Chapter 12

The first three verses really should have gone with the previous chapter, but as they did not they are the challenge to follow the colours and they are the beginning of the great three-paragraph field order to all members of the royal family of God. Verses 4-15 present the great tragedy of living in this life as a member of the royal family — the alternative to supergrace. The third paragraph, verses 16-29, is really for the unbeliever. This is where the pastor turns evangelist.

Verse 1 — this is an order to those who are going to be first in line in eternity. This is an order, therefore, to everyone who is a member of the royal family of God. We start out with a triple compound inferential particle. It is all one word, toigaroun, and is the most intensive of all particles in the Koine Greek and it does not lend itself to a one-word translation. “Wherefore” is too weak. It has to be something very unusual, very strong, very intensive. “For that very reason therefore” is the best we can do with it — since we are first in line. That is what the Rapture does. Royalty is first in line, rank has its privileges.

We have another problem with this inferential particle and that is Hebrews 10:39. The thought of Hebrews 10:39 is carried forward here. “But we are not the retreating category of the royal family of God for the purpose of destruction {sin unto death], but we are the doctrinal type for the possession of the soul.” That is the key to everything from Hebrews 10:39 to chapter 13. Doctrine must possess the soul for balance of residency, so the royal family is designed for maximum doctrinal possession. We must have a balance between the filling of the Holy Spirit and doctrine. Once that balance is achieved the believer is in supergrace and begins to live a normal life as a royal priest. “For this very reason therefore” — this means we are not the retreating kind, this means we are first in line, this means there is no excuse for any of us not living long enough to seize and hold supergrace. And if you show any signs of positive volition, any signs of persistence, any drive toward the objective, God will keep you alive long enough to seize and to hold. All you have to do is to show something in attitude. Attitude, therefore, is one of the most important things in life. Therefore we follow the road to glory with the mental attitude of positive volition toward doctrine, from saving grace to living grace, living grace to supergrace, from supergrace to dying grace, and from dying grace to surpassing grace. (We are first in line)

The alternative to this, then, is the road to discipline, from positive volition to negative volition, from negative volition to reversionism, from reversionism to warning discipline, from warning discipline to intensive discipline, from intensive discipline to the sin unto death [dying discipline].

So for this very reason we are not designed for the sin unto death, we are designed for tactical victory. if we are first in line we were never designed to go the way of the sin unto death. Here is the whole point of toigaroun. In eternity past God had SG² just for you, and He designed SG² for every believer, so every believer has his own. And then, God has designed SG³ with our own name on it. It belongs to us and to no one else. No one else can claim it, we are the only ones who can. If we do not, then of course, we have the alternative which is losing these and having maximum discipline in time and being peons in eternity. If God designed these SG blessings for you it is quite obvious that it is not His will for you to die the sin unto death. “For that very reason” we are not designed for the sin unto death. We will go the route of the sin unto death as an alternative. Failure means if you fail in the Christian life you will know it. When God flunks you, you know it.

“seeing we also” — the adjunctive use of the conjunction kai means “also (Adjunctive means something is now added to this beautiful road to glory). The word “we” is the nominative plural of the personal pronoun e)gw. This is what is called an ageless e)gw. In other words, it refers to every generation of the royal family of God. It refers to us right now just as it referred to those reversionistic believers living in Jerusalem in 67 AD. So “we also” is very important and it refers to the positive believer on the road to supergrace, seizing and holding the high ground, and it refers, therefore, to the one who is dedicated to following the colours and having Bible doctrine resident in the soul and facing every disaster in life, becoming spiritually self-sustaining and making his own decisions on the basis of the inner residency of doctrine.

“are compassed about with” is mistranslated. The reason is that we have two participles here. The first of these is a present active participle of e)xw which means to have or to have and to hold. It simply is not found in the English, but then neither is the second participle. The present tense of e)xw is the static present for a condition or a situation perpetually existing. We will always have that roster of supergrace Old Testament believers. They are there, they are in God’s mind forever, they will receive their SG³ in the future. The static present is a reminder that even though they are last in line they will receive their reward in eternity. The active voice refers to the fact also that the royal family producing the action of the verb here possesses its own roster.

The supergrace heroes in Hebrews chapter eleven are to be a source of encouragement to us. That is what God the Holy Spirit picked a variety. You don’t realise it when going through Hebrews eleven that there is a phenomenal diversification of types of people, of variety of supergrace blessings emphasised. This is to encourage all of us. We are different, we have a different emphasis within our SG² but whatever our emphasis is it is our very own, there isn’t anything that can excel it in time, and therefore for this reason there must be a three-paragraph field order to get there. The first paragraph then is authorisation to advance — verse 1. We are not authorised or commanded to retreat. Advancing means taking in doctrine today, tomorrow, the next day, the next. Paragraph two is the objective of the attack — verse 2. Paragraph three is the enemy forces, and our enemies are believers! Reversionistic believers. They are the enemy of Christ, the enemy of the cross, and they are the enemy of the believer.

The participle is a concessive participle, translated “since” — “since we keep having.” The second participle is closely related to the word “encompassed.” Actually it means encompassed in the sense of surrounding — the present middle participle of perikeimai which means here to surround in the sense of support. Peri means around; keimai means to support. The present tense again is the static present for the fact that the roster of Old Testament supergrace heroes form permanent support and encouragement for the royal family. Every person who ever went before us in the Old Testament who made supergrace is a support for us, a barrage to protect us in our advance, to encourage us. Therefore one of the great things about studying the Bible characters of the Old Testament is that they are a basis of encouraging us to move forward to follow the colours, to do what they did. Not only do these people glorify God by their own personal advance in the day in which they lived but they do more than that, they act as an encouragement to us. So we are surrounded or supported, and that is the present middle participle. The middle voice is a direct middle in which the agent, the royal family, participates in the results of the action, advancing to the high ground under the cover of combat support units, the Old Testament believers. In other words, the royal family of the Church Age is supported in their advance to the high ground by past victories recorded in the Word of God. The participle is circumstantial. “For this reason therefore, since we also keep having supporting us [surrounding us].”

Between these two participles: “keep having” and “surrounding us” — there is something in the Greek in between. First of all we have the phrase “so great.” This is the accusative singular direct object of the qualitative demonstrative pronoun tosoutoj. This emphasises the extreme high quality of the Old Testament supergrace heroes. So we have the best possible combat support in our advance to the high ground. The words should not be “so great” but “such great.” The accusative is the direct object of the first participle, e)xw. There is no definite article here and that emphasises the quality of the pronoun. Hence, we have a double emphasis on quality.

Next is the word “cloud,” the nominative singular of nefoj and becomes the subject of the second participle. “Cloud” is used euphemistically for a battalion. Arndt and Ginchrich, page 539, says, “This is figurative of a compact, numberless throng. .. since we have such a battalion of witnesses surrounding us.”

“For this reason, therefore, since we also keep having such a great battalion of witnesses supporting us.”

“witness” — witnessing technically has nothing to do with evangelisation. The word is martuj, and this even further complicates the problem because martuj has been considered martyrdom. While martyrdom is an English word taken from the Greek it does mean that either. Martuj is simply a person who goes to court and declares the truth, or a person who gives witness in a case, or gives testimony to the fact that the high ground here of supergrace can be seized and held until death, which is the use of it here. These people give deposition to the fact that in any generation anyone who is positive will get to the high ground. This is their deposition. We have, then, in Hebrews eleven that in different generations under different historical circumstances, some prosperous, some adverse, it was always possible for anyone who was a believer to get to the high ground. All he brings into the conflict is his own non-meritorious positive volition and God takes it from there.

“let us lay aside” — the aorist middle participle of a)potiqhmi. It means here “having taken off, having stripped for action.” There is no hortatory subjunctive here. The participle often doubles for the imperative but not even here is that true. This participle merely supports the command that will be given. it is the aorist participle, therefore a constative aorist taking the action of the verb in its entirety. It takes the concept of stripping or preparing for action and regardless of its extent or duration gathers it into a single whole. In other words, the word means to strip for action. It not only refers to the actual stripping for action at the time of the advance but all of the preparation that makes it possible for you to be there advancing — the intake of Bible doctrine. So it has the concept of gathering up everything that it took to bring you to the point where you can advance. The constative aorist includes identification of your right pastor, the persistent assembling in the classroom of the local church, regardless of distractions in order to take in the Word, and concentrating on the teaching of the Word of God. It means that there must be both exegesis, isagogics, and categories. It means that there must be your own personal function of the priesthood in rebound. This is the way you strip for action. The indirect middle here emphasises the agent, the Church Age believer, the royal family producing the action of the verb rather than participating in the results. The participle is circumstantial depicting troops preparing for action by the removal of any accouterments that might impede their advance. So we have the principle: “having removed every weight.”

The word for “weight” is not quite correct. We have two accusative here, paj plus o)rgoj, which means “every impediment” — “having removed every impediment.” As members of the royal family of God we have some impediments to our advance, and they have to be removed. What are some of these things? a) It is a reference to distractions; b) We have to get rid of things which in our daily lives have a tendency to want us to deviate from the place where the doctrine is taught. That means we have to be aware and alert with regard to our routine in life; c) Social distractions; d) Sexual distractions; e) Economic or monetary distractions; f) Pleasure or entertainment distractions; g) Personality conflicts; h) Mental attitude impediments — bitterness, jealousy, vindictiveness, implacability, self-pity, etc.; i) reactor factors — discouragement, disillusion, boredom, frustration, loneliness; j) Involvement with human celebrityship; k) These distractions must be distinguished from sin. The distraction itself is not a sin, just as temptation is not a sin. The sin is when you yield to the temptation and do it. The sin here is where you follow through with your distraction, when you allow your distraction to hinder you from the Word or where your distraction produces sins.

The next phrase gets us into the point of sin. Impediments are one thing, they are sin related. If you yield to an impediment obviously you will sin. But then we have sin as a separate category here — “and the sin” is the accusative direct object from a(martia. This includes specific categories of sin — mental attitude sins, sins of the tongue, overt sins, plus the function of the lust pattern. The accusative singular means we are talking about the old sin nature.

“which doth so easily beset” — this is an adjective in the accusative singular, and it is e)uperistatoj. It means to easily entangle or so easily wraps itself around you or so easily ensnares. The best translation would be “easily ensnaring.” Everyone has one!

“and the sin” — the accusative singular direct object from the noun a(martia which in the singular generally refers to the old sin nature. This means that we have categories involved immediately.

“which doth so easily beset us” — the compound adjective in the accusative singular e)uperistatoj which means to easily ensnare, to easily wrap itself around.

What is the easily ensnaring sin? a) It is the believer’s current area of weakness. Areas of weakness often change, so it is the current area of weakness. Areas of weakness change because of spiritual growth. They also change because of loss of health or gain of physical strength, or change of outside environment. There are a lot of reasons; b) Area of weakness change is related to the believer’s progress or retrogression in the Christian way of life; c) The advancing believer faces carnality as his easily ensnaring sin; d) The solution for the advancing believer is rebound; e) The retrogressing, retreating believer has a more complex area of weakness in reversionism; f) The solution is likewise more complex for it involves more than rebound. Rebound in the beginning but there has to be a change of attitude toward doctrine, a continual one.

The context deals only with the believer who is advancing here. Not until we get to verse 4 do we get the retrogressing believer. Therefore the stripping for action principle which is mentioned here comes through the rebound technique.

“let us run” — the present active subjunctive of the verb trexw which is used two ways in the Koine Greek. It is used for running in a track meet; it is used for advancing in a military situation. Here, of course, following the other types of words in the context it means to charge, to advance on the run, to advance in quick time or double time. The present tense is a tendencial present used for an action which is commanded though it is not taking place at the moment in 67 AD, the time of writing. It represents the idea which is intended as the objective of the Christian way of life. The active voice: the royal family is commanded to participate in the action by advancing to the high ground of supergrace. This is a hortatory subjunctive by which the writer invites the readers to join him in a course of action and therefore becomes a command. “Let us advance on the run” is the way that the hortatory subjunctive is translated.

“with patience” — the prepositional phrase dia plus the genitive of u(pomonh which means “endurance.” Dia plus the genitive means “through endurance” or “with endurance.” Endurance connotes the necessity for being consistent, the necessity for being persistent about taking in Bible doctrine. It is a daily issue. This calls for endurance and endurance is the antithesis of distraction. We strip off the distractions and as we advance we endure. So endurance, then, is persistent positive volition toward Bible teaching. The circumstances may be prosperity or the circumstances may be adversity and tragedy, but positive volition must continue through changing and varying circumstances. This is what was taught in Hebrews 10:23.

“the race” — the word “race doesn’t mean race. Again, it has a dual meaning. It is the accusative singular direct object of a)gwn which means a contest, a fight, and it also means a battle. It is used here for a battle, a struggle, a conflict. It is used, therefore, in the military sense of a combat objective. The combat objective in the angelic conflict is to seize and hold the high ground of the supergrace life. This is the normal function of the royal priesthood. This is the road to glory; this is the road that glorifies the Lord Jesus Christ.

“that is set before us” — the present middle participle prokeimai, a verb which means an objective. The present middle participle means to lie before, to be present, but this is the ascriptive use of the participle in which instead of translating it like a verb it becomes a substantive and should be translated “to the present objective.”

Translation: “For this reason therefore, since we also keep having such a great battalion of witnesses supporting us, having stripped for action every impediment, and the easily ensnaring sin, let us advance on the run with endurance in the conflict to the present objective.” The present objective is the supergrace life.

Verse 2 — paragraph two: the objective of the advance. “Looking” is the present active participle of a)foraw which means to turn the eyes away from distraction and concentrate or fix them on something else. It means to focus, the view from the source of doctrine, and it comes to mean here concentration on or occupation with the person of Jesus Christ. The customary present denotes what is expected of every believer. This habitually occurs and is expected to occur under normal conditions in the Christian way of life. The active voice: the royal family produces the action of the verb. The participle is the imperative use of the participle, it is a command. So it should be translated, “Be concentrating on.”

Then we have a prepositional phrase, e)ij plus the accusative of I)hsouj, and it means “Be concentrating on Jesus.” The objective of following the colours is to reach the high ground of supergrace and occupation with the person of Jesus Christ. This is the ultimate in spiritual experience. The things that are not even important in spiritual experience are such things as being healed, having a super experience of some kind, having the rosy glow, etc. These are not even spiritual experiences at all. That isn’t the objective at all, the objective is occupation with the person of Jesus Christ. When believers neglect Bible doctrine they do not love Jesus Christ.

The doctrine of occupation with the person of Jesus Christ

1. By definition occupation with Christ is then highest spiritual function of the believer in time.

2. It is category #1 love in which the mature believer with Bible doctrine in his soul is capable of appreciating, respecting, and loving the Lord Jesus Christ.

3. Since Christ is the manifest person of the Godhead it becomes maximum love toward the second person of the Trinity.

4. Therefore occupation with Christ is the maximum expression of category #1 love toward God — Deuteronomy 6:5. All love emanates from the heart, but when the Bible talks about “heart” it is talking about love from the right lobe, from where you think. Emotion is not love; love is strictly in the mentality. Bible doctrine starts in the mentality of the soul and spreads to the rest of the soul. Knowledge is always the key. You cannot love Jesus Christ unless you know Him, and you cannot know Him apart from Bible doctrine in the right lobe.

5. Occupation with Christ begins with the believer’s entrance into the supergrace life — Colossians 3:16,17.

6. Occupation with Christ glorifies Christ — Ephesians 3:19-21, “to come to know the surpassing knowledge-love of Christ” is exactly what the Greek says. That is occupation with Christ.

4. The means of occupation with Christ is the function of GAP. a) Persistent perception of doctrine accumulates maximum residency of doctrine in the soul; b) This maximum doctrine resident in the soul is the basis for spiritual maturity known as supergrace; c) The basic characteristic of supergrace is occupation with Christ; d) Man’s sense of accomplishment by human ability and effort can never be compared with the daily function of GAP producing supergrace status — Jeremiah 9:23,24; Ephesians 3:18; 4:20.

5. Occupation with Christ eliminates the superficialities of human celebrityship — Philippians 3:7,8.

6. Occupation with Christ motivates the pastor-teacher to communicate Bible doctrine to the royal priesthood so that the royal priesthood can reach the objective — Hebrews 6:10.

7. The mechanics of GAP produce the dynamics of occupation with Christ — James 1:19-21.

8. The illustration of occupation with Christ is found in the doctrine of right man-right woman — Ephesians 5:25-33.

9. Occupation with Christ is related to the strategic victory in the angelic conflict — Colossians 3:1,2.

10. The characteristics of occupation with Christ are several: a) Occupation with Christ is the basis for the supergrace believer contributing to national blessing — Deuteronomy 30:15,16; b) Occupation with Christ produces combat courage and victory in battle — Joshua 23:10,11; c) Occupation with Christ is the basis for preservation and testing — Psalm 31:23,24; d) Occupation with Christ is the basis for stability and great happiness — Psalm 16:8,9; e) Occupation with Christ results in supergrace blessing — Psalm 37:4,5; f) Occupation with Christ is the basis of strength under pressure — Hebrews 11:27; g) Occupation with Christ avoids soul fatigue — Hebrews 12:3.

Verse 2b — “the author” is incorrect. Jesus Christ is not an author in the sense the word is used today. The word is a)rxhgoj and has nothing to do with authorship. There are two words that carry the highest rank and authority from the Greek world and even in the Roman world where Koine Greek and Latin were both spoken by the Romans. The Romans became bilingual by the first century AD at the time of writing. The first of these is a)rxon which is equivalent to out modern field marshal or high-ranking general. Then, a)rxhgoj is a little higher than an a)rxon, he is the prince-ruler, the highest person in the land. A)rxhgoj means prince-ruler here. We have with this the accusative singular of the definite article, and the definite article is used as a possessive pronoun indicating the fact that if you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ you personally possess the highest and greatest value that God has ever attached to any person, the prince-ruler, the Lord Jesus Christ. Not only is He King of kings and Lord of lords, not only is He deity, He is also true humanity and God the Father has attached the highest value to Him of anything that exists in this entire universe. And He is our personal possession.

Whenever you take a definite article and it stands for a possessive pronoun it attaches to that definite article used as a possessive pronoun the highest possible emphasis — “our prince-ruler,” someone who belongs to us. And He is called here not our Lord, not our God (which He is), not our saviour (which He is), not our high priest (which He is), but He is called our prince-ruler because the emphasis is on the fact that we are members of the royal family of God forever, and Jesus Christ is our prince-ruler. Plus we have the ascensive use of kai coming up after the word “finisher,” and that gives us the concept of how we know and love Jesus Christ.

“finisher” is also an accusative singular direct object from teleiothj. This is the only time this word occurs in the Bible. It means a completer or the one who brings to final attainment. That is the concept here. It is the Lord Jesus Christ and the point of occupation with Christ that brings us to the final attainment of the supergrace objective. Occupation with Christ is the first characteristic of supergrace and the last characteristic of the edification complex, and it is the Lord Jesus Christ who personally escorts each one of us to the high ground after we have followed the colours in the assault on our objective.

Then comes the ascensive kai — “even of our faith.” The words “of our faith” is wrong. First of all there is no pronoun. Secondly, we have the ablative of means in the singular of the noun pistij, and pistij does mean faith but it also means two other things, it has a triple connotation. Here it means what is believed and/or doctrine. So we have the ablative of means for doctrine resident in the soul. The ablative is not the regular case for expressing means, the instrumental case is. However, the ablative of expressing means is a very unusual situation. When there is an implication of source or great value, then you go to the ablative instead of the instrumental to express means. The source of this something of value is God Himself, and the something of value itself is God. So God, the source, has provided Jesus Christ as something of the highest value. And it is the basis of beginning something. Jesus Christ is the founder or the originator of the royal family of which we are a part. Each one of us are first in line and now that we are first in line we need to take a look at something. What is our source? Our source is the Lord Jesus Christ. And what is our end? There is no end. We are in the royal family forever, we will never lose this status. Since you are born royalty there has to be a system for making you royalty, and there is. it is Bible doctrine in the soul.

“Be occupied with [be concentrating on] the Lord Jesus our prince-ruler, even the one who brings us to the attainment of the supergrace objective by means of doctrine resident in the soul.”

This is the beautiful ablative of means, giving it great emphasis, and by changing from the instrumental of means to the ablative of means the writer under the ministry of God the Holy Spirit has told us in a half a sentence what the Christian way of life is all about. What is it all about? It is doctrine in the soul; the soul is the issue, the soul is the basis for capacity for life. The real you is in the soul.

The word “who” is the nominative singular from the relative pronoun o(j and its antecedent is the Lord Jesus Christ, and referring to Him now in a classical example of what He did so that we might face this issue of doctrine in the soul.

“for the joy” — this is a pure Classical Greek prepositional phrase. There is no Koine Greek in it at all. We have the preposition a)nti plus the ablative of xara. This is a substitutionary prepositional phrase. One thing is replaced by another and therefore it is translated, “who instead of his happiness.” We also have the possessive pronoun here. It is a possessive pronoun based upon the intensive pronoun a)utoj. A)utoj in Classical Greek is not an intensive pronoun, it is simply a demonstrative pronoun. In Classical Greek they have no real intensive pronouns and a)utoj therefore is used as a floating pronoun. It is demonstrative in form but it can be used as a possessive pronoun. So we have Classical Greek with great emphasis, “his happiness.” The word “his” being Classical Greek a)utoj gives great emphasis — his and only his happiness. In other words, we are talking about the +H of the deity of Christ. There was a time when the +H of the deity of Christ was set aside — “who instead of his happiness.” The word “his,” by the way, is dative of possession, there is no exact equivalent in English. But that is not all of it, we actually have something else here, a present active participle mistranslated “that was set before him.” This, too, is Classical Greek. This is the present active participle of the verb prokeimai. Going back to the ninth century BC, Homeric Greek, right up to the fifth century BC Attic Greek of Athens, a participle often is used simply as an adjective or a substantive. Here we have the ascriptive use of this participle. It is actually in quality a noun or it is going to modify the noun. So here is ascribes a certain quality to the noun and prokeimai, present active participle, ascriptive use, simply means “present” — “who instead of his present happiness.” This is a reference to the happiness of the Lord Jesus Christ. In His deity He is +H; in His humanity He had maximum doctrine and therefore had an ECS, and in the top floor of that ECS He had +H. Now there has to be a substitute for His +H and so the +H that is mentioned here is only His human +H. His divine +H cannot be removed or taken from Him, or even used in substitution. But in His human soul where He had perfect happiness the Lord Jesus Christ at one point in His life had to have a substitute for that happiness. So we have Christ substituting the misery of the cross for that happiness. The substitute was the misery of the cross bearing our sins.

All the time that He was being tortured and all the time that He was under physical pain on the cross this did not require the removal of +H. In fact, +H was a part of the doctrine that sustained Him. But once He started to bear our sins, once He began to provide our salvation (for three hours He was on the cross in great excruciating pain) then +H had a substitute, and that was total misery. He had great misery instead of happiness — “who instead of his present happiness.”

Remember, this preposition a)nti also has a Koine Greek use, such as in Matthew 20:28 — “Just as the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve” — He came to serve in the sense of providing salvation — “and to give his soul a ransom” — and then we have a)nti — “in exchange for the many.” So a)nti is used two ways in the scripture. The Koine a)nti is used for the substitution, Christ bearing our sins in His own body on the cross. The Classical Greek a)nti is used for the fact that Jesus Christ was on that cross with +H in His humanity and that He had to substitute misery for it as He bore the burden of our sins.

What caused our Lord to exchange His eternal and present happiness for the misery of the cross? And what motivated His substitution? The answer is found in Bible doctrine resident in His human soul. Bible doctrine resident in the soul oriented Him to the plan of the Father. It was the plan of the Father that He bear the sins of the world, that He become the only saviour. He was unique in His entrance into this earth through the virgin birth. He was unique in His life upon this earth. In His humanity He was perfect and He was the God-Man in hypostatic union. So the objective of this first advent was the cross. Bible doctrine motivated Him to keep going. Just as we have an objective today, the high ground of supergrace, so he had an objective. His objective was to get to that cross, to bear our sins. Bible doctrine motivated Him not only to go but to stay on that cross. So doctrine resident in His soul motivated Him to endure the cross. Just as doctrine motivated Christ to advance so now doctrine is designed to motivate us to advance to the high ground of supergrace.

Now we come to that very important word which we find in both verbal and noun form. The verb form is “endured,” the aorist active indicative of the verb u(pomenw, meaning literally to stay under or actually to endure. The constative aorist contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. it takes the occurrence of Christ on the cross being judged for our sins and gathers it up into that entire three hours when our Lord was bearing the sins of the world. The active voice: Christ on the cross produced the action of the verb and He did it through motivation of doctrine resident in His soul. The indicative mood is declarative for doctrinal dogmatic historical reality and certainty. The verb u(pomenw is a reminder of the prepositional phrase in the previous verse where we had dia plus the noun u(pomonh. U(pomonh was translated “let us advance on the run with endurance.” With endurance is Bible doctrine in the soul. Throughout this passage endurance is technical for doctrine in the soul. So the verb to endure — doctrine in the soul; the noun — doctrine resident in the soul. This word “endure” in this passage always has the same technical connotation. it means Bible doctrine in the soul meeting every exigency, every problem, every heartache, every adversity, and every blessing. That same Bible doctrine is the capacity for blessing as it is the ability to endure adversity.

Now here is our Lord on the cross, and again the indicative mood is declarative, the doctrinal and historical reality. Our Lord Jesus Christ on the cross is the illustration of endurance. Why did He endure the cross, why did He stay on the cross? And the answer is, Bible doctrine in His soul caused Him to endure the most awful three hours in history, the three hours when he was bearing our sins and taking our place. So endurance must be defined as maximum doctrine resident in the soul plus maximum pressure in life producing victory in the angelic conflict. The royal family must have endurance. Endurance comes from doctrine resident in the soul.

“the cross” — the accusative singular direct object of the noun stauroj which refers to the saving work of Christ on the cross: propitiation, reconciliation, redemption.

Next we have the word “despising” — the aorist active participle of katafronew which means to disregard, to treat with contempt or disregard. It should be translated here, “having disregarded.” This again is the constative aorist, it contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. it takes those same three hours and gathers them up into one entirety. Because of doctrine resident in His soul the Lord Jesus Christ disregarded the shame. The active voice: Christ produced the action, He endured the cross, he disregarded the shame. The participle is circumstantial and has simultaneous action with the main verb.

The word for “shame” is the objective genitive singular of the noun a)isxunh and it means shame, disgrace or ignominy. Here it means disgrace. He disregarded the disgrace.

“and is set down” — “and” is an enclitic particle te used to connect a couple of clauses. it is used to connect clauses where there is a very close relationship. There is a close relationship between the cross and Jesus Christ being seated at the right hand of the Father — “is set down” is the perfect active indicative of the verb kaqizw which means to sit down. It is a verb that is used only of people. It is never used of animals sitting down. “Sit down” refers specifically to the humanity of Christ. Christ sat down in hypostatic union, but like everything else in hypostatic union you have to explain what is what. Deity is omniscient, imminent and transcendent, and doesn’t sit, whereas the humanity of Christ sat right down at the right hand of the Father. This is the quintessence of victory in the angelic conflict and obviously you put it in the perfect tense. This is a dramatic perfect which is the rhetorical use of the intensive perfect. In the intensive perfect you simply have an action completed and the results go on forever. The active voice: Christ produced the action of the verb, completed it, and the results go on forever. He completed strategic victory and we are a part of the results. The declarative indicative mood represents the verbal idea from the standpoint of dogmatic historical and doctrinal reality. He sat down in the past with the result that He remains seated in the highest place of honour, i.e. at the right hand of the throne of God.

The doctrine of ascension and session

1. Definition.

a) The ascension is that doctrine of Christology pertaining to the change of residence of Jesus Christ after the resurrection when He went from earth to heaven in resurrection body.

b) The session is that doctrine of Christology pertaining to the glorification of Jesus Christ in hypostatic union being seated at the right hand of the Father.

c) These doctrines are closely related to and based on the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

d) Both ascension and session were accomplished in resurrection body.

e) These two doctrines form the climax of the strategic victory of Jesus Christ in the angelic conflict.

2. The capabilities of the resurrection body. The resurrection body of Christ was capable of horizontal and vertical travel. In horizontal travel He could go through walls or open doors. The atomic structure of the resurrection body is of such a nature that it passes through walls or closed doors without any trouble. Vertically the resurrection body has unlimited ability to travel anywhere in the universe without any damage to body at all. Our Lord Jesus Christ travelled through the outer atmosphere, the stellar universe, and then entered the third heaven, the throne room of the Father, the abode of God.

3. The historical account of the ascension — Acts 1:9-11.

4. The significance of the session of Christ.

a) The first significance has to do with the prophecy of the session. It was so important that it was prophesied in the Old Testament as an integral part of the angelic conflict. The prophesy is found in Psalm 110:1 — “The Lord said unto my Lord,” — the first use of Lord is for deity, the second use of Lord is for deity — “Sit down at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool.” This particular prophecy indicates the strategic victory of angelic conflict, so the session is related to that.

b) The session and the authority of Jesus Christ — Romans 8:34, “Who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is he who died, yes rather, who was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us.” The Lord Jesus Christ seated at the right hand of the Father is the only one who has the ability to condemn. We stand or fall through Jesus Christ . He has appointed the scripture as the means of giving us standards whereby as believer priests, members of the royal family of God, we can condemn ourselves, which is what we do every time we use the rebound technique.

c) The session and the ministry of the Holy Spirit — Ephesians 1:20, “Which power [of the Holy Spirit] has been operational in Jesus Christ” — Jesus Christ was indwelt by God the Holy Spirit in His humanity during the first advent, during the time of His hypostatic union on earth — “the Father having raised him from the dead, and having seated him at his own right hand in the heavenlies.” The ministry of God the Holy Spirit is related to the death, burial, resurrection and session of the Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, since God the Holy Spirit sustained the humanity of Christ during all of these things there is a relationship between the session of Christ and the ministry of God the Holy Spirit. In fact it sets the pattern for the royal family in relationship to the Holy Spirit in the dispensation of the Church.

d) The session and mental attitude — Colossians 3:1,2, “If, therefore, you have been raised in Christ, keep on desiring to possess and endeavouring to obtain the above things” — referring to doctrine — “where Christ is sitting at the right hand of the Father. Keep thinking about above things [doctrine], not things on the earth.” Due to the fact that Jesus Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father we have the privilege of mental attitude dynamics divine viewpoint, and this of course is related to doctrine.

e) The session and the celebrityship of Jesus Christ — Hebrews 1:3, “Who being the radiance, the flashing forth of the glory, and the exact image of his essence, also sustaining all things by the verbal expression of his power, having himself accomplished purification of sins, was caused to sit down at the right hand of the majesty in high places.” In other words, the Lord Jesus Christ is portrayed during the period of His hypostatic union the manifestation of the members of the Godhead, He was deity, He was the exact image of His essence, He sustained all things by His verbal expressions. While He was on earth he held the universe together, He accomplished eternal salvation at the cross, finally entering into the heavens and the very presence of God, and was seated. All of this is related to His celebrityship.

f) The session and the angelic conflict — Hebrews 1:13, “But to which of the angels has he said at any time, Sit down at my right hand until I appoint your enemies the footstool for your feet?” No angel was ever told to be seated at the right hand of the Father, once again the significance of the doctrine of session. Jesus Christ was seated at the right hand of the Father as a man and the moment He was He became superior in His humanity to all angels. As deity He is infinitely superior to all of the angelic creatures, and as humanity He was raised to that high station and at that point He became superior forever to the angelic hosts. Because of this we are members of the royal family of God and in our resurrection bodies we will be superior to angels also. At the present time we are inferior creatures to the angelic hosts but all of that is going to change in resurrection.

g) The session and the priesthood — Hebrews 8:1, “Now the main point on what is being communicated is this: We have such a category of high priest who is sat down at the right hand of the throne of the majesty in the heavens.” In that particular passage Jesus Christ is pointed out to be superior to all Levitical priests of the past and all high priests. They dealt with shadows; He dealt with the reality. They could only offer animal sacrifices; He offered Himself. They never sat down in the tabernacle, and therefore Jesus Christ by sitting down is pointed out to be infinitely superior to all. So the session is used to show the superiority of Jesus Christ as our high priest.

h) The session and the sacrifice — Hebrews 10:12, “But this one [Jesus Christ], when he had offered a unique sacrifice on behalf of sins for all time, sat down on the right hand of God.” To indicate that the sacrifice of Christ was totally efficacious and that it is the only way of eternal salvation the Lord Jesus Christ was seated at the right hand of the Father. This demonstrates the principle “it is finished,” and indicates the fact that what was finished was totally and completely efficacious, so that anyone at any time in any part of the world who believes in the Lord Jesus Christ immediately enters into the palace forever. The baptism of the Holy Spirit makes every believer a member of the royal family of God forever.

i) The session and occupation of Christ — Hebrews 12:2.

j) The session and strategic victory — 1 Peter 3:22, “Jesus Christ who is at the right hand of god, having gone into heaven after the angels and authorities and powers had been subordinated to him.” All angelic forces, evil type, all types of demons, have been subordinated to Him. The Lord Jesus Christ is infinitely superior and has dominion over all creatures. This is demonstrated by the session.

5. The session, therefore, confirms the celebrityship of Jesus Christ. The ascension and session of Jesus Christ completed His glorification and the second person of the Trinity in hypostatic union has received the maximum glory — Acts 2:33, “Therefore, having been exalted to the right hand of God.” Acts 5:31, “He is the one exalted at his right hand the Prince and saviour.” Philippians 2:9, “Therefore also, the God has highly exalted him and given him a name which is above every name.” As eternal God Jesus Christ is pre-eminent. As the God-Man at the right hand of the Father Jesus Christ is unique, overwhelming. He has the distinction of highest nobility and the most illustrious of all celebrityships. His eminence and prominence defy hyperbole.

6. The strategic victory of the angelic conflict. The ascension and session of Christ form the basis for strategic victory of the angelic conflict. Hebrews chapter one teaches this principle. Furthermore, the ascension and session of Jesus Christ begin a new sphere of the angelic conflict — Ephesians 1:20-22, “Which power has been operational in Christ, the Father having raised him from the dead, and having seated him at his own right hand in the heavenlies, over and above all principality [the super demons], and authority [the commissioned demon], and power [the gifted demons], and lordship [the ruling demon],” — in other words, Jesus Christ is superior and over all of these categories of demons — “and every name that is named [rank and file demons], not only in this age but also in the one to come; and he has subordinated all demons under his feet, and has given absolute sovereignty over all the royal family of God with reference to the Church.” And there lies the intensification of the angelic conflict, the demons who have been strategically defeated and are still tactically resisting, and the Church, the royal family of God.

The same concept is amplified in Ephesians 4:7-10. This means that the Church Age is the dispensation of the intensified stage of the angelic conflict. The royal family of God is therefore subjected to the most unusual types of pressures throughout this dispensation.

7. The ascension and the royal family of God.

a) Jesus Christ is a resurrection body is seated alone at the right hand of the Father.

b) It is not good that the last Adam should be alone. This is what was said about the first Adam.

c) Therefore the Age of Israel is interrupted and a new dispensation is inserted or intercalated.

d) The Church Age is destined to call out the royal family of God so that in eternity the last Adam will not be alone. And the royal family is the basis for providing a bride for the last Adam.

e) In eternity the palace of heaven will be filled with royal family and/or the Church Age believers.

f) The royal family is formed by means of the baptism of the Holy Spirit, as mentioned by Jesus Christ in Acts 1:5.

g) For the first time in history, then, God the Holy Spirit actually takes up His residence in the body of every believer. That is because we are royal family of God — 1 Corinthians 6:19-20.

h) This could not occur until Christ was glorified — John 7:37-39.

8. The ascension and the new priesthood.

a) The ascension and session of Christ abrogates the Levitical priesthood. The Levitical priesthood was a specialised priesthood, they had special holy days related to this priesthood, a lot of special activity, but they did not have the effectiveness that we have today.

b) The Levitical priesthood is replaced by the royal priesthood of the Church Age — 1 Peter 2:9, “You are a chosen race [a race of election], you are a royal priesthood, you are a holy nation, a people of God’s own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvellous light ” Cf. Revelation 1:6; 5:10; 20:6. Therefore the Lord Jesus Christ at the right hand of the Father is the new high priest — Hebrews 10:1-10 — and our high priest even makes intercession for us — Hebrews 7:25.

