Chapter 10

This is the transitional chapter that pushes people into the area of the supergrace life. The supergrace life is the only way in which a believer in this dispensation can glorify God. It is acquired only through the constant and consistent intake of Bible doctrine which leads to orientation to the plan of God. The tenth chapter is the most critical because it begins to deal with the realities of which shadows we have been studying. For example, we have seen from the standpoint of shadows that the holy of holies was forbidden in the Old Testament as far as entrance was concerned, and that only once a year after careful preparation and not apart from the shedding of blood the high priest was permitted to enter the holy of holies to sprinkle the blood of animal sacrifices on the mercy seat, portraying propitiation. However, we discover that no one else was ever permitted inside, and in effect it was where the Lord Jesus Christ lived in Old Testament times under the title of Shekinah glory. The veil in the temple was ripped apart during the time when Jesus Christ was bearing our sins and being judged for them, so that we are a part of a new age, a new dispensation, which interrupted the Age of Israel. We live in the age of the royal family of God. Positionally, at the moment of salvation, God the Holy Spirit entered us into union with Christ who is in the true holy of holies, the third heaven, so that we live positionally in the holy of holies. We are a royal family, we have a specific object. The life of every believer has meaning and purpose and definition. Therefore, we are in that transitional part of Hebrews where the shadows are removed and we begin to see some of the reasons why the Church Age.

In this great chapter our subject is a focus on the plan of God. The outline of the passage is very interesting because it shows the directions in which this passage is going. There are three basic paragraphs in the tenth chapter. Paragraph #1 deals with the metamorphism of a shadow — verses 1-18. Here is where we see the transition from the shadow life and the shadow worship of the Age of Israel to the realities of the dispensation in which we live. The second paragraph, verses 19-25, deals with the royal family in the plan of God. Basically there are two concepts taught in that paragraph. The royal family has a new home, verses 19-21; the royal family has a new perspective, verses 22-25. The third paragraph deals with the subject of failure to utilise the plan of God, verses 26-39. This is broken down into two basic concepts, failure to appropriate phase one or the doctrine of the willful sin, verses 26-31. The willful sin is synonymous with the unpardonable sin. Then finally we have the failure to utilise phase two, called the trimming of the sails or reversionism in the royal family, verses 32-39. This is the great passage which orients the believer to the spiritual realities in the day in which he lives, correlates those with the materialistic blessings which is the real issue in your life. The issue is not provision of needs for God has provided your needs as a member of the royal family of God. As long as you are alive on this earth it is obvious that your needs are provided. Furthermore, God provides the needs of all kinds of members of the royal family of God — the needs of the reversionist, the carnal believer, in order to discipline him, for discipline can only occur in time for the royal family; the needs of those who are growing in grace in order that they might come to the place of materialistic as well as spiritual blessing. This great chapter deals with the fact that God has provided for you not only the great spiritual blessings that come from occupation with Christ in the supergrace status, but He also has for you materialistic blessings — promotion, prosperity, success. These are the things that God provides totally apart from any system in cosmos diabolicus, and God is glorified by providing these things.

Verse 1 — the source of all shadows begins with the explanatory conjunctive particle gar, translated correctly “For”, indicating now that there will be an explanation of all of the shadows we have been studying in chapter nine.

“the law” — o( nomoj is a reference to the old covenant, the Mosaic law or the authorising agent for shadows.

The doctrine of the Mosaic law, or the old covenant

1. The Mosaic law is defined as the covenant presented by God through Moses, conditional in nature, authorising the function for Israel as they became a nation. There was no Mosaic law or old covenant so long as the Jews were in slavery. There is no place for the laws of divine establishment in slavery. The laws of divine establishment oppose slavery in every way because it keeps a man from making his own decisions, it destroys the principle of his privacy, property, and the ability to go as far as he can go on his own. So the Mosaic law did not exist until there was first of all freedom for the nation. God freed the Jewish nation from Egyptian bondage before He gave them the old covenant or the Mosaic law. The Mosaic law is a very fascinating combination of the laws of divine establishment and the spiritual function of Bible doctrine. Bible doctrine was presented in shadow form. The Mosaic law is also the beginning of a written canon of scripture. Until the time of Moses there was no written canon and all Bible doctrine was communicated by God through dreams, visions, trances, direct conversation, angelic teachers. Now we have for the first time in all human history the beginning of the canon of scripture with the Mosaic law. Obviously the book of Genesis is not pertinent to the Mosaic law because it describes the history of the human race from the time of its beginning until the time that Moses gave the law. The book of Exodus shows the correlation between the race of Israel and the nation of Israel, and how God took one group of people and made them custodians of divine truth. Then, of course, the last half of Exodus deals with the tabernacle, and then when we get to the books of Numbers and Leviticus, Numbers gives us the Jewish history as they moved out of slavery, Leviticus gives us the function of a specialised priesthood — the animal sacrifices, the holy days, everything that was involved in teaching Bible doctrine as well as evangelising this special nation. Deuteronomy is the great book of grace under the Mosaic law, reiterating certain facets of the law, tying together the laws of divine establishment with the spiritual life and showing that there is a purpose and place for both, and that freedom in the human race is vitally necessary if man is ever going to be a source of resolving the angelic conflict. And since this is the purpose for which man is created it is obvious that God has taken every step to protect human freedom in the devil’s world. Therefore the law is divided into three parts. The Mosaic law is not exactly synonymous with the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible. They are also called Torah — nomoj in the Greek. The word “law” is used for the first five books of the Bible, but in those first five books we have other things beside the Mosaic law. Therefore our first point recognises that the actual content of the Mosaic code is found in those first five books but is not the entire content of those books. Therefore it is necessary to break down categorically the actual structure of the Mosaic law. First of all, there was a moral code. This is called the decalogue but it includes more than ten commandments, it includes literally hundreds of commandments. The actual decalogue is given in Exodus chapter 20, verses 1-17, as well as in Deuteronomy chapter five. It is designed to show that the laws of divine establishment are so ordained to protect human freedom, to gave everyone the privacy and the freedom and the right to be evangelised, and to say yes or no to the gospel.

The second part of the Mosaic law is a spiritual code. It is called in the Bible “the ordinances”. It is a complete Christology as well as a complete soteriology, it is designed in shadow form to present Jesus Christ as the only saviour. In effect, it fulfills Acts 4:12 — “Neither is there salvation in any other, there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved.” Therefore it is a very vital part of the Mosaic law.

The third area of the Mosaic law is the social code. This is known in the scripture as the judgements. It presents the divine laws of establishment which are designed to provide freedom and privacy for the human race during the course of the angelic conflict. It includes the function, of the divine institutions, it also includes some very practical advice.

The Mosaic law was given to Israel only, never to the Gentiles, and never to the Church. And we do not have Sabbath observance — Exodus 19:3; Leviticus 26:46; Romans 3:19; 9:4. It was never given to the Gentiles — Deuteronomy 4:8; Romans 2:12-14. It was never given to the royal family of God. Christians are not under the Mosaic law, it was never given to the Church — Acts 15:5, 24; Romans 6:14; Galatians 2:19. A far as the Mosaic law is concerned when Christ came in the flesh he fulfilled the law, all of the way from His virgin birth to His death, burial and resurrection. Jesus Christ fulfilled the law, and in Matthew 5:17 He said He came to fulfill it. Jesus Christ is the end of the law for believers — Romans 10:4. We are not under the Mosaic law, the Mosaic law becomes a means, a vehicle for learning certain doctrines and learning to appreciate the grace of God; but it is not the modus operandi for the royal family. We have a higher and a new modus operandi authorised by the new covenant to the Church. Believers in the Church Age are under higher laws of spirituality — Romans 8:2-4; Galatians 5:18, 22-23; 1 Corinthians 13. Therefore we must recognise the limitations of the Mosaic law. a) It cannot justify or provide salvation — Galatians 2:16; Romans 3:20, 28; Acts 13:39; Philippians 3:9. b) The law cannot give life — Galatians 3:21. c) The law cannot provide the Holy Spirit — Galatians 3:2. d) The law cannot solve the problems of the old sin nature — Romans 8:3. Therefore the law has certain limitations. It was designed to set up divine standards, it was designed to portray the laws of establishment, it was designed to be a vehicle for teaching Bible doctrine in Old Testament times. But the Mosaic law is definitely not a source of salvation or eternal life or the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, nor can it solves the problems of the old sin nature. The present purpose of the Mosaic law, therefore, comes into focus since it is not given to the Church but is still a part of the Word of God. Since the teaching of the Mosaic law is in the Word of God we need to recognise something of its present purpose.

Codex #1 which has a standard of morality designed to provide human freedom — like the ten commandments — is a divine standard and still has a function. The function is to demonstrate what the diviner standards are and for the individual member of the human race to define both human freedom, the basis for it, and also to be able to define personal sin as it relates to human freedom.

Codex #2 is a means of teaching Bible doctrine.

Codex #3 gives us a perfect standard from God for the function of a national entity — the right of all citizens in a nation to freedom even though they are unequal, the right to have their own privacy, the right to own and possess property, the right to enter into free enterprise business function as long as it does not violate criminal laws. Therefore Codex #3 sets up the divine standards for the preservation of a nation and its freedoms and evangelisation of the human race.

The past purpose of the law was an authorising agent for the Levitical priesthood — Hebrews 7:11,12. The Mosaic law also authorised the tabernacle as a sacred building — Hebrews 9:1-6; it authorised animals sacrifices to portray Christ on the cross — Hebrews 9:12,13; and the blood authorised by the Mosaic law — Hebrews 9:18-22 — was the basis for dedication of all of the shadows.

The Mosaic law has other names. It is also known as the book of the covenant — Exodus 24:7,8; 34:27,28; Deuteronomy 4:13-16, 23, 31; 8:18; 9:9, 11, and so on.

The addendum to the Mosaic law which is found in Deuteronomy 29:1ff should also be noted as being a part, but a grace emphasising part. The prophecy of breaking the covenant in Deuteronomy 31:16,20; Jeremiah 22:9, also belongs to the Mosaic law.

This book of the covenant is also the subject of Jeremiah chapter eleven, not to be confused with the new

covenant to Israel in Jeremiah 31. It is imperative to understand some of these principles.

Keeping the law is not the way of salvation but a way of human freedom and prosperity under establishment. This is taught also in Galatians chapter two. So it is imperative to understand that we are not under the Mosaic law, that the Mosaic law was never a way of salvation, and that the Mosaic law content wise is in three categories. The category we have been studying is Codex #2, the shadows of the tabernacle, the shadows of the Levitical sacrifices, the shadows of the day of atonement, the shadows of the modus operandi of the Levitical priesthood.

So far we have “For the law”, reference to the Mosaic law, “having,” present active participle of e)xw which means to have or to have and to hold. The present tense is a retroactive progressive present which means something begun in the past with the result that it continues into the present time. The law will always have shadows. The law’s shadows will always have significance. We do not function under these shadows but we learn from them, they become great illustrations, they teach us a great deal about the Lord Jesus Christ. The active voice of this participle indicates that the Mosaic law produces the action of the verb. The Mosaic law has within its contents Codex #2, shadows. The participle is a circumstantial participle.

“For the law having a shadow” — the accusative singular direct object of skia. Certain portions of the Mosaic law constitute a great shadow. A shadow n contrast to reality is what skia means, therefore a shadow caused by the interruption of light. You see, the world was not ready. God always gave those portions of the Bible to the world at exactly the right time. The first portion came from Moses — the first five books of the Bible, the Pentateuch. Then we have other writers coming along, like Samuel, like David, like Solomon. And these portions came along at certain times so that the canon of scripture remained open from 1440 BC until 96 AD, for a period of over 1500 years. The canon of scripture was formed between 1440 BC and 96 AD, and over this period of time certain things were given. Some of these things were not a direct development of light such as we have in the Pauline epistles but were shadows, the interruption of light. The reality had not occurred historically. So the things that Moses wrote of are called shadow here, gathering them all together into one category. These were shadows because the historical reality of the death of Christ on the cross had not occurred. Therefore a shadow is an interruption of light or indicates the reality of light. The reality of light existed from eternity past, the Lord Jesus Christ, and historically He came to the earth and went to the cross. But until He did He was portrayed in either shadow form such as the Levitical sacrifices or prophetical categories such as Isaiah 53. Therefore the shadow is not the substance of Christ but indicates the reality of substance. The shadow is not the reality but always portrays the presence of reality. Jesus Christ in His incarnation is the reality but Jesus Christ had to be taught to millions and millions of people before He came in the flesh, and this teaching occurred in shadow form.

“of good things” — a descriptive genitive plural of the noun a)gaqoj. A)gaqoj means good of intrinsic value. It means that something is valuable no matter where you find it. A)gaqoj is used of gold in the Greek language because gold has intrinsic value, it is valuable wherever you find it. It doesn’t change its value just because of where it is located. This is a descriptive genitive which portrays the good things of the cross. The plural brings out everything pertaining to the person of Christ, that is why it is in the plural. There are many, many shadows actually of good things. So the shadow is in the singular to show they are all gathered together here in concept, and “good things” is in the plural. The shadows actually refer to the blood of Christ, the saving work of Christ on the cross.

Now we are getting ready to see the sequence of the metamorphisms which are found in this paragraph. These metamorphisms begin with the human race. A metamorphism is a phenomenal transformation. For example, innocent man or Adam in the garden becomes a sinner and spiritually dead — Genesis 3:6. The second metamorphism is the change that came to the woman. God made the woman the child bearer. So Genesis 3:15, 16 gives us our first salvation verse in the Bible, it teaches us that the seed of the woman, the Lord Jesus Christ, would come and He would come through the virgin birth, therefore without the imputation of Adam’s sin and would be qualified to go to the cross and bear our sins. This is explained in 1 Timothy 2:9-15. Then the third great metamorphism is that of our Lord Jesus Christ. As eternal God He coexisted with the Father and with the Holy Spirit. He became man, and as the God-Man or in hypostatic union Jesus Christ became unique — Hebrews 10:5-10. The fourth metamorphism is taught throughout the scripture: sinful man, by believing in Jesus Christ, becomes saved, the possessor of eternal life.

“to come” — the present active participle of the verb mellw, meaning “about to come.” The futuristic present denotes an event which has not yet occurred but which is regarded as so certain in thought that it is considered as having already occurred. That was the idea of the law. The law always recognised that Christ would come and that God would keep His word. The active voice: the good or profitable things of salvation produce the action of the verb. The participle is ascriptive, it is used as an adjective and it describes a fact or quality directly to the word a)gaqoj. However, notice that while the law possessed a shadow of coming good things pertaining to salvation it was not salvation in itself.

“and not the very image of the things” — the negative o)uk is a very strong one, it says definitely not the very image or the real image. The word for “image” is in the accusative case but the form is e)ikwn, and it refers to an exact image. It is not the exact image of the Lord Jesus Christ in hypostatic union providing through His redemptive work eternal salvation. So literally, “not the real image of the things”. The genitive singular which describes “image” here is pragma which means “events” — “not the real image of the events [of the cross].”

Translation so far: “For the law possessing a shadow of the coming good things [pertaining to salvation], not the real image of the events [of the cross].” In other words, the animal blood was not the real image. The animal blood on the altar was real, but it was a shadow portraying the reality on the cross which is Jesus Christ bearing our sins, or redemption plus reconciliation plus propitiation and/or the blood of Christ. So it wasn’t the real thing, it was a portrayal of the real thing. Therefore it was a teaching aid.

As members of the royal family of God Bible doctrine inevitably must become of the highest value. There is a reason why doctrine has such a high value. There was no doctrine in written form for the first few thousand years of human history. When Abraham crossed the Euphrates river there was still no doctrine in written form. All of the great patriarchs were guided by God, whether Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, or Joseph. They were all guided by the spoken Word of God, by dreams, by visions, by trances, by the teaching of angelic creatures, by the Lord Jesus Christ in the theophany known as the angel of Jehovah. No one ever had anything in writing until specifications for shadows became necessary. The day that God put shadows into the life of Israel, after their freedom, their departure from Egypt, that was the day when it became very clear to the human race that God also has a scale of values. His scale of values is readily discernible from the doctrine of divine decrees. God the Father who is always the spokesman for the Godhead in the Old Testament places the highest value of anything in human life on the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. So valuable was it to God the Father that a series of instructions were given to Moses on the mountain. Moses was to order the construction of a golden lampstand. The ordering of golden implements, of all of the various articles of furniture in the tabernacle, the command to have animal sacrifices continuously — offered over a period of 1500 years before Christ came. The cost of all of these animals over that period of time would go into the billions of dollars. Yet God was willing that all of these things be accomplished. He commanded that the high priest and the Levitical priesthood be dressed in the most expensive possible clothes. He commanded that the materials used in the construction of these shadows be of the best all the way. He commanded that the animals used would be the best animals in the flock. These were just little ways by which God said to the human race, I have a scale of values and the most valuable thing to me is the blood of Jesus Christ, His efficacious sacrifice on the cross. All of these shadows had a real place in the life of the people in the time in which they lived, for they lived in a time when there was no completed canon of scripture. They lived in a time when the things that were used for worship were of extreme value, and they recognised in these expensive shadows that God considered the death of Christ on the cross for our sins the most important, that to which the highest value was ever to be attached for anything in history. These shadows, then, have a great significance. In effect they say: God the Father says to us, “I value the death of Jesus Christ on the cross above all else in the universe, and because of this I have set up in the Old Testament time in the Age of Israel shadows, many shadows.” These shadows were all valuable art objects but they all represented something of great significance, and these shadows portray the most valuable thing in all of the universe, the death of Christ on the cross. But once the shadows have been removed by the coming of the royal family, the beginning of the Church Age, they will never survive. There is just one way now that the shadows have gone that God will demonstrate the value of the cross. God has ordained a book, a book which will live forever, a book which will survive every Satanic attempt to destroy it, and the content of that book will deal with God’s Son, Jesus Christ. And that book which liveth and abideth forever is a memorial to the fact that the most valuable thing in the universe took place in the conjunction of the ages when Jesus Christ was bearing our sins, dying for us. There is nothing scared about any of the shadows, the sacredness is in the Word of God. And God has given to one family only, the royal family of the Church Age, the privilege of transferring from a written book to the soul the very content of that book. As the believer consistently transfers this content one thing will become apparent to him. Jesus Christ in dying on the cross, in fulfilling that efficacious sacrifice which we call the blood of Christ, is more valuable than anything in the world. And when it becomes more valuable to us than anything in the world it is because of the content of doctrine in our soul which we have simply called occupation with the person of Jesus Christ.

The first time that you agree with God the Father about the value of the cross is when you believe in Him. God the Father knew that we would never have the mentality, that we would never have the capabilities of soul to appreciate in full who and what Christ is and how significant is His work on the cross. God the Father therefore made it very simple for us right from the beginning. He made a grace way, a simple way, a simple spark in the soul — non-meritorious thinking called faith. He utilised this as the means by which we agree with God the Father about the work of the cross, that it is more important than anything in life. And because you agreed, by believing in Jesus Christ, you are going to spend eternity with God in the holy of holies. The holy of holies is your home forever. From the holy of holies you are being supplied right now. Positionally you are in the holy of holies right now because of the baptism of the Spirit. Experientially every blessing you will ever have in this life comes from the holy of holies. The holy of holies was so important in the ancient world that God the Son dwelled there under the term “the Shekinah glory.” The Shekinah glory is simply another manifestation of Jesus Christ, and in effect, the Shekinah glory dwelling in the holy of holies is simply another reminder that God the Father has placed the highest value within the capabilities of divine essence on the work of the Son. It is interesting that this valuable principle, this valuable work, this most valuable thing in all of history could not exist had not Satan in his arrogance gone negative and, because of his fall and original sin, made possible something of value.

Now something of value inevitably has to go back to what we are studying. We are now in the transitional phase. We will in the tenth chapter of Hebrews begin to see something of value. The absorption of its content will give an entire new attitude on life, not only from the fact that you are royal family but from the viewpoint of the fact that something of value is your permanent possession.

“can never” — the present active indicative of the verb dunamai, a verb of ability. This verb has a very strong negative adverb with it. It is o)udepote. Negative adverbs can be extremely strong, there is nothing stronger than this one. It should read “never able,” never a possibility of it being able. There is no way that the Mosaic law can ever be construed as having anything permanent, because it is made up of shadows and because the shadows only point to the reality but the shadows are not the reality. It takes a new covenant — a new covenant to the Church and a new covenant to Israel — in order to portray the reality. The present tense here is a static present which represents a condition which is assumed as perpetually never existing. The active voice: the Mosaic law produces the action of the verb. The Mosaic law is never able. The indicative mood is declarative viewing the verb from the viewpoint of certainty. It represents the verbal idea as being absolutely dogmatic.

“with those sacrifices” — the instrumental plurals involved here means “by means of those sacrifices”, and it is a reference first of all to the five categories of Levitical offerings. In addition to that there were special offerings for jealousy, special offerings for being cleansed from leprosy, special offerings for various types of ceremonial cleansing and ceremonial uncleanness. So all in all these Levitical offerings all focus our attention on a principle, a very simple one. God says nothing is more valuable than the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. So to make you realise how valuable it is God says I will take all of your talents and all of your abilities and forge them into something that speaks of the Lord Jesus Christ and remind you daily of who and what He is until the conjunction of the ages. So the Levitical offerings are a part of these shadows, and they are merely portraying the real, the efficacious sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ on the cross.

“which they offer” — “which” is the accusative feminine plural of the relative pronoun o(j whose antecedent is sacrifice; “they” refers to the priests; “offer” is the present active indicative of prosferw. The present tense is an iterative present to indicate that at certain intervals certain sacrifices were offered and that at certain times every day there was some kind of sacrifice being offered for some reason by someone — “which they continually offer.” The active voice: the Levitical priests produce the action of the verb, and again we have a declarative indicative for a dogmatic fact. Add to that the fact that they not only offered them one year but this went on annually, “year by year”, kata plus e)niautoj, an idiom which actually means “year after year”. But that isn’t enough to say year after year. God the Father wants it to stick in your soul, as He wanted the Jews to understand in their day that these things must be repeated again and again and again. The repetition of sacrifices was a reminder to the Jews just as the repetition of Bible teaching is a reminder to you.

“continually” is a prepositional phrase. It is translated like an adverb but it is e)ij plus the accusative of dihnekej, and this prepositional phrase means again and again and again and again. In other words, it means perpetually. There is a reason for that repetition. God is saying, “I want the world to know through the function of these shadows that nothing is more important than the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross. I have placed the highest value on Him and therefore I want the royal family to do exactly the same. And I have given them a sacred book filled with doctrine to be transferred to their souls.” What does it mean to be mature spiritually. It means to recognise that Jesus Christ is more valuable in His death on the cross, the most valuable thing in history, and to recognise it not because anyone else says so but because your own soul, the content of doctrine in your soul, says so, and the content of doctrine in your soul is so real that the written Word becomes the living Word and you become occupied with the person of Jesus Christ, our objective as members of the royal family. We will translate the word “continually” as “perpetually.”

So far we have, “never able by means of those sacrifices which they offer year after year perpetually.”

Next we have “make perfect,” and we have an aorist active infinitive of teleiow. Teleiow means to cause perfection, and they could never do it. This is a gnomic aorist, used generally for an accepted fact so axiomatic in character that it is described in the aorist tense as though it was actually occurring right now. The active voice: the Levitical sacrifices offered by the Levitical priesthood perpetually could never cause perfection. The infinitive is a causative infinitive, and perfection here means salvation. So those sacrifices never caused one person to be saved.

Why is salvation described in terms of causing perfection or causing completion? Because you are perfected in time when you come to have a full understanding of the divine standards in the sense that you totally agree with God the Father that the sacrifice of Christ on the cross is the most valuable, the most important thing in history.

“comers” — the present active participle of proserxomai means those who approach the altar, and “comers” isn’t a bad translation. The present active participle is a circumstantial participle for the expression of worship through shadows.

Translation of verse 1 — “For the law possessing a shadow of the coming good things [pertaining to salvation], not the real image of the events [of the cross], that is, the law is never able by means of those sacrifices which they offered year after year perpetually to cause perfection to those who approached the altar [with a sacrifice].”

Summary

1. The Mosaic law cannot provide salvation, it can only through shadow worship reveal the way of salvation in Jesus Christ — Romans 3:20; Galatians 2:16; Romans 3:28.

2. Causing perfection simply refers to salvation. Salvation is described in terms of perfection when there is the imputation of divine righteousness. But here it is the attitude, sharing the attitude of God the Father which is that the most valuable of all things in history is the work of Christ on the cross.

3. Shadows can portray reality but shadows cannot be reality.

4. The animal sacrifices authorised by the law were shadows portraying the various aspects of the work of Christ on the cross. But Christ is, was, always will be, in eternity past He was, the reality.

5. The Levitical priesthood was authorised to deal with shadows; the royal priesthood is authorised to deal with reality. Why? Because we have a different authorising agent. The Mosaic law of the old covenant was the authorising agent. It is now abrogated. The new covenant to the Church is the authorising agent for our priesthood. 6. The reality for us, and again to show how valuable the cross is to God the Father at the time that Christ was bearing our sins, the Father was propitiated. It was so valuable that He had the function of the day of atonement in the shadows when once a year the high priest sprinkled in the holy of holies on that mercy seat. That spoke of the Father being propitiated by the work of Christ on the cross. So at the actual time that Christ was bearing our sins God the Father was doing two things. He was pouring out our sins upon the Son, judging Him, and then being propitiated by what He was doing. But there is more than that. By His resurrection, ascension and session Jesus Christ is seated in the holy of holies permanently. He is seated there right now. And being seated at the right hand of the Father His sacrifice is acceptable forever. Because it is acceptable forever Jesus Christ is now the focal point of history, and He is waiting for the last stage of victory which is over the fallen angels — operation footstool. Being seated there means, once again, that God the Father attaches the highest value to the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. And now that we have a new covenant for the first time in all of history God the Holy Spirit takes each one of us at the point of salvation and enters us into union with Christ so that positionally we are in the holy of holies. The baptism of the Spirit puts every one of us behind the torn curtain in the holy of holies. And being positionally in the holy of holies as royal family we have a tremendous reminder from God, that God the Father attaches the highest possible value from His essence to the work of Christ on the cross. There is nothing higher, nothing greater, nothing more important in the universe. And so great is the value He attaches that is saves you and me and millions and millions of people in human history. And so great is the value He attaches to it that those who reject the cross are going to be in the lake of fire forever and ever.

When we believe in Christ none of us attach enough importance to the cross. Why? Our emotion is in the way if we are aware of what has happened. Just think of becoming aware of the fact that once you were hopelessly lost and a sinner, like everyone else, and now you are going to go to heaven, there is nothing that can stop it, you have believed. Your emotion gets a hold of that and gets so cranked up that you can’t begin to appreciate the cross. Therefore, all of us at the moment of salvation may or may not have some emotional response. But emotional response is really bad at the point of salvation because it sort of clouds the issue. You are getting an emotional kick and response out of the realisation of the fact that you are really going to heaven that you lose track of the real issue. But even if you had no emotional response there is no way at the point of salvation that you could ever appreciate the value attached to the cross. That is why the command is “believe”, not learn, not understand, not pass a test. So God the Father starts out on the simplest plan of agreement. All of us have faith. Faith is the basic system with which we think. Our basic systems of learning all revolve around faith, therefore there is nothing more important for learning than faith. But to make the object of that faith Jesus Christ is the simplest form of agreement that the cross is efficacious. But recognising the efficacy of the blood of Christ is not enough and it takes the supergrace life to appreciate to any degree the tremendous value that God the Father has placed ion the work of God the Son on the cross. Therefore shadows did that same job in Old Testament times. Now we have no shadows; now we have the reality. The shadows involved ritual. The only ritual we have is to remember who and what Christ is. Our ritual isn’t even connected with shadows, it is connected with the reality rather than the shadows.

So with the strategic victory of Christ through His death, burial, resurrection, ascension and session we now have the greatest privilege that any group of believers have ever had. We live in the Church Age as members of the royal family of God, and with a sacred book, the Bible whose content must be transferred to the soul in great amounts so that we can have resident in our souls the capacity to love Jesus Christ. None of us have the capacity to love until we have the right amount of doctrine in the soul to do so.

When it says “which they offer year by year” there is a constant, continuing staying with it, sticking it out, doing it again and again and again. Now the big question arises. Suppose that you had been a Levitical priest, that your job for life was to offer sacrifices, sacrifices, sacrifices. Suppose that your job was doing something over and over and over again. How do you keep from going crazy? How do you keep from complaining? How do you keep this from being routine? If you are doing something you enjoy it takes the problem out of the routine. In the tribe of Levi only two families provided all of the priests, two families directly descended from Aaron and Eleazar. Eleazar had two sons that continued the priesthood, but the tribe of Levi was a big tribe and everyone in the tribe was dedicated to spiritual service. So there were people who were tested at a very early age, and it was discovered that they had good voices. Therefore all of their lives, day in and day out, they practiced, they sang, they learned their parts perfectly. And accompanying all these things was the beautiful music of professional singers. They made it possible, through music, their beautiful singing, for the priests to continue doing a monotonous job day in and day out so that the meaning of what they were doing would not be lost to them. And they sang doctrinal words such as found in the Psalms, they sang things that were significant. What they sang was the Word of God, and the Word of God as they heard it sung made it possible for them to do it again and again and again without losing the meaning of the shadows. That is what choirs are all about. They are a part of the shadows; that is the purpose of choirs. But we don’t live in the shadows any more.

Life is made up of a lot of monotonous things. That is why people read books, the monotonous things are left out of books. A book would never sell if it described lucidly and beautifully monotonous things in life. That is why people read missionary stories, they leave out all of the monotony. There are certain things in life, like in earning a living, doing a job or whatever we do in life, where there is a certain amount of monotony connected with it. But this passage has taught us that God has provided a way for the royal family, even with the simplest repetitions of life, to find no monotony in them. So we are now getting ready to dig into the chapter where there is no monotony, where there is reality and not shadows, and where we understand the purpose for the conjunction of the ages.

Verse 2 — the inadequacy of shadows. “For then” is a conjunction. It is used in an ellipsis. In an ellipsis we usually have to put in some words in the English because we do not have an exact equivalent. The word e)pei which is translated “for” should be “since”. “Since if they really did perfect” is what it means. Whenever you have the elliptical use of e)pei it us assuming something.

“then” — the particle a)n plus the aorist which indicates a second class condition — “since if they really did perfect, but they didn’t.”

“would they not have ceased” — an aorist middle indicative of the verb pauw. The aorist tense is a constative aorist, it contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. We have nothing in the English which is comparable to this — taking the action of a verb and regardless of the duration of that action to gather the action together in its entirety. This is something which is very special in the Greek language. The middle voice is also unusual, we have nothing comparable to it in the English. Here we have a permissive middle in which the agent, the Levitical priests under the law, is represented as voluntarily yielding himself to the action of the verb or the results of the action of the verb. We have a declarative indicative, and when you put it all together you have “Since if they really did perfect [but they didn’t] then would they not have ceased to being offered.”

“to be offered” — present passive participle of prosferw. The present tense is an iterative present which describes what recurs at successive intervals, hence the present tense of repeated action. The passive voice: the shadow offerings were being offered. The participle is circumstantial. If any blood of an animal could have saved just once then there never would be another animal sacrifice, but as we recall on several occasions in chapter nine they were offered gain and again and again and again. The principle that we derive from this passage is that the shadows are gone and God the Son has actually passed on to us the regimental colours of the royal family, and our alignment with it and our advance depends upon the intake of Bible doctrine and understanding the difference between shadows and reality. There is a great difference.

“because that the worshippers” — a prepositional phrase, dia plus the accusative of the definite article, plus the accusative of mhdeij, which is a negative, plus an articular infinitive, e)xw. When you have dia plus the accusative of the definite article you know how to translate dia. It is “because of.” And mhdeij is a very strong negative, it means “no one.” Then, when you add an articular infinitive to all this you are really in trouble because the translation is almost impossible in the English. About the best that can be done is “because something would not be having”. Whatever it is will have to be inserted. So far all we can make out of the translation is “because”, [blank, something will have to be inserted] “would not be having”. The words “be having” is the articular infinitive and it has a noun force. This is a very unusual classical Greek idiom. The definite article with the infinitive makes it more adaptable with using a preposition. All of this is necessary to understand what this verse is all about, and this verse can’t even be understood yet until you do what you always have to do in the Greek, find out what is to be inserted at this point. We have to have a clarifying insertion — touj latreuontaj a(pac kekaqarismenouj.

The word touj is an accusative plural definite article. Next we have a participle, latreuw, also in the accusative plural. In fact, it is the object of the preposition dia. Latreuw is a worshipper, and in the present active participle it is someone who is a consistent worshipper. The present tense here indicates someone who because they are a believer continued to follow the rituals specified by the shadows. Maybe they understood it, maybe not. But one thing is settled, the present participle is a believer as a worshipper. The problem is, how much did they know? They knew very little in some cases and a lot in others. So, “because the worshippers would not be having”.

We have along with this another insertion, the perfect passive participle of kaqarizw, which means to cleanse. This participle is necessary to qualify the worshippers. So “the worshippers having once and for all cleansed would not be having.” So, “because would not be having” is our basic phrase.

In our insertion we have a present participle, in our insertion we have a perfect participle. Both of these are in the accusative case, both go with “because” or dia. The first one is actually going to be our subject — the worshippers who are believers under the law. The word a(pac is an adverb indicating once and for all. The verb kaqarizw is an intensive perfect and it means cleansed in the past with the result that they keep on being cleansed or have permanent results. So we put it all together: “because the worshippers having been once and for all cleansed in the past, with the result that they keep on being cleansed, would not be having.” Then we have the word “no more.” Here is where we have the accusative feminine singular of mhdeij, and while it doesn’t make good English it makes excellent Greek. It means “not one” or “no longer” is sometimes the meaning. Therefore this is what we have: “Since if they really did perfect [but they don’t] then they would not have ceased being offered, because the worshippers having been once and for all cleansed, not one no longer would be having a conscience of sins.” This is the literal translation.

The problem here is the fact that everything in this sentence is in the accusative case. So far we have had subjects and we know from the English that a subject is in the nominative case. But there is a problem here. First of all, we have an adverbial accusative, mhdeij. Then we have an accusative of general reference in which you have a participle and a noun in the accusative case which is the subject of the participle. Then there is an accusative with the preposition dia and an accusative of direct object. So this is the sentence of five accusatives all used in a different way, a grammarian’s dream but an exegete’s nightmare!

Summary

1. This verse demonstrates the extremely complicated structure of classical Greek, and how classical Greek influenced Koine Greek.

2. The writer was a great scholar, he was a master of classical Greek and Koine idiom. To interpret Hebrews you must know Koine idiom. This is not the style of the apostle Paul.

3. The writer has to be an Alexandrian Jew from the university, therefore he is both acquainted with classical Greek background and he is acquainted with Israel’s background of Judaism.

4. The message of the verse is obvious: Shadows can teach the fact of reality but they cannot do the work of reality. Therefore we are not required to do the worship of the Old Testament, we are required only to learn from it. Hebrews always takes the Church Age believer, the royal family, and advances him to supergrace having the right perspective about the Old Testament. No one ever grows up until he understands the Old Testament in its perspective. We learn from the shadows but we do not do the shadows.

5. Shadows can teach Christ and salvation but they cannot save.

6. Therefore the Levitical offerings were constantly being offered both to present salvation and to act as a memorial to the work of Christ.

7. The worshippers who offered the sacrificial shadows were not saved by these offerings.

8. Only the reality, Christ Himself, could save from sin and at the same time reconcile man and propitiate God.

Verse 3 — “But” is a very strong adversative conjunction, a)lla.

“in those” — e)n plus the locative of a)utoj in the plural; then the word “remembrance”, a)namnhsij. Mnhsij means remembrance; a)na means again and again and again. The sacrifices were not just remembrance. “This do in remembrance of me” — our communion. Ours is a simple remembrance of what happened in the past, it is based upon the doctrinal content of our souls. But this is a)namnhsij; the communion table is mnhsisj. In other words, they had to be reminded constantly by repetitious sacrifices, a constant reminder. Why? Because historically the crossroads had not come, all of these things had not met. The first time they met, that was it. The first time redemption on the brass altar and reconciliation — going from the altar to the mercy seat, and the mercy seat — met and the only time they met was the cross. The Jews always had these things scattered. They could never line them up except in the soul. When they understood these things they knew it was going to happen. But historically the three roads never crossed until the cross because it took a certain type of person to do it — unique, to accomplish all three.

“of sins” — the genitive plural of a(martia; “every year” is literally “year by year.” The Levitical offerings could teach hamartiology, they could teach that man and God are not reconciled but at enmity, but they cannot solve the enmity. To solve the enmity sin must be redeemed, man must be reconciled, and God the Father must be propitiated. Therefore the shadows are not efficacious.

Verse 4 — “For” is a conjunctive particle gar, “Therefore”; “not possible” is not what it says, we have the adjective a)dunatoj which means “impossible” — “for the blood of bulls and goats”

“should take away” is a present active infinitive of a)fairew, which means not “should take away” but “to take away.” It is a customary present, it denotes what habitually occurs with a)dunatoj, the adjective. The active voice: a)dunatoj is an accusative and we have an accusative of general reference, and the accusative is the subject of the infinitive. So “impossible” is in the accusative and therefore becomes the subject of this particular infinitive. The accusative is a part of the accusative of general reference and therefore it should be translated, “therefore impossible for the blood of bulls and he-goats to takes away sins.” In other words, the gist of the sentence: impossible for animal sacrifices to take away sins, it can’t be done. And a)dunatoj is an adjective and has a double emphasis because it is the subject of the infinitive as the accusative of general reference, and because of its position in the sentence. The whole point is, Israel in all of its history never had anything under the law that could take away sin, but Israel in its history had David’s greater son who did in three hours what 1500 years of sacrifices could never accomplish.

Verse 5 — the word “Wherefore” is an inferential conjunction and like everything else in Hebrews it is a little different. This is dio which is a very rare inferential conjunction and indicates something very important is following. Whatever the inference, whatever the conclusion which is brought from all of our study of shadow passages, this is extremely important. This is a shouting inferential. It is literally “Therefore.”

when he cometh into the world” — the word for “coming” here is the present active participle from the compound verb e)iserxomai. The word was used for the high priest entering into the holy of holies. Now it is used for our high priest leaving the holy of holies and becoming a member of the human race. E)iserxomai is correctly translated. The present tense is an historic present, it is employed when a past event, in this case the incarnation, is viewed with the vividness of a present occurrence. It is, again, a Greek idiom and the Greek idiom comes to us from the classical or the Attic Greek. The active voice: Jesus Christ produces the action of the verb at the time of the incarnation, the virgin birth. In other words, the baby in the cradle at the same time is holding the universe together. This is a temporal participle which is translated like a temporal clause, and therefore, “when he entered the world” — a correct translation of the historic present. The historic present is translated like a past tense and it is very dramatic, and the word “when” indicates the temporal participle.

“into the world” — e)ij plus the accusative singular of kosmoj. Kosmoj is the devil’s kingdom. The devil is the ruler of this world and this is his kingdom at the present time.

“he saith” — the present active indicative of legw is used to indicate documentation. In other words, when Jesus Christ was a baby in the cradle He was also saying something. The baby couldn’t speak but the deity could speak, and the very moment that He came into the world He uttered something, and the moment He departed he uttered something; and both of them are found in the cross. Recently we studied Psalm 31:5 and we saw that with the last breath our Lord spoke, and the last thing He talked about was calling God the Father Jehovah el emeth — Jehovah, referring to God the Father; el is the strongest word for God, emphasising His power; emeth is doctrine. That was the last phrase ever uttered by our Lord Jesus Christ, emphasising the importance of Bible doctrine. Now, when He begins His incarnation He also begins with something in the Psalms.

Psalm 40:6-8

Psalm 40:6 — the word for “sacrifice” here refers only to animals which were slaughtered. The Hebrew word “sacrifice” is zebach and refers only to the sacrifices that involve slaughtering animals. These are blood sacrifices. We have also food sacrifices. For example, out of the five Levitical offerings it only refers to four — the burnt offering which is the work of Christ: propitiation; it refers to the peace offering, the work of Christ: reconciliation; it refers to the sin offering, the work of Christ: redemption with emphasis on rebound of unknown sins. And then the trespass offering is also a rebound offering with emphasis on known sins. It does not refer to the food offering or any of the food offerings. The food offerings always emphasised the person of Christ but the animal sacrifices always emphasised the work of the Lord Jesus Christ and, as we have seen, the blood of Christ is involved.

