregation consisted of, we are going to go to Hebrews the 10th chapter. We just showed you in Hebrews 5:12 that these people were not young in the faith.
Hebrews 10:32 [So these are pretty much old timers.] But recall the former days in which, after you were illuminated, you endured a great struggle with sufferings.
The Jews were really going through it, in this congregation especially.
A little bit further, chapter 13, verse 24. We are learning what the congregation consisted of, and we have learned that there were new converts in the book of Acts, but they also had gone through a lot of persecutions; and they were not overall young in the faith. You are probably wondering, what in the world does he want that verse for?
Hebrews 13:24 Greet all those who rule over you, and all the saints. Those from Italy greet you.
What that little sentence tells us is that it was very likely that the Jerusalem congregation was not small. It was a large congregation. Now if you will think back into the early portions of the book of Acts as we were going through there, 3,000 were converted, 5,000 were converted. You remember that? Hundreds of people. The church was multiplying! Not just adding members, it was multiplying.
We are picking up information as we go along there. These people were old in the faith, they had gone through a great deal of persecution, it was a large congregation of people, and it was in Jerusalem.
Let us go back to the book of Acts once again, chapter 11. As we jump around here we pick up some of its characteristics.
Acts 11:22 The news of these things came to the ears of the church in Jerusalem, and they sent out Barnabas to go as far as Antioch.
What in the world did he pick out that verse for? Notice Barnabas, they sent out Barnabas. It was a headquarters congregation. It was the Pasadena of their day. And so they were respected in such a way, that is, it was such a large congregation and had so many old time members in it, there were people who remembered when Christ was alive and so forth, and so we find out that they were the headquarters church. And so they were sending people out on responsibilities that had to be taken care of, we will say, in the Gentile churches.
We are going to move into another section here. What is the purpose of the book of Hebrews? Well, from the sermons that I have given to you in the past, there were clearly urgent needs brewing for the teaching contained within the epistle to the church. Now there was much more going on than appears even on the bare surface. Now recall to mind John 15, verses 1 through 5, when Jesus made His statement, "I am the vine, you are the branches. . . Without Me you can do nothing." Remember that statement? I want to make sure that you understand the relationship of you to Jesus Christ. Without Him we can do nothing in the way of producing fruit that will glorify God.
That is pretty important, to have a relationship with this One personality. And we cannot even see Him! By faith we know He is there, and by faith we know He hears, and by faith we know we are going to have our request granted in His good time.
Now the convert's growth in the glorification of God by means of our producing the fruit of the Spirit hinges upon the quality of the convert's relationship with Christ. And it is the purpose of the epistle to the Hebrews to make that relationship as good as we possibly can. If we cannot produce the kind of fruit that God wants to see in us that glorifies Him, what good is Hebrews going to do?
The relationship with Christ is going to make this possible. And this one specific relationship in all of life is that important. I do not know how to say that to make it more meaningful. Because salvation hinges on pleasing God. And we please God through Jesus Christ and our relationship with Him. That is pretty sobering. And though this statement is never directly stated within the epistle, it is this overall thought the epistle to the Hebrews conveys to those who seriously study its contents.
The epistle was primarily intended to first instruct Jewish converts and then Gentile converts as God began calling them to know that all of the various Jewish religions and sects, and in fact, every religion in the entire world has been supplanted by Jesus Christ and His way of life that He preached. That is a pretty heady responsibility.
Now think about this. He was indeed God as a man. He was indeed the Messiah and He is our Savior. He remains God as our High Priest, seated at the right hand of God the Father in heaven, in addition to being our King. That is a pretty important person! Besides that, He is our Creator. He is our Life-giver. He is our designer. He built us. Is there anything that He has not done to promote our being in the Kingdom of God? Nobody else in all of creation can supplant Him except the Father, and He has turned over that responsibility to Jesus Christ.
This relationship nothing to fool with! And Jesus Christ, when He stated John 15:5, He was deadly serious.