9. The ascension verifies the efficacy of the sacrifice of Christ on the cross — Hebrews 9:23, 24, “Of necessity, therefore, on the one hand that the copies [or models] of things in heaven be cleansed with shadows; but on the other hand the heavenly realities themselves with better sacrifices than these” — the work of Christ on the cross is superior to animal blood on the altar — “For Christ has not entered into a holy of holies made with hands [the tabernacle], a model of the reality [heaven], but into heaven itself to appear in the presence of God on behalf of us.” The Levitical priesthood dealt with shadows; our priesthood deals with realities. However, these realities are not realities apart from Bible doctrine resident in the soul.

10. The ascension and the ultimate defeat of Satan. The ascension and session of Christ begin operation footstool, according to Psalm 110:1, quoted in Luke 2:42 and 43, and quoted again in Acts 2:33,34 and Hebrews 1:13. The quotation of the prophecy in those three passages indicates the fact that operation footstool began with the session of Christ. The second advent terminates operation footstool. Christ will superseded Satan as the ruler of the world at that time — Daniel 7:14 describes that, “And to him was given dominion, glory and sovereignty, that all peoples, nations and languages might serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion which will not pass away, furthermore his kingdom is one which shall not be destroyed.” Zechariah 13:2, “And it will come to pass in that day, saith the Lord of armies, that I will cut off the names of the idols from the land, and they will no longer be remembered; furthermore I will also remove the false prophets and demons from the land.” The removal of demons means that they are bumped off the earth as it confirmed by Revelation 20:1-3. Colossians 2:15 describes the same thing, “Having disarmed demon archons … he made a public display of them, having celebrated a triumphal procession over them by means of him [His victory].”

Verse 3 — this is the third paragraph now: the enemy forces: reversionism. Once again we begin with the particle which always connects things up in the Greek language, gar. This particle is an explanatory epexegetical one which means now we are going to get a reason for all of this. Why are we commanded to advance? Why are we commanded to strip for action? Why are we commanded not to be distracted? Why are we commanded occupation with the person of Jesus Christ? Because we have opposition, the most intense opposition in all of human history. With the royal family on earth we are now in Satan’s territory. We are the aggressors.

Our next word means that when you are aggressive you have to think. You have to think in any kind of an aggressive action. Aggressive action demands the best possible mentality. As has been demonstrated in military history, the smaller, better-trained army that advances destroys the larger army. We are in the aggressive part of the angelic conflict, and being in it obviously there is great pressure and great intensity. Therefore you have to have a good mental attitude. The next word is “consider” — aorist middle imperative of a)nalogizomai. A)na means again and again; logizomai means to think. It means to think again and again, to weigh in the mind, to ponder, consider. In other words, it means heavy thinking. “For begin thinking about.” You have to realise that once you are on the offensive and you are the aggressor you have to be sharp, you have to think, you have to have a mental attitude. The aorist tense is an ingressive aorist in which the action signified by the aorist is contemplated at its beginning. That is why we translate it “begin thinking.” It denotes entrance into a state of learning doctrine. You begin thinking as an aggressor the day you start learning Bible doctrine, and the more doctrine you accumulate the more your mental attitude improves. The more your mental attitude improves the greater becomes your aggressive ability in the great spiritual conflict, the angelic conflict. At the same time we must come to know and love Jesus Christ, and it is in that order. We do not love Jesus Christ until we know Him. Capacity for category #1 love is based on maximum doctrine resident in the soul. So, “begin thinking about.” In the previous verse we had a command to be concentrating on Jesus Christ, now we are told to begin thinking about. And in that we also have a middle voice, the permissive middle. It represents the agent or the believer as voluntarily yielding himself to the results of the action or to secure results of the action in his own interest. In other words, “thinking about” is the utilisation of doctrine. The imperative mood is a command. “Keep thinking about him.”

The doctrine of mental attitude

1. Definition.

a) Mental attitude is the function of the right lobe or the heart of the believer.

b) The sum total of all thought impulses which emanate from the launching pad of the believer’s right lobe are called viewpoint.

c) If the thought emanating from the right lobe is human viewpoint then it is an expression of cosmic norms and standards of life. It is an expression of the Satanic side of ruling cosmos diabolicus.

d) The antithesis is divine viewpoint or the expression of biblical norms and standards of life.

e) Every thought impulse of the believer can be categorised basically as divine or human viewpoint.

2. The real you is what you think. What a person thinks in the right lobe of his soul is what he really is. Mental attitude, therefore, determines both the character and the life of any individual. Mental attitude determines both your character and capacity for life. To think you must have a vocabulary. Thinking is the real personality — Proverbs 23:6,7. The passage portrays hypocrisy as the background for principle. In a person a person thinks hatred, implacability, but he or she invites you to sit down and eat. The real person is not the one who offers you the hospitality but the one who thinks hatred and implacability toward you. A person can appear to be on the surface to be hospitable, gregarious and nice, and inside to be a vicious person. Thinking is the real personality.

3. The conflicts of mental attitudes in the believer. Every believer is a walking battlefield. This often explains why, at least for a while, some Christians are quite kooky, get mixed up in a hurry. It is because they have an inner conflict of mental attitudes. This is described for us in Isaiah 55:6-9 — “Seek the Lord while he may be found [positive volition toward doctrine in time], call upon him while he is near” — the principle of prayer and other spiritual dynamics related to the believer — “Let the reversionist forsake his way [negative volition toward doctrine], and the unrighteous man [reversionist] his thoughts [human viewpoint], and let him return to the Lord [reversion recovery], and he will have compassion on him; and to our God; and to our God; for he will abundantly pardon.” The reversionist has a bad mental attitude. He is full of mental attitude sins and he is a complainer. if anyone ought to forsake their way it is the reversionist. What is his way? Negative volition toward doctrine producing complicated results in his life. “And the unrighteous man his thoughts” — the most dangerous thing in your soul are your thoughts when you are in reversionism. The thoughts go through and through until they make you a kook, and all of the psychotic problems and the neurotic problems that exist right now, and all of the people who are truly mentally ill are mentally ill because of the thoughts that course through the soul.

“For my thoughts [divine viewpoint] are not your thoughts [human viewpoint], neither are my ways [the ways of God] your ways [reversionism].”

“For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

4. The command to divine viewpoint. Since doctrine is the mind of Christ, as per 1 Corinthians 2:16, attitude toward doctrine determines viewpoint of life — Philippians 2:5, “Keep on having this mental attitude in you which was also in Christ Jesus” — a reference to His humanity and a reference that He had a maximum saturation of doctrine. This command is obeyed by the consistent and daily function of GAP. Maximum doctrine in the soul is the only source of divine viewpoint and our only protection. 2 Corinthians 10:4-6 tells us what our attitude and what our concept in the royal family should be — “(For the equipment and the weapons of our conflict are not human attributes” — we are fighting in the greatest of all warfares, the angelic conflict, older than the human race, and we are not fighting it with human attributes. The power is in the soul — “but the attributes of power [resident doctrine in the soul] through God against the destruction of fortifications)” — Satan’s fortifications, Satan’s concepts. Satan has many fortifications in the world today, e.g. the United Nations, the concept of socialism, communism, the ideologies of the day. Therefore these fortifications cannot be destroyed by a good punch or counter punch, these things are in a greater warfare and a warfare that demands the skill of the soul. The skill of the soul is our mental attitude based on doctrine resident in the soul — “assaulting and demolishing cosmic thoughts [human viewpoint], and every obstacle of pride which attacks against the objective of knowledge of God [divine viewpoint], and makes a prisoner of every human viewpoint system of thought to the authority of Christ;” — in other words, your greatest fighting capabilities in the angelic conflict are in your soul. You can have a weak body and be totally out of it as far as your physical body is concerned and you can have the most dynamic powerful attack. You possess in your soul the great capabilities for fighting. However, like any good weapon, the soul has to be loaded; and loading and locking is Bible doctrine in the soul. You have to load the weapon — “holding in readiness to punish all deviation from obedience [reversionistic human viewpoint], when your obedience [daily function of GAP] has been fulfilled.” So the whole principle is that we must load up this great weapon that God has given us, the human soul.

5. Rapport in the royal family is also based on divine viewpoint — Philippians 2:2, “Fill up the deficiency with inner happiness, that you keep on thinking the same thing [divine viewpoint], having the same love, soul rapport, in thinking.” Love is a mental attitude. Soul rapport in thinking is the basis for love. What is love? It is soul rapport in thinking. So the power of anything that is great in life, the dynamics of everything that is wonderful in life, is based upon what goes on in the soul.”

6. The function of the royal priesthood, therefore, demands a new mental attitude — 2 Timothy 1:7, “For god has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power [resident doctrine], love [the capacity for life which comes from that doctrine], and stabilised mentality” — nobility is based upon stabilised mentality. Romans 12:2 — “”And stop being conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what the will of God is, namely that the will of God is good, and acceptable, and perfect.”

7. Divine viewpoint from doctrine produces confidence — 2 Corinthians 5:1, “For we know that if the earthly tent which is our house is torn down [physical death], we have a building from God [resurrection body], a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” Verse 6 — “Therefore, we keep having confidence, and knowing that, while we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord.” As long as we live in this life we can have great confidence based upon knowing. Verse 7 — “(For we walk by doctrine [our confidence] resident in the soul, and not by sight). Our whole instrument system is doctrine resident in the soul. Verse 8 — “We keep having confidence, and take mental delight in the fact that to be absent from the body is to be at home with the Lord.” So consequently, everything in life that is important for the member of the royal family of God, his nobility, his impact, his dynamics, his glorification of the Lord, is related to what goes on in his soul, what he thinks in his mind.

8. The areas of life involving mental attitude.

a) Stability is a mental attitude — James 1:8.

b) Prosperity is a mental attitude — Philippians 4:7.

c) Giving is a mental attitude — 2 Corinthians 9:7.

d) Worldliness is a mental attitude — Romans 12:2; Colossians 3:2.

e) Evil is a mental attitude — Matthew 9:4.

f) Arrogance is a mental attitude — Galatians 6:3.

g) “Therefore, as many as are mature, let us continue objective-type thinking [the result of being spiritually mature], and if you think differently in anything at all [and you do], this also will God reveal — Philippians 3:15.” In other words, the answer to divine viewpoint, the answer to the dynamics of objective thinking is all bound up in Bible doctrine.

Verse 3 — “For begin thinking about him,” the accusative singular of the definite article is used as a part of the articular participle, but more important, the definite article is used here as a demonstrative pronoun to call special attention to an important object or person. It is used for what is relatively near in thought, such an immediate demonstrative. Therefore “him” can be translated “such a person as Jesus Christ.”

“that endured” — one of the key words that we are finding throughout this passage is the verb u(pomenw and its cognate. The noun that goes with it, the substantive, is u(pomenhsij. Both the noun and the verb refer to persistence in taking in doctrine no matter what distractions, what problems, what adversities come your way. In other words, enduring is the consistency of positive volition, building up residency of doctrine, so that as life gets more and more complicated so you can meet and overcome every problem, every difficulty in life. So it was with the Lord Jesus Christ — “having endured”, perfect active participle of u(pomenw. The perfect participle is very strong.

“such contradiction” — the word “such” is a correlative demonstrative used as an adjective, toioutoj. Toioutoj means that the opposition that He took was greater than any opposition or pressure that we would ever face; “contradiction” is the accusative singular direct object from the noun a)ntilogia. Satan threw everything against Him, from religion down to the very form of death which He died — “having endured such opposition.”

“of sinners” — this is a prepositional phrase, u(po plus the ablative plural of a(martwloj. Sinners here refers to the fact that all who were opposed to him were evil. It is to take the opposition to Christ from religion, politics, and buffoons, and gather it all up into one antagonism.

“against himself” is e)ij plus the accusative of the reflexive pronoun, e(autou, and it means “against himself” as translated. Ordinarily it would mean “with reference to himself” but we learn from Luke 12:10 from the Greek there — e)ij ton u(ion, which means “against the Son.” “Who will speak a word against the Son” is the phrase. The MSS that have been recovered from the papyri and other sources indicate that e)ij can be used as “against” where ordinarily we have another preposition — a)nti. When e)ij is used instead it indicates that the opposition was so great and so well defined that it doesn’t need the ordinary preposition, they are merely referred to as a pressure overcome. The implications of the use of this preposition indicate the fact that the pressure against Jesus Christ on the cross was overcome.

The word “lest” is the conjunction i(na plus the negative mh, used for a final clause. The combination of these two words introduces a negative final clause which denotes purpose, aim, or goal — “in order that you do not become weary” is wrong — the aorist active subjunctive of kamnw which means to be fatigued or exhausted. This means not to be weary but to be exhausted, a much stronger word. This is the fatigue of reversionism, however. The aorist tense is a constative aorist, it contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. In other words, the various stages of reversionism. The active voice plus the negative means that the royal family is forbidden to have a tired soul. The subjunctive mood plus the negative mh is prohibitive, and this then becomes a command. You are commanded not to have a tired soul.

The word “and” is not found here but the word “faint” is, a present passive participle from e)kluw which means to become feeble or to faint. This is a retroactive progressive present which denotes what was begun in the past and continues to the present time. Taking it in its context it means that the believers in Jerusalem in AD 67 were fatigued, exhausted in their souls and they had fainted. That is reversionism. the passive voice: the believer who is reversionistic becomes fatigued, despondent, discouraged, fainting in his soul.

“in your minds” is an incorrect translation. We have the locative plural plus the definite article used as a possessive pronoun, and then we have yuxh which means “soul”.

Translation: “For begin thinking about such a person as Jesus Christ having endured such opposition by the sinners against himself, in order that you do not become exhausted [or fatigued], fainting in your souls.”

The fatigue and the fainting is in the soul.

The doctrine of reversionism

1. Definition.

a) Reversionism in its simplest terms is a negative status toward doctrine in phase two. It means to resist doctrine, to reject doctrine, to undergo the spiritual changes and the decline that comes from neglecting Bible doctrine.

b) It is characterised by two principles: negative volition toward Bible doctrine resulting in failure to function under GAP, and secondly, perpetual carnality resulting in a life of perpetual divine discipline.

c) Reversionism, then, is recession from any stage of spiritual growth, partial or completed. It is retreat from supergrace status.

d) Reversionism is lack of spiritual growth, neglect of Bible doctrine. In effect, both are these are true and interchangeable.

e) While supergrace is the progressive state of the believer in time, reversionism is retrogressive in time.

f) Reversionism in the believer becomes analogous to apostasy.

g) Reversionism in the unbeliever is rejection of or departure from the laws of divine establishment.

h) Reversionism must be distinguished from carnality in the same way that reversionism is distinguished from supergrace.

i) Spirituality is an absolute status of the Holy Spirit controlling the soul of the believer. Supergrace is a relative status of maximum spiritual growth or maturity.

j) Carnality is an absolute status of being out of fellowship through sin. Reversionism is a relative status of varying degrees of spiritual failure.

k) The carnal believer is positive toward doctrine but the reversionistic believer is negative.

l) Therefore the carnal believer rebounds and continues to grow. He is positive toward doctrine. The reversionist does not rebound and continues to move toward the sin unto death.

2. The mechanics or stages of reversionism.

a) The reaction stage. We have the presence of reactor factors in the life. These include discouragement, boredom, disillusion. Each one is a different facet of reaction. Discouragement is a reaction to circumstances. Boredom is a reaction to a combination of circumstances and people. Disillusion is a reaction to people. A reversionist in a reaction stage has all of these. Boredom is the lack of capacity for life. It has to do with soul fatigue, not physical fatigue. Out of these three come three more: inability to cope with loneliness, self-pity, frustration.

b) Rejection of authority is another primary factor reaction. All reactors reject authority at some point.

c) Reaction includes mental attitude sins. Mental attitude sins include pride (which is rejection of authority) jealousy, bitterness, vindictiveness, implacability, self-pity or a guilt complex. All of these lead to some form of subjectivity and reaction toward Bible doctrine.

d) Operation vengeance is another factor in reaction. This is a secondary factor whereby the individual seeks to build his happiness by setting someone else down. The principle is, you cannot build your happiness in someone else’s happiness.

e) The reaction stage includes also distractions. Distractions are both primary and secondary. For example, distractions which lure the believer from the routine of consistent intake of doctrine. These are first of all social and sexual. Secondary distractions come from that — pleasure, entertainment distractions, family distractions, health distractions, and so on.

Stage two of reversionism is the frantic search for happiness.

There are at least five different concepts of frantic search for happiness.

a) The function of the reactor factors in the life result in a frantic search for happiness. In other words, you may be discouraged, bored, disillusioned, unable to cope with loneliness, overcome by self-pity. You may be bitter, vindictive, implacable, jealous, arrogant. You may find that you are in some kind of a personality conflict. There are various things that lead to reaction but reaction always results in moving to the opposite trend. b) The frantic search for happiness becomes the alternative to the daily function of GAP. You react against the system for communicating the Word of God. The accepted solution to the frustration is your brand of happiness.

c) The frantic search for happiness follows the trend of the old sin nature.

d) The trend toward asceticism leads to a frantic search for happiness. It leads to a false emphasis on experience — the victorious Christian life conferences, throwing a fagot on the fire, etc. The tongues movement is a frantic search for happiness, and it is a devastating one. It is very harmful to the emotion of the soul. It destroys the emotion as a responder to good things. Then there is the frantic search for happiness in the field of asceticism through legalism. In legalism you give up things for God — good whiskey, smoking, cards, etc. It makes you feel good to give these things up.

e) The trend toward lasciviousness. It includes drunkenness, debauchery, chasing, seduction, becoming a user of narcotics and drugs apart from medicine, etc. These, too, are frantic search for happiness but in another area.

So the point is, when a person gets away from doctrine by reaction he follows his trend toward asceticism or toward lasciviousness and winds up in stage two, the frantic search for happiness. This leads to stage three …

3. Operation boomerang. In other words, the frantic search for happiness intensifies the original reactor factors. No matter which way you go, toward asceticism or toward lasciviousness, frustration is the order of the day and eventually you are brought back to an intensification of whatever disturbed you in the first place.

4. Emotional revolt of the soul. The emotion is simply a responder to what is in the right lobe. But when the emotion takes over the soul, the emotion cannot think, cannot reason, has no common sense, has no norms or standards, and that is when the soul is in trouble. We call this the emotional revolt of the soul. This is when people become neurotic, psychotic, and when people get into some terrible soul illness of some kind.

a) The emotion is the female part of the soul designed to respond to the right lobe or heart, the male part of the soul.

b) The heart or right lobe of the soul is equivalent to the right man whole the emotion is equivalent to the right woman. Therefore the emotion is designed to be subordinate to your thinking.

c) Emotional revolt of the soul is tantamount to emotion fornicating with the old sin nature instead of responding to her right man, the mentality of the soul. The emotion comes under the domination of the old sin nature rather than under domination of the heart or the right lobe of the soul.

d) First of all, emotion has no doctrinal content, no mentality, no character. It can only respond to what doctrine is found in the right lobe. So emotion is our of sorts in this revolt.

e) Once the emotion revolts it becomes the aggressor, loses capacity for life, becomes distorted and the tool of the old sin nature. A person in emotional revolt, whether a believer or an unbeliever, has absolutely no capacity for life and is always miserable and in trouble.

f) Revelation 2:23 describes emotional revolt of the soul. “And I will kill her children with death [the sin unto death]; and all the churches will know that I am he who searches the emotions and the right lobes; and I will give each one of you according to your function.” In other words, if the right lobe dominates there is blessing. If the emotion dominates the soul there is cursing.

g) The emotion and reversionists in reversionism resist Bible doctrine and Bible teaching — 2 Corinthians 6:11-12. “O you Corinthians, our mouth is open to you [in Bible teaching], our heart is enlarged [maximum doctrine in the soul to communicate]. You are not hindered from learning doctrine by us, you are hindered by the emotions of your soul.”

h) This is why believers are commanded to separate from reversionistic believers involved in emotional revolt. Romans 16:17-18.

i) Emotional revolt of the soul causes the emotion to respond to the old sin nature. The result is obvious. When emotion is responding to the old sin nature — which means revolt against the heart of the right lobe — then certain kinds of sins are produced. Mental attitude sins: always jealous, always arrogant, always implacable, vindictive, and occasionally bothered by guilt reaction which is another type of sin. But the person is also motivated by mental attitude sins to commit sins of the tongue — is a gossip, a maligner, a judger, constantly picking at other people, constantly dissatisfied.. At the same time the area of strength is producing human good, trying to solve the problems of life by legislation, becoming involved in organisations that seem to be doing something for the downtrodden, and so on. So the area of strength produces human good which is rejected by God. The lust pattern is up under emotional revolt, and approbation and power lust are especially very prominent. This is really the source of any kind of revolution. So the emotion takes over the dictatorship of the soul, becomes the aggressor, neutralises Bible doctrine, and the heart or the right lobe is put down. This means immediately that doctrine begins to fade out of the soul. The believer who lives by emotions or uses emotion as the criterion becomes apostate, disoriented, degenerate, reversionistic, and eventually enters into warning discipline, then intensive discipline, and finally dying discipline.

5. Negative volition toward doctrine.

As a result of reactor factors, frantic search for happiness, intensification of reaction and emotional revolt, the believer becomes confirmed in a strong negative attitude toward doctrine. The characteristics of this negative attitude are several.

a) Indifference or apathy toward Bible teaching.

b) Too busy for Bible teaching or Bible class.

c) Antagonism or personality hang-ups regarding the pastor and his authority.

d) Antagonism or personality conflicts with members of the congregation.

e) Failure to utilise grace provision — the provision of a local church, failure to rebound, lack of respect for authority, poor manners, lack of concentration, no poise or objectivity as members of the royal family of God.

f) Inability to handle prosperity. Some people get into confirmed negative volition because the are in the other stages of reversionism in a period of prosperity. Remember that the warning stage of reversionism includes periods of prosperity. These periods of prosperity are very important because they do several things. They cause your friends to say it doesn’t make any difference if you neglect doctrine, look at so and so, they’re happy. But these periods of prosperity are set-ups for divine discipline in the warning stage. This is not prosperity from doctrine, it is prosperity permitted by God to set up for divine discipline.

g) Disorientation to factors of living grace. Under living grace God keeps a believer alive in the devil’s world providing food, shelter, clothing, transportation, and disorientation is failure to appreciate these factors. 8) Active campaigning to discredit, to remove, to destroy anyone’s ministry who is teaching the Word.

6. Confirmed negative volition starts an attack upon the left lobe of the soul where objectivity of information exists. A vacuum is opened up by this negative volition — mataiothj. Through this vacuum comes false doctrine, false doctrine about everything. None of these things exist in the soul until a person reaches this stage of reversionism. So we have then the blackout of the soul. Negative volition produces a vacuum. This vacuum is called mataiothj or “vanity” in Ephesians 4:17. Through this vacuum come the doctrine of demons of 1 Timothy 4:1. These include religionism, liberalism, plus human effort to solve the problems of life. This is known as demon influence in contrast to demon possession. Once the doctrines of demons enter the left lobe of the soul you have demon influence. No believer can be demon possessed, he can be under demon influence which is an attack upon the soul.

7. Scar tissue of the soul. Scar tissue affects the right lobe of the soul. This refers to the freezing of the valves of the right lobe or the heart so that doctrine no longer functions in the frame of reference or in the memory centre, and this means that vocabulary and the categorical storage of doctrine is out, and it means that the believer is no longer capable of seeing life from the divine viewpoint. This is mentioned as a part of the blackout of the soul in John 12:40 — “He has blinded their eyes, and he has hardened their hearts; lest they should see with their eyes, and perceive by means of their hearts, and be turned around and I restore them.” In other words, the Lord is dealing with a reversionist here and He describes his condition. He said to be blinded in his perception — blackout of the soul; hardness of the heart — scar tissue of the soul. This condition has made it impossible for him to be restored or turned around. Scar tissue of the soul or hardness of the heart does a lot of things that are obvious from the scripture. One of the first is it rejects military preparation and de-emphasises national defense. This has been a characteristic for thousands of years of the reversionistic believer — Proverbs 21:29-31. Scar tissue of the soul is also revolt against the Lord personally — Nehemiah 9:16,17. “Hardening the neck” is scar tissue of the soul. It includes revolution, reversionism, rejection of authority. Cf. Jeremiah 7:25-27.

8. Reverse process reversionism. This final stage of reversionism is the antithesis of supergrace. The believer under reverse process reversionism cannot be distinguished from an unbeliever. The believer become enamoured with pseudo objects compatible with his spiritual condition. For example, in category #! love he should be occupied with the person of Jesus Christ, but instead he is occupied with pseudo objects — in the Old Testament it might be Baal, or now with his own self-projects, whatever it is. But in category #1 love he reverses the object of love. In category #2 the right man is occupied with a wrong (pseudo) woman instead of his right woman. Under category #3 love there is the true friend and the pseudo friend.

3. Divine discipline of the reversionist.

God keeps believers alive to spank them. In fact God keeps every believer alive for one of two reasons: to either bless him because he is positive toward doctrine or to discipline him because he is negative toward doctrine.

a) The warning stage. The warning stage of discipline is designed by God to warn the believer regarding his spiritual condition. That is, negative volition toward doctrine has moved him away from the plan of God for time — phase two. This type of discipline is generally found in the first four stages of reversionism, that is, when a person is reacting, when a person is in the frantic search for happiness [operation boomerang], or the emotional revolt. This stage includes birth adversity and prosperity. However the removal of prosperity is a part of warning discipline. Warning discipline is mentioned in Revelation 3:20.

b) The intensive stage. For those who reject the knocking on the door by discipline, by the removal of prosperity, there is a second stage. The category of discipline is generally found in the last four stages of reversionism — negative volition, scar tissue of the soul, blackout of the soul, and reverse process reversionism. This stage is described in Psalm 38:1-14. This is the category of strong delusion found in 2 Thessalonians 2:11.

c) The dying stage — the final stage. This is the sin unto death, and this reversionism is caused by remaining in reversionism. This is the most horrible thing that ever happened to anyone.

4. The principle of reversionism — Galatians 5:4.

“Christ is become of no effect, whosoever of you are justified by the law; you are fallen from grace.” This KJV translation is incorrect, it ignores the Greek text here completely. The first word, kathrghqhte is the aorist passive indicative of the verb katergew which usually means to be useless, to be neutralised, and it refers to a believer becoming a casualty in time in the angelic conflict. The aorist tense is a constative aorist contemplating the action of the verb in its entirety. The Galatians had entered into legalistic reversionism, and it gathers up into one entirety the fact that some of them were in the reaction stage, some of them had already gone to the frantic search for happiness, some were in operation boomerang, some were in emotional revolt of the soul. It simply gathers up into one ball of wax the stages of reversionism which are expressing themselves in legalism. Legalism here is salvation by keeping the law. Here we have the fact that they had become casualties. “You have become a casualty” is the way you translate katargew. The passive voice: the reversionistic Galatians receive the action of the verb, they have become casualties to the angelic conflict. The indicative declarative mood is historical for an historical reality. “You reversionists have become a casualty” — ineffective, useless, neutralised. Then the word “Christ” occurs as the object of the preposition — a)po plus the ablative of Xristoj which means “from Christ.” This is a believer, he hasn’t lost his salvation but he is a casualty as far as being effective as a member of the royal family of God. In other words, this verse is saying that he is on the road of reversionism instead of on the road to supergrace. Being on the road to reversionism is to become a casualty in phase two.

The next word gathers up all of those who are so involved in Galatia. “Whosoever” is a nominative masculine plural from a relative pronoun o(stij. This is a qualitative relative pronoun and it is therefore referring only to a certain category of believer, not all believers. The words “of you” are not found in the original at all. It is simply, “Whosoever are being vindicated [or justified]”, the present passive indicative of the verb dikaiow which actually means to be vindicated. Sometimes it refers to spiritual vindication or salvation and sometimes it refers to vindication in time — God vindicating a believer. They are seeking to be vindicated by keeping the law — “by means of the law.” The historical present plus the passive voice indicates it was going on at the time that Paul wrote to them.

Now we have the problem — “you are fallen” is the aorist active indicative of the verb e)kpiptw which does not mean to fall here. It is used in a navigational sense. it was used in the ancient world for nautical navigation and it means to drift off course. They haven’t fallen, they have drifted off course. The line that glorifies God is from saving grace to living grace, from living grace to supergrace, then the high golden bridge of dying grace, and then on the other side, surpassing grace. That is the road to glory. God is glorified when you reach the high ground in time, He is glorified when He can give you eternal reward and blessing over and above your resurrection body. At this point the apostle has said that the Galatians have drifted off course. So literally, “you have drifted off course.” The active voice: the reversionist produces the action of the verb. The declarative indicative indicates the historical reality.

“from grace” — the ablative of source from the noun xarij. Xarij or grace is used here for one reason only, to portray the road to glory from salvation to supergrace, dying grace and surpassing grace.

“You reversionists have become casualties [ineffective] from Christ, whoever are being vindicated by means of the law; you have drifted off course from the grace.”

The principle of reversionism is drifting off course from grace. Reversionism is the rejection of God’s grace, rejection of God’s plan by ignoring Bible doctrine.

5. A few of the categories of reversionism.

a) There is lascivious or phallic reversionism — 2 Corinthians 12:21; Ephesians 4:19; 5:5; Colossians 3:5; Revelation 2:14, 20-23.

b) Legalistic reversionism — Galatians 5:4; Colossians 2:16-18; Hebrews 5:11; 6:16.

c) Monetary reversionism — Ecclesiastes 5:10-16; James 4:13,14; 5:1-6; Revelation 3:14-20.

d) Alcoholic and narcotic reversionism — Isaiah 28:1-9 and Galatians 5:20.

e) Antiestablishment reversionism. The person who ran away from the draft because he said it wasn’t biblical, etc. — Romans 1:18-32; Hosea 4:1-7.

f) Mental attitude reversionism and verbal reversionism. These simply take reversionism when you drift off course and people get their happiness from hating people and vengeance, or they get their happiness from verbal reversionism, running down others. The two go together.

6. Nomenclature. How is reversionism described in the Bible? It is described in at least nine ways, including the one we have just considered in Galatians 5:4, “drifting off course from grace.” Or, being an enemy of the cross in Philippians 3:18, or uncircumcision of heart — Jeremiah 9:25,26, or failing of the grace of God in Hebrews 12:15. The reversionist is also described as a tortured soul in 2 Peter 2:7,8 and as an unstable soul in 2 Peter 2:14. He is also described in Revelation 2:4 as having left his first love, or “fallen” in verse 5, or in Revelation 3:15,16 as lukewarm. So we have a number of different descriptions of reversionism in the Bible.

7. The profile of reversionism — Psalm 7:14-16. “Behold, he travaileth with iniquity, and hath conceived mischief, and brought forth falsehood. He made a pit, and digged it, and is fallen into the ditch which he made. His mischief shall return upon his own head, and his violent dealing shall come down upon his own pate.” The word “mischief was considered to be evil in its connotation some 300 years ago. So obviously we cannot derive too much information from the King James version. Therefore we must go back to the original Hebrew here to discover what is meant by the “pate”, by “mischief”, and other words which in their antiquity have lost their meaning to us.

Verse 14 — the first word is “Behold”. In the Hebrew it is hineh and it is one of those words used to focus attention on a subject.

“he travaileth” is the piel imperfect of the verb chabal which means to have labour pains prior to giving birth. The piel emphasises the intensity of the pains. Whenever we find a male having labour pains obviously we are dealing with an analogy. Obviously also the third masculine singular suffix which brings out the correct translation, “he shall have labour pains” is referring to some analogy to the spiritual life. It is figurative, euphemistic rather than being literal. And immediately we discover what causes the labour pains: reversionism.

“with iniquity” — the noun awen means vanity or nothingness. It describes the way in which the believer becomes negative toward doctrine, and “iniquity” is quite technical here for the first four stages of reversionism: reaction, frantic search for happiness, intensification of reaction and/or operation boomerang, and emotional revolt of the soul. In other words, reversionism rarely begins with negative volition toward doctrine consolidated. Reversionism always begins with some form of reaction. Therefore the first four stages of reversionism are described as vanity or emptiness. These are labour pains, the situations which accompany warning discipline to the reversionist. So whatever system makes the believer distracted or makes the believer react toward doctrine the first four stages plus the warning stage of discipline are involved in having labour pains. The third masculine singular is used because in all languages often the masculine gender is used for all both sexes in the human race.

“and he hath conceived” — the qal perfect of harah means to become pregnant, and it should be translated “because he has become pregnant.” To become pregnant means to become reversionistic. And we also discover he has become pregnant with something …

“mischief” — the noun in the Hebrew amal means frustration. Frustration here refers to misery from frustration. Pregnancy, then, is reaction to people, to authority, to a pastor, disenchantment, boredom, apathy, self-pity, bitterness, jealousy, loneliness, any of the reactor factors. Pregnancy illustrates the reaction stage of reversionism. Frustration is the misery that comes from frantic search for happiness boomeranging or failing to produce the desired results in the life.

“and brought forth” — the qal perfect of the verb jalabh. Jalabh plus the inferential waw should be translated, :”therefore he has given birth.” Birth is analogous to the fifth stage of reversionism or the negative volition stage.

“falsehood” — literally, “deceit.” The word sheqer means a lie. He has given birth to deceit or a lie. It refers to a life of deceit. It refers to the blackout of the soul, scar tissue of the soul, and the function of reverse process reversionism. In other words, every reversionist lives a lie. He is born into a life of duplicity and deceit, his soul is dishonest and his life follows suit.

Translation: “Behold he shall have labour pains [warning discipline] of vanity [first four stages of reversionism], because he has become pregnant [reaction] with frustration [intensification of reaction], therefore he has given birth to a life of deceit [negative volition, blackout of the soul, scar tissue of the soul, reverse process reversionism].”

Note the sequence of the analogy: a) Pregnancy is a reaction stage of reversionism. Labour pains of vanity include the first four stages of reversionism. b) Birth of a deceitful life is a believer in the last four stages of reversionism. Negative volition toward doctrine, blackout of the soul, scar tissue of the soul, and reverse process reversionism. c) All of this is accomplished through the free will or the volition of the individual believer. d) Every reversionist, therefore, lives a lie, he is born into a life of hypocrisy and duplicity, a life of deceit, and through his own volition he digs his own grace.

Verse 15 — “He made a pit” is the qal perfect of karah and it means to dig your own grave. The qal perfect means he has already as a reversionist dug his own grave. The digging of a pit or a grave is the intensive stage of divine discipline and it comes from the free will of the reversionist. The key to the fifth stage of reversionism is obviously negative volition toward doctrine. As free will turns down Bible doctrine eventually this fifth stage of reversionism corresponds with the second stage of discipline which is the intensive stage.

“and digged it” is not quite correct. We have the qal imperfect of chapar means to explore — “and he explored it.” The exploration of the grave refers to the function of the last three stages of reversionism, and every believer in the last three stages of reversionism is actually exploring his own uncomfortable grave. And he becomes more and more aware of the fact that he is going to die and he is going to die horribly the sin unto death.

“and is fallen” — the qal perfect of naphal plus the inferential waw is “therefore he has fallen.” This is a reverence to the sin unto death.

“which he made” — the qal imperfect of paal which means to construct it all by yourself.

Translation: “He dug a grave, and explored it, therefore he is fallen into the grave which he has constructed.”

The reversionistic believer manufactures by negative volition and the various stages of reversionism his own torture chamber and he follows it up with a miserable death. He must take the responsibility for rejecting grace and blessing which is the road to glory.

Verse 16 — “His mischief” takes us back to amal which is his misery, self-induced misery. His misery is frustration. This refers again to operation boomerang or the third stage of reversionism.

“shall return” — the qal imperfect of shubh indicates the intensification of reaction, and it indicates operation boomerang. Returning here is the frantic search for happiness coming back to intensify the original reactor factors — “on his own head.”

“and his violent dealing” — this is the noun chamas which means violent oppression. It refers to the reversionistic believer refusing to take the responsibility for his own failure plus his ability to make other people around him miserable.

“shall come down” is better translated “shall descend”, it is the qal imperfect of jaradh. It means to come down as a heavy weight or something that hurts.

“upon his own pate” — the word “pate” in the Hebrew is qadqodh which means the top of his head, the crown of his head, and the whole principle is that no reversionist can ever build his happiness on someone else’s unhappiness, and the plug that he uses to hit someone else always bounces back and hits him.

Translation: “His frustration shall return to his own head, his violent oppression of others shall descend upon the crown of his head.” Here is the whole principle of self-induced misery.

Summary

1. Every believer must take the responsibility for his own decisions which are contrary to doctrine. That is why God has the systems of discipline.

2. God Himself will take the responsibility for all decisions made in compatibility with doctrine.

3. The reversionist must take the responsibility for his own negative and sinful decisions. This is why he gets warning discipline followed by intensive discipline and eventually dying discipline.