The next word is “offering” — minchah, and a minchah is a food sacrifice. It is brought in to indicate the principle that the Lord Jesus Christ cannot go to the cross as God. As God He is not subject to death. As God He is eternal life, eternal life cannot die. As God He is sovereignty and sovereignty is not subject to spiritual death and/or physical death. Therefore the word “offering” indicates that Jesus Christ had to become a member of the human race. But we are talking here about shadows. “Sacrifice and offering” refers to the shadows of the Old Testament. The offering is the bloodless offering, often called the “meat offering” but should be called the food offering in Leviticus chapter two. It emphasises propitiation with special emphasis on the person of Christ propitiating the Father on the cross.

“the didst not desire” — the qal perfect of chapter is very important, it means to desire but it also means a command decision. When it comes to salvation God the Father made a command decision. The command decision was that there must be an efficacious sacrifice. God the Father authorised through the Mosaic law, shadows. The shadows that the law authorised all were different things. For example, the sin problem needed to be solved so we have the brazen altar for that. The problem of man being at enmity with God and the barrier has to be removed. So we find man going through a barrier, going through the first curtain, passing through the holy place to the holy of holies, going through the second barrier. And we find this man, the high priest, therefore sprinkling blood on the mercy seat which covered the ark, and the holy of holies is the place where God dwells. So man goes from point A to point X, and going to point X man is reconciled. That is what it illustrates. So the illustrations of reconciliation and redemption and propitiation were all separate, all apart, in the Tabernacle, and these roads must be pulled together so the Father authorised the shadows to show what Christ would do before He did it and to make it possible for all people who lived in Old Testament times to understand salvation and grace, and to respond to it by faith in Christ.

So, “[animal] sacrifice and [food] offering you did not authorise [or make a command decision, or delight in].” Ritual without reality is meaningless. The ritual was the means of teaching doctrine but it was not the fulfillment of the doctrine. The believers who were reversionistic often went through the ritual but they did not accept its meaning. This is the unbeliever in reversionism. Or the believer who went through the ritual or observed the ritual without appreciating it — being completely bored, being negative toward doctrine as it was portrayed in shadow form, and as a result he was reversionistic. Ritual or shadows is simply a teaching aid. If the believer is negative the teaching accomplishes nothing. The reversionist, therefore, is guilty of ritual without reality in the Old Testament and today the reversionist is guilty of negative volition toward the historical reality. There is no merit in ritual as such, only the doctrine it represents. What little ritual has been left to the royal family in the Church Age, the communion table for example, is only meaningful as we have Bible doctrine in our human souls.

“mine ears hast thou opened” — this would be assumed that people get interested in doctrine and open their ears and listen, but that isn’t what it says.

“thou hast opened” is the qal perfect of karah and it means to pierce the ears — “my ears you have pierced.” This is a custom of the ancient world rather than the wearing of some kind of jewelry. It refers to becoming a servant, to the fact that a person who wanted to become a slave for life would pick his master, the person he desired to become a slave to, and it the master agreed he would pierce his ear. That would be the sign that of his own free will he was a slave.

In eternity past God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit held a conference with regard to something that they all anticipated in their omniscience. They anticipated the fall of angels and the fall of man even though man would be in perfect environment. In anticipation of the fall of man and the problem of spiritual death, the problem of an old sin nature, the problem of personal sin, the plan that the Father came up with called for a sacrifice; an efficacious sacrifice where the road of sin and estranged man and perfect God could meet. And the Lord Jesus Christ is the one who said in the cradle, you have pierced my ear. In other words, Jesus Christ is saying “I am here because I want to be here, I am here because in my sovereignty I have chosen to do so.” When God the Son of His own free will became the Father’s slave He was saying in effect “My ear was pierced.” He is saying in effect that he of His own free will has agreed to do this, and He is also saying that slavery is a noble and an honourable function under a good master and, in this case, a perfect master. Jesus Christ became a slave in order that He might free us.

The doctrine of ears

1. Ears are used to indicate the function of GAP — Revelation 2:7,11,17,29; Proverbs 18:15; Job 34:1-3. The ear is used for the principle of concentration. You must concentrate on the teaching of the Word of God.

2. Ears are used for supergrace dedication — Psalm 40:6; Exodus 21:6; Deuteronomy 15:7. In other words, you pierce your ear to the extent that your volition says on a daily basis, I love the Word of God, I want the Word of God, it is more important to me than anything else, it is the only way that I will ever share the divine viewpoint of the value of Jesus Christ.

3. The ear is used for negative volition toward doctrine in the reversionist — Jeremiah 6:10.

4. The ear is used to portray reversionism leading to the fifth cycle of discipline — Isaiah 6:10.

5. The ear was part of the consecration of the priest — Exodus 29:20; Leviticus 8:23. Blood on the right ear indicated the function of the priesthood in teaching the written Word or communicating it through shadow ritual. The Levitical priest recognised that for his entire lifetime his job was related to Bible doctrine, in shadow form and in the written Word as it existed at that time.

6. A healed leper had blood placed on the ear to indicate the importance of doctrine in the solution of life’s problems — Leviticus 14:14. Whenever a person was healed from leprosy it was always a miracle. It was always therefore related to the sovereignty of God. The leper who was healed therefore recognised that God had a purpose for his life and in a sense, then, he became God’s slave.

7. David describes the ear in the sense of an anthropomorphism, i.e. God is said to have ears, and this is used in reversion recovery — Psalm 34:15,17.

8. The ear as an anthropomorphism is used in the restoration of Israel from the fifth cycle of discipline — Nehemiah 1:6.

9. The ear as an anthropomorphism is contrasted from idols which cannot hear — Isaiah 59:1; Psalm 135:17.

10. The ear is used associated with gossip — Proverbs 17:4.

“burnt offering and sin offering thou hast not required” — the burnt offering is olah, the ascending offering or a burnt offering, and it portrays propitiation with emphasis on the work of Christ on the cross. In other words, it portrays the fact that when Jesus Christ was bearing our sins He was absolute perfection in His humanity — +R. This satisfied the righteousness of the Father. In being judged for our sins the justice of the Father was satisfied, and these two are the great problems when it comes to the compromise of the character of God. God made a sovereign decision to save man but He can’t save man because He is perfect righteousness and He is justice. Justice and righteousness can have nothing to do with sinful man, except to condemn man. So righteousness and justice are satisfied so that eternal life and love can go through the grace pipe to man by way of the cross. This is the concept of propitiation and this is what he had in mind when he mentioned burnt offerings. The sin offering is rebound with emphasis on the unknown sins and also relates to redemption. So two out of the three areas of the blood of Christ are mentioned at this time.

Corrected translation” “Animal sacrifice and food sacrifice you did not delight in; you have pierced my ears; burnt offering and the sin offering you have not required [literally, requested — the qal perfect of sha’al].”

The passage which is quoted in Hebrews 10:5-10 is actually what our Lord said in the cradle when He came into the world. He quoted this passage to indicate that once again the Levitical offerings, the shadow offerings, could not save, they could only teach the way of salvation. They were all separate roads portraying various facets of salvation but the roads could only cross historically in the death of our Lord. So Jesus quoted the passage to indicate that Levitical offerings were shadows pointing to the cross but they could never take away sins. The animal sacrifice could not take away sins, the animal sacrifice could only teach the cross, teach the work of Jesus Christ which would come up in the future historically.

So there is one significant difference, then, in the quotation of Psalm 46 and how it is found in Hebrews 10:5. “A body thou hast prepared for me” is not found in Psalm 40. Instead there is the phrase “you have pierced my ears”. What is the difference? There is no difference. The fact that Jesus Christ took a body was His agreement that He would go to the cross and bear our sins. In fact, becoming humanity was the piercing of His ears and in the incarnation, therefore, He becomes the slave of God the Father.

Psalm 40:7 — “Then said I” — literally, at that time; “I have said.” The qal perfect of amar is a prophetic perfect. A prophetic perfect says it is past tense, it is completed action even though it is future, but because it is going to happen, because it is guaranteed by God to happen, it is put in the perfect tense.

“Lo, I come” — the qal perfect of bo referring to the incarnation; “in the scroll of the book [or in the written scroll] it is being written concerning me” — the qal passive participle of kathab means it is being written, it isn’t written yet. The qal participle is linear aktionsart indicating a process begun in the past and continuing into the present time. The passive voice: the subject receives the action of the verb. The subject is the canon of scripture and this verb says in effect that the canon of scripture was in the process of formation at this time.

Verse 8 — here is what our Lord says after He comes. He, in effect, once again expresses His divine volition. His human volition is in the state of a baby and therefore there is no human volition being involved. “I delight” — qal perfect from chapetz which means “I delight” or “I make a command decision.” This is the sovereignty of His deity speaking.

“to do” — qal infinitive construct of asah which means to manufacture something out of something — to manufacture out of the plan of God the salvation work. “I have made a decision to do your will, O my Elohim,” indicating that God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit were all in agreement on the plan. The reason: “yea, they law within my heart.” We have a causal waw which should be translated “because.” Then we have the word “torah” for Bible doctrine — “within my heart”, not correct. The word here is mea which means “in the midst of my bowels” which refers to Bible doctrine specifically in the right lobe and overflowing to the emotions of the soul. In other words, Jesus Christ had maximum doctrine in His right lobe and it overflowed all during His incarnation into His emotion so that He responded emotionally to doctrine in His soul. His emotion was not out of order. His emotion was stimulated by the Word. This must be true of any person who reaches supergrace in the royal family. You have to come to the place where your emotion is stimulated by the Word. You can’t fake it out, you can’t get any form of pseudo emotion to do it. When people simply let their emotions go wild then they never make it. Your emotion must respond to the Word and the only way this could happen is to have the Word in your soul as our Lord had it in His soul. This is the only possible way that can occur.

Translation: “I have made a command decision to do your will, O my Elohim; because your doctrine is in the middle of my emotions.”

He emotionally responded to the Word and therefore the Word became the basis for His function. It is the will of God that all believers in phase two reached the supergrace status or maturity. To do so, this requires the daily function of GAP, the constant and consistent intake of the Word. So great must be the saturation that doctrine overflows to the emotion and the emotion responds to the Word of God. At the incarnation Jesus Christ quoted the last half of this verse, and at the time of the writing, by the way, David used the entire verse to express his supergrace testimony. But only the last half is quoted by David’s greater son at the time that He came into the world.

Hebrews 10:5 — “Therefore when he entered into the world, he said.” Remember that Hebrews 10:5-7 quotes Psalm 40:6-8. Some things are changed, some things are left out to make it pertinent to the incarnation.

“Sacrifice and offering thou wouldst not.” The word for “sacrifice” is the accusative singular of the noun qusia, referring again to animal sacrifices portraying the work of Christ on the cross. It is the accusative of direct object with the verb qelw, which means desire or decision, plus the negative. And we have the strong Greek negative o)uk. God the Father shuts the door on animal sacrifices ever saving. They can only point to the saviour. “I do not desire animal sacrifice.”

“offering” — prosfora means the act of presenting a gift. Not just the food offering but any person trying to bribe God for salvation. Prosfora means to come to the altar with a gift, and in effect it says that there is no way that you can have salvation by bribing God. So we have “sacrifice and the act of presenting an offering you do not desire.” The actual accusatives come first but they are the objects of the verb, “you do not desire,” the aorist active indicative of the verb qelw. The aorist tense is a dramatic aorist, it is used for stating a present reality with the certitude of a past event. This is an idiom, it is a device in the classical Greek for emphasis. It is constantly used for a state which has been realised or a result which has been accomplished. After many years of history the state is finally realised, Jesus Christ came in the flesh. He came as a baby in the cradle because God the Father never had and never would desire an animal sacrifice for salvation, they are non-efficacious, they are teaching aids, but they cannot in any possible way save. The active voice: God the Father produces the action of the verb, not being satisfied with shadows for salvation. God the Father designed shadows to teach salvation, He did not design them to save. The indicative mood is declarative, it represents the verbal idea from the viewpoint of reality and certainty. It is a dogmatic and unqualified assertion that animal sacrifices never could, never would save. The negative o)uk is such a strong particle that it shuts the door forever on any animal sacrifice ever saving anyone. Used with the indicative mood it is a statement of absolute fact in the negative. But there is something He does desire, there is something that He has done by way of a command decision, so the little particle de separates one thing that God does not desire from the positive thing, the thing that God the Father wants.

“a body” — swma is the Greek word referring to the incarnation. Jesus Christ is given a human body, a human soul, and a human spirit.

“you have prepared” — the aorist middle indicative of katartizw which means to prepare, to train, to supply, to store. Here it is in the middle voice which means to equip someone. To equip an army is the way it was used in the ancient world.

Katartizw: In 1 Corinthians 1:10 it was used to tune up a machine. It was the machine that was used to lower the actors over the stage. A second use found in the scripture is in 2 Corinthians 13:11 where it meant to equip an army. We also find this same word in 1 Thessalonians 3:10 for supplying a fleet with provisions. In Galatians 6:1 it is used for mending a broken bone or to set a broken bone. Peter uses it is 1 Peter 5:10 to mend a broken net. In our passage, Hebrews 10:5, it has the connotation of equipping. If Jesus Christ who is eternal God is going to be the saviour He has to be equipped, and so He is equipped with a body. A body has to be supplied, a human soul and a human spirit, otherwise there is no saviour and otherwise there is no salvation.

Katartizw is in the aorist tense in our passage. This is the gnomic aorist for a point of doctrine so generally accepted as to be axiomatic. In other words, the fact that Christ had a human body and will never lose His human body is a generally accepted fact. The middle voice is the intensive or dynamic middle, it emphasises the part taken by the subject of the verb, God the Father. He actually supplied the body. Jesus Christ could not go to the cross unless He was true humanity. The indicative mood is a statement of absolute fact, it is a part of the doctrine of the royal family of God that Jesus Christ by virgin birth was given a human body.

“me” — a dative of indirect object from the pronoun e)gw. It indicates in whose interest the act is performed. “You Father have prepared me [Christ] a body.” Note the change from the Massoretic text which says “you have pierced my ears.” Jesus Christ changed the phrase “you have pierced my ears” to “you have prepared me a body.” Why? Because the sovereignty of Jesus Christ was positive in eternity past. But at the point of the virgin birth Christ receives a body. He made the decision in eternity past. He changes from Psalm 40 the decision that He made billions of years ago to the result of the decision. Christ made the decision; God the Father provided for Him the body. Not only did He provide the body but He provided the indwelling of the Holy Spirit for that body. So that is why we have the change from “you have pierced my ears” to “you have prepared me a body.”

Translation: “Therefore when he [Christ] entered the world, he said, You [God] did not desire sacrifice and offering, but you [Father] have prepared for me a human body.”

Principles

1. The human body of Christ would accomplish on the cross what all of the animal sacrifices of history could not accomplish, namely, solution to the problem of sin — redemption; solution to the fact that man is the enemy of God. He is now reconciled, the barrier is removed — reconciliation; solution to the perfect character of God. God the Father is propitiated or satisfied with the work of Christ and attaches the highest value ever of anything to the work of Christ on the cross — propitiation.

2. The shadow sacrifices were pointing to the reality but they could not do the work of the reality.

3. Shadows can teach spiritual lessons of salvation but shadows cannot save.

4. Therefore it states the inadequacy of shadows by way of advancing the subject. The shadows are inadequate, it is the reality who saves.

5. The body of Jesus Christ is the real image by which the shadows of the Levitical offerings were merely a portrayal.

This brings us to the principle that Jesus Christ had us personally in mind when He came into the world, and He knew what it was going to cost Him. But He went ahead and became, as it were, not only the slave to God the Father, but one slave went into the world that many slaves might live forever in the holy of holies. We are royal family but as long as we are on the earth we are also slaves. But here is the principle. We are only slaves to the extent that our volition is involved positive toward doctrine. Apart from positive volition toward Bible doctrine we are not slaves and therefore failures. The plan of God calls for the royal family to be servants of God the Father on the earth, and the big issue we should ask ourselves: “Is my ear pierced?” Only the pierced ears get blessing, only the pierced ears are made wealthy by God, only the pierced ears are promoted, only the pierced ears have social and sexual prosperity, only the pierced ears have +H.

Verse 6 — “burnt offerings” is the accusative plural of o)lokautwma. The word refers to the whole burnt offering in which the animal sacrifice was entirely consumed by fire. Because of the Hebrew olah in Psalm 40 we actually have a word coined by the writer here to give us the concept of the entire burnt offering. This is the burnt offering of Leviticus chapter one which emphasises propitiation.

“and for sin” — preposition peri plus the genitive of a(martia. It should be translated “and concerning sin.” It is a reference to the sin offering. That portrays rebound with emphasis on the unknown sins in the life. It is mentioned here because Christ died for unknown sins, and the fact is that the death of Christ solves every problem and every aspect of every problem. People always wonder why if a person didn’t know he was sinning then why should Christ die for that or how can that be a sin? The answer to that is found in the principle that whether you knew it was a sin or not, in your volition you did it. All sins originate in a combination of the old sin nature’s area of weakness plus volition. In other words, you wanted to do it whether you knew it was right or wrong. And the point is that God goes by His perfect righteousness and He does not go by human standards.

Now the passage says, “In whole burnt offerings and concerning the sin offering.” We have the two most difficult problems of the cross solved right here. Sin is not the most difficult problem, it is reconciling man to God and God being satisfied and uncompromised in providing salvation.

“thou hast had no pleasure” is the aorist active indicative of the verb e)udokew plus the negative o)uk. The two words together: “you have not delighted” or, e)udokew also means to propitiate — “you have not been propitiated”, “you were not satisfied with the animal sacrifices”. The aorist tense is a constative aorist, it contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. Hence, it takes all the animal and food sacrifices of the Old Testament authorised by the Mosaic law, all of the shadows, and gathers them into a single whole. There never was a sacrifice out of the millions of sacrifices over a period of 1500 years which ever propitiated the Father. All they did was to teach. That is why there is a multiplicity of sacrifices. They taught and taught and taught and taught but they did not save. They had absolutely no efficacy. God the Father was not propitiated by animal sacrifices. The active voice: God the Father produces the action of the verb, and this action we have a verb which says He was not propitiated. The indicative mood is a dogmatic statement of doctrine, this is an absolute fact that no animal sacrifice offered by any person at any time ever propitiated God the Father.

The doctrine of propitiation

1. Propitiation is the Godward side of salvation. The purpose of propitiation is to make the essence of God compatible to man’s salvation through Jesus Christ. Propitiation in itself means satisfaction. God the Father is not only satisfied with the work of God the Son but it has another meaning too: uncompromised. God the Father is not compromised in providing salvation for sinful man, the enemy of God. Remember that in the Levitical offerings the propitiatory offerings come first. Why? because God is more important than we are. The greatest thing God the Son did on the cross was to propitiate God the Father. Until the Father is propitiated there is no solution to the sin problem and man cannot be reconciled to God.

2. Propitiation was communicated to Israel through the mercy seat and through the first two Levitical offerings: the burnt offering and the food offering — Exodus 25:17-22; 37:6-9; Leviticus chapters 1 & 2.

3. Propitiation is appropriated by faith. The propitiatory work of Christ can only be appropriated in a totally non-meritorious way. There is no way that any of us can have anything to do or say in the plan of God, it is strictly His work. Therefore faith does that, faith is non-meritorious. It is also the basis for the imputation of divine righteousness. God cannot credit to our account His righteousness apart from propitiation. First of all, He must be propitiated which He is by the work of Christ on the cross, so that when we believe in Christ we simply receive immediately +R. Then God the Father vindicates us or justifies us. Cf Romans 3:25-26.

4. Propitiation is therefore a part of the work of Christ on the cross — Leviticus 16:13-16.

5. The mercy seat represented the presence of God and the mercy seat is a part of propitiation — Exodus 25:22; Leviticus 16:2; Numbers 7:89.

6. The New Testament confirms the importance of the mercy seat in Hebrews 9:5. The mercy seat portrays propitiation. The box is the ark of the covenant. It is acacia wood plated with gold. The gold represents the deity of Christ, the wood represents the humanity of Christ. Inside were the tables of the law, sin in violation of divine standards. Inside was Aaron’s rod which budded, sin in violation of divine authority. Then there is a golden urn inside of which was manna which always represents Bible doctrine, bread from heaven. Here we have the manna put in the ark to represent the principle of sin in rejection of divine provision, sin in negative volition toward Bible doctrine. And all of these items representing sin are found inside the ark, a picture of Christ bearing our sins in His own body on the tree. Then, over the top of this we have the a mercy seat made out of gold which has a cherub on each side. One cherub represents God’s perfect righteousness and the other represents His justice. When the high priest would sprinkle the blood over the top of the mercy seat righteousness sees the blood and is satisfied; justice sees the blood and is satisfied. The satisfaction of righteousness and justice is propitiation. These are the two characteristics of God that must be satisfied, and the satisfaction of righteousness and justice frees God to save us without compromising His character. Hebrews 9:5 tells us of the importance of the mercy seat in propitiation.

7. Propitiation is also related to unlimited atonement — 1 John 2:2. Unlimited atonement is Christ dying for every sin that was ever committed in all of human history.

8. Propitiation demonstrates the perfect love of God — 1 John 4:10.

9. Therefore, propitiation is used to express the celebrityship of Jesus Christ. Only Jesus Christ had a righteousness that could satisfy the Father, only Jesus Christ could bear the sins of the world, so only Jesus Christ could propitiate the Father and this qualifies Him to be a celebrity forever. Romans 3:25 says literally, “Whom the God [God the Father] has predetermined the mercy seat through faith by means of his blood” — the blood of Christ represents the principle of redemption plus reconciliation plus propitiation — “ for a demonstration of his righteousness because of the passing over of previously committed sins” — all sins in the Old Testament were passed over. They were accumulated but they were passed over, nothing was done about them, they were not judged until the cross and then they were poured out upon Christ and judged — “by the clemency [the delaying judgement] of the God [the Father].”

10. The importance of propitiation can be observed from the existence of the tables of law in the ark of the covenant. They are related to the doctrine of propitiation.

a) The law is not an instrument of justification — Romans 3:20, 28; Galatians 2:16.

b) The law is an instrument of condemnation to the Jew and to the entire human race — Galatians 3:21-28; 1 Timothy 1:9,10.

c) The purpose of the law is to curse mankind with a hopeless curse — Galatians 3:10. Therefore only the work of Christ on the cross can remove that curse — Galatians 3:13.

d) The law does not produce a righteousness which has credit with God. The righteousness produced by the law has zero credit with God. People have been trying to keep the law for salvation but the law was never an instrument of salvation. It cannot be compared to the imputation of divine righteousness which we receive by faith in Christ — Philippians 3:9.

e) Many Jews of the previous dispensation failed because they attempted to be saved by a righteousness produced by keeping the law — Romans 9:30-33.

f) The conclusion, then, is obvious. The law cannot provide salvation, the law cannot provide justification — Acts 13:39. Therefore the prayer of the publican — Luke 18:13 — was literally, “O God, be propitious to me, a sinner.”

11. Propitiation is the only approach to God. The Pharisee was trying to be saved by keeping the Mosaic law. The publican in Luke 18:13 sought salvation through propitiation. God cannot be merciful toward the sinner in the sense of being generous or lenient, and the publican did not ask God to do the impossible. He did not ask for mercy. Being merciful excludes Christ but being propitious includes the Lord Jesus Christ.

The two greatest problems in salvation are mentioned by the two offerings: propitiation emphasising the need for God the Father to be consistent. Propitiation is the great problem in salvation and it does not matter what we think but it does matter what God thinks. Bible doctrine captures what God thinks.

Verse 7 — because animal sacrifices could not propitiate the Father, could not provide salvation, Jesus Christ responds to the situation by dedicating Himself in hypostatic union to go to the cross. Since the shadows will not propitiate the Father Jesus vows to become the reality which will save mankind and at the same time propitiate the Father.

Our first word is a correlative adverb of time, tote, and it should be translated “At that time.” In the cradle. As it were, the first Christmas. That means at the time when our Lord Jesus Christ was in the cradle.

“said I” — and immediately we have a problem. What on earth could He say that would be important, and how could He talk? We have to go back to the principle. God the Son in the doctrine of divine decrees, in eternity past, agreed to go to the cross. That was positive volition, divine sovereignty. Again, at the cradle, positive volition. And it was still His deity. The baby could not talk, could not think. The baby was just born, so in the God-Man it was the deity of Christ that spoke out. The humanity of Christ will confirm on the night before the cross in His humanity: “Father if it be thy will … nevertheless, not my will but thine be done.” But here in this verse is the deity of Christ, here is the baby who speaks like an adult.

Now we have a parenthesis, “in the volume” is the prepositional phrase e)n plus the locative of kefalij which means a scroll. So “in a scroll of the book” — a descriptive genitive singular biblion. Literally, “in the scroll of a book.” It refers to the Old Testament scriptures. It refers to Genesis 3:15 where we have the seed of the woman; it refers to Micah 5:2, But as for you Bethlehem of Judea, though you are little among the thousands of Judah, from you shall go forth one who for me will be the ruler in Israel, whose goings forth are from long ago, and from the days of eternity past.” This is in the scroll of the book.

Isaiah 7:14 is in the scroll of the book: “Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, the virgin shall be pregnant, and bear a son, and you shall call his name God with us.”

Or Isaiah 9:6 — “A child will be born to us [humanity of Christ], a son will be given [deity], consequently the government will rest on his shoulders [Millennium]; now his name will be called a Wonderful Counselor, a Mighty God, author of eternal life, Prince of reconciliation” — the Prince who removes the barrier between man and God.

So, “in a scroll of a book it stands written” — there are many references to the Lord Jesus Christ in His incarnate form. The perfect passive indicative of grafw describes the permanence of the Word of God. The intensive perfect, the Bible was written in the past with permanent results. The passive voice emphasises the means of inspiration. The human authors under the direction of God the Holy Spirit received and transmitted the information they way God wanted it transmitted. The indicative mood is the reality of prophecies regarding the incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ.

“of me” — literally “concerning me.”

“At that time, I said, Behold, I have arrived (in a scroll of a book it stands written concerning me).”

Now “I said” is an aorist active indicative of the verb legw. This is a dramatic aorist, it states a present reality with the certitude of a past event. It is used for a result which is on the verge of being accomplished. The cross is the result of the incarnation and the dramatic aorist indicates two things. It indicates the fulfillment of the incarnation — the Son speaking. And at the cross it will be the speaking of the God-Man, but as a baby at this point only deity can speak so it is the Lord Jesus Christ as God speaking here. This is a dramatic aorist to indicate a unique situation in history. The active voice: Jesus Christ speaks from the cradle. He produces the action of the verb. The baby in the cradle spoke to God the Father about the divine decrees. It means that the shadow of the cross was hanging over the cradle. The indicative mood is reality and certainty, an absolute doctrine.

The word “Lo” is a demonstrative particle, i)dou. It is actually an aorist middle imperative from o(raw used for perception, and here it emphasises the principle of GAP. It emphasises the fact that everything that was taught in the Old Testament about Christ, and every time that a person believed from the doctrine of the Old Testament or from the shadows that were used to portray the gospel, they are now being fulfilled. It is the guarantee of God the Son that every person who trusted in Christ in the Old Testament will actually get a reality from His incarnation. He is saying in effect, “I intend to keep my promise, there is no efficacious sacrifice yet, but there will be.”

So “Behold” is the translation. “Behold I have arrived” — the present active indicative of h(kw which is “arrived,” not “come.” E)rxomai would mean to come; this is “arrive.” This is an aoristic present tense, punctiliar action in present time. The moment the baby was born it was the deity of Christ speaking from the cradle. The active voice: Jesus Christ produced the action. The indicative mood, again, is the dogmatic reality. This ends the parenthesis.

“to do thy will” — the aorist active infinitive of poiew. The parenthesis merely recognise the fact that written scripture is the most important way that any generation can orient to the plan of God, and the parenthesis reminds us of the fact that we would know nothing about God apart from written scripture, Bible doctrine. But the sentence that the Lord actually uttered was, “I have arrived to accomplish your plan.” The words “to do” is an aorist active indicative of poiew and it is a constative aorist, it gathers up the action of the verb in its entirety. From the virgin birth to the cross, resurrection and ascension He has come to do the will of the Father. This constative aorist takes us all the way through the second death of Christ on the cross. The active voice: Christ produces the action of the verb. The infinitive is an infinitive of purpose, it says in effect that this was His purpose. “I have arrived to accomplish thy will.” The word qelhma refers to the will of God as declared in the divine decrees. “O God” is the vocative addressed to the Father, but He doesn’t call Him the Father because it is His deity speaking. When His humanity speaks or He speaks in hypostatic union He will use the word “Father”.

Translation: “At that time [in the cradle] I said, Behold, I have arrived to accomplish your plan, O God.” We have left out the parenthesis. The parenthesis verifies the fact that this was all promised. The entire sentence says, “At that time I said, Behold, I have arrived (in the scroll of a book it stands written concerning me) to accomplish your plan, O God.”

Verse 8 — when Jesus Christ came, when He fulfilled the reality, the shadows would have to go. In this verse we have a citation. Our first word is a rather unusual word. It is a neuter singular a)nwteroj, an adverb. It is an adverb to cite something previously stated in the context. “Above, when he said” the present active participle of legw. It is a dramatic historic present, a temporal participle, which is correctly translated “when he said”. The temporal participle now quotes again — he is referring back top verses 5 & 6 — Psalm 40:6.

Next comes the word for quotation marks, o(ti, a conjunction used in many ways, one of which is for quotation marks. “Sacrifice and burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings” — the accusative singular plus the accusative singular plus the accusative plural actually sounds like this: “Sacrifice and [food] offering and whole burnt offerings and concerning sin offerings.” These are the offerings of the Levitical code. All of these phrases have been studied in verses 5 & 6 and he is merely citing them now.

“thou wouldst not”, the aorist active indicative of qelw, is literally, “you did not desire.” He is referring back to what Jesus said. It is the writer speaking now. God the Father did not desire animal sacrifices for salvation; “neither hadst pleasure” — wrong! It is “nor have you been propitiated.”

“which are offered by the law” is correctly translated “which category of shadows are being offered according to the law.” So the writer now makes a conclusion from what our Lord said. He is permitted to quote our Lord; He is also permitted to make a conclusion by God the Holy Spirit. His conclusion: “which category of shadows are being offered according to the law.” He is getting ready for something. He is getting ready to show once again — time and time again, her repeats this, he presses home with the attack and he goes over and over and over it — that shadows cannot save. They could only teach salvation, they could only evangelise. This was a way of witnessing. These were the words that were witnessed, as it were, by these offerings. But they are shadows, they cannot save, they cannot pull together redemption, reconciliation, and propitiation. They must be pulled together and this can only be accomplished by the cross.

Translation: “Above when he was citing Psalm forty, Sacrifices and offerings and whole burnt offerings and concerning sin offerings you did not desire, nor have you been propitiated by them; which category of shadows are being offered according to the law.”

Verse 9 — the application. “Then” — we have that correlative adverb again, tote, meaning that the time of the incarnation, the time when Jesus was speaking in the cradle, at that time “he said” — perfect active indicative of legw. He is emphasising once again that Jesus Christ spoke from the cradle to God the Father. He said in the past with the result that it stands said forever — the intensive perfect, something that happened in the past and it goes on and on forever. This stands. Now, you can put it all together. We have already had the Lord Jesus Christ passing on the regimental colours when He died on the cross. And on our regimental colours we have these words: “Jehovah, the God of doctrine.” When He started at the cradle He started right then and there with doctrine. He quoted doctrine. And when He died He mentioned Jehovah the God of doctrine. So our Lord started with doctrine and He went to the cross with doctrine, and doctrine carried Him the whole way through the thirty-three years. Apart from doctrine He didn’t function. Everything He accomplished He accomplished through doctrine.

This means that the way has been set for us. These are our regimental colours. Regimental colours are always related to something of historical significance. Our regimental flag has this: “Jehovah [God the Father], the God of doctrine.” But the Lord could not advance from that cradle to the cross, step by step fulfilling the Father’s plan, apart from doctrine. By the time He was twelve He had maximum doctrine in His soul. He was in supergrace status, and He advanced step by step by step against all pressure, against all problems of every kind. It was doctrine that carried our Lord from the cradle to the cross. And it is doctrine that carries us from the new birth to the grave. If we are not carried by doctrine we’ve had it. We have no excuse for being here. That is the advancing that is lining up on our regimental colours, and if we are to press the attack, if we are to line up with the regimental colours, it must be because we understand them. Doctrine is the regimental colours.

“Then, he said [in the past, with the result that is stands forever], Behold, I have arrived” — again the present active indicative of h(kw — “to accomplish your plan.” Notice once again, from the cradle to the cross it wasn’t what people thought, it wasn’t public opinion, it wasn’t what the Sanhedrin thought or the Pharisees or the Roman governor, or anyone else that our Lord encountered. It was always, What did the Father think? What was the Father’s plan? That was the only thing that counted.

At this point in verse 9 we begin the application of what our Lord said. The application concerns us personally since we are members of the royal family of God and since we are directly involved in the great heritage which His victory on the cross provided. When our Lord said that He had come to accomplish the Father’s will He did it from His own free will. He did this as a slave. Of His own free will he became a slave.

There are two types of slavery, one is forbidden and one is the highest and noblest function of mankind. Out of the two types of slavery the first category involves volition, and any slavery that involves volition is the noblest form of function in life. There is no greater function in life than to be a servant, than to be a slave. We are accustomed to thinking in terms of achievement on a level whereby you supersede and exceed the abilities of others, but the divine viewpoint of life is the antithesis. The Lord Jesus Christ willingly had His ear pierced by God the Father, as it were, and as He said in Psalm 40 it is a wonderful, it is an honourable, it is a noble thing from one’s own free will to become a servant. It is not degrading. It may be degrading for those who are not oriented. But our Lord Jesus Christ was willing to accept this humiliation and to turn it into the noblest form of service. A slave is the only one who can serve. Our Lord served us on the cross. He served us of His own free will when He performed the saving work of redemption, reconciliation and propitiation. There are many forms of service today, or even slavery. We do not think of them as such but that is what they are. For example, the military. One of his own free will enters into military service, becomes a slave to discipline, to training, to the principles of strategy, tactics and logistics in order that he might defend freedom and make it possible for freedom to continue in the national entity. So a military person is a servant and a slave.

There is another form of slavery or service which is non-voluntary and, of course, this type is definitely outlawed. So the noblest form of activity in life is volitional involvement in service, and the most devastating form is where a person is enslaved contrary to his will.

As we continue our study our Lord has said, “I have arrived to accomplish your plan, your purpose, your design.” When that happened the Lord did something — “He taketh away,” the present active indicative of a)nairew. It means to take away, to do away with something, to destroy, to abolish, or to abrogate. “Abrogate” means to annul by authoritative action, and this is really what it means here — “He has abrogated.” We have an aoristic present tense, punctiliar action in present time. The aorist tense is punctiliar action in past time. The aoristic present sets forth an event as now occurring. The active voice: God the Father actually abrogated the old covenant. The old covenant was composed of shadows pointing to the cross, but once our Lord fulfilled these shadows it is removed. The indicative mood is a dogmatic assertion of doctrine: the Mosaic law has been abrogated.

“He has abrogated the first” — the Greek is to prwton. Prwton is in the accusative of direct object here from the vocabulary form, prwtoj, and it is correctly translated “the first.” It refers, of course, to the sacrifices authorised by the Mosaic law. They were shadows, they did not propitiate God the Father. As soon as God the Father is propitiated by the work of God the Son they are set aside. In other words, once historical reality occurs the shadows disappear. The shadows are taken away in favour of reality.

“that” — i(na is a conjunction that introduces a purpose, “that” or “in order that”; “he may establish,” the aorist active subjunctive of i(thmi. It means to establish in the aorist here. The aorist is also a culminative aorist which sees the event in its entirety but regards it from the viewpoint of its existing results. The fact that the new covenant is established for all of the rest of time and for eternity — a new covenant which authorises the royal family is an established fact — but the culminative aorist emphasises the result. The result is that you live in the holy of holies, that God has something special for you that never existed before. The result is that while great believers do not envy, yet Moses looked for the day in which you lived. The active voice: God the Father produces the action of the verb. The subjunctive mood goes with i(na to set up a purpose clause. This is not a potential subjunctive, this is a fact. This is the establishing of the second — to deuteron, from the accusative of direct object and it is from deuteroj.

Translation of verse 9: “At that time he said in the past with the result that it stands spoken forever, Behold, I have arrived to accomplish you plan. He has abrogated the first [the old covenant] in order that he might establish the second [the new covenant to the Church].”

Summary

1. The “first” in this passage refers to the Mosaic law. The Mosaic law authorised the shadows, authorised a specialised priesthood to utilise the shadows.

2. When the reality comes the shadows depart.

3. Therefore the Mosaic law has been abrogated in favour of the new covenant and reality.

4. The Levitical priesthood authorised by the Mosaic law has been abolished in favour of the royal priesthood of the believer.

5. The new covenant, called in this verse “the second,” not only authorises the royal priesthood under Christ but also specifies a system whereby each one of us can go to divine blessing in time. (God’s purpose for keeping the believer alive is divine blessing, not the providing of needs. We are here for a purpose. We are here so that God can demonstrate to the devil that He can bless the royal family in time, that He can distribute the spoils of the strategic victory in time, to the most obscure believer who ever lived)

So the second in the new covenant which not only authorises the new priesthood under Christ but deals in realities. The realities or the doctrines of the Church Age were once a mystery but now they are revealed, they are in the golden urn of manna, they are in the Word of God.

Verse 10 — “By the which” is the preposition e)n plus the instrumental of the relative pronoun o(j — “By means of which.”

“will” — the instrumental singular of qelhma. It means purpose, will, and design. It is what God is doing for us, what He planned billions of years ago, the blessings that He planned to defeat Satan in time, the distribution of the spoils of victory — all related to the written Word.

“we are sanctified” — this is actually a periphrastic, a combination of a participle and some form of the verb to be. We have, for example, the perfect passive participle of a(giazw. With it we have the present active indicative of the verb e)imi. When you put the two together you have a periphrastic, which is an intensive structure designed to indicate the highest form of permanence. This is what is called a perfect periphrastic. “By means of which will, purpose, and design we have been sanctified in the past with the result that we remain sanctified [or separated, or earmarked] forever.” The question is: For what are we sanctified or earmarked? Sanctification means we are earmarked for something, and we are earmarked right now for blessing in time — all of us. This is a very permanent thing. When God blesses it is permanent. Any time you get anything from God it is permanent.

The baptism of the Holy Spirit

1. Prior to the Church Age at salvation God the Holy Spirit was the agent of regeneration. Now, He in not only the agent of regeneration but He performs other functions as well, other functions which make the Church Age believer unique. You, as a Church Age believer, have been entered into the holy of holies. That is unique because in the previous dispensation everyone had to stay out. The holy of holies is Christ at the right hand of the Father and you have been entered into union with Christ. So positionally you live in the holy of holies, and the means by which this is accomplished is the baptism of the Holy Spirit. That is why you didn’t feel or experience the baptism of the Spirit. That is entrance into the royal family. And that isn’t all. Our bodies are indwelt by the Holy Spirit and nobody was ever indwelt by any member of the Trinity in the Old Testament. Always before man was building something to represent what God did — a tabernacle, an altar, a laver, a table of shewbread, a lampstand, a golden altar of incense, an ark of the covenant, later on a temple. All of these things are shadows pointing to the reality, and once the reality comes God does His own building. He builds instantaneously a temple, a temple inside of the believer. Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, inside you. That never happened before.

And what does God want to do with that temple? He wants to fill it with human treasures from the divine source of grace, something to match the third person of the Trinity living inside of you. What could match it? Something on the outside that has to do with victory in the angelic conflict — your blessing, your promotion, your prosperity. Whatever form it was designed to be in eternity past, it is definitely there. Then you were sealed by the Holy Spirit at the point of salvation. That is the security of your royalty. And you were given a spiritual gift, the guarantee of the provision of royalty.

The baptism of the Spirit, then, is unique, along with the other salvation ministries of the Spirit — except regeneration.

2. The prophecy of the baptism of the Spirit was given first of all in John 14:20, then in Acts 1:5. It was accomplished by Jesus Christ just before the conjunction of the ages or the interruption of the Age of Israel and the beginning of the Church Age — Acts 1:5 is very important in that connection.

3. The definition and the mechanics of the baptism of the Spirit is important today simply because of that form of apostasy called the tongues movement. By definition the baptism of the Spirit is a part of the salvation work of the Holy Spirit, instantaneous, not felt or experienced in any way, whereby He takes you and me when we believed and enters us into union with the Lord Jesus Christ. The mechanics of this are taught in 1 Corinthians 12:13. The mechanics are related to the concept of the body of Christ.

4. The baptism of the Spirit and the essence of the royal family are linked and related forever. The baptism of the Spirit unifies all members of the body of Christ, according to Ephesians 4:5. It is something we have in common, it is something we all have and always will have and there never will be a time when we lose it. And we are all inseparably linked together. All members of the royal family have the same baptism, the baptism of the Spirit, and it provides equality in the royal family which did not exist under physical birth. The moment we are born physically into the world we are immediately in a system of inequality. The devil could never overcome that, but he keeps trying.