As we continue on today, I am going to take a fairly detailed look into Acts the 15th chapter because that is where we are headed. That is just about where we are in the book of Acts in terms of the epistle to the Hebrews. And we are going to do it mostly to get an overview of what the apostles were facing as the church met its first truly spiritual challenges to the unity God intends within the church so its commission is accomplished.
So let us go to Acts the 15th chapter, and we are going to read all the way from verse 1 to verse 21.
Acts 15:1-21 And certain men came down from Judea and taught the brethren, "Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved." Therefore, when Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and dispute with them, they determined that Paul and Barnabas and certain others of them should go up to Jerusalem, to the apostles and elders, about this question. So being sent on their way to the church, they passed through Phoenicia and Samaria, describing the conversion of the Gentiles, and they caused great joy to all the brethren.
And when they had come to Jerusalem, they were received by the church and the apostles and the elders; and they reported all things that God had done with them. [This is Paul and Barnabas.] But some of the sect of the Pharisees who believed rose up, saying, "It is necessary to circumcise them, and to command them to keep the law of Moses."
Now the apostles and elders came together to consider this matter. And when there had been much dispute, Peter rose up and said to them, "Men and brethren, you know that a good while ago God chose among us, and by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe. So God, who knows the heart, acknowledged them by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as He did to us, and made no distinction between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith. Now therefore, why do you test God by putting a yoke on the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear? But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved in the same manner as they."
Then all the multitude kept silent and listened to Barnabas and Paul declaring how many miracles and wonders God had worked through them among the Gentiles. And after they had become silent, James answered, saying, "Men and brethren, listen to me: Simon has declared how God at the first visited the Gentiles to take out of them a people for His name. And with this the words of the prophets agree, just as it is written: 'After this I will return and I will rebuild the tabernacle of David, which has fallen down; and I will rebuild its ruins, and I will set it up; so that the rest of mankind may seek the Lord, even all the Gentiles who are called by My name, says the Lord who does all these things."
Known to God, from eternity are all His works. Therefore I judge that we should not trouble those from among the Gentiles who are turning to God, but that we write to them to abstain from things polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from things strangled, and from blood. For Moses has had throughout many generations those who preach him in every city, being read in the synagogues every Sabbath."
The scholars have concluded that this meeting most probably took place in AD 49. Now, think about this. Jesus was crucified in 31 AD. Eighteen years has already passed. Eighteen years of turmoil that Jerusalem was in from the Day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit was given and things began to pop religiously because God was obviously blessing the people who were preaching the gospel of the Kingdom of God and massive numbers of converts were being turned to God.
Now, 18 years to 49 AD. The next date is somewhere around 65 AD when they feel that the book of Hebrews was finally in the hands of the church members. And the reason they date it somewhere around that time is because there are enough markers within the book of Hebrews that lets them know that those periods of time passed. We do know that the one that is actually very easy to find, fairly easy, is that the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 AD, and the book of Hebrews clearly shows that it was written before it was destroyed, otherwise things would be written in the past tense. Instead they were written in the present tense and therefore the Temple was still in existence. And so that leads them to say about 65 AD.
This means, then, just looking at those figures, the written guidance of the epistle to the Hebrews would not be generally available to the church for about another 15 to 18 years if it was a 49 AD date in which this meeting took place. And they were having this meeting because there had been dissension that broke out within the church because people were teaching doctrines that the apostles knew nothing about, if you understand me. They were things that Jesus did not teach. And so those were people connected with the Pharisaical teaching that were causing difficulty and so they were dividing their time between the church of God and Judaism.
Now what did the apostles have to go on even though the epistle to the Hebrews was not really available until we will say roughly 65 AD? Well, let me tell you that the apostles were not without the spiritual guidance of Jesus Christ decades before Hebrews was available in written form. In fact, the apostles had a great deal of guidance from Him because Jesus Christ had prepared them well during the three and a half years He taught them personally walking around in Judea. It is the fact that they had a great deal of guidance from Him that led the members in the church through the cultural turmoil that they were experiencing in the first few years following the resurrection and the giving of God's Holy Spirit. But they nonetheless still had to use their faith in Christ's teachings to support their knowledge given in sermons.