4. God sponsors the consequences of decisions which are positive toward doctrine.

8. The contamination of reversionism — Hebrews 12:15.

“Looking diligently” is the present active participle of the verb e)piskopew which means to be an overseer, to be the foreman of a ranch, the manager of a business. It means also to take responsibility when used of an individual believer. You must take the responsibility yourself for certain things. This is the imperative use of the participle which is peculiar to Koine Greek and the papyri of Patristic Greek. The present is an aoristic present for punctiliar action in present time. The active voice is a command to all believers related to the imperative participle. So the best way to translate something like this is, “See to it [take the responsibility yourself].”

Next we have the first of two negative purpose clauses introduced by the word “lest” which is merely the Greek negative mh and, of course, something is left out. We do not have, for example, i(na the conjunction. Nor do we have e)imi in the present subjunctive. Instead we merely have the negative mh, but we can expect that now because the writer of Hebrews was a student of Classical Greek and he often goes back to Classical Greek in some of these forms. The omission of any conjunctions here merely gives great strength to these negative clauses. We will have to translate this, “See to it that there be no one” or “See to it that no one.” The particle tij is an indefinite pronoun and is very impersonal.

“fail” — the present active participle of u(sterew means to fall short, it also means to fall back, to fail with regard to some standard, to be substandard or below standard. The tendencial present tense here represents what is inclined to occur or tends toward realisation. The active voice: the reversionistic believer tends to produce this. We have a circumstantial participle. All reversionists have a tendency to fall back from grace. They are alive by grace but they fall back from supergrace.

“of the grace of God” is the preposition a)po plus the ablative of xarij — “from the grace of God”, therefore “falling back from the grace of God is the best translation.” Reversionism falls back from the grace of God in this sense. The reversionistic believer has trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ, has received Him as his saviour. He functions under living grace because he is alive, he has food, shelter, transportation,. whatever it takes to stay alive. Also available to him is Bible doctrine. There is somewhere his own right pastor, his right local church and the text book, the bible. Now he has fallen back because he has failed to follow the colours — the function of GAP, assembling himself, listening to the teaching of the Word of God, growing in grace, receiving maximum resident doctrine in the soul. So he has fallen back from the high ground, SG². SG² was designed for every believer in eternity past.

The second negative purpose clause starts out “that not one”. We have mh tij again, only this time tij is in the neuter — “that not one root.” The word for “root” is the root of a tree, r(itza. It is something that is developed, as it says in 1 Corinthians 15:36, by a seed dropping into the ground. Below the ground the seed dies, and by dying it sprouts, and from that comes a root, and another root and another root, and so on. Soon there is something above ground and eventually you have a tall tree. But the root always comes from the death of a seed. The seed dies before the root can sprout and that is exactly what we have here. The seed refers to sin. What has actually died here below the ground is the sins and failures of reversionism. That means that there are roots now and that there is a supergrace life — the ECS and then eventually the high ground of supergrace. So the sins died, they are no longer an issue, they have been rebounded, they are past. Yet, there is a great danger to anyone who is advancing toward the high ground, that they remember something that has been buried below the ground. They remember something that someone did, for example, and as they remember they become bitter, vindictive, and from there they go to operation vengeance, and from there they fall down and go back into reversionism.

“bitterness” is a descriptive genitive singular of the noun pikria which really refers to a cluster of mental attitude sins. First of all there has to be jealousy or arrogance. With these there is vindictiveness, implacability, then antagonism, pettiness, and all of these work together to start a war against someone, to start operation vengeance. The “root of bitterness”: the sin is dead, bitterness has come out of a sin that has been forgiven and cleansed.

“sprouting up” — the present active participle of fuw. We now that it means to go up because we have with it the adverb a)nw which means to go upward. We have a retroactive progressive present here denoting what has happened in the past and continues into the present time. It denotes the first four stages of reversionism. The active voice: the reversionist tried to move up the hill and has failed in this way and is producing the action. The participle is circumstantial, he is now in root of bitterness status.

“trouble you” — the word “you” is not here. We do have the present active subjunctive of e)noxlew which means to cause trouble, and it causes trouble for the individual — that is what e)n means, “inside”. This is self-induced misery. This is a customary present to denote the fact that this habitually occurs when people have mental attitude sins as a reaction to a sin that is dead. The active voice: the reversionist produces the action causing the trouble. The subjunctive mood is potential depending upon whether the recovery is complete or partial.

“and thereby” — literally, “and through this”; “the many” o(i polloi, “be defiled.” The word miainw does not mean to defile exactly. In the ancient world it meant to dump a chamber pot on someone and contaminate them. The word “defiled” means to be contaminated with sewage. The stench of being such a victim made one socially unacceptable, therefore the person who had sewage of bitterness in his soul was unacceptable. In this way reversionism dumps sewage in the soul, and the soul that is filled with the sewage of mental attitude sins always overflows to others. The constative aorist gathers into one entirety the reversionistic believer polluting by the reaction in his soul and contaminating others. The passive voice: other believers become the victims, they receive the sewage. The subjunctive mood is potential, depending on whether you contact them or not.

Translation: “See to it that no one falls back from the grace of God; and that not one root of bitterness sprouting up causes trouble, and through this the many be contaminated.”

9. Psychosis and reversionism — 2 Peter 2:15-19.

Verse 15 — “Abandoning the straight road [the road to glory], they have been deluded [all reversionists are under delusion], having pursued the road of Balaam of Beor, who loved the reward of wrongdoing.”

Verse 16 — “But he received a rebuke for his own transgression: the dumb ass having preached eloquently with the voice of a man had forbidden the psychosis of the prophet.”

Verse 17 — “These [reversionists] are wells without water [doctrine], clouds being driven along by a squall line [they are unstable]; for whom the blackness of darkness [blackout of the soul] has been reserved.”

Verse 18 — “For bombastically speaking arrogant words from the source of the vacuum [mataiothj], they keep enticing unstable souls by lust, by lasciviousness, those who barely escape from the ones who live in error.” In other words, one reversionist captures another.

Verse 19 — “Promising them [the intended victims] freedom, when they themselves exist as the slaves to corruption: for by whom anyone has been defeated, this same one [the reversionist] has become enslaved.” All reversionists are slaves to something.

10. Reversionism eliminates special blessing paragraphs for time and eternity — Hebrews 3:10-12.

11. Reversionism in the book of Hebrews. Various epistles in the New Testament emphasise different types of reversionism. For example, we have legalistic reversionism in Galatians, phallic reversionism in Corinthians, monetary reversionism in James, religious and ritualistic reversionism in Hebrews — Hebrews 5:11,12.

12. Reversionism leads to perversion — Romans 1:26,27.

13. Reversionism intensifies suffering — Psalm 77:1-10.

In Hebrews 12:4-15 we have the alternative to supergrace or the divine discipline of the believer. In verse 4 we immediately see the problem of it all, the problem of the old sin nature.

Verse 4 — “ye have not yet resisted” is the aorist active indicative of a military verb, a)ntikaqisthmi. The word means to be in an organisation that is trained for warfare. It means to oppose, to resist, or resist and oppose in line of battle. We also have with this a negative adverb of time, o)upw. The combination of the two words means “not yet have you resisted.” The constative aorist contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety, which means that in the course of your life you have not yet resisted to, as we will see in a moment, “being wounded.” The active voice: the believer produces the action of the verb. The indicative mood is declarative for a doctrinal reality. This verb says that the believers to whom this was originally addressed, i.e. believers living in Jerusalem in AD 67, had not yet been combat tested. The reason is obvious from Hebrews chapter six. They have been constantly plagued with reversionism. The adverb of time o)upw begins the sentence rather than coming after the verb. And since it begins the sentence it indicates the principle of living grace, they are still alive even though they have not yet been successful enough to send to combat.

“unto blood” — the adverb mekrij is used as a preposition. This is called an improper preposition. With this we have the genitive singular of the noun a(ima which means blood. The actual prepositional phrase mekri actually has three connotations: space where it means “as far as”; time where it means “until”; degree where it means “to the point of.” Number three is pertinent here. This is mekri plus the genitive for degree. it should be translated, therefore, “to the point of blood” or “the point of being wounded.”

“striving” — the present middle participle of a)ntagwnizomai which means to be in combat, to contend or to fight as a part of a military team. The progressive present signifies action is a state of persistence. It is also known as the descriptive present tense or the pictorial present which presents to the mind a picture of events in the process of occurrence. The middle voice is the indirect middle emphasising the agent as producing the action. The participle is an instrumental participle indicating the means by which the action of the verb is accomplished. It should be translated, therefore, “by struggling” or “by fighting.”

“against sin” — proj plus the accusative of a(martia. A(martia is in the singular and in the singular it refers to the old sin nature.

Translation: “You have not yet resisted to the point of blood by fighting against the old sin nature.”

In other words, in reversionism they were not successful in combating the old sin nature and its problems.

The doctrine of the old sin nature

1. Definition.

a) The old sin nature is that which was acquired by the fall of man. The old sin nature was not a part of man’s creation, it was acquired by negative volition toward God’s command.

b) Subsequently the old sin nature comes through physical birth, except in the case of the virgin birth of the Lord Jesus Christ where there was no old sin nature.

c) The OSN is the centre of rebellion against God and the source of spiritual death.

d) It is also the source of all personal sins in the life. However, the OSN is not the source of personal sin in itself, it requires volition.

2. The essence of the old sin nature. Romans 6:6 — “Knowing this, that our old man [OSN] was crucified with him, so that the body of sin might be neutralised, in order that we should no longer be slaves to our old sin nature.”

The word swma [body] indicates essence. There are at least four parts to the OSN. “The “body of sin.” The first part of the essence of the OSN is the area of weakness. This area of weakness is the source of personal sins. There are three basic categories of sin from the area of weakness: Mental sins, Verbal sins, Overt sins. The OSN also has an area of strength. This is the source of socialism, all of the economic panaceas, trying to purify the air, etc. Man by man’s efforts cannot solve anything. The area of strength is a producer of good things — Isaiah 64:6. Romans 8:8 — “Those who are in the flesh [under the control of the OSN] cannot please God.” The third characteristic in the essence of the OSN is the lust pattern. All lust is in the OSN. For example, there is approbation lust, the desire to be recognised. Approbation lust constantly keeps people off balance. Power lust is a more serious offense because people get hurt besides yourself in power lust. Power lust is what causes revolutions, warfare. It is involved in crime and in almost every kind of violence. Then there is lasciviousness or sex lust. There is also killer lust and materialistic lust. Romans 7:7. The next area of essence of the OSN are the trends. There is the trend toward asceticism and the trend toward lasciviousness. There are also some other trends: the trend toward seeking power, the trend toward approbation. These are always linked with the volition and they are always linked with the lust pattern. 3. The biblical nomenclature for the OSN. The Bible describes the OSN under many titles. It is called “flesh” in Galatians 5:16; Ephesians 2:3. It is called the old man in Ephesians 4:22; Colossians 3:9. It is called carnal — Romans 7:14; 1 Corinthians 3:1-3. It is also called sin in the singular in Hebrews 12:4; Romans 5:12; 7:14; 1 Corinthians 15:56; 1 John 1:8. There are even some passages where the word “heart” is used for the old sin nature, instead of for the mentality, the right lobe of the soul — Jeremiah 17:9; Matthew 12:34,35; 15:19; Mark 7:21-23.

4. The origin of the old sin nature. It is best described in Romans 5:12 — “Wherefore, just as through one man [Adam] sin [OSN] entered into the world, and death [spiritual] through sin [OSN], so spiritual death spread to all men, because all sinned.”

Summary

a. Although God created man he did not create the old sin nature in man.

b. By His very essence God cannot sin or solicit to sin.

c. God is not the author of sin.

d. Sin originated in mankind the same way that sin originated in the angelic creation. It originated by negative volition in creature free will.

e. Satan is the original sinner; Satan is the author of sin.

f. Note, for example, that man was tempted by Satan but he was tempted under the guise of a serpent.

g. By disobedience or negative volition toward divine prohibition in the garden the old sin nature was formed in man with resultant spiritual death.

h. Man from the volition of his own soul manufactured and perpetuated the old sin nature.

i. Through copulation the old sin nature is perpetuated in the human race.

5. The perpetuation and consequences of the old sin nature. 1 Timothy 2:13,14 — “For it was Adam who was first created, then Eve. And it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman being deceived fell into the transgression.” Because of this the OSN is passed down through the man in the perpetuation of the human race. Hence, the virgin birth means to be born without a sin nature. Cf. Psalm 51:5; 58:3. Therefore the old sin nature is the source of spiritual death in the human race — Ephesians 2:1,5. Furthermore the believer continues to have an OSN after salvation — 1 Corinthians 3:1, “men of the flash.”

6. The OSN is the source of transitory pleasure in life — Hebrews 11:25.

7. The frustration of the OSN — Romans 7:15. “For” is the explanatory use of the particle gar — “For you see.” He is explaining the frustration of the OSN.

“that which” — the nominative neuter singular of the relative pronoun o(j. But in the neuter you have to show it is neuter, so it is “that which.”

“I do” — the present middle indicative of katergazomai. The word means to produce something from down inside of yourself, to create, to achieve, to accomplish. The present tense is a present tense of duration or a retroactive progressive present for what has begun in the past and continues into the present time. The middle voice: this is a deponent verb, it is middle in form but active in meaning. Paul produces the action of the verb. The indicative mood is the reality of the function of the OSN in each one of us.

“I allow not” is the present active indicative of ginwskw, one of the verbs to know, plus the strong negative o)uk. It means “I do not understand.” “For that which is inside and comes out of me I do not understand.” “for what I would” — the explanatory gar plus the nominative neuter singular from the relative pronoun o(j plus the present active indicative of the verb qelw, mistranslated “would.” It should be translated, “what I keep on desiring.” This is an iterative present tense describing what recurs at successive intervals, or the present tense of repeated action.

“that” is a nominative plural again, the demonstrative pronoun o(utoj emphasising a designated object.

“I do not” — “I do not practice,” the present active indicative of prassw. The retroactive progressive present indicates what has begun in the past and continues into the present time, and it should be translated “I am not practicing.”

“but” is a very strong adversative conjunction a)lla which sets up a contrast.

“what I hate” — in this case it is sin. The present active indicative of misew means to detest — “the same”, o(utoj again, “I do,” the present active indicative of poiew.

Translation: “For what I produce I do not understand; for what I keep desiring, these things I am not accomplishing; but what I detest, these things I keep doing.” This is the frustration of the old sin nature.

8. Divine judgement solves the frustration of the old sin nature. There are three phases to the plan of God: phase one is salvation; phase two is the believer in time; phase three is the believer in eternity. There is a judgement for each phase. The problem of the old sin nature is solved in phase one by the judgement of the cross. Our sins are poured out upon Christ and judged — 2 Corinthians 5:21; 1 Peter 2:24. Our sins are judged in phase two by means of rebound — 1 John 1:9. Our old sin nature’s human good is judged in phase three by the judgement seat of Christ — 1 Corinthians 3:12-16. The unbeliever’s human good is judged at the great white throne — Revelation 20:12-15. So it is divine judgement that solves the problems of the old sin nature.

9. Doctrine resident in the soul is the means of combating the old sin nature. That brings us around in focus with our passage, Hebrews 12:4. This is also taught in Psalm 51:5,6. “Behold, you desire doctrine in my inward parts, and in the hidden part [the invisible soul] you caused me to know wisdom.” The antidote to the old sin nature is doctrine resident in the soul. Therefore the supergrace believer with maximum doctrine resident in the soul combats the OSN the best. On the other hand, the reversionist has not and does not properly handle the OSN. That is why in Hebrews 12:4 we have a reference to this fact. The original people to receive Hebrews were reversionists.

10. The OSN is not found in the resurrection body of the believer. This is the concept of ultimate sanctification or phase three sanctification — 1 Corinthians 15:55-57; Philippians 3:20,21.

We now go to the principle of divine discipline in verses 5 and 6.

Verse 5 — the principle of divine discipline starts out with an expletive use of the conjunction kA. This expletive is used for the purpose of explaining what has gone before. Generally translators use the phrase “And so.” “And so” means that obviously from verse 4 the believers involved, the original readers of this passage, had failed and become casualties in the angelic conflict. As members of the royal family of God they were not doing too well. Often we fail and we do not do too well because we forget. Therefore we have a very important verb as far as life is concerned and as far as the Christian way of life is concerned. We have a way of forgetting things. We forget the each one of us is here on this earth by courtesy of the Lord Jesus Christ, and we are only here until He sees fit to remove us, and that can be done at any time. Whatever makes us arrogant or proud, whatever the source of our vanity, it can be removed very rapidly. So we often forget that the source of everything that we have, the source of everything that we are, is totally dependent upon who and what Christ is. Therefore the very thought of neglecting the source of everything that is wonderful to us is ludicrous. One thing that should characterise the life of every believer is the simple phrase, “no regrets.” By “no regrets” is meant that if you look back on your life you may regret the fact that you did not spend more time with someone you love, or that you did not understand someone who was in your life until you had enough moxy and enough sense and enough maturity to appreciate them. Whatever it is, people generally have an area of regrets. One of the things that is so important is to have no regrets in life. No regrets means the sooner you grow up, the sooner you have capacity for life — in other words, the sooner you have maximum doctrine in your soul — the better off life will be.

So we have the phrase, “And so you have forgotten.” You have forgotten your lessons. The word “forgotten” is the perfect middle indicative of e)klanqanomai. This is a very bad word when used in this context. It is a very good word when used in Philippians 3 about forgetting those things which are behind — past failures. But here it has a different connotation related to reversionism and it means to forget altogether. It means a total blackout of memory on some point. It means to forget something entirely and it is like not knowing it in the first place. The verb is an obvious result of reversionism. The writer of Hebrews is back on the subject of reversionism as of this point. We have a consummative perfect tense in which the action is completed. But there are basically two kinds of perfect tenses. One is where the action is completed at point X and the results go on and on and on. That is called an intensive perfect. Then there is the consummative perfect where the action is completed but you go back and look at the process by which the action was completed. The perfect tense always sees the action of the verb from the standpoint of completed action. But the process is emphasised here, and the process by which the believer has forgotten doctrine is the various stages of reversionism. The middle voice is the indirect middle which emphasises the agent as producing the action of the verb, and that means reflexive in the production of the action of the process. The indicative mood is declarative representing the verbal idea from the viewpoint of reality, i.e. reversionism causes the believer to forget Bible doctrine, forget Jesus Christ, forget grace, forget everything that is important, and get involved in an entirely new thought pattern. The soul undergoes a phenomenal change in reversionism. The things you ought to remember you forget and the things you ought to forget you remember. So as a member of the royal family of God you become petty, vindictive, implacable, a frantic search for happiness type, all of the things whereby you are no longer worthwhile in life.

Then the object is “the exhortation” — the objective genitive singular of the noun paraklhsij. The ordinary case for the object of a verb is the accusative case. The genitive case is a descriptive case. It is a possessive case and a modifying case. Therefore when you have an objective genitive when the genitive case is the object of a verb it means you are describing something very important. Therefore the accusative wont cut it, you have to go to a case that is even stronger for an object case. So the objective genitive indicates the fact that whatever the noun is, whatever the substantive is, it is something that is extremely important to your life.

The exhortation is very important. We have forgotten the most important thing of all when we are in reversionism, and the important thing is called in terms of reversionism “doctrine” but it is doctrine in terms of instruction. The noun paraklhsij means hortatory instruction, principles of doctrine shouted at you, principles of doctrine ground into you with devastating illustrations, principles of doctrine that hit a nerve centre and make you scream. Paraklhsij means someone standing beside you and shouting at you, it means to be braced by doctrine.

“which speaketh” — the present middle indicative of dialegomai, and with it we have a qualitative relative pronoun o(stij. O(stij means whatever is about to be presented is of extreme importance; dialegomai means to teach — “which teaches.” The present tense is a static present. In other words, principles of doctrine always teach. The middle voice is a dynamic middle emphasising the part taken by the agent in the action of the verb. The agent is the principle of doctrine. The reason we have to emphasise this is because the agent, the point of doctrine here, is Proverbs 3:11,12. And Proverbs 3:11,12 does the teaching. The indicative mood is declarative representing the verbal idea from the viewpoint of reality, and reality here is a dogmatic unqualified assertion of Bible doctrine.

“you” is a dative plural and this is an indirect object from the personal pronoun su. It indicates the one in whose interest the act is performed. It is to our benefit to have the daily teaching of Bible doctrine.

“as unto children” — this is a comparative particle o(j plus the dative of advantage u(ioj, and it should be translated “as sons.” “As sons” brings into focus the entire concept of humanity, divine institution #3, the parents training the children. We have up to this point: “And so you yourselves have forgotten the point of doctrine which teaches you as sons.”

Now we have a quotation — Proverbs 3:11,12.

Verse 11 — “My son” is beni in the Hebrew and it refers to Solomon. David was teaching his son doctrine; “despise not” — the qal imperfect of the verb maas means to refuse, to reject, to despise, to melt away. Hence, to melt away in the sense of rejecting the purpose of divine discipline. Discipline is designed to put us back on the road to glory. Ultimately discipline is always designed to improve, to better a situation, to reach an objective, and discipline is really a matter of the soul. Children are tender when they are young, they have tender souls, and that is the time when discipline pays off. Discipline is designed to put the royal family on the road to glory.

“the chastening from the Lord” — musar Adonai. “Musar” means discipline. This is a reference to the various stages of discipline in reversionism — the warning stage, the intensive stage, the dying stage. Each stage is designed to warn the believer that he is off of the road to glory. Each stage is designed to warn the believer of his apostate status and to motivate a change of attitude toward doctrine, the use of rebound, and the daily function of GAP as the only recovery. “My son, do not despise discipline from the Lord.” “Son” means any believer.

“neither be weary” -- the qal imperfect plus the negative of the verb qutz. Qutz means nausea. It is used here in the sense of being warn out and exhausted and nauseated. From the concept of throwing up it came to mean to loathe or abhor.

“his correction” — the noun is tokechah which means his strong punishment.

Translation: “My son, do not despise the discipline of the Lord, and do not loathe his very strong punishment.” Loathing here has the connotation of thinking it unfair, thinking you are being treated unjustly.

Verse 12 — “For whom the Lord loveth” — the qal imperfect of ahabh. Most people think that when parents are strict they are unkind. They think that those who are permissive are somehow loving. A permissive parent is stupid and not loving. The qal imperfect means that God keeps on loving us. He always will love us. He loves us in reversionism, He loves us in supergrace. The only difference is that His love manifests itself in a different way. He loves you by blessing you in supergrace; He loves you by discipline and punishment in reversionism, but the love is there.

“he correcteth” — the word “correcteth” is really much stronger than that. Jakach is much stronger than appears on the surface. In the qal stem it means simply to be straight, in the niphal stem it means to be convinced, in the hithpael stem it means to dispute or argue, in the piel stem it means to set right by punishment, but in the hiphil stem here it means to judge by punitive action. “For whom the loves he judges [disciplines] by punitive action.”

“even as a father the son” — the son is growing up and now the father handles the discipline. The father loves his son but he disciplines his son, he prepares him for life by doing so. The father can do for his son is prepare him for life and this means lots of discipline.

“in whom he delighteth” — the qal imperfect of ratsah. Ratsah means to take pleasure in a person.

We are now ready for the Greek quotation of Proverbs 3:11,12. “My son” — u(ie mou, a vocative from u(ioj which is the word for “son,” plus the possessive genitive of mou.

“despise not” — the present active imperative of o)ligwrew which means to think lightly of something, to make light of something. Whether it is thinking lightly or making light of it is not correctly translated here as “despise.” It isn’t quite that strong. We also have the negative mh with it, and it is “My son, do not make light of.” The present tense is an iterative present which prohibits what recurs at successive intervals. It is the present tense of repeated action forbidden. The reversionistic believer is prohibited from lightly regarding or making light of divine discipline. The imperative mood expresses a strong prohibition. Never, never make light of discipline.

“the chastening” — the objective genitive singular of paideia means discipline. “My son, do not make light of the corrective discipline ...”

“of the Lord” is the ablative of source from kurioj and it should be “from the Lord.” All discipline in the life of the believer has the absolute source of the Lord Himself.

“nor faint” — this time the present passive imperative from e)kluw which means to faint. In the passive it means to become weak or feeble, and therefore fainting. Becoming feeble means to enter reversionism. The present tense is a customary present, it denotes what habitually occurs to the reversionist, he faints in his soul. The passive voice: the reversionistic believer receives the action of the verb. The imperative mood of prohibition is expressing a negative command. “Nor be fainting [which means to become discouraged in the passive] when you are rebuked.” The word “fainting” is fainting of soul and it means to become discouraged here.

“rebuked” is “reproved” here which isn’t quite as strong — the present passive participle of e)legxw. E)legxw means to reprove here rather than to rebuke. It is a retroactive progressive present indicating the fact that as long as a person is in reversionism there are various types of discipline. The passive voice: the reversionistic believer receives the action of the verb. This is a temporal participle, therefore you translate a temporal participle by a small temporal clause — “when you are reproved by him” — u(po plus the ablative of a)utoj. U(po is a preposition of authority. It means originally “under” — under the authority of. Plus the ablative of a)utoj means “by him.” A)utoj is an intensive pronoun with demonstrative force to emphasise the nearness of God the Father in this context.

Translation of verse 5: “And so you yourselves have forgotten the point of doctrine which teaches you as sons, My son, do not make light of corrective discipline from the Lord, nor become discouraged when you are reproved by him.”

Verse 6 — here is the reason why you should not become discouraged. “For whom.” “For” is the explanatory use of the particle gar, plus the relative pronoun o(j whose antecedent is the reversionistic believer.

“the Lord” — here is one of those places where we have a direct quotation from the Old Testament. Kurioj is used in two ways in the New Testament. It is used for a husband. To the wife the husband is kurioj, and kurioj meant originally absolute authority and is used only of God or the husband. Here it is used for God. It is a direct quotation from Adonai, the tetragrammaton in the Hebrew, and therefore it refers to God the Father. “loveth” — the present active indicative of a)gapaw which is the verb of mental attitude love. This is the more general concept of love, the low key relaxed mental attitude type of love. God is the subject here and therefore it is the total love that emanates from the essence of God. The static present represents a condition as perpetually existing, therefore taken for granted as a fact. The active voice: God the Father produces the action of the verb. The indicative mood is declarative for a dogmatic reality, and the dogmatic reality is the fact that God loves you even when you are in reversionism. The active voice: God the Father produces the action that goes with this dogmatic declarative for a point of doctrine.

“he chasteneth” — present active indicative of the verb paideuw. The cognate is paideia which is corrective discipline. Both the verb and the noun have as their basic root pai which comes from paij which means a child. It is used in the sense of teaching or training a child by discipline.

So we have” “For you see whom the Lord loves he disciplines.” The aoristic present is used here for punctiliar action in present time. The people to whom this was originally addressed were being disciplined at the time of the writing of Hebrews. The active voice: God the Father produces the action. The declarative mood is the for dogmatic historical reality that goes with the aoristic present. Right at that time they were being spanked.

“and scourgeth” — mastigow means to flog or skin alive with a whip. We can translate this here as “punishment.”

“every son” — paj plus u(ioj, both in the accusative, they are direct objects. Paj means every believer and u(ioj us used for the believer in the sense of an adult son, which we are by the baptism of then Spirit.

“whom” is the relative pronoun o(j; “he receiveth” — present active indicative of paradexomai. Paradexomai means to accept, to acknowledge, but here it has to correspond with what it is quoting, the qal imperfect of ratsah which means “in whom he delights.” So it means here to welcome home or to receive favourably. The static present represents the situation as perpetually existing, and the whole point is that God welcomes us home.

The doctrine of divine discipline

1. Definition.

a) Divine discipline is the sum total of punitive measures by which God corrects and judges the believer in time.

b) Discipline is the alternative to blessing.

c) Two areas of divine discipline exist in phase two. In the sphere of carnality there is divine discipline and in the sphere of reversionism there is also divine discipline.

d) Discipline for carnality is temporary and cancelled by the rebound technique.

e) Discipline for reversionism is permanent in time and terminates in one of two ways: either in the sin unto death or reversion recovery.

f) However, no matter how extreme divine discipline may be it never implies loss of salvation.

g) Inasmuch as there is no divine discipline in heaven all discipline to the believer is confined to time.

h) The purpose of divine discipline in time is to correct the believer and bring him to the point of either rebound or reversion recovery.

2. The principle of divine discipline — Hebrews 12:5,6. Note that the punitive action from God is for the believer only. It is “My son.” Also notice that divine discipline is based on God’s love for the believer.

3. The purpose of divine discipline — Revelation 3:19.

4. Divine discipline does not imply loss of salvation — Galatians 3:26. Once a son, always a son. 2 Timothy 2:11-13 amplifies this.

5. Divine discipline is confined to time — Revelation 21:4.

6. Discipline turns curing into blessing — 1 Corinthians 11:30,31; Job 5:17,18.

7. Divine discipline of reversionism always includes self-induced misery — Psalm 7:14-16.

8. The principle of triple compound discipline. Triple compound discipline combines self-induced misery with divine discipline. The intensification of divine discipline can occur under the following circumstances: a) Mental attitude sins motivate verbal sins.

b) Verbal sins are the basis for further punitive action from God — Matthew 7:1,2; Psalm 64:7,8

9. Three categories of discipline in reversionism:

a) The warning stage — Revelation 3:20. The warning stage involves a relatively simple recovery. It involves rebound and the persistent function of GAP. In the warning stage too much doctrine has not been lost and therefore the recovery is relatively easy.

b) The intensive stage — Psalm 38:1-14.

c) The dying stage — Revelation 3:16, the sin unto death. Lukewarm means reversionism. Cf. Jeremiah 9:16; 44:12; Philippians 3:18,19.

Philippians 3:19 — “Whose end is destruction.” The relative pronoun in the genitive plural from o(j refers to the reversionist in the previous verse who is said to be an enemy of the cross. Anyone in reversionism is the enemy of grace and therefore the enemy of the cross. The word “end” is a noun, teloj, and it means the end or the termination of phase two for the reversionist. Death is the termination of phase two for anyone in reversionism, but not ordinary death, the sin unto death. Therefore it is described as “destruction” — the noun a)poleia. The word is used technically here for the sin unto death.

The doctrine of the sin unto death

1. By definition the sin unto death is the means by which the reversionistic believer is transferred from time to eternity. It is dying by means of maximum punitive discipline. The dying is painful, horrible, miserable, anything that is the exception to dying grace. Psalm 118:17,18; 1 John 5:16

2. The cause of the sin unto death: prolonged and unchecked reversionism. No one ever dies the sin unto death without going through the three stages of discipline. Jeremiah 9:13-16; 44:12.

3. The sin unto death does not mean loss of salvation — 2 Timothy 2:11-13, “… if we deny him he will also deny us” SG² and SG³, but we do not lose our salvation — “if we are faithless he remains faithful.”

4. There are four ways to transfer from time to eternity: a) the sin unto death which is for reversionists only; b) dying grace which is for supergrace believers; c) PCS (Permanent Change of Station) under paragraph SG³. Occasionally you will find someone like Enoch. In his paragraph SG² he did not have any dying blessing. In fact, the first category of his SG³ was his dying blessing. And since SG³ is eternity and you can’t die, therefore Enoch walked across that golden bridge in his body. He literally left this life in his body and there was no burial of a body. The PCS is associated with SG³ rather than SG² — Hebrews 11:5; d) resurrection as per the Rapture generation. There are three kinds of believers on the earth at the point of the Rapture. First of all, there are supergrace believers. Secondly, there are those who are growing. Thirdly, there are those in reversionism in all of the stages. Even the reversionist will go up with the rest of the believers — no pain, blessing by association. The entire Church must be removed. The royal family has to be withdrawn before the Age of Israel can be concluded.

5. The case histories of the sin unto death. a) For monetary reversionism we have Ananias and Sapphira. They gave the appearance of giving all of their money when they held back money because they loved money. b) Phallic reversionism. Here it is incest — 1 Corinthians 5:1-5. c) Ritual reversionism — 1 Corinthians 11:30,31, participation in the communion service minus rebound. d) Mental attitude reversionism — jealousy, vindictiveness, implacability, bitterness, etc. Saul refused to kill and enemy because of mental attitude sins — 1 Samuel 13:9-14; 1 Chronicles 10:13,14. e) Verbal reversionism — 1 Timothy 1:19,20, Hymenaeus and Alexander. f) Antiestablishment reversionism — human viewpoint foreign policy of Hezekiah in Isaiah 30:103; 31:1-3 cf. Isaiah 38.

6. Rebound is a factor in reversion recovery. 1 Corinthians 11:31. James 5:20.

7. The consistent function of GAP is necessary for reversion recovery — James 4:4-8.

Psalm 30 — rebound recovery. The writer is David. He had taken Jerusalem and decided to have a dedication. As far as David was concerned he was going to live in one home on this earth and this was it. At the same time he got to thinking about the grace of God. He thought about all of the times he had failed and how horribly he had failed and how God in His grace permitted him to have the time for reversion recovery. As a result of it he sat down and wrote a beautiful song: “A Psalm and song at the dedication of the house of David.” The word for “Psalm” is mizmor, and it simply means a hymn of praise, a hymn of worship, or a hymn of celebration and worship. This is David’s celebration in retrospection. Not only does he have a beautiful home on a high hill, but that hill means more than simply occupying a beautiful home, it means he also has a most wonderful relationship with the Lord for he is on the high ground of supergrace. Therefore he puts it all together and decides to write a psalm and dedicate it. The word “psalm” is followed by the word “song” and that is the word shir which means a song accompanied by musical instruments. It means a song where your voice is drowned out by the musical instruments. So it is a psalm and a song of dedication. The word for “dedication” is chanukah which is a real wing-ding of a celebration. Then it says “the house of David” but it means the castle of David. The name of the fortress is Zion. It is a word that occurs many times in scripture. Zion is the western escarpment of Jerusalem and was the location of this famous fort. This fort is described in 2 Samuel chapter 5, and the capture of it in 5:7. In 5:9 it became the very basis of his prosperity, an expression of it. So it is fitting that he should dedicate it and in verse 1 we have the beginning of his wonderful song.

Verse 1 — In effect, he is doing two things here. He is being retrospective and at the same time he is recognising that everything that he has, everything that he will ever have, everything that is wonderful in his life, he owes it directly to the Lord. This makes David one of the greatest men who ever lived.

“I will extol” — the pilel imperfect of the verb rum (pronounced room). Here is one of those words that can mean a lot of different things depending on the stem. For example, the qal stem of rum means to raise up, the hithpael means to be proud in the sense of raising yourself up, the pilel stem which we have here means to exalt and it is intensive, it means that David is concentrating on who and what the Lord is and the pilel stem tells us that he has occupation with the person of Christ. Occupation with the person of Christ is maximum category #1 love. Occupation with the person of Jesus Christ, in addition to that, is maximum capacity for life and maximum capacity for love in every area of life. In other words, everything that is wonderful in life is related to the principle of occupation with Christ. David has just completed his new home, he has just moved in and he is having a celebration. He is surrounded by all those whom he loves. He celebrates by starting out with what is more important than anything else in life. There is nothing more important than who and what Christ is. You cannot force yourself to love Jesus Christ, it can only come naturally as you take in doctrine on a daily basis. To extol or to praise or to exalt the Lord Jesus Christ requires maximum doctrine in the soul. That is exactly what David had. “O Lord” — this is a reference to the Lord Jesus Christ. There is no way that we can ever take credit for anything ourselves.

“for you have lifted me out of the depths” — the piel perfect of the verb dalah and it is the highly intensive piel stem. It means to lift up, to draw from the bottom of a well. It is used here for reversion recovery. David is saying that God has lifted him up in the most wonderful and profound way. The piel stem means that he has responded to Bible doctrine. In fact he will use the word “healing.” The healing for reversionism is Bible doctrine in the soul.

“you have not let my enemies get the best of me” or literally, “you have not permitted my enemies to rejoice over me.” The piel perfect of the word to rejoice here is samach and it really means to gloat or to celebrate — “you have not permitted my enemies to gloat over me.”

Notice the way he is approaching this. First of all he is occupied with the person of Jesus Christ. Category #1 love in its maximum expression is a sign of full recovery from reversionism. He is occupied with Christ and he cannot help but think of the ways in which he has been blessed. The first thing that comes to his mind is his enemies. David always had many enemies but his enemies were never permitted to gloat over him. And David never in all of his life permitted himself to use his power in a personal vendetta.

Translation: “I will exalt you, O Lord; for you have lifted me out of the depths of reversionism, and while doing so you have not permitted my enemies to rejoice over me.”

Principle: Any person who is going to do anything in life and has any kind of an opinion is going to have enemies. And what keeps your enemies from closing in? You can’t always guard your back, you can’t always be alert. What protects a person from his enemies? God’s wonderful and matchless grace.