5. The baptism of the Spirit is related to spiritual sanctification.

6. The baptism of the Spirit occurs at the moment of salvation — Colossians 2:12. Therefore the baptism of the Spirit is not an experience of any kind. It is not speaking in tongues, it is not ecstatics, it is something that happens instantaneously and has no connotation of emotion, of stimulation, or anything else that the holy-rollers erroneously peddle today.

7. The baptism of the Spirit interrupts the Jewish dispensation and begins the Church Age. We studied this in Hebrews 9:26 where Christ is the conjunction of the ages. At the conjunction of the ages He offered the efficacious sacrifice that interrupted the Jewish Age before its completion and began the Church Age which is the dispensation for the royal family of God. The baptism of the Spirit, therefore, is the interrupter of the Jewish Age and the beginning of the Church Age — Matthew 16:18; Acts 1:5; 2:3; 11:15-17 which says the baptism of the Spirit occurred in Acts 2:3.

8. The baptism of the Holy Spirit is one of seven Bible baptisms. The Bible baptisms are divided into two parts, those which are real and those which are ritual. There are four real and three ritual baptisms. A real baptism is an actual identification whereas a ritual baptism is simply a representative identification, and in that ritual water always represents something very important. Of the real baptisms there is the baptism of Moses — 1 Corinthians 10:2, the people of Israel identified with Moses in crossing the Red Sea to safety. There is the baptism of the cross in Matthew 20:22 where our sins were identified with Christ in the function of His efficacious saving work. Then there is the baptism of the Spirit whereby we are identified with Christ forever, identified with the real holy of holies — 1 Corinthians 12:13. Finally, there is the baptism of fire in Matthew 3:11 and in many passages in which the Tribulational persons who are unbelievers are cast into fire at the end of the Tribulation which is really the end of the Jewish Age. There are three basic ritual baptisms. Again, water is always used to represent something in the spiritual realm. In the baptism of John — Matthew 3:1-10 — water represented the kingdom which he preached, and those who believed were entered into the water. He had not ritual of the temple, he lived in the Jewish Age, therefore baptism was given to him as a special ritual. This is the only shadow not authorised by the Mosaic law but authorised by a special addendum from God. God personally did something for John the baptist that he has never done for anyone else. He permitted him to have a ritual which would be meaningful to these people who were very close to the interruption of the Jewish Age. The water represented the kingdom which he proclaimed. The Lord Jesus Christ Himself was baptised by John. And it is interesting that our Lord is never related to the shadows which portray Him at the temple. He is never related to these things because at the time they were ritual without reality, they were reversionism. Therefore in Matthew 3:13-17 our Lord tuned His back upon the shadow, the temple, and walked down to John and asked John to baptise Him. John refused because he understood his own ritual and he also identified the Messiah and knew that He was sinless and did not need salvation and was in effect the saviour, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. So he said no, and our Lord explained that this was another addendum to the addendum and that the water would have a different meaning. It was simply our Lord’s volitional ritual by which He agreed to go to the cross. The water, therefore, represented the divine decrees and the Father’s plan, and the humanity of the Lord willingly accepting this plan, though for Him is was the most excruciating misery that anyone ever suffered in history. Therefore once again we have a ritual baptism, a water baptism, and the meaning of the water is dependent entirely upon its declaration in scripture and has no meaning apart from that.

There is also what we call Christian baptism. This is found in Acts 8:36-38; 16:33, and a host of passages in the book of Acts where baptism was practiced after the Church Age began. The water represented the individual identified with Christ in his death, and when the candidate came out of the water it was a picture of identification with Christ seated at the right hand of the Father. So it portrayed identification with Christ in death, burial, and resurrection. There is no reference to water baptism in the epistles, except in an unfavourable reference in 1 Corinthians 1 where there was a lot of squabbling. The purpose of water baptism was not to enter into controversy but it was to understand some very important principle of doctrine. It was to portray the baptism of the Holy Spirit. There is no record that there is any significance in the perpetuation of baptism after the canon of scripture is completed.

The baptism of the Spirit is not an experience but it is the basis by which we enter into the holy of holies.

The first part of verse 10 says we have been sanctified in the past with the result that we remain separated toward God forever. We have been earmarked as unique. We are royal family. The baptism of the Spirit is unique to the Church Age and the baptism of the Spirit is only used for royalty, for royal family only. It was not used in the Old Testament, it will not be used in the Tribulation, it will not be found in the Millennium.

The doctrine of positional truth

1. One of the five things which occurred in the ministry of the Holy Spirit at the point of salvation was the baptism of the Spirit. God the Holy Spirit did five things for us at the moment that we believed in Christ. a) Regeneration — John 3:1-16; Titus 3:5. Regeneration enters us into the family of God; b) Baptism, which enters us into the royal family of God; c) Indwelling of the Holy Spirit which is the sign of royalty; d) Sealing, which is the security of royalty; e) The distribution of a spiritual gift which is the function of royalty. So it all adds up to the fact that we are royal family forever.

2. The baptism of the Spirit is the mechanics by which we enter into union with Christ — Acts 1:5; 1 Corinthians 12:13; Ephesians 4:5.

3. Positional truth belongs to the carnal as well as the spiritual believer. It belongs to the reversionist as well as the supergrace believer. All of us have exactly the same position, all of us are in the holies, all of us are in the palace forever — 1 Corinthians 1:2,30.

4. Positional truth guarantees that we will never be judged in eternity. That is why some believers live a long time and a miserable time because God keeps them alive to discipline them, to spank them. So positional truth earmarks us for no judgement in eternity — Romans 8:1.

5. Positional truth qualifies the believer to live with God forever and ever. That is because we enter into union with Christ. Jesus Christ is eternal life, He is +R. When we enter into union with Him we share His eternal life, we share His righteousness — 1 John 5:11,12; 2 Corinthians 5:21.

6. Positional truth is the key to both election and predestination — Ephesians 1:3-6. In eternity past the Lord Jesus Christ was entered into the plan of God the Father. He agreed to do certain things. He was given a destiny forever. He was elected at that moment. He was elected in the divine decrees and He was given a destiny that goes all of the way to the future in eternity. We are in time. We enter into union with the Lord Jesus Christ, we share in His election, we share in His destiny. This is what it means to be foreordained or to be predestined. Predestination simply means that the believer shares the destiny of Christ.

7. Positional truth creates a new creature — 2 Corinthians 5:17; Ephesians 2:10. We are new creatures in Christ, we are royal family, and the old things that are passed away is our relationship to Adam in his fall. A new creature in Christ does not mean experiential changes.

8 Positional truth guarantees the eternal security of the believer — Romans 8:38,39. We are in union with Christ and we never get out.

9. Positional truth is categorized under two categories: retroactive and current. Retroactive positional truth means identification with Christ in His death, not in bearing our sins but in His rejection of human good. Being identified with Christ in His death we have positionally rejected human good. There is no place in the royal family for the function of human good. Divine good is provided on the basis of the filling of the Spirit and Bible doctrine, but human good is outlawed. Then there is current positional truth: Jesus Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father and we are in union with Christ as He is seated there. This takes Christianity out of the realm of religion and saves us from being religious. The thing that characterises religion is human good and trying to use that human good to make points with God. So retroactive positional truth eliminates human good, enters us into union with Christ seated at the right hand of the Father, making Christianity a relationship and not a religion.

10. The implications of current positional truth mean that we shares certain things that Christ possesses. For example, eternal life — 1 John 5:11,12; God’s righteousness — 2 Corinthians 5:21; Election — Ephesians 1:4; Destiny — Ephesians 1:5; Sonship — 2 Timothy 2:1; Heirship — Romans 8:16,17; Sanctification or earmarkship — 1 Corinthians 1:2, 30; The kingdom of the future — 2 Peter 1:11; A priesthood — Hebrews 10:10-14.

11. The characteristics of positional truth. a) It is not an experience, it is neither emotional nor ecstatics; b) It is not progressive, it cannot be improved in time or eternity. When God entered you into union with Christ, that’s it. That means that forever you have something that was perfect from the moment you received it and will never be improved; c) It is not related to human merit, to human ability, or to human good; d) It is eternal in nature, positional truth will last forever. There is no place in the plan of God for human good, and connecting this with the previous concept, grace escalates. So since it is eternal in nature nothing can change the fact that you are royalty; e) Positional truth is known only by the Word of God, by revelation from God; f) Positional truth is attained at the moment of salvation, accomplished by God the Holy Spirit, therefore no place for human boasting, no place to apply any principle of human good, no do-it-yourself kit qualifies you.

Hebrews 10:10 — “By the which will [plan, purpose, or design].” When God plans something it is permanent, it is perfect. Whatever God designs of plans is compatible with His own character. God’s character is perfect; God’s plan is perfect. It is impossible for God’s plan to be imperfect, even though at this stage imperfect persons are involved. So how does God come up with a perfect plan when imperfect people are involved? The answer is the fact that everything depends upon God, everything that is done in the plan is done by God. Inasmuch as there is no place in God’s plan for our works, our talents, our abilities, our human ingenuity, it is a very relaxing thing to know that everything depends upon God. That is the only way you can have a perfect plan with imperfect persons involved. And while we are imperfect God does not intend for us to run around and demonstrate it, so He has made a few side plans — like rebound, like the intake of doctrine, like spiritual growth and spiritual maturity. So all of it had to begin somewhere for us as royal family. (Note that the word “sanctification” is used for royal family only. It is not a term for the Old Testament saint, nor the Tribulational saint, nor the Millennial saint. It belongs to this dispensation) It had to have a beginning point and here it is —

“though the offering” — dia plus the genitive of prosfora. The offering here is the efficacious offering of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross. But please notice that God’s plan is perfect and God’s supplying is perfect, and Jesus Christ as eternal God must be supplied with something in order for the plan to advance and in order for the offering to be efficacious. And that is the word “body”; “through the offering of the body” — and we have a genitive of swma. This is the item being described which had to be provided for the offering of Christ to be efficacious. Not only was the body supplied — the humanity: body, soul and spirit, actually — but at the same time it was a once and for all sacrifice, the adverb e)fapac which means “at one time.”

Translation: “By means of which will [purpose, design] we have been sanctified in the past with the result that we remain earmarked as royalty to God forever through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ at one time.”

Summary

1. Here is the purpose, then, of the third metamorphism. This is why Jesus Christ as eternal God became unique in the sense of being true humanity.

2. The purpose of the hypostatic union which is the will, purpose, and design of God the Father is both to fulfill the shadows of the Levitical code and to countermand the authorisation for the Levitical priesthood.

3. At the same time in fact, at one time, a new priesthood was authorised as well as the establishment of a permanent royal family.

In verses 11-14 we have the result of the third metamorphism or Christ becoming true humanity.

Verse 11 — “And every priest”. Immediately there comes into focus something new, something that puts the believer into full time Christian service and something that makes his life meaningful. If you are going to live your own life as unto the Lord it must be done on the basis of doctrine resident in your soul. This is your basic function. Kai paj men i(ereuj. The word men is an affirmative particle which comes from classical Greek. It is translated in many ways, but “and to be sure” is a good translation here, “every priest.” It confirms the fact that everything that we have studied makes you a priest, and it confirms the fact that as a priest your life now has tremendous significance and that you are now very definitely in the picture as far as God is concerned.

The next word, “standeth,” is the perfect active indicative of the verb i(sthmi, and it means to stand. The perfect tense is an iterative perfect, the process of which the completion is represented in is one which occurs at certain intervals. And it is going back now to the fact that in the Levitical priesthood they had to do a lot of standing. They always stood up for worship. They always had to stand up to make sacrifices, and all worship from the time of Moses to the time of Christ was accomplished standing. There was one seat in the tabernacle, the mercy seat. No one ever sat in it. Today when you worship you are sitting. Why? Because you are royalty. That is the way worship is accomplished. The iterative perfect indicates that even the Levitical priesthood didn’t stand all the time. They only stood for worship. The active voice: the Levitical priesthood produced the action of the verb. The indicative mood is declarative viewing the action of the verb from the viewpoint of reality, in fact historical certainty.

“daily” — kata plus the accusative singular of h(mera and it means “day after day.” Every day for the Jews was a worship day, not just the Sabbath.

“ministering” — the present active participle of leitourgew which means public worship. Day after day, publicly officiating or publicly worshipping. The customary present here denotes the habitual activity of the priest standing up. The active voice: the Levitical priest produced the action of the verb as authorised by the Mosaic law. He was authorised to stand up but never to sit down. The participle is circumstantial and it refers to the historical fact that they always stood. Royalty, of course, gets to sit down. Out of courtesy to royalty God has provided that your worship be accomplished while being seated.

“and offering” — the present active participle of prosferw. Not only did they stand up but they also worked. The Levitical priesthood was a working priesthood; the royal priesthood is a resting priesthood. You are supposed to be resting in your soul; your soul should be resting in doctrine, in the Word.

“oftentimes” — the adverb pollakij which means time after time after time. The word is used because it indicates this happened many times a day. Animal sacrifices were offered many times a day and they worked and worked and work. Our command is to rest, rest, rest, rest in the Lord, rest in doctrine, rest in promises of God.

“the same sacrifices” is designed to give you a feeling of monotony of the job in the Old Testament. The accusative plural of the definite article plus the accusative feminine plural of the intensive pronoun a)utoj plus the accusative feminine plural of qusia. It all adds up to “the same sacrifices,” but the intensive pronoun indicates it is inevitable, it is an occupational hazard, that the one who constantly is offering the same sacrifice had a challenged to their self-discipline that could only be met by having doctrine in the soul. The priest who didn’t have doctrine in his soul was in trouble. To the priest who did have doctrine every animal sacrifice was meaningful. So that the only way to handle monotony, which will inevitably exist in the life of anyone, is to handle it through the soul. If you don’t handle monotony through the soul you don’t handle it. This is where many believers go astray because they try to make social life a substitute for GAP. Social life is a wonderful thing after GAP but to drive GAP away by negative volition and to simply go in for some form of social life is where the trouble begins. Monotony can only be handled in one way. Every animal sacrifice was pertinent and loaded with doctrinal implications, and it is imperative that these doctrinal implications be understood. And how can they be understood? Only one way. You must have in your soul that which is comparable to that which is going on in the ritual. So monotony can only be handled by doctrine in the soul. And as you grow spiritually and as you move toward maturity monotony is removed from the scene.

“which” — the nominative feminine plural of the qualitative relative pronoun o(stij, and this particular pronoun means “which categories” — the same offerings again and again and again.

“never” — one very strong adverb, o)udepote. O)u means “no.” That is the positive, slam-the-door objective “no.” De is simply a particle and it has a number of meanings. The one here would be “definitely not”. Pote means time, “at this time”. So “definitely not at this time” is all put together and it means “never”. There never was a possibility that out of the millions of animal sacrifices which were offered that one of them would somehow provide salvation. So the priest wasn’t doing this in hopes that the next one would be the efficacious one! But never was there a possibility of it. The active voice here: the animal sacrifices, the shadows, produce the action of the verb. They did not have the ability to save. The indicative mood is the dogmatic reality that ritual never saves. Ritual teaches but ritual does not save.

“can never” — the present active indicative of dunamai; o)udepote plus dunamai — “never have the ability.”

“take away” — the aorist active infinitive of periairew, it means to lift off, to remove, to take away. It means to remove guilt, it means to make expiation. It means here to make expiation — “Never have the ability to make expiation.” The aorist tense is a culminative aorist which views the offering of animal sacrifices in their entirety but regards it from the standpoint of existing results. The result of all those sacrifices was no efficacious sacrifice. The active voice: the Levitical offerings, the shadows, produced the action of the verb, they could never produce an efficacious sacrifice. The infinitive is an infinitive of result.

The word “sins” is not sins, it is the objective genitive singular from a(martia and it is sin in the singular. “Sins” would simply indicate the individual’s sins but sin indicates the problem of sin keeping man and God apart and establishing enmity between man and God. So sin in the singular says there is more than just your sins, there is the fact that you are the enemy of God and that God is perfect. All of the animals couldn’t do this but the cross does. The cross takes care of the sin problem: redemption; the problem of man — reconciliation; the problem of God — propitiation.

Translation: “And to be sure every priest has stood up day after day publicly officiating, and offering time after time the same sacrifices which never have the ability to make expiation for sin.”

Summary

1. Shadow sacrifices are like the dreams of childhood and early youth. For example, a young man may dream about the idea woman whom he has never seen.

2. Therefore, his dreams are without form and substance. Nevertheless, to him they are real.

3. But once the young man meets his right woman, sees her, touches her, smells her, shares the experiences of the interrelationship of soul, he now collects memories which have form and substance so that what in childhood was a dream becomes in adulthood a memory. The Old Testament sacrifices are like dreams but our understanding, looking back to the cross, are memories. It is the difference between a dream without substance and a memory with substance.

4. The Levitical offerings are like the dreams of youth, real but no actual person visualised.

5. The sacrifice of Christ on the cross is like the royal family of God in the Church Age — believers with memories of reality. The communion table is so designed.

6. Therefore, the Old Testament saints had Levitical offerings or shadows while we have the historical, efficacious sacrifice of Christ on the cross. We have the substance.

7. The shadows performed a great service to believers of Old Testament times because they represented and they taught the doctrines of Christology and soteriology. But the offerings could not propitiate God the Father, they could not reconcile man and they could not take away sin. They could only point to what was coming, the cross.

8. Inasmuch as they did not expiate they had to fulfill the function of portraying the expiator.

This verse deals with the shadows but the next one with the reality portrayed by the shadows.

Verse 12 — we have the conjunctive particle de translated “But” and therefore indicates and adversative conjunction. There is a contrast here and this particular particle sets up the contrast. What we have been studying is before this particle and it speaks of shadows. Everything on the other side speaks of realities. We now move into the reality side of the adversative conjunctive particle. The realities always deal with the Lord Jesus Christ. Shadows deal with many things but all reality focuses on who and what Christ is. Therefore there must be some way in the Greek to emphasise how important the Lord Jesus Christ really is. After a conjunctive particle like this the strongest possible thing is to take what is known as the near demonstrative pronoun o(utoj. The far demonstrative pronoun is e)keinoj. O(utoj is a demonstrative pronoun used here for someone who is more important than anyone else in life and who is very near in the context. E)keinoj would refer to something distant from the context. Since this passage has been discussing who and what Christ is, how important He is — He is the King of kings and Lord of lords — the demonstrative pronoun is the perfect way to demonstrate that Jesus Christ is paramount, that He is our only celebrity, that there is no one greater, never can be and never will be, and the sooner that we learn that the better.

“this man” is incorrect. It should be “this one,” or sometimes the demonstrative pronoun is best translated by the personal pronoun “he”. But “this one” refers to the Lord Jesus Christ so either translation is acceptable.

“after he had offered” — the aorist active participle of the verb prosferw. The aorist tense is a culminative aorist and it looks at the cross from the viewpoint of its entirety. It looks at the cross from the standpoint of the spiritual death of our Lord accomplishing redemption plus reconciliation plus propitiation, and it also looks at the physical death of our Lord, so both of them are covered within the concept of the culminative aorist. But the culminative aorist not only emphasises the entirety of the verb but it emphasises the results of that entirety gathered together. So the culminative aorist views the cross in its entirety but emphasises the existing results. The existing results which will be coming up in context: the ascension of our Lord, the principle of operation footstool, the relationship of our Lord not only to the human race and our history but to angelic history and its significance. The active voice: Jesus Christ produces the action of the verb on the cross with results that advance the Father’s plan to resurrection, ascension and session. The participle is a temporal participle. It also has antecedent action to the main verb.

“when he had offered” — this is the way a temporal participle is translated; “one sacrifice” — the emphasis is on the word mian in the accusative here, “on and only one,” one unique sacrifice, one efficacious sacrifice, one perfect sacrifice, one fulfilling sacrifice. So the one sacrifice fulfills all of the shadows, the one sacrifice is efficacious, the one sacrifice is reality. We call it sometimes the blood of Christ, here is called mian qusian, the accusative direct object of qusia, the object of the participle.

“for sins” — the preposition u(per plus the ablative plural of a(martia. U(per plus the ablative always is substitutionary, so it should be translated “on behalf of.” It connotes substitution for us. A(martia which refers to sin indicates the cause of all of the problems. This is used to demonstrate all of the problems. Sin is the basis of enmity between man and God. Basically there are three problems in salvation, not one. Sin merely dramatise it and sin also summarises it. Because of sin perfect God cannot save man or have eternal relationship with Him. Because of sin man is the enemy of God. So sin is often used in the sense of dramatising and emphasising the entire problem, and the cross resolves it all because not, only does the cross solve the sin problem — the substitutionary prepositional phrase referring to redemption — but as a result of redemption man is reconciled, God is propitiated. They all fall together and, again, all the roads meet at the cross so that one sacrifice solves the separate problems that exist. God has a problem: He cannot be inconsistent. God is immutable, He cannot change. He can’t change His righteousness to unrighteousness, He can’t change His justice to some form of accepting on a sentimental basis. Therefore, He has a problem. Man has a problem because he is the enemy of God. Sin is the basis for having these problems and all of them are solved at the same time. “But this one [Jesus Christ], when he had offered one unique sacrifice on behalf of sins.”

The word “forever” is not quite correct. “Forever” could mean eternity past, it could mean the eternal future. But this is a prepositional phrase, e)ij plus the accusative of dihnekej which means “for all time.” This prepositional phrase is in contrast to one we have been having. We have been having kata plus the accusative of h(mera, and that meant day after day. This is in contrast to “for all time.” The former sacrifices were kata plus h(mera but the sacrifice of Christ is e)ij plus dihnekej, so we have a big contrast here between day after day and for all time. So “for all time” is a prepositional phrase which cancels the shadows which have been translated under the word “daily” but really means day after day. This cancels everything for all time. It cancels out the shadows forever. One prepositional phrase cancels out the other and they are set up in great contrast.

You can begin to see what a terrible thing it is for the reversionistic believers who are living in Jerusalem in 67 AD, who are the recipients of this epistle, and who are offering animal sacrifices. This will help to understand Hebrews chapter six where it explains very simply that as long as the reversionist continues to offer animal sacrifices, so long as he crucifies the Son of God afresh and puts Him to an open shame, he can never recover from reversionism. He is actually performing an act which makes it impossible for him to reverse his attitude and go back to Bible doctrine. As long as they fool around with shadows they will never get to the reality, and we get to the reality only through the intake of Bible doctrine.

Therefore we move on, then, to the great strategic victory where at one time Jesus Christ sat down and the angels were clobbered and salvation was guaranteed. But more than its guarantee, a royal family is guaranteed forever. Never was sitting down so important as the one time our Lord did it in heaven in the true holy of holies.

We are in union with the Lord Jesus Christ seated, and that means a lot of things. We have already set up the contrast of how the priests had to stand, stand, stand, and all worship was standing — the people stood, the priests stood, no one ever sat down. As long as shadows were the form of worship everything was stand, stand, stand. Now it is sit down. But it is sit down in more ways than one, it is sit down in the sense of you are not running your life any more and never will again. Once you are royal family your life is run by someone infinitely superior and whose wisdom exceeds anything that e will ever have. Therefore it is not a matter of you running your life any more, you are to sit down in the plan of God and let God run the show. This requires a tremendous amount of doctrine because everyone is tempted to interfere with the Lord and to override the Lord. This is a very subtle form of blasphemy, it is like saying, “Look God, I can do a better job and I want things to go a little faster so I’m going to get cracking.” Sitting means that contrary to everything this is the way it really should be. You should be sitting, relaxing in the Lord. You sit to take in doctrine and in effect your life is one of sitting. You are positionally in the holy of holies and that mercy seat was not occupied during the Age of Israel, but the mercy seat is now Jesus Christ seated at the right hand of the Father, so we sit down.

Therefore it is nice to have the main verb finally coming into focus. This main verb follows the action of the aorist participle. First of all in the aorist participle the Lord Jesus Christ, “when he had offered one unique sacrifice, sat down.” The action of the aorist participle precedes the action of the main verb. The aorist participle: “when he had offered.” The main verb: “he sat down,” the aorist active indicative of kaqizw which is the regular word for sitting. The aorist tense is a constative aorist and it is used for a momentary action. It is also a gnomic aorist for a doctrine which is so certain as to be axiomatic. The doctrine of the session or the seating of Christ is an absolute dogma. Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father. The active voice indicates that Jesus Christ produces the action of the verb by means of resurrection and ascension. The indicative mood is used as a declarative indicative, it is the sign of the main verb, it is also for a dogmatic and certain assertion that Jesus Christ is seated, and that by being seated He has won two great battles. He won the battle of the angelic conflict and at the same time He made it possible for the veil in the temple to be torn and for us as royal family to live in the holy of holies.

“the right hand of God” simply indicates the place of highest honour. It is literally, “the right hand of the God” — tou qeou is the genitive at the end of this sentence. They are descriptive genitives to indicate the highest honour that has ever been accorded anyone in the human race. Jesus Christ sat down as humanity, not as deity. This is the highest honour given to anyone in being seated, ever at any time. No higher honour can ever be accorded to anyone and therefore Jesus Christ is the only celebrity.

There is a lot we can learn about sitting, but it all begins with the fact that Christ sat down. Here is the point: The only thing that was ever sprinkled on the mercy seat was blood — animal blood. That was a shadow. That was the only thing that ever occupied the mercy seat but right now our Lord is sitting in the heavenly mercy seat. The blood was a shadow pointing to Him. Here is the wonderful thing. When the Lord sits down the curtain is open, torn to shatters from top to bottom, and anyone in this dispensation by believing in Christ enters into the holy of holies and becomes royal family. We are related to a Lord who is seated, seated at the right hand.

Translation: “But this one [Jesus Christ], when he had offered one unique sacrifice on behalf of sins for all times, sat down on the right hand of the God.”

Principle: Only God can glorify God; the right hand is the place of glorification; the seating of Christ at the right hand is the strategic victory of the angelic conflict and Satan and his fallen angels are defeated by our Lord sitting down; this victory is always related to mankind as well, and right now our supergrace paragraph is based on the fact that the Lord sat down. Right now our supergrace paragraph is based on the fact that the Lord sat down. This is the only time that one person sat down and millions of people are provided prosperity. Remember once again that the issue of the Christian way of life is not the Lord providing your needs, the issue of the Christian way of life is getting to the point of blessing. The whole issue is blessing, not needs.

The doctrine of ascension

1. The ascension is that doctrine of Christology pertaining to our Lord’s change of residence from earth to the third heaven after resurrection. He did this in His resurrection body.

2. The capabilities of the resurrection body are definitely a part of this doctrine. The resurrection body of the Lord Jesus Christ travels horizontally, or vertically, is capable of unlimited space travel — John 20:17.

3. The reception and acknowledgment of the Son is the great issue in our Lord’s entrance into the true holy of holies. The reception is totally that of God the Father. He is the one who said, “Come in and sit down.” Psalm 110:1 describes it prophetically; Romans 8:34; Ephesians 1:20; Colossians 3:1; Hebrews 1:3, 13 describes this. This was said to the humanity of Christ — a Man sat down in heaven!

4. Being seated at the right hand our Lord is the only celebrity. He is preeminent, He is above all, He is the object of our concentration without ever straining because the intake of doctrine brings this about automatically.

5. The strategical victory of the angelic conflict. In this strategical victory the angels are defeated — Hebrews chapter one; Ephesians 1:2-22; 4:7-10.

6. The ascension leads to a new family in the family of God, and that is the royal family. When Christ sat down a new family was begun. Jesus Christ was there alone but immediately, ten days afterward, He wanted company on earth that would come to heaven so the baptism of the Holy Spirit immediately took a group of people in Jerusalem and entered them into union with Christ.

7. The ascension and the new priesthood. We are not left here without some means of understanding the importance of the golden urn of manna. The golden urn of manna is a beautiful picture of the completed canon of scripture. The canon of scripture contains the doctrine we will need and all of a sudden we are on an entirely different basis. Since the ritual has been cut out, except for the communion table, and since the canon of scripture has been completed and preserved to this moment God has a brand new system. Every believer for the first time in history as royalty also has the dignity of royalty, and the dignity of royalty is the privacy to live your own life as unto the Lord.

8. The ascension and the ultimate defeat of Satan. The ascension means that Christ sat down, and when Christ sat down it meant that Satan was defeated, permanently defeated, and he can’t recover from it and never will. Satan is now fighting a series of rearguard actions, but he is defeated. So the ascension means the ultimate defeat of Satan, described in Luke 20:42-43; Acts 2:33,34; Hebrews 1:13. The second advent of Christ will end all rearguard actions. Satan will be annihilated at the second advent — Daniel 7:13,14; Zechariah 13:2; Colossians 2:15; Revelation 20:1-3.

9. The ascension verifies the efficacy of the sacrifice of Christ on the cross bearing our sins — Hebrews 9:23,24; 10:12.

Verse 13 begins with an adverbial use of loipoj. It is translated “From henceforth.” Loipoj means “from now on” or “in the future” and it should be translated correctly, “From that time on.” The implications of this are fantastic. From the time that Jesus Christ offered that efficacious sacrifice, the sacrifice of redemption plus reconciliation plus propitiation, the sacrifice which resulted in passing on the colours to us, the sacrifice which interrupted the Jewish Age and began a new dispensation, the sacrifice by which our Lord ascended and was seated at the right hand of the Father, winning the strategical victory of the angelic conflict and opening up the holy of holies so that our residence is in that place which was always forbidden to the Old Testament priesthood. They were never permitted to enter the holy of holies, except on one authorised day and by one authorised person. But we live in the holy of holies as the royal family of God forever, and because of that it is God’s purpose and plan and design to provide for each one of us supergrace blessings. The issue in remaining in this life is not just to have provision. Grace provision is not the issue, the issue is blessing and blessing comes to you on the basis of the supergrace life. The supergrace life is that saturation of doctrine which completes the structure of the ECS and takes the believer to the point of occupation with the person of Christ. This is a synonym for spiritual maturity. We are on the others side of that phrase, “From that time onward.” That is why we are members of the royal family of God, that’s why we live in the holy of holies, that’s why we can anticipate great blessing in time when we reach supergrace, that’s why we sit to worship, that’s why we assemble to worship, every believer is his own priest and has the privacy of his own priesthood.

“expecting” — the present active participle from the verb e)kdexomai. This word has a lot of meanings but the one that is important here means to wait in anticipation of something. When you anticipate something you are going to enjoy, something pleasant, then you can’t wait for it. This is not tapping-your-feet and being bored type of waiting, this is exciting type waiting, waiting with great anticipation, having happiness just in the anticipation of it. The present tense is a static present, it represents a condition which perpetually exists among those who are positive toward Bible doctrine. The active voice: Christ at the right hand of the Father produces the action of the verb, He is waiting with great expectation to bring His royal family, His bride, back to the earth for the Millennial reign. The participle is circumstantial. From that time on our Lord is waiting. This waiting means that Jesus Christ has nothing to so really between His ascension and His return to the earth for operation footstool but to provide blessing for you. Our Lord is waiting with great pleasure, it makes Him very happy to think that you are going to persist in the intake of doctrine and reach the point of supergrace prosperity. He enjoys thinking about it, He looks forward through blessing you. This comes, of course, through persistence in the intake of doctrine.

“till” — is e(wj, “until”; “his enemies” — our Lord just sits there and has a great time, and His enemies are fighting a rearguard action. His enemies are angelic and are not getting anywhere very rapidly, in fact they are just simply retreating to their doom, retreating to their certain destruction. We have the nominative masculine plural of e)xqroj, the word for enemies. We also have a possessive genitive intensive pronoun, “his” enemies, they belong to Him.

“be made” — the aorist passive subjunctive of tiqemi which means to be appointed; “until his enemies have been appointed.” It is just a matter of time until His enemies fulfill this certain appointment. The constative aorist contemplates the action of operation footstool in its entirety, including the second advent of Christ, the slaughter of Armageddon, the incarceration of Satan and all the fallen angels, the baptism of fire, and the coronation of our Lord Jesus Christ. So he has all of these wonderful things to anticipate, and while He is anticipating these things He is looking forward to providing blessing for each one of us. The passive voice: the enemies of Christ receive the action of the verb, they receive an appointment. The subjunctive mood is the future subjunctive and it is used to portray the perfect tense of the Hebrew. Since it is a quotation from Psalm 110:1 this subjunctive is not in the ordinary concept of a potential subjunctive, a hortatory subjunctive, a deliberative subjunctive, this is merely a future concept in the subjunctive. So it should be translated “have been appointed.”

Then we have in the Greek u(popodion twn podwn a)utou. The word u(popodon, the accusative direct object of u(popodoj is a footstool, a human footstool. In the ancient world the Romans liked to do this because the Romans were a relatively short race. A tall Roman was five feet ten inches. The barbarians were often well over six feet tall. The Romans always liked to defeat the barbarians because they approached the Romans in battled and laughed because of their size. But once they got into battle with them they found out it was an entirely different story The Romans had the finest discipline and training in the world and at the end of a battle men like Caesar liked to say, “Go find the tallest barbarian of all.” They would bring him in an slap him down in front of Caesar who would then take the Roman standard with SPQR on it and he would stand on him. The troops then would cheer. He would hold up the Roman standard and they would all cheer. He was using a human foot rest. That is what this really means. This is nothing but sheer victory. And so the footstool is Satan, the fallen angel. As it were, this is a battle analogy and taken from battles of the ancient world, the Lord is going to stand on him. Victory means unconditional surrender, and u(popodoj means unconditional surrender in ancient terms of warfare. There is no question about it, if Caesar is standing on the body of a person on the ground it is unconditional surrender, he doesn’t have any rights. That is exactly what our Lord is portrayed as doing here. This is operation footstool, but footstool is a misnomer, it is operation unconditional surrender and our Lord is the victor. The word footstool is followed by twn podwn a)utou. Twn podwn means footstool of the foot. Podoj is the Greek word for foot. It is “the footstool of his feet” and it means unconditional surrender. This is a very important passage because it portrays our Lord in a new light. You see two facets of His character. You see the one from e)kdexomai, the one in which our Lord is waiting to bless you, looking forward to it, anticipating it right now, providing you great wealth, prosperity, happiness, promotion, things for you as an individual. This is what He enjoys thinking about now, but the time is coming when he is going forth against our enemies, the fallen angels, and when He does they are going to be prostrate under His feet. It is going to be a total victory, unconditional surrender.

Translation: “From that time on waiting until his enemies have been allotted the footstool of his feet.”

The enemies are the fallen angels and they are allotted to Him as the footstool of His feet which is unconditional surrender.

Verse 14 — the fourth metamorphism. We begin with an explanatory use the conjunctive particle gar. This particle occurs many times, it has three or four basic purposes, but conjunctive particles are extremely important in the Greek. “For by one offering” — we have the instrumental singular of mia plus prosforia. The ia suffix here indicates the instrumental case and it should be translated “By means of one unique offering,” the efficacious sacrifice of Christ. This is the blood of Christ, this is redemption plus reconciliation, plus propitiation.

“he hath perfected” — the perfect active indicative of teleiow. Teleiow means to bring to a goal, to accomplish, to finish, to complete or to perfect. Here it means perfection in the sense that God has provided everything that completes us. At the point of salvation the baptism of the Holy Spirit entered us into union with Christ. Being in union with Christ we are in the holy of holies forever. We are royal family of God forever. We belong to Him forever. We are kept on this earth for a purpose, the purpose is blessing. When God can bless us in the devil’s world God is glorified. He is not glorified because we witness, because we pray, because we perform certain functions that are prescribed in the Word. We glorify God in one way only and that is by reaching supergrace, and the only way to get there is through doctrine in the soul. The things we perform are merely results of doctrine in the soul, results of the filling of the Spirit, commands which are automatically executed as the occasion arises — the occasion for prayer, for witnessing, for anything else that might be construed as royal family service. “For by means of one offering he has perfected” — a completed action with existing results. The perfect tense is the intensive perfect which indicates that the action of the verb is completed and then results continue. So we have already been perfected at the point of salvation. No one can improve upon positional truth, no one can improve upon your royalty, you are absolutely turned out perfectly at the point of salvation — from the standpoint of positional truth, not from the standpoint of experience. We are left in time, then, for a purpose: not to improve on what was accomplished at the cross, we aren’t here to improve anything, we are not even here to improve ourselves. We are here to glorify God, we are here to advance, to follow the colours. The active voice: God the Father produces the action of the verb. The indicative mood is dogmatic reality. “He has perfected for ever with the result that we remain perfected for all time.”

“for ever” is actually e)ij plus the accusative of dihnekej — “for all time.”

Then we have “them that are sanctified” — present passive participle of a(giazw which means to be earmarked, set apart. We have been perfected for all time at the point of salvation. You can’t improve on the holy of holies and you were entered into the holy of holies at salvation. Now you are on this earth having been perfected or earmarked at salvation at the point you believed in Christ. That is when you were perfected. And why are you here? To glorify God by advancing to the high ground of supergrace by the daily function of GAP, following the colours. And when you get there, that is when you glorify God and God starts blessing you totally apart from the devil’s world, you are on the high ground. The present tense is an aoristic present for punctiliar action in present time. The punctiliar action gathers into one entirety all phases of sanctification because there are two phases that are in focus. The first phase perfected us — teleiow is the first phase, salvation. Now we are in phase two, the believer in time. In time it is the balance of residency. The Holy Spirit indwells the body, He controls the soul only when He fills, and that means that there must be balance. The balance comes from doctrine. We start out minus doctrine in the soul and that minus must become a plus, and there is where we get balance of residency. And when we have that balance of residency, maximum doctrine, we are on the high ground. The passive voice: the royal family of God in the Church Age receives the action of the verb. The participle is a telic participle, it indicates God’s purpose. God didn’t put you on this earth for self-improvement after salvation and He didn’t leave you here for that. Your self-improvement is pitiful! It will never advance you anywhere spiritually. What God wants you to do is to line up with His grace project, to advance to the high ground of supergrace so that you can be blessed by God totally apart from Satanic activity.

Translation: “For by means of one offering he has perfected for all time [while on this earth] the one’s being sanctified with the result that they keep on standing perfected forever.”

Doctrine of sanctification

1. a) Sanctification means to be earmarked by God, to be set apart as sacred, to belong to God and to no one else on a permanent basis by a momentary commitment — belief in Christ.

b) More than that, each one of us as royal family is under contract to God for time and for eternity.

c) The actual death of Christ set aside the old contract, the old covenant. The old covenant was covenant of shadows and of ritual, it is called the Mosaic law. That contract is abrogated.

d) Inasmuch as the old contract is canceled, annulled, abrogated, and since we are under a contract, we are under a new contract.

e) The new contract or the new covenant is for the royal priesthood of the Church Age.

f) In the strictest sense of the meaning of sanctification the believer is under new contract to God forever, and the contract was sealed by the 40 things that happened at salvation, especially emphasising the baptism of the Spirit that entered us into the holy of holies forever and ever.

g) The contract is provided on the basis of the efficacious one-and-for-all sacrifice of Christ on the cross fulfilling the Levitical shadows.

h) We signed the contract the moment we believed in Jesus Christ.

i) The contract is inviolable. Those in the new contract are all members of the royal family of God. The word “earmarked” or “sanctified” merely indicates that God knows it whether we do or not, we are under contract to Him forever.

2. The etymology of Greek words that are pertinent to the word sanctification.

a) A(gioj. In the New Testament a(goij is usually translated “holy” or “saint.” All it means is an earmarked creature. We talk about Old Testament saints but there are no Old Testament saints technically and biblically. The only people who are saints are believers in the Lord Jesus Christ because believers in the Lord Jesus Christ in this dispensation are the only ones who ever had the baptism of the Spirit, and are the only royal family. “Saint” refers to a believer, royal family of God. All believers from Pentecost to the Rapture are saints.

b) A(giothj. This word is generally translated “holiness.” Holiness simply means the state of being royalty. It also means to be under contract forever. Our status quo as members of the royal family of God is we are always under contract, and unbreakable and unviolable contract.

c) A(giosunh. it is translated “sanctification,” it is the noun, and it means the state of being under contract, the state of being royalty forever.

d) A(giasmoj, the adjective. It means consecrated one, sanctified one, state of being royalty one, state of being earmarked one. Again, it is an adjective to describe the royal family under contract to God forever.

e) A(giazw, the verb. It means to set apart, to be earmarked, it is the verb of sanctification.

In addition to these words being used for the believers of the Church Age or the royal family, Jesus Christ is called a(gioj tou qeou — “the holy one of God.” And we are holy ones of God because we are in union with Christ — John 6:69.