Acts 15 provides an insightful overview into the internal spiritual turmoil caused by the uncertainty of the apostles and the membership were having to deal with in Judah. I am not saying that the apostles were uncertain. They were very certain about whether they were right, but the uncertainty was in the people who were much younger members of the church and did not have the opportunity to spend three and a half years with Jesus walking all over Judea like the apostles did. Now this was because—now get this—of what was really happening there in Judea. This was because what was in reality under way was that the church was being transitioned from what was merely an Old Covenant Israelitish religious organization of interest to relatively few people outside of Israel to an educational organization that in time would become of interest to everybody on earth.
What this meant in a practical way is the apostles better get this right. The job that was given to them was worldwide in scope. Judea and Jerusalem was actually just a tiny portion of what was going on in the mind of the Father and the Son. They were launching an organization that now has over a billion members. Now how many of those people are really converted, I have no idea.
So, what was in reality beginning at this critical period of history was that God's worldwide educational institution—the church, the Israel of God—was teaching how everyone should live. Not just Jews. Not just Judeans. Not just the Gentiles who were being converted. But eventually this is going to spread until it is worldwide in scope and everybody, be they Japanese or Indians or South Africans or whatever, they were going to have to live this way of life. And so what they were deciding there was what the Father and Son had already decided but was communicated to them through their contact with Jesus Christ, was what this doctrine was going to be.
Tell me something, is the law done away? Now if it was you, what would you decide that your decision would be? That is what the issue was. Circumcision stood in this case here for everything because it was through circumcision that the male Israelite declared his siding with God and being in covenant with Him and that he had committed his life to keeping the commandments of God. Now you can see with that kind of bare teaching why the Pharisees would feel that circumcision had to be done. What would turn that aside?
Now the first one who had a literal experience, where he could make a definite decision that God had decided and that he better pick up on that, was the apostle Peter. Where did he figure this out? It was with Cornelius. God chose Peter to go to Cornelius because God was going to convert this man and his family and the friends that were part of him. And when that man showed the apostle Peter that God had accepted him, what did he do? Did he demand? Did God demand? Did Peter demand?—that those people get circumcised? No, he did not. Where was his proof? That is why Peter spoke up and said, "Look, when I was sent to Cornelius, God didn't say that man had to be circumcised." Can you go to a higher authority than the Father in heaven or Jesus Christ, our High Priest who engineered that whole thing so that Peter would understand that circumcision was not going to be required?
Those Pharisees, those converted Pharisees (and I will just have to take it that they indeed were converted and that they sincerely believed that circumcision was going to be the means of declaring your faithfulness to God and His covenant), is there any other proof that Peter could have turned to to get a definite answer? It was Jesus Christ Himself. He was baptized. But He had been circumcised as a boy. And they followed Him around as He baptized more people than John the Baptist did.
Now you are beginning to see what I am getting at here and how the apostles were able to work with the demands of the New Covenant and arrive at right conclusions regarding what was to be done and what was not to be done. They had those three and a half years with Jesus Christ and they saw how many people were baptized at Jesus' preaching. And not once did Jesus ever tell those people to get circumcised.
Of course, the overwhelming majority of them were already circumcised. But Jesus had another experience that shows that a shift was coming. And He said it and I am going to turn to it so that we can at least see the general approach that the apostles had to used in order to confront situations that they had never had to confront before. This is why Paul wrote all those epistles. But here in John the 4th chapter is how they learned to rely upon what they already had. And they did not have a better teacher anywhere than Jesus Christ as to what was right in regard to doctrine. And so I am just going to pick up this thing here in verse 9 where He had the meeting with the woman in Samaria.
John 4:9 Then the woman of Samaria said to him, "How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?" For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.