Verse 2 — he begins to think back on some things, and the first thing he thinks about is the turning point of his life. “I cried” — but he didn’t cry. This is the piel perfect of the verb shawa. The piel stem means to shout for help — “I shouted for help.” In other words, all of us at some time in our lives have been totally down and depressed, totally discouraged, so that life looks completely hopeless. This is what happens to any believer when he gets far enough along in reversionism.

“to you, and thou hast healed me” — the qal imperfect of rapaha. This is a spiritual healing, there is nothing wrong with him physically, and the healing has to do with Bible doctrine in his soul. He made the recovery — “you have healed me from reversionism.” No person is truly great until he is totally down and he picks himself up and moves on.

Verse 3 — “O Lord, thou hast brought up my soul from the grave” — he was down so low that he was under the sin unto death. This is the hiphil perfect of alah, “you have caused my soul to come up.” He was dying, he was going out under the sin unto death.

“you have kept me alive” — the piel perfect of chajah which means to live, but it is stronger than that. In the qal stem it means to be merely alive, in the piel stem it means to be alive and happy and well and moving right along.

“that I should not go down to the pit” — going down to the pit is the grave.

Verse 4 — he is ready to start singing now. He is alive and well. “Sing” — the piel imperative of zamar, “Make music to Jehovah.”

“O ye saints” — “You men of grace” literally. Men of grace always recognise that when they fail they know what to do about it.

“give thanks” — the hiphil imperative of jadah means “confess.” It has to do with rebound.

“at the memory of his holiness” — in other words, every time we confess we say in effect that God is perfect and has provided a way to forgive us — the cross. So men of grace have something to sing about, and men of grace have something that keeps them men of grace. The first thing men of grace to is to sing about it, the second thing they do is to confess, that is the way they maintain that grace. Grace has to be maintained is the principle. So when it says, “Rebound at the memory of his holiness” it doesn’t mean when you think about His holiness, it means His holiness is the perfect standard. When we commit a sin we violate His holiness, we fall short of His holiness. As a result we have to rebound. The principle is, men of grace maintain grace by a grace system — the rebound technique.

Verse 5 — “For his anger.” The word “anger” here is an anthropopathism. We have a preposition followed by the noun aph. God doesn’t really get angry but to express His punitive action in terms of human activity we have such phrases. God’s anger refers to the fact that God spanked David since David was one of His sons. “Anger” expresses God spanking or disciplining the believer.

“endureth but a moment” — the words “endureth” and “but” are not found in the original and it is literally, “his anger lasts for a moment.” That means that no matter how intense the discipline, no matter how discouraged the person may be, it is temporary; for God in His grace has designed discipline like everything else, to be a blessing, to get us back in line, to get us on the track. The objective is to get us back on doctrine.

“in his favour is life” — a pitiful translation. We have a prepositional phrase. The object of the preposition is ratzon, and ratzon is “grace benefit.” It should be “a lifetime in grace benefit.”

“Weeping may endure for a night” — the word for “weeping” here stands for every principle of discouragement. Here it means adversity, tragedy, heartache, disaster, frustration, everything that is involved when a person is down. He uses the beautiful illustration of night in the sense of darkness and uncertainty.

“but joy” — the word joy in the Hebrew is rinnah, a good strong word for celebrating. It means celebrating in happiness, it means stimulating celebrating. It means having a maximum capacity for life and using that capacity to celebrate.

“cometh in the morning” — “morning” refers to the daylight, when everything clears up and you can see, and so on. The supergrace status is morning. The morning is that persistent, consistent staying with doctrine until you reach the high ground of supergrace.

Translation: “His anger lasts but a moment; but a lifetime of supergrace benefit results. Weeping shall pass in the night, but celebration happiness in the morning.”

This verses sets up a contrast between misery and happiness, supergrace and reversionism. David is occupied with the person of Christ. He has phenomenal blessings in his soul. He has lots of doctrine. Therefore, he wants you to know that not only does it mean occupation with the person of Christ, not only does he have a great relationship with the Lord and the capacity to love the Lord, but that same soul capacity goes in other directions in life. He has the capacity to love a woman, he has the capacity to stand by his friends and to demonstrate great friendship, he has the capacity for greatness, for rulership, he has the capacity to move through life and to see situations as they are and to make right decisions and to really get on top of life.

Verse 6 — he now mentions his prosperity. He is ready for prosperity. Once a person has the capacity of soul prosperity is meaningful. Without doctrine in the soul prosperity is miserable. “And in my prosperity” is a reference to the supergrace life, paragraph SG², to all of the blessings that were his.

“I said, I shall never be moved” — we have the niphal imperfect of the verb mot, and mot means to totter or to waver. “I shall not waver,” and then he adds “forever.” What a wonderful statement to be able to make in a period of prosperity under SG². It means, “All of my life in eternity I will never totter, I will never waver, I will never have a bad moment. And while in this life I’m going to have a few bad moments I am equipped for them, I have maximum doctrine in my soul. But forever and ever I will never waver.” So he has something that people lose track of, the only kind of security that counts. The only kind of security that really counts is the kind that you have as a member of the royal family of God, and you have security forever and ever and ever. This security is based upon the character of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. It is as perfect as God is perfect, it is a security you cannot lose. And that is what David means when he says, “I shall not totter forever.”

Verse 7 — “Lord, by they favour” — again we have ratzon which is “grace benefit.”

“thou hast made my mountain to stand strong” is literally, “you have caused to stand forever my mountain.” The mountain refers to the mountain on which that fort stood, the fort that was converted into a beautiful home. So “my mountain” is a reference to the dynasty of David, it is a reference to his home, it is a reference to the fact that even in life where everything is uncertain, in life with doctrine where you understand and appreciate the Lord you have perfect security. His security was not in the mountain but in the relationship of being on a mountain and having the Lord.

“strong” — literally, “to stand powerful.”

“thou didst not hide your face” — the word “hide” is the hiphil perfect of the verb sathar and it means to walk by someone and cover your face. In the ancient world covering the face was an idiom of disregard. The Lord had never disregarded David even though David had failed, He always stood by him in trouble.

Translation: “O Lord, by means of grace benefit you have caused my mountain to stand powerful; you did not cover your face when I was neutralised with trouble and fear [reversionism].”

Verse 8 — “I cried to thee, O Lord, and unto the Lord I made supplication.” The words “made supplication” is the only part that is incorrect in this verse, it is a hithpael imperfect of the verb chanan. The hithpael is both reflexive and passive and it should be translated, “I sought grace for myself.”

Principle: All of us when we have failed must seek grace for ourselves. That means rebound, get back in fellowship and stay there, get back with Bible doctrine. You have to do it for yourself, no one can do it for you. Here is the greatness of David, “I sought grace for myself.” He kept making those decisions to recover from reversionism — rebound decisions, decisions to take in doctrine — and he sought grace for himself.

Verse 9 — “What profit is there in my blood.” This is an idiom which means, “What advantage is there in killing me before my time.” I was about to go before my time, I would have missed this party and missed all of these great things. There is no profit in going before my time. So, “What profit in my blood if I had gone down to that pit [grave]” — dying before his time. “Dust can’t praise you.” As a dead and disciplined believer I can’t glorify you, I would be dust today. Principle: Your blessing glorifies God. God keeps you alive to bless you, to prosper you, to give you the benefits of your very own SG² paragraph. If God has to put you up against the firing squad of the sin unto death your dust doesn’t glorify Him.

“Shall it declare thy truth?” Literally, “Shall doctrine declare?” So we have the principle of the declaration of doctrine, the importance of Bible doctrine.

Verse 10 — “Hear, O Lord, and have mercy on me.” Now he is looking forward to the future. When he says “Hear” he is actually commanding the Lord to do so. He can do that because they have a personal relationship. The words “have mercy” — the qal imperfect of chanan means “be gracious” — “and become my helper.” David says “I need help as long as I live.”

Verse 11 — “Thou hast turned for me my mourning into dancing.” The word for “turn” here is haphak which means to convert something into something else. So he says literally, “You have converted my despondency, my discouragement, my failures, into dancing.” There was dancing and music in the castle. Not all the people in the palace are supergrace believers but they are blessed by association with supergrace.

“thou hast put off my sackcloth” — the sackcloth represents his disgrace, his reversionism, his discipline. Literally, “You have torn off my sackcloth.”

“and have clothed me with gladness” — the word “gladness” is simchah which is great happiness, the enjoyment of happiness, happiness as a state of soul, happiness with great enjoyment involved.

Translation: “You have converted my discipline into dancing; you have torn off my sackcloth of disgrace, and you have clothed me with grace happiness.”

Verse 12 — he concludes in the only possible way that any of us who have ever been blessed by the Lord can conclude. “To the end that my glory may sing praise to thee.” The word “glory” is not correct here. It is kabodh and it really means his honour. He is in a state of honour, he has been honoured by the Lord in all of these blessings — “To the end that my honourable estate might make melody to you.” I have to express what is in my soul.

“and not be silent” — the qal imperfect of damam. To pronounce the “m” you have to close the lips.

“O Lord, my Elohim, I will be caused to praise you forever,” literally. Jadah in the hiphil stem. The hiphil stem is causative active voice. What causes him to praise God forever? Doctrine in his soul!

In this paragraph of Hebrews 12, which is verses 7,8 we have an emphasis now on the recipients of divine discipline, or the dissertation on the concept of sonship.

Verse 7 is broken down into three separate sentences. In the KJV it seems to be all one sentence and a question at that. The first sentence begins with the phrase, “If ye endure chastening.” That isn’t exactly what it says in the Greek. We have E)ij paideion u(pomenete. The e)ij plus paideion should be translated “Because of corrective discipline” — the preposition e)ij plus the accusative of paideia. Remember that divine discipline is a part of living grace and the only hope for the believer to recover from reversionism. When a believer is in reversionism and will not heed the usual warning signals then the only hope is to shock him out of it. In a sense discipline is shock treatment in order to correct a difficult or a bad situation. Since corrective discipline is a part of God’s love for the believer it is to be endured. The principle is that discipline must be endured. So from the endurance comes the profit of discipline because believers who are not teachable by doctrine must be teachable by something stronger. It is always a sign of stupidity when before you understand a principle you have to be hurt, you have to undergo some kind of shock. That is the concept here. “Because of corrective discipline is the beginning of the first sentence in this verse.

Then comes the command “endure,” the present active imperative of the verb u(pomenw. The verb has been previously used in verse 3 with reference to the Lord Jesus Christ who endured opposition of sinners against Himself. Always in this passage when we have this verb it refers to using Bible doctrine which is resident in the soul. Many times in life it is very pleasant and very wonderful because of who and what Christ is and because of His provision of doctrine and because of blessing from paragraph SG². But many times life is unpleasant and difficult, and just as we can and do enjoy the pleasant times we are also to endure the bad times. Endurance means not to be discouraged, not to waver, not to fall apart, not to get into some negative attitude or some negative situation; in other words, to face adversity with calmness, stability, clarity of thought, with realisation that this is a part of the package, and God has designed provision for adversity just as He has for prosperity. Obviously, in prosperity the principle of doctrine is not always in focus but in time of adversity when things are going wrong, when there are troubles and pressures, disasters and catastrophes this is the time when we must call upon resident doctrine in the soul. If that doctrine is not resident, if there is not doctrine or very little, then obviously we fall apart. And in the hurting of falling apart, in the tremendous trauma, the shock of not being able to cope with the situation in life, this in itself reminds of us of who and what Christ is and what His plan is. It reminds us that we are on the wrong road and therefore we need to get back on the right road.

The present tense of u(pomenw is a tendencial present used for an action which is purposed though not actually occurring at the moment. In other words, the people to whom this was originally written were in reversionism, they were not therefore able to endure or to cope with any kind of disaster. The active voice: the believers are commanded to produce the action of the verb which is to endure. This can only be fulfilled by doctrine resident in the soul. It is impossible to endure such as the command is given unless there is maximum resident doctrine. The imperative mood speaks for itself. We actually have a command to all believers of the Church Age, to all members of the royal family of God. In verse 1 the believer is commanded to advance on the run with endurance. That means with the use of Bible doctrine in the soul. This can only be accomplished through resident Bible doctrine. There is no other way to accomplish it, no other way to do it. Sometimes it takes divine discipline to motivate the believer toward consistent positive volition necessary for the advance. And, therefore, because of corrective discipline, advance; because of corrective discipline, recognise what is really important; because of corrective discipline, never let a day go by without the intake of Bible doctrine, for it is through Bible doctrine that we actually have individual and collective solutions to everything in life — personal solutions for you as a member of the royal family and solutions to every problem our nation faces as well as the world itself.

The first sentence, then, is a very short one — “Because of corrective discipline, endure.” Endurance, again, is defined in terms of doctrine resident in the soul. The utilisation of resident doctrine is endurance for hard times.

The second sentence begins with God Himself — O( qeoj, “The God,” referring to God the Father who is the author of the plan of grace. When we are on track discipline is not necessary, when we are off track this is that warning beep that tells us we are off track and that we are going in the wrong direction. So operation grace, planned in eternity past, is designed for each one of us. It demands at this stage that we endure whenever there are problems or adversities or pressures. “The God,” the one who has provided for adversity.”

“dealeth” — present passive indicative from prosferw. When you say “deal” in the English language you are talking about all kinds of things. You are talking about business deals, dealing cards, some adversity in life called “a bad deal,” or a “good deal.” Here it doesn’t mean to deal, it means to bring, to offer, to present an offering, to bring someone to someone. However, these are all active voice meanings. The passive voice has its own meaning in this verb is to meet with or to deal with. The present tense is the static present for a condition which perpetually exists. God perpetually meets with us as with sons. We are always His children. He meets with us as sons. The situation is status quo forever, nothing can ever change it. Therefore He meets with us or deals with us as sons, no matter how difficult the situation may be in discipline. This passive voice has the deponent concept: passive in form but active in meaning. God produces the action of the verb, He deals with us as with members of the royal family of God. The indicative mood is declarative, it views the action of the verb from the standpoint of dogmatic and doctrinal reality.

“as with sons” — we have had this phraseology in verse 5, “doctrine which teaches you as sons.” Now in verse 7: “The God deals with you as with sons.” Note the contrast. God deals indirectly with the believer through doctrinal teaching but directly through divine discipline. You have the indirect and therefore the blessing type approach, but He deals directly with you when it comes to discipline. Now, why this contrast? When God deals with you indirectly it means that you are on the blessing side of things. The indirect dealing has to do with the fact that God deals with you through a pastor-teacher. There is also a very direct method and that is the method of cursing. If you go negative toward doctrine, and if you reject your pastor-teacher and his ministry, then God will deal with you directly. So it is better under the plan of God on earth to be under the indirect concept than the direct concept. It also should be a reminder of something else: God has not appointed the pastor or any believer to be your disciplinarian. “The God deals with you as sons” is the second sentence in this verse.

the third sentence says: the Greek tij gar is used for an interrogative sense and it is correctly translated. “For what son” “Son” is the nominative singular u(ioj and it is used in the sense of an adult son for a permanent relationship here, and it is actually the predicate nominative — “For what one is a son” is the best translation. We have the verb to be, the present active indicative of the verb e)imi.

“whom” — the accusative masculine singular of the relative pronoun o(j; “the Father” — the nominative singular of pathr, minus the definite article. It is translated because of convenience of smooth English but there is no definite article but there is no definite article. However, in the Koine Greek the absence of the definite article is really the same as the use of our definite article. We say “the Father” to emphasise the noun; they leave out the definite article to do the same thing. So the absence of the definite article places a qualitative emphasis on the substantive rather than identification. Therefore, to correctly translate this we have to include the definite article which the Greeks leave out. It is a reference to God the Father.

“chasteneth not” — the present active indicative of the verb paideuw plus the negative o)uk, and it means, “For what one [member of the royal family] is a son whom the Father does not discipline.” The present tense is a customary present, it indicates that God the Father, whenever He deals with us directly in this dispensation, deals with us by spanking us. And when He deals with us indirectly, the blessing route, He does so through the communication of the Word of God through pastor-teachers. The active voice: the Father produces the action. The indicative mood in dictates the doctrinal reality of the principle.

Here are the three sentences in this one verse: a) “Because of corrective discipline, endure.” The first sentence is a command. b) The second sentence is an explanation: “For God deals with you as sons.” c) The third sentence is a question: “For what one is a son whom the Father does not discipline.”

Verse 8 — “But.” We have a particle here, de, which connects one clause with another where some contrast is intended.

“if” — we have now a conditional particle which introduces a first class condition, e)i. And whatever follows is either true, reality, or a supposes. Here we have a first class condition of supposition. The supposition illustrates the point of the previous verse — “But if.”

“ye be” is “you are” — present active indicative of e)imi; “without chastisement” — the adverb xwrij, used here as an improper preposition. With the genitive of paideia means “without discipline” or “without corrective discipline.” We are to understand, of course, that all discipline is designed to be a blessing.

“whereof” — the genitive singular from the relative pronoun “which” — “of which”; “all” — and this nominative masculine plural of paj refers to all members of the royal family of God.

“all” — not “all of”, we have a different verb here, the perfect active indicative of ginomai which means to become, it is distinguished from e)imi in this way. Here we have the perfect tense which is a consummative perfect indicating a completed action but emphasises the process in which the action was completed. The active voice: all members of the royal family are disciplined, either for carnality or reversionism. The indicative mood is declarative for a doctrinal and dogmatic reality. It is translated, “But if you are without discipline of which all believers have become.”

“partakers” — better yet, “participaters, the predicate nominative plural of metoxoj. It means a partner or a participator. Here is the supposition used to illustrate the principle of the previous verse. If you are without discipline then you don’t have a heavenly Father, because we all sin, we all fail. We get into disaster situations, we are spanked, we are hurt.

Following the supposition that you do not get discipline when you are out of line, it also follows immediately that you are a bastard. That is what is coming up.

“then you are” — present active indicative of e)imi, and this is an aoristic present for punctiliar action in present time. It is used to draw a momentary conclusion from the first class condition of supposition to illustrate the point. All believers should like discipline, it indicates that they are members of the royal family of God. So when a parent spanks a child it is comforting to know “that’s my father, he is the one who spanks me and because he is my father he does this.”

“bastards” is in the plural. It is the nominative plural of noqoj. It does mean “bastard,” it also means spurious. it has another meaning too — illegitimate. “Bastards” is the obvious use here because we are talking about family relationship. The word is used to illustrate, it is not used for the reality. In other words, you are not really being called “bastard” you are being comforted by the doctrine of bastardship. You are not a bastard, that is why you are going to get spanked when you are out of line. There are no bastards in the family of God.

“and not sons, kai o)uk u(ioi as translated in the KJV.

Translation: “But if you are without discipline, of which all believers have become participators, then you are bastards, and not sons.”

Then we will go on to see an illustration from establishment in verses 9 and 10. The laws of divine establishment in every phase have disciplinary or punitive activity.

The laws of divine establishment

Definition: The laws for the orderly function and survival of the human race during human history, or the period of the angelic conflict. These laws operate from the fall of man to the second advent of Jesus Christ, they apply to believer and unbeliever alike. They provide blessing and protection of the human race.

The first of these laws is volition. Here we have the principle of human freedom. Free will guarantees two things, both privacy and human freedom. This freedom of choice and the right to live gives the human race the right to make decisions, the right too pursue a course of action, called the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, provided of course that it does not violate criminal or common law. While there are variations in human abilities — some inherent and some acquired — all members of the human race are free to believe in or to reject Jesus Christ as saviour. Freedom is the basis for true evangelism. Volition is the issue. Man was created to resolve the angelic conflict and therefore he was given volition. Here is the whole basis of divine discipline. Every time you sin it is from the area of weakness of your old sin nature, but it involves volition. All sins hook up volition with the old sin nature, and even when you don’t know it is a sin you still wanted to do it so it is a sin whether you know it is a sin or not. Ignorance is no excuse because you still wanted to do it. Therefore you are guilty. The point is that since of your own free will you broke out into some kind of sin then that free will is disciplined by God in order that there will be some restraint and you will not be as inclined to do that the next time. So we have immediately the concept of divine discipline in divine institution #1.

In divine institution #2 we have marriage which is the basis for right man/right woman relationship, marriage being the framework for protection for category #2 love, it forms the basis for stability in society. Again, whenever there is any failure in this area there is also the natural laws. Without even realising it there are tremendous laws of unhappiness because of failure in this area.

The same thing is true in the family, divine institution #3. Physical birth of mankind finds the baby helpless and he has to be provided for, he has to have protection, training, and again we have parental authority.

In each one of these relationships notice the principle of authority. Divine institution #1: volition is the authority; divine institution #2: the man is the authority; divine instruction #3: the parents are the authority. When you violate your own volition through the old sin nature there is discipline. When the woman disobeys the man there is unhappiness in the home. When the children disobey the parents, likewise. So that every system of discipline has the principle of recognition of authority, and when you fail to recognise that authority then you suffer. That authority disciplines you, or you are disciplined by rejection of that authority.

On a greater scale this is amplified in divine institution #4 or nationalism. Under this divine institution we have a number of areas of discipline in life and also penalties in which there is punitive action for failure to recognise authority. Authority in a national entity is vested under its system of government in leadership. Leadership is clearly defined in a monarchy, less clearly defined in a representative government or democracy. This authority is broken down into local government, national government, and so on. But the leadership is also under authority, the authority of the laws of the land. So the laws of the land become the ultimate authority because whether you have leadership or simply citizens all are under the law of the land.

The passage here has a great deal to do with the subject of capacity for life and yet very few people seem to realise it. It has as its basic background what we have been studying — blessing in life and capacity of life based upon respect for authority. Principle: God’s Word teaches that the soul is designed to run on the system of discipline. Principle: Lack of respect for authority not only destroys capacity for life but great capacity for happiness. The passage we have been studying deals with the concept of divine discipline. We have seen divine discipline as it relates to reversionism, we have studied the doctrine of divine discipline, revised. We have studied the doctrine of the sin unto death, revised. We have studied the recovery from reversionism from Psalm 30. And now again as we resume with our passage by way of background we are going to have an illustration from establishment. We have studied the relationship between the laws of establishment and the principles of authority. Now by way of anticipation of verse 9 it is imperative to understand a principle because fundamentalists are famous for ignoring this principle. Every “fundy” is a law unto himself and is famous for having no respect for authority. They are famous for giving their pastors a hard time.

Children occasionally think or sometimes think that their parents are unfair. That is perfectly normal. Children are often aided and abetted in thinking that way. And the child who constantly thinks that his parent is unfair because he has disciplined him, even when the parent is unfair, is a child who is not going to have a very happy life. The reason is that it always starts in the home, and it is inevitable that children who have flaunted their parents’ authority, who have resented their parents’ authority, who have worked around their parents’ authority by being sneaky and dishonest, will inevitably grow up to reject every authority in life. As a result they are tragic, tragic cases. And many of the problems in life, outside of the old sin nature itself, are based upon lack of self-discipline on the part of the individual, and with that lack of self-discipline failure to respect any type of authority.

Definition of arrogance: Arrogance is the rejection of every authority but your own. Humility is respect for authority, even though you may think the person as being gross, unfair, and a jackass.

Greatness emerges from the cocoon of authority. It starts with the authority of the parents. And not only greatness but just general happiness in life and ability to cope. It goes to academics, it goes to authority in business, it goes to authority of the law, it involves the authority of groups in any kind of a group situation. Whether it is society or whether it is any activity in life there is some type of authority. It involves the military concept, it involves relationships. There is authority in wisdom, in government, local government. You meet these authorities at different points and you either emerge a great person or you emerge a person who will never be happy, who will be psychotic, neurotic, miserable, or will come to a tragic end because of rejection of authority. You emerge one or the other, and this is true of all people. You add to this the spiritual principles, the authority of the Word of God, the authority of the pastor-teacher, and you have either a reversionist or a person who is going to the high ground of supergrace. Inevitably, God has set up every system of authority. While you might not like the authority but you recognise God’s sovereignty and His right to set up authority. You recognise His fairness because He is perfect righteousness and perfect justice. You know that He loves you. You recognise the principle that you are going to be with Him forever and that time is a small drop in the bucket, and that He is the ultimate in wisdom with His omniscience, and that He is able to inspect at all times and keep track with His omnipresence, and that He has the ability to back His authorities in any field of life, and that He is totally stable because of His immutability, and that all the authorities that He sets up are based upon His veracity and His integrity. It is inevitable that God must set up systems of authority in life or the human race would self-destruct. There is no question about the fact that each member of the human race with his old sin nature is a self-destructing potential and the only thing that keeps us from self-destruction are the authorities in life. These authorities must inevitably be for the entire human race because God is fair, therefore some of these authorities are related to divine establishment and some of these authorities are related to spiritual establishment because the royal family of God is a special entity, it is, as it were, an invader entity into the devil’s world.

For all of us in life, to enjoy life, to have capacity for life, to become just simply mature individuals, there must be authority. Those who resist it and those who reject it are arrogant, and their arrogance will start in childhood when they get away with it. Impudence becomes arrogance, arrogance becomes instability, and when you are a law unto yourself there is no way that you can survive the traumatic experiences in your soul and you will make your own misery as long as you live. Then add to that everything that we have been studying about reversionism and you can see the awful mess that we face in this life. No person has naturally thoughtfulness . Thoughtfulness is a matter of training, thoughtfulness comes with respect for authority, thoughtfulness is something no one is born with. Babies are not thoughtful, children are not thoughtful, and if they are not properly trained and not properly disciplined, they grow up as thoughtless creatures and thoughtless creatures are a thorn in the side of everyone in their periphery in society. They are not respected, they are despised, and yet, on the other hand, just thoughtfulness in little things become such a tremendous thing.

Verse 9 — “Furthermore” — the adverb e)ita used as a transitional point. The best translation is “another point.”

“we have had fathers” — this is the law of establishment. The imperfect active indicative of e)xw means to have an to hold. The imperfect tense is the customary imperfect which denotes what regularly occurred in past time. Therefore it is going to be translated “we used to have.” “We used to have parents” — the active voice: the human race produces the action of the verb under the laws of divine establishment. The indicative mood is declarative for the reality of divine institution #3. The word “fathers” is the accusative plural of pathr, and in the accusative in the plural pathr does not refer to fathers as translated, it means “parents.” You have to remember that whether it is a mother or a father or both, they represent authority. Mother may not be able to cope with a big overgrown oaf by boxing his ears but by the time he is big and old overgrown he should have wonderful respect for his mother that it would never occur to him that she would ever have to do anything but softly explain to do something and he is most happy to oblige his mother. And the little snotty-faced girl who runs down her mother is just as bad. Mother is still mother and should never be a source of embarrassment but a source of thankfulness that God has provided this authority for everyone. As goes childhood, so goes adulthood.

“of our flesh” — this is a descriptive genitive of sarc and this is an idiom. Sarc plus e)gw together mean “human.” We have a personal pronoun in the genitive plural, we have a descriptive genitive of sarc, and it should be translated with pathr, “our human parents.” The only thing that offsets the trends set up in childhood is Bible doctrine resident in the soul.

“which corrected us” — we have the accusative plural of paideuthj which is an adverbial accusative of manner, and that means it should be translated, “for discipline.” What are parents for? For discipline, for training. They are their only hope for reaching maturity and joining the human race with some kind of capacity for life. “Another point, we used to have our own human parents for discipline.”

“and we gave them reverence” — this should be “and we respected them.” Children are not required to bow to their parents and worship them, so the KJV version is incorrect. We have the imperfect middle indicative of e)ntrepw. The active voice of e)ntrepw means to make someone ashamed of themselves. The passive voice of e)ntrepw means to put to shame. The middle voice means to turn toward someone with respect, to regard someone with respect. The imperfect tense is the customary imperfect for what ordinarily occurred in past time. The middle voice: the subject participates in the results of the action, that is, benefit being disciplined, trained and corrected. The indicative mood is the reality of the function of divine institution #3, good discipline from parents. Principle: Respect for authority is the basis for learning from discipline. Furthermore, discipline develops respect for authority.

The believer can respect God’s authority in two ways: direct or indirect. God can deal with us indirectly. That means through a pastor-teacher communicating doctrine in a local church. The result of the indirect system is blessing for the believer. Or He can deal with the believer directly and that means discipline. So the difference between discipline and blessing is whether God has to deal with you directly or indirectly. Illustration: A parent speaks to his child and the child obeys. That would be the indirect method. Or, a parent speaks to the child and the child disobeys so he spanks the child. That is the direct method. Instead of speaking to the soul, indirect, he has to go to the gluteus maximus direct, and make it hurt. The hurting on one end stimulates the other end to begin to understand life. You can respect God’s authority in two ways. He can respect God’s authority and get blessing by respecting Bible doctrine and putting yourself under your pastor-teacher and taking it in daily. Or you can respect God for His tremendous ability to make you hurt in such subtle ways, in such tremendous ways. God has the phenomenal ability to know just exactly what hurts you the most and when and how to apply it under circumstances that are only totally fair. So the believer can respect God’s authority in two ways, from Bible doctrine or from discipline. And he has a choice!

“much rather” — this is the beginning of the application, polu mallon is an idiom, it is used for the application of a principle of establishment to the spiritual realm, and “much rather” is not the best translation and doesn’t even come close. Polu means “much”; mallon means “rather,” but it is an idiom which means “to a greater degree.” If our parents can get us straightened out for life by using their authority properly and we respond to the authority of our parents, how much to a greater degree can God do the same thing as the perfect parent?

“shall we not be in subjection” — the future passive indicative of u(potassw plus the negative. Tassw means to be in ranks; u(po means to be under the command of someone as you are in ranks. It was a military term which eventually came to me to become subordinate or to obey. The future tense is the imperative future expressing a command. Since a command involves futurity this becomes a very neat Greek idiom. While this idiom is also found in the Hebrew it occurs in the Attic Greek as well. The passive voice: the subjects becomes subordinated, therefore obeys. The indicative mood: reality of the command of subordination to God the Father and His perfect plan, operation grace. The future imperative says that whether you know it or not or whether you like it or not you are under God’s authority. And you have a choice. You can either be under His indirect authority through a pastor-teacher communicating doctrine to you, and therefore have great blessing. Or you can be under His direct authority and spend a long life in great misery — “to a greater degree you will obey” is the best way to translate the future imperative.

“to the Father” — the dative of indirect object and it refers to the first person of the Trinity, God the Father, pathr again. The dative of indirect object indicates the one in whose interest the obedience is performed. It is in God’s interest to have His royal family under His authority. Why? Because we are in the devil’s world, we are in hostile territory. We are up against greater power than we can handle. We can’t cope with the tremendous genius and power of Satan and the millions of demons under his command. We are incapable of handling that. Therefore, we must be under His authority and under His command. He provides, then, the support to handle the situation.

It is interesting to note here that He is called “the Father of spirits,” the genitive plural of pneuma. Why? Pneuma refers to the human spirit. Why isn’t it “Father of souls”? Because God controls the unbeliever through the laws of establishment and He is the Father of their souls, but He controls the believer by the spirit which is given to the believer at the point of salvation and controls him by doctrine. The believer is both under establishment and doctrine, anything of the Word of God. So He is called “the Father,” but not “of spirits.” The definite article is used as a possessive pronoun and it is “the Father of our spirits.” It is a reference to the human spirit acquired at salvation and used as a storage place for doctrine, therefore providing a principle that our capacity for life comes from resident doctrine in the soul and the spirit.

“and live” — the future active indicative of the verb zaw. The future tense this time is a progressive future, it denotes the continuation of something in future time. The active voice: the reversionistic believer learns from divine discipline to become subordinate to the Father and continue to live. But it also means that the supergrace believer learns from doctrine and has capacity for life. The indicative mood is declarative for the reality of our life in time and the importance of authority in our life in time. And so it should be translated “and continue living.”

Translation: “Another point, we used to have our human parents for corrective discipline [when we were young], and we respected them: to a greater degree you will become subordinate to the Father of our spirits, and continue living.”

Principles

1. The reversionistic believer subordinates himself to God the Father by reversion recovery. But if he doesn’t recover from reversionism, then he will live a long life of misery. God will spank him.

2. Reversion recovery includes not only rebound but daily decisions with regard to Bible doctrine plus the avoidance of the former distractions which kept the believer away from doctrine.

3. Reversion recovery means the avoidance of the sin unto death or dying discipline. It means continuation in time until the believer has reached the high ground of supergrace status.

4. It means the believer can seize and hold by what he has developed on his way up. And he crosses that high golden bridge of dying grace, he transfers from time to eternity, he salutes his SG³ on one end of the bridge and embraces it on the other.

Since we have an analogy set up between divine institution #3 and God’s relationship with us it is continued in one more verse.

Verse 10 — we have an expanded, explanatory epexegetical particle gar. This is the great connective link which so often indicates the whole perspective of the passage — “For they”, the nominative plural of the definite article followed by the word “verily” which is simply the affirmative particle men . It is used here in the sense of the Attic Greek, it is simply a particle to point out something and it should be translated “on the one hand.” “For they on the one hand.” This introduces a concessive clause which will be followed by another clause with an adversative particle. This is strictly Classical Greek.

“for a few days” — we have a prepositional phrase, proj plus the accusative of two words, o)ligoj and h(mera. And while it is literally, “for a few days” it is actually translated “for a short time.” It is an idiom. “For they on the one hand,” referring it back to parents, “for a short time” — childhood is short. This is the time when the parents discipline the children.

“chastened” — the imperfect active indicative of paideuw meaning to educate, to train, or to discipline. The customary imperfect denotes what occurred in the past time on a regular basis. The active voice: parents produce the action of the verb under divine institution #3. The indicative mood is declarative indicating the reality of the fact that parents discipline children. “For they on the one hand disciplined us for a short time.”

The next phrase is not correct as it is translated in the King James version — “after their own pleasure.” We have kata to dokoun, a prepositional phrase. Kata is the preposition, to is the definite article in the accusative singular neuter. It is part of an idiom and it is probably best translated “best.” The accusative singular present active participle of the verb dokew comes next. And with this we also have the dative plural of the intensive pronoun a)utoj. Again, we are looking at an Attic Greek idiom. It should be translated, “according to what seemed best to them.” In other words, parents do the best they can. Most parents try to do right by their children, according to the standards of the conscience of their souls.

Remember that God is our perfect parent and this explains the corrective discipline toward reversionism. Whenever God spanks it is perfect. When anyone gets in the way of God’s discipline it is perfect what happens. So we have the principle, then, coming up on the other side of the analogy. The analogy is set up and divided by the adversative particle de, but de is used in connection with the particle men, and men de means on the one hand and on the other hand — “but he on the other hand,” referring to God. The contrast is between the human thinking of parents and the perfect omniscience of our Father, the first person of the Trinity. The standards by which the royal family is corrected and disciplined are perfect standards from God. Now God the Father concentrates on you, you are His child.

“for our profit” — here is one of the things that must be remembered about the hard knocks of life. All tough times in life are designed for your profit. Profit isn’t making money, profit is being blessed and being trained by discipline — e)pi plus the accusative singular of the present active participle sumferw. When the participle is not accompanied by a noun in a prepositional phrase it often functions as a substantive. The definite article is used here as a possessive pronoun. The preposition e)pi plus the accusative emphasises direction, and the direction is “our profit.” Bringing out the best in divine institution #3, the parents training the children, this becomes an analogy to something that is perfect, the Father’s discipline of His children, each one of us. “For our profit” is the objective of discipline. Principle: Divine discipline is designed for profit and the blessing of the royal family in time. There is not discipline in heaven, all discipline is confined to time.

“that we might be partakers” — we have another prepositional phrase, e)ij plus the aorist active infinitive of metalambanw. The infinitive is the object of the preposition and that indicates a purpose prepositional clause. The aorist tense is a culminative aorist, it views the event of profiting from discipline in its entirety but emphasises the existing results. The result of discipline is to turn us toward doctrine and move us toward SG² and SG³. The active voice: the believer who profits from discipline to the point of reversion recovery produces the action of the verb. The infinitive with the preposition indicates purpose. It should be translated, “in order that we might receive a share.”

“of his holiness” — we have both the objective and descriptive genitive of the noun a(giothj plus the possessive genitive singular of the intensive pronoun a)utoj emphasising both the identity of God the Father and the source of every blessing in life.

Translation: “For they [parents] on the one hand disciplined us for a short time according to what seemed best to them; but he [God the Father] on the other hand disciplines us for our profit, in order that we might receive a share of his holiness.”

Summary

1. The share of God’s holiness includes the road to glory — supergrace, dying grace, surpassing grace. Every blessing that you will ever have is courtesy of divine discipline, something that woke you up and shocked you into realising that there is only one way to live in this life and that is to take in doctrine today, tomorrow, the next day, the next and the next. God is perfect in His wisdom, perfect in His discipline, and His wisdom and His discipline meet at a point to bring us back into line, to keep us on the road to glory, and the road to glory is filled with phenomenal blessing.