3. Phase one sanctification. The plan of God is divided into three phases” phase one, salvation; phase two, the believer in time; phase three, the believer in eternity. Phase one lasts just long enough for you to believe in Christ. Phase two depends on God’s plan entirely, how long you are alive on this earth. Phase one sanctification is called positional sanctification. It merely means that at the moment we believe God entered us into the holy of holies, into union with Christ. We are in union with Christ forever and it means royalty, it was never accomplished before the Day of Pentecost, it will never happen after the Rapture of the Church. It is called the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Therefore sanctification is used in the sense of becoming royal family at the moment of salvation. It is so used in 1 Corinthians 1:2, 30; 6:11; Hebrews 10:10, 14.

4. Phase two sanctification — taking the high ground. This is the supergrace life. Following the regimental banner up the high ground by the constant intake of doctrine. It fulfills the principle of balance of residency. It adds to the residency of the Holy Spirit, the residency of Bible doctrine in the soul. So that phase two sanctification is the filling of the Spirit plus the daily function of GAP equaling entrance into the supergrace status.

5. Phase three sanctification. This is called ultimate sanctification and this is what God has provided for the royal family for eternity — the resurrection body. Each one of us will receive at the Rapture of the Church a body exactly like that of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is a permanent home for the soul just as the Bible is the permanent home of Bible doctrine. Romans 8:29; 1 Corinthians 1:8; Philippians 3:21; 1 Thessalonians 5:23; 1 John 3:1,2.

6. The agents of sanctification. God does all the work in God’s plan. There is no place for human ability, human merit, human ingenuity, human planning. Therefore all agency resides in God. For example, the Son of God is the agent of sanctification in Hebrews 10:10,14; the Holy Spirit is the agent of sanctification — Romans 15:16; 2 Thessalonians 2:13. The Word of God is the agent of sanctification — John 17:17; Ephesians 5:26. Since these are the agents there is no place for human good or human intrusion into the plan of God. A plan is no stronger than its weakest link; there are no weak links in this agency — the Lord Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and the Word of God.

7. All phases of sanctification are related to the angelic conflict. Phase one is regeneration by which the royal family is positionally higher than angels. We are entered into the holy of holies, positionally we are higher than angels. No angels are allowed in the holy of holies. Phase two is the supergrace believer occupying the high ground, and therefore God is glorified and there is a relationship between the strategic victory of Christ and the tactical victory of the believer on this earth. Phase three is the royal family in a resurrection body, physically superior to all angels.

8. Conclusion:

a) Sanctification is the uniqueness of the Church Age and the royal family of God. This uniqueness is based upon the efficacious sacrifice of Christ on the cross plus His resurrection, ascension and session. He sat down.

b) The royal family can only exist because the conjunction of the ages has passed. The conjunction of ages was studied in Hebrews 9:26. Because we have passed the conjunction of ages now we can have a royal family.

c) The necessity of the royal family means the necessity for sanctification. So sanctification and royal family become synonymous terms with different emphasis.

d) Sanctification equals the baptism of the Holy Spirit plus positional truth by which we as members of the royal family of God live in the holy of holies forever and ever — Hebrews 10:19,20.

9. The purpose of phase two sanctification.

a) Phase two sanctification equals the filling of the Holy Spirit plus the residency of Bible doctrine in the soul. The purpose of this sanctification is earmarked for blessing. So when is it coming? When you have been consistent enough with the intake of Bible doctrine to reach the supergrace status it will drop right in your lap. All you have to do is advance.

b) The reason for God keeping the royal family in the devil’s world is to bless them with materialistic things, with happiness, prosperity, promotion, totally apart from Satanic devices of kosmoj diabolikuj.

c) It is the objective of God to provide supergrace blessing in compatibility with His eternal decrees. Sanctification relates your blessing to the eternal decrees. You are earmarked for blessing.

d) Blessing can only be accomplished by maximum residency of Bible doctrine in the soul.

e) Failure to acquire this blessing through supergrace means that the believer is kept alive in a state of reversionism for the purpose of divine discipline. This explains sometimes why the good die young and others live on and on and on. Many times God keeps the believer alive to spank him because once the believer goes to heaven there is no discipline. He has to get it all now.

f) There is no discipline in phase three for any believer. Once you die, “no more sorrow, no more tears, no more pain, no more death, the old things are passed away.”

g) For this reason many reversionists prolong their stay on this earth and have a miserable time of it.

Beginning in verse 15 and going through verse 17 we have one paragraph in the Word of God which is so important. It deals with the necessity for a new covenant to Israel. By way of anticipation there are three or four principles that we need to put down so that as we get into this subject we will begin to realise its import and its impact and just exactly how it relates to our age.

First of all, you have to remember that the abrogation of the Mosaic law by the strategic victory of our Lord on the cross, by His resurrection, ascension and session. When you remember that the Mosaic law was addressed to Israel — it belonged to Israel and to no one else — then you know that not only is there no covenant for believers as time moves on, but specifically there is no covenant for Israel. In other words, the work of Christ on the cross, His ascension and session, abrogated the Mosaic law. The Mosaic law was canceled. This also interrupted the Jewish Age — we have the Church Age — and immediately we need a new covenant to replace the Mosaic law. So we have a new covenant to the Church. But when the Church is raptured the Age of Israel resumes. However, they begin without God authorising anything for the function of the nation. The seven years of the Tribulation is just like Israel in Egypt, and anywhere they happen to be is their Egypt. So that at the second advent it will then become necessary for Israel to have a replacement for the Mosaic law. So there is in the Millennium a new covenant to Israel. In other words, there are two new covenants, and both of them are called new covenants because each one of them replaces to a specific group of people the old Mosaic law. The Mosaic law applied to believers in the Age of Israel, it applied to unbelievers in the Age of Israel. And when you wipe out the Mosaic law you still have believers in the Church Age so they need a new covenant, a new covenant to the Church. But then, when Israel begins under God as the nation at the second advent you need a new covenant to replace the Mosaic law to Israel. So the first thing we must remember is that there is not only a new covenant to the Church but there is also a new covenant to Israel.

Secondly, the new covenant to Israel in a number of passages of scripture and, by way of anticipating the doctrine itself, Jeremiah 31:31-34 is one of the greatest areas of documentation in that field. And the basis for it should be understood. Jeremiah had lost his right woman and in losing his right woman he could well understand Israel in the future losing its covenant. Therefore God provided something new to replace Jeremiah’s right woman while he was in time, just as God always provides something to replace the loss of a covenant to a group of people. Jeremiah 31:31-34 has great significance in the life of Israel, it is the major prophecy of the new covenant. Then, of course, from the standpoint of doctrine, in Galatians 4:4 we have a reference to that new covenant, and in Hebrews 8:8-12 we have quotation from Jeremiah.

A third thing that we must remember is that since there is a new covenant to Israel it is still future, and the new covenant to Israel verifies the future of Israel. It verifies the fact that there will be an Israel in the Millennium under David’s greater son, the Lord Jesus Christ, and that the new covenant to Israel will function when God fulfills the Abrahamic, Palestinian and Davidic Covenants.

A fourth principle to remember is that the new covenant to Israel replaces the Mosaic law, just as the new covenant to the Church replaces the Mosaic law for the Church and that Israel’s priesthood will function in the Millennium again under the new covenant. They can no longer function under the Mosaic law. This will help to explain Ezekiel chapters 40-48.

A fifth principle, the abrogation of the shadows demands something new all the way around. And up to this point we have been studying something new with regard to the Church. Now this is a pause to help us to understand that Israel does not lose out because we are the gainers from the strategic victory of Christ. Israel does not lose out. That is the big principle that needs to be emphasised, and Israel gains along with us. So God does not bless us at the expense of anyone else. And in the Church Age Israel gains even though they are scattered and even though God does not recognise any nation Israel. Since they are scattered and under the fifth cycle of discipline they gain by entering into union with Christ, they gain by entering the holy of holies, something no Jew in the past dispensation could do. Jew and Gentile become one in Christ in this age. Then they gain again in the Millennial reign of Christ because there will be a new covenant to Israel. So Israel does not lose out because of the abrogation of the Mosaic law. Whenever God cancels something it can only be an advance. The abrogation of the Mosaic law is an advance.

Verse 15 — the word “Whereof” is supposed to be “And.” It is actually a connective conjunctive particle de plus the adjunctive use of kai. “Ghost” — there are no ghosts. It is to pneuma to a(gion. God the Holy Spirit was never called “the Holy Spirit” or very infrequently called the Holy Spirit in Old Testament times. The reason he is called the Holy Spirit now is because the third person of the Trinity has a special relationship to us in this dispensation, a relationship that never existed before. The word a(gioj is translated “saint” or “holy.” Why do you think the third person of the Trinity who is called “Spirit” in the Old Testament [ruach] but He is never called “Holy Spirit”. He couldn’t be called Holy Spirit because there was no royal family, but it is the Holy Spirit who makes us royal family. The Holy Spirit regenerates us, baptises us into union with Christ, indwells our body, seals us, gives us a spiritual gift. So Holy Spirit is a title for the third person of the Trinity which is peculiar to the royal family only. And God the Holy Spirit does more for you in your lifetime as a believer, no matter how short, than He ever did for all the Old Testament believers put together. The word here is not “Holy Ghost” but “Holy Spirit,” and the word is used here for the title of the third person of the Trinity as the author of the canon of scripture. This phrase actually begins, “And the Holy Spirit also”; de is translated “and,” and then kai in the adjunctive use is translated “also.” That “also” is a reminder to you and to me that God the Holy Spirit is the secret to the function of the royal family. He is the security of the royal family, He is the royal family creator, He is the one who makes it possible for the royal family to exist forever, He is the protector of the royal family in time, He is the only source of understanding doctrine, and only through understanding doctrine do we take the high ground of the supergrace life. He is therefore both directly and indirectly the source of materialistic blessing or supergrace blessing.

The next phrase indicates that He is teaching us, that He is providing information for us, and that He makes it possible for us to understand that when God blesses us He does not do so at the expense of any other group of believers in any other dispensation. No one ever suffers from divine blessing.

“is a witness” — the present active indicative of the verb marturew. The static present represents a condition which perpetually exists. He always is a witness to Bible doctrine. The active voice: this is the ministry of the Holy Spirit in the formation of the canon and therefore every word in the Bible is the witness of God the Holy Spirit to you. The indicative mood is declarative for the plenary, verbal inspiration of the scriptures. This is used to indicate a quotation from the Old Testament. “And the Holy Spirit also bears witness.” The quotation is a part of the new covenant to Israel. And notice that He is now quoting it to us for a reason.

“to us” — the dative plural of the pronoun e)gw. In this pronoun we have the dative of indirect object, it indicates the ones in whose interest the Holy Spirit witnesses. Bible teaching is the witness of the Holy Spirit. God the Holy Spirit witnesses to us, and when He witnesses it is time to listen. The witnessing here is to quote in the Greek from the Hebrew of Jeremiah 31:33,34 which is a part of the new covenant to Israel. The dative of indirect object means that it is to our interest to understand a principle that whenever God provides blessing for us it never hurts others.

Next we have a conjunctive particle gar used as an explanation. It is used here to express and explain and therefore to cite a quotation.

“after that he had said before” — this is the preposition meta plus the accusative singular of the definite article. The definite article is used here because the object of the preposition is really an infinitive. It is the perfect active infinitive of legw, but you cannot translate a preposition until you know the case of the object. And since an infinitive does not have a case the definite article is merely in here for one reason only, to show you what the case of the infinitive would be if the infinitive were a substantive instead of an infinitive. This all should be translated “after having said.”

Translation: “And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us: for after having said.”

Now we have a quotation. The text breaks right in on the quotation of the new covenant to Israel. But there is no sense in trying to break into that quotation until we have a better understanding of the new covenant to Israel.

The doctrine of the new covenant to Israel

1. Definition:

a) A covenant is a disposition made by one party — God — in favour of another party — mankind, specifically regenerate of Israel.

b) The Mosaic covenant, also called the old covenant, was a covenant of shadow worship, shadow buildings, shadow priesthood, shadow offerings.

c) Therefore its function was legitimate in a shadow dispensation. The shadow dispensation was that part of the Age of Israel from Moses to Christ.

d) The first advent of Christ and His saving work on the cross abrogated, canceled, the old covenant and/or the Mosaic covenant.

e) A new covenant had to be established so a new covenant was immediately established for the Church. The new covenant to the Church authorises the royal family of God during the Church Age and sets up the modus operandi for a universal priesthood among believers.

f) The new covenant to Israel recognises the fulfillment of the unconditional covenants to Israel in the past and sets up a modus operandi for Israel in the Millennium.

g) The new covenant to Israel is a legacy for the restored Israel of the Millennial reign of Christ.

2. Scripture: Jeremiah 31:31-34, quoted in Hebrews 8:8-12, in part in 10:15-17, and mentioned as a point of doctrine in Galatians 4:4.

3. The new authorising agency in Israel. The abrogation of the Mosaic law by the saving work of Christ on the cross plus the strategic victory — death, burial, resurrection, ascension and session — leaves Israel without authorisation for their Levitical priesthood. Their license is revoked. Therefore the new covenant to Israel replaces the Mosaic law and gives a new license to the Levitical priesthood — in the Millennium, not before. The function of that priesthood in the Millennium is described in great detail in Ezekiel chapters 40-48.

4. The new dispensation for Israel. Israel will be restored at the second advent of Jesus Christ and Christ will begin a Millennial reign of 1000 years. The new covenant to Israel is the authorising agency for the restored Israel of the Millennium as well as the verification of the fulfillment of the unconditional covenants which have never been fulfilled. God keeps His word. And so the new dispensation of Israel is the fulfillment of the unconditional covenants.

5. The basis for the new covenant to Israel.

a) Neither the Hebrew noun berith nor the Greek noun diaqhkh refer to a will or a testament, so they are often mistranslated. The correct word is covenant. A will or a testament depends upon the physical death of the testator; the covenants we are studying depend upon the spiritual death of Christ. But a covenant doesn’t depend on death at all, a covenant is a disposition of the party of the first part in favour of the party of the second part. Death does not have to be involved, it just so happens that in the two new covenants death is involved — the spiritual death of Christ.

b) The new covenant to Israel goes into effect on the blood of Christ and/or the spiritual death of Christ and/or the efficacious sacrifice: redemption, reconciliation, propitiation.

c) Therefore the blood of Christ is the spiritual legacy for the royal family of the Church Age and Israel in the Millennium.

d) The new covenant to Israel is valid because of the blood of Christ, the efficacious death of Christ on the cross bearing our sins. It is valid because Christ sits in the mercy seat.

e) The new covenant to Israel is a reality in contrast to the shadows of the old or Mosaic covenant.

f) The new covenant functions in the Millennium when Christ reigns as David’s greater son. Christ comes to the royal family as a high priest but He comes to Israel a King. Therefore there will be a place in the Millennium for the Levitical priesthood because Christ will reign over Israel as David’s greater son.

g) The animal sacrifices in the Millennium (found in Ezekiel 40-48) are no longer shadows but they represent a frame of reference memorial to Israel concerning the saving work of Jesus Christ on the cross. Hebrews 9:15-17.

6. The new covenant and the Tribulation. Immediately a question arises. What about the last seven years of the Jewish Age? The cross, resurrection, ascension and session interrupts the Jewish Age. There are still seven years to go. The Church Age is an age of intercalation, an insertion. Then, when the Rapture of the Church occurs the Jewish Age resumes — +7 years. But there is no priesthood in that seven years, the old covenant has been abrogated. There is no old covenant in the Tribulation and neither is there any new covenant. So that poses a question. What is the relationship of the new covenant to Israel to the Tribulation.

a) The Lord Jesus Christ will not be reigning in the Tribulation. Satan will still be the ruler of this world.

b) Therefore the new covenant to Israel will not be operative and for those seven years of the Tribulation there will be neither the new covenant to the Church nor the new covenant to Israel. That means that those seven years historically are going to be the worst in all of history. The pressure is not any greater on the believer. We live in the intensified stage of the angelic conflict right now. But there is going to be suffering on the earth and catastrophe on the earth such as never was in all of history. Why? Because in the last seven years — in fact it is called the Tribulation for that reason — the new covenant to the Church crowd are in heaven and the new covenant to Israel crowd haven’t started yet. So you have seven years when neither of the new covenants function. And so the Tribulation is the period between the two new covenants. When Christ returns the new covenant to Israel will function on the earth but the new covenant to the Church will function in heaven forever.

c) There will be a Tribulational temple but it is a place of apostasy and reversionism and is not authorised by the old covenant nor the new covenant to Israel. There is no authorisation for the temple constructed in Jerusalem in the Tribulation. That is where the abomination of desolation will be set up but it is not authorised by God nor by any covenant to God.

d) The new covenant to the Church will not be operative during the Tribulation because the Church has been resurrected or Raptured.

e) Neither of the new covenants operate during the Tribulation.

f) Therefore God sets up a different type of spiritual function, different from anything that ever happened in the past but in some ways similar to the period of the Judges. He sets up one hundred and forty-four thousand Jews as spiritual leaders throughout the earth. They are evangelists and spiritual leaders.

7. Summary. The new covenant to Israel is the authorising agent for the restored Israel of the Millennium. It verifies the future of Israel and recognises that the unconditional covenants will be fulfilled. God keeps His word. The new covenants to Israel replace the Mosaic law for the function of Israel’s priesthood in the Millennium.

Jeremiah 31:31-34

Verse 31 — we begin with a demonstrative pronoun, hineh, used as an interjection, used to focus attention on the new covenant to Israel given at a low point in Jewish history. The Jews were about to go out under the fifth cycle of discipline, they had just about had it, and just at a time when they were at the lowest point God, through Jeremiah, gives them this wonderful prophecy about their future. “Behold, the days come.” People have a tendency to talk about “the good old days” but here are the good future days. Jamim refers to the Millennial reign of Christ — “Behold the days are coming,” not come — the qal active participle of bo means they are coming, they are future from Jeremiah’s day, they are future from our day.

“when I will make” — the qal perfect of karath which means to cut or engrave, it comes to mean to cut a covenant or to make a covenant. It was so used for cutting the throat of an animal and since covenants were verified by blood — even the old covenant was verified by shadow blood, the new covenant to Israel and the new covenant to the Church were verified by the blood of Christ — so karath is used originally for slaying an animal sacrifice, but it comes to mean making a covenant. In this case it is used for making a new covenant. Notice the direction of it, it is “to the house of Israel [northern kingdom] and with the house of Judah [southern kingdom].”

Literally: “Behold, the days are coming, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah.” Nothing here about the Church, this is the new covenant to Israel and it belongs to the Millennium.

Verse 32 — reference to the old covenant. “Not like the covenant which I made with their fathers [Exodus generation] in the day that I took them” — the hiphil infinitive of chazaq means that He had to pick them up by the collar and haul them out of Egypt. In effect, this is what God did, it is the hiphil infinitive, it is very strong; God caused them to be hoisted up by their collars and hauled out of slavery — “in the day when I seized them by the hand” — the verb connotes the grace of God. The Jews were suffering from give-up-itis and God dragged them out of Egypt — “to bring them out” — the hiphil infinitive of jatsa means He caused them to come out — “to cause them to come out of the land of Egypt; which” — relative pronoun, goes with the verb — “they broke, although I was an husband” — the qal perfect of baal means lord but it also means husband — “and yet I was their Lord” is what it means here — “saith Jehovah.”

Literally, “Not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day when I seized them by the hand to cause them to come out of the land of Egypt, my covenant which they broke, and yet I was their Lord, saith Jehovah.”

Notice several things here: The failure of the Exodus generation illustrates the failure of the incarnation generation. The Jews of the Exodus generation rejected the Mosaic law but the Jews of the incarnation generation rejected Messiah who fulfilled the shadows of the Mosaic law. Therefore the necessity for the second advent of Christ to regather Israel from their dispersion of the fifth cycle. The abrogation of the old covenant demands a new covenant because Israel has a future.

Verse 33 — “But this covenant” — referring to the new covenant to Israel — “that I will make” — the qal imperfect of karath indicating that it has not been completed yet, not fulfilled yet — “with the house of Israel [Notice: always to the Jews]: After those days [the Tribulation], saith the Lord” — He is going to make this covenant after those days, and those days refers to the Tribulation — “I will put” — the qal perfect of nathan means ‘I will give’ — “my law [Torah: literally, my doctrine] into their inward parts” — be qir ban, a prepositional phrase which refers to the mentality, the frontal lobes — it should be translated “I will give my doctrine into their mentality/frontal lobes”.

“and write it” — we have kathab which means to engrave, to engrave it in their hearts, and it refers to the function of GAP and learning Bible doctrine so that they cannot forget it. There is no knowing God apart from doctrine; there is no loving God apart from knowing God. And so when it says “I will give my doctrine into their frontal lobes and engrave it in their right lobe, their heart, consequently I will be their God” — we have the inferential waw; I will be their God because they will have doctrine to understand me, to love me. They will have the capacity to love me. God is not the God of all believers in the sense of a wonderful relationship. You cannot love God until you know doctrine.

Literally: “But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days [the Tribulation], saith the Lord, I will give my doctrine into their thinking, and engrave it in their right lobes, therefore I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” The secret is doctrine in the frontal lobes.

Notice that each dispensation has its own covenant. The dispensation of the Gentiles has the Noahic covenant, the dispensation of Israel has the Mosaic covenant, the dispensation of the Church has the new covenant to the Church, and the dispensation of the Millennium has the new covenant to Israel. And note that in every dispensation divine blessing is related to doctrine in the soul always, without exception. Doctrine residing in the soul is the key to the believer’s relationship with God in phase two. Doctrine in the soul through the function of GAP is the means of achieving supergrace, it is the way that we follow our regimental standard to the high ground of the supergrace life.

What is the content of the new covenant to Israel which we have been studying in Jeremiah chapter thirty-one? The new covenant to the Church has as its content the New Testament epistles, the mystery doctrines of the royal family. What is the content of the doctrine which Israel will understand and learn in those days of the new covenant to Israel? It is a combination of Old Testament doctrines plus the principles that are found in Ezekiel chapters 40 through 48, as well as everything pertaining to the Millennium. The Millennial reign of the Lord Jesus Christ will be a reality when this covenant is in function and therefore they will understand completely the Millennial reign of Christ. To make sure that we understand, then, the content of the new covenant it deals with all Millennial passages in Isaiah, it deals with Ezekiel 40-48, it is described in the eschatological passages of the Millennium and the Tribulation in the book of Revelation.

But let us summarise just exactly when the new covenant to Israel will be fulfilled. The last dispensation is the Age of the Millennium or the Age of Christ’s Reign. The Millennial reign of Christ begins with the second advent. The first item on the agenda is the completion of the Armageddon campaign, the destruction of the enemy, the baptism of fire, the coronation of the Lord Jesus Christ, and followed by the 1000 years of His reign. At the end of that 1000 years Satan, who has been incarcerated with all fallen angels at the beginning of the Millennium, will be released and will lead in a Gog and Magog revolt against Christ and the reign of Christ, demonstrating the fact once more that people cannot be satisfied with perfect environment, the must have more than that. The environmentalist as a philosopher is always saying that the solution to man’s is problems is to improve his environment, whether it is his social environment or his natural environment. But the Word of God says this is not enough, there must be a relationship with God, and this comes through regeneration.

Characteristics of the millennium

1. It is a time of perfect environment on the earth, a time when Satan will be bound and all demons will be removed from the earth. There will be no religion and religion will be outlawed. Because of the outlawing of religion the true issues will always be grace and relationship with God such as we have them now. The fact of the binding of Satan and the removal of demons is taught in Revelation 20:1-3 and is amplified in our studies of the doctrine of operation footstool.

2. There will be an optimum spirituality among believers on the earth. This is taught in Isaiah 65:24; Joel 2:28,29; Zechariah 14:16,17. This answers part of the question. Here is the new covenant in its content. The new covenant to Israel has a system of spirituality. Note that the new covenant to the Church also has a system of spirituality. It deals with God the Holy Spirit and deals with the fact that we are members of the royal family of God forever. As members of the royal family of God living in the Church Age we are indwelt by the Holy Spirit. But the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is a little abstruse and therefore we need to clarify that to make it more perspicuous. God the Holy Spirit indwells the body of every believer — 1 Corinthians 6:19. He does not indwell the soul of the believer, He is said to fill the soul of the believer at such time as the believer is in fellowship. The great issue is the balance of residency. We start out as new believers in the royal family of God, minus doctrine. This minus must become a plus and then it must become optimum saturation of doctrine in the soul, or taking the high ground of the supergrace life. The filling of the Holy Spirit is spirituality in the Church Age and it is based upon the fact that the Holy Spirit indwells, always will indwell, the body of the believer. He indwells our human body, He will also indwell our resurrection body forever. The royal family of God is unique. After the Rapture of the Church, the elapse of the Tribulation and the second advent of Christ, again we have a system of spirituality which includes God the Holy Spirit, only this time it is God the Holy Spirit filling, and the change in the filling of the Holy Spirit is based upon the fact that Christ is personally on earth reigning and therefore there is emotional content; whereas the filling of the Spirit in the Church Age is minus emotion. So in the new covenant to the Church we have minus emotion in relation to the filling of the Spirit, but in the new covenant to Israel it includes emotion. The difference is the fact that in the Church Age Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father, therefore the filling of the Spirit is designed for maximum intake of doctrine so that Christ can be appreciated. And inasmuch as the ministry of God the Holy Spirit is to bring about appreciation of the absent Christ through the intake of Bible doctrine or the function of GAP emotion must never be an issue. So the filling of the Spirit has no emotion today.

3. Israel will be restored as a nation — Isaiah 5:26-30; 10:19-23; 11:11-16; 65:19; Joel 2:16ff; Zechariah 8:20-23; 10:6-12. All of these passages are also a part of the new covenant to Israel, a part of the doctrinal content of that new covenant.

4. The fulfilment of all of the unconditional covenants and the fact that the new covenant to Israel is fulfilled along with them — Daniel 9:24.

5. There will be many nations on the earth during the Millennium because this is God’s order. God’s order is nationalism. God is not the author of any form of confusion or any form of internationalism. Internationalism is a Satanic device by which Satan seeks to control the world which he rules. It has never succeeded and the extent to which any form of internationalism does succeed is the extent to which Satan gains control over the people of this earth. The United Nations is a perfect representative of Satan, it is an evil organisation in every sense of the word, it has set itself up as God, it has all but destroyed many areas of the earth. The principle, then, that many nations of the earth will enjoy perfect environment under the reign of Christ is a part of the new covenant to Israel as well as a doctrine of the scripture.

There are at least five categories in the scripture which are stated as being a part of that perfect environment. First of all, there will be universal peace in the Millennium — Psalm 46:9; Isaiah 2:4; Hosea 2:18; Micah 4:3. Several of these passages mention the “swords being turned into plowshares and the spears into pruning hooks, and man will learn war no more.” These passages have been taken out of their context and have been used by peaceniks, doves, liberals, and other mixed-up people in order to try to say that we can bring about world peace today. Only the Lord Jesus Christ can do that. Universal peace will never exist until our Lord reigns. Our Lord said just before He departed from this earth, “There will be wars and rumours of wars until I return.” And He also made it very clear that the only way to have peace in any generation is to have such a strong military establishment that no one will attack. This is the only true way of peace.

There will also be another factor in the great environment of the Millennium. Remember that the nations will enjoy perfect environment during the reign of Jesus Christ. There will be universal prosperity. There will be no such thing in the Millennium as a welfare state and there will still be universal prosperity and no one will suffer. That is because our Lord Jesus Christ will bring free enterprise to its peak. This is taught in Psalm 72, especially verses 7 and 16.

The third factor of the Millennium is a perfect world government under Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ will rule all of the nations of the earth without destroying their national freedom — Isaiah 11:1,2; Zechariah 14:9. There will also be a perfect universal knowledge of God. This is a part of the new covenant to Israel — Isaiah 11:9 is one of the principles of the new covenant to Israel. There will be perfect reflected in the longevity of the race. Life will be extended in those days and we will go back to the times before the flood and before Noah. There will be people living a thousand years, a child will be a hundred years — Isaiah 65:20.

6. There will be perfect objectivity in the administration of justice — Isaiah 11:3-5; Psalm 72:12-14. There will be perfect administration of justice, therefore crime will be controlled. There will be capital punishment, one of the few ways in which a person can die in the Millennium. There will be perfect control and therefore crime will be eliminated.

7. Perfect environment will also exist in nature. This means that creation is going to be released from the bondage of sin — Romans 8:19-22. Sin in the human race has a tremendous effect upon nature — the existence of deserts, for example. Plant life will about — Isaiah 35:1,2,7. There will be no ferocious animals, though all the animals will be there — Isaiah 11:6-9; chapter 65 guarantees that all wild animals will no longer be wild.

8. The human population of the Millennium. The baptism of fire will remove all unbelievers from the earth’s population at the beginning of the Millennium Ezekiel 20:34-38; Matthew 25:31-36. So at the beginning of the Millennium when our Lord returns all unbelievers are going to be cast off the earth — Tribulational unbelievers. Only believers are going to be left alive to start in the Millennium. They begin in their normal physical bodies and they will have a great relationship in perfect environment. There will be a rapid repopulation of the earth. But the Millennium begins with believers only. There will be a population explosion which will result in a world population of both believers and unbelievers under perfect environment.

9. The Gog revolution, Revelation 20:7-10, is the terminating point of the Millennium. The Gog revolution finds Satan released at the end of the Millennium after 1000 years of perfect environment on the earth. Satan is able to persuade thousands of unbelievers to revolt against perfect environment. The basis for this revolt is power lust. People still are human and they have old sin natures and power lust is the basis by which Satan starts a revolt which is put down immediately by the Lord Jesus Christ. So we start with the second advent of Satan in this revolution and it terminates with the great white throne, the destruction of the earth, the judgement of all unbelievers. This, then, is the termination of the Millennium which proves once again that perfect environment is not the solution to anything.

Jeremiah 31:34 — “they shall teach no more” is the piel imperfect of the verb lamadh, which means to teach again and again, to teach with discipline, to use discipline in teaching. The only way people can learn is to be under authority of the one who teaches. Lamadh means to use discipline.

“know the Lord” — There will be no need to persuade people to know the Lord in those days, they will know the Lord. He will be reigning on the earth; “for they shall all know me” is literally, “for all of them shall know me.”

“from the least to the greatest” — this is talking about the Millennium, about a perfect environment on the earth, and under God’s perfect environment there is still not equality among people born into this world. “least” and “greatest” indicates that at birth no two people are the same. This demonstrates the fallacy of equality in the human race. Even under the perfect environment of the Millennium inequality will continue to exist among people. People are not born equal and never exist in equality with others. This is impossible. The human race is given by God freedom and it is freedom that is important. The laws of divine establishment should guarantee equal opportunity but they cannot make people equal. It is freedom and privacy and opportunity that is provided by the laws of divine establishment but there is no such thing as equality among people. So we have the least and the greatest even under the perfect environment of the Millennium.

We also have propitiation and the blood of Christ emphasised — “for I will give,” the qal imperfect of salach which means to be propitious — “I will be propitious” or “I will forgive on the basis of propitiation their iniquity.” There will be spiritual function in the Millennium whereby people can be saved and have eternal life.

Literally, “And they shall not teach again every man his neighbour, and each man his brother, saying, Know the Lord; for all of them shall know me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, saith the Lord; for I will forgive on the basis of propitiation their iniquity, and their sins I will not remember again.”

We have the same now covenant quoted in part in Hebrews chapter 10.

Verse 16 — “This is the covenant” — first of all we have a very strong intensive pronoun in the nominative, the feminine a)uth, a demonstrative pronoun intensified, used in the Greek to identify something important in the context. “This” refers to the new covenant to Israel. We can even translate this, “This same thing is the covenant.” There is no verb here. We do have diaqhkh, the Greek word for covenant.

“that” — the accusative feminine singular of the relative pronoun o(j should be translated “which.”

“I will make” — the future middle indicative of the verb diatiqhmi. Diatiqhmi does not means to make something, that is the verb poiew. Diatiqhmi means to ratify, to confirm. It means that the covenant is already made, it is merely ratified to Israel. The future tense is a predictive future which declares the event in the future time. The new covenant to Israel is for the future, the Millennium. The middle voice is a direct middle which emphasises God as the agent producing the action. The indicative mood is for a dogmatic assertion that in eternity past God the Father made and prepared a new covenant for Israel which is ratified by the Word of God in time.

“with them” — proj plus the accusative of that intensive pronoun a)utoj, actually an intensive demonstrative pronoun and it refers to someone special in the context. That someone special is Israel in the Millennium. So, “This is the covenant which I will ratify face to face with them” — born again Jews of the Millennial reign of Christ. Notice that this is a result of that quotation from Jeremiah 31:31-34. As a result of that quotation we now have this information.

“after those days” — meta plus the accusative of h(mera in the plural for “days” — refers to the Tribulation.

“saith the Lord” — the present active indicative of leg indicates that God Himself permits this to be reduced to writing. God the Father in eternity past made this new covenant just as He made the new covenant to the Church. The royal family was designed in eternity past. The royal family could not exist on the earth until the efficacious sacrifice of Christ occurred on the cross, but once Christ performed His saving work of bearing our sins then you have the conjunction of history and you have the interruption of the Jewish Age and the calling out of the royal family which is the Church Age. That was all designed in eternity past. “Saith the Lord” here indicates that while God was, as it were, putting this in writing it existed from eternity past. Curio is the word for “Lord” and it refers to the essence of deity, it places special emphasis on the omniscience of God. There never was a time when this new covenant was not designed for Israel in the Millennium.

“I will put my laws” — I will put is the present active participle of diadem and it means to give, not put; “my doctrines” literally. The present tense is a futuristic present, it denotes an event which has not yet occurred but is regarded as so certain to occur that in thought it has already occurred. W know that the Millennium is really going to exist and therefore a futuristic present dramatises the fact that there will always be doctrine on the earth and that doctrine will always be in the souls of those who are blessed by God. So, “I will give my doctrines.” The active voice: God the Father produces the action of the verb, He will never leave any generation of believers without Bible doctrine. The participle is temporal and that is why we translate it “when I will give my doctrines.” The word for “laws” here is the accusative plural, the direct object of the verb, it is found in nomoj which refers here in the plural to doctrines, categorical doctrines of the scripture.

“into their hearts” — e)pi plus the accusative plural of kardia which refers to the right lobe. It should be “in their right lobes.” In other words, God’s objective in having the Word of God in writing is to always have the doctrines transferred to the right lobe of the individual. That is the purpose, that is why we have pastor-teachers today, and that is why there will be a great teaching thrust in the Millennium. Remember that in the Millennium they will have the same Bible and will use the same content of doctrine and they will have their own specific doctrine dealing with doctrine.

“and in their minds” — e)pi plus the accusative of dianoia. Dia means through; noia means thinking. Thinking through comes to mean simply “in their thinking.” This is a reference to the launching pad of the right lobe.

“will I write” — the future active indicative of e)pigrafw means to engrave — “and I will engrave.” This is a gnomic future for an absolute fact or a perceptive performance reasonably expected under conditions of the Millennial reign of Christ. The active voice: God the Father produces the action of the verb by a special function of GAP in the Millennium when people will know about the Lord and will know the Lord. The indicative mood is declarative which views the action of the verb from the viewpoint of reality. In the Millennium everyone will know doctrine.

“them” is the accusative plural direct object of a)utoj referring to the doctrines.

Translation: “This is the covenant which I will ratify with them [Jews in the Millennium] after those days [Tribulation], saith the Lord, when I will give my doctrines into their right lobes, and in their thinking I will engrave them [doctrines].”

Here is the point. If people need doctrine under perfect environment then the key to life is not perfect environment and blessing, the key to life in doctrine in the soul.

Verse 17 — a specific reference to Israel in the Millennium whose past sins and failures have caused them to be punished under the administration of the fifth cycle of discipline. It means they will be restored as a nation apart from any human ability or human thinking. They will not be restored as a nation by Zionism, they will be restored by the second advent of Jesus Christ. They will be restored God’s way. God has spanked the Jews through the fifth cycle of discipline, God must regather them. Any other regathering is not going to work. But once Israel is restored in the Millennium they will never again be dispersed under the fifth cycle of discipline. The nation Israel will continue throughout the Millennial reign of Christ, and forever under the reign of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Verse 18 — this gives us the final conclusion before we bring in the application to the royal family. The final conclusion is the evanescence of the shadows. We begin with the transitional particle de which is correctly translated “Now.” Next we have a particle of place used as an adverb, o(pou — “Now where remission.” The word remission is not quite correct, a)fesij is a little stronger than that, it means “forgiveness” and it is a reference to the blood of Christ or the expiatory sacrifice of Christ on the cross fulfilling the shadow blood sacrifices of the Levitical code, as well as the abrogation of the old covenant.

“of these” — the genitive plural of the demonstrative pronoun o(utoj. O(utoj is the demonstrative pronoun for something near in the context. There is another demonstrative, e)keinoj, which is for something further away in the context. But this is close and therefore it refers to something very near at hand, in this case to sins and violations of the law which were mentioned in the previous verse. The previous verse says “their sins and violations of the law I will not remember any more.” This is the quoting of the new covenant. “Now where there is forgiveness of these [the violations of the law of the previous verse].” In other words, the cross and the saving work of Christ on the cross is where forgiveness of sins exists. This cancels the old covenant, and the abrogation of the Mosaic law means that Israel must have a new covenant. They do not have a covenant in the last seven years of the old dispensation but they do have a new covenant beginning in the Millennium. Instead, they have 144,000 Jews who will function during that particular period known as the Tribulation. The ratification of the new covenant to both Israel and the Church is the blood of Christ. Just as the animal blood ratified the Mosaic law so the blood of Christ ratifies the two new covenants, and therefore the blood of Christ is the reality that removes the shadows of the animal sacrifices.

“there is no more” — the negative adverb o)uketi means it is no longer with us. So we say, “no further shadow sacrifices concerning sin,” not “for sin” — peri plus the genitive of a(martia.

Translation: “Now where there is forgiveness of these there is no further animal or shadow sacrifice concerning sin.”

Note:

1. Forgiveness refers to the efficacious sacrifice of the Lord Jesus on the cross.

2. This is also known as the blood of Christ which is a combination of redemption, reconciliation, and propitiation.

3. The word “these” refers to the sins and transgressions of the violations of the law mentioned in the previous verse.

4. The word “no further” in the English as “no more” refers to the animal sacrifices or the shadow offerings of the Mosaic law.

5. Therefore this verse says in effect that the shadows are evanescent, replaced by the efficacious sacrifice of the Lord Jesus on the cross. This verse will be applied and amplified under the paragraph dealing with the willful sin — verses 26-31.

Now we move on to the royal family in the plan of God. This is a new paragraph which begins at verse 19 and goes through verse 25. There are two factors in the paragraph. The first, in verses 19-21, we have a new home for the family of God. It is important to know where your home is in this particular case. Then we have a new function for the family of God beginning in verse 22 and going through verse 25.

Verse 19 — the word having is a present active participle of e)xw. E)xw means to have and to hold. The present tense here is retroactive progressive present which denotes something begun in the past and continues into the present. The active voice means that someone produces the action of the verb, and the royal family of God produces the action of the verb in this case. You and I as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ in the Church Age are producing the action. The participle is a causal participle and therefore should be translated with the word “since” — “Since having.”

“therefore” is the post-positive inferential conjunction o)uv. It means we are now coming to a conclusion and that certain people are involved in that conclusion called “brethren”, only we use a more technical term, “royal family of God.” The vocative plural of a)delfoj refers to the royal family of the Church Age. So we have now left studying these things from the past from the old dispensation of Israel, the old Mosaic covenant, the Levitical priesthood and the function of its shadows, and we have now come down to ourselves. “Since we have therefore, members of the royal family of God.”

“boldness” — literally, “confidence,” the accusative singular direct object of parrhsia means confidence. “Boldness” indicates lack of fear and even lack of pressure, but confidence indicates the normal activity of life but having a perfect stability in the soul. The word “confidence” indicates that the original recipients of this passage were not mew believers. They were not shy, reticent, or bashful in any way, they had received a certain amount of doctrinal teaching. This is in keeping with the general context of the book of Hebrews, this was addressed originally to born-again believers living in Jerusalem in 67 AD. The Church Age had begun in Jerusalem, the oldest of all the local churches was located in Jerusalem, and it was not their lack of doctrinal teaching, it was their lack of positive volition toward doctrinal teaching which resulted in a type of legalistic reversionism that caused neo-Judaism to get started in that area.

Our confidence is Bible doctrine resident in the soul. And notice that we have a confidence that no one ever had in Old Testament times. We have a confidence which has to do with entering the holy of holies. No one ever entered the holy of holies in the Old Testament dispensation, it was forbidden to all members of Israel. But you and I as members of the body of Christ have confidence to enter where those people could not even come close. So the word parrhsia doesn’t mean boldness so much as confidence.