She knew, she was sharp enough to know that she was confronting somebody or being confronted by somebody that was an unusual personality, and she eventually came to the conclusion that He was a prophet. Well, He was. But the way that He dealt with her was different from the way that the ordinary Jewish cleric would have dealt with it. Probably the ordinary Jewish cleric would have had nothing to do with her. That is why she remarked the way she did. She said, "I'm a Samaritan woman. And here is this Jew talking to me and asking me to give Him a glass of water."
Are you beginning to see this is the way Christ prepared the apostles? He did not answer every question, but He gave them circumstances in the time that He was with them in which they had to use what He did with what He said as instruction later on. Because He never lied, He always told the truth. He always did everything. He never sinned at all. Therefore, if we make a decision based upon what He did or what He said, we are going to make the right decision.
The reason I am bringing this up is for our benefit. We may not understand technicalities but if we see instruction in God's Word in which Jesus did something, that is a pretty good indication it is right to do that. In fact, we are told later on we are to walk in His steps. This is how the apostles got by without the book of Hebrews. They compared the way Jesus acted, the way Jesus taught, with what these people who were dissenters did, and they said no, and they arrived at right counsel, right decisions simply by following in the steps of Jesus Christ. You cannot go wrong.
Let us go a little bit further here. He gives a clue. Let us drop down to verse 15.
John 4:15-24 The woman said to Him, "Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw." But Jesus said to her, "Go, call your husband, and come here." And the woman answered and said, "I have no husband." Jesus said to her, "You have well said, 'I have no husband,' for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; in that you have spoken truly." The woman said to me, "Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet. [I am getting to the part here that I was leading to.] Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship." Jesus said to her, "Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth."
There is a radical change there. For everything under the Old Covenant that is detailed in the book of Leviticus and was really structured, Jesus is forecasting that something is coming that is going to remove a great deal of that structure, and you are going to be treated and so forth as a single individual without having the benefit of the Temple. The Temple worship He is forecasting there is going to stop. The apostles caught up on that.
Now is everything in the law of Moses done away with? Even though circumcision is placed there in what is normally considered the law of Moses and it is no longer required, does that mean that nothing in the Old Testament is any longer required? I am just going to show you that just because circumcision is set aside does not mean that every law, every ceremony, or whatever in the Old Testament is done away. Huge numbers of people think that so firmly they pay no attention to the Old Testament. Where is the holy days? Are they done away? Is the Sabbath done away? Circumcision is done away, and it is in the Old Testament.
What are we talking about here? What we are talking about is that there has to be the right, pure, discernment of what is still binding and what is not. And that comes from a relationship with Jesus Christ and the Father. It is not necessarily written in the Book. That is what He was forecasting there in John the 4th chapter. That there was going to come a family relationship with the Father and Son that was going to be dependent upon that relationship more than a series of laws that are written in the Book.
It is interesting about the sacrificial laws. If you ask 100 people if the sacrificial laws are done away, you would probably find that almost every one of them would say, yes, we do not have to do that anymore. [shakes head] First of all, Christianity itself is a living sacrifice. Far more difficult—far more difficult—than sacrificing an animal. How about sacrificing ourselves? And not only that, the book of Ezekiel already forecasts that God is going to bring it back. So are they done away? No, they are just set aside for a while until God is ready to do it again. And it even tells us why; because you did not do it right the first time.
This is what we are getting into here in Acts the 15th chapter, and brethren, it is in some ways written very simply, but it is deep. We are not going to get into the depths of it, but maybe the next time we will at least skim through there so that we see the major thing that they decided there. And it is real interesting because at the beginning of the chapter and almost through the whole chapter, the apostles finally reached the decision, "No, we don't have to have men get circumcised." But on the other hand, before the chapter is over, he is telling the people, "Don't you dare eat blood." That is in the Old Testament too.
Do you get what we are getting here? We have to think in order to rightly discern what is right and what is wrong. And that is how the apostles went through this very difficult period. They just remembered what Christ said. They remembered what He did. And they put them together and they made decisions that were binding on the entire church, and you know what? They were right. They learned from Christ well.
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Sermon Topics
The Gospel