2. God the Father is perfect, therefore the happiness He provides is perfect, it is His own.

3. God the Father is perfect, His blessings for you are perfect. He has designed for you personally a special paragraph SG² for blessing in time, a special blessing SG³ for blessing in eternity. He is perfect, His blessings for you are perfect. How does He steer you to them? You have to stay positive toward doctrine and discipline does that. With discipline you soon learn it just doesn’t pay to get off the road. So you owe a lot to the Father’s perfect discipline.

4. Discipline is a source of blessing and a source of glorifying God. Grace has found a way to bless a believer and at the same time to glorify God in time. We receive blessing in time God receives glory in being able to give us that blessing.

5. This is called “sharing in God’s holiness.” Sharing in the holiness of God is receiving blessing from God on the basis of doctrine resident in the soul.

.Verse 11 — the words “now” and “but” are a Greek Classical system, the use of particles men and de. It is traditionally translated “on the one hand; on the other hand.” The words “no chastening” is wrong. We have the nominative feminine singular of paj plus paideia meaning “all discipline” rather than “no chastening.” On the one hand all discipline” is the correct translation.

“for the present” is also Classical or Attic Greek. It is an idiom, it includes a preposition, paj, plus the present active participle of pareimi. Pareimi means to be present, but here the participle is ascriptive, used as a substantive, and it should be translated, “On the one hand all discipline for the present” or “while in progress.”

“seemeth” is the present active indicative from dokew plus the negative o)uk. Dokew is used here for subjective thinking. This conforms with the intransitive use of the verb, namely to seem or to appear. The present tense is a customary present for what may be reasonably expected to occur. When you are under divine discipline you can expect to be uncomfortable, miserable. The active voice: all discipline produces this comfort. The indicative mood is declarative for the reality of unpleasantness, misery, under conditions of divine discipline.

Next we have the present active indicative of e)imi. This is an infinitive of result. The present tense is linear aktionsart, indicating that this is always true. And we have the word “joyous” which is the objective genitive singular of xara and means an occasion for happiness. With the negative it is not an occasion for happiness. The problem here is that the original translator tried to make the passage conform to the Koine Greek, but this is strictly a Attic Greek passage. The Attic or Classical Greek takes the negative o)uk and puts it with the noun xara to imply unhappiness. Hence, good English demands the following translation: “On the one hand all discipline while in progress appears to be not an occasion for happiness.”

“but” — the strong adversative conjunction a)lla setting up a definite contrast; “grievous” — luph, an objective as well as a descriptive genitive singular and it should be translated “but an occasion for sorrow.” While in the process divine discipline cannot be pleasant. As long as God is perfect the discipline is perfect. God knows exactly how to discipline every believer. Effectiveness means that discipline will hurt. So the believer under discipline has sorrow, grief, frustration, sadness, so that discipline will be beneficial to that member of the royal family, and accomplishes purpose, the

purpose being to recover from carnality by rebound or to recover from reversionism by rebound and changing the attitude toward doctrine.

The word “nevertheless” is the particle de used in the Classical Greek style for “on the other hand.”

So far we have, “On the one hand all discipline while in progress appears to be an occasion not for happiness, but an occasion for sorrow; on the other hand, however...”

“afterward” — here we have an adverb, u(steron, which refers to reversion recovery, including rebound, repentance, and the consistent function of GAP.

“it yieldeth” — present active indicative of a)podidomi. It means to pay back with interest. The interest includes the special blessings of paragraph SG² and SG³. The verb also means to refund. But here it means to pay back with interest. The interest is the blessing part that results from responding to discipline and authority. The present tense of a)podidomi is the aoristic present, punctiliar action in present time. It expresses the idea of a present fact without regard to its progress. It is used here to state a point of doctrine related to reversion recovery. The active voice: divine discipline when alerting the believer to his true condition of reversionism refunds, pays back with interest, in terms of grace blessing. The grace blessing means that by staying with the recovery system you are going to follow the colours to the high ground of SG². The interest includes the spiritual blessings of occupation with Christ, doctrine resident in the soul to handle any adversity in life, all of the concepts of sharing God’s happiness. The second area are the temporal blessings — promotion, success, great wealth, prosperity, etc. The third area is dying blessing. This is the interest that comes from responding to discipline, learning from discipline, recovering from reversionism. The active voice: divine discipline produces the action. The indicative mood is the dogmatic reality of the doctrine.

“the peaceable fruit” — the accusative singular direct object from the adjective e)irhnikoj which means “prosperous.” The adjective connotes that which relates to prosperity or welfare or harmony. The word for “fruit” is the accusative singular direct object karpoj. While it does mean fruit it also means profit or advantage. Here it means the prosperous gain or advantage “of righteousness” — the ablative singular of source from dikaiosunh which refers to the righteousness involved in the supergrace status and it should be translated “prosperous gain [or advantage] from righteousness.” This describes seizing and holding the high ground of the supergrace life. So the prosperous gain from righteousness includes the blessings of paragraph SG², dying grace, and the blessings of paragraph SG³. “Righteousness” or dikaiosunh here describes the believer in supergrace status.

“unto them” is a dative plural of the definite article and it is used as a demonstrative pronoun emphasising that the believer recovering from reversionism is in the sphere of advantage.

“which are exercised” — perfect passive participle of gumnazw which means to train, to exercise, and obviously any type of beneficial exercise hurts while you are doing it or it is not benefiting you. For people who exercise all of their lives the benefits are in the self-discipline of soul, the good health, the posture, all of which contribute to good concentration under difficult periods and times. The perfect tense is the intensive perfect emphasising a past completed action and existing results. The existing results are being training by divine discipline. Discipline hurts; exercise hurts. Discipline produces benefits; exercise produces benefits. When you are under divine discipline you hurt, but if you learn from being hurt it is beneficial. Once we focus our attention on God and on the principle of the daily intake of doctrine we benefit by it just as a person who works out consistently benefits by the physical exercise. The passive voice: the believer receives the action of the verb. The participle is circumstantial. It should be translated, “to those who have been trained thereby.”

“thereby” is dia plus the genitive of the intensive pronoun a)utoj, and it doesn’t mean “thereby,” it means “by it” or “through it,” i.e. by divine discipline.

Translation: “On the one hand all discipline while in progress appears to be an occasion not for happiness, but for sorrow; on the other hand afterward it pays back with interest prosperous gains [supergrace blessings] from righteousness [supergrace status] to those who are trained by it.”

The benefits from divine discipline

1. When you are under divine discipline you have the encouragement of knowing that you belong to God. It is a sign of sonship, it is encouragement in the field of eternal security. God only spanks His own children.

2. It is a sign of reversionism, it is a warning to you as a believer, as a child of God, that you are off the royal road to glory. So God graciously warns His children by discipline.

3. Discipline is a teacher and a corrector. The growing believer is taught and corrected indirectly by Bible teaching. The reversionist is taught and corrected directly by discipline.

4. A motivator of positive volition toward Bible doctrine. It motivates to get positive toward doctrine.

5. It is the hard way of attaining spiritual maturity.

Verses 12 and 13 start a new paragraph where we have the result of divine discipline amplified. Reversion recovery is the basic result of divine discipline just as reversion recovery is the purpose for divine discipline.

Verse 12 — we have a quotation from Isaiah 35:3. It begins with the word “wherefore,” an inferential conjunction dio. In modern English inferentials are usually translated “therefore.” This is called a self-evident inferential conjunction. “Therefore” — in other words, we have learned the lessons of the previous paragraph, verses 10, 11. Since we have learned that discipline hurts and since we have begun to understand the five different benefits of divine discipline — “therefore,” and inferential which means “Therefore, get with it.” That means recover yourself, rebound, turn positive, start being consistent in taking in the Word of God.

“lift up” — the hands hanging down means a shot-down person. The command is an aorist active imperative from a)norqow which means to rebuild or to restore, to strengthen, to restore to straightness. “Therefore restore.” The aorist tense is a constative aorist, it contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety regardless of how long it takes to fulfil it. This includes rebound plus repentance plus GAPing it daily, and it gathers it up into a single whole, going from whatever stage of reversionism to whatever stage of maturity or supergrace. It takes the occurrence of reversion recovery and regardless of its extent or duration gathers it into a single whole. The active voice: the reversionist under divine discipline produces the action of the verb. The imperative mood is a command — “Therefore restore to power.” It doesn’t mean lift up at all.

“hands which hang down” are weak hands, so to restore the hands to power means to build up their strength. This involves several things. It involves repentance, if you understand what repentance means. It means a change of mind, it does not mean to feel sorry for sin. So we have repentance or changing the mind toward Bible doctrine, we have the rebound technique involved, we have positive daily decisions necessary for the daily function of GAP under the authority and leadership of the right pastor and being consistent.

“hands” — the accusative plural direct object from xeir. The hands are said to be “hanging down” — the perfect passive participle of pariemi which means to be weakened, listless, or useless. The problem is that hands that are attached to weak arms, weak chest, weak shoulders, and so on, are useless. The point is that the hand has to be attached to something that has some strength, and hands that hang down are simply weak. Hands hanging down means literally, “listless hands.” The perfect passive participle is used in the sense of an adjective. This is the adjectival use of the participle by which is qualifies or limits a noun. Almost any hand can pick up a bottle, even a listless hand. But progressively it gets more and more difficult to pick up something and the point is that you have to have something between the hand and the body to do this. A listless hand is a weak hand and a weak hand means no exercise. No exercise means weakness. The members of the royal family are to be spiritually strong. and spiritual strength comes from muscle in the soul. Muscle in the soul is Bible doctrine in the soul. To restore to power the listless hands means to start taking in doctrine today, tomorrow, the next day, and the next, and so on. Keep doing it. You don’t build up your strength by saying you are going to get in shape and then work out for two days and quit. You work out consistently. That is the way you restore strength. You restore strength in the spiritual realm by your consistence in the intake of Bible doctrine. There is no substitute for consistency.

The listless hands might be compared to the first four stages of reversionism. Stage one is the reaction stage, and in the reaction stage you have such things as discouragement, boredom, disillusion, loneliness, self-pity, frustration, mental attitude sins, distractions, mental illness, drug addiction, and so on. The second stage which comes out of this is the frantic search for happiness. The third stage, operation boomerang, the intensification of the reaction by frantic search for happiness. The fourth stage is emotional revolt of the soul.

“and the feeble knees” — this refers to the next four stages of reversionism. The word for “feeble” is the perfect passive participle from paraluw which means to weaken, to disable. Paraluw is used as an adjective and it should be translated “disabled.”

“the knees” — the accusative plural gonu. The knees are very strong and a very key part of the anatomy in weightlifting, in any type of running sport, they are extremely important. So feeble knees refers to another phase of reversionism — negative volition toward doctrine, the opening of the mataiothj, the blackout of the soul, the scar tissue of the soul, and reverse process reversionism. So that in this verse we have a command to pull out of reversionism.

Translation: “Therefore restore to power the listless hands and the disabled knees.”

Summary

1. Obviously this is a command to reversion recovery.

2. Reversion recovery begins the process of moving toward the high ground of supergrace.

3. Note the fact that the disabled knees keep the believer from advancing on the run (s commanded in the first part of the chapter) to the high ground, while the listless hands connote failure in such fields as production or the utilisation of doctrine.

4. Reversionism hinders reaching our basic tactical objective of phase two which is the high ground — supergrace, maturity. This is why we remain in this life in order to have a share in the great strategic victory of our Lord seated at the right hand of the Father.

Verse 13 — the word “and” is simply the connective use of the conjunction kai, introducing a quotation from Proverbs 24:6, but a Septuagint quotation not taken from the Hebrew; “make” — the present active imperative of poiew is a little better translated “be making.” The present tense is a tendencial present, it is used for an action which is demanded but not actually taking place at the moment in Jerusalem in the original address of this passage. The active voice: the believer in reversion recovery produces the action of the verb. Making straight paths means to recover from reversionism and start moving toward the first main objective in the Christian way of life — to reach the high ground of supergrace which is tantamount to maturity. The imperative mood is a command.

“straight paths” — the accusative plural direct object from troixia which means a wheel track. With it is the adjective o)rqoj which means straight, orthodoxy, and so on. “Be making straight tracks.” Actually the tracks are there and it means to follow the tracks, stay on the tracks. This is an idiom for staying on the tracks. You don’t make tracks, they are there, the tracks lead to the high ground of supergrace, and you just get on the track and stay. The track refers to GAP, the daily intake of Bible doctrine.

“for your feet” — the feet are used as a metonym (where you use one word for another) for the volition of the believer. There must be consistent positive volition if you are going to recover and if you are going to fulfil the first objective. So attitude toward Bible teaching is always the issue for each member of the royal family of God as long as he is in time. “And be making straight tracks by means of your feet.”

The word “lest” is the conjunction i(na introducing a final clause. A final clause in the Greek indicates purpose or objective or goal. We also have a negative mh with it and so it is a negative purpose clause.

“that which is lame” — the nominative neuter adjective xwloj means “crippled.” It should be translated “in order that the crippled one.” The crippled one is the reversionist.

“be turned out of the way” — literally, “dislocated.” We have the negative mh plus the aorist passive subjunctive of e)ktrepw which means to be out of joint. In other words, when you are in the process of reversion recovery it is easy to slip back into reversionism. That is what this passage is emphasising. Reversion recovery is much more difficult than simple growing. If go from salvation and start out with doctrine and stay with doctrine, that is simple. But when you peel off into some form of reversionism, then reversion recovery and moving up to the high ground is a much more difficult process. Reversion recovery has the possibility of relapses. The old and new distractions tempt the believer away from constant exposure to Bible teaching. So it is a very difficult road to recovery. Positive volition must be strong, consistent, and unwavering, and the way to recovery often has many setbacks. This is actually a constative aorist which gathers up into one entirety every distraction you will ever face to take you off the road to supergrace.

Seven ways in which it is possible to get off the track on the basis of chain sinning

1. The mental attitude sin of jealousy or bitterness motivates revenge tactics. In other words, you can start from two different mental attitude sins. Both of these lead to a series of activities whereby jealousy must be expressed or bitterness must be expressed. Bitterness and jealousy always have an object and when you express either of them toward an object you intensify the sinning, you produce other kinds of sins — vengeance, various types of social sins. In effect, all of these are trying to build your happiness on someone else’s unhappiness.

2. The function of guilt complex by which every new suffering in life is associated with a past sin or failure. People are often impressed by their past sins or their failures. They are impressed to the point that even though these sins and failures have been forgiven and God has blotted out the sins or the failures. And any time there is any pressure, any suffering, any disaster, it is related back to a past sin or failure. In that way you set up chain sinning retroactively. Such reaction is called guilt complex.

3. Public confession of sin. This is sort of an offshoot of a guilt complex. Public confession of sin is not victorious living, it is insanity. This is also called sharing and the so-called sharing adds sin to sin.

4. The superimposition of human volition over the divine prerogatives of judgement and condemnation. In other words, judging other believers. Judgement belongs to the Lord. Our lives as members of the royal family must be evaluated by the Lord Himself, therefore we do not have the right to judge other believers.

5. “Operation patsy” in which the believer avoids the responsibility for his own sins and failures and always finds someone else on which to blame them. This is failure to face up to the responsibilities of your own free will. The principle is that we must all learn to take responsibility for our own decisions, good and bad, for our own failures, and above all for our own sins. Remember that volition was involved in every sin that was ever committed in the course of the human race.

6. The manufacture of controversy by failure to isolate your differences with other believers, relatives, or friends.

7. The function of hypocrisy in pseudo love, implacability developing into vindictiveness. This, again, causes others to be hurt and chain sinning results.

“but” — the Greek particle de emphasises a contrast. Here is a contrast between relapse into reversionism and pressing on to the high ground of supergrace by ignoring distractions.

“rather” — the comparative mallon means “more” or “rather” but de mallon is an idiom, it introduces an expression or a thought that supplements and corrects what has been preceded.

“let it be healed” — the aorist passive subjunctive of i)aomai. It means to heal, to cure, and figuratively it means deliverance from the ills of reversionism. Here it means to be restored or to become recovered — “rather let is be restored [or healed].” The aorist tense is a culminative aorist, it views the action of reversion recovery in its entirety and regards it from the viewpoint of existing results. The passive voice refers to the listless hands and the disabled knees, and they receive healing. The subjunctive mood is potential depending upon your attitude toward Bible doctrine.

Translation of verse 13; “Be making straight tracks by means of your feet [positive volition toward doctrine], in order that the crippled one not be again put out of joint; but rather let it be healed.”

Verse 14 — “Follow” is the present active imperative of the verb diwkw which means to pursue or to press toward an objective. The present tense is a retroactive progressive present, called also the present tense of duration. It indicates the fact that no matter how we were, no matter how unstable, no matter how mixed up and confused our life happened to be, that we are to be consistent about one thing always and that is the intake of Bible doctrine. So the retroactive present denotes what has begun in the past and continues into the present time. The active voice: this is the royal family producing the action of the verb. The Church Age believer is royal family forever and he has objectives in remaining on this earth. None of us are left here by accident and God never slips up and allows someone to stay on this earth when not under God’s plan. He always knows what He is doing and He has seen fit to leave us here. The imperative mood is a command here. The word “follow” should be translated “Keep pressing toward the objective.”

“peace” is the accusative singular direct object of the noun e)irhnh. The word actually means several things — peace, health, welfare, harmony, but here it means prosperity. The prosperity is the content of your own paragraph SG². Our purpose is to keep pressing so that we have them, retain them, and move to our second objective which is dying, and there is nothing better in life than to die well. The only possible way to die happily and honourably is to die under the principle of dying grace. Dying grace is only for believers transferring from time to eternity on the high golden bridge.

“with all” is a prepositional phrase, meta plus the genitive plural of paj. What does a prepositional phrase like this mean? it means all members of the royal family have the same general objective, and “with all” is what we are doing right now. It means to be shoulder to shoulder in an assembly. All advance in the spiritual life is based upon the intake of doctrine and the only way that God has ordained for the intake of doctrine is in a group, in the local church assembly. “With all” means in a local church under the authority of the pastor-teacher communicating the Word of God. “With all the royal family” is what it really means. Actually, “with all” comes first in the sentence, so this is the way it should sound really, “With all the royal family, keep pressing toward the objective prosperity.”

Along with that we are to press toward something else which is called “and holiness” — the conjunction kai plus the accusative singular direct object of a(giasmoj. A(giasmoj means holiness, sanctification. We are to press toward a sanctification objective, not only prosperity. The big problem here is what sanctification means.

The doctrine of sanctification

(Sanctification and holiness are synonymous terms)

1. Definition. Sanctification or holiness means to be set apart as belonging to God, to be consecrated to God, to be related to God in some way that He has defined through His Word. More than that, it means to be under contract to God forever. Holiness, for example, in the salvation stage is to be under contract to God forever. The actual death of Christ set aside the old contract, the Mosaic law or the shadows, and since the old contract is cancelled, annulled or abrogated, the new contract or the new covenant for the royal priesthood sets us up immediately as being sanctified or holy. So in the strictest sense of the word sanctification or holiness means the believer in the Church Age under a new contract from God. This new contract is a forever contract, that is why you have to be saved to be in it. The contract is provided on the basis of the efficacious, once and for all work of Christ on the cross. In effect, we signed the contract the moment we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ. Once we have sinned it the new contract is inviolable and those in the contract are all members of the royal family of God forever, and at that stage in one sense of the word everyone is said to be holy or in holiness or sanctified.

2. The etymology of the word from the Bible. We have a number of words in the Bible that start out a(gi or a(go and they all connote separation. For example, one of these words is a(gioj. This word is translated in the Bible by “saint” or “holy.” It is used to describe the one who in under the new contract forever and it refers to anyone who has believed in Jesus Christ. So all of these words relate to the fact that you are a saint, and a saint means set apart unto God forever. The word “holiness” itself is a(giothj and it means holiness or the state of being under contract to God. It means, therefore, to be in status quo member of the royal family of God forever. Then there is another word for holiness or sanctification: a(giosunh. This word, again, means sanctification or holiness, and, again, it means a state of being under contract to God. The contract is the new covenant. The word a(giasmoj, the one in context, is next. It means “sanctification” or “holiness,” a state of being under contract to God. Then we have with this a verb, a(giazw, which also means to be under contract to God, it means to be set apart, to be dedicated to God. All of these words have to do with being saved and not with some particular status of salvation by experience.

3. Phase one sanctification. This is a reference to the fact that the day that we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ we are different from all people in the Old Testament who believed in Christ. It is true that they received Christ as saviour and they were immediately born again. They were born again and were family of God. When we believe in Christ we are born again and we are family of God. But there is a difference. We in the Church Age are royal family. So the word “holiness” or the word “sanctification” is used to designate that part of the family of God known as royal family. “Family of God” starts with Adam and Eve and goes down to the last Millennial saint, but in that there is one unique group. We are family of God in the Church Age but we are unique, we are royal family of God. So we must learn to distinguish between family of God and royal family of God, and it is royal family of God that are designated “saints,” “holy,” “sanctified,” or under the category of holiness. Holiness designates believers in the Church Age in distinction to others, and the distinction is based upon special ministries of God the Holy Spirit. God the Holy Spirit at the point of salvation was always the agent of regeneration. When we are born again we are always born again by the ministry of God the Holy Spirit. He actually puts us into the family of God. But now something has happened that never happened before — the baptism of the Holy Spirit, whereby at the point of salvation God the Holy Spirit enters us into union with Jesus Christ. That is where the word “saint” receives its derivation. We are in union with Christ forever, we are set apart as special, we are in a higher class of royal family. We live in the palace forever. That is true of all members of the body of Christ. Another ministry of the Holy Spirit: He came to indwell our bodies. That never occurred before. Then there was a fourth ministry, the sealing of the Holy Spirit. So our sign of royalty is indwelling, our security of royalty is sealing. Then, in this Church Age, while we function on this earth as members of the body of Christ each one of us has a special function in life. So God the Holy Spirit gives each one of us a spiritual gift. So God the Holy Spirit does five things for each one of us and these five things lead to phase one sanctification. But the special one is the baptism of the Spirit which gives us the title “saint”; this makes us royal family of God forever.

4. We also have a phase two sanctification. This is seizing and holding the tactical objective which is the high ground of supergrace. Supergrace is a synonym for spiritual maturity and we are to seize and to hold that high ground. Therefore the only manner in which it can be done is the filling of the Holy Spirit plus Bible doctrine in the soul. The filling of the Spirit plus the function of GAP equals reaching supergrace.

5. There is also an ultimate sanctification or phase three. Ultimately the believer, member of the royal family of God, will be in resurrection body, minus the old sin nature, minus human good, and minus the lake of fire. So this is an ultimate stage of sanctification.

6. The agents of sanctification. There are three agents involved in entering us into this state. The Son of God is an agent of sanctification — Hebrews 10:10,14; the Holy Spirit is an agent of sanctification — Romans 15:16; 2 Thessalonians 2:13; the Word of God is an agent of sanctification — John 17:17; Ephesians 5:26.

7. All phases of sanctification are related to the angelic conflict. Phase one or salvation: regenerate mankind or the royal family of God is positionally higher than angels. Phase two: the supergrace believer occupied with Christ glorifies Christ and this is tactical victory in the angelic conflict. Phase three: the royal family in resurrection body is physically superior to all angels.

8. Conclusion. We have the principle that sanctification is the uniqueness of the Church Age believer and the member of the royal family of God. Our sanctification is based upon the efficacious sacrifice of Christ on the cross, His resurrection, ascension, and session at the right hand of the Father. This is called in Hebrews 9:26 the conjunction of the ages. The necessity of a royal family means the necessity for being set apart in the palace. To be set apart in the palace is to be holy or to be under holiness and in sanctification. The Holy Spirit provides these things for us at salvation. They are unique.

9. The purpose of our phase two sanctification is to reach the high ground.

The objective, holiness, is the supergrace life. Holiness means the road to glory which is often described in terms of sanctification. It begins with phase one sanctification — salvation grace. It continues with phase two sanctification — living grace, supergrace, dying grace. It concludes with phase three sanctification which is paragraph SG³ in eternity. Phase one sanctification, however, is in view in this passage.

The conjunction kai is used as an adverb and demands the repetition of the use of the verb diwkw. So we can translate it: “Likewise aspire to saving grace [sanctification].” This is addressed obviously to unbelievers who were located in the local churches in Jerusalem.

“without which” — we have the adverb xwrij. Kai plus xwrij is a Classical Greek idiom, it demands the repetition of the verb. We have xwrij plus the genitive singular of the relative pronoun o(j — “without which saving grace.”

“no man shall see the Lord” — o)udeij, “no one”; “shall see” — the future active indicative of the verb o(raw. The future tense is a gnomic future for a dogmatic statement of fact in future time. Unless a person believes in Christ he will not see the Lord in the eternal future. The active voice: any member of the human race who does not believe in Jesus Christ will produce the action of this verb. The declarative indicative mood is for a dogmatic statement of doctrine.

Translation: “With all the royal family keep moving toward the objective, prosperity [SG²]; likewise [you unbelievers] aspire to [phase one] sanctification, without which no one will see the Lord.”

Verse 15 —the contamination from reversionism. This is a chain sinning problem. this is the last verse delivered to the believer. Verses 16,17 are addressed to the unbeliever and deal with the subject of Esau. As we conclude this particular paragraph dealing with reversionism there is a warning which was given originally to believers living in Jerusalem in AD 67, three years before the great catastrophe of the siege of Jerusalem, one of the most awful periods of history. One of the most well documented events of the ancient world was the siege of Jerusalem of 70 AD. Certainly there is a reason why we are so well aware of the great suffering that occurred. First of all, those who were supergrace believers got out of Jerusalem in time. They had enough doctrine to know it was time to leave and that at this time the Jews were out of line in their fight against the Romans. Therefore they were out of the periphery of danger as those who had enough doctrinal resources to make the correct decisions. For those who were left behind we have two categories. One million people were bottled up in the city of Jerusalem for over nine or ten months of a very intense siege held by three Roman legions fighting vigorously on the walls and also terrible civil war and crime at an all-time high inside of the city. Out of that population of one million people some were reversionistic believers who did not heed the message of the book of Hebrews given to them just three years before this great disaster. That, in effect, was their last warning. Because they did not heed the Word of God they remained behind with the unbelievers to die or to be enslaved, whichever was the will of God for the individual. It was a most awful period in history and the casualties over nine months amounted to 900,000 people. They either starved to death or were brutally and horribly massacred. Many were tortured to death, many died gallantly on the walls fighting the Romans, but the accumulation of disaster was fantastic and it became a divine judgement on the city of Jerusalem, on the southern kingdom of Judah, it was the administration of the fifth cycle of discipline which was prophesied by Jesus Christ.

As we come to this passage we have another prophetical warning. Under this passage we have a special warning for those who were reversionistic believers, that is, they were in some stage of reversionism.

“Looking diligently” — the present active participle is actually a very strong command. Occasionally the participle is used for the imperative mood and this is a case of that. This is peculiar to the Koine Greek. For the moment our writer departs from the Classical or Attic Greek in order to bring this message. We also have the present active participle in the verb e)piskopew. E)piskopew means to be an overseer, to be an administrator, to be an inspector, to have authority and responsibility. In this case the individual must have the authority and responsibility over his own soul. This is the command. It is an aoristic tense for punctiliar action in present time and the implication of the aoristic present is that unless there is maximum doctrine stored in the right lobe, the heart, and in the human spirit there is no true divine viewpoint of life and if there is not then there is no way for the individual to handle the administration of his own soul. Where the individual does not handle the administration of his own soul that means other factors begin to dominate. There is the old sin nature with its area of weakness producing sins, the area of strength producing human good, the lust pattern providing motivation in life, the trends of the old sin nature. These are related to the volition in doing that which is contrary to the will of God. This leads to emotional revolt. Putting it all together we have a command, “See to it” which means in effect, take personal responsibility for your own soul. This is a command to every believer priest regardless of his status, whether he is in supergrace, reversionism, advancing and progressing, or whether he is retrogressing. All of us have the responsibility for the administration of our own soul.

“lest any man” — literally, “that there be no one.” The word “that” is translated “lest” which is an old English way of translating a negative purpose clause. This is the first of two negative purpose clauses and the clause is actually introduced with the subjective negative mh. The words “any man” is the indefinite particle tij and in the Classical Greek mh plus tij indicates the introduction of a negative purpose clause, and it is a general clause, a general warning to all believers regardless of status. It is possible, therefore, for a progressing believer, for a mature believer, for any spiritual status, to fail in the manner in which is prescribed here.

“fail” — the present active participle of u(sterew. The participle is circumstantial for the tendency of reversionism especially to fail or to fall short of the grace of God. U(sterew really means to fall short or to be below standard, to fall back from something. The present tense is a tendencial present for what is inclined to occur or tends toward realisation. The active voice: the reversionist produces the action of the verb, and there is the falling short of the grace of God — “that no one falls back from the grace of God.”

The word “grace” is a part of a preposition phrase. We have a preposition a)po plus the ablative of xarij. This means deviation from the grace road.

Then there is a second negative clause introduced in the same Classical or Attic Greek form — mh plus tij. This second negative clause should be translated, “that not one root.” We have the noun r(iza for “root.” It refers to a specific type of root, it is a root of a tree, and 1 Corinthians 15:36 tells us all about this root. This root is derived from seed going into the ground. The first thing that seed must do is to die and when it does the root begins to sprout, and eventually there is the trunk of a tree from these roots. The point is that at this point we have a root of bitterness. The root of bitterness indicates the principle that a dead seed is analogous to a sin confessed in the past.

When you are in fellowship you are filled with the Spirit. When you are out of fellowship through sin you are said to be carnal. When you confess that sin or sins He is faithful and just to forgive you and cleanse you from all unrighteousness so that you are back in fellowship. Whatever sins were committed are blotted out. Sometimes these sins become a major skeleton in the closet. The problem is that the sin is dead because it has been confessed, because the time has elapsed and the past is dead. So that sin is dead, confessed, forgiven, and it should be forgotten. But occasionally from a past sin or failure comes a mental attitude sin. The one in context is bitterness . Sometimes it is hatred, sometimes it is implacability, and so on. Sometimes it is guilt complex, but whatever it is refers back to a sin that has been forgiven and blotted out by God. When God has forgiven and God has blotted it out that is the end of it. Many believers spend the rest of their life being off balance because they constantly refer back to a past failure. They refer back to a past sin with a guilt complex and they assume that the reason for a current disaster is because of that past sin. They have failed to recognise that what has been forgiven has been blotted out, and the result from that sin is the root, and the root is bitterness or guilt complex, or implacability, etc. Whatever the root is it sprouts into the chain sinning that we have studied.

So we have “that not one root of bitterness.” “Of bitterness” is a descriptive genitive of the noun pikria describing a category of sins as well as a personal sin. The category of sins is mental. Mental sinning causes the perpetuation of chain sinning. That “one root of bitterness” indicates a relapse, it indicates taking some past sin or failure and making it the source of mental attitude reaction. “springing up” — the present active participle of the verb fuw which means to sprout. With it we have an adverb a)nw which means “upward.” The present tense here is a retroactive progressive present, it denotes what has happened in the past and continues into the present time. It denotes the first four stages of reversionism” the reaction stage, the frantic search for happiness, intensification of reaction, and the emotional revolt stage. The active voice: a believer who has allowed his past failures to become the source of present sinning produces the action. Here, of course, we are referring in context to a reversionistic type believer. The sprouting upward is any reaction to a past sin forgiven and blotted out which has devastating results.

“trouble you” refers to revolution of the soul. You have lost control of your own soul. There are a number of ways you can lose control of your soul — through reversionism, chemically through drug addiction, through alcoholism. Volition is the real you in the soul and volition is designed to control your soul. You can lose control chemically, you can lose control spiritually, you can lose control from the standpoint of establishment. The command given in the first part of this verse is to have control of your soul. Having control of your soul means capacity for life, capacity for love, capacity for happiness. If you cannot control your soul you cannot enjoy the great things of this life. Therefore it is imperative that each one of us have control of his soul. The word “bitterness” here indicates a revolt in the soul, it means that the old sin nature has taken over the soul. Bitterness goes into the mentality of the soul and changes one’s attitude toward life. One reason we have revolution, why we have so many disasters in our day, is because we have very few people who have control of the soul. Control of the soul is necessary for the function of the laws of establishment. Control of the soul is necessary in any organisation.

“trouble you” is a present active subjunctive of the verb e)noxlew which means to cause trouble — “that not one root of bitterness sprouting upward cause trouble.” That is, a relapse into reversionism, a revolution in the soul whereby you are not in control of your soul. The present tense is a customary present denoting what habitually occurs when a believer is trying to move upward again to recover from reversionism. He releases into reversionism because of some mental attitude sin like bitterness or guilt complex. The active voice: a recovering believer produces the action of the verb. He loses control of his soul, he associates everything with his past failures, and therefore he has had it until he can recover from that. The subjunctive mood is a potential concept indicating the potential danger while the believer is trying to move to the high ground. There is always the possibility of distraction, there is also the possibility of relapse.

The second result starts out with the phrase, “and thereby” — the connective use of our conjunction kai plus a prepositional phrase, dia plus the genitive of the demonstrative o(utoj. It should not be translated “thereby” but literally, “and through this.” That is, through this relapse others around you are hurt.

“many” — o(i polloi, “the many,” referring to those in the periphery of our life. it refers to the fact, then, that a relapsing believer causes misery to all around him.

“be defiled” — the aorist passive subjunctive of miainw, a Koine Greek word which has to do with sewage. The Bible must be interpreted in the time in which it was written and in the ancient world sewage was collected in chamber pots and dumped over balconies or out of windows into the streets below. If at any time a person was hit by the sewage from the floors above it was called miainw, and he was immediately called miainw. And immediately everyone avoided him! So miainw becomes a perfect word for the defilement of the soul and that is exactly what we have here. The constative aorist gathers into one entirety reversionistic relapse or soul revolution. Your soul becomes miainw, you are hit by the sewage of mental attitude sins. The passive voice: other members of the royal family of God and those in your periphery are the victims of your relapse and soulish revolution. The subjunctive mood is potential, this does not have to happen if you remain positive to doctrine.

Translation: “See to it [take the personal responsibility for your own soul] that no one falls back from the grace of God [relapse into reversionism during recovery]; that not one root of bitterness sprouting upward causes trouble [relapse into reversionism], and through this relapse many be contaminated.”

In verse 16 we begin a new subject which lasts for two verses and deal with a famous unbeliever, a reversionistic unbeliever. So we have the alternative to saving grace. In the previous paragraph we have had the alternative to supergrace. Now we are back to the unbeliever and the unbeliever is a case history — Esau.

Verse 16 — we start out with a third negative purpose clause. We have that same Classical Greek idiom mh tij — “Not anyone,” and again we have the omission of the conjunction, the omission of the verb to be, and yet it should be translated “That there should be no fornicator.” The predicate nominative pornoj is used in the Attic Greek in a very special way. It referred to a catamite (boy kept for pederasty). But as it came into the Koine Greek it changed from a catamite to fornication in general, anyone who practised any form of sexual immorality. Sexual immorality is not the issue here. It will be when we get to chapter 13. It is not an issue here because we are talking about spiritual fornication in this case. Whether Esau was personally a fornicator or not is not revealed, but that he was spiritually one is very definitely brought out by this passage and all passages dealing with him.

Since we have the subject brought up and since it is a literal case in the next chapter and a spiritual case here, we will summarise the doctrine of fornication.

The doctrine of fornication

1. Definition. It refers in most cases in the literal passages to sexual activity outside of marriage. The spiritual meaning refers to reversionism. In that sense it should be understood that sex was designed to be an expression of love between right man and right woman. And sex was designed by God. Its perversions are sin but its design was by God as an expression of the soul love between a right man and a right woman. It is an extension of soul love. As an expression of category #2 love sex is both legitimate and beautiful, for it expresses coalescence of soul and body. Adultery may be categorised as fornication. Fornication is seduction of a member of the opposite sex in contrast to abnormal fornication which includes incest, homosexuality, lesbianism, bestiality, molestation of children, indecent exposure, as well as certain types of masturbation.

2. The prohibition of fornication. Exodus 20:14 forbids it. The prohibition is repeated in Deuteronomy 5:18. In the New Testament there are several very dramatic prohibitions — 1 Corinthians 6:18; Colossians 3:5; 1 Thessalonians 4:3. Mental adultery is forbidden — Matthew 5:27,28. Incest is forbidden — 1 Corinthians 5:1-7; Leviticus 18:6-17; 20:14; Deuteronomy 27:20. Homosexuality is regarded to day as a psychological problem. It is not, it is a sin and should be treated as such — Leviticus 18:22; 20:13; Romans 1:26. Bestiality is also forbidden — Leviticus 18:23; 20:15.