“to enter” — we have a preposition and a noun, the preposition e)ij plus the noun e)isodoj. E)ij plus the accusative means “with reference” and the word e)isodoj means entrance or access. “Access” is probably a little better because we do not stay home all of the time. The holy of holies is actually our home. We might say that we have access. We live there; we belong there, and when we die we will go there immediately because that is our home.

“into the holiest” — the genitive plural of a(gioj plus the definite article. When a(gioj is found in the plural it refers to the holy of holies. “Holiest” is an incorrect translation because that is singular, and it should be “into the holy of holies,” the objective genitive in which the noun in the genitive receives the action, and it is related as an object to the verbal idea contained in the noun. So therefore it is translated “into the holy of holies”. This means that all members of the royal family should understand that their home is the holy of holies. That is your home forever.

The third heaven is the presence of God, and the confidence of this passage therefore becomes knowledge of pertinent scriptures dealing with the holy of holies, the real holy of holies, as well as scriptures dealing with our relationship to God as believers in this dispensation.

“Therefore royal family of God, since we have confidence with reference to access into the holy of holies.” We have complete and total confidence with regard to this. Why? Because of the next phrase which is a prepositional phrase, e)n plus the instrumental of a(ima, which should be translated “by means of the blood.” And then with that we have the possessive genitive of the word for Jesus, “by means of the blood of Jesus.”

Note that the high priest on the day of atonement had no access into the holy of holies apart from animal blood. The entrance of the high priest portrayed the ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ as our high priest, and even in shadow function blood was necessary for access into the holy of holies. And much more so now when the blood of Christ is the basis of our access into the real holy of holies which is the third heaven. Therefore, when Christ accomplished His saving work on the cross — known as the blood of Christ — something happened in the temple.

God wouldn’t let it pass. When God finished pouring out the last sin on Christ, when the principle of redemption, reconciliation and propitiation were completed on the cross, God in His great sense of humour looked down on all those Jews clustered in the temple and cut the veil from top to bottom. That veil in the temple at that time was 60 feet high, 30 feet wide, and approximately a foot thick. When it was constructed it was divided up into 72 squares and a different person made each one of the squares. It took 300 priests to lift the veil (only a priest could touch the veil). The Talmud describes the veil which covered the holy of holies. It was too tough and too thick to be split by an earthquake. There was just one way it could be ripped from top to bottom. Our Lord did it Himself.

Matthew 27:51 — “And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake and the rocks were torn up.” Kai i)dou — “And, behold” — focuses on a very important event. The word for “veil” here, katapetasma, means a big heavy curtain — “of the temple”, the possessive genitive of naoj refers to a specific temple, the temple, the important temple, the temple of Solomon rebuilt and called the temple of Herod — “was rent” — the aorist passive indicative of sxizw [From where we get schizophrenia. Phrenia means thinking, schizo means split — split thinker]. This means to rip or tear here. It is a constative aorist which contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety, it probably took all of a couple of seconds for that veil to spilt and to tear. However, long it took it gathers the action of this verb up into those few seconds. The passive voice indicates that the veil received the action of the verb from God Himself. The indicative mood is the declarative mood for a fact — “and behold the veil of the temple had been torn” — “in twain,” the preposition e)ij plus the accusative of duo means “in two pieces.”

“from the top” — a)po plus the adverb a)nwqen. A)po is the preposition of ultimate source. This is where we learn that God did it Himself. There is no definite article — “from top to bottom”, the improper preposition e(wj plus katw. This particular phrase doesn’t mean anything to you, but to have a proper preposition plus an adverb plus an improper preposition plus an adverb is comedy. But it isn’t funny in the English and doesn’t mean anything, but it means that God was chuckling as He did it. In effect, this becomes an anthropopathism. God is laughing at the idiots all down there in that temple when He has closed down the temple as far as removing its authorising agency. It will be forty years before He gets around to literally closing it down by its destruction. But He is saying in effect, It is all over. And He is telling them that once you see that thing torn from top to bottom and Christ is out there on Golgotha, He has just finished bearing the sins of the world and providing salvation, it tells them that they can walk in now. It was an invitation to enter the holy of holies be believing in the Lord Jesus Christ. God the Father had just announced the beginning of something new: the royal family of God. And He is giving these people the opportunity of being on the ground floor in Jerusalem. Fifty days from the time that veil was split something great and new was going to happen, the new dispensation would begin. And so literally this verse says, “And, behold, the veil of the temple was split from top to bottom into two separate pieces.”

Mark 15:38 says exactly the same, except for the word “Behold.” But we find some changes when we get to Luke 23:45. The first thing we notice is that the word “And” here does not occur in the original text. It simply says the sun was darkened to show that this happened while it was dark on Golgotha — “sun was darkened” is a genitive absolute. That means we have a noun in the genitive case, the word for “sun,” h(lion. When you have a genitive case participle with a genitive case noun it is called a genitive absolute. And we have the present active participle of e)kleipw which means to be obscured or eclipsed. Since there is no “and” at the beginning of this verse and since the verse begins with a genitive absolute the whole genitive absolute refers back to something in the previous sentence — “and darkness came to pass over the land until 3pm.” So the sun being eclipsed was during that time and it goes with the previous verse to show us that when this veil was rent it was just about the time when Christ had finished bearing the sins of the world.

“and the veil of the temple was split in the midst,” only it is literally, “down the middle.” We have the same phraseology until we get to “in the midst,” then we have mesoj in the accusative for “down the middle.” So Luke tells us that when it was split it was split right in the middle. It means it was spilt down the middle at 3pm because the genitive absolute goes with the previous verse, with the explanation as to how it was dark. Three o’clock in the afternoon was exactly the time when our Lord finished bearing the sins of the world. As soon as He said tetelesqai, that is when it happened. Luke follows the chronology and this is the place where we know exactly when that veil was torn.

Hebrews 10:19 — “Therefore, royal family of God, since we have confidence with reference to access into the holy of holies by the blood of Jesus”

Verse 20 — “By a new and living way.” A new and living way does not occur at the beginning of the sentence, it is actually in the Greek in the middle of the sentence. It is important, therefore, to follow the Greek order of this verse since it relates to the previous verse. “By the blood of Jesus which access he had inaugurated.” Next we have an accusative feminine singular relative pronoun o(j whose antecedent is “access”. Verse 20 begins “Which access.” Then “he hath consecrated,” the aorist active indicative of e)gkainizw which means to renew — “which access he has renewed [or inaugurated].” Inauguration is the connotation here. We have a culminative aorist tense which views the action of the verb in its entirety but emphasises the existing results of access into the holy of holies. In other words, the culminative aorist sees Christ from twelve noon to 3pm bearing our sins during darkness. It sees Christ saying at the end, “Finished” — completed action, and now it sees the veil opened at 3pm. The culminative aorist is the point at which the veil was ripped open and the point at which God says “Access.”

The inauguration is provided by God the Son. He dedicated the new access into the holy of holies. The indicative mood is declarative meaning that a brand new dispensation has begun, everything is new.

“for us” — the dative plural from the pronoun e)gw. “Us” refers to each one of us of the royal family. The dative of indirect object indicates the ones in the royal family in whose interest the act of dedication is performed, and therefore it also becomes a dative of advantage. It is to your advantage to have your home in the holy of holies. We belong in the holy of holies forever.

“through the veil” — the writer of Hebrews goes back to our Lord’s sense of humour. The Lord split the veil, and he mentions it right here, dia plus the genitive of katapetasmoj. Kata means down and petasmoj means to hang.

“by a new and living way” — literally, “a newly slain way”. We have the accusative of o(doj and the accusative of prosfatoj. Pro is “before” and faw is slain, and it means freshly sacrificed or newly slain. So we have a compound adjective here plus the noun. O(doj means way but prosfatoj means newly-slain. It should be translated “Which access [or entrance] he has dedicated for us a newly-slain yet living way though the veil, that is, his flesh.”

A better translation still: “Which access [entrance into the holy of holies] he has dedicated a newly-slain [blood of the cross] yet living [resurrection, ascension and session] way for us, through the veil, that is, his flesh.”

The writer of Hebrews identifies the dying Christ on the cross with the split veil in the temple.

Summary

1. The home of the royal family of God is the holy of holies or the third heaven, the presence of God.

2. This is confirmed by the baptism of the Spirit whereby every Church Age believer is entered into union with Christ.

3. The result: Every believer of the Church Age is now positionally in the holy of holies during his lifetime on earth.

4. At death his soul leaves his body for the third heaven, the real holy of holies.

5. Our new home, the holy of holies, has been dedicated with the blood of Christ which is His saving work on the cross.

6. However it is a living way — resurrection, ascension, session. Having accomplished His saving work of redemption, reconciliation, and propitiation, Christ died physically, was buried, rose again, ascended, is seated at the right hand of the Father in glory. So it is a living way as well as a newly-slain way. “Newly-slain” says all animal sacrifices are canceled, the real efficacious offering has come.

7. Our royal high priest is living in the real holy of holies.

In our study of the book of Hebrews we are now moving toward the place of taking the high ground and how we make this assault as members of the royal priesthood.

Verse 21 — we meet our great high priest, the leader of the royal family, the one whose colours we follow to the high ground of the supergrace life.

The word “And” is the ascensive use of kai and it identifies the one who has consecrated or inaugurated the newly-slain yet living way. It is interesting that a conjunction at this point can be used to identify the Lord Jesus Christ, and a very common conjunction at that. But this is the ascensive use and it is translated “Even,” to bring the Lord Jesus Christ into full focus. Now the Lord Jesus Christ is perfectly clear. We have already seen that the home of the royal family of God is the real holy of holies and/or the third heaven. This was confirmed by the baptism of the Spirit and by positional truth. The result is that every believer of the Church Age is now positionally living in the holy of holies which was forbidden to all of the Old Testament believers. Our new home, the holy of holies, has been dedicated by the blood of Christ which is His saving work on the cross. Having accomplished His saving work — redemption, reconciliation and propitiation — Christ then died physical, was buried, rose again, ascended, and is now seated at the right hand of the Father. His seating has to do with the fact that the royal family sits as they take in the Word of God as they worship. So our royal high priest has provided for us an opening into the holy of holies which is our home.

“an high priest” — the accusative singular of i(erouj plus the adjective plus the adjective megaj. Megaj is important because it means a little bit more than simply “high.” Actually, it doesn’t mean “high” at all, it means great or illustrious or eminent. So it should be translated, “Even an illustrious priest.” There is no word for high priest here. “High priest” would be i(erouj with an a)rxh in front of it. But this time, instead of that we have megaj which means illustrious. The illustrious priest over the house of God is the Lord Jesus Christ who broke into the holy of holies for us, as it were, provided the opening through His work on the cross.

The doctrine of the high priesthood of the Lord Jesus Christ

1. There are three legitimate priesthoods found in the scripture. In the dispensation of the Gentiles we have the family priesthood who was the head of each family. In the dispensation of Israel we have the Levitical priesthood authorised by the old covenant, the Mosaic law, to communicate written doctrine and to function in the ritual of the tabernacle. Then, in the dispensation of the Church we have the priesthood of Christ. Jesus Christ is the high priest and each one of us as believers in this dispensation are members of the royal family of God, and therefore we are a royal priesthood under our high priest.

2. Christ as the high priest is a minister to us in spiritual things — Hebrews 5:1.

3. Christ is appointed high priest by God the Father — Hebrews 5:4-10; 6:20.

4. As high priest Christ offered an efficacious sacrifice as for the priesthood — Hebrews 9:26,27.

5. Christ has an eternal and intransmissable priesthood, it cannot be passed on to another high priest — Hebrews 7:20,21,24.

6. Because of positional sanctification, union with Christ, every believer is a priest — 1 Peter 2:5,9; Revelation 1:6; 5:10; 20:6.

7. Christ as high priest performs the ministry of intercession for the believer on earth — Hebrews 7:25. Also He remains seated, which means we are to rest in His plan. Royalty doesn’t work. 8. The believer priest in phase two possesses a different sacrifice from the Levitical code. He has the sacrifice of his body which is the rebound technique — Romans 12:1; the sacrifice of praise — Hebrews 13:15; the sacrifice of production and giving — Hebrews 13:16; the sacrifice of obedience to authority — Hebrews 13:17.

Our next paragraph is the new function of the royal family of God — verses 22-25.

First of all we need to note the concept of the hortatory subjunctive in this passage. The passage is made up of hortatory subjunctives. For example, in verse 22, “Let us draw near”; in verse 23, “Let us hold fast”; in verse 24, “Let us consider.” These three phrases are known in the Greek syntax as hortatory subjunctives.

1. The first person plural plus the subjunctive mood in a verb is called an hortatory subjunctive.

2. The purpose of the hortatory subjunctive has to do with the writer of scripture. The writer invites the reader to join him in a course of action specified by the verb itself. For example, in our passage “Let us draw near”; “Let us hold fast”; “Let us consider.” The writer of Hebrews is inviting the members of the royal family of God to join him in a course of action. His invitation is tantamount to an imperative mood or a command. So the hortatory subjunctive carries all of the weight of a command, but it is a command that always includes the writer as well as the reader.

3. This develops the concept of spiritual exercise or doing something over and over and over again no matter how you feel. Effective exercise ignores how you feel and carries on anyway. It becomes a matter of soul determination. These hortatory subjunctives develop certain concepts. We are commanded not to do something once. It isn’t the command, “Do it,” it is the command “Do it again and again and again, no matter how you feel.” So the hortatory subjunctive in the Greek says to keep doing it whereas the imperative mood would simply say to do it.

4. Exercise, then, connotes the self-discipline and respect for authority which is found in these three hortatory subjunctives. In other words, as royal family of God even though we are royalty we are subject to discipline. No matter how high one goes in life he never escapes the principle of discipline, the principle of authority. As members of the royal family of God facing these hortatory subjunctives we have the security of God’s discipline, we have the security of victory that comes from this discipline, we have the security and the blessing of it. And that is exactly why we have them as members of the royal family of God. People do not realise the dynamics that are found in discipline.

Basically in life there are three systems of exercise. Exercise is not a series of repetitions that challenge the muscles, exercise is a system of self-discipline in the soul. These hortatory subjunctives are going to introduce it to us as members of the royal family of God. Take, for example, the three types of exercise in life. There is physical exercise, but what is physical exercise? Not merely the exercising of the body and its muscular system. It is a system of self-discipline which produces maximum effectiveness in body function. It is the self-discipline that makes exercise effective. The issue is in the soul, the self-discipline of the soul. The same is true of mental exercise. A consistent system of self-discipline in the field of study or concentration or perception improves mental capability and professional ability as well as capacity for life. But the greatest area of exercise of all is in the spiritual realm. Spiritual exercise is the means by which the believer transfers in a consistent way Bible doctrine from the Word of God, the canon of scripture, to his own soul. This in turn results in grace orientation, understanding the plan of God, the function of the great techniques of grace — rebound, the filling of the Spirit, faith-rest, the construction of the ESC, the acquiring of maturity and/or the supergrace life, etc. The self-discipline involved here is phenomenal and no one ever takes that higher ground of supergrace without being challenged in the field of self-discipline in the soul.

These hortatory subjunctives are all designed to encourage us to move, to follow the colours, to advance and to take the high ground of the supergrace life. But the monotony in this, the sheer grit that it takes, the sticking it out in spite of every pressure of life, in spite of every deterrent and distraction, this is the difficulty. So we have a series of hortatory subjunctives. In verse 22 we have one which is Godward, in verse 23 the selfward hortatory subjunctive, and in verse 24 the mansard. When these are all straightened out then verse 25 is doctrineward, directed toward doctrine. This series of hortatory subjunctives is designed to bring us to the place of assembling ourselves together. Notice verse 25. There is no hortatory subjunctive there, the command is given in a participial form — “Stop forsaking the assembling of yourselves together.” The assembling of yourselves together for Bible study is exactly how you are going to take the high ground and move into the supergrace life. But before you can understand the importance of the consistent taking in of doctrine there must first of all be the hortatory subjunctives.

Verse 22 — “Let us draw near,” our first hortatory subjunctive. This is the present middle subjunctive of the verb proserxomai. which means to approach. Literally, this should be translated “Let us approach.” Because of the hortatory subjunctive this is known as a tendencial present tense. Tendencial means something that it purposed, something that you are going to do from your own volition. It is purposed but it is not taking place. It represents, therefore, the idea of what is intended. So the writer starts out by assuming that no one is doing this but should be. The middle voice is a permissive middle. That is an offshoot of the indirect middle in which the emphasis is on the agent as producing the action of the verb rather than participating in its results. Therefore the action is closely related to the subject. That is why it is called a permissive middle voice representing the agent as voluntarily yielding himself to the results of the action or seeking to secure the results of the action by the use of his own free will. He is free, he has the right to do so. The first person plural plus the subjunctive mood indicates a very strong command.

“Let us approach” is a reference to the royal priesthood, and we are approaching God just as the Levitical priesthood approached God by approaching the tabernacle. There are actually four ways for anyone in the royal family to approach God, each one of them is related to Bible doctrine. Under the Mosaic law in the Age of Israel the Levitical priest approached the altar. The people could come as far as the altar. Then at that point you cut down on approaches. Only the Levitical priest could approach and enter the holy place and, of course, he could not enter the holy of holies. Then once a year on the day of atonement the high priest could approach the mercy seat in the holy of holies. So this is the concept in which “draw near” or “approach” is used in this passage. All of us have a relationship with God, a perfect relationship with God, a relationship which has existed from the moment we believed in Christ, a relationship which cannot be improved. The baptism of the Spirit entered us into union with Christ, we are in union with Christ forever. Our home is in the holy of holies and so when we are told to approach it has to do with our experience, with our life in phase two. Here is how we approach: 1. “with a true heart” — the preposition meta plus the genitive singular of the adjective a)lhqinoj, the word which is translated “true.” It is the adjective which is mistranslated. This doesn’t mean “true”. What is true? It is whatever appeals to you and is faithful to you regardless of what you are. That isn’t what true is here. A)lhqinoj means dependable, consistently dependable. This means that somewhere in your life as a member of the royal family you have to make up your mind about something. You have to make up your mind whether it is going to be doctrine or a long or short life of misery, whichever the Lord decides. You have to remember that God keeps you alive for one or two reasons. Because you are advancing to the high ground He keeps you alive to pour out those blessings. You have to make up your mind. Is it going to be doctrine or not? Once you make up your mind that it is not going to be doctrine, if you peal off from doctrine entirely, then you will have a relatively short life and will die the sin unto death. But if you kind of dabble back and forth, swing back and forth, get with it, get away from it, God is going to keep you alive for a long time and you are going to have the longest and most miserable life ever imagined. You won’t even know what happiness or blessing is until you get to heaven. The issue is doctrine or discipline. Take you choice. You have free will so you might as well decide. If you decide that it is going to be doctrine then you have to learn to gut it out. You are not going to like every lesson, every book, every subject. Sometimes you are going to be bored to distraction. You are going to have to decide and be consistent, and that is exactly what we have here, “a dependable right lobe.” The word “heart” is right lobe; the word “true” is not true, it is dependable. So how do we approach God? We approach with a dependable right lobe.

This permissive middle, then, is very important because the permissive middle voice of the hortatory subjunctive plus the prepositional phrase with a dependable right lobe means that you decide on a course of action but then that course of action demands a continual series of decisions. Daily decisions to get doctrine. So the first approach to God is consistency in positive volition toward Bible doctrine. Since the royal family lives positionally in the holy of holies, and inasmuch as the royal family of the Church Age is an heavenly people, they must approach God with maximum Bible doctrine in the right lobe — “Let us approach with a dependable right lobe.” The dependable right lobe is the one in which the member of the royal family of God is positive toward doctrine.

2. The second area of approach is another prepositional phrase. This one says “in full assurance of faith.” This is the preposition e)n plus the instrumental of plhroforia. The instrumental here indicates a means. Plhroforia, by the way, in non-Christian literature means certainty but in the New Testament it means “supreme fullness.” So we have supreme fullness as a possibility, but some people who have done a great deal of work in the field of etymology in the Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, vol. 6, page 311, say, “This word is one of the terms which Paul uses to try to define linguistically the great richness of the divine work in the present life of Christianity.” The writer of Hebrews is actually trying to portray the richness concept, and therefore in our verse this means “full confidence.” By the word “full” you must understand saturation of riches, a confidence that brings great wealth to the soul and eventually great wealth to the person. There is no definite article. The lack of a definite article calls attention to the quality of the noun — full confidence. Along with that we also have a descriptive word in the genitive. The possessive genitive of pistij also helps us to understand in what we are to have full confidence. The word pistij here means doctrine or what is believed. The genitive case explains what this noun plhroforia actually means. So we have, “by means of full confidence in doctrine.” This is not saying you are going to understand doctrine right away, it is saying you should have full confidence in doctrine. When you hear doctrine taught there are many things you don’t understand and you simply have to accept them as being true. They may be contrary to your back ground, to your life, to your observation, to what you have seen, what you taste, what you smell, whatever it is from the standpoint of empiricism. But you have to have confidence in doctrine, that doctrine is right when there is a contradiction between what you think and what Bible doctrine says. “Let us approach with a dependable right lobe by means of full confidence in doctrine.”

3. “having our hearts sprinkled” — “having sprinkled” is the perfect passive participle of the verb r(antizw, a word which is used for our understanding of salvation, our understanding of the blood of Christ, and it is a part of the accusative of general reference. The accusative of general reference is a system that the Greeks had that we do not have. It takes a noun in the accusative case [which we would expect to be the direct object of the verb] and puts with it a participle in the accusative case, and it sets the whole thing aside as being unique. Then it turns the whole concept of grammar around, for the noun in the accusative case becomes the subject of the participle, or explains that which is involved in the action of the participle.

The word “hearts” is the accusative plural of kardia, our noun, and it refers to the right lobe in the mentality of the soul. Then we have the perfect passive participle, “having been sprinkled.” The perfect tense of the participle is a dramatic perfect. A dramatic perfect, like the intensive perfect, emphasises the results of the action. It describes in the highest possible sense existing results of salvation. It describes them in the most realistic and vivid possible way. The passive voice: under the accusative of general reference our right lobes receive the action of the verb. In other words, the believer ought to have a complete and total understanding of salvation. The verb “to sprinkle” refers to the dedication of the Torah or the Bible, the dedication of the people, the tabernacle. They sprinkled everything with blood with a scarlet cloth or a hyssop. The word sprinkled here means “dedicated”. We have to be able to concentrate, we have to be able to enter into the principle of self-discipline that is involved in taking in the Word of God on a daily basis. Therefore to concentrate we cannot be distracted by our own soul. You must be free to concentrate on what the Bible teaches. The only issue is the content, the assimilation of the content, not the life of the pastor, not the life of other members in the congregation.

Now we have a specific here, “from an evil conscience.” This emphasises the mental attitude sins. We have a)po plus the ablative singular of suneidhsij. The possessive genitive singular of ponhria is mistranslated here, it means “sinfulness,” mental sinfulness primarily; “our right lobes having been sprinkled from a conscience of [mental] sinfulness.” This is the concept of approaching God in fellowship, free from mental attitude sins.

4. “and our bodies” — the continuative conjunction kai plus the accusative singular of swma. Swma here refers to the body and there are several principles involved here. We have with this the definite article. Often the definite article is used in the Greek for some other part of speech. Here it is used for the possessive pronoun, so it should be translated “and our body,” singular. With the particle another accusative of general reference is involved here. Swma is a noun in the accusative case but it is used as a subject and the cleansing of the body here is a euphemism for rebound, it is a reminder that the royal family’s body is the temple of the Holy Spirit and therefore rebound is the order of the day in approaching God.

The word “washed” is the perfect middle participle of the verb louw. The perfect tense is a dramatic perfect. This is the rhetorical use of the intensive perfect, it places a dramatic emphasis on the rebound technique resulting from the work of Christ on the cross. Everything goes back to the fact that we have an efficacious sacrifice or, as we have already seen, we have a high priest. The middle voice is the permissive middle. This is a little rare as far as the scripture is concerned and in a permissive middle the agent, which is the believer, voluntarily yields himself to the results of the action of the verb in his own interest. In other words, of your own free will you rebound. You do not rebound because you are forced to or because of coercion , you do so because you wan to. Therefore it is to your interest because then you want to be controlled by God the Holy Spirit in the balance of residency. The participle is part of the accusative of general reference, the accusative case becomes the subject, the participle becomes the verb.

“with pure water” — the instrumental singular of the adjective kaqaroj, and with that the noun u(dor. The pure water here is a reference to the brass laver and reminds us that this was portrayed in the Old Testament. When the priest washed his hands in the brass laver it portrayed the rebound technique.

Translation: “Let us approach God with a dependable right lobe by means of full confidence of doctrine, our right lobes having been sprinkled from a conscience of sinfulness, and our body washed with pure water.”

All of these procedures have to do with our relationship with God and how in time it becomes effective.

We now turn to a second hortatory subjunctive; this is the selfward one — verse 23. “Let us hold fast” is the present active subjunctive of katexw. Katexw means not only to hold fast but it means to guard certain traditions. That is exactly how it is used here. We are the guardians of a tradition. The tradition has been passed on through one generation to an other generation of believers throughout all of history, and it is the tactical advance. But it is especially meaningful to the royal family of God since the Lord Jesus Christ has provided the strategic victory. When we get to chapter eleven we are going to see this tactical advance in the Old Testament believers but here it is applied to us, the royal family. The present tense is retroactive progressive present, it denotes what was begun in the past and continues into the present time. It is also a present tense of duration for advancing in phase two through the daily function of GAP. The active voice: the royal family produces the action of the verb by consistent positive volition in spite of all pressure. Again, we have a hortatory subjunctive in which both the reader and the writer are commanded to advance and take the higher ground of the supergrace life.

The word “profession” is an accusative singular, this time the accusative is direct object, and the noun is o(mologia. It means “confession” used in the sense of the whole body of doctrine by which we advance to supergrace. “Let us keep holding fast the confession.”

“of our faith” — the descriptive genitive singular of the noun e)lpij which does not mean “hope” here, it means expectation or prospect. We have the definite article used as a possessive pronoun, so the expectation or prospect is the supergrace blessing on taking the higher ground.

“without wavering” — the accusative singular of the compound adjective a)klinhj. It means in one word, “unbending.” In other words, it just means to know that there is one thing in life that is more important than anything else in life and never changing your mind about it, and always being consistent with that principle. Unbending means really that you know something is right and you do it no matter what. It means to be consistent with a principle. This adjective emphasises the important in being consistent in the function of GAP. The royal family was designed to live on doctrine. Doctrine in the soul is the means of following the colours to the high ground of supergrace.

“for” — this should be “because,” the conjunctive particle gar used as an explanation plus a causal participle. Gar plus a causal participle is never translated “for,” it is translated “because.”

“faithful” — the predicate adjective of pistoj, it means “trustworthy, dependable, faithful.” “Faithful” is the predicate adjective, that means we can’t translate it next. We have to have a subject and then a verb, and “he that promised” is a participle, it isn’t really the verb. The verb is the verb to be. “He that promised” is the aorist middle participle of e)paggellw. God has promised you wealth, success, promotion, any kind and every kind of prosperity, whether it is social, sexual, materialistic. God has promised you that life can be meaningful and wonderful and He promised these things before you lived. The promises came before the world, in eternity past with the divine decrees. And of there is anything God loves to do it is to honour His Word. He wants to keep His promises, and in keeping His promises God is glorified. This is the middle voice, an indirect middle, emphasising God as the agent producing the action, and the gnomic aorist goes with “unbending”. The gnomic aorist is for an absolute fact, a dogmatic fact, something that is an axiom, something that must never be questioned. The action of the aorist participle precedes the action of the main verb. He promises something and then after the promise He fulfills it.

Translation: “Let us keep holding fast the confession of our expectation [the whole promise of supergrace blessing and victory] unbending [a fixed positive volition toward doctrine]; because the one having promised is faithful.”

The doctrine of the faithfulness of God

1. Definition: Divine faithfulness is the grace expression to the believer of God’s perfect character, God’s perfect essence. Divine faithfulness is possible because of the propitiatory work of Christ on the cross that removed any compromise of God’s essence. So that faithfulness is the consistency of God’s character to do the same thing every time on the basis of who and what Christ is. Faithfulness is consistency, and divine faithfulness has its counterpart with the believer.

2. God’s faithfulness is manifest to the royal family in rebound — 1 John 1:9. Why is He faithful? He is faithful because He is consistent with His character; it is consistent with His essence. He always does the same thing, He never varies because any believer is more raunchy than another believer. God is consistent and He can afford to be consistent because of the blood of Christ. He is consistent, He is without compromise, and therefore being consistent He is faithful, He always does the same thing every time.

3. God’s faithfulness in His perfect plan. God is perfect; His plan is perfect. God is faithful; His plan therefore represents and reflects faithfulness — 1 Corinthians 1:9. “God is faithful through whom you have been called into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.” We have been called into fellowship with His Son. Where is His Son? He is sitting at the right hand of the Father in the holy of holies with the curtain torn apart. And we have been invited into the holy of holies.

4. God’s faithfulness in provision and blessing — 1 Thessalonians 5:24. “Faithful is he who calls you and he also will bring it to pass.” If you are unbending, faithful to the Word, He will also bring it to pass — supergrace blessings. But if you are bending instead of unbending, if you are vacillating, if you are positive one day and negative the next, if you are distracted by your own mental attitude sins, by other people, by other situations, then “he also will bring it to pass,” i.e., divine discipline. So it is an open verse and it depends upon your attitude toward Bible doctrine.

5. God’s faithfulness in testing — 1 Corinthians 10:13. “No testing has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tested beyond what you are able [beyond your capacity]” Capacity is based upon doctrine resident in the soul ; “but, with the testing , will provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.”

6. God is faithful to the royal family of God — Hebrews 10:23, “because the one having promised is faithful.” He can’t be unfaithful.

7. God is faithful to the reversionistic believer — 2 Timothy 2:13, “If we are faithless, he remains faithful; for he cannot deny himself.” In other words, God cannot turn around and say, “All right, you are unfaithful to me, I’ll show you, I’ll be unfaithful to you.” He cannot do it because He is God.

8. God is faithful to the believer in the realm of the angelic conflict — 2 Thessalonians 3:3, But the Lord keeps on being faithful, he will support and guard you from the evil one [Satan].”

9. Conclusion:

a) Faithfulness is the consistency and the stability of God. In other words, faithfulness is God being God.

b) God cannot be inconsistent with His own essence. God cannot destroy Himself as God, He can’t say He wont be God any more and stop being God. Immutability prohibits forever any possibility of God having any human instability.

c) He cannot change His essence and therefore God can never be unfair to you.

d) God is consistent with Himself, therefore He is consistent with us. Therefore He is faithful to us.

e) One of the acts of consistency on the part of God is to make a promise and keep it.

f) There never was a time when God was unfaithful, the thought is blasphemous and unthinkable.

g) Unfaithfulness is totally incompatible with God’s character.

h) The very existence, function, provision, and blessing of the royal family now and forever, depends on the faithfulness of God. Therefore, it depends on the character of God. God is unbending.

Verse 24 — the mansard hortatory subjunctive. “And,” the continuative use of the conjunction kai, indicating that these are all tied together even though they go in different directions.

“let us consider” — the present active subjunctive of katanoew. Noew means to think; kata means to think according to a norm or standard. It comes to mean to notice, to observe carefully, to contemplate, to understand. It means to know the doctrine and properly apply it. So here we really have the concept that you know the doctrine and now you are going to apply it to others. The present tense is an iterative present, it is used to describe what recurs at successive intervals. The reason it is an iterative present is because it depends on contact with other people and we are not always in touch with other members of the royal family. So it is the present tense of repeated action — but it doesn’t go on all the time. When you are out of touch with people it doesn’t apply and sometimes when you are in touch with people it doesn’t apply. But there will be times when it does. The active voice: the royal family produces the action of the verb, and again the subjunctive is hortatory in which the writer invites the reader to join him in a course of action, moving toward the high ground. So we will translate this, “Let us concentrate on [application].”

“one another” — the accusative plural of direct object from a)llhlwn which means one another of the same kind, other members of the royal family of God. It can be translated “each other.”

“to provoke unto love and to good works” — but “to provoke” is really a prepositional phrase, not an infinitive. It is e)ij plus the accusative of parocusmoj which means to stir up, to stimulate, to encourage. “And let us concentrate on each other for the purpose of encouragement” — not “unto love” but “from the source of love.” This is the ablative of source, a)gaph. It must be done from a relaxed mental attitude — “from the source of the RMA [Mental attitude love].”

“and” — another ablative of source — “from the source of”, rather than “and to” — “good works”, the ablative of the adjective kaloj, which really means “noble” here, and with it we have the noun e)rgon, which is production, any kind of production, anything that you are doing — “and from the source of noble deeds [or actions].” Noble actions, of course, emanate from royal family.

Translation: “And let each of us concentrate on each other for the purpose of encouragement from the source of love and from the source of noble production.”

The noble production is any type of divine good produced under any condition as a member of the royal family of God. We are to encourage, rather than discourage, any other members of the royal family of God with whom we are in contact.

Verse 25 — this is doctrineward but does not have a hortatory subjunctive because it goes with the previous verse. The verse really goes on, so the hortatory subjunctive which is mansard now related to verse 25. “et us concentrate” is the third hortatory subjunctive and you could actually put it in here — “Let us concentrate on not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together.” That is what the grammar of the Greek says.

We have another participle, the present active participle of e)gkataleipw which means to desert under fire. We translate it “forsaking” but that is really what it means; the pressure is too much and we peel off, quit coming to Bible class. The negative mh means don’t do it, but the negative mh recognises the fact that some will. “Stop forsaking” — the present tense is a customary present, they were customarily deserting in the face of pressure. The active voice: reversionistic Jewish believers living in Jerusalem in 67 AD were guilty of producing the action of the verb and are now commanded to stop it. The participle is an imperative. It is interesting that whenever the participle is used as an imperative it is because there are previous imperatives in the context and it simply changes up the style so as not to get too much monotony. We do have imperatives but the ones that we have are three hortatory subjunctives. So this becomes another imperative and this is a participial imperative directed toward Bible doctrine. And it has a negative, so you have to change it up for the negative.

“the assembling” — the accusative singular of direct object, e)pisunagwgh. E)pi means under authority of; sun means along with others who are under authority; agwgh means you come together.

“of ourselves” — the genitive plural from the reflexive pronoun e(uatou. This word is a very interesting reflexive pronoun because it is constructed on the intensive pronoun a)utou. A)utou is an intensive pronoun from a demonstrative pronoun. A demonstrative pronoun is designed to identify something in the context; an intensive one means to identify it in a special way. That is why a)utoj and a)utou here is used so many times for our Lord Jesus Christ. E(autou means not only to identify it twice but to make you jab yourself and say this applies to me. This is what the writer of Hebrews was doing at this particular point with his original hearers. “Stop forsaking the assembling together, under authority, of yourselves.” The forsaking of the assembly of the local church is the basic sign of negative volition toward doctrine. Whatever your excuse it is tantamount to negative volition toward doctrine, which is the basic concept in reversionism.

“as the manner of some is” — kaqwj e)qoj tisin. Kaqwj is an adverb of comparison; e)qoj is a nominative singular meaning habit or custom; the dative plural from the indefinite pronoun tij is tisin, and it means “certain ones” — “as is the habit of certain ones.” Who are the certain ones? Reversionists. Some people make it a habit, some are staying away because they follow those who make it a habit.

The next word is the strong adversative conjunction a)lla. It sets up a very strong contrast between two clauses. The word “exhorting” is not correct. The present active participle of parakalew means encouraging. The present tense is linear aktionsart of the progressive present. The active voice: the positive attitude toward doctrine of the royal family of God, you will produce the action of the verb of not only coming to hear the Word taught consistently, unbendingly, but you will be an encouragement to others by your consistency. The participle is the instrumental participle and it should be translated “but by being an encouragement.”

“and so much the more” — this writer suddenly breaks in to absolutely sheer classical Greek. This is no longer Koine Greek. We have the ascensive use of kai, “even” — “so much the more” is the dative singular neuter of the Attic Greek correlative demonstrative pronoun tosoutoj, a classical Greek word, it is not in the Koine at all. And with it you have something you don’t have in the Koine Greek which is a common language, you have a comparative adverb, mallon. So we have tosoutoj plus mallon and it means “even so much the more” as translated, but to change from one language to another — they are both Greek languages but they are entirely different — it is to emphasise something. Whenever that is done in the scripture God the Holy Spirit authorises it. The principle here is that when you go from one language to another it makes a break in the thought, and the break in the thought is to remind you of the fact that while you have wonderful blessings and privileges on this earth you are not going to be on this earth indefinitely. And actually what he is doing is what is often done. If you have ever been on the point of death, or thought you were you will understand this. When you are on the point of death or think you are, if you are a normal person, you are not hating anyone, you don’t despise anyone, you don’t want to see anyone hurt. Your attitude changes on things of that sort. All of a sudden the nearness of death makes you realise how silly it is to walk around being antagonistic toward people. It doesn’t add anything to you and it certainly doesn’t bother them, so why mess with it? That is exactly what the writer did here, he changes languages in order to bring out the fact that the Rapture could occur at any time. “So much the more” doesn’t look like much in the English, and apparently the translator knew classical Greek so he translated it properly.

“as you see” — the dative neuter singular of the correlative o(soj; with it we have the present active indicative of blepw which means to see and blink your eyes. The present tense is the retroactive progressive present denoting what has begun in the past and continues — the perception of doctrine that the Rapture could occur at any time. The active voice: the believer who is positive toward doctrine produces the action. He understands the Rapture and makes the proper application. The indicative mood is declarative which views the action of the verb from the viewpoint of absolute reality, every day the Rapture is getting closer.

“the day” — the day could be the day of your death or the day of the Rapture. Here it refers to the day of the Rapture.

“approaching” — the present active participle of e)ggizw. Every day the Rapture gets closer, the futuristic present of e)ggizw means that the imminency of the Rapture is a very definite principle of doctrine. The active voice: the Rapture produces the action. The participle is circumstantial to show that no doctrine has to be fulfilled, that the Rapture can occur at any time. This is the doctrine of the imminency of the Rapture.

Translation: “Stop forsaking [neglecting, retreating] from the assembling together of yourselves, as is the habit of certain reversionists; but by being an encouragement: even so much the more as you see the day of the Rapture approaching.”

Verse 22 — we have come now to the fourth approach:

“and our bodies” — the continuative conjunction kai plus the accusative singular of swma. Swma here refers to the body and there are several principles involved here. We have with this the definite article. Often the definite article in the Greek is used for some other part of speech. Here it is used for a possessive pronoun, so it should be translated “And our body,” singular. With the particle another accusative of general reference is involved here. Swma is a noun in the accusative case but it is used as a subject, and the cleansing of the body here is a euphemism for rebound, it is a reminder that the royal family’s body is the temple of the Holy Spirit and therefore rebound in the order of the day in approaching God.

“washed” is the perfect middle participle of the verb louw. The prefect tense is a dramatic perfect. This is the rhetorical use of the intensive perfect, it places a dramatic emphasis on the rebound technique resulting from the work of Christ on the cross. Everything goes back to the fact that we have an efficacious sacrifice or, as we have already seen, we have a high priest. The middle voice is the permissive middle. This is a little rarer as far as the scripture is concerned and in a permissive middle the agent — the believer, member of the royal family of God — voluntarily yields himself to the results of the action of the verb in his own interest. In other words, of your own free will you rebound. You do not rebound because you are forced to, you do so because you want to. Therefore it is to your interest because then you are controlled by God the Holy Spirit in the balance of residency. The participle is part of the accusative of general reference. The accusative case becomes the subject, the participle becomes the verb.

“with pure water” — the instrumental singular of the adjective kaqaroj, and with that the noun u(dor. The pure water here is a reference to the brass laver and reminds us that this was portrayed in the Old Testament. When the priest washed his hands in the brass laver it portrayed the rebound technique.

Translation: “Let us approach God with a dependable right lobe by means of full confidence of doctrine, our right lobes having been sprinkled from a conscience of sinfulness, and our body washed with pure water.”

All of these procedures have to do with our relationship with God and how in time it becomes effective.

Verse 23 — the selfward hortatory subjunctive, “Let us hold fast” is the present active subjunctive of katexw. Katexw means not only to hold fast but it means to regard certain traditions. This is exactly how it is used here. We are the guardians of a tradition. The tradition has passed on from one generation to another generation of believers throughout all of history, and it is the tactical advance. But it is especially meaningful to the royal family of God since the Lord Jesus Christ has provided the strategic victory. When we get to chapter eleven we are going to see this tactical advance in the Old Testament believers, but here it is applied to us. The present tense is retroactive progressive present, it denotes what was begun in the past and continues into the present time. It is also a present tense of duration for advancing in phase two under the daily function of GAP. The active voice: the royal family produces the action of the verb by consistent positive volition in spite of all pressure. And again we have a hortatory subjunctive in which both the reader and the writer are commanded to advance and take the higher ground of the supergrace life.

The word “profession” is an accusative singular, and this time the accusative is direct object, and the noun is o(mologia meaning “confession.” It is confession used in the sense of the whole body of doctrine by which we advance to supergrace. “Let us keep holding fast the confession.”

“of hope” — the genitive singular is a descriptive genitive of the noun e)lpij which does not mean “hope” here, it means expectation or prospect. And we have the definite article used as a possessive pronoun, so the expectation or prospect is the supergrace blessing on taking the higher ground.

“without wavering” — the accusative singular of the compound adjective a)kinhj. It means in one word “unbending.” In other words, it just means to know that there is one thing in life that is more important than anything else and never changing your mind about it and always being consistent with that principle. The idea is that you know something is right and you do it no matter what. It means to be consistent with a principle, to be faithful to a principle. This adjective emphasises the importance of being consistent in the function of GAP. The royal family was designed to live on doctrine. Doctrine in the soul is the means of following the colours to the high ground of supergrace and we are on this earth to advance. “Let us keep holding fast the confession of our expectation [the whole concept of supergrace victory].”

The word “for” is not “for” at all, it is “because” — the conjunctive particle gar used as an explanation plus a causal participle which is never translated “for”, always “because.”

“faithful” — the predicate adjective of pistoj which means “trustworthy, dependable, faithful.” “Faithful” is the predicate adjective and that means we can’t translate it next. We have to have a subject and then a verb.

“he that promised” is a participle, it isn’t really the verb. The verb is the verb to be. It is the aorist middle participle of e)paggellw. God has promised you wealth, success, prosperity, promotion, etc. And He promised you these things before the human race existed. The promises were with God in eternity past in the divine decrees. God has these promises and if there is anything He loves to do it is to honour His Word. He wants to keep His promise because in keeping His promise God is glorified. This is an indirect middle voice, emphasising God as the agent producing the action, and the gnomic aorist goes with unbending. The gnomic aorist is for an absolute fact, a dogmatic fact, something that is an axiom, something that must never be questioned. The action of the aorist participle precedes the action of the main verb. He promises something and then He fulfills it.

Translation: “Let us keep holding fast the confession of our expectation [the promise of supergrace blessing] unbending [a fixed positive volition toward doctrine]; because the one having promised is faithful.”

The doctrine of the faithfulness of God

1. Divine faithfulness is the grace expression to the believer of God’s perfect character and essence in phase two. Divine faithfulness is possible because of the propitiatory work of Christ on the cross that removed any compromise of God’s essence. So that faithfulness is the consistency of God’s character to do the same thing every time on the basis of who and what Christ is. Faithfulness is consistency, and divine faithfulness has its counterpart with the believer. There is one thing that the believer should be always and that is unbending. Unbending is the response to God’s faithfulness.

2. God’s faithfulness is manifest to the royal family in rebound — 1 John 1:9.

3. God’s faithfulness in His perfect plan. God is perfect, His plan is perfect. God is faithful, His plan represents and reflects faithfulness — 1 Corinthians 1:9. We have been called into fellowship with His Son. Where is His Son? At the right hand of the Father in the holy of holies and we have been invited as members of the royal family of God into the holy of holies.

4. God’s faithfulness in provision and blessing — 1 Thessalonians 5:24. “Faithful is He who calls you who will also bring it to pass.” If you are unbending you will receive supergrace blessings; or, if bending, divine discipline.

5. God’s faithfulness in testing — 1 Corinthians 10:13. All believers who are advancing are being shot at. God will not allow testing beyond your capacity. That is why our tests are different, we have different capacities. Capacity is based upon the content of doctrine in the soul.

6. God is faithful to the royal family of God — Hebrews 10:23, the anticipation of supergrace blessings.

7. God is faithful to the reversionistic believer — 2 Timothy 2:13. “If we are faithless he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself.”

8. God is faithful to the believer in the realm of the angelic conflict — 2 Thessalonians 3:3.

9. Conclusion: a) Faithfulness is the consistency and stability of God; b) God cannot be inconsistent with His own essence; c) He cannot change His essence and therefore God can never be unfair to you; d) God is consistent with Himself, therefore He is consistent with us; therefore He is faithful to us; e) One of the acts of consistency on the part of God is to make a promise and to keep it. God keeps His Word; f) There never was a time when God was unfaithful; g) Unfaithfulness is totally incompatible with God’s character; h) The very existence, function, provision, and blessing of the royal family now and forever depends on the faithfulness of God. Therefore, it depends on the character of God.

Verse 24 — the manward hortatory subjunctive. “And,” the continuative use of the conjunction kai, indicating that these are all tied together.

“let us consider” — the present active subjunctive of katanoew. Noew means to think; kata means according to a norm or standard. It comes to means to notice, to observe carefully, to contemplate, to understand. It means to know the doctrine and properly apply it. The present tense is an iterative present, it is used to describe what recurs at successive intervals. The reason it is an iterative present is because it depends on contact with other people. So it is the present tense of repeated action — but it doesn’t go on all the time. The active voice: the royal family produces the action of the verb. The subjunctive is hortatory in which the writer commands the reader to join him in a course of action — moving toward the high ground. So we will translate this, “Let us concentrate on” — concentration on application.

“one another” — the accusative plural of direct object from a)llhlon which means one another of the same kind — other members of the royal family. It can be translated “each other.”

The next phrase says “to provoke unto love and to good works,: but to provoke is really a prepositional phrase, not an infinitive — e)ij plus the accusative of parocusmoj which means to stir up, to stimulate, to encourage — “for the purpose of encouragement.”

“unto love” — should be “from the source of love.” This is the ablative of source of a)gaph. It must be done from a relaxed mental attitude.

“and to good works” — should be from the source of good works, and “good works” is the ablative of the adjective kaloj, which really means “noble” here, and the noun e)rgon which is production, any kind of production, anything that you are doing.

Translation: “And let each of us concentrate on each other for the purpose of encouragement from the source of love and from the source of noble production.” The noble production is any kind of divine good produced under any condition as a member of the royal family of God. And we are to encourage rather than discourage other members of the royal family of God with whom we are in contact.

Verse 25 is doctrineward but does not have a hortatory subjunctive because it goes with the previous verse. The verse really goes on, so the hortatory subjunctive which is manward is now related to this one. We have another participle, the present active participle of e)gkataleipw which means to desert under fire. The pressure is too much so they peel off and quit. The negative mh means don’t do it, but the negative mh recognises the fact that some will. This was one of the key problems in the Jerusalem church: refusal to come to Bible class. The present tense is a customary present, they were customarily deserting in the face of pressure. The active voice: reversionistic Jewish believers living in Jerusalem in 67 AD were guilty of producing the action of the verb, and they are now commanded to stop it. The participle is an imperative. Whenever the participle is used as an imperative it is because there are previous imperatives in the context and it simply changes up the style so as not to get too much monotony. We do have imperatives but the three that we have are hortatory subjunctives. So this becomes another imperative and this one is directed toward Bible doctrine. It has a negative, mh.

“the assembling” — the accusative singular of direct object e)pisunagwgh. E)pi means under authority of; sun means along with others you are under authority; agwgh means you come together. When we come together we are all under authority, and the only one in authority is the one who doesn’t sit during the teaching — the pastor. This is called assembling but it means assembling under authority.

“of ourselves” — the genitive plural from the reflexive pronoun e(autou . E(autou is a very interesting reflexive pronoun because it is constructed on the intensive pronoun a)utou. A)utou is an intensive pronoun from a demonstrative pronoun. A demonstrative pronoun is designed to identify something in the context. An intensive one means to identify something in a special way. That is why a)utoj and a)utou is used so many times for our Lord Jesus Christ. E(autou means not only to identify it twice but to make you jab yourself and say this applies to me. That was what the writer of Hebrews was doing at this point to his original hearers — “Stop forsaking the assembling of yourselves together.” Forsaking the assembling together under the authority of the local church is the basic sign of negative volition. Whatever your excuse it is tantamount to negative volition toward doctrine which is the basic concept in reversionism.

“as the manner of some is” — kaqwj e)qoj tisin. Kaqoj is an adverb of comparison; e)qoj is a nominative singular meaning habit or custom; the dative plural from the indefinite pronoun tij is tisin and it means “certain ones” — “as is the habit of certain ones. Who are the certain ones? Reversionists. Some make it a habit, some are staying away because of those who make it a habit.

The next word is the strong adversative conjunction a)lla which sets up a very strong contrast between two clauses. The word “exhorting” is not correct. The present active participle of parakalew means “encouraging”. This is linear aktionsart of the progressive present tense. The active voice: if you are positive toward doctrine as a member of the royal family of God then you will produce the action of the verb in not only coming to hear the Word taught consistently, unbendingly, but you will be an encouragement to others by your consistency. The participle is the instrumental participle and it should be translated “but by being an encouragement.”

“and so much the more” — this writer suddenly breaks in with Attic Greek. We have the ascensive use of kai which should be translated “even”; and “so much the more” is the dative singular neuter of the Attic Greek correlative demonstrative pronoun toj o)utoj, it is not in the Koine at all. And with it is something you don’t have in the Koine Greek, you have a comparative adverb mallon. It means “even so much the more” as translated, but to change from one language to another is to emphasise something. And whenever that is done in the scripture God the Holy Spirit authorises it. And the classical Greek is an entirely different language. This writer demonstrates that he has had a very excellent classical education. The principle here is that when you go from one language to another it makes a break in the thought, and the break in the thought is to remind you of the fact that while you have wonderful blessings and privileges on this earth you are not going to be on this earth indefinitely. Actually, what he is doing is doing is often done at the point of death. When you are on the point of death, or think you are, if you are a normal person you are not hating anyone, you don’t despise anyone. Your attitude changes on things of that sort. This writer changes languages in order to bring out the fact that the Rapture could occur at any time. “So much the more” doesn’t look much in the English.

“as you see” — the dative neuter singular of the correlative o(soj. With this we have the present active indicative of blepw which means to see and blink the eyes and see. The present tense is retroactive progressive present denoting what has begun in the past and continues, the perception of doctrine that the Rapture could occur at any time. The active voice: the believer who is positive toward doctrine produces the action, he understands the Rapture and makes the proper application. The indicative mood is the declarative indicative which views the action of the verb from the viewpoint of absolute reality. Every day the Rapture is getting closer. “the day” — this could be the day of your death or the day of the Rapture. Here it refers to the day of the Rapture; “approaching” — the present active participle e)ggizw. The futuristic present of e)ggizw means that the imminency of the Rapture is a very definite principle of doctrine. The active voice: the Rapture produces the action. The participle is circumstantial to show that no doctrine has to be fulfilled, that the Rapture can occur at any time. This is the doctrine of the imminency of the Rapture.

Translation: “Stop forsaking [neglecting, retreating] from the assembling together of yourselves, as is the habit of certain reversionists; but by being an encouragement, even so much the more as you see the day of the Rapture approaching.”

Chapter 12:1-3;10:26; John 16:9

Hebrew 12:1 — the first word is most unusual. It is translated “Wherefore” but it is not wherefore at all, it is a triple compound inferential particle toigaroun, and toy only have it a couple of times in the Koine Greek because it is not useable too much in that language, it is more of a classical Greek type of word. The only way to translate it is to bring out the entire concept here. It is a compound particle, toi, gar and oun are three words put together. When they are put together it means that there has been a parenthesis, a long parenthesis, and something on the other side of the parenthesis must be extracted in order to come to a conclusion. Actually, toigaroun is one of the proofs that the entire eleventh chapter is parenthetical. As a matter of fact the eleventh chapter of Hebrews is not only parenthetical but it brings out some very wonderful points that even in Old Testament times there were supergrace heroes, people who advanced and took the high ground of supergrace status. This participle, in order to extract right information, goes back beyond the eleventh chapter, the entire eleventh chapter being a parenthesis. It goes back to chapter 10, verse 39 which says literally, “But we are not the retreating category [in other words we are going to stay with doctrine] of believers designed for destruction [sin unto death]; but we are the doctrinal type for doctrinal possession of the soul.” Now, toigaroun reaches back and grabs that verse and continues it, and in the continuation it should be translated “for this very reason therefore.” It is indicating that the royal family is designed for maximum doctrinal possession of the soul. That, of course, is the supergrace status and the status in which in this life we have the most appreciation of who and what the Lord is.

The supergrace heroes of the Old Testament which are portrayed in Hebrews chapter eleven are a source of encouragement to the royal family of God in this dispensation. They are an encouragement to us to advance and take the high ground. They did not have any of the things that we have by way of doctrine but they were able to take the high ground with less support, with less provision, and with less of the wonderful things of life that God has given to us in grace. For this reason we have now this three-paragraph field order in chapter twelve, and we are going to look now at paragraph one, the authorisation for the advance. Paragraph two is the objective of the attack — verse 2, and paragraph three is the encouragement to advance.

This paragraph starts out “For this very reason therefore,” and it means we are not the retreating kind because we were not designed for the sin unto death, we were not designed by God for maximum discipline. In other words, you and I as members of the royal family of God were designed for something better. One of the great subjects in the book of Hebrews, “a better covenant, a better priesthood,” we have better things all the way around. Therefore we were designed to take the high ground, we were designed to follow the colours, we were designed for the supergrace life. Because we were designed for these things God’s grace has made it possible for us to fulfill a mission, and this is the authorisation for the royal family to advance.

The phrase “seeing we also” is one of those pitiful things that translators try to use to smooth out English. The word “also” is correctly translated, it is the adjunctive use of the conjunction kai. But with it we have simply the nominative plural of the personal pronoun e)gw, and the best you can do with this is translate it literally and correctly, “we also.”

“are compassed about with” — incorrect. What the translator tried to do here was to merge two prepositions, but he ignored something. He ignored the fact that one of these prepositions has an object in the accusative and he translates it like a nominative. Then he ignored the nominative, the subject of the second participle. The first participle is the present active participle of e)xw, to have and to hold. This participle is a static present for a condition perpetually existing. In other words, we will always have the roster of the supergrace heroes of the Old Testament in Hebrews chapter eleven. The active voice: we as members of the royal family will always be encouraged to follow the colours by studying these people. The participle is known as a concessive participle and therefore it should be translated “since.” The subject of this participle is that little word e)gw in the plural — “since we keep having.” So we have, “For this reason therefore since we also keep having.” The second participle is the present middle participle perikeimai which means to be placed around, to be surrounded by in the sense of combat support. So when we translate this participle “surrounding” you will understand that it is used in the sense of support — supporting our advance. The present tense is a static present for the fact that those heroes of the Old Testament, mentioned in Hebrews eleven, form permanent support and encouragement to us in our advance to the high ground of supergrace. The middle voice is a direct middle, it is one in which the agent, the royal family, participate in the results of the action. In other words, the royal family is supported in the advance by studying and learning as a part of doctrine about the Old Testament supergrace heroes, those specifically in Hebrews chapter eleven. The participle is circumstantial. So far we have in this verse, “For this reason therefore, since we also keep having surrounding us.” But we are going to have to fill in some things between “keep having” and “surrounding us.”

The word “us” is the dative plural indirect object of e)gw. It is a dative of indirect object which indicates the royal family, the ones for whom the action is designed, are blessed by it. The action of this verb is designed, therefore, for blessing and the advance of the royal family.

Between “having” and “surrounding” we have a lot of words. The first of these is “so great,” but “so great” is mistranslated in this passage because you’ll notice it says “so great a cloud of witnesses” and that isn’t what the passage says at all. “So great” is the accusative singular of a qualitative demonstrative pronoun toj o(outoj. A demonstrative pronoun is used to emphasise something in the paragraph; a qualitative one says that whatever is being emphasised is of the highest quality. Therefore, it should be translated “such great.” Remember that with this is the accusative and it is the direct object of the first participle. The first participle is “since we also having.” The accusative of the direct object means that “such great” goes as the object of that verb, that participle. It isn’t translated that way in the KJV. Then there is something else here. You have the absence of the definite article with this unusual demonstrative which again emphasises the quality of the pronoun. So we have a double emphasis on quality. With this double emphasis it demands additional English words to clarify the translation. So it should be translated, “since we also keep having such great.” Now we have to explain “such great what.” We know from that triple compound inferential particle and the parenthesis of Hebrews chapter eleven that we are referring here to the Old Testament supergrace heroes, those who were unbending, those who followed the colours, those who were consistent in taking in doctrine on a consistent basis and reached the high ground of tactical victory. So it should be translated “since we also keep having such great Old Testament supergrace heroes.” We have them as a source of encouragement. Then you can put a comma, and then you have “a cloud of witnesses.” See the problem here” “so great” as you have it in the English is accusative in the Greek; “a cloud” in nominative in the Greek, so obviously “so great” and “a cloud of witnesses” does not go together. Why? It is very simple. Obviously an accusative does not go with a nominative. So it isn’t “so great a cloud of witnesses,” though everyone translates it that way.

“a cloud” — this goes with the next participle. The subject is nefoj, but nefoj is not the ordinary word for cloud, it is clouds when you want to think of a large group of people in the same outfit, like a battalion. So we have nefoj as the nominative and the subject of the next participle. Not only do we have the word “cloud” for a group but we also have with it a descriptive genitive of martuj — “cloud of witnesses.” It refers to the fact that the Old Testament supergrace heroes give testimony to the fact that it is possible in anyone’s life time to reach the high ground because they did it with less equipment than we have — and they made it. So they are witnesses only in the sense that they testified to us from their place on the roster in Hebrews chapter eleven. And they testify to us or they tell us, “You can reach the high ground.” “For this reason therefore, since we also keep on having such great supergrace heroes, a cloud of witnesses surrounding us.”

“let us lay aside” — incorrect. We have the aorist middle participle of a)potiqemi incorrectly translated as a hortatory subjunctive in the KJV. This participle has antecedent action to a hortatory subjunctive but it isn’t the hortatory subjunctive. The hortatory subjunctive is the main and the action of this participle precedes the action of the main verb. This verb, a)potiqhmi means to take off like clothes, to lay aside, to put away, to lay down, and it is also used for a soldier stripping himself for action. And that is what this means: being stripped for action. — “having taken off” is a good translation. We have an aorist participle here. This is a constative aorist, it contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. It takes the concept of stripping for action and regardless of its extent of duration it gathers it into a single whole. The constative aorist includes positive volition toward doctrine and everything that includes being stripped for action, assembling in the local church classroom, in spite of distractions of pleasure, of mental attitude sins, personality conflicts, resentment of the pastor or rejection of the authority of his spiritual gift. All of these things that might be distracting are stripped off so that your life becomes simplicity itself. Bible class is the hub of your life. The middle voice is the indirect middle and it emphasises the agent, the royal family, as producing the action of the verb rather than participating in its results. So the constative aorist, therefore, plus the middle voice means the use of rebound, the concentration in Bible study, the poise of good manners in the local church, constantly making sure that you are controlled by the Spirit, and in spite of monotony, discouragement, despondency, illness, or anything else, you just keep right on with it. In other words, this is the counterpart to unbending. This is a circumstantial participle, it depicts the believer one or two ways. The language could be that of a runner or it can be a military man, and which way it goes depends entirely upon the participle coming up which as an ascriptive participle means military. As a circumstantial participle, in other words a verbal use of the participle, it would mean a runner.

“every weight” — this is the accusative singular of direct object of paj plus o)gkoj. O)gkoj is not a weight, it is an impediment, a burden, a haversack that is loaded up with stuff and it is too much — “having removed every impediment.” The impediments include anything that keeps us from consistency in taking in Bible doctrine. They include social distractions, any person who keeps you out of Bible class, any pleasure distractions, sexual distractions, personality conflicts or hang-ups about authority or antagonisms with other people. Impediments include despondency, discouragement, monotony, loss of health, putting something in your scale of values first and when the conflict arises, going in the other direction. These are all impediments that keep you from advancing and taking the high ground. The whole thrust in this paragraph is consistency.

Sin can also be a hindrance, and so we have “and the sin.” And it is for you personally, it is not anyone’s sin, it is the sin that gets to you easily. It the accusative singular direct object of a(martia.

“which doth so easily beset” — this is the accusative singular of an adjective. The adjective modifies the word “sin”, and there is no verb here, there is no relative pronoun, and there is no adverb. The translator did everything here but put in an adjective, and all it is is an adjective. In one adjective we have everything, it is a triple compound adjective — e)uperistatoj. It is made up of the adverb e)u which means “well, prosperous, rightly, correctly,” the word peri which is a preposition meaning “around,” and i(sthmi which means to stand. The adjective means “easily ensnaring.” The best that can be done to make this more like an adjective — “and the easily ensnaring sin.” What is the easily ensnaring sin? It is a reference to the believer’s current area of weakness. It could be anything, no two of us have the same area of weakness and no two of us are ensnared easily by the same thing. So it is whatever gets to you by way of sin. How do you take off this easily ensnaring sin so you can advance? The answer is obviously the rebound technique.

So far we have, “For this reason therefore, since we also keep on having such great supergrace heroes, a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, having removed every impediment and easily ensnaring sin...”

Now we have the fourth hortatory subjunctive, “let us run” — only that isn’t what it says here. It is the present active subjunctive of trexw. All of the words that are used in the last half of this verse have a dual connotation. They are used in the realm of athletics, they are also used in the realm of military. W are getting close now to the ascriptive participle that will help us out. Trexw means to run, to advance, or to charge, depending upon the context. The verb has to follow the analogy of the others words, but it always means motion and it always means forward motion, and it always means rapid forward motion, it always means advancing. The present tense is a tendential present used for the action which is commanded though it is not taking place at the moment. It represents what is intended and what God has authorised. The active voice: the royal family is commanded to participate in the action of the verb, and the subjunctive mood is hortatory in which the writer invites the readers to join him in a course of action, and he does so under the form of a command. This is the subjunctive used as a command. “With patience” actually comes first in the Greek before “let us run.” It is dia plus the genitive of u(pomonh. Dia plus the genitive can mean several things — through, by, or with. Here it means “with” as translated. But u(pomonh means “endurance.” It matches “unbending.” Endurance connotes persistence of positive volition and has exactly the same idea as unbending in Hebrews 10:23 — consistent positive volition. So, “let us advance with endurance.”

The next word is the word “race” — the accusative singular direct object of a)gwn. It has both an athletic and military connotation. It is used of a stadium where a track meet is held. It also means conflict, struggle, fight, so it has a military connotation and often it has the connotation of a military objective.

“that is set before us” — present middle participle, prokeimai, and it means to lie before, to be present, it is also used for a goal or a destination. And here is the big issue. This is an ascriptive participle, therefore it should be translated “present”, and when used with a)gwn this participle means “present objective.” We have a present objective, so it should be translated “let us advance with endurance to the present objective.” And notice, you never advance without endurance.

Translation: “For this reason therefore, since we also keep on having such great supergrace examples, a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, having removed every impediment and the easily ensnaring sin, let us advance with endurance to the present objective.” The objective before us is supergrace status.

Chapter 10:26 — the definition of the willful sin. We start with a conjunctive particle gar, used to express a cause or reason.

“if we sin” — the present active participle of a(martanw which means if we deliberately continue sinning, it does not have anything to do with personal sin. It is a retroactive progressive present, it denotes what was begun in the past and continues to the present time, and it refers to those Jews in Jerusalem in 67 AD who are unbelievers. The active voice: unbelievers produce the action of this verb. It is a conditional participle, that is why it is translated “if.” It is not a conditional clause. A conditional clause would be a first, second, third, or fourth class condition. This is a conditional participle. It should be translated, “For if we deliberately continue sinning.”

“we” is the genitive plural from the personal pronoun e)gw. It is the subject of the participle and this is a genitive absolute — e)gw plus a(martanw.

The word “willfully” is deliberately or willingly — e(kousioj. It has to do with rejection of the Lord Jesus Christ at the point of gospel hearing. It is connected with the genitive absolute. The present tense of the participle indicates that these Jews had constantly heard the gospel and had constantly rejected it. So it is a reference to the unpardonable sin or the failure of the unbeliever to appropriate the gospel by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. This is what is mentioned at this particular point.

The doctrine of the unpardonable sin

1. The unpardonable sin is the one sin for which Jesus Christ could not and did not die because it is the sin of rejecting Christ as saviour — John 3:18, 36. It is a sin of volition.

2. The unpardonable sin is related to the convicting ministry of God the Holy Spirit — Genesis 6:3; John 16:7-11; Hebrews 10:29.

3. The rejection of Christ is called sin in John 16:9. This is the only unpardonable sin.

4. Synonyms for the unpardonable sin: “The willful sin — Hebrews 10:26-31; Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit — Matthew 12:31; Resistance of the Holy Spirit — Acts 7:51; Insulting the Holy Spirit — Hebrews 10:29.

5. Those who are under the unpardonable sin consider the gospel to be foolishness — 1 Corinthians 1:18; 2:14.

6. The unpardonable sin is categorised by strong delusion — 2 Thessalonians 2:11,12.

7. The unpardonable sin also has its own reversionism — 2 Peter 2:19-22.

So far we have “For if we deliberately continue sinning.” That is a genitive absolute with an adverb. The genitive case is the subject of the participle, and with this a conjunctive particle.

John 16:9 — “of sin” is a prepositional phrase, not a genitive case as translated. It is peri plus the genitive of a(martia. It should be translated “concerning sin.” It is genitive singular; just one sin. This is the unpardonable sin.

“because” — the causal conjunction o(ti explains what it means for the Holy Spirit to convince or reprove the world of sin. However, the verb “reprove” in the previous verse is e)legxw, future active indicative, and it is a gnomic future for a statement of fact or performance rightly expected under normal conditions. The active voice: the Holy Spirit acting as a human spirit produces the action. The declarative mood says that this is the main verb for the aorist active participle “when he is come.” So it merely sets up a dogmatic principle and acts as a main verb. Actually, verse 8 says “And when he [the Holy Spirit] has come, he will convince the world [of unbelievers] concerning sin, and concerning righteousness, and concerning judgment.” Then, “concerning sin because”, which brings us into verse 9.

“they believe not” — the present active indicative of pisteuw plus the strong negative o)uk, the one that slams the door. They have slammed the door in the Lord’s face when they reject the gospel. The present tense here is a retroactive progressive present to show once again that the unbelievers in Jerusalem to whom this was originally sent had heard the gospel many times and had consistently rejected it right up to this moment. Again, the active voice: the unbelievers in Jerusalem rejected Christ; they produced the action of the verb. The indicative mood is declarative for a historical fact.

“on me” — e)ij plus the accusative of e)gw, which is “with reference to me.” In other words, the gospel was presented to them.

The two verses, 8 and 9, simply say this: “And when he [the Holy Spirit] has come, he will convince the world [of unbelievers] concerning sin, and concerning righteousness, and concerning judgment; concerning sin because they do not believe with reference to me.” This is the sin we are discussing in our passage, Hebrews 10:26.

“For if we deliberately continue sinning.” The next word is “after that.” This is a preposition, meta plus the accusative of the definite article. The definite article is used as a part of the articular infinitive and therefore the infinitive is the true object of meta. In other words, the definite article is used simply to show that since the infinitive does not take a case, what the case would be so that it could be correctly translated. When the object of a preposition is a verb form that does not have any case — participles have cases but infinitives do not — you have to put in a definite article and whatever case you find the definite article, that is how you translate it. You see, meta plus the genitive means one thing but meta plus the accusative means something else. It is the difference between “with” or “associated with” or “after.” The infinitive here is the aorist active and it is mistranslated, it is translated like a finite verb, “after that we have received,” the aorist active infinitive here of the verb lambanw. It should be translated “after having received.” The aorist tense is the constative aorist, it gathers into one entirety all of the rejections of Christ after they have heard the gospel. The active voice: the unbelieving Jew produces the action. The infinitive is an infinitive of result.

“the knowledge” — the accusative singular direct object of e)pignwsij which means a full and through understanding of the gospel.

“of the truth” — possessive genitive singular of a)lhqeia referring to gospel doctrine.

“there remaineth” — present passive indicative of a)poleipw which means to leave behind. We have a static present for a condition which perpetually exists, and apart from Christ there is no salvation. That is the condition; “there remaineth no” — the passive voice: the subject receives the action of the verb, the subject is sacrifice. The indicative mood is declarative for a dogmatic statement of doctrine which is found in another form, a positive form of Acts 4:12.

“no more” is the strong adverb o)uketi, a very negative adverb. It has the idea of not ever, it is a door closer.

“sacrifice” — qusia; “for sins” is really “concerning sins”, or “on behalf of sins,” peri plus the genitive plural a(martia.

Translation: “For if we deliberately continue sinning [rejecting Christ] after having received the full knowledge of the gospel doctrine, no more sacrifice on behalf of sins is left behind.”

The writer who is both a Jew and a member of the royal family of God identifies himself with Jews in Jerusalem in a very personal way. He said “we”, but he is saved. They are unsaved. So this is known as the strongest personal appeal. The appeal is made to fellow Jews on the eve of the fifth cycle of discipline in the year 67 AD. The fifth cycle of discipline will be completed in 70 AD.

Summary

1. Three factors are found in this verse. a) Some people are guilty of willful sin which is rejection of Christ as saviour; b) These who are guilty have received a full understanding of the gospel; c) For such persons who have rejected Christ there is no sacrifice for sins, i.e. there is no other way of salvation. You can see the problem. A lot of these people spend a lot of time going into the temple and offering sacrifice, but there is no sacrifice.

2. There is only one efficacious sacrifice for sin, Jesus Christ on the cross bearing our sins.

3. The blood of Christ is the only solution to the sin problem.

4. Furthermore, the blood of Christ or the expiatory sacrifice of Christ on the cross is the only efficacious sacrifice for sins. This goes back to Isaiah 53:5,6; Romans 5:6-9; Hebrews 7:27; Ephesians 1:7; John 14:4; Acts 4:12, and many other passages.

5. Furthermore, under the doctrine of unlimited atonement Christ died for the entire human race, so He died for all of these Jews who have rejected Him. Therefore no other sacrifice can exist for them which will save. They are involved in sacrifices which will not save them.

6. Therefore the willful sin is defined in this context as negative volition toward the gospel, rejection of Christ as saviour after having received a clear understanding of the gospel.

7. Such rejection is unpardonable, for now other sacrifice for salvation can exist — John 3:18, 36; 16:9.

8. However, for the believer in Christ there is no such thing as an unpardonable sin. Therefore only an unbeliever can commit the unpardonable sin — and any time he believes in Christ he has canceled the unpardonable sin. When Christ has been rejected as saviour there is no efficacious sacrifice for sin, therefore our verse defines the unpardonable sin in terms of the willful sin, a synonym for the unpardonable sin. By definition the willful or unpardonable sin is failure on the part of the unbeliever to appropriate the gospel by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

The second verse is much more difficult than the first in many ways. The reason is because again we have so many problems in the grammar and the syntax in the Greek. We find writer, whoever he was, uses a very unusual combination of classical Greek, Koine Greek, Patristic Greek which has only been recovered fully in the last few years through the discovery of a large amount of papyri from which this type of Greek was used.

We begin with the word “Looking”, the present active participle of a)foraw. This is made up of two words, the preposition a)po, the preposition of ultimate source, and the verb o(raw which means to take a good long look, in contrast to blepw which means to take a quick glance. The word actually comes to mean to look away, to look off to, to turn the eyes away from other things and fix them on something more important, to turn one’s mind on something, to focus on something, to view from the source of doctrine. The verb connotes concentration on the object. The objective for us a the royal family is the high ground of supergrace. So a good translation would be “Be looking away.” That is because of the type of participle we have. The present tense here is the tendencial present, it is used here for an action which is purposed but no actually taking place. This is one of those unusual types of present tenses, a present tense which indicates you ought to be doing this but you’re not. This is what is being commanded for you but it isn’t being done at the present time. The royal family produces the action of the verb by focusing their attention on the objective and following the colours to it. The participle is used as an imperative mood. This happens every now and then in the Koine Greek, a participle can be used in that way after a series of either imperatives or hortatory subjunctives.

This is also a directional verb and a directional verb usually has a prepositional phrase as its object., and the prepositional phrase is “unto Jesus” — e)ij plus the accusative of I)hsouj. “Be looking away toward Jesus.” In other words, after a glance at the great battalion of witnesses, the Old Testament supergrace heroes of Hebrews chapter eleven, “Concentrate on your objective.” You are looking at people who have been there and made it, and that of course, is the eleventh chapter of Hebrews. Occupation with Christ is the first and foremost and most important principle in the concept of advancing to maturity, it is a doctrine which belongs to the supergrace believer.

The doctrine of occupation with Christ

1. Occupation with Christ is the basic characteristic of the supergrace life. It is the maximum expression of category #1 love toward God — Deuteronomy 6:5; Hebrews 12:2. It can only occur under conditions of consistent function of GAP, consistent intake of doctrine, so that the soul is literally saturated with doctrine resulting in capacity for category #1 love.

2. Occupation with Christ can only be achieved through the function of GAP, it is not achieved through any system of Christian works whether they are authorised by the Word of God or are merely the activities of legalism. Occupation with Christ, therefore, depends entirely upon the intake of doctrine and becomes the perfect expression for maturity in the royal family on earth. Capacity for occupation with Christ therefore depends on the intake of doctrine and its residence in the soul — Jeremiah 9:24; Ephesians 3:18,19; 4:20; Colossians 3:1,2; Philippians 3:7,8. The function of GAP is the believer priest responding to the love of the Lord Jesus Christ — James 1:21,22. Occupation with Christ is the motivator of the pastor-teacher in consistency in teaching the Word of God as well as those who respond. Under occupation with Christ, therefore, the believer enters the normal function of the priesthood — Hebrews 6:10.

3. An illustration of occupation with Christ is the doctrine of right man-right woman as found in the scripture — 1 Corinthians 11:7; Ephesians 5:25-32, both of which indicate that right man-right woman is a direct analogy to the occupation with Christ status.

4. Relation ship to the strategic victory. Occupation with Christ is related to our Lord’s strategic victory of the ascension and session, as illustrated by Colossians 3:1,2 where we are to be occupied with Him seated at the right hand of the Father. This is also brought out in Hebrews 12:2.

5. The permanence of category #1 love is based upon the sealing ministry of God the Holy Spirit which at salvation guarantees that there will be an eternal love relationship between Jesus Christ and the royal family. So it is a permanent relationship, according to Ephesians 1:11-14. Because it is a permanent relationship there is no sense in waiting for eternity to start enjoying it. The enjoyment of it is the status of Christian maturity.

6. Occasionally there is a phrase in the Word of God which indicates a title for occupation with Christ, such a believer is known as the friend of God as in the case of Abraham illustrates the principle — filoj qeou, James 2:22,23.

7. The characteristics of occupation with Christ. a) Occupation with Christ is the basis for supergrace believers contributing to national blessing. This is where the believer becomes the salt of the land — Deuteronomy 30:16, 20; b) It provides courage and victory in battle — Joshua 23:10,11. The quality of military personnel is often related to not only the training and the discipline but also to the principle of those involved in the ranks who are occupied with the person of Christ; c) Occupation with Christ leads to both preservation and prosperity — Psalm 31:23, 24; d) Occupation with Christ is associated with stability and great happiness — Psalm 16:8,9; e) Occupation with Christ results in supergrace blessings — Psalm 37:4,5; f) Occupation with Christ is the basis of blessing in suffering. While reversionism intensifies suffering occupation with Christ minimises suffering — Psalm 77.

8. Occupation with Christ is the means of glorifying God in phase two — Ephesians 3:21.

9. Occupation with Christ begins at the believer’s entrance into the supergrace life — Colossians 3:16,17; Hebrews 3:1,6.

The rest of this passage gets tough from the standpoint of its grammatical contents. “Be looking away toward Jesus” is the first phrase. The word “author” is an incorrect translation of the accusative singular a)rxhgoj, which is a prince or a ruler or a leader. The noun connotes a ruler or a prince on the basis of beginning something. He is the beginner of something, and Jesus Christ is the beginner of the royal family. He is not only the ruler but He is the ruler in the sense of the beginner of it. We are members of the royal family of God and we are here by courtesy of the Lord Jesus Christ. We are His guests on this earth as long as He sees fit to keep us here and we are here to fulfill certain objectives. So He is the leader, the ruler, the prince.

The definite article in the accusative should be translated as a possessive pronoun. This is often the way it is, especially in the transition from classical Greek to Koine Greek. So it is a correct translation to say “our prince.”

The next word is “finisher” — the accusative singular of teleiwthj, which does not means finisher. It is a hapaxlegomena and it only occurs here, and it means consummater, completer, the one who will bring us through to final attainment — “Be looking away toward Jesus our ruler and the one who brings to attainment [the supergrace life] of supergrace status.”

“of our faith” is also wrong. Pistij in this section of the Word of God never refers to faith as such, it refers to doctrine and/or what is believed. There is no pronoun here and there no word “of.” “Of our” is not there, this is an ablative singular from pistij, and the ablative is an ablative of means and is translated “by the doctrine.” Ordinarily the ablative is never used in this sense, means is expressed by the instrumental case. But in the classical Greek — and it came into the Koine Greek — whenever you are dealing with a source then means is expressed by the ablative rather than the instrumental. This has been a lost principle from those Greek languages that are involved here. So the ablative is used to express means where there is the implication of an origin, and the implication of origin comes from a)rxhgoj or ruler. Christ is our ruler, our leader, as members of the royal family. Supergrace is acquired by doctrine. This phrase emphasises both the means of attaining supergrace through doctrine resident in the soul as well as the objective of our life which is occupation with Christ or entrance into the supergrace status.

“who for the joy that was set before him” — the relative pronoun is correctly translated here, and that is all — o(j, referring to Jesus Christ: “who.”

“for the joy” is where we get into a really serious problem — a)nti plus the ablative of the noun xara is a classical Greek prepositional phrase. Xara is translated “joy” but really means “happiness.” In this case it refers to the Lord’s happiness, in other words +H is the meaning of the word “joy.” But it is not “for the joy” or “for the happiness” because in the classical Greek a)nti plus the ablative always means “in exchange.” Some thing is exchanged for something else. In the papyri it became very clear that the common usage of this preposition in the first century at the time of the writing of Hebrews was that it was “instead of.” In other words, a)nti always had a substitutionary connotation and in classical Greek it means in exchange for. Gradually it came to be a slight variation of that: “instead of.” But both have a substitutionary connotation. That is exactly what we have here. It should read, “who in exchange for perfect happiness.”

The implications of this classical Greek preposition are phenomenal. As a matter of fact the writer likes these Attic Greek phrases so well that he uses them several times, e.g. Hebrews 12:16 which should read “who in exchange for one meal gave away his birthright.” That is exactly the way we have it in verse 2. In exchange for His happiness Christ took the cross. Xara as the object of the preposition connotes perfect happiness here because it belongs to Jesus Christ as God.

“that was set before him” — that is wrong because it is translated, more or less, like a participle. We have here a present active participle of prokeimai which means, among other things, to be present. This is an ascriptive use of the participle and it should be translated like an adjective, “present”. Therefore this is a part of the prepositional phrase and it should be translated “who in exchange for the perfect present happiness.”

“him” is also out of line here. It is a possessive dative singular of the intensive pronoun a)utoj. A)utoj is an intensive pronoun used to identify someone important in context, used to identify the Lord. However, the dative of possession has no equivalent in the English so we translate it like a possessive pronoun. It should be translated “the present happiness to him,” that would be literal, but that is not what it means. It means “his present happiness.” So we now have “who in exchange for his perfect always-present happiness endured the cross.”

What does this mean?

Summary

1. To go to the cross for us Christ had to exchange His perfect happiness for maximum pressure and misery.

2. In order to fulfill the Father’s plan for the incarnation Jesus had to turn in His perfect always-present happiness for the most intensive excruciating agony of history, the cross.

3. The translation is the great issue here. As translated in the Bible it would indicate that it was the Lord’s joy to go to the cross, and that is incorrect.

Some other illustrations of this. The translation of the prepositional phrase beginning with a)nti is the real issue — a)nti plus the ablative always has the connotation of substitution. How do we know that? Matthew 20:28 — dunai thn yuxkn a)utou lutron a)nti pollwn. This starts in the middle of the verse, but the verse starts out: “Just as the Son of man came not to be served, but to serve.” Then we have “to give”, the aorist infinitive of purpose; “the soul of him” or “his soul,” the accusative of direct object from the infinitive; a)utou is the possessive genitive which modifies “soul”, it is “his soul.” Now lutron means “ransom,” and then we have a)nti plus the ablative which means “in exchange for” or “instead of many” — “to give his soul a ransom in exchange for many,” or “instead of many.” It always connotes substitution. So here Christ substituted the world’s greatest misery, the cross, for the perfect happiness always present with Him. That is what this phrase is actually saying in Hebrews 12:2.