3. Phallic reversionism has an effect upon the soul — Proverbs 6:32.

4. Fornication and the frantic search for happiness is emphasised in Ephesians 5:3.

5. The destructive force of promiscuity is brought out in such passages as 1 Corinthians 6:13-18.

6. Adultery is a bona fide basis for divorce — Matthew 5:32; 19:9; Luke 16:18.

7. Adultery or fornication is often used in a spiritual sense to describe both reversionism and apostasy, and that is the sense in which it is used in our passage in Hebrews 12. This is true in Jeremiah 3:8-10; Ezekiel 16:23-43; 23:24-28; Revelation 17:1-5; Hebrews 12:16.

8. The sanctification of category #2 love is marriage — 1 Thessalonians 4:3,4. This is the description of right man, right woman relationship.

9. The glory of category #2 love is described in spiritual analogies — 1 Corinthians 11:7ff.

11. The biblical application of category #2 love to the single person.

a) The right man and the right woman were designed by God in eternity past, therefore there exists for the single person an opposite number of divine design. That in the only one for you, there is no other.

b) There are some exceptions to right man, right woman. There is the rare case of celibacy or function under the law of supreme sacrifice — 1 Corinthians 9:5; Jeremiah 16:2. The law of supreme sacrifice is a normal person refraining from sex. It is designed by God for maximum concentration and production under a special type of a program, like Paul was an apostle, the activities of his apostleship precluded having a category #2 relationship.

c) Every believer under grace in the plan of God will eventually meet his opposite number. At the right time and in the right circumstances God will bring together right man and right woman.

d) However there is no benefit in meeting your right woman or right man unless you have waited on the Lord in faithfulness to that principle. This means from the negative standpoint the avoidance of fornication. This means from the positive standpoint the capacity for category #2 love — that means take in doctrine, take in doctrine.

e) Consequently the thought and life pattern must be based on the doctrinal principle that there exists on this earth your right woman or your right man.

f) Fornication or adultery is accepting a cheap substitute in order to gratify an emotional or biological urge. Fornication or adultery is a part f frantic search for happiness in the second stage of reversionism.

g) The antidote to temptation in the area of fornication is found in spiritual growth, in the intake of Bible doctrine. Supergrace, the erection of the ECS, maximum doctrine resident in the soul, rejects the concept of frantic search for happiness in the field of sex.

h) Under phallic reversionism fornication builds scar tissue of the soul while destroying the physical responses and capabilities of the human body in the field of sex. This is why fornication or adultery is prohibited, it has both physical and spiritual repercussions.

i) Maximum doctrine resident in the soul plus abstinence from sex becomes the basis for maximum pleasure from sex in category #2 love. The persistent and daily function of GAP translates the principles of doctrine into the pleasures and realities of a great future happiness in the field of sex relationship.

j) Therefore, preparation for life is persistent and daily function of GAP. This is the way to attainment of supergrace status, the way to have great capacity for life, and this capacity for life overflows so that when you finally meet right man or right woman your paragraph SG² will include that great principle of sexual prosperity.

In Hebrews 12:16 fornication is used as an analogy to reversionism in the unbeliever. Here is the unbeliever in the pattern of 2 Peter 2:20,21. Fornication, then, is synonymous with unbeliever reversionism. Our verse says, “That there be no fornicator.”

Esau was an unbeliever and a perfect illustration to the Jews. He is immediately called a reversionist in the phrase “that there be no fornicator.” Fornication in this passage is dealing with spiritual fornication or reversionism, the concept of apostasy, the concept of being away from that which is true and being connected with something which is completely and totally false. This is also brought out by the next phrase.

“or profane person” — we have a disjunctive particle, h. A disjunctive particle is designed to separate related and similar terms. After the disjunctive particle we have a predicate nominative bebhloj, which means Godless, irreligious, unhallowed. And “profane” is a good word as long as it is understood that profane means an unbeliever. It is a predicate adjective actually, rather than a noun, and it is used for the unbeliever. Perhaps as an adjective it is best translated by the word “unhallowed,” unhallowed in the sense of being outside of God’s plan.

“as Esau” — the comparative particle o(j is used as a conjunction to denote that he is the illustration. And why is he such a perfect illustration? Because no one can be closer to being a Jew without ever being a Jew than Esau was. Remember that the people to whom this was originally addressed were Jews living in Jerusalem in the year AD 67. They knew all about Esau, they knew all about origin. Esau is a beautiful illustration to the Jew of an unbeliever type reversionist. He is actually described as such in three areas of scripture. The first time he is so used is in Malachi 1:2,3. Always he is used in a grace appeal and there is a grace appeal here in Hebrews, there is also such a grace appeal in Romans.

Malachi 1:2-3 — “I have loved you, saith the Lord, But you say [in reversionism], How have you loved us?” — they are questioning God’s love — “Was not Esau Jacob’s twin brother? saith the Lord; yet I have loved Jacob. But I have hated Esau, and made desolate his mountain [the nation that came from Esau, the Edomites] and his heritage is left for the jackals of the desert.”

The anthropopathism which occurs at the centre of this passage has to do with God hating one twin and loving the other. We understand from the character of God that God is love. But God is also sovereignty, absolute righteousness, justice, love, eternal life, omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, immutability and veracity. An anthropopathism is ascribing to God a human characteristic which He really doesn’t possess, but in order that a point of doctrine might be communicated to us it has to be expressed in human terms, and the human terms here are hatred and love. God does not hate in the absolute sense of the word, it is incompatible with His character, but it does express to the maximum His disapprobation with one twin whereas love expresses His acceptance with the other. God did not approve of Esau but He did approve of Jacob. These twins were separated in life but they are separated forever, for Jacob is going to spend eternity in the presence of God and Esau will spend eternity in the lake of fire. However that is not our subject, it is merely to demonstrate something. If you want to shock Israel compare them to someone like Esau, for the Jews did not like Esau, he was too close, he was a relative and one in whom they were completely ashamed traditionally. Therefore to compare any Jew to Esau is to offer him the highest type of insult. The insult is designed to shock him into believing in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Romans 9:6-13 is a second reference to Esau in the context of the illustration. The anthropopathism of hatred is used really for the divine attitude toward the unbeliever in the sense that the unbeliever has rejected God’s grace, His so great salvation.

“But such is not the case, the word of God always stays on course. For they are not all Israel who are descendant from Israel; neither are they all children because they are Abraham’s descendants, but, through Isaac your seed will be called.” The spiritual heritage of Israel which is the true heritage of Israel comes through Isaac. “That is, It is not the children of the flesh [unbelievers] who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are imputed as seed.” The children of the promise in the founding of Israel are those who believe. And it was always a younger son. For example, Isaac was younger than Ishmael and Jacob was younger compared to Esau. “For this is the doctrine of the promise, At this time I will come, and Sarah will have a son. And not only this, but there was Rebecca also, when she had conceived twins , by one man, Isaac.” Again, it is the same principle, an appeal to the Jews to believe in Jesus Christ on the basis of their true heritage. “(For though the twins were not yet born, and had not yet done anything good or bad, in order that God’s promise according to the election of grace might stand, not because of works, but because of him who does the electing), it was said of her, The older will serve the younger. Just as it stands written, Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated.”

Once again, as in Malachi so in Romans, the emphasis is on regeneration, on the fact that all Jews, if they are ever going to measure up to their true heritage, will personally believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.

The same thing is done again by the writer of Hebrews. There is no question that he was a Jew. He is also unknown to us. He is a graduate of the university of Alexandria and he is one of the wisest and smartest of men who ever wrote in the scripture. He was not the apostle Paul but whoever he is he had a fantastic education on Classical Greek Now this anticipates Hebrews 12:16,17.

Summary: “As Esau”

1. In eternity past in the doctrine of divine decrees the plan of God was formulated on the basis of man’s volitional function in time. Man’s volitional function in time was known to God in eternity past, that is the function of omniscience. Therefore in the divine decrees every decision made from free will was anticipated.

2. For example, it is God’s sovereign will and purpose to save all mankind. When Christ did on the cross He died for all members of the human race, therefore the principle of unlimited atonement.

3. However, mankind is free to reject Christ as saviour and often does. Such is the case of Esau.

4. God knew billions of years ago the attitude of each person toward Christ as he would live in time and as he would be presented the gospel. He knew the attitude of Esau, He knew the attitude of Jacob. So while the twins were still in the womb, before they were people, God said, “Esau have I hated but Jacob have I loved.” In other words, before they had done anything the anthropopathism anticipates which one would go with regard to the gospel. This does not mean that God coerced the volition of either one, for He did not.

5. Therefore the anthropopathism of hatred is used to describe Esau’s rejection of Jesus Christ as saviour.

6. God loved Esau in the sense that Christ died for his sins, but God hates Esau in the sense that Esau rejected this so great salvation.

7. Therefore the twins of Rebecca were divided in time as well as in eternity.

8. They were born twins. One was a Gentile and one was a Jew. One was unsaved, one was saved. One came under the covenants of Israel, the other comes under the principle of the lake of fire.

So far in our passage we have: “That there be no fornicator or unhallowed type like Esau.” We now have the development of Esau at this point in this passage in compliance with the general principles taught here. This is not an attempt to teach everything about Esau, this is merely emphasising certain things that belong to the passage, certain means by which the writer is trying to shock the Jews into accepting Christ as saviour. Certainly it is a shock for any Jew to be compared to Esau.

The nominative singular relative pronoun o(j refers to Esau — “who”; “for one morsel” — we actually have a prepositional phrase here. We have the preposition a)nti plus the ablative of brwsij. The ablative and a)nti are used here in the Classical Greek sense. In Attic Greek the translation would therefore read, “who in exchange for.” Brwsij means not food in itself but in one act of eating, one meal in the sense of actually eating — “who in exchange for one act of eating. That means, of course, one meal. This is a reference to Genesis 25:27-34.

“When the boys grew up; Esau became a skillful hunter, a man of the field; but Jacob was a complete man, dwelling in tents.” (“Complete” means he was self-sustaining. He had his own flocks, he cooked his own meals, he made his own clothes, and he was a complete man) So immediately we notice something. The older boy was dependent upon others for everything whereas the younger one, Jacob, had learned to become self-sustaining.

“Now Isaac loved Esau, because his game was in his mouth” — Isaac always loved various types of game that came from the field and therefore he loved game-type food. His son was always bringing him home something he enjoyed — “but Rebekah loved Jacob.” So each parent had their favourite.

“And when Jacob cooked a stew, Esau came in from the field and was very weary [or hungry]. Therefore Esau said to Jacob, Let me have a taste of that red stuff cooking there; for I am hungry: consequently his name was called Edom [or red].”

“And Jacob said, Sell me your birthright.”

“And Esau said, Behold, I am about to die: what good is a birthright to me?” He is very hungry, very tired. “And Jacob replied, Today make me a solemn promise; therefore he promised him his birthright: and he sold his birthright.”

“The Jacob gave Esau bread and lentil stew; and he ate and drank, and rose up, and departed: consequently from that time on Esau despised his birthright.” It was so unimportant to him that he was willing to sell it for a good meal.

In Hebrews 12:16 the word “sold” is an aorist middle indicative of the verb a)podidomi. A)podidomi means to sell or to barter, it means sometimes to give away. However, in the middle voice it means to sell.

Next we have the accusative singular direct object of the noun prwtotokia. It comes from a noun, prwototokoj. It means the right of primogeniture. In other words, it means that the oldest son receives all of the money, all of the property from the parents, all of the wealth. He receives the family priesthood and the family rulership. All of these things belonged to him by right of birth as the eldest son. The aorist tense of “sold” is a constative aorist, it contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. It takes the occurrence of Genesis 25:27-34 and gathers it up into one entirety. Everything is gathered up in the word “sold” in the constative aorist. The middle voice is an indirect middle emphasising the agent Esau as producing the action of the verb rather than as participating in its results. The middle voice is reflexive and in a sense condemns him. Esau himself did it. He didn’t have to do it but he did it. The indicative mood is declarative for historical reality of the situation.

Translation: “That there be no fornicator [reversionist], or unhallowed [unsaved type], like Esau, who himself sold his birthright for one meal.”

Summary

1. From the reversionism of the Jewish believer in Jerusalem in AD 67 this passage moves to the unbeliever reversionism among the Jews.

2. The unsaved Jew is compared to Esau, which is as great an insult as the Jew of that day could receive. To compare him to Esau is maximum doctrinal trauma.

3. Furthermore, for religious Jews to be called fornicators is to imply that their religious tenets were wrong, that they were apostate, and therefore were a denial of their spiritual heritage.

4. Esau sold the rights of the firstborn for one meal. For the pleasure of satisfying his taste buds Esau sold or betrayed his heritage. And that is the issue in this context. The true heritage of every Jew is to be born again. Esau disregarded his heritage. He thought so little of it that he was prepared to bargain his entire heritage for one good meal. In a sense, then, Esau betrayed his heritage.

5. Therefore, Esau’s hunger is like reaction to the gospel, while selling his birthright for a meal is like a frantic search for happiness in the field of religion. That is the analogy implied.

6. Furthermore, following 2 Peter 2:22 it is the dog returning to his vomit, the pig returning to the mud. The rejection of the gospel caused Esau to return to the vomit of religious apostasy.

7. The analogy, then, is obvious to the Jew of that time. Religious apostasy would destroy Judah in three years. In AD 70 the Romans would apply the coup de grace, the fifth cycle of discipline to the same apostate Esaus.

8. Negative volition toward the gospel creates a vacuum by which Satanic viewpoint enters the soul of the unbeliever, producing again the status of the dog returning to his vomit. Here is the pattern of 2 Peter 2:17-22.

9. The resultant blackout of the soul and scar tissue produces spiritual fornication or religious apostasy.

10. Judaism is AD 67 was a system of legalism, of dead works, and it is comparable to the one meal. The Jews had sold out their heritage for one meal. The one meal in this case, which makes them analogous to Esau, is Judaism of 67 AD — keeping the law as a system of salvation.

11. The Jews are compared to Esau eating one meal, Judaism, and forfeiting their birthright of the divine election of grace.

12. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were all born again believers. The true heritage of Israel is a spiritual heritage. This is brought out by the Abrahamic, Palestinian, Davidic, and New covenants to Israel. Regeneration is the heritage of Israel and from regeneration the road to glory. The writer is greatly disturbed because they are missing out on their true heritage.

In verse 16 Esau is the rejecter of grace; in verse 17 Esau is rejected by grace. The rejecter becomes the rejected is the tragedy of reversionism as far as the unbeliever is concerned, for the unbeliever’s alternative is eternal divine judgement.

Verse 17 — “For” is the continuative use of the conjunctive particle gar, and it correctly translated.

“ye know” — this is an Attic Greek verb. The form is i)ste, the Attic form of o)ida, a perfect tense used as a present tense for knowledge of doctrine in the frontal lobe. It is used here in the Attic Greek sense of having perfect confidence from what you know — knowing it, applying it, having confidence in it, good common sense, and so on; “how that” — the conjunction o(ti used after verbs of thinking is simply translated “that”; “afterward” — an adverb, metepeita. It means “even afterward.” We also have with it the ascensive use of the conjunction kai. We have so far, For you know that even afterward.”

“when he would have” is literally, “even when he kept desiring,” the present active participle of qelw. Nearly every word here is just a little off in the translation of the KJV. Because of that what is here is misunderstood. The retroactive progressive present of qelw denotes what has begun in the past and continues into the present time, that is, up to the time that Esau started crying. The active voice: Esau produces the action. This is a temporal participle and it should be translated, “even when he kept desiring.” He didn’t always desire it but he finally came around to desiring his right of primogeniture back.

Next we have an aorist active infinitive of klhronomenw, which means to inherit but we translate the infinitive “to inherit” rather than “have inherited.” It is an ingressive aorist which denotes entering into a state or condition. The active voice: Esau desired to enter into his inheritance. He sold it but he wanted it back.

“the blessing” here refers to his right of primogeniture. The accusative is a direct object and goes with the infinitive, it is the object of the infinitive. It is in the singular and the noun is e)ulogia. The blessing refers to his right as the firstborn to have the estate. By analogy it refers to the blessings of God’s grace. The alternative to that grace plan of God is for the unbeliever eternal judgement, and for the believer divine discipline.

“he was rejected” — the aorist passive indicative of a)podokimazw. It means to reject or to declare useless. The culminative aorist views the event in its entirety but regards it from the standpoint of its existing results. These existing results are important.

Principles

1. The entirety of the aorist includes the entire panorama of unbeliever reversionism.

2. This means every rejection of the gospel plus the resultant strong delusion is synonymous with unbeliever reversionism.

3. Just as it was too late for Esau to acquire his inheritance so it is too late for the unbeliever to be saved in eternity. He is outside of the grace of God, therefore he is rejected. The whole point of the illustration is that for one meal you sell your birthright. The birthright is unlimited atonement, Christ died for the sins of the world. Therefore when a person rejects Christ he actually rejects the heritage that God has designed for every member of the human race.

The passive voice here: Esau received the action of the verb, he is an illustration of all of those Jews in Jerusalem under siege. These Jews are getting a last call here in the field of evangelism. But they are getting more than a last call, they are getting a perfect picture of their situation. The indicative mood is declarative for the reality of the unbeliever being rejected in eternity. He rejects Christ in time, he is rejected in eternity. The principle: You reject Christ in time, He rejects you in eternity.

The doctrine of the last judgement

1. Definition. The last judgement is the alternative to salvation. This judgement is the expression of righteousness and justice from the essence box. God is perfect in His righteousness and perfect in His justice. God has found a way in time to keep His righteousness and justice from being compromised — doctrine of propitiation.

God must judge the unbeliever in eternity. If He doesn’t then He would compromise His righteousness and justice. And just as the cross propitiates the Father so the last judgement keeps the Father’s character intact. If God didn’t judge the unbeliever with the lake of fire then He wouldn’t be God and this is no God. Of course, that is not the case. Everyone who rejects Christ as saviour is included in this last judgement, it is the culminating judgement of history in which the unbelievers of the human race are judged and sentenced to the lake of fire forever. It is called the second death, it is called the great white throne, it is called the last judgement.

2. The basic categories of the human race are based upon the last judgement — John 3:36, “He who believes in the Son has eternal life”: believers in the Lord Jesus Christ; but, “he who does not believe in the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him”: unbelievers, with emphasis on their eternal future, the wrath of God abides on him. The abiding of the wrath of God on the unbeliever indicates that God keeps His righteousness and justice intact.

3. In the last judgement the unbeliever is under indictment. The unbeliever’s indictment is based on his rejection of Jesus Christ as saviour. “He who believes in him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the unique Son of God.” John 16:9 tells us that it is the unbeliever who is under indictment — “Concerning sin because they believe not on me.” They have rejected the propitiation of the cross. Revelation 20:15 — “Therefore if anyone was found not written in the book of life he was cast into the lake of fire.” The book of life in eternity was a registry of all people and when one dies without accepting Christ his name is blotted out. So that in eternity at the last judgement the book of life has the names of believers only.

4. The believer in Christ is never involved in the last judgement — Romans 8:1.

5. The unbeliever has two appointments with God. The first is with the sovereignty of God which decides when the unbeliever will die — physical death. The second appointment is judgement — “It is appointed unto man once to die, after that the judgement” — Hebrews 9:27,28.

6. The second appointment of judgement is kept by a second resurrection. God takes all unbelievers and resurrects them at the end of time, at the end of the Millennium, after the Gog revolution — John 5:24-29.

7. The resurrected unbeliever at the last judgement is condemned on the basis of his human good — Revelation 20:12,13. He is judged from the books according to their deeds. The point is a very simple one. At the cross the sins of the old sin nature were poured out upon the cross and judged but the human good from the old sin nature was rejected. So God has an attitude toward all manifestations of the old sin nature. The sins: judged; human good: rejected. For those who reject Christ as saviour they have their human good written in a book according to their deeds. At the last judgement their sins are not mentioned — law of double jeopardy, you can’t be judged twice for an offense, therefore no sins will be mentioned at the last judgement — it is good deeds that will be mentioned. They will be the basis for the indictment. Those who stand there have rejected Christ as saviour, therefore they are under indictment. Having rejected Christ as saviour they have rejected the cross. But there sins were judged at the cross too. What was rejected at the cross was human good and therefore their human good was accumulated in a book and it is brought up before them to demonstrate that when their human good is all added up it amounts to -R, and -R cannot have fellowship with +R. If God accepts one -R into heaven He has compromised His character and their is salvation for no one. Since the unbelievers stand there at the last judgement minus imputed righteousness they have only their own. Their own righteousness is trotted out, brought up before them, they are cast into the lake of fire, and God’s righteousness is not compromised.

8. The eternal status of the unbeliever. First of all, it is the lake of fire — Matthew 25:41; Revelation 20:14,15. A second description of the unbeliever in eternity is the second death — Revelation 20:14. A third is “dying in your sins” — John 8:21,24.

Translation of verse 17 so far — “For you know that afterwards, even when he kept desiring to inherit blessing, he was rejected.”

Then we have “for,” the explanatory use of the epexegetical gar; “he found not” — aorist active indicative of e(uriskw plus the negative o)uk — “for he found not.” The constative aorist contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. The unbeliever by constantly rejecting Christ as saviour builds up an accumulation of scar tissue of the soul until he passes the point of no return which is strong delusion. The active voice: Esau is the unbeliever who produced the action of the verb. It is Esau who constantly rejected Christ as saviour and accumulated the scar tissue. Therefore he could not enter into the heritage of Israel which is regeneration. The indicative mood is declarative for historical reality of the fact that Esau was an unbeliever and as unbeliever he is also the perfect illustration of selling out his right of primogeniture for one meal, the perfect illustration of the unbeliever in his reversionism.

“a place” — the accusative singular direct object of topoj means here opportunity. Topoj does mean “place” in Koine Greek but in Classical Greek it means “opportunity.”

“of repentance” — a genitive singular of time from metanoia and it means change of mind, a complete reversal of decision.

“For he did not find an opportunity for repentance”

1. Perpetuation of negative volition toward the gospel pushes the unbeliever into strong delusion.

2. Strong delusion means passing the point of no return.

3. It is the unbeliever involved in the blackout of the soul and scar tissue of the soul who passes the point of no return. Esau was such an unbeliever but he also did something in his life which illustrates that. He sold his birthright for one meal.

4. Like Esau eating one meal the unsaved Jew of AD 67, by eating one meal of Judaism, could not find a place where he could change his mind about Christ.

5. Repentance (metanoia) is the condition which immediately precedes or is coterminous with faith in Christ. “Believe” is the decision side of salvation, but on the other side we have what leads up to believing — information about Christ, called the gospel. Information causes the individual to change his mind or to repent. So he changes his mind about Christ resulting in believing in Christ, so the two are coterminous.

The next word is “though” — the conjunction kaiper which literally means “although”; “he sought” — e)kzetew means to search for something with great sincerity. Zetew means to search; e)kzetew means to search out and to be very sincere about it all. The aorist tense is a constative aorist, viewing the action of the verb in its entirety. He passed the point of no return but sincerely sought salvation. The active voice: the reversionistic unbeliever, Esau, produced this action historically, and it becomes an illustration for a circumstantial participle. The circumstantial participle is in the aorist tense which has antecedent action to the main verb. The main verb: “he was rejected.”

“it” — the accusative singular direct object of the intensive pronoun a)utoj. “It” refers to salvation.

“with tears” — the preposition meta plus the genitive of dakru, and it is correctly translated “with tears” here.

Translation: “For you know that afterwards, when he kept desiring to inherit the blessing, he was rejected: for he did not find an opportunity for repentance, though having sought the same blessing with tears.”

The doctrine of weeping: “with tears”

1. Weeping is the emission of liquid from the tear ducts of the eyes. It is used to express many things of the soul. It is used, for example, to express sorrow, lamentation, emotional stimulation, happiness, frustration, pain. In the Bible weeping is the expression of all of these things.

2. Weeping as an expression of reversionism is what we have in this passage, and therefore it is also found elsewhere. Recall when the children of Israel were afraid to go into the land that they wept all night — Numbers 14:1,2. Weeping is always an expression of reversionism where the soul is involved in such activity.

3. Weeping is also an expression against reversionism. The apostle Paul wept because of reversionism — Philippians 3:18,19.

4. Weeping because of the practice of reverse process reversionism, the eighth stage of reversionism — a believer in James 5:1; the unbeliever, Esau — Hebrews 12:17.

5. The weeping of regret — 2 Samuel 14:23,24,28. David failed to forgive as Christ forgave. He failed to follow the principles of grace and he refused to see Absalom face to face. Colossians 3:13. Forgiving is divided into two parts, restoring and an accompanying mental attitude. A half forgiveness equals no forgiveness. 2 Samuel 19:1-4 — the king failed because there was not enough forgiveness in his soul to forgive the one son he loved more than all the others. David had regrets.

6. The weeping of disaster — 1 Samuel 30:4; Psalm 42. This is a helpless weeping. It expresses the total helplessness of the soul to cope with a disaster, to understand it, to meet it with great courage. Weeping in this case is a negative expression, an expression of the failure of the soul to utilise resident doctrine.

7. The weeping of reversion recovery — Psalm 30:5. “His anger is but for a moment, resulting in a lifetime of grace benefit.” Reversion recovery inevitably means moving to the high ground of supergrace. “Weeping may last for the night, but celebration type happiness comes in the morning.”

8. The weeping of sour grapes — Ezra 3:12,13. This was the scene of the building of the second temple. Old men who had seen the first temple wept with loud voices because it wasn’t as good as the “good old times.” This was weakness type weeping which was drowned out by the shouting of those who had doctrine in their souls.

9. The weeping of drunks in national disaster — Joel 1:5,6.

10. The weeping of patriots in national disaster — Isaiah 22:3,4; Jeremiah 9:1; Lamentations 1:16.

11. The weeping of bitterness. Weeping can express nobility of soul; weeping can express sinfulness of soul. Bitterness is a mental attitude sin — 1 Samuel 1:10. Remember that weeping expresses what is in the soul. It expresses the principle of the emotional revolt and sometimes it expresses the principle of great doctrine residing in the soul.

12. Weeping of grief and sorrow — John 11:33. Here is the weeping because of a loved one departing from this life. This expresses capacity for love.

13. The weeping of judgement. It is the weeping of great soul pain, the weeping of physical pain, the worst weeping the world has ever known, and it belongs to those who have rejected Jesus Christ as saviour. It is something they will do for all eternity. Matthew 25:30; Luke 13:28.

14. The weeping of our Lord Jesus Christ stands unique. Since Jesus Christ was perfect in His humanity, and obviously perfect in His deity, any type of weeping that He did is not only right but highly commendable. There are three occasions where our Lord is recorded as having wept. He wept at the tomb of Lazarus. This is the weeping of bereavement — John 11:35. He wept for many reason. He wept because He had great capacity for love, and Lazarus was a true friend. Luke 19:41 — the weeping of patriotism. He saw the prophetic reality of the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD. The third time that our Lord wept was at the cross — Hebrews 5:7, the weeping of maximum sacrifice providing for our so great salvation.

15. The cessation of weeping. Weeping expresses many kinds of sorrow, pain, and nobility of soul. But there comes a time when weeping will be terminated — Isaiah 30:18-20, a Millennial prophecy; Revelation 21:4 — the cessation of weeping in eternity. Notice the causes for weeping: death, sorrow, bereavement, pain. Everything that could produce weeping is removed in eternity.

In verses 18-29 we have one of the more difficult paragraphs to interpret in the Bible. Interpretation means everything in the scripture. If you don’t interpret then you don’t apply. If you don’t apply then you don’t bring it down to the level of utilisation. So it becomes imperative that the interpretation be correct.

There are several problems in the interpretation of this paragraph. The first of these has to do with the exegesis. This is almost straight Classical Greek which is entirely different language from the Koine Greek of the New Testament. In addition to that we have seen from Esau how God used him to shock the Jews in AD 67, to shock them to the place where they would be ready to accept Christ as saviour and therefore survive the terrible disaster of 70 AD. All of these things put together are very simple. It is easy to see that Esau was a Gentile and his brother was a Jew. It is easy to see the evangelistic thrust in talking about Esau in verses 16,17. But when we get down to the two mountains this becomes a very tangled up and very difficult passage.

The problem is this. This is a challenge to Jews, to unsaved Jews living in AD 67. It is a challenge to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and it is also a challenge to those who are believers but in reversionism. Jerusalem where the Church had started was now the most apostate, legalistic place for believers of the ancient world. As a result the appeal of the writer is absolutely a stroke of genius under the ministry of God the Holy Spirit. Not only is it a stroke of genius but it is an expression of genius. Whoever the writer of this paragraph was he was a genius, and the problem is to understand a genius.

There are two mountains in this passage. One is Mount Sinai. That represents religion and legalism. Mount Zion is the place of supergrace and blessing. And this passage says you can go one of two ways. For example, saving grace has been emphasised with Esau. That is the first stage of grace. Next is living grace which represents everything that God does to keep us in the devil’s world. Then we have supergrace, paragraph SG², and the last part of paragraph SG² is dying grace, the high golden bridge between time and eternity. We go over this bridge to our paragraph SG³, the surpassing grace. The challenge is to stay on this road to glory, and the danger is to neglect doctrine and take the road of reversionism where you have warning discipline, intensive discipline, and dying discipline. You have a choice, and Mount Sinai, in effect, is reversionism, and Mount Zion represents the road to glory. That is the utmost simplicity of this passage. So why go into the details of this? Because like everything else in the scripture the details are designed by God the Holy Spirit to give confidence to members of the royal family of God, to give confidence, spiritual strength and nobility of soul and everything that is wonderful. So we are now ready to tackle the challenge to reversionism in verses 18-29.

Verse 18 — “For” is a continuative as well as the explanatory use of the particle gar that pulls together the thought pattern in any part of scripture.

“you are not come” — the perfect active indicative of proserxomai which with the negative means “you have not gone to.” This is addressed to believers, believers who have not gone to Mount Sinai. The perfect tense is a dramatic perfect which is the rhetorical use of the intensive perfect. The intensive perfect is a completed action with results that are perpetuated from that completed action. The dramatic perfect merely is a rhetorical use of it, In other words, the emphasis is on the result. When you accepted Jesus Christ as saviour you did not go to Mount Sinai. In other words, you didn’t go to the ten commandments for salvation. You learned the story of Galatians 2:16. You did not go to Mount Sinai but you did go to the cross with the result that you are eternally saved. The active voice: reversionistic Jews who are believers in Jesus Christ, living in Jerusalem in AD 67, did not go to the Mosaic law for their salvation. The whole point is: You Jews, if you did not go to Mount Sinai for your salvation where the ten commandments were given but went to Mount Zion (representing grace), why, now that you are saved, are you doubling back to Mount Sinai? Why have you become legalistic reversionists? This is the challenge that comes from the dramatic perfect. The indicative mood plus the negative means historic reality in their salvation through faith in Christ rather than in keeping the Mosaic law. The implication of this entire verse is that these Jewish believers have now reverted. They went to Mount Zion, representing grace, for salvation but they haven’t stayed in the grace pattern, they have gone back to legalism, to mount Sinai, in order to live their life as believers.

“the mountain” — the dative singular for the word “mountain,” o)roj, representing Mount Sinai. This dative is not actually found here, it is found later on in the passage. However, it is included because it is implied.

1. This is the beginning of the two-mountain dissertation. From this dissertation comes a challenge to Jews who are about to die the sin unto death. Within three years they will be faced with the sin unto death unless they repent and move out of their reversionism.

2. The two mountains in the analogy are Sinai representing the principle of works, legalism — salvation by works, spirituality by works, reversionism by works — and Zion representing the principle of grace, the road to glory.

3. The first Mountain, Sinai, is going to be given in verses 18-21.

4. While these reversionistic believers were not saved by keeping the Mosaic law they have reverted to the law in order to impress God. This is their background. This is the background from which they came, and having been saved and having rejected doctrine it is inevitable that they go back to their heritage — their academic training, their life in which they were reared in Judaism, under the Mosaic law. This is their entire background and therefore if they reject doctrine there is only one way they can go — revert to their background. In other words, if you reject Bible doctrine after salvation you revert to something that is familiar to you, something in your human frame of reference. These Jews went back to the Mosaic law, this was their human frame of reference.

5. You cannot go to the mountain (Mount Sinai) and find salvation, nor can you go to Mount Sinai and find spirituality.

6. These Jewish believers began in grace but reverted to legalism and the two mountains are the analogy to challenge them just as Esau challenges the unbeliever reversionism. There is unbeliever reversionism in Jerusalem, the challenge is Esau. Now we go to the mountains for challenging the believer; they are challenged to be consistent. The first principle is obvious: we are saved by grace, we must live by grace. But to live by grace you must be taught grace, and to be taught grace it is contrary to your background, it is contrary to your energy, to your human abilities, and to all of the false teaching that is so prominent today.

“that might be touched” — the mountain is going to be described in very strange and unusual terms. First of all, the mountain is called the mountain that might be touched, the present passive participle of yshlafaw which means to feel about you for something, to grope, to touch. The word also means something that is in the dark to you but something that is tangible. You are blind when you reject doctrine as a believer and your blindness causes you to grope across a dark room to your frame of reference. It is a picture of a person with no confidence, a picture of a person who is staggering around and stumbling over things. It is a picture, then, of something tangible but something that is now darkness. “For you have not gone to a touching and burning fire” is what the actual Greek says. The present tense of “touching” is the aoristic present for punctiliar action in present time. The passive voice: Mount Sinai is the subject and receives the action of the verb. That is, Mount Sinai is touchable but when you come to Mount Sinai after you are saved you are going to it in darkness. The Jewish believer who is in reversionism comes to Mount Sinai, he touches Mount Sinai, but he does so in darkness. Darkness portrays reversionism. The participle is ascriptive. In other words, the participle is used as an adjective and it modifies the fire — “but you have not gone to a touching and a burning fire.” The phrase emphasises that salvation was not by works, and you understood that, you believed in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now that you have believed in Christ you are groping around in the dark, you are reaching out to touch Mount Sinai, you have gone back to keeping the law.

“and that burned” — the perfect passive participle of kaiw, another ascriptive participle and used as an adjective. This participle is a consummating perfect, it is a tense of completed action but it emphasises the process. The process is stumbling and groping in the dark, it means that you can’t see where you are going but you are going to something that really exists. God didn’t save you and leave you on this earth so that you could grope around and stumble around in darkness. He left you for great confidence, He left light, and the light in your soul is the basis for confidence, for blessing. All of these things are related to Bible doctrine resident in the soul.

Notice that this is a description of Mount Sinai, it is called “a touching and a burning mountain.” In Exodus 19:18 we are told that this is Mount Sinai. Cf. Deuteronomy 5:23.

The phrase “with fire” is a dative singular used here as the indirect object. The word itself is pur.

“nor darkness” — gnofoj which is extreme darkness, a darkness where you can’t find your way; “nor unto blackness” — zofoj means gloomy darkness, the kind of darkness that you get hurt in. So he is describing the reversionism of these saved Jews. They are in darkness because they have rejected Bible doctrine. They are minus doctrine, they are minus the balance of residency in the soul; “and tempest” — the word means a whirlwind. This is another dative, quella.

In their legalism these Jews are walking around in darkness, but it is a darkness which is zofoj, it hurts. They are stumbling over things, they are bumping into walls, and they are getting hurt by discipline. Then, it is also a storm, a whirling storm, they are off balance completely and totally. Cf. Exodus 19:16; 20:18. The writer of Hebrews is telling the Jews that they were approaching something that their ancestors had sense enough to fear.

Translation: “For you have not gone to the handling and burning fire of Mount Sinai, nor to the darkness, even gloomy darkness, and the storm.”

So this passage is connected with the giving of the law. It is connected here with legalism — Deuteronomy 5:22,23. This verse represents the background for the giving of the ten commandments and, in effect, the entire Mosaic law. The writer is saying to the Jews of AD 67 that they did not go to the law or the ten commandments for salvation, but in effect they have now reverted to the law. He is warning them that even their ancestors were smarter than them, they didn’t go near that mountain.

Verse 18 deals with the subject of being consistent. It is imperative that we have consistency. Consistency means you are saved by grace and you live by grace. You are not supposed to be saved by grace and then live by legalism. Romans 3:20-28 is a great summary of what this verse is saying:

“Because by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified in his sight; for through the law comes the knowledge of sin.”

The law can teach me that I am a sinner but the law can’t save me as a sinner. The law can show me that I am wrong but the law can’t make me right. It takes something greater than the law to save me. In fact the law wasn’t designed to save, the law was designed to show me that I am a sinner and need a saviour.

“But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness belonging to God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe; for there is no distinction.”

“For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by his grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom the God has predetermined the place of propitiation [the cross] through faith by means of his blood, for a demonstration of his righteousness because of the passing over of the previously committed sins by the clemency of the God.”

In other words, during Old Testament times people were saved by believing in Christ and their sins were passed over until they could be judged at the cross.