What caused our Lord to exchange His perfect happiness for the intensive misery of the cross? The answer is found in Bible doctrine resident in His soul. This is what motivated Him. Bible doctrine in the soul oriented Him to the plan of the Father. That is what He said, “Nevertheless not my will but thine be done.” Doctrine motivated Jesus Christ to endure the cross. The resolving of the angelic conflict, our salvation, the formation of the royal family, the plunder of the royal family — supergrace blessing, all of these things were involved. So just as doctrine motivated our Lord to go to the cross so doctrine motivates the royal family to follow the colours to the high ground of the supergrace life. We are either motivated by doctrine or we are not motivated.

“endured the cross” — the aorist active indicative of u(pomenw. The aorist tense is a constative aorist, it contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. It takes the occurrence of the cross with Christ being judged for our sins, and gathers it up into a single whole. It gathers up into one ball of wax the saving work of Christ. In other words, “he endured the cross” refers to His spiritual death. This is “the blood of Christ” — redemption, reconciliation, propitiation. That took three hours, and that three hours is gathered up into one entirety. The active voice: Christ produced the action of the verb by bearing our sins and offering Himself an efficacious sacrifice. The indicative mood is declarative for an absolute dogmatic assertion.

This verb, u(pomenw, should remind us of something. We have had dia u(pomenhj in verse one, it was translated “let us advance with endurance.” That is exactly the same as unbending. We must be consistent, we must remain positive and stay positive; keep moving, keep moving no matter what. Where do we get that order? We get that from the fact that our Lord endured. And why did he endure? Because Bible doctrine in His soul kept Him on the cross until our sins were judged. Therefore, Bible doctrine in our souls will keep us following the colours until we’ve reached the high ground, and then we’ll hold it. So our Lord on the cross is an illustration of endurance. Endurance, therefore, must be defined. Endurance is maximum doctrine resident in the soul plus maximum pressure not hindering the believer’s advance. He goes right through the barrage of pressure. The royal family’s endurance is maximum doctrine resident in the soul plus maximum pressure to keep us from doctrine. Our pressures are designed to cause us to peel off from doctrine. They are something that keeps us from doctrine, from the tactical victory. But doctrine throws it aside.

“he endured the cross” — the accusative of direct object stauroj. The cross here refers to the fact that our Lord bore our sins, it refers to His spiritual death.

“despising” — the aorist active participle of katafronew. Fronew means to think, kata means to think down or think against, and it means to scorn, to treat with contempt, or to disregard. By the turn of the first century katafronew meant to disregard — “having disregarded” is the way it should be translated. The aorist tense here is a dramatic aorist for a result which has been accomplished. The active voice: Jesus Christ produced the action of the verb of disregarding something. This participle is both circumstantial and has antecedent action to the main verb. The main verb: “he endured the cross.” So this action came first. What was it that while He was on the cross or as He approached the cross He disregarded? Actually this is not exactly antecedent action, it should be coterminous action. While He was on the cross He stayed there, He stuck it out until every sin was judged. Why? Because doctrine in His soul gave Him the ability to disregard something, the objective genitive singular of a)isxkunh — which means ignominy. This is also a descriptive genitive for Christ bearing our sins — “having disregarded the ignominy he endured the cross.”

“and is sat down” — e)n decia te tou qronou tou qeou kekaqisen — “at the right hand of God he sat down.” First we have “at the right hand of the throne of God”, and then “he has sat down.” The perfect tense is the dramatic perfect, and the dramatic perfect is the rhetorical use of the intensive perfect which doubles the consequence of the existing results. It emphasises existing results to the maximum, so He sat down with the result that He still is seated in the place highest honour.

Translation: “Be looking away toward Jesus our ruler and the one who brings us to the attainment of the supergrace objective by doctrine; who instead of his always-present happiness, having disregarded the ignominy he endured the cross, at the right hand of the throne of God he has sat down with the result that he remains seated in the highest position of honour.”

Verse 3 tells us to follow the colours. The explanatory use of gar now puts it all together. “For consider” — the aorist middle imperative of a)nalogizomai, a hapaxlegomena: a)na means again and again; logizomai means to think, but that is not what the word means at all. It means to think over. That is probably as close as we can come. The aorist tense is ingressive, which means the action signified by the aorist is contemplated at the beginning. The ingressive aorist takes the entirety and looks at it at the beginning. This is the way we should begin to think. It denotes entrance into the state of learning doctrine and therefore knowing Christ, beginning to concentrate on Christ. The middle voice is called permissive middle, it represents the agent, the believer, as voluntarily yielding himself to the results of the action in order to secure results from the action of the verb. This should be translated then, “For let yourselves begin thinking about.” The imperative mood is a command.

“him” is not correct, it is not a personal pronoun, this is a definite article in the accusative case used as a demonstrative pronoun and it should be translated “such a one [Christ].”

“that endured” — perfect active participle of u(pomenw. In every verse we have this in some form, the verb or the noun — “having endured”. The intensive perfect emphasises the existing results. The results include the efficacious sacrifice of Christ, His saving work, the passing of the colours to the royal family in His physical death, His resurrection, ascension and session. The active voice: Christ produces the action. The participle is circumstantial.

“such contradiction” — “such” is, again, classical Greek coming in and it is toi o)utoj. It is not such contradiction but such a)ntilogia, such opposition.

“of sinners” — we have a prepositional phrase, u(po plus the ablative of a(martwloj which expresses agency: “by sinners”.

“against himself” — e)ij plus the accusative of a reflexive pronoun; “lest” is a device of 300 years ago to introduce a final negative clause. A final clause can denote purpose, aim or goal. The negative actually goes with the verb, and therefore the conjunction i(na is translated as it should be for a final clause, “in order that.”

“ye be wearied” should be “you be not wearied” — the aorist active subjunctive of kamnw, a word that means to be fatigued, to be weary, to be worn out, to be exhausted — “in order that you do not become weary.” It is translated that way because we have an ingressive aorist. We have the active voice plus the negative which means that this is the negative purpose of the royal family: not to become fatigued in following the colours. The subjunctive mood plus the negative is called a subjunctive of prohibition. We are commanded not to become fatigued.

“and faint” — there is no word “and.” It is a device to turn a participle into a finite verb. The word “faint” is a present passive participle of e)kluw which means to become slack, to become weary, to lose courage, to become despondent, to become weakened. Here is means being feeble. The present tense is an iterative present, it describes what recurs at successive intervals. At some time you’re going to be discouraged and are going to want to give up when it comes to taking in doctrine. The passive voice: the believer with negative volition toward doctrine receives the action of the verb here, which can be any one of a number of things, any of the reactor factors in reversionism — self-pity, guilt complex, jealousy, bitterness, vindictiveness, implacability, disillusion, etc. The participle is a complementary participle, it completes the idea of the action of the verb. Our main verb is kamnw, being fatigued, and so it should be translated “in order that you do not become fatigued, fainting in your souls.” The word “mind” is yuxh, and this is the locative plural. We have a definite article used as a possessive pronoun.

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

In verse 26 we have failure to enter the plan of God. The passage in Hebrews chapter 10 which is pushing us toward the high ground of the supergrace life is interrupted at the point of verse 26 and going through verse 31. This interruption is designed with one thing in mind and that is to show that there is only one thing worse than failure to reach the high ground of supergrace and that is to enter the plan of God at all. This passage deals with that subject — failure to benefit from the gospel, rejection of God’s plan at the point of salvation. We have already studied verse 26 where we have the definition of the wilful sin. We have seen that it has to do with rejection of the Lord Jesus Christ as saviour.

Verse 27 — the result of the wilful or unpardonable sin (rejection of Christ as saviour), the sin of negative volition, refusal to respond to the gospel. We begin with the connective particle de which is used as an adversative conjunction. This adversative conjunction sets up a contrast with the previous clause, and in contrast to the refusal to accept the gospel there is something in eternity as a result of rejection of Christ. The word “certain” is an enclitic indefinite pronoun used as an adjective to indicate that a principle is being introduced — “But a certain fearful.” The word for “fearful” is an adjective, foberoj, which means fearful, frightful, terrible, causing fear, terrifying, and it is a very weak word when you realise what it is covering. It is covering the lake of fire forever and ever.

Then we finally have a noun, “looking for” — e)kdoxh, used for expectation. It means expectation, and with the adjective the worst kind of expectation.

“of judgement” — the possessive genitive singular of krisij and is a reference to the last judgement which is the result of rejection of Christ as saviour.

“and fiery indignation” — the words are a little different, “a fury of fire” is what it says. We have a genitive singular of the noun pur for fire, and then with that we have the word zhloj which generally means zeal, but it also has other meanings as well; jealousy is one of them, and jealousy is considered to be a burning and destructive fire. So this word “zeal” goes two ways: zhloj, meaning zeal; it could be “ardour,” a fire called love, or it could be jealousy. It is a fiery word and it is put together with a fiery noun. So we have pur zhloj which is a “fury of fire.”

“which shall devour” — it takes two words here to describe eating. We have no relative pronoun, instead we have two verb forms. We have the present active participle followed by a present active infinitive. The participle is mellw which means “to be about to be.” Then the present active infinitive of e)sqiw means to eat. The two forms together are translated “being about to devour.” The present tense in both the infinitive and in the participle is a static present, which indicates an eternal state, a state that will never change, a permanent state. The active voice in each case indicates that the fire is always in the process of eating but never in the process of swallowing. These two words together — a participle plus an infinitive — means that the fire keeps chewing but it never swallows, the fire keeps burning but you never die. That is the point. Eternal hell is a place where you burn and burn and burn and burn, but you never, never, never die.

“the adversaries” — this is an old English word for enemy. It is the accusative plural of direct object from the noun u(penantioj. This word means enemies. It is a quotation from Isaiah 26:11. It is talking about the enemies of God forever, those who have rejected Christ as saviour.

Translation: “But a certain terrifying expectation of judgement and fury of fire, being about to devour your enemies.”

The doctrine of enemyship

1. The Bible specifies by definite category certain stated hostilities or alienations whereby two parties are estranged. Some of these categories have to do with theology and some do not. Many times in the Bible it talks about a woman hating a man, e.g. David’s first wife came to despise him, but these are simply historical occurrences which advance some principles of doctrine in the scripture but are not doctrines themselves. So definite categories refer to those areas where a certain category of the human race, a segment of the human race or an individual in the human race, is an enemy of God or an enemy in principle to some concept of doctrine. The fact that there is no reconciliation and the enmity is stated by nouns and so on is what we are going to study theologically in this categorising. So just because we have passages like “If thine enemy is hungry feed him, if he thirst give him drink, we are not covering those categorically because their theological implications do not fall into the concept of enemyship.

2. Satan and fallen angels are the enemy of believers — 1 Timothy 5:14; 1 Peter 5:8 — “Be stabilised, be on the alert, your enemy the devil prowls about like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour.”

3. Demons are the enemies of God — 1 Corinthians 15:25; Hebrews 10:13 — “He sat down on the right hand of God. From that time on he is waiting until his enemies [demons] have been allotted the footstool of his feet.” The principle: God has very definite enemies in the fallen angels under Satan.

4. Unbelievers are the enemies of God — Romans 5:10; Colossians 1:21 — “And you being at one time in a state of alienation and hostile in your thinking in evil deeds ...”

5. Both categories of enemies of God, demons and unbelievers, will be judged and cast into the lake of fire. All the enemies of God are consigned to the lake of fire in eternity — Hebrews 10:27.

6. The carnal believer is the enemy of God — Romans 8:7,8. “Because the carnal mind is hostile with reference to God, for it is not subordinate to the law of God for it is not able to do so. And they that are in the flesh are constantly unable to please God.”

7. God is also the enemy of the reversionistic believer — 1 Samuel 28:16, “… therefore he [the Lord] has become your enemy.” When a believer is about to die the sin unto death he dies as the enemy of God. The sin unto death is administered as an enemy. Therefore the sin unto death is the most awful punishment that can ever occur in the life of the believer, but remember that it occurs while the believer is living. But the moment he dies the punishment is all over.

8. The reversionistic believer is the enemy of God — it works two ways — James 4:4.

9. The reversionistic believer is also the enemy of the cross — Philippians 3:18.

10. The pastor who counters legalism with true doctrine is considered the enemy of the legalist. When a pastor teaches grace and stands on the principle of grace, legalism despises him — Galatians 4:16.

The doctrine of the last judgement

1. The last judgement is defined as the culminating judgement of history in which the unbelieving segment of the human race is processed, judged, and cast into the lake of fire forever. Along with unbelievers all fallen angels [demons] are so judged. It is called the great white throne judgement, it is also known categorically as the second death — Revelation 20:12.

2. The basic categories of the human race must be understood in connection with this judgement. The human race is divided into two basic categories: believer and unbeliever. This division is based on attitude toward Jesus Christ — John 3:36. Attitude toward Jesus Christ divides the human race into believer or unbeliever, saved or unsaved.

3. In the last judgement only the unbeliever is under indictment. The unbeliever’s indictment is related to rejection of Christ as saviour. This is the wilful sin or the unpardonable sin — John 3:18.

4. The believer in Christ is not involved in the last judgement — Romans 8:1.

5. The unbeliever has two appointments — Hebrews 9:27. The first appointment is physical death, the last appointment is judgement.

6. The second appointment of judgement is kept by means of a second resurrection — Revelation 20:12-13. This means that the unbeliever will be in his physical body and in that body will be able to suffer from fire forever.

7. The unbeliever at the last judgement is condemned on the basis of human good — Revelation 20:12,13. Not his personal sins. The personal sins of the unbeliever were all judged at the cross, and at the same time human good was rejected. When a person refuses to believe in Christ he takes his human good to the last judgement and there his human good becomes the basis of his indictment.

8. The eternal state of the unbeliever is described under three terms: “the lake of fire” — Revelation 20:14,15; Matthew 25:41; “the second death” — Revelation 20:14; “dying in your sins” — John 8:21, 24.

Verse 28 — the illustration of the wilful sin. We begin with the word “he that despised” — an aorist active participle of a)qetew which means to reject, to set aside, to swerve away from. We have with this an enclitic indefinite pronoun tij, and therefore tij becomes the subject — “anyone having rejected” is how it is translated. The aorist tense is a constative aorist contemplating the action of the verb in its entirety. In other words, the constative aorist is used, for example, to the people to whom this was originally addressed. They heard the gospel in Jerusalem. They heard it again and again and again, and so gathered up into one entirety is the action of the verb. These people have heard the gospel so many times that they now have e)pignwsij understanding of the gospel and they still reject it. The active voice plus the indefinite pronoun tij means anyone who is an unbeliever produces the action of the verb. The participle is not only circumstantial but it has antecedent action to the main verb. We have to be careful about action with regard to a participle and a main verb. Generally speaking, and almost without exception, the action aorist participle or the perfect participle precedes the action of the main verb. So we call that antecedent action. The present participle’s action is coterminous with the main verb and is called simultaneous action. The future participle, a rare form, its action follows the main verb.

But occasionally you are going to find that the action of the aorist participle is also contemporary with the main verb — simultaneous or coterminous — because Christ on the cross was doing this. Christ on the cross stuck there, He stayed there, He didn’t quit in the middle, He endured the cross. That was the main verb, having despised the disgrace, the dishonour, and He despised it all the time He was on. Ordinarily that would have to be in a present participle but because it is one of the most dramatic moments in history we have that rare situation where that aorist participle has simultaneous action with the main verb.

Now here is a true case of antecedent action — the action of the aorist participle precedes the action of the main verb. The main verb is “died.” “Anyone having rejected” — this action comes first, you reject Christ before you die. And there is a principle and a point of doctrine: Any one who is alive on this earth has rejected Christ either at the point of gospel hearing, or before that at the point of God-consciousness, has had the opportunity to believe in Christ. We now have in this passage an illustration of wilful sin, and the illustration is rejection of the Mosaic law. Rejection of the Mosaic law is illustrating rejection of Christ as saviour. When a person said no to the Mosaic law he violated and died, physical death. When a person rejects the cross he dies spiritual death — another one of those representative analogies. “Anyone [in Israel] having rejected Moses’ law” — the accusative singular of the direct object for nomoj. Moses is in the genitive, so it is nomoj plus the genitive of Moses and it should be translated “law of Moses.” “Anyone having rejected the law of Moses died” — present active indicative of a)poqnhskw, a customary present tense denoting what occurred under the conditions cited in this passage. It is also an aoristic present because it views a past event with the vividness of a present occurrence. Therefore it is a very dramatic type of present tense. The active voice: the rejecters of the law of Moses produce the action of the verb, they died, were executed. The indicative mood shows the main verb, it is also a dogmatic statement of the declarative indicative that capital punishment is the only way to control crime.

“without mercy” — incorrect. He died without pity. We have an adverb xwrij used as an improper preposition. This adverb “without” is actually “apart” or xwrij, and it has with it the genitive plural of o)iktirmoj which does not mean mercy, it means pity. Pity means an emotion. Even though you were emotionally involved with someone because you were a judge you still said the penalty was death. Because the person had violated the law there was no emotional involvement in saving someone’s neck. So, “without pity” or “without emotion.” Anyone having rejected the law of Moses died without emotion from others. Pity is getting emotion from someone else.

“under two or three witnesses” — a revolutionary phrase which indicates the fact that the laws of evidence belonged to Israel thousands of years ago. We have e)pi plus the locative plural with the numerals duw and treij plus the noun martuj which does not mean a martyr, it means a legal witness. Witnesses is a technical word used for the courtroom where a good system of law prevails, and that is exactly what we have here. It is literally, “on the basis of two or three witnesses.” What is left out? “Testimony”. Witnesses testify, so it should be translated “on the basis of the testimony of two or three witnesses.” This is objective testimony acceptable under the laws of evidence, ruling out the principle of hearsay.

Translation: “Anyone having rejected the law of Moses died without pity on the basis of the testimony of two or three witnesses.

Summary

1. Here is an illustration from Deuteronomy 17:2-6. First the person rejected the law, then guilt was established by a bona fide judicial procedure from the laws of evidence. Under the laws of evidence you had to have a witness who had seen the crime, they did not accept hearsay.

2. Guilt was established by judicial procedure before capital punishment was administered. The law was fair. The point is that God is fair. Anyone who is in the lake of fire will always have one testimony: God is fair.

3. We have some case histories about this principle. Achan had a fair trial before his execution — Joshua 7:18-26; Nadab and Abihu — Leviticus 10 and Numbers 26:61; Dathan and Abiram — Numbers 16.

4. A representative analogy is now established. To reject the Mosaic law was punished by physical death while the rejection of Christ as saviour is punished by the second death or the lake of fire forever and ever.

5. The Mosaic law deals with the principle of divine establishment in life, but rejection of Christ deals with an eternal principle, a spiritual principle. Rejection of eternal salvation means the lake of fire.

6. While physical death or capital punishment is the maximum penalty for violation of the law it can never be compared with the second death which is eternity in the lake of fire.

7. Therefore we have a representative analogy, not an exact analogy, this illustration.

9. That means the lesser is rejection of the Mosaic law, the greater is rejection of Christ as saviour. This anticipates the first part of the next verse which gives a comparative description of the wilful sin.

Verse 29 — a comparative description of the unpardonable sin. We begin with the instrumental of measure of an interrogative pronoun posoj. It is translated “of how much,” but it should be translated in the instrumental of measure “by how much.” The instrumental of measure actually expresses the degree of difference. Hence, this is an argument now from the less to the greater. The less has been the illustration. If people died physically by disobeying the Mosaic law how much greater the second death those who have rejected Christ as saviour. The argument is from the less to the greater, from the illustration to the reality.

“sorer” — this is the genitive singular of xeirwn, and with it we have the comparative of kakoj, and when you put the two words together in modern translation they are a little different. It should be translated “more severe”; and then we have “punishment” which is correctly translated, it takes us back to the previous verse. Timwrew is the word for punishment and it means a punishment based upon a good trial, objective punishment based upon all the facts. So this is the righteousness and fairness of God in this particular word.

“suppose ye” is the present active indicative of dokew which means to think or to suppose; it is a word for thinking. Generally it has to do with objective thinking.

“shall he be thought worthy of” — this is simply one word, the future passive indicative of a)ciow which means to be deserving. The future tense here is a gnomic future and it is used for a statement rightly expected under normal circumstances. The passive voice: the subject, the unbeliever, receives the action of the verb. This is an interrogative indicative. The viewpoint of reality is implied in a fact inquired about. The interrogative indicative assumes that there is an actual fact which may be stated in answer to the question. Therefore, the phrase reads so far, “By how much more severe punishment do you think he shall be deserving.” This is the conclusion that you are supposed to draw from the previous illustration.

Then we come to the characteristics of the unpardonable or the wilful sin. The first characteristic is stated, “to have trodden under foot the Son of God.” You are to draw a conclusion. If a person dies physically by capital punishment for a violation of the Mosaic law how much greater should be the punishment that God will mete out to the person who rejects the Lord Jesus Christ as his saviour. At this point we now receive the characteristics of the unpardonable sin.

“trodden under foot” is the aorist active participle of the verb katapatew which means to trample under foot or to treat with disdain. The aorist tense is a constative aorist, it contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. It takes the occurrence of rejection of Christ after a clear delineation of the gospel and regardless of its extent or duration it gathers rejection into one entirety. In other words, the people to whom this was originally addressed were Jews living in Jerusalem in 67 AD, and during the time that they were living there they heard the gospel many times. They came to understand it very well. The active voice: the unbeliever produces the action of the verb. The participle is circumstantial. It should be translated “the one who has trampled under foot the Son of God [the Lord Jesus Christ in hypostatic union].” The word “Son” refers to the fact that He became true humanity to go to the cross; “God refers not only to His source but to His own deity. Disdain or trampling under foot is the strongest type of negative volition.

The second characteristic: “and hath counted” — the aorist active participle of e(geomai means to regard. This particular verb is used after assembling all of the facts, reviewing them carefully, and coming to a conclusion. The constative aorist, again, gather into a single whole the thoughts by which the blood of Christ is rejected. The active voice: the unbeliever produces the action. The participle is circumstantial.

“the blood of the covenant an unholy thing” — the word for blood, a(ima, refers to the saving work of Christ on the cross; “unholy thing” — the accusative singular of the direct object of koinoj is not “unholy,” it is “common, unclean, or ordinary.” They have heard the gospel over and over again, they have rejected it, to them it is common, unclean, or ordinary. “The blood of the covenant” refers to the saving work of Jesus Christ on the cross.

“wherewith” is a prepositional phrase, e)n plus the instrumental of the relative pronoun. The object of the preposition is o(j, the relative pronoun in the instrumental case. It should be translated “by which.”

“he [the unbeliever] was sanctified” — the aorist passive indicative of the verb a(giazw which means to be set apart or earmarked. All members of the human race have been set apart or earmarked by the doctrine of unlimited atonement. In other words, when Jesus Christ went to the cross he solved the problem of the old sin nature. When Jesus Christ was on the cross the sins of the world were poured out upon Him and judged, and human good was rejected. That is why no one can be saved by any system of human good — Ephesians 2:8,9. The dramatic aorist here states a present reality with the certitude of a past event. In other words, already their salvation was provided. There has been an elapse of 37 years since Jesus Christ was actually judged for their sins and they were earmarked for salvation. In the passive voice the subject receives the action of the verb. Here the unbeliever, specifically the Jewish unbeliever in Jerusalem in 67 AD, receives the action of the verb. The unbeliever is set apart by the blood of Christ. Christ died for the entire human race. The declarative indicative says this is a dogmatic fact of doctrine — “by which he has been sanctified.”

Characteristic #3, “and hath done despite” — we have an aorist active participle of e)nubrizw which means to insult. The aorist tense is a culminative aorist, it views the action of the verb in its entirety. In other words, rejection of Christ is the entirety here. As a result of constantly saying no to the gospel they have ended up insulting the Holy Spirit who makes the gospel clear to them.

God the Holy Spirit is introduced to us by His title “Spirit of grace” — to pneuma thj xaritoj which means Spirit of grace as indicated. In other words, God the Holy Spirit is the one who reveals grace to us.

Translation: “By how much more severe punishment do you think he shall be deserving who has trampled under foot the Son of God, and has considered unclean the blood of the covenant by which he has been sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace?”

The doctrine of the convicting ministry of the Holy Spirit

1. The convicting ministry of God the Holy Spirit is the pre-salvation work of the third person of the Trinity whereby He acts as a human spirit to clarify the gospel. He teaches the gospel only so that the gospel in the frontal lobe of the unbeliever can be understood. In other words, if you are going to make a true decision you must understand the issue. It is information that is necessary, not salesmanship.

2. The need for the convicting work of the Holy Spirit is found in 1 Corinthians 2:11,14. The unbeliever does not have a human spirit, he is spiritually dead, and therefore cannot assimilate the information.

3. The first reference to the convicting ministry of the Spirit is found in Genesis 6:3.

4. The mechanics for the conviction of the Spirit. God the Holy Spirit simply acts as the human spirit to clarify the gospel and make it e)pignwsij gospel — 2 Peter 2:20,21.

5. The doctrine of common grace. “Common grace” is a theological term. It is the work of God the Holy Spirit is revealing the gospel to the unbeliever. It includes enablement to understand, to perceive, the true issue of sin and eternal life. It is designed to present clearly the plan of God for salvation. Furthermore, this ministry is designed to present the universal call to faith in Jesus Christ. In other words, a dead man cannot understand the things of life. So with those who are spiritually dead. All unbelievers are spiritually dead, they cannot understand the things of God, therefore the Holy Spirit must make these things a reality.

6. The categories for the convicting ministry of the Spirit are stated in John 16:7-11 — sin, righteousness and judgement.

7. Theological definitions. Common grace is the convicting ministry of the Holy Spirit without the use of any human pressure. Efficacious grace is the convicting ministry of the Spirit in which positive volition is expressed. In common grace doctrine is simply revealed to the unbeliever — gospel doctrine; in efficacious the person who has received this information says, I believe.

The doctrine of the unpardonable sin

1. The unpardonable sin is the one sin for which Jesus Christ did not and could not die on the cross — rejection of Himself. The unpardonable sin is therefore refusal to believe in Jesus Christ as saviour — John 3:18.

2. The unpardonable sin is related to the convicting ministry of God the Holy Spirit — Genesis 6:3, “My Spirit shall not convince inside man forever”; John 16:8,9; Hebrews 10:29.

3. Rejection of Christ is called the sin — John 16:9, “and sin because they believe not on me.”

4. Synonyms for the unpardonable sin: blasphemy against the Holy Spirit — Matthew 12:31; resistance of the Holy Spirit — Acts 7:51; willful sin — Hebrews 10:26-31; insulting the Spirit of grace — Hebrews 10:29.

5. The unpardonable sin is categorised as strong delusion — 2 Thessalonians 2:11,12.

6. Reversionism of the unpardonable sin is taught in 2 Peter 2:19-22.

7. Those under the unpardonable sin always consider the gospel to be foolish — 1 Corinthians 1:18.

Verse 30 — The certainty of judgement connected to the unpardonable sin. We begin with the explanatory use of gar which can be translated “for you see.”

“we know” — the perfect of o)ida used as a present for something that we already understand. At least those to whom this was originally addressed understood.

“him that hath said” — the articular aorist active participle of legw used to cite references from the Word of God. This is simply a device to bring in documentation and the documentation comes from Deuteronomy 32:35.

“having said, Vengeance belongeth unto me” — not quite correct. We have e)kdikesij which does not mean vengeance, it means punishment. With that we have “unto me” which is a dative of possession and is part of a Greek idiom. This dative of possession or personal ownership should be translated “For you see we know the God having said, Punishment belongs to me.” Punishment personally belongs to God.

“I will recompense” — future active indicative of a)ntapodidomi which means to pay back or repay. The future tense is a gnomic future, it is a dogmatic statement of fact that there is a future judgement for the unbeliever. And it is a dogmatic statement of fact that not only is there a future judgement for the unbeliever but he will spend eternity in the lake of fire. The active voice: God the Father produces this punishment. The indicative mood is the declarative indicative for a dogmatic fact. “and again” is simply a device for quoting Deuteronomy 32:36 — “The Lord shall judge his people”. The word “Lord” or kurioj can be God the Father, God the Son, or God the Holy Spirit. Kurioj simply means deity. Here is refers to Jesus Christ who is to be the judge at the last judgement — John 5:22, 27. The word “people” here in its context refers to Israel, but here it is cited to include all members of the human race.

Translation: “For you see we know the God having said, Punishment belongs to me, I will repay. And again, The Lord shall judge his people.”

Verse 31 — the hopeless horror of the last judgement. The word “fearful thing” is an adjective foberoj, and it means terrifying. It has a definite article in the accusative singular which makes it the subject of the infinitive. So “a terrifying thing” is the way it should be translated as a subject. Remember that this is the subject of the infinitive under the principle in the Greek, the accusative of general reference. Occasionally to emphasise a point in the original language they will take the infinitive and make the accusative the subject rather than the object. So “a terrible thing” is the subject, “to fall” is the verb — the aorist active infinitive of e)mpiptw. The culminative aorist takes a look at the last judgement from the standpoint of its results. The aorist tense here recognises that the result of rejecting Christ, the result of the unpardonable sin, is eternity spent in judgement. The active voice: the unbeliever produces the action of the verb by rejecting the Lord Jesus Christ. The infinitive is a part of the accusative of general reference, and it should be translated “A terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” “Hands” is simply an anthropomorphism, ascribing to God a human characteristic which He doesn’t possess.

Summary

1. The key to the last two verses, 30 & 31, is found in the fact that the writer says to unbelievers in Jerusalem, We know the one [God].

2. Knowing that God the Father has turned all judgement over to Jesus Christ, John 5:22, means that the more a person knows about the fairness and the faithfulness of Christ the more he realises how hopeless, how futile, how horrible will be the last judgement.

3. Just as Christ is faithful to us in blessing so He will be faithful to the unbeliever in cursing.

4. The intensity of our eternal blessing as believers is matched by the intensity of the suffering and the punishment of the unbeliever. This means that the lake of fire is horrible beyond imagination.

5. The lake of fire has no escapees. The sentence is forever.

6. It is totally fair that those who reject Jesus Christ as saviour should suffer forever in the lake of fire.

7. This is the value that God the Father places on the work of Christ on the cross. God the Father has assigned to the cross the highest value so that all who reject the blood of Christ will spend eternity in the lake of fire.

8. This is why the blood of Christ is called “precious” in 1 Peter 1:18,19.

9. The Father has placed the highest value on the blood of Christ, and since God the Father was propitiated by the saving work of Christ on the cross it is inevitable that to have any less regard for the cross than the Father has means eternal judgement.

Therefore, our regard for the cross must be a matter of grace — Ephesians 2:8,9. Not that we can have the same appreciation for the cross that the Father has but in grace God the Father has provided a non-meritorious way whereby we can assess the same value to the cross that the Father did. In the moment that we believe in Christ, in effect, we recognise that this is the highest values in all of the universe: the blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, which cleanses from all sin.

2 Peter 1:12 — “wherefore,” an inferential compound conjunction, dio. It is made up of the preposition dia plus o(j which is the relative pronoun. It means “therefore” or “because of this.” This is the strongest of all the inferential conjunctions in the Koine Greek, and because of its great strength it means that whatever is being said now is the conclusion to everything. Actually, this is the conclusion of Peter’s life, this is the summation of everything that is important, and as an apostle he is now making this very strong declaration.

“I will not be negligent” — there is no negative here, there is simply the future active indicative of the verb mellw plus an adverb a)ei. In this passage with the future tense it should be translated “I will always be ready.” Peter is saying, “Therefore I will always be ready.” The future tense is a progressive future, it denotes the idea of progress in future time. As long as Peter is alive he will always be ready to do something, he will always be ready to make an issue as far as the way of life for the royal family is concerned. The active voice: the apostle Peter produces the action. The indicative mood is for the reality of the fact that Peter makes this decision.

“to put you in remembrance” — a present active infinitive of the verb u(pomimnhskw. The present tense is retroactive progressive present which means that Peter, because of his understanding of doctrine, because of his advance, because he is on the high ground, because during the latter part of his life he has held the high ground, because he has had the greatest of all blessings there, he now wants the others to join him in this particular situation. The active voice: Peter as an apostle and the writer of this epistle produces the action. The infinitive simply denotes his purpose — “to keep reminding all of you.”

“of these things” — peri plus the genitive of o(utoj means “concerning these things.” O(utoj is a demonstrative pronoun that emphasises something very near in the context — doctrine. Many times we are going to see o(utoj used for Bible doctrine. Here Peter is referring specifically to doctrine of residency or the importance of Bible doctrine in the soul of the believer.

Next is the conjunction kaiper which means “even though”; “you know them.” In other words, this is something they know, something they understand, and he is going to go over and over and over it. If people are ever going to do what God intended for them to do they have to not only know it, they have to remember it, they have to be in a position where they can’t forget it. In other words, what the apostle Peter is saying is that anything that is done right in life has to be done almost automatically. This means you have to hear doctrine again and again and again. We have o)ida which means these things have been heard again and again and again and have been assimilated. O)ida is a dramatic perfect tense, the rhetorical application of the perfect tense. The dramatic perfect simply takes the perfect tense and intensifies it. The perfect tense says the action of the verb covers something that has happened with continuous existing results. The dramatic perfect recognises that as a fact never to be argued with. “Although you have known these things for a long time” — this is a concessive participle and it describes therefore the fact that what the writer is about to say is so important, it is so commonplace. They have heard it over and over again. Because they have heard it so often, because they have learned it, because again and again this has been given to them, they have almost forgotten how important it is. Therefore he uses this particular word to show them that something they have heard again and again is so important that he passes on the colours.

“and be established” — the perfect passive participle of the verb sthrizw. This is an intensive perfect which emphasises again the existing results of doctrine resident in the soul. The passive voice: the believers as members of the royal family of God receive the action of the verb. The action of the verb is stability through resident doctrine. The participle is circumstantial.

“in the present truth” — this should be “by means of resident doctrine”. We have the preposition e)n plus the instrumental of a)lhqeia, the word for doctrine. There is also in this a participle, the present active participle of the verb pareimi which means to be present. It is the ascriptve use of the participle, therefore it is used as an adjective, and it is simply “present” or “resident.”

Translation: “Therefore I will always be ready to keep reminding you all concerning these things, although you have known and have become stabilised by means of resident doctrine.”

Verse 13 — The word “Yea” is a transitional use of the conjunctive particle de and should be translated “Moreover.”

“I think” — the present active indicative of e(geomai which means to lead or to guide. But if you are going to guide someone you have to know where you are going yourself. The word finally came to mean not to be a guide but to be a thinker, to know what you are doing. When people know what they are doing and they say something from their own thoughts, that is e(geomai. The present tense is a static present, it represents a conclusion to be taken for granted as a fact. So the apostle says, “Moreover, I think.” Peter is a thinker because of several things. He is a thinker because in the frontal lobes of his soul he has doctrine and he has vocabulary. No one can be a thinker without a vocabulary. Because of his technical vocabulary Peter knew what he was doing.

“it meet” — the accusative singular of dikaioj which means in the neuter here “duty.” The noun in the neuter is a part of the idiom of obligation. Peter considers it his solemn duty and his responsibility before the Lord to inculcate the royal family on the importance of Bible doctrine resident in the soul. This is a dogmatic statement.

“as long as I am in this tabernacle” — “as long as” is a prepositional phrase, e)pi plus the accusative of o(soj. This is another idiom and is a reference to life in phase two. E)pi means upon but “as long as” is the correct translation; “I am” is the present active indicative of e)imi, meaning alive; “in this tabernacle.” The word for tabernacle is skhnwma and it means a human body. Each one of us lives in a human body which is the tabernacle. Skhnwma means a tent or a tabernacle, and the human body is simply a tent, a temporary shelter.

“to stir you up” — the present active infinitive of diegeirw does not mean to stir up, it means to awaken, to thoroughly awaken, to excite, to turn on, to arouse. The present tense is an iterative present which describes what recurs at successive intervals. It is called also the present tense of repeated action. Whenever Peter teaches he reminds his hearers of the importance of Bible doctrine resident in the soul. The active voice: Peter produces the action of the verb by teaching doctrine. The infinitive expresses his purpose. His purpose is to teach doctrine so that they will be interested, so that they will be turned on to doctrine.

“by putting you in remembrance” is not correct. We have a prepositional phrase, e)n plus the instrumental of u(pomnhsij, and it should be translated “by means of a reminder.” The reminder is the repetition of doctrine, going over it and over it and over it again so you can’t forget it. The reminder is to teach it when you know it and instead of turning off and closing your ears to listen again and again to it.

Translation: “Moreover I consider it my duty as long as I am in this tabernacle, to arouse you, to turn you on to doctrine by means of a reminder.”

Verse 14 — “Knowing,” perfect active participle of o)ida. He is aware of the fact that he is about to die; “that,” the conjunction o(ti is used after verbs that denote some kind of cognisance or sense of perception. “shortly,” taxinoj: here is the adjective that Peter recognises as a short time to live. Peter knows that his death is very near, it is impending.

“I must put off” is incorrect. We have a nominative singular of a noun, there is no verb here. The noun is a)poqesij. We also have with it the definite article, also a verb, e)imi in the present active indicative, also a genitive singular of skhnwma for that word tabernacle again. And this is what it says: “Knowing that the laying aside of my body [tabernacle] is imminent.”

“even as” or “just as our Lord Jesus Christ has showed me.” “Showing” here is the aorist active indicative of e)ndhlow and it means to make it very clear. Jesus Christ told Peter how he would die.

Translation: “Knowing that the laying aside of my body is imminent, just as our Lord Jesus Christ has made clear to me.”

Peter is about to die and he knows he is about to die but he turns out to have at this point the most fantastic use of the Koine Greek language. His language is excellent. It should that he is not shaken, he is not weeping or wailing or falling apart. Why? Because he understands the doctrine of death, because he knows that to be absent from the body is to be face to face with the Lord, because he understands the principle that after death he goes to be with the Lord and there is no more sorrow, no more pain, the old things are passed away; because he knows that he has a mansion in heaven, because he knows that he has an inheritance, incorruptible and undefiled, fading not away, reserved in heaven for those who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time. He knows these things. He is not a bit upset.

Verse 15 — The principle: death does not destroy Bible doctrine. We again have the word “moreover”, the post positive conjunctive particle de. “Moreover” is used once again to emphasise Peter’s approaching death in which he will be removed from this life. However, Peter will leave behind a legacy to the royal family. When anyone dies from the high ground of supergrace they always leave behind a legacy, a spiritual heritage for other members of the royal family of God, a legacy and a heritage that is greater than any materialistic thing that was ever provided through a will. And Peter standing on the high ground of the supergrace life very close to death is about to leave a phenomenal legacy. He is about to pass on to us as members of the royal family of God, the colours.

“I will endeavour” — the future active indicative of the verb spoudazw which means to make every effort, to be zealous, to be eager, to be diligent. The future tense is a gnomic future, it is used for a statement of fact which may be rightfully expected under normal conditions. Peter is producing the action of the verb in communicating a dynamic message in context. The indicative mood here views the action of the verb from the viewpoint of reality, from the standpoint of dogma, from the standpoint of a dying person. So, “Moreover I will be diligent.”

The word “that” does not occur here. We have the emphatic use of the conjunction kai, ordinarily translated “and” and sometimes “even”, sometimes “also”, but here “in fact.”

Next in the Greek text comes an adverb, e(kastote which means “at any time”; “ye may be able” is not found in the original manuscript. And next in the Greek is what we have in then English as “to have”, a present active infinitive of e)xw meaning to have or to have and to hold. We also have with it the accusative plural of the pronoun su forming the accusative of general reference. Su is the personal pronoun “you” and it should be translated with the infinitive in the accusative of general reference “you may have it”.

“after my decease” — the preposition meta plus the accusative of e)codoj which means going out, going away, but it is used euphemistically as an expression for death, so it should be translated “after my death.”

“Indeed I will be diligent, in fact at any time you may have the doctrine after my death.”

Note the analysis of the present active infinitive of e)xw. It says “you may have it.” This is a part of the accusative of general reference, it is a static present. The present tense, “you may have it,” means that it will always be available, it will perpetually exist. And the static present says in effect that doctrine will always exist. You may have doctrine “after my death,” he says. The active voice: the royal family of God will always have doctrine. The infinitive, again, is a part of the accusative of general reference.

“to have these things in remembrance” means literally, “to recall these things” or to “call to remembrance these things.” We have very difficult Greek here. “To have these things in remembrance” is made up of three words. We have an objective genitive plural from the demonstrative pronoun o(utoj. O(utoj is used for Bible doctrine. To be able to call specific doctrines into memory. The middle voice is the subject, the royal family, acting with a view toward participating in the results of the action of the verb. This is what is called an indirect middle, it emphasises the agent as producing the action of the verb rather than participating in the results. We have an infinitive of purpose.

Corrected translation: “Indeed I will be diligent, in fact at any time you may have the doctrine after my death to call to remembrance these things.”