“Therefore where is boasting? It has been shut down. Through what law? Of works? No, by no means, but through the law of faith.’

“For we conclude that mankind receives justification by means of faith apart from the works of the law.”

Verse 19 — the description of Mount Sinai continues. We have the dative singular indirect object of h)xoj plus the descriptive genitive singular from the noun salpigc — “blast of a trumpet” — plus the adjunctive use of kai, meaning “also.” “Also the blast of a trumpet.” The trumpet blast is recorded in Exodus 19:12, 16. It was used to get the congregation’s attention, and it did.

“and the voice of words” — referring to Exodus 19:19, is “and the sound of words.”

“which” — genitive singular from the relative pronoun o(j which refers back to r(hma or “words.”

“they that heard entreated” — the words that they heard were the words of the Mosaic law, and they were frightened when they heard the words. “They that heard” is the aorist active participle of a)kouw. The aorist tense is a constative aorist gathering into one entirety the action of the verb. They all heard it — Deuteronomy 5:25. The words of the Lord were so strong that they didn’t know which way they were going to die for all of their failures. The people of Israel heard the voice of God as well as the blast of the trumpet, says this aorist active participle. The temporal participle can be translated “which words when they heard them.”

“they entreated” — the aorist middle indicative of paraiteomai which means to beg. “Entreated” is the main verb. The aorist participle has action which precedes the action of the main verb. They begged God the let them out of there. They were scared and wanted to put miles between themselves and that mountain. That was in BC 1441 and now it is AD 67. So 1500 years later their progeny are not afraid of that mountain at all. In fact, they are hanging around that mountain as if it was spirituality. The active voice: the people of Israel heard the voice. The middle voice is a deponent verb, middle in form but active in meaning, and the Jews produced the action. The indicative mood is declarative for historical reality.

Now comes an accusative of general reference. The noun in the accusative case is logoj and it is the subject of the infinitive. And we have the aorist passive infinitive of prostiqhmi. The word is a combination which means that no words should be added to them. We have a negative here. We have an intensive pronoun, the indirect object in the genitive a)utoj. This is a very unusual and strong phrase and what they are saying is, “No more, if God gives just one more commandment I’ll die of just shock.” They begged that not one more word would be added to them.

Translation: “Also the blast of a trumpet, and the sound of words; which when they heard them they begged that no word should be added to them.”

Verse 20 — we start out with the explanatory use of the epexegtical particle gar, “For.” (Epexegetical means an additional explanation).

“they could not endure” — the imperfect active indicative of ferw plus the strong objective negative o)uk. The imperfect tense is a progressive imperfect of description. It denotes continuous action in past time and the process is vividly represented as progress in past time. The active voice: the Jews who were standing before Mount Sinai produced the action, and they kept on producing it, says the imperfect tense. They were not only frightened when they were awakened by the blast of the trumpet but they were frightened when it was dark outside. Then they were frightened when they saw the fire in the sky, and again when they heard the words of the Lord. And they were frightened when Moses drew boundaries around the mountain, so everything has frightened them. We are to understand that they could hardly stand it any more, they had been frightened so many times. The active voice: the Jews who were standing there produced the action which was continual fear. The indicative mood is declarative for the historical reality of their reaction to what was going on.

“that which was commanded” — the present passive participle of diastellw. The word means command, a command that must be obeyed. The static present represents a condition which is assumed to perpetually exist. In other words, the ten commandments and everything else that was given is here to stay. The passive voice: the ten commandments receive the action of the verb. The participle is circumstantial. So we translate it, “For they could not keep on bearing what was commanded.”

Now we have a quotation from Exodus 19:13 — “And if” is made up of kai and a)eon — kan. This is a conditional particle which goes with a conditional clause — “Even if.”

“so much as” — not found in the original; “a beast” — qhrion is an animal; “should touch” is the aorist active subjunctive of qigganw, and the aorist tense is ingressive, “should begin to touch.” The active voice: the animal produces the action. The subjunctive mood is potential. It is part of the third class condition; “the mountain” is the objective genitive of o)roj, referring to Mount Sinai; “it shall be stoned” — future passive indicative liqobolew. The future tense is an imperative future, this is a command. The passive voice: the animal by merely touching the mountain is to receive death. The indicative mood is declarative which goes with the future tense as a command. “It will be stoned” is the way it is translated; “or thrust through with a dart” is not found in the original manuscript.

Translation: “For they could not keep on bearing what was commanded, Even if an animal should touch the mountain, it will be stoned.”

Summary

1. The standards of God are perfect. They reflect His divine essence.

2. The presentation of the ten commandments is in view in this passage. The ten commandments represent a perfect standard of establishment. They demand freedom, privacy, the right to own property, free enterprise, respect for the property and rights of others, and they demand it in a perfect way.

3. The ten commandments were more than the Exodus generation could bear. The word for “bear” is ferw which means to bear or to carry.

4. By the time the tenth commandment had been given the Jews were so totally indicted by the function of their old sin natures that they were totally discouraged. Therefore they could not bear to hear any more at that time.

5. So much, then, for the first sentence in this verse: “they could not keep on bearing what was commanded.” In the second sentence we have a further reason for avoiding Mount Sinai.

6. The further reason: Animals represented money or wealth in an agricultural economy in the ancient world.

7. If any animal or any type of cattle came near the mountain he died by stoning.

8. So terrible was the condemnation by the law that the Jew could not bear it and he was constantly afraid that his animals would be killed. He was afraid of losing his wealth, wealth that he had brought out of Egypt. The interesting thing is that their progeny living in AD 67 were trying to keep their wealth by living on Mount Sinai. In effect, one generation tried to save its wealth by getting away from the mountain and then this generation tried to save its wealth by getting on the mountain. If you lived in Judah and you made any type of talk about separation from Judaism you were going to be dispossessed.

So according to Exodus 19:12, 13 even touching the mountain meant loss of life and execution. And of the Jews of 1441 BC were afraid to approach the mountain why shouldn’t the Jews of AD 67 be even more fearful? Mount Sinai and all it connotes is never a substitute for grace. Mount Sinai condemns; Mount Zion delivers from that condemnation. They have just gone to the wrong mountain.

Verse 21 — we start out with the adjunctive use of kai, “Also”; “so terrible” — terrible in the sense of fearful, foberoj means “fearful.”

“was its sight” — the word “sight” is a present passive participle from the verb fantizw. It is used as a noun or a substantive and therefore it means “appearance.” We have a definite article used as a possessive pronoun and it should be translated “its appearance.”

“that Moses said” — the aorist active indicative of legw is a quotation of what Moses said in Deuteronomy 9:19. This is another detail not recorded in the Old Testament. Moses spoke in Deuteronomy 9:19 but something was added that was not said at that time.

“I exceedingly fear” is wrong. It is “I am e)kfoboj.” This is the present active indicative of e)imi, “I keep on being (e)kfoboj) terrified.”

“and I shake” — this is a double predicate nominative e)ntromoj, “I tremble.”

Translation: “Also so terrible was the (Mount Sinai’s) appearance that Moses said, I am terrified and trembling.”

Mount Sinai perfectly emphasises the fear produced by condemnation. The Jews in the 1441 BC generation understood the impact of Mount Sinai. The Jews of AD 67 had rejected grace blessing. They were saved, they came to the cross for salvation, they had rejected grace blessing; now they are climbing Mount Sinai. The reversionistic believer has gone up the wrong mountain. He is in the mountain of religion, the mountain of legalism, he is therefore avoiding blessing. The reversionistic Jewish believers of AD 67 have moved in where angels feared to tread, where their forefathers feared to tread. The first illustration of this section, Esau, was a challenge to the unbelievers, and that was a shock to be compared to Esau. but this is a greater shock, the believing Jews are compared to their forefathers. Their forefathers were afraid to go up that mountain and here they were walking all over it.

Verses 22-24 — the mountain of grace blessing.

Verse 22 — we have the adversative conjunction a)lla which sets up a strong contrast between Mount Sinai and Mount Zion. It says that they are as different as two mountains could be. The principle is quite obvious: the contrast between grace and legalism. One is the place of legalism and one is the place of blessing. When we are left in this life after salvation we are left to climb Mount Zion which is the supergrace principle. We are left here for blessing, that is the purpose of keeping us here. But if instead we go over to Mount Sinai it is cursing or divine discipline. The same contrast of these two mountains is found in Galatians 4:19-31. There it is the problem of grace versus legalism, just as here.

After this conjunction there are seven datives of indirect object. They go with the verb proserxomai, “ye are come” is literally, “you have come.” The perfect tense is the intensive perfect for past completed action [they had already been saved] and the existing results — they are alive. The active voice: the Jewish believers of AD 67 produced the action of the verb by believing in the Lord Jesus Christ. The issue is not evangelism here but their attitude toward doctrine. The indicative mood is declarative for historical reality of their salvation. They came to Mount Zion for salvation, they should stay on Mount Zion for grace blessing.

“to mount Sion” — an indeclinable proper noun. The word “mountain” is o)roj and it is a dative of indirect object, the first of seven.

What is Mount Zion?

1. The literal Mount Zion is a rock escarpment on the western side of Jerusalem.

2. Mount Zion is famous because on this mountain was built a fort called Fort Jebus, the most impregnable fortification in the ancient world. It stood up to 500 years of siege.

3. Zion became associated with grace blessing, the story of Psalm 30.

4. It depicts therefore at this stage all of God’s grace planning for us. That is why the writer says you have already gone to Mount Zion. Mount Zion represents grace. They were saved by grace and were under living grace at the time of 67 AD, even though they were climbing Mount Sinai.

5. While those originally addressed in this epistle were Jews, many of them living on the sides of that same hill, this is actually addressed to all the family of God. It is addressed to us.

6. Therefore Zion is defined in terms of the royal family, in terms of the heavenly home which we possess right now. It represents the heavenly home of the royal family.

We have seven datives of advantage in this passage, Mount Zion is the first. It is to our advantage to have a home. We all have a permanent home in heaven. The second dative of indirect object will be myriads of angels. So we have servants. The third will be the Church of the firstborn. God the Father is also going to be one of the datives of indirect object, “the spirits of the justified ones,” “Jesus Christ the mediator,” and the efficacious blood.

“and” — should be “even.” This is the ascensive use of the conjunction kai plus the dative singular indirect object from “city”, poluj. Poluj indicates SG³.

“of the living God” — the word “living” is the present active participle of zaw but the participle is ascriptive. That means the participle is used as an adjective, and that is how it is translated: “living God.” The word for God is a descriptive genitive — “even to the city of the living God.”

“the heavenly Jerusalem” — again the city is identified with paragraph SG³, the ultimate and temporal victory of supergrace is the eternal reward and blessing of surpassing grace. The second dative. We have a permanent home. When you have a permanent home this us used as a sign of security. The only security you have is eternal security. You have a permanent home.

“and to an innumerable company of angels” — again this is dative, the dative plural indirect object of muriaj, translated “company.” The dative plural indirect object means not company but ten thousand time ten thousand. That is why it is translated “innumerable.” “Myriads” is a little closer in translation. It means millions and even billions. These are elect angels, they are the recipients of grace, they are in phase three. Our home is already prepared, the servants are already waiting for us. This is a reference to the angelic conflict and the ultimate victory of Jesus Christ. He already has attained the strategic victory, we are left behind for tactical victory. When we go over the high golden bridge of dying grace we will see the total victory for the total victory is in heaven. The angelic conflict started in heaven, its centre is in heaven, it was extended to the earth by God Himself in creating man in order to make us the extension of it and the end of it. So man is the extension of the angelic conflict, he is part of the angelic conflict, and he is the end of the angelic conflict. Man is a nothing compared to angels and God is going to take a nothing, give him eternal life, give him a resurrection body, give him a castle in heaven, and give him angelic servants. That is the end of the line in the angelic conflict. So the strategic victory of Christ at this stage has intensified the angelic conflict because we live in the royal family age. The Church Age is the royal family age. Since the Lord Jesus Christ has been seated at the right hand of the Father, the dispensation of Israel has been interrupted, the demon target has changed from Christ to members of the royal family on the earth. Since all of these things have occurred we live in a very intense spiritual conflict, the most intense spiritual conflict of history. So while we live in challenging times and great times, and while we are said to have some advantages like plumbing and air conditioning, we also have some intensities that have never existed before and never will exist again. Even the Tribulation, while a spectacular and horrible time historically, will never be as great in intensity of pressure. The Tribulation will be difficult for the entire population of the world but the pressure today is focused on those who are members of the royal family of God. Therefore each one of use must have in our own battlefield, resident inside of us, our own ammunition — resident doctrine in the soul. That is why since each one of us is fighting his own spiritual battle the doctrine in the Bible is no good to us, neither is the doctrine that someone else has in their soul. When you go to someone else what you are trying to do is to get into someone else’s battlefield. But you have 50,000 fallen angels shooting at you, therefore you get your own ammo. You can’t fight your battles with someone else’s ammo, it doesn’t fit your weapon. Whatever your gun is spitting out it has to be your very own ammo. That is the point. That is why we have Bible class, because the life of each believer is a battleground and each believer in that sense must go it alone. You don’t start leaning on other people. We arm ourselves for our own personal battles. We all have personal battles. Remember, the ammunition is not interchangeable therefore you must be prepared for your won personal conflicts, you must be spiritually self-sustaining.

Translation: “But you have come to Mount Zion [grace], even to the city of the living God [royal family], the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angels.”

Verse 23 — “To the general assembly” is a locative singular of sphere from panhgurij. The word means a festive convocation, a great party. This is still a part of verse 22 and it should be translated “to the myriads of angels in festive celebration.” Panhgurij is an Attic Greek word, it isn’t used in the Koine Greek. Those at this party are celebrating the victory of Jesus Christ. They are also celebrating the fact that they are going to serve us in those castles in heaven.

Now we come to the third dative of indirect object, “and church.” It should be “and to the church” — dative singular indirect object e)kklhsia.

The doctrine of the Church

1. The word e)kklhsia is used many ways in the ancient world. It was used in three very special ways in the Bible, but before it was used in a biblical sense e)kklhsia was used in Classical Greek, it is a Classical Greek word. The Classical Greek word e)kklhsia means the assembly of the Athenian citizens to conduct the affairs of state. The Old Testament saints used to assemble and in Acts 7:38 we actually have the Classical Greek e)kklhsia talking about the Jews assembling in the wilderness. The assembly of Jews in their synagogue in Matthew 18:17 is not “church” as translated, it is e)kklhsia or assembly. E)kklhsia really means assembly. Then in the New Testament, the Koine meaning, it means “church.” Under Hellenistic culture and government the assembly of the government in a city state is called e)kklhsia, and this use is found in Acts 19:25. So we have four non-technical uses of the word all found in the Bible. The one apart from the Bible is the Athenian assembly. These are non-technical. You have to be careful because occasionally in the Bible you have a non-technical e)kklhsia and the translators sometimes translate them “church.” There is a system of theology called “Covenant Theology” that is all mixed up and anti-dispensational. It starts the Church in Abraham’s tent. Some of them start it in the garden, but they start it in Old Testament times. Covenant theology has this great problem and so you get a covenant theologian trying to translate e)kklhsia every time as “church.” So he has the church out in the desert in the days of Moses and the church is Greek city states. Obviously those are non-technical. Our interest is found in the technical use of e)kklhsia in which there are two meanings. The first is universal and the second is local.

The universal Church is made up of all believers. Why? Because we are all members of the royal family of God and at the point of salvation God the Holy Spirit entered us into union with Christ. Union with Christ and/or universal Church equals royal family. So we are all in union with Christ. The Church universal refers to all believers. The universal Church is technical and it means all believers, it has nothing to do with the local church or what we call church membership today — Ephesians 1:22,23; 5:25,27; Colossians 1:17,18 are all references to the universal church, not a local church.

But the Church on earth must also have a classroom and the classroom is the local church. (There is no such thing, technically speaking, as church membership) In this classroom we have one professor, the pastor-teacher, and he is the final authority. He is not the only authority but he is the final authority and the highest. When he stands up to communicate the Word of God then the whole royal family is in a state of submission to his authority. So you have one person teaching — monologue, no dialogue — and you have the rest of the royal family in that classroom. Basic worship is Bible teaching.

2. Dispensational orientation is important when dealing with the doctrine of the Church. Dispensational orientation recognises the fact that the Church is the age of the mystery. The mystery is declared in Romans 16:25,26; Ephesians 3:1-5; Colossians 1:25-27. In these passages we have the mystery concept and it simply means something that was unknown in previous dispensations and something that was unknown in the Old Testament scriptures. The first prophet of the Church was the Lord Jesus Christ Himself and His first prophecy of the Church in any detail was the upper room discourse, followed by the Gethsemane discourse. This means that all of the eschatology in the Old Testament dealt with all of the problems of the fifth cycle of discipline, gave prophecy all of the way to the cross, resurrection of Christ, ascension, and session, because none of these things occurred in the Age of the Church, they all occurred in the dispensation of Israel. So they are prophesied as a part of Israel’s eschatology. Then you have prophecies skipping over the Church Age and starting in with the Tribulation. The Old Testament has a great deal about the Tribulation, a great deal about the second advent, the Millennium, and even some things about the eternal state. There is nothing mentioned about the Church, the baptism of the Holy Spirit, the indwelling of Christ, the universal priesthood of the royal family of God, etc. They are therefore called mystery. Mystery does not mean unknown, it means not known to those on the outside. Mystery refers to the doctrine of an ancient fraternity. They called their doctrines mysteries and you had to be initiated into the fraternity to know anything about those doctrines. Therefore, mystery simply means that Moses and Isaiah and all of the writers of the Old Testament knew nothing about the Church Age, it is not even mentioned once. Mystery means it is peculiar and unique to the royal family.

. 3. The beginning of the Church Age. The interrupting of the Jewish Age seven years short of its completion because of the calling out of the royal family gives us some clue as to when the Church Age begins. It begins at the point of interruption. The reason for the interruption of the Jewish Age is the fact that Jesus Christ had just completed the strategic victory in the angelic conflict by being seated at the right hand of the Father. All of the Old Testament saints were members of the family of God but there was no royal family to celebrate the seating of Jesus Christ after His resurrection or to commemorate. Our salvation and our dispensation commemorates strategic victory. The baptism of the Holy Spirit enters us into union with Christ at the right hand of the Father. The baptism of the Spirit never occurred until the Day of Pentecost in 30 AD. It is a commemorative act, an act which commemorates the strategic victory. So in effect, you are a museum piece, a commemoration of the strategic victory of the angelic conflict. The only possible way that we could be a commemoration is to be in union with Christ, and to be in union with Christ makes us royal family of God, not merely family of God. For that reason we have a very unique type of situation. So the Age of Israel has to be interrupted. If the Age of Israel had completed its last seven years it means that there would be no royal family to commemorate, and therefore could not be completed. It had to be interrupted and it was interrupted by the activity of the Day of Pentecost — the baptism of the Holy Spirit which occurred for the first time. Matthew 16:18 — “I will build my church,” future tense. The Church is future to the public ministry of Jesus Christ. The key to the beginning of the Church Age and the interruption of the Jewish Age is the baptism of the Holy Spirit. The only time the baptism of the Spirit occurs is in the Church Age. It is unique, its purpose is to form the royal family of God in contrast to the family of God.

In this dispensation only God the Holy Spirit does five things for each believer at the point of his salvation. Regeneration: family of God; baptism of the Holy Spirit: royal family of God; indwelling of the body of the believer: the sign of royalty. No believer in the past and no believer after the Church Age will be indwelt in his body, that is for the Church Age only; we are sealed: the security of the royal family; we are given spiritual gifts: the function of the royal family that replaces human talents.

The Church Age begins when the baptism of the Spirit occurs for the first time — Acts 1:5 was a prophecy of the baptism of the Spirit, so obviously the Church did not begin in the first chapter of Acts. It began in 30 AD.

4. The termination of the Church Age. The Church Age is still going on today. The idea that the Rapture could occur at any moment is not based upon what is going on in Palestine, it is based on the doctrine of the imminency of the Rapture. Paul said in his day that the Rapture could have taken place then, and that is true. The imminency means there is no unfulfilled scripture. Peter and Paul both said that the Rapture could have occurred in their day at any moment. Paul was so good at teaching the Rapture to the Thessalonians that they thought it was going to occur. It could occur tonight. The point is that the is no prophecy to be fulfilled. No one knows when the Rapture will occur for the simple reason that only God knows when the royal family is completed. The resurrection or the Rapture of the Church is taught in 1 Corinthians 15:51-57; Philippians 3:21; 4:13-18; 1 John 3:1,2. By comparing certain texts in the scripture from the original there appears to be a good reason to believe that the number of people in the body of Christ or the number of people in the royal family will be equal to the number of demons operating on the earth. Because of Colossians 2:15; Revelation 19:6-8; Zechariah 13:2 cf. 1 Thessalonians 3:13 it seems to be quite obvious that the royal family of God will be equal to the number of demons operating under Satan’s command to day. All fallen angels are not operational today. A great portion of the fallen angels are incarcerated in Tartarus but there are, of course, a great portion of the fallen angels which are functioning today under the title of demons. They are invisible but the time will come when every believer in a resurrection body will knock a demon off of the earth. It would appear that each believer will have his very own demon to throw off of the earth and this certainly would regulate the number of people who are in the royal family of God. Whenever that number is reached the Rapture occurs immediately.

At the time of the termination of the Church Age the bride is prepared in heaven while the Tribulation occurs on the earth, and this preparation includes receiving a resurrection body, the removal of the old sin nature, the destruction of all human good accumulated during the Church Age.

5. Some synonyms of the Church. The relationship between Christ and the Church is mentioned under seven synonyms. Each one of them emphasises an area of Bible doctrine.

a) The last Adam and the new creation. Jesus Christ is the last Adam and the royal family of God is a new and a unique creation — 1 Corinthians 15:45,47; 2 Corinthians 5:17; Galatians 6:15. Remember that the Church Age as royal family is absolutely unique.

b) The head and the body. Christ is the head, we are members of the body. This emphasises our function under spiritual gifts and is taught in Ephesians 1:22,23; 4:4,5; 5:23; Colossians 1:18,24; 2:19, etc.

c) The Shepherd and the sheep, found prophetically in John 10, found doctrinally in Hebrews 13:20 and 1 Peter 5:4. We as members of the royal family on this earth are totally helpless, we need every grace provision that God has provided, and God is called the Shepherd in the sense of His provision for the royal family on the earth.

d) The vine and the branches of John 15. This particular analogy is related to the baptism of the Holy Spirit and the uniqueness of the royal family.

e) The chief corner stone and the stones of the building — Ephesians 2:20; 1 Peter 2:4-8.

f) The high priest and the royal priesthood. Every believer is a priest — Hebrews 7:25; 10:10-14; 1 Peter 2:5,9.

g) The groom and the bride. Jesus Christ is the groom and the royal family is called the bride — 2 Corinthians 11:2; Ephesians 5:25-27; Revelation 19:6-8.

6. The uniqueness of the believer in the Church Age. His uniqueness is based upon:

a) The baptism of the Spirit which is a unique function of God the Holy Spirit and the means by which the royal family of God is formed. The uniqueness of the baptism of the Spirit leads to the uniqueness of our royalty. In history royalty comes and royalty goes but our royalty is permanent, it is based upon God’s work and God’s plan and is as permanent as the essence of God.

b) The fact that every member of the royal family of God is his own priest — the universal priesthood of the believer.

c) The indwelling of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit indwells the body. God the Holy Spirit before the Church Age never indwelt any body of any person and the filling of the Spirit in the past was always the soul being controlled by the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit left the soul and came and went under a sovereign situation. It is the soul only where the filling of the Spirit resides. The Holy Spirit never leaves the body and that is unique to this age only. You are never commanded to be indwelt, you are commanded to be filled with the Spirit — Ephesians 5:18 — and being filled with the Spirit has to do with the soul. The Holy Spirit only indwells the soul when the believer is in fellowship.

d) The royal family can read. One of the signs of royalty in the ancient world was that royalty could always read. We don’t understand this because we have so many people who can read today, but in the ancient world the only people who could read and write were royalty or the clergy. Therefore in order to conduct any kind of business you had to have a member of the royal family around because he was the only one who could read. This was the way business was often conducted and the whole point is that royalty has its instructions in writing — the Bible. What does that mean? There is no such thing as extra biblical revelation. God speaks through His Word to the royal family, He does not speak to them through voices as He did to Moses and other people.

e) We have a supernatural way of life with a supernatural means of execution. The supernatural way of life is delineated in Church Age doctrine and the supernatural means of execution is the indwelling plus the filling of the Holy Spirit — indwelling the body, filling of the soul.

f) Each one of us has a life of definite purpose because each one of us personally is the ambassador of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is at the right hand of the Father, therefore He is represented on this earth by every believer. Every believer on this earth is an ambassador for Jesus Christ. So no matter how inconsequential your life may seem to you, you are still the ambassador of Jesus Christ and your life, therefore, has great meaning and great purpose.

7. The objective of the Church Age, the objective of each believer. The objective of each believer is to grow up, to stay on the road to glory.

Our third dative in verse 23 — “To the Church of the firstborn.” The word “firstborn” is a descriptive genitive plural prwtotokoj. Prwtotokoj presents the believer of the Church Age in union with Christ. It emphasises the fact that the moment we believe in Christ we enter into union with Jesus Christ seated at the right hand of the Father. He is eternal life, we share His life; He is the Son of God, we are the children of God; He is the King of kings and Lord of lords, we share His royalty; He is elected, we share His election; He is destined, we share His destiny; He is the high priest, we share His priesthood. So union with Christ is in view here. Christ is said to be the firstborn, He has the right to primogeniture. Primogeniture means three things: the rulership of the family, the priesthood of the family, and the double portion of the family or all of the family estate. The Lord Jesus Christ has all of these. As the firstborn He is the ruler of the Church, He is the ruler of Israel, He is the future ruler of the world, replacing Satan at the second advent. Jesus Christ is the high priest of the royal priesthood forever. The double portion: Through Jesus Christ there is eternal reward for each member of the royal family, the paragraph SG³. Obtaining that eternal reward has to do with your attitude toward doctrine.

Now the royal family shares in this, we are called “the church of the firstborn.” We share the rulership. Believers are going to rule with Christ in the Millennium, and for some SG³ will have a rulership paragraph. The priesthood: Every believer is a priest so we share His priesthood. The double portion are the special blessings we receive under the principle of paragraph SG² or supergrace. So “firstborn ones” refer to the royal family. We are not only firstborn ones, we are also first resurrected ones.

“which are written” is literally, “who have been registered.” Royalty has a registry, and the word for “registry” here is not grafw which means to write but a)pografw which means to register. This is a perfect passive participle. The dramatic perfect is the rhetorical use of the intensive perfect. The intensive perfect is a past action which is completed and the results go on forever. We are registered as royalty forever. The passive voice: the royal family of the Church Age receives the registration. This is a circumstantial participle which includes every believer.

“in heaven” — the registration is in heaven, e)n plus the locative of o)uranoj means in heaven itself.

In the third dative in this segment we have come to the royal family registered in heaven. In other words, this is held up in contrast to Mount Sinai. Mount Sinai represents legalism, Mount Zion represents grace, and we have come to Mount Zion for salvation so let’s keep climbing Mount Zion. Those are the orders for us after salvation. At the top of Mount Zion is supergrace and paragraph SG². But the Jews have left Mount Zion and have moved over to Mount Sinai, this is reversionism. Reversionism goes to Mount Sinai, some form of legalism, some form of apostasy.

Our fourth dative of indirect object is “and to God the Judge of all.” It is much better to go to Mount Zion where grace finds God the judge and evaluator of all than to go to Mount Sinai where you feel God’s judgement. “To God” is, again, the dative of indirect object. With it we have the conjunction kai plus qeoj — “and to God.”

The word for “judge” here is the dative singular of apposition. There is no definite article and it is “to God judge of all” actually. The word is krithj the Greek word from which we get the English word critic. Krithj plus the absence of the definite article calls attention to the quality of the noun. There is only one critic in our lives and that is God Himself, the perfect critic who is objective and who can evaluate and be helpful. In His sovereignty whenever He evaluates He always accompanies that evaluation with either grace blessing or grace cursing. So in His perfect sovereignty His criticisms are always excellent and accompanied by whatever is necessary. Because God is absolute righteousness He is an objective critic. God is fair, it is impossible for God to be unfair. Because of His perfect justice He also, when He becomes the critic or the judge in any case, has all of the facts and therefore makes a perfect decision. Because God is love He also is able to perform whatever criticism is necessary on the basis of the objectivity of His perfect love. In addition to that He is eternal life which means that in eternity past He knew the facts and therefore as a critic He knew the facts before they occurred. This is also bound up in His omniscience. His omnipresence: He is on the scene so He is the observer of the facts. He is both judge or critic and witness. His omnipotence: He has the ability to take the facts and to make a proper evaluation and disposition of every individual situation. Immutability: He is incorruptible as a judge or critic. Veracity means that He always relates everything to truth, no false evidence is ever inserted in any of His criticisms or judgements.

“of all — the genitive plural of the adverb paj includes angels, both elect and unsaved, peoples saved and unsaved. So God is the judge of all, and “all” here, or paj, refers to creatures.

God has already judged the angels and they are divided into two general categories, the elect and the non-elect or unsaved. God judges believers in time; God has not judged the unbeliever as yet. Time is really designed to judge the believer and to warn the unbeliever, and God’s judgements are the evaluation of the believer. God judges the unbeliever in eternity by means of the great white throne. God evaluates the believer in eternity by means of paragraph SG³. So God is the judge or the evaluator of all. And when we come to Mount Zion we come to the mountain of grace and therefore we come to evaluation resulting in blessing. All of the criticism of God results in blessing when we are climbing Mount Zion or following the colours to the high ground of the supergrace life.

The fifth dative of indirect object which goes with our verb proserxomai: “and to the spirits” — dative plural indirect object from the noun pneuma. Pneuma in the singular means “spirit, breath, air,” in the plural it means “spirits” and we must have other words to identify what is meant by spirits. But here we have the spirits of justified ones. So this is a convocation of born-again believers.

“just men” is incorrect, there is no noun a)nqrwpoj for man, it is simply the possessive genitive plural dikaioj and it should be translated “justified ones.”

“made perfect” — the perfect passive participle of teleiow means having been completed. It is a reference to ultimate sanctification whereby God brings to completion His objective with every believer. God’s objective is to make every believer exactly like Himself. So this is actually a statement of sanctification.

Translation: “Also to the church of the firstborn ones [the royal family], who have been registered in heaven, and to God Judge of all, and to the spirits of justified ones having been perfected.”

The doctrine of sanctification

1. By definition, sanctification means to be set apart as sacred, to be consecrated to God, to be set apart as being in His plan. The word itself has to do with the plan of God and it has to do with the royal family of God. More than that, it means to be under contract to God forever. The actual death of Christ set aside the old covenant, i.e. the Mosaic law. It also set aside all of the shadows of the Mosaic law. The old contract was abrogated, cancelled and annulled by the cross, and the new contract or the new covenant is for the royal family of God only. So sanctification is a word that belongs to you and it relates your life to God’s plan and purpose, therefore it gives your life meaning and purpose. You are in the process of divine sanctification forever. Sanctification means a contract broken down into three parts. It is provided on the basis of the efficacious, once-and-for-all sacrifice of Christ on the cross, fulfilling all of the Levitical shadows. We sign the contract the moment we believe in Jesus Christ. The contract is inviolable. Those in the contract are all members of the royal family of God.

2. We have certain words that are found in the New Testament which refer back to the contract or to the principle of sanctification. The first of these is a noun, a(gioj. It is translated in the New testament as “saint” or “holy.” These are used to describe those who are in the contract. The second word a(giothj, “holiness,” means the state of being under the contract or being under the new covenant to the church or it is our status quo as members of the royal family of God. We are said to be therefore “holiness,” we are said to be therefore under contract forever and ever. The third word, a(giosunh is our word “sanctification.” The word really means the state of being under contract to God. The contract is the new covenant or the new testament, and in this contract there are three stages. The fourth word is a(giasmoj, a synonym for the last one. It means consecration or sanctification, or the state of being holy or under contract to God. Finally, the fifth word we have is a verb, a(giazw, which has the meaning to be set apart under contract, to be set apart under grace contract to God.

In addition to these words being used for believers of the Church Age, Jesus Christ is called a(gioj tou qeou. It means “the saint of God,” or “the set apart of God.” This title is used in John 6:69 for the basis of our grace contract.

3. The first part of the contract is the entering paragraph. It is called phase one sanctification, a reference to how God proposes to take the unbeliever and at the point of his salvation enter him into the royal family, making a distinction between him and all of the Old Testament believers. The Old Testament believers were simply born again, a ministry of the Holy Spirit in regeneration. That happens to us at the point of salvation but in addition we are entered into union with Jesus Christ and that is called positional sanctification. In other words, the moment we believe in Jesus Christ the baptism of the Spirit occurs by which each one of us is entered into union with Christ, each one of us becomes immediately royal family. Paragraph one of the new contract, the grace contract, makes each one of us royalty at the point of salvation. The principle of this is found in many passages. — e.g. 1 Corinthians 1:2,30; 6:11; Hebrews 10:10,14.

4. Phase two sanctification, the tactical objective of the royal family in time which is supergrace status. The objective of God in keeping us alive is that we might enter supergrace, that we might climb to the top of Mount Zion, that we might seize and hold the until the point of transfer and/or dying. Therefore there is a second paragraph which deals with the believer or the royal family in time. It commands certain things like the filling of the Spirit, 2 Thessalonians 2:13, it demands the daily function of GAP, John 17:17; Ephesians 5:26, and the objective is to reach the high ground of supergrace. The paragraph also states that in case you are otherwise minded and negative toward Bible doctrine God will still keep you in time but He will make sure that your life time on earth is totally miserable. That is the beauty about the royal family on earth, it is either feast or famine, either +H or total misery, there is no in between.

5. Phase three sanctification or the third paragraph. God guarantees that beyond death there will be for you a resurrection body. Your resurrection will come up at the resurrection of the Church. Also you will lose the old sin nature and, furthermore, you will not have to be embarrassed in heaven with the rags of human good. Cf. Romans 8:29; 1 Corinthians 1:8; Philippians 3:21; 1 Thessalonians 5:23; 1 John 3:1,2.

6. In undertaking all of these things for us God has set up the agencies in the contract, and in this new covenant or new contract, the grace contract, God has actually set up three agencies. The Father is the author of the contract, the author of the plan for us, operation grace. The first of these agents is the Son of God — Hebrews 10:10,14. The second agent is the Holy Spirit — Romans 15:16; 2 Thessalonians 2:13. The third agent is the Word of God, Bible doctrine — John 17:17; Ephesians 5:26. Significantly absent, the believer is not said to be an agent. The believer is an ambassador, a royal priest, but the believer in Jesus Christ is not an agent. That is grace.

7. The contract or sanctification is related to the angelic conflict. Inasmuch as man was created in order to resolve the angelic conflict, and inasmuch as this has been accomplished by the plan of God, each one of the paragraphs is related to the angelic conflict. For example, paragraph one: Mankind or the royal family is positionally higher than angels. God the Holy Spirit takes us and enters us into union with Christ seated at the right hand of the Father. Christ at the right hand of the Father is higher than angels. Inasmuch as He is higher than angels and we are entered into union with Him, positionally we are higher than angels from the very start of the contract. In the second paragraph of the contract the supergrace believer occupied with Christ glorifies God and results in a tactical victory in the angelic conflict, and the believer on the top on Mount Zion or the believer on the high ground of supergrace is in a place of tactical victory and that tactical victory includes victory over angels. That is the whole purpose of that tactical victory. That means that all fallen angels, unseen, are defeated by the supergrace believer. The third part of the contract: The royal family is in a resurrection body physically superior to all angels. All phases of sanctification indicate and relate to the angelic conflict. 8. Conclusion. Sanctification is the uniqueness of the Church Age and the royal family of God based upon the efficacious sacrifice of Christ on the cross plus His resurrection, ascension, and session. The word “sanctification” is very meaningful, a reminder of our contract. It demonstrates how God has taken us in grace all the from spiritual death and sinfulness to the point of royal family of God forever. He has accomplished the whole thing Himself. So in effect, then, the conjunction of the ages occurs in the Church Age — cf.. Hebrews 9:26. We are, in effect, the conjunction of the ages and no set of believers in any period of history has ever had more importance in the plan of God than believers in the Church Age.

Sanctification, then, is the baptism of the Holy Spirit plus positional truth by which the royal family are going to live in the holy of holies forever and ever — Hebrews 10:19,20.

9. Therefore the challenge of sanctification, the challenge of our contract, is time. We are saved totally apart from works — phase one sanctification. In our salvation we are entered into union with Christ, we are royal family forever. After resurrection or phase three sanctification we have that resurrection body minus the old sin nature, minus human good, plus the blessings of SG³, but the challenge period is time because this is the period where our constant use of volition leads to our personal tactical victory in the angelic conflict. The challenge is to stay with doctrine on a daily basis, to grow in grace regardless of all distractions which lead us away from doctrine, which lead us away from Bible teaching, and to glorify God by being blessed in time.

Verse 24 — dative of indirect object #6. This one brings us face to face with our saviour the Lord Jesus Christ, our great high priest, the King of kings and Lord of lords. We are still operating on one verse, verse 22, “but you have come,” the verb proserxomai. This is still the verb although we are in verse 24 we are operating on a verb we had in verse 22.

Notice again the five datives of indirect object through which we have come.

a) Mount Zion, the city of living God.

b) The myriads of angels in festive convocation.

c) The church of the firstborn ones, the royal family of God.

d) God the Father evaluator of all.

e) The spirits of the justified ones in phase three.

Altogether there are seven datives of indirect objects and we have now come to #6.

“and to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant” — the word “mediator” is the dative singular indirect object and the noun is mesithj.

The doctrine of mediatorship

1. The concept is from the word “umpire.” The word comes from Job 9:2,32,33 — “daysman.” The Hebrew word in Job 9:33 is mokiach which means “umpire.” It comes from the verb jakach which means to arbitrate. In the case of the umpire in Job chapter nine he has to be equal with both parties. There is a problem here. Party of the first part is God the Father, the Son and the Spirit, each having perfect essence. Party of the second part is man. Man has a soul plus the old sin nature plus spiritual death at birth, plus the imputation of Adam’s sin. So we have a problem here. There is no way that you can bring together in contract the two except to handle this problem in grace. There has to be someone who is equal with God and who is at the same time truly a man to arbitrate or to be the umpire. There is where the Lord Jesus Christ comes in. He is the second person of the Trinity and is therefore God. Through the virgin birth the Lord Jesus Christ came into the world minus the old sin nature, minus spiritual death, minus the imputation of Adam’s sin, and He lived 33 years minus personal sin. Therefore He was qualified on the manward side to solve the problem, but it must be the God-Man. Whoever brings God and man together in a grace contract must be equal with both parties. Jesus Christ is equal to man in the sense that He is true humanity but He is superior to all men. He is also equal to God in the sense that He has exactly the same essence as the Father, the same essence as the Holy Spirit. Therefore He is qualified.

2. Definition. A mediator removes disagreement and estrangement between two parties and brings them to a common goal. He interposes between two parties as the equal of each. That is important: a mediator is the equal of each. By so doing reconciliation is established and a contract is made. To accomplish this the Father must be propitiated and man must be reconciled. So the key in bringing everyone together: God the Father must be propitiated, man must be reconciled in the contract, and therefore the mediator must redeem. There you have redemption, reconciliation and redemption which is the basic system of our so great grace salvation. The Father is propitiated by the mediator, man is reconciled by the mediator on the cross, and the mediator accomplishes the whole thing by redemption.

3. The mechanics of mediatorship are found in 1 Timothy 2:5,6 where the two parties, God and man, are revealed and the mediator, Jesus Christ in hypostatic union, equal with both parties brings them together, and the basis of bringing them together is propitiation, reconciliation, and redemption.

4. The relationship to the Mosaic law is found in Galatians 2:19,20. The Mosaic law was a temporary contract until the mediator went to the cross. In the meantime the Mosaic law under the supervision of the mediator was taught by angels to Israel.

5. We have the identification of the mediator in the new contract — Hebrews 9:15,16 plus our passage. Christ is identified as the mediator and He accomplished mediatorship through the uniqueness of His person: the God-Man; through the uniqueness of His work: redemption, reconciliation, and propitiation.

6. Therefore there is a relationship between mediatorship and the blood of Christ. The blood of Christ equals redemption plus reconciliation plus propitiation. In Hebrews 12:24 we find the relationship between the mediatorship of Christ and the blood of Christ. The blood of animal sacrifices were shadows portraying redemption, reconciliation, and propitiation, and the blood of Christ is the reality of the fulfilment of these things. Therefore the obvious conclusion is found in Hebrews 8:6 — Christ our high priest is the mediator of a perfect contract between man and God.

Number 7, and the last of our datives of indirect objects, is “and to the blood” — dative of indirect object plus the dative of advantage from the noun a(ima; “the blood of the sprinkling” brings us face to face with two doctrines. The first of these is the doctrine of the blood itself.

The doctrine of the blood

1. We must begin with animal blood which is the concept of a(ima, literal blood. The literal blood in the scripture always refers to animals. Blood is the eat of animal life — Leviticus 17:10-14. When it says that the life of the flesh is in the blood it never refers to human beings, it refers to a lower creation, to the animal creation. The life of mankind is in the soul; the life of the animal is in the blood. Reason: the animal as we know him does not have a soul. The Bible talks about the life of the animal but never about the soul of the animal. From the coats of skins in Genesis 3:21 down through the Levitical offerings of Leviticus chapters 1-5 animal blood was used to represent something else, the sacrifice of Jesus Christ before Jesus Christ accomplished that sacrifice. In other words, animal blood is literal blood and when that animal is sacrificed on the altar that animal blood is the basis of his literal physical death. But that animal blood which is real and literal represents the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. The animal blood represents something figurative. So animal blood of the Old Testament portrays the redemptive work of Christ on the cross — Hebrews 9:22.

2. The blood of Christ is now in focus for definition. The doctrine of the blood essentially deals with the blood of Christ. The blood of Christ is not literal, it is figurative. The blood of Christ is redemption, reconciliation, propitiation. The blood of Christ is the saving work of Jesus Christ on the cross, and the reason it is called “blood of” is because all of the animal sacrifices of the Old Testament involved the shedding of blood, and God wanted to make it very clear to the human race that while Christ did not die in Old Testament times every time an animal sacrifice was offered it portrayed redemption, reconciliation, propitiation. And every time God permitted an animal sacrifice and even ordered it, as He did under the Levitical code, it meant very simply a guarantee that Jesus Christ would bear the sins of the world. So to link the historical sacrifices to the historical literal death of Christ bearing our sins, His spiritual death, the phrase “blood of Christ” covers the entire thing.

3. The phrase “the blood of Christ” is a representative analogy. Under this concept there are several things that must be known. The animal blood of the Old Testament sacrifices was real and literal. The animal literally bled it out when his throat was cut with the sacrificial knife. However, the real and literal animal blood represented the spiritual death of Christ on the cross — Colossians 1:20; Hebrews 10:19; 13:20; 1 Peter 1:2. A real analogy would be a literal death compared with a literal death. If we had a real analogy it would be a real death of an animal compared to the real death of Christ which would be His physical death. But we do not have a literal or a real analogy. In a representative analogy one thing represents another, and in this case we have the physical death of the animal representing the spiritual death of Christ on the cross. Christ did not die by bleeding to death, therefore we have a representative analogy whereby the physical death of the animal represents the spiritual death of Christ on the cross.

4. Christ did not die on the cross by bleeding to death. When He did die physically He did not bleed to death. This is taught in John 19:30-34 in which we find that the physical death of Christ on the cross occurred from His own volition, not from bleeding to death. He had the option that when His work was finished He could dismiss His spirit to the Father. He said that this was the way He would die in John 10:18.

5. What is the blood of the animal then? The blood of the animal sacrifice was a shadow to portray the death of Christ to every generation before Christ went to the cross. It was the shadow pointing to the reality — Hebrews 9:12-14.

6. Therefore the blood of Christ His saving work on the cross. Four doctrines of soteriology are used to express this. One covers the entire blood of Christ in His spiritual death: expiation — Revelation 1:5. Redemption, reconciliation and propitiation describe the direct of the blood of Christ.

7. The blood of Christ in expiation is the basis for the rebound technique — 1 John 1:7 cf. 1 John 1:9. What is the blood of Jesus Christ? It is propitiation — God the Father is satisfied with Christ bearing our sins and the person who does it; reconciliation — the barrier is removed between man and God because Christ bore our sins; redemption — Christ paid to free us from the slave market of sin into which we were born by bearing our sins. So the blood of Christ is redemption: sinward; reconciliation: manward; propitiation: God ward. The blood of Christ is all three of these, and the blood of Christ handles known sins and unknown sins.

8. The true meaning of the blood of Christ is found in the directions of the doctrines of soteriology. And Christ is the mediator, He brings God and man together by His work on the cross.

“and to the blood of the sprinkling” — the sprinkling has to do with the day of atonement, sprinkling it on the mercy seat. The noun for sprinkling, r(antismoj, is a descriptive genitive. This is a beautiful word because, where did the sprinkling occur? In the holy of holies. And where is our home as royal family? In the holy of holies. Sprinkling was added by God the Holy Spirit, speaking through this writer, to remind us of our special privileges. We are royal family and we live in the holy of holies forever, and this “speaks” — present active participle of lalew which means to communicate. The present tense is the present tense of duration, which means it always communicates. The active voice: the efficacious blood of Christ produces the action. The participle is circumstantial. The phrase says, “and to the blood of the sprinkling which communicates better things.” Verse 24c — “better things than that of Abel.” Abel is mentioned for the simple reason that he is the first Old Testament believer who was born into the world. Adam and the woman were created by God. While they did believe in the Lord Jesus Christ they were created beings. Then came those born into the world, Cain and Abel. Cain was an unbeliever, Abel was the first believer born into the world and becomes the pattern for the Old Testament saint. And we have something better than Abel. “Better things” refers to the fact of the efficacious sacrifice; but more than that, the resurrection, ascension and session of Christ which interrupts the Jewish Age and calls out the royal family. For the believers in this particular age in the royal family and are under a new contract with God. The new contract is entered into by means of faith in Jesus Christ, but in the first paragraph of the new contract we have the baptism of the Spirit which never occurred before and sets up a registry of royal family in heaven. While we live on the earth the registry is in heaven, and while the registry is in heaven and we are on the earth the challenge is to live up to the “blue book” in heaven. Therefore, we have something that never existed before. The whole system of “better things” which begins with the baptism of the Spirit gives us a class room which never existed before, gives us a textbook which never existed before, gives us the spiritual gifts which have never existed before, all of which are designed to take us rapidly to the high ground, to keep us on Mount Zion and away from the problems of Mount Sinai. Therefore, with all of these things in mind we have had the challenge of the royal family. The final challenge is given at the end of this verse, we have better things than Abel. There never was and never will be a system better than that which exists in the Church Age, there never will be a more clearly defined line and function of grace.

Translation: “And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and the blood of the sprinkling, which communicates better things than Abel’s sacrifice.”

Now having finished our study and challenge of the two mountains we move back to the same principle we had before. First of all a challenge to the unbelievers and then a final challenge to the believer who lives in an unshakable kingdom. The evangelistic appeal to the Jewish unbeliever to come to Mount Zion for salvation instead of Mount Sinai, is given in verses 25, 26. Everything from this point on is taken from the study of mountains which we have had portrayed in this passage. We have seen all of the blessings of Mount Zion and its significance and the cursings which come from Mount Sinai.

Verse 25 — “See” is actually “Beware.” It is addressed to unbelievers living in Jerusalem in AD 67. They are on the eve of one of the greatest historical catastrophes of history. This historical catastrophe should never overtake them as unbelievers. The disasters in time plus the lake of fire is the most awful possible judgement that could occur. This, therefore, is an evangelistic appeal. As we have observed in this chapter in the various evangelistic appeals we have the concept of how witnessing should occur. We have seen witnessing by love and kindness, witnessing by shock, and fair and square dealing, and now we see the final means of witnessing to those who are without Christ on the eve of historical disaster.

The present active imperative blepw recognises the fact that the people to whom this was addressed understood the gospel. At various points in history and with various groups of people this is not true, but it is true in this case because they have grown up with every type of a depicting of the gospel message. The point here is not do you understand the gospel? The point here is see that you do not reject it. The word “refuse” is the aorist middle subjunctive of the verb paraiteomai means to ask for something you know about. With the negative it means to request something that you know about but to avoid or decline something you do not quite understand. When you put it all together it means that they understand the issue of salvation but they do not understand the historical repercussions about to occur in the history of the southern kingdom. Therefore “refuse not” is a good translation. The aorist tense is a constative aorist, contemplating the action in its entirety, and means that these people have heard many times many grace approaches and they still turn down the gospel. The middle voice is that of a deponent verb middle in form and active in meaning, which means that the Jews who are about to enter this great historical catastrophe have turned down the gospel repeatedly. The subjunctive mood plus the negative expresses a prohibition. The only prohibition that the Jews face at this time is, Do not miss the gospel, do not miss the grace of God, this is your last call.

“him” is simply an accusative singular direct object and it is an article used as a pronoun. The reason that the article can be used as a pronoun is because by now those who have been going along with this message who are unbelievers understand exactly to whom the definite article refers. In this way it is a dramatic way of portraying the Lord Jesus Christ who loved us and gave Himself for us, and who has been so perfectly portrayed in this passage. As the saviour He must never be neglected. As the ruler of the Church He cannot be neglected. This has been the message of this particular chapter.

“that speaketh” — the word for speaking here is communicating and it refers to the Lord Jesus Christ who communicated the ten commandments on Mount Sinai as well as grace on Mount Zion. The word for speaking or communicating is an historical present tense and it views the action of portraying doctrine from Mount Sinai and from Mount Zion as a past historical reality. But it is such a dramatic moment and has been so dramatised by the passage that now it becomes a present tense dealing with a past event, a very dramatic way of presenting it. The active voice: Jesus Christ as Jehovah fulfils the action of the verb. The participle is circumstantial. It reads, “Beware that you do not reject the one who is communicating.”

This demands an explanation, and the explanatory use of the conjunction gar plus the conditional particle e)i gives us our explanation. This is a first class condition — “For if.”

“they have not escaped” — the aorist active indicative of the verb e)kfeugw plus a very strong negative, o)uk. They did not escape in the past, you will not escape in the present of history. The constative aorist contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. There was no escape for those in Moses’ day who rejected the message. The active voice: Jews who rejected the message of Moses on Mount Sinai produced the action — no escape. The indicative mood is declarative used to indicate a first class condition, but more than that, used to indicate the principle that at any time that anyone neglects the grace of God historical catastrophe is a part of the discipline. For the unbeliever who rejects the gospel, as we have already seen, there is the historical disaster, the catastrophe of the fifth cycle of discipline. The nation was destroyed and enslaved. For those who are believers in the Lord Jesus Christ and they, too, have rejected the words of Bible teaching, the function of GAP, and have gone into reversionism, are caught up into historical catastrophe. So the first class condition, in effect, is a whirlwind, the whirlwind which we studied in connection with Mount Sinai. It is a whirlwind that catches us up in disaster.

Jesus Christ in controlling history must punish reversionism, and He punishes reversionism in the same principle that He blesses the supergrace believer. Jesus Christ always looks at a nation on the basis of its believers, and in the control of history one of the factors which must be regarded very carefully is the salt of the earth principle. Jesus said, “You are the salt of the land.” If the salt preserves its savour then, of course, the land is preserved and blessed. Salt was used as a preservative in the ancient world. So the believer is salt, and as goes the believer so goes the national entity. There is a double blessing for any nation. The fist blessing is based upon the laws of establishment, the second blessing is based upon the laws of spiritual growth. The combination of the two makes double blessing for such countries.

There were just a few supergrace believers in Jeremiah’s day when the fifth cycle of discipline was administered. This is the principle of the whirlwind of history. The whirlwind of history operates in numerous ways. It operates in economic conditions. Economic depression brings the whirlwind of history. It means that today and throughout the world there will be many people starving, mass population starvation. In addition to that the whirlwind of history means loss of freedom through military defeat. It means the loss of the right to fulfil the principles of establishment. “If they have not escaped” is a first class condition. It indicates that historically God uses the whirlwind. In the past people have not escaped the whirlwind. Why do we think that we can escape? We are deceived by circumstances. Principle: Do not draw truth from your circumstances. Doctrine and truth must be drawn from the statement of the Word of God.

“they” is a demonstrative pronoun, it is in the plural, it is the word e)keinoj. It is a demonstrative pronoun for something distant from the context. It refers back to the Jews in the days of Moses. Disaster overtook them, the whirlwind of history overtook them. “When they rejected the one who communicated the divine oracles, then how do we expect to escape” is the principle that is being taught.

“who refused” is an aorist active participle, paraiteomai again. It is the constative aorist, it contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. It indicates negative volition toward doctrine after enjoying freedom. It is one thing to enjoy freedom, it is something else to have the capacity for freedom. The Jews were slaves for 400 years, they had freedom while in slavery. For the four great generations of Jews that were in slavery to Egypt they still had freedom in their slavery, they still had doctrine, and they lived as free people so that one family of twelve children went into slavery but two million plus came out of slavery. How do people multiply in slavery? By living normal lives in abnormal circumstances. That takes Bible doctrine. But the tragedy is that the first generation of free Jews, freed under the ministry of Moses, were minus doctrine in freedom and therefore were slaves to discipline. Whereas their ancestors were in slavery but plus doctrine in slavery and were free.

“him that spake” — the articular present active participle from xrhmatizw. The last time we had the Lord communicating from the mountain we had the verb lalew which means to communicate. This time we have the verb xrhmatizw which means to utter divine oracles, to utter doctrine beneficial for time and eternity. The definite article is the accusative singular, indicating that this participle is a direct object. The historical present tense in the participle sees a past event with a past event with the vividness of a present occurrence. The active voice: Moses was the spokesman for God in the communication of doctrine. The participle is circumstantial. And these things are said to have occurred “on the earth.” The first class condition indicates that they did not escape.

“much more” — polu mallon is Classical Greek, not Koine Greek. It means “to a greater degree.” Always this is the responsibility: If there is a saturation of doctrine there is greater responsibility. The greater the responsibility the more ferocious the whirlwind of history that destroys a people or a nation that is reversionistic.

“we” — the writer identifies himself with the Jews of AD 67 three years before the great historical catastrophe.

“will not escape” — if in the past God has punished reversionism, He has punished unbeliever reversionism, He has punished believer reversionism; if all of the cycles of discipline have existed in the past, why do we think that they are suddenly going to stop? There was a great deal of attitude among the Jews that everything was all right, that there would be no problem of any kind.

“if we turn away” — the present middle participle of the verb a)postrefw is used for reversionism. It means to turn away, to reject. In the middle voice it means to repudiate. The present tense of the participle is retroactive progressive present and it indicates that the people to whom this is addressed have been negative toward doctrine. Believers have been negative toward Bible teaching. “Forsake not the assembling of yourselves together” was addressed to these same believers. The unbelievers had rejected the gospel though they understood it very well and the holy city is about to be caught up in the whirlwind of divine history. It is about to be destroyed under one of the greatest recorded catastrophes in all of recorded history. So the Jews to whom this was addressed had rejected Christ in the past and they continued to do so. The believers had rejected doctrine in the past and continued to do so. The middle voice of the participle is indirect, it emphasises the agent as producing the action with reflexive force, and the verb means to turn away someone from something, hence to turn one’s self from the means of salvation to repudiate the only deliverance for the nation, the only basis for prosperity for the nation, as well as eternal blessing and prosperity. The participle is a conditional participle, it functions and the protasis of a conditional clause in this case. Therefore it is correctly translated “if we ourselves reject him that speaketh from heaven.” “Him that speaketh from heaven” is the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ for the last 37 years has been seated at the right hand of the Father. He has interrupted the Jewish Age, He has started the Age of the Church, the age of the registry in heaven of the great royal family. Never was doctrine more meaningful, never were things better, never was there a greater opportunity for those who are believers in the Lord Jesus Christ during their life upon earth. And believers have become negative toward doctrine, they are minus doctrine. The result is unbelievers are minus the gospel, they are minus doctrine, and the total reversionistic picture is like a great vacuum drawing in the great whirlwind of divine judgement, historical judgement. The principle again: Jesus Christ controls history.

Translation: “Beware that you do not reject the one who is speaking. For if they [the generation of Moses at Sinai] have not escaped when they rejected the one who communicated divine oracles on earth, to a much greater degree we shall not escape if we ourselves reject the one from heaven [the Lord Jesus Christ].”

Now we have one more reference to Jesus Christ relating salvation to judgement. We have already seen that propitiation is designed by God to save mankind. The only reason that God can save mankind is because His character is consistent, intact by the salvation which He has planned. He planned a salvation that would not compromise His righteousness or justice for the very key to the Father’s whole character is found in His righteousness and justice. Therefore, when Jesus Christ was on the cross He was +R, satisfying the righteousness of the Father and keeping the Father’s righteousness from compromise. He bore our sins in His own body on the tree, satisfying the justice of the Father who said that the wages of sin is death, spiritual death, and therefore sins had to be judged. The old sin nature came by man’s disobedience and fall, the OSN produces sins and all of those sins were judged upon the cross. Therefore the Father is able to save all who come to the cross and believer in Christ because His righteousness and justice are satisfied by the cross. So the cross is the way of salvation. And when it says, “God commendeth his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” it is referring to His first death on the cross, His judgement for our sins. Therefore we have believed in Christ now, we have passed the point of propitiation and God the Father is free to love us with maximum love.

Now the point is this. For the unbeliever, for these Jews in AD 67 who are living in Jerusalem as unbelievers, they have rejected the propitiatory work of Christ. The issue with them is a very simple one. They must face the fact as unbelievers that on the cross their sins were also judged. Their human good, with all human good, was rejected. They had rejected propitiation and therefore they must face the fact that God still has His righteousness and He still has His justice, and if God lets them get by with anything as unbelievers then His righteousness and justice is compromised just as much as it would be apart from the cross. Therefore they must face the issue that righteousness and justice were propitiated by the cross and if they reject the cross they reject propitiation, and if they reject propitiation God can only be consistent by bringing about judgement. Therefore the righteousness and justice of God are expressed in judgement because of the rejection of propitiation.

Verse 26 — “Whose voice shook the earth.” “Then” refers to the time of the giving of the ten commandments. Everything we are studying goes back to Mount Sinai and Mount Zion. This is a correlative adverb of time, tote, and it goes back to Mount Sinai. The illustration for this principle is found on Mount Sinai.

“Whose” is a possessive genitive singular from the relative pronoun o(j and it refers to the Lord Jesus Christ; “voice” — fwnh refers not simply to the voice but the fact that the voice uttered words that could be understood. In fact the words were so clearly understood that the people said stop, we can’t take any more. So Christ in giving the ten commandments to Moses “shook the earth.” His voice was so strong that it then shook the earth.

“shook” is the aorist active indicative of the verb saleuw. This is a very interesting word used for earthquakes, earth tremors, for the earthquake principle which we understand. But what is not understood is this. We remain on this earth by divine law. We are in the gravity field so we stick to the earth. We are held there by a divine law — gravity. Earthquake is used as an illustration of divine judgement in history. It is used in the same sense that the whirlwind is used. The voice of God shook the people, there was a little earthquake but it shook their souls too because they simply could not take the divine standard. The constative aorist contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. The action of the verb in its entirety or the constative aorist is found in Exodus 19:18. The active voice: the Lord Jesus Christ by His words shook the earth. The indicative mood is declarative for historical reality. The historical reality was an earthquake on Mount Sinai which caused the voice of the Lord Jesus Christ to be understood in terms of judgement.

“but now” — “now” takes us from Mount Sinai in 1441 BC to Jerusalem in AD 67. We have the adverb of time, nun, designated the eve of great historical judgement.

“he hath promised” — this is a dramatic perfect tense which is the rhetorical use of the intensive perfect. He has promised in the past with the result that He keeps His promise, and we are going to have a quotation from Haggai 2:6. In the middle voice of this verb the subject acts with a view toward participating in the outcome. This is called the indirect middle in which emphasis is placed on the agent as producing the action with reflexive force rather than participating in its results. And Jesus Christ Himself as the whirlwind of history will produce the action. The indicative mood is the reality of the fulfilment of Haggai 2:6 prior to the second advent of Christ and the regathering of Israel.

“saying” — the present active participle of legw is used to introduce and to quote from Haggai 2:6. This is the gist of Haggai 2:6 — “Thus saith the Lord of the armies, Once more in a little while I am going to shake the heavens and the earth, the sea also and the dry land.” Now you can see why it was quoted at this point. There was an earthquake at Mount Sinai and this introduced the fact of historical disaster coming to the Jews in 39 years of their discipline. So the earthquake on Mount Sinai not only was the means of communicating the doctrine to the Jews but it was a warning. The shaking of the earth a little bit in that particular area warned them of coming historical disaster. The Sinai alumni with the exception of four people all died in the next 39 years. They died horribly, they died under disaster in the desert. The whole point is that the great historical disaster which was warned by the earthquake is nothing compared to the historical disaster at the end of the Tribulation, the great Armageddon campaign. In the Armageddon campaign the entire earth is going to be shaken, not just a portion of the earth. Haggai 2:6 describes events which accompany the second advent of Jesus Christ.

“Yet once more” — e)ti a(pac which means one time only will there be such a colossal disaster; “I will shake” — the future active indicative of saleuw. This is the predictive future tense which predicts an event which is expected to occur in the future time. It is a reference to the sixth seal of Revelation 6:12-17 which is a summary fulfilment of Haggai 2:6.

Translation of verse 26 — “Whose voice at that time [on Mount Sinai] shook the earth: but now he himself has promised, saying, Yet once more [at the second advent] I will shake not only the earth, but the heaven also.”

Verse 27 — in the next two words we have the articles to de, the definite article and a particle. These two words are used in Classical Greek to refer back to what is quoted. It is translated “And this.” But it means “reference to.” Again, in Classical Greek it is a reference to the previous verse and to Haggai 2:6 which has just been quoted. “Yet once more” — notice that these words are quoted in verse 26 also. “Reference to, Yet once more.” On other words, the writer is not yet through with the quotation from Haggai 2:6. It goes back once more to make sure that we understand that this is the time of the baptism of fire.

The doctrine of the baptism of fire

1. Definition. The baptism of fire is the judgement of the Tribulational unbelievers at the second advent of Christ. It is introduced as an illustration at this point for a very strange reason. The Jews in Jerusalem know more about the past, their spiritual heritage in Israel, and eschatology, than they do about the time in which they live. Therefore the writer illustrates what is about to happen to them by going from Esau, Mount Sinai versus Mount Zion, to the second advent and the baptism of fire. The Tribulational unbelievers at the second advent are removed from the earth and placed in fire for 1000 years until the last judgement or the great white throne. Both the Tribulational unbelievers, Jew and Gentile, are involved in this second advent judgement which results in beginning the Millennium with believers only. The Jew of Jerusalem in AD 67 are about to lose their pseudo prosperity in 70 AD, and they will lose everything else — their national identity, their lives, they will enter into slavery — and there is some way in which this must be illustrated. So we have an eschatological intrusion to show them that you cannot depend upon pseudo prosperity.

2. The concept of orientation. The baptism of fire is one of seven baptisms found in the scripture which are divided into two categories. The first category is what is called a real baptism and the second category is known as a ritual baptism. A ritual baptism is easily distinguished because it always deals with water and a ceremony related to water in which the candidate, and in some cases the victim, is identified with water. Real baptisms bring out the true meaning of the word baptism. Baptism means identifying something with something else. For example, in the first baptism in the scriptures, the baptism of Moses, the Jews were identified with Moses as the Red Sea was parted and they went through on his identification — 1 Corinthians 10:2. At the time of the Red Sea incident God was only pleased with one person in Israel. The rest of them were falling apart. As the Red Sea was parted they saw for the first time their deliverance. They went through because they were identified with Moses who shouted to them, “Stand still and watch the deliverance of the Lord.” So God took the erroneous hysterical majority and identified them with one person, the minority, and delivered them all.

The second great baptism is the greatest of all. It is the baptism of the cross. In this case we have identification portrayed in the most wonderful way possible. All of our sins, past, present, and future, were poured out upon the Lord Jesus Christ and judged.

Then there is the baptism of the Spirit whereby we, members of the body of Christ, those who are believers in the Church age, are members of the royal family forever. God the Holy Spirit enters us into union with Christ seated at the right hand of the Father, making us permanent royalty.

The baptism of fire is the fourth and final real baptism. There is the baptism of the Spirit for the Church Age, the baptism of fire is for the end of the Jewish Age. The Jewish Age, like most ages, ends in great judgement.

There are also three ritual baptisms. There is the baptism of John which was a ritual whereby the water portrayed the kingdom, and those who entered into the water were those who were believers and were a part of the kingdom of God. The baptism of Jesus in which the water represented the will of God, going to the cross, and Jesus acquiesced to the will of God by entering into the water. Then there is water baptism for believers in this age, and this time it represented the baptism of the Spirit or being members of the royal family of God forever, and we are identified with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection.

These are the seven baptisms which are found in the scripture.

3. The time of the baptism of fire is very clearly delineated as the second advent of Christ. This is very true for many passages but especially 2 Thessalonians 1:7-9.

4. The announcement of the baptism of fire was given to John the baptist. John the baptist was raised up of God to have a very critical ministry of religion. No one ever criticised religion the way that John the baptist did. To criticise religion he had to move out into a place where there was no religion, the desert. Religion was concentrated in the temple in Jerusalem, and to criticise religion and to take a stand against religion John had to be separated. His ministry was one of judgement and identification. He identified Christ as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. He judged the religious generation in which he found himself. Matthew 3:11,12 — John is the one who foretold the two coming baptisms. The first of these baptisms has to do with the formation of the royal family of God. The baptism of the Spirit never occurred in Old Testament times. But even greater is the power of our Lord Jesus Christ to baptise in fire, i.e. to remove from the earth all unbelievers as a part of operation footstool. The baptism of fire takes care of the unbeliever on the earth during the Tribulation just as operation footstool takes care of the fallen angels.

5. An analogy to the baptism of fire is found in Matthew 24:36-41. An analogy goes back to the historical flood. Most analogies of this type are based upon something well established in the scripture historically.

6. There are some parables which also teach the baptism of fire. The parable of the wheat and tares — Matthew 13, the good and bad fish in Matthew 13, and the ten virgins of Matthew 25. None of the parables apply to the Church Age, except one, the pearl.

7. We have the Jewish baptism of fire mentioned in Ezekiel 20:34-38.

8. The Gentile baptism of fire is in Matthew 25:31-46. The baptism of fire used to evangelise Jews in the Church Age is found in Hebrews 12:27.

“Reference to, Yet once more.” Now we are going to get what Haggai 2:6 means here. It signifies something and so we have the word “signifieth” — the present active indicative from dhlow which means to explain or to denote. The aoristic present is punctiliar action in present time. The punctiliar action is a brief explanation of Haggai 2:6. The active voice: the quotation from Haggai 2:6 produces the action of the verb. This is a declarative indicative mood used for the quotation denoting the baptism of fire.

“the removing” — the accusative singular direct object of the noun metaqhsij and it should be translated “the removal.”

“of those things that are shaken” — the things that were shaken were the people who got into caves and said “Fall on us” — Revelation 6. For the third time we have the present passive participle of the noun saleuw. Once again, the verb denotes the removal of those who are unbelievers at the end of the Tribulation. The word “removal” refers to the fact that they are judged and are cast into fire at the second advent.

“as of things that are made” — once again we are dealing with Classical Greek and we have the problem of translators trying to stay with Koine Greek. What we have is the comparative particle o(j which is common to both Classical Greek as well as to Koine Greek. But o(j plus the perfect passive participle of poiew which means to do or to make is a Classical Greek idiom, an ascriptive type particle, and it should be translated “like discarded things.”

Translation so far: “Reference to [Haggai 2:6], Yet once more, this explains the removal of those things which are shaken [baptism of fire], they are removed like discarded things.”

The unbeliever at the end of the Tribulation is discarded, placed in the baptism of fire awaiting his final judgement at the great white throne. And the fact that God can do this, as noted in Haggai 2:6, becomes the last appeal to the unbeliever Jew in Jerusalem in AD 67.

“that” — the conjunction i(na denotes a final clause. It means purpose here and can be translated, therefore, “in order that” — “in order that those things cannot be shaken” — once again we have the present passive participle of saleuw plus the negative mh. These things not being shaken refers to believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, believers in the Tribulation. This is a static present tense representing a condition which is assumed as perpetually existing. In other words, once you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, regardless of the dispensation, you cannot be shaken, you cannot lose your salvation. The passive voice: the believers of the Tribulation receive the action of the verb. They don’t run into the caves and shout to the rocks to fall on them. The passive voice: the believer with doctrine in the Tribulation receives the action of the verb. He is not shaken. The participle is circumstantial, indicating the fact that believers can endure the greatest disasters of history without being shaken.

“might remain” — the aorist active subjunctive of menw. The aorist tense is a culminative aorist, it views the event in its entirety but emphasises the existing results. Even though there is great historical disaster it never shakes the believer, the one who is born again, the child of God. The subjunctive mood denotes the divine purpose for the believers living in the Tribulation, they are a demonstration of the greatness of Bible doctrine resident in the soul under most disastrous conditions.

Translation: “Reference to [Haggai 2:6], Yet once more, explains the removal of those things which were shaken [baptism of fire], like the removal of discarded things, in order that the ones not being shaken [believers of the Tribulation] might remain [on the earth for the Millennium].”

Verse 28 — one final appeal to the reversionistic believer. This verse is a parenthesis. “Wherefore” — the inferential conjunction denoting the obvious and therefore should be translated “Therefore.”

“we receiving” — present active participle of paralambanw which means more than to receive, it means to receive to ourselves. It is something very personal, very strong, something that we will appreciate always. The present tense is the historical present that views the past event of salvation by faith in Christ with the vividness of a present occurrence. The active voice: these reversionistic believers living in Jerusalem in AD 67 produce the action of the verb. They are in apostasy but they still have been under grace and are still under grace. The participle is a causal participle, it denotes the ground or action for the main verb. The main verb is “let us have grace.”

“a kingdom” — incorrect. We have the accusative singular direct object of basileia which does not mean a kingdom. it is stronger than that. It means a royal kingdom, it means a kingdom with nobility. We are the nobility of that kingdom. The kingdom of God for the Church Age is made up of royalty only.

“which cannot be moved” — a)swleutoj means “unshakeable.” “Therefore because we have received to ourselves an unshakeable royal kingdom.” This applies to every reversionist.

“let us have grace” — we already have grace because we were saved by grace, Ephesians 2:8,9. But this goes right back to Mount Sinai and Mount Zion. Mount Zion is grace, Mount Sinai is legalism. Again, this finds them trying to climb Mount Sinai. But the writer is saying let us get back to Mount Zion. The present tense is a tendencial present, it is used for an action which is purposed though not actually taking place. It is not taking place because the believers in Jerusalem are in the eight different stages of reversionism. The active voice: the believers are commanded to produce the action of the verb. This demands both reversion recovery and advancing to the high ground. We have a hortatory subjunctive in which the writer identifies himself once more with the readers and invites them to join him in a course of action. But the invitation is a string command to get back to grace.

“grace” is the accusative singular direct object of xarij — “let us have and hold grace.” We have the present active subjunctive of e)xw which says we already have it, now let’s hold it [grace]. You started in grace and you moved down through living grace. You are still alive but you haven’t climbed that hill yet, you haven’t followed the colours to the high ground. Instead, you have peeled off.

“whereby” — this is a prepositional phrase, dia plus the relative pronoun o(j, which means “through which grace.”

“we may serve” — the word for service is simply a word used for the Levitical priest serving before the altar, the present active subjunctive of latreuw. It means to perform duty as unto God. The customary present tense is for that which may be reasonably expected from any member of the royal family of God. The active voice: the supergrace believer actually produces the action. He is the one who stands before the altar. The standing before the altar, latreuw, will be emphasised, beginning in verse 10 and going through verse 19 of chapter 13. The potential subjunctive here: service depends upon doctrine in the soul. This doesn’t mean running around doing things, it is a mental attitude, a stage of growth, the life as a priest in the devil’s world facing the invisible enemy successfully.

“God” — dative of indirect object of qeoj plus the definite article, “the God,” the one and only God, God the Father, the one who designed the plan.

“acceptably” should be translated “in an acceptable manner” — “through which we might render the priestly service to the God in an acceptable manner with reverence and godly fear” — meta plus the genitive of e)ulabeia is occupation with the person of Christ. Translated “reverence” godly fear means awe or respect for God.

Translation: “Therefore because we have received to ourselves an unshakeable royal kingdom, let us have and hold grace, through which grace we might render acceptable priestly service to the God with reverence and respect [occupation with Christ].”

Verse 29 — back to the unbeliever. “For” is the explanatory use of the epexegetical conjunction which picks up where verse 27 left off; “also our God (there is no verb here at all) a consuming fire.” This describes what happens after the baptism of fire, and the baptism of fire becomes a frame of reference to remind them once more that this is their last call.