Summary

1. Doctrine continues in spite of the death or removal of any great teacher of doctrine or any pastor.

2. Peter will die very shortly but doctrine goes on forever.

3. Therefore it isn’t the man it is the message, it isn’t the human personality of the communicator, it is the content of doctrine that counts.

4. Men come and go but the Word of God abides forever.

5. The greatest thing a pastor can do for his congregation is to pass on the heritage of doctrine. Doctrine resident in the soul of the believer is the objective in this dispensation. Doctrine resident in the soul of the believer is the basis of occupation with the person of Christ.

6. Doctrine in the soul is the means of acquiring the supergrace status, supergrace blessings.

7. Doctrine resident in the soul, therefore, is the means of glorifying God who gives supergrace blessings to the royal family.

8. Therefore, if the pastor fulfills his function his departure or his death does not upset the stability of the congregation of royal priests.

9. Believers must depend upon doctrine resident in their souls rather than gimmicks, rather than scintillation from a personality-type pastor.

10. Every pastor who is faithful in teaching the Word will build something permanent, something will live way beyond his lifetime. In other words, the pastor’s tombstone is the doctrine resident in the souls of his congregation. He doesn’t need a tombstone to mark his grave for the marker is in the soul of any believer who has taken in doctrine and who has advanced through his teaching.

11. Doctrine resident in the soul is the impact of the pastor’s life and no ornate tombstone could ever replace this monument.

In 2 Peter 1:16-18 we have the reality of doctrine from experience — the seeing of doctrine, the feeling of doctrine, the smelling of doctrine, the tasting of doctrine, the hearing of doctrine in a very real type of situation.

Verse 16 begins with the illitive use of conjunctive particle gar. It presents a reason why doctrine is the only criterion. It also presents a reason why this is what a pastor must do: he must repeat, he must continue, he must interpret, he must talk and talk and teach and teach and teach.

“we have not followed” — the aorist active participle e)cakolouqew plus the negative, which is “for not having followed.” E)cakouloqew means to follow authority, it means to be obedient to authority, it means to respect the authority and therefore to follow the one who possesses it. Peter says, “we have not followed as our authority.” Peter is saying first of all by this negative that there is an authority to follow, and the authority that you follow is the most important authority of all as far as the Church Age is concerned — the authority of the pastor-teacher who is communicating. The aorist tense is the constative aorist, and with the negative it says we follow a system of authority — the constative aorist — but when you put the negative in there is also a system of authority you do not follow. So we actually have a double aorist here. Negative: we do not follow the wrong system of authority; positive: we do follow the right system of authority. the pastor-teacher concept. The active voice: Peter as an apostle and a writer of scripture does not use human authority or human viewpoint as source material. The participle is circumstantial and it has antecedent action to the main verb, the main verb is “we made known.”

“cunningly devised” — the perfect passive participle of sofizw which means subtly concocted, cleverly devised, skillfully invented. The consummative perfect is different. We think of the perfect tense in the sense of the intensive perfect where you have completed action and the results going on. We don’t have that here. There is no completed action that results here, this is called a consummative perfect in distinction to the one that we are familiar with. The consummative perfect does not emphasise the existing results but it emphasises the process. The process is completed but the process is emphasised. The passive voice: the subject [fables or myths] receives the action of the verb. The participle is ascriptive, i.e. the participle is used as an adjective. So it should be translated “cleverly concocted.” It means having been cleverly concocted but is translated simply “cleverly concocted.”

Then we have the substantive that goes with the participial adjective, the instrumental plural of muqoj which means “myths” just as it is transliterated. It also means legends or fables. So far we have the fact that myths existed at the time that Peter wrote. When he says “cleverly concocted” he means one devised by Satan himself.

“when we made known” — the aorist active indicative of gnwrizw. It means to communicate. The aorist tense is a constative aorist which contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety, and it summarises all of Peter’s doctrinal teaching with emphasis on the second advent, which will be used. The second advent of Christ, the constant advents of Jupiter is the concept in mind here. The active voice: Peter communicated doctrine. The plural subject indicates all the teaching of all of the apostles. Peter isn’t the only one who taught doctrine and so he brings in the other apostles and he brings pastor-teachers in with him on it. As a matter of fact that “we” stands for all pastors down through the ages who has communicated Bible doctrine faithfully. The indicative mood is declarative for the reality of the fact that Peter, as well as others with the proper gift and the proper authority, has taught doctrine.

“unto you” — the dative plural of the personal pronoun su. It is the dative of indirect object and it indicates the ones in whose interest the teaching of doctrine is performed. So it also becomes a dative of advantage. Now Peter names a doctrine because this is not only one of the doctrines that he had resident in his own soul but it is a doctrine which he personally had observed — “the power and coming of our Lord.” The word “power” is the accusative singular of the direct object of dunamij. This means inherent power. The word “coming” is also the accusative singular of another direct object, of parousia. This word is used eschatologically for at least three different events. It is correctly translated “coming.” But watch this word parousia because it is used for the Rapture in 2 Thessalonians 2:1; it is used for the second advent in 2 Thessalonians 2:8; it is used for the rise of the man of sin in the Tribulation in 2 Thessalonians 2:8. So it is used eschatologically for a number of things. In our passage it is used for the second advent, the return of Christ to the earth.

Summary

1. Peter has selected a doctrine from eschatology to make his point.

2. Peter will use the doctrine of the second advent as the basis for establishing the true and absolute criterion for the royal family of God in the Church Age.

3. Peter has the advantage of reality in this doctrine from two sources: from the experience of seeing the doctrine at the mount of transfiguration, and from the residence of doctrine in his soul — second advent doctrine.

4. The question arises: What makes a doctrine real? Seeing it or knowing it in the soul?

5. The question is now going to be answered. What is real to Peter? Seeing Christ as He will appear at the second advent, or the doctrine which teaches Christ at the second advent.

6. The answer will be found in our following verses.

The word “but” is a strong adversative conjunction a)lla. It sets up a contrast between visual observation of the second advent and the doctrine of the second advent resident in Peter’s soul; “were”— the aorist passive participle of ginomai — “but having been made,” literally. The constative aorist views the action of the verb in its entirety. The passive voice: Peter became a spectator of the second advent on the mount of transfiguration. The participle is circumstantial, Peter was actually there.

“eyewitnesses” — the predicate nominative plural of the compound noun e)popthj which means spectators. The plural indicates the presence of others with Peter there. In fact, it was Peter, James and John on the mount of transfiguration. So this was empirical reality, and it was reality with regard to the majesty of our Lord for we have an objective genitive from the demonstrative pronoun e)keinoj. E)keinoj denotes a remote object and emphasises it — the second advent. We also have the objective genitive of megaleiothj which means grandeur or majesty — “but became spectators of that one’s magnificence.”

Translation: “For not having followed as our source and authority cleverly concocted myths, when we had communicated to you all the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we have become spectators of his majestic magnificence [appearance of the second advent].”

The observation of Christ on the mount of transfiguration was the reality of the second advent from experience — through empiricism. It is Peter’s objective of this context to point out that while he has seen the second advent it is more real to him because of doctrine in his soul, and that if you must choose a source of reality there is nothing comparable to doctrine in the soul. In other words, Peter was saying if he had his choice of following the colours [doctrine] or just simply sitting down or going of in a tangent he will follow the colours every time.

Matthew 16:27 — “For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels, and then he shall reward every man according to his works.” The word “for” is the explanatory use of the conjunctive particle gar — “For you see.” Jesus is coming to the end of a message and He is now about to bring in a conclusion — “the Son of man”, the title of Jesus Christ in His hypostatic union with emphasis on His humanity. Something they can see is the humanity of Christ — “shall come” is not quite correct because we really have two verbs here in the Greek. The first is the present active indicative of mellw which means to be about to be. The present tense here is a futuristic present, it denotes an event which has not yet occurred but is regarded as so certain that it is regarded as having already occurred. There is nothing like this is in the English, the futuristic present is peculiar to the Greek language. The active voice: the second advent produces the action. The indicative mood is declarative contemplating the action of the verb from the viewpoint of reality. So already Jesus is stating here the reality of the second advent. Then we have a second verb, a present active infinitive of e)rxomai. This is a futuristic present as well, and also the second advent produces the action, but this is called the infinitive of conceived result. So the translation: “For you see the Son of man is destined to come”; “in the [his] glory” — e)n plus the locative singular of doca. When Jesus is standing in front of them He has no glory, He “has no ostentatious majesty that we would desire Him” — Isaiah 53. And so He tells the disciples He is going to come back again with ostentatious aristocracy.

“with his angels” — meta plus the genitive of a)ggeloj means “accompanied by his angels”; “and then” is the conjunction kai plus the adverb tote which means “at that specific time.”

Then a quotation from Psalm 62:12 and Proverbs 24:12, “he shall reward every man according to his works.” The word “he shall reward” is the future active indicative of a)podidomi. It is a gnomic future for a fact of doctrine expected at the second advent. Jesus will produce the action. The declarative mood is dogmatic about it, and it has to do with entrance into the Millennium. He will give back. This means to pay back. While we can translate it “reward” if we want to He is really talking about giving back Israel their national entity under God. The word a)podidomi means to give back. He is not going to reward anyone, He is going to give Israel back its national standing.

“each one according to his works” [pracij — actions, i.e. whether he believes in the Lord or not]. That is the determining factor with the future of Israel.

Verse 28 — “Verily” is a)mhn, this particle means to earnestly or positively affirm something. It is a transliteration from the Hebrew amen. This is legitimate since this was done in the Septuagint. It is used in the gospels for introducing something that is very solemn and very significant and it has a lot of meanings. It has, first of all, a pubic speaking meaning — concentrate. It always demanded that everyone refocus. After using this particular word Jesus would always pause, it demands that there be a pause, a pause to let everyone concentrate. “Verily” is an old English word which means “truth.” Now why did our Lord do this? He did it because the people could not concentrate. It should be translated, “Truth I say,” the present active indicative of legw. The present tense is an aoristic present for punctiliar action in present time. This is dative of advantage as well as the indirect object, it indicates the ones who are standing there that it is in their interest to see what is going to happen in six days.

“There are” — a conjunction o(ti used for quotation marks, plus the present active indicative of e)imi; “some standing here” — the nominative masculine plural is the subject; “some” is an indefinite relative pronoun, tij; the perfect passive participle of i(sthmi gives us a present periphrastic, which means that some are standing there like bumps on a log and not listening. They were standing with blank minds. The indicative mood is the reality of the fact that they were about to get a very beautiful picture of the second advent. He said “here” which is the adverb of place — w(de.

“which” — nominative masculine plural, qualitative relative pronoun o(stij. The qualitative relative pronoun emphasises poor quality here. The meaning of the qualitative relative pronoun, whether it is good or bad quality, is determined by the other words. And what are the other words? They are all bad, they are all people not concentrating, people not getting it, people not understanding it, people whose minds are wandering.

“shall not taste death” — the aorist active subjunctive of geuomai plus a double negative o)u mh, and the combination of the double negative occurs 96 times in the New Testament.

Continuing in Matthew 16:28 — “Truth I way to you, there are some of those standing here [Peter, James, and John] who will never taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.” The Lord Jesus Christ was about to make a demonstration which is very important. In chapter 17:1 — “And after six days taketh.” The word “and” is a transitional use of the conjunction kai. “Six days” means an elapse of time after Jesus had given a message that no one seemed to understand too well. The word “taketh” is the present active indicative of the verb paralambanw, which means to take along with you. Actually, para means discipline. It means to be taken along under a system of authority. When it says that Jesus took along it means in effect that He took a detachment of three here.

“and bringeth them up” — the present active indicative of a)naferw which means to be led by authority. The word ferw means to bear; with a)na it means to bear again and again. The historical present here plus the accusative plural of the direct object from the intensive pronoun a)utoj can be translated “and he led them by his authority up into a high mountain.”

Verse 2 — “And was transfigured.” Now Jesus said that some of the disciples would actually see the second advent long before it ever occurred. We have the aorist passive indicative of metamorfow which means to change one’s form, an outward and visible change, and outward transformation or appearance. The aorist tense is a constative, it contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. It takes an occurrence, our Lord’s transformation on the mount of transfiguration and regardless of the extent gathers it up into a single whole. The passive voice: Jesus Christ receives the action of the verb — transformation. The indicative mood is the reality of the fact that for a short time on that mountain with these three men as a detachment Jesus was transformed from the looks that He had to how He would appear at the second advent. It was a glorious transformation.

“before them” is literally “in front of them”; “his face did shine” — this means not really to shine but great animation, great aristocratic bearing; “and his clothes were changed and became white as light” — in other words He was very aristocratic looking, just as He will appear at the second advent.

Verse 3 — “And, behold there appeared to them talking with him” — and now we have the two heralds of the second advent — “Moses and Elijah.” This is an authentic second advent scene.

Verse 4 — “Then answered Peter” — a)pokrinomai doesn’t means to answer because no one has asked Peter anything. He spoke up; “Lord” — kurioj, this vocative indicates that Jesus Christ is God; “it is good for us to be here” isn’t quite what he said, he said “it is to our advantage to be here” or, literally in the Greek, “it is advantageous that we are here.” Notice two things about what Peter is saying: “it is advantageous to be here”, but he also says “we are here, you and I God.” Peter said in effect, “We are lucky, you and I Lord, to be here with all these VIPs” — Moses and Elijah. He hadn’t been listening, he missed the boat.

“if thou wilt” — this is a conditional particle, a first class condition of supposition plus the present active indicative of the verb qelw, and it really says “if you desire it.” Peter had learned enough doctrine to know that he just couldn’t override the Lord.

“let us make” should be “we will make here [in this place] three tents; one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah. He thought he could talk the Lord into this big deal. The implications of this “big deal” are no cross, no salvation, no royal family of God, nothing that is worthwhile in life, nothing that is permanent, no basis for perfect inner happiness, no basis for stability in life, no basis for divine viewpoint, nothing that is really worthwhile. This happens with people occasionally. They would like to superimpose their ideas on God’s plan. They would like to change God’s plan. They forget the principle that God is perfect, God is a genius, everything that comes from Him is perfect, God is perfect, His plan is perfect. And if any imperfect object has anything to say about the plan then the plan is no stronger than the imperfect object. Peter has forgotten this principle for Peter is an imperfect object and therefore his planning is not good.

At this time God the Father interrupts Peter. Verse 5 — “While he yet spake [while Peter was still speaking]” — Peter was not through with his plan, he had just got the part of his three tents for the Lord, Moses, and Elijah and was now about to go on when just at that point “a bright cloud overshadowed them; and behold a voice out from the cloud” — Peter heard this voice, it was the voice of God — “which was saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I have been well pleased; Hear ye him” — present active imperative of a)kouw, which means not only to listen but to listen and respect the authority of, to concentrate on, to recognise the authority of the one who communicates. The present tense is the present tense of duration — Keep listening Peter! Just keep listening to the Lord and you’ll get squared away.

Verse 6 — “And when the disciples heard it, they fell on their faces and were extremely frightened,

Verse 7 — “And Jesus came and touching them said, Get up, do not be afraid.

Verse 8 — “And lifting up their eyes, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone.

Verse 9 — “And as they were coming down from the mountain, Jesus commanded them saying, Do not tell anyone about this vision, until the Son of Man has risen from the dead.” In other words, this was a closed subject until the resurrection of Christ. Now after the resurrection of Christ, and many years later, Peter is dying and he recalls this event and he uses it to make a point.

2 Peter 1:17 — we begin with the explanatory use of the particle gar: “For you see.”

“he received” — the aorist active participle of lambanw which refers to the mount of transfiguration. The big point here is the temporal participle, “when he received”. This refers to a moment of time when our Lord was suddenly changed. Remember that this was empirical reality. Peter saw with his eyes the Lord change, he heard the voice of God the Father. It was so real and so great to him that he wanted to start building a city right there. He wanted the crown before the cross. But before he could get the whole plan out God the Father interrupted him.

The second advent and the Millennial reign of Christ were very real to Peter. They were real because he saw it, they were real because he heard the voice of God, they were real because it was such a great feeling to be there that he wanted to stay there forever. That is how great it was to him. And because it was so great to him he didn’t want it to ever change, he wanted to keep it just that way. Therefore the second advent is real to Peter.

There is something more real than what you see with your eyes, what you hear with your ears, what you taste with your mouth, what you smell with your nose. There is something more real in life than any of these things, and that is Peter’s dying message. In effect, Peter’s dying message explains to us the colours as the members royal family of God. As they did in ancient times we are expected to guide on the colours, to follow the colours, and to move to that high ground of the supergrace life.

And so we read, “For you see when he had received honour and glory from God the Father.”

“when there came such a voice” is not correct. The English translation ignores the genitive absolute, ignores the word order, ignores the grammar, and it should be translated “such a unique voice having been carried to him by his majestic glory.” In other words, it doesn’t say when he heard a voice, it says “such a unique voice”. The voice of God was unique.

Translation: “For when he had received from God the Father honour and glory, such a unique voice having been carried to him by his majestic glory, This one is my Son, my beloved one, with reference to whom I have been well pleased.”

What was left out from the Matthew account” “Keep listening to him.” Now in his dying moments, in effect, Peter is saying I am about to fall and I am going to pass on the colours to you. Pick them up and carry on.

Verse 18 — “And this voice [this same voice, literally. The voice of God the Father] having been carried from heaven we heard” — the constative aorist contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety, they heard everything that God the Father said. The greatest asset in the Christian life is listening. Keep listening. To keep listening you have to recognise that there is an authority greater than your own. You have to recognise that there is a plan greater than your own. Therefore the greatest asset that any believer can ever have is to keep listening, keep listening, keep listening — when we were with him in the holy mount.”

Verse 19 — there is a greater reality. “We have” — present active indicative of e)xw which means to have and to hold. The present tense is a static present, it represents a condition as perpetually existing. The active voice: members of the royal family produce the action. The indicative mood is declarative viewing the action of the verb from reality. Peter is saying there is something more real than being on that mountain, there is something more real than seeing Jesus transformed into the aristocratic and majestic bearing of the second advent, there is something more real than hearing the voice of God. The Word of God is more real than what you see, what you hear, what you smell, what you taste. It is the most important objective reality in life. It is your life, it is more important than the air that you breathe. It is the Word of God which is alive and powerful.

Notice he says “we keep having also a more sure” — incorrect. Bebaioj means more relaiable — “prophetic doctrine [not word of prophecy].” Peter is saying, more reliable than the mount of transfiguration is reading about it or learning it, or having the doctrine resident in the soul. What the Bible has to say is more real and more important than anything around us. If there is a conflict between what we see and what the Bible says, the Bible is always right.

Translation: “We keep. possessing this prophetic doctrine as something more reliable, with reference to which doctrine,

“you do well” — poiew, the present active indicative here means performance, “you perform.” The present tense is a progressive present and it emphasises existing results. You keep on performing. The active voice: members of the royal family of God produce the action of the verb through the function of GAP. The indicative mood is declarative. The word “well” is kaloj meaning honourably — “you perform honourably.” No matter what God has for you in this life, if you have doctrine resident in your soul you will perform honourably.

Hebrews 10:32-39, the challenge to follow the colours. In verses 32-34 we have the beginning of the advance.

Verse 32 — the first word is “but”, the Greek particle de is merely used for continuity. This is used to set up a contrast. There is a contrast between what we have had about the unpardonable sin and what is the objective of those who believe in Jesus Christ. This one little particle is used to change the subject from eternal salvation to the question, What are we doing here? The royal family has its regimental colours, Bible doctrine in the soul, and we advance on the basis of following the colours. Therefore, dressing to the colours is now going to be explained.

“call to remembrance” — the present middle imperative of the verb a)namimnhskw. A)na means again and again; mimnhskw means to remember. It means to recall something again and again. If you remember something that you really enjoyed at some time in your life, some moment of happiness, some triumph, something that you really liked, you will remember it all of your life. We have here an iterative present tense, it describes what recurs at successive intervals. All of us have moments when we can remember. The middle voice is the direct middle, it refers the results of the action directly to the subject with reflexive force. You yourself must do some remembering. The imperative mood: this is a command. In preparation for the advance we expect commands. So literally, “But keep remembering again and again.” Since we are dealing here with the advance to the high ground of the supergrace life, advance to the point of great happiness and blessing, since that is the issue what is it that we must remember again and again and again? The answer to that is the importance of Bible doctrine, the importance of getting Bible doctrine out of the book and into our souls. You have to be equipped. You can’t take the high ground until to take doctrine from the Bible to your right lobe. That is what must be done.

“the former days” — this brings us right back into the problem of the interpretation of this passage. This passage was originally addressed to those who were believers in the Lord Jesus Christ in the city of Jerusalem in 67 AD. The problem with these people was that they had started to make the advance before, they had started to follow the colours after their salvation. They had the advantage of some of the greatest preachers of all time — men like Peter and other men were great in communicating doctrine to these people. But they had failed because of a distraction. They had failed along the way because they just simply could not keep positive toward Bible doctrine. Their failure in a sense reflects the failure of fundamentalist Christianity, for while their failure was one of going back to the animal sacrifices, going back into the temple where the veil between the holy place and the holy of holies had to be repaired and had to be put up again. They preferred to stand before a veil which says keep out rather than to enjoy the privileges of living behind the veil. What was wrong with these believers? They could actually go into the temple but they could never go into the holy of holies. They stayed out of it because the ritual of the Old Testament said stay out. They actually stayed away from the place where they lived — in the holy of holies. As believers in the Lord Jesus Christ they were in union with Christ. Being in union with Christ they actually lived in the holy of holies and they didn’t even recognise their home. They didn’t recognise the significance of the rent veil, they did not understand in any way the principles involved as far as the Word of God is concerned. Why? Because they had retreated, because they had fallen off for some reason. We do not have a temple today and we do not have people going back into the temple and offering animal sacrifices, called in Hebrews chapter 6 “crucifying the Son of God afresh,” but we do have something that is just as bad. We have people peel off because of negative volition toward doctrine. They want to be entertained, they want to be amused, and therefore they can’t stick out the daily concept of study the Word, today, tomorrow, the next day. And so we have people today who fail to continue the advance, the fail to stay with Bible doctrine, they are no longer taking it in. And when they fail to do this there are many different types of allurements to satisfy their negative volition.

“in which” — refers to the fact that at one time the original recipients of Hebrews were definitely interested in Bible doctrine.

“after ye were illuminated” — the aorist passive participle of the verb fwtizw which means to enlighten, and it means here to be enlightened by Bible doctrine. It is simply a synonym for Bible doctrine in the soul. The aorist tense is a constative aorist and it gathers the action of the verb into one entirety. The believer began the advance in doctrine and started growing, and it gathers the fact that there was a time in the life of these believers when they were positive toward doctrine, when they wanted to go to Bible class every day, when they wanted to take in doctrine and learn something about the Lord so that they could advance. The passive voice: the believer receives the action of the verb through the daily function of GAP and the people who are addressed here as the original recipients had been positive in the past. Therefore the participle is a temporal participle. It also has antecedent action and it should be translated “but keep remembering again and again to yourselves the former days in which after you had become enlightened.” They had started out in the right way; something caused them to peel off.

While they were advancing they were advancing into pressure, they were advancing under fire. This is brought out by “ye endured” — the aorist active indicative of the verb u(pomenw. This word means to remain, to stay in under pressure, to hold your ground. The culminative aorist of this verb views the action of the verb in its entirety but emphasises the result. The active voice: in the midst of the pressure the believers did not run away, they stood their ground, they did not retreat when pressure came their way. The indicative mood is the declarative indicative which views the action of the verb from the standpoint of reality and certainty.

“a great fight” — the accusative of direct object of the adjective polluj, which means much or great, plus a)qlhthj which means two things. It can refer either to competing in a competitive type sport or it can refer to a tactical situation in combat. Here we are following the military analogy.

“of afflictions” — the word for afflictions, paqhma, means sufferings or pressures. When these Jews first accepted the Lord they took Bible doctrine into their left lobe. They transferred it through positive volition into e)pignwsij which was taken into the right lobe. They had Bible doctrine in their right lobes and they started to advance. As they started to advance they had a number of different problems. One of them was success, some of them could not take success. They began to have some blessing in their lives and they lost track of the source. Some of them were promoted; they lost track of the source. Remember: In every blessing and happiness you will ever have in life the direct source is the Lord Jesus Christ. Don’t ever by negative volition turn your back on who and what the Lord is. They did and they lost out.

Translation: “But keep remembering again and again to yourselves the former days, in which, after you had become enlightened, you held your ground in a great conflict of pressure.”

Verse 33 — we have the development of this with the original people involved. Whenever you have something of this sort it doesn’t mean that you are going through the same thing but it does mean that the principle applies even if it isn’t your exact situation.

The word “partly” is a part of the classical Greek. It is the accusative neuter singular from the demonstrative pronoun o(utoj plus the affirmative article men. This has nothing to do with Koine Greek, the language of the New Testament. We have sarcasm here to awaken these people. We have two “partlys” in this verse and we to understand that they are sarcasm.

With them we have an accusative of general reference — “whilst ye were made a gazingstock”, the present passive participle qeatrizw which means to put to shame, to be publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, to be in the amphitheater, to be embarrassed. Embarrassment is a lack of poise, lack of understanding, lack of concentration on who and what Christ is. When you are embarrassed you are in spiritual trouble. Embarrassment is the key to this word qeatrizw. If you are embarrassed by your church, your Christian friends, by carrying a Bible that will all be changed when you start following the colours and take in Bible doctrine on a daily basis. The word “gazingstock” means to be publicly shamed, publicly embarrassed, publicly abused. We have in this participle part of the accusative of general reference where the participle is in the accusative case. The present tense is the historical present used for a past event viewed with the vividness of a present occurrence. The passive voice: believers received the action of the verb in the past when they were positive toward doctrine. The participle is a temporal participle. “Partly when being publicly embarrassed.”

“both” — we have “both and,” also in the classical Greek here — te kai; “by reproaches” means verbal insults or visual insults. People can insult you by the way they look at you. And if you are hypersensitive about the fact that you are a believer, a member of the royal family of God, then you are not following the colours. Who are those people who are laughing at you? Are they important? No they are not, but you have made them important by losing your perspective and being publicly embarrassed.

“affliction” — qliyij, pressures.

“and partly whilst ye became” or literally, “having become” — the aorist passive participle of ginomai which actually means to become, as translated, but it is a constative aorist which contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety, it takes the occurrence and regardless of its extent or duration gathers it into a single whole. So now we are going to have the problem of your social life. When you find that you are being attracted to the unbeliever and to people outside of the periphery of your organisation: you are a member of the royal family of God, you should be following the colours, and when you peel off an head in another direction then you’ve had it. That is exactly what the problem happens to be right here.

We have the fact that they have become “companions,” this is social life — “of them that were so used.” The problem here is that Christians often will be embarrassing to you. That is because Christians are under pressure. The whole thing that is being developed here is the fact that you have a choice in your life at some time to be identified with someone who is under pressure and you don’t mind being identified with them because you love the Lord and you know the source of every blessing you will ever have. Many times Christians around you are going to be persecuted. Why are they persecuted? They have taken some kind of a stand for the Lord. They are being persecuted not because they have idiotic personalities but because they are believers and because they are advancing. Are you going to stand with them or are you going to go running off because of embarrassment? — “partners with those being treated in this manner.”

“companions of them that were so used” — this is the genitive plural definite article plus the present middle participle of a)nastrefw, and an adverb is involved in this. A)nastrefw means to be treated rather than used.

Translation: “Partly, when being publicly abused both by visual and verbal insults, and by other pressures; and partly having become companions with those who are being treated in this manner.”

There is a concept that comes out of these two verses. It is the concept that we are in the ranks. This is portrayed by the association, by the fellowship with other members of the royal family of God on the earth. Our social life, our category #3 love should be directed toward other members of the royal family of God. In this way we stand by each other under the pressures and persecutions of life. We become support to each other as we advance toward the higher ground.

Verse 34 — the phrase “of me in my bonds” is not found in the original text. “For” is an explanatory particle; “ye had compassion.” Having compassion is a good thing under certain circumstances as long as the compassion is dictated by principle, but to be a bleeding heart is not compassion. The writer is reminding these people that as members of the royal family of God, as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, as those who have received Him as saviour, that there is a true compassion. We have the constative aorist tense from the sunpaqew. Paqew means to suffer and sun means with. Sunpaqew means not simply and emotional activity but it is one of very strong discipline; self-discipline. To suffer with means here group discipline — “ye had compassion”, they are reminded of the fact that they were once victorious, they were once advancing toward the enemy, moving toward supergrace, interested in Bible doctrine. This is what they used to be, and now he says they’re compassionate. What does compassionate mean? Sun means with, paqew means to suffer. It means to suffer with. All principles are based on authority and the source of every principle in the Word of God is some kind of authority. In the doctrine of divine decrees the source is God’s decision, God’s sovereignty. If it is eternal salvation it is the principle that the Lord Jesus Christ with doctrine resident in His soul went all the way to the cross and bore our sins and took our place. We are looking in this passage at a group of people who once guided on the colours of Bible doctrine but they quit. They couldn’t take it, they were distracted. They stopped listening to the teaching of the Word of God. Sunpaqew in effect says that the dynamics of life come from discipline — “you teamed up with those who were persecuted.” It says here “you teamed up with the prisoners,” not “in my bonds.” In other words, a lot of Christians were being put in prison, a lot of Christians were being persecuted.

Why does it says “prisoners” here? You have known believers in your lifetime and these people may not be attractive or celebrities. And you get in with the celebrity type crowd, a snooty bunch of people. You are not living by principle any more, you are living on flattery. When you start living on flattery instead of Bible doctrine you are through, you are a casualty. You are still royal family and you can’t possibly lose your salvation. God is just keeping you alive and providing your needs to discipline you. Sunpaqew means that when these people started their advance they started in the most wonderful possible way. They were not ashamed of the Lord Jesus Christ and they were not ashamed of other believers. “For you even demonstrated compassion to those in the embarrassing position of being prisoners” — but you weren’t embarrassed.

A lot of these people were wealthy, a lot of these people had things people associate with happiness. They had money, they had success, they had many wonderful materialistic things — “and took joyfully” isn’t quite correct. It means literally “you accepted to yourselves with happiness” — meta plus the genitive of xara plus prosdexomai in the aorist middle; proj means face to face, dexomai means to receive something. It means to accept here. The word for happiness means a mental attitude. if you live by principle, if you live by doctrine, and you lose some materialistic thing you still have the principle. When these people accepted Jesus Christ as saviour they were persecuted. Their money was taken from them, their businesses were closed down, they lost materialistic things, their homes were taken away, they were thrown into prison, but it didn’t change their principles.

Verse 34 — “knowing.” The key is always knowledge, the present active participle of the verb ginwskw. It means to know from the principle of doctrine resident in the soul. This is a retroactive progressive present denoting what occurred in the past and continued up until the time they peeled off. The active voice: the believers produced the action of the verb. This is a circumstantial participle. Notice where the knowledge is. It isn’t in a book. The knowledge was taken from a book but one thing you cannot do is when you are under pressure you cannot go back to what was written in the book. By that time it has to be transferred to the frontal lobe. It has to be instinctive, it has to be ingrained in the soul. When the believer is under pressure only that which is ingrained can he use. it isn’t what is in the Bible that is going to help you under pressure and under disaster, it is what you have taken from the Bible and transferred into your soul.

“in yourselves that you have” — the present active infinitive of e)xw which means to have and to hold. This is a static present for a condition which perpetually exists. The active voice: the royal family produces the action. This infinitive is part of the accusative of general reference, and this again goes back almost to a classical Greek form of expression. Once again the classical Greek is used in a Koine Greek situation for sarcasm. You had something that was really great but now you’ve lost it, you can’t recover it.

“in heaven” — you have something in heaven that is absolutely perfect, something that you cannot lose, something in the future that is absolutely glorious in every way. And since you are going to have that forever and ever and ever only now do you have the chance of any kind of testing.

Verse 25 says literally, “Stop forsaking the assembling together of yourselves, as is the habit of certain ones [reversionists]; but by being an encouragement: even so much more as you see the day of the Rapture drawing near.” Then we have in verses 26-31 a parenthesis on the unpardonable sin. In verses 32, “But keep remembering again and again to yourselves the former days in which after you had become enlightened [had some doctrine resident in the soul], you held your ground in a great conflict of suffering.” Verse 33, “Partly, when being publicly abused both by verbal insults and other pressures; and partly, when having become partners with those who were being treated in this manner.” Verse 34, “For you even demonstrated compassion to the prisoners, ad you accepted to yourselves with happiness the plundering of your material possessions, knowing that in yourselves [resident in your souls] you had a better possession [Bible doctrine] and one which is constantly enduring.”

Verse 35, the principle of pressing the attack. We are commanded to keep going. We start out with the phrase “Cast not away” — the aorist active subjunctive of a)poballw. This particular word is in the constative aorist tense which contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. It takes the action of the verb and pulls it together into a single whole, regardless of how long it is. Always in the active voice in the Greek the subject produces the action of the verb, the subject here is the member of the royal family of God. The subjunctive mood is a prohibitive subjunctive because of the negative mh with the verb. When you put it all together a)poballw really means to throw away something as worthless. Literally this should say, “Do not throw away as worthless.”

“therefore” — the inferential particle o)un, and this particle tells us that the people involved here — believers in Jerusalem in 67 AD — did exactly that. They threw away as worthless, Bible doctrine. Something became more important to them. There scale of values became fouled up and they neglected the Word of God at some point. Even to neglect it for a day is disastrous.

“your confidence” — the accusative singular is a direct object. The noun is parrhsia which means not just confidence, it means much more than that. It actually means doctrine in the soul producing confidence. That is the concept here. Confidence is the meaning of the word but the confidence is not produced by human ability. Once you become a member of the royal family of God your confidence must be in doctrine resident in your soul. “Therefore, do not throw away your confidence in doctrine.”

“which” — the nominative feminine singular of a qualitative relative pronoun, o(stij which has as its antecedent “confidence and it should be an extended translation, “which category [of confidence],” but we will simply say “which confidence in doctrine.”

“hath” — e)xw, the present active indicative. The static present represents a condition which is assumed to be perpetually existing or to be taken for granted as a fact. The active voice: confidence in doctrine is the subject and it produces the action of the verb. The indicative mood is a dogmatic declarative indicative which says “which confidence in doctrine you keep having an holding.” There is pressing the attack. You keep having doctrine means you keep taking it in. You keep holding doctrine and in the holding of doctrine you not only continue to take it in but the more you take in the more you utilise.

The next phrase is an interesting one — “great recompense of reward.” This is not talking about future reward, which is a true doctrine, it is talking about splitting the plunder or dividing the loot in time. It is God’s objective to provide for you in time supergrace blessings. Keep remembering this fact: the issue of your life is blessing, not provision. God is going to keep you alive as long as His plan calls for you to be alive, so He will provide for your needs. The point is that this great recompense of reward is for now, not for the future. First of all, we have an adjective here, megaj. It is translated “great”, a legitimate translation but not the only one. As an adjective megaj means a lot of things, and really it does not mean great primarily, it means rich. That is what it means here. Then this adjective modifies the noun, misqapodosia. It is made up of two words, misqoj means wages, it connotes monetary reward; a)podidomi means to give in expectation. This tells us that we should anticipate blessing from God. As we stick with doctrine we know it is coming. But when these words are put together it means a rich distribution of materialistic blessings. This is a materialistic category of supergrace blessings. Remember that all supergrace blessings are not materialistic, some of them are very definitely spiritual — occupation with the person of Jesus Christ, Bible doctrine resident in the soul giving you the divine viewpoint dynamics of life, the great function of the faith-rest technique. Now this says here, “great or rich distribution of materialistic blessings.”

Translation: “Therefore do not throw away as worthless your confidence in doctrine, which confidence keeps having rich distribution of materialistic blessings.”

Summary

1. The attack well begun must continue. We must keep pressing until we reach the objective.

2. These believers to whom this was originally addressed started well in Bible doctrine but faded for some reason in the reaction phase of reversionism.

3. They failed to follow the colours, they failed to persist in doctrine.

4. Press home the attack is the message of this verse.

5. The believers in Jerusalem in 67 AD were so close to supergrace and the resultant blessing — spiritual and material.

6. However they were not persistent, they did not press the attack, they lost their confidence in doctrine. They were actually doing this at the time that Hebrews was written. They were throwing away doctrine as worthless, they were negative toward Bible doctrine.

The doctrine of the stages of reversionism

1. The reaction stage. When people start to go negative toward doctrine they react. So stage one is reaction. Reaction comes in many forms — reactor factors are the forms. For example, boredom is a reactor factor. Discouragement, disillusion, loneliness, frustration, bitterness, etc.

2. When people react they always go out looking for some kind of happiness. So the second stage is always the worst one, the one that makes you look silly, the frantic search for happiness. The frantic search for happiness depends upon the type of control in your old sin nature. The OSN has trends: asceticism and lasciviousness.

3. Stage three is the frantic search for happiness resulting in operation boomerang. The frantic search for happiness always ends up in intensifying the reactor factors. You went out to become happy and instead of becoming happy you are just more bored, more jealous, more bitter, have more self-pity, whatever the reactor factor was you have more of it.

4. The fourth stage is the one where the spiritual decline begins in earnest — the emotional revolt of the soul. This is a spiritual problem and it is the fourth reactor factor.

5. Negative volition toward doctrine. As a result of the presence of the reactor factors — reactor factors, emotional revolt — the believer becomes negative toward doctrine. There are certain characteristics: a) Indifference or apathy to Bible teaching; b) too busy for Bible teaching; c) antagonism or personality hang-ups regarding the pastor-communicator; d) antagonism of conflict with others in the congregation; e) failure to utilise the rebound technique; f) inability to handle prosperity; g) an early pattern of reversionism.

When a person has an emotional revolt this means that they are a woman inside — a man becomes a woman inside. Just as every human body has both male and female hormones so the soul has male and female parts. The controller of the soul is the heart or the right lobe, the mentality. You are only in control in your life when your mind controls everything. We all have emotion and we use our emotion. That is because we have a frame of reference. Our frame of reference means that our emotion is merely designed to respond. This means that when we see certain things or hear certain things we respond and our emotions were made to be enjoyed. In emotional revolt the emotion controls the mentality of the soul.

6. Blackout of the soul. There are two lobes. The left lobe is called the mind, the right lobe is called the heart. When you go negative toward doctrine you open up the mataiwthj, and into this vacuum goes your false ideas. Blackout of the soul is what happens to believers and unbelievers alike, unbelievers because they lose track of the laws of divine establishment, believers because they go negative toward doctrine. This leads to scar tissue of the soul. Negative volition toward doctrine opens the mataiwthj for Satanic propaganda, and once that Satanic propaganda comes in you’ve had it. Once you get a blackout of the soul by getting false information then you have the next stage which is hardness of the heart. Hardness of the heart means the valves on the frame of reference freeze. The doctrine, therefore, quits moving around. When the valves freeze you lose your vocabulary, the categories, the norms and standards, you have human viewpoint on the launching pad, and that leads to stage 7, scar tissue on the soul.

7. Scar tissue on the soul. And then you have finally, stage 8, reverse process reversionism.

8. Reverse process reversionism. Whereas you ought to be occupied with Christ as a believer and member of the royal family of God you are instead occupied with some false system. Whereas you have a right woman, when you get into reversionism you hook up with the wrong woman. Whereas you have true friends you get mixed up with false friends. Whereas you should love your country you get all fouled up and you think that the welfare state is okay.

Hosea 4:1-6

Verse 1 — the word “hear” is the qal imperative of the verb shama. The qal stem in the imperative mood means not to hear so much as it does to respect and recognise the authority of the one who is teaching, and to concentrate on the message. So it is equivalent to the daily function of GAP. Remember that this word means to obey, to recognise authority, and to concentrate. The concentration has a direction: “the word of the Lord” or doctrine from the Lord. Either is a good translation.

“children of Israel” is merely a way of designating the citizens of the northern kingdom in the days of Hosea.

“for a controversy with the Lord” — a controversy has to do with the fact that God has set up a nation to be the custodians of Bible doctrine, to be an example of what freedom and privacy should be, and they have failed in this particular situation. So the controversy has to do with the fact that believers have neglected doctrine and the nation is beginning to fall apart. Note that the controversy is expressed first in terms of no doctrine, “no truth.” The word for truth is the Hebrew noun emeth, and it means Bible doctrine. It means that Bible doctrine is the very lifeline of a nation as well as the individual believer in the Lord Jesus Christ.

The next word says “nor mercy” — the Hebrew noun here is chesedh and it means grace. When you don’t have doctrine you don’t have grace, when you don’t have grace you have legalism, when you have legalism you have religion. when you have religion you have trouble, when you have trouble through religion you have slavery.

And finally therefore, “no knowledge of God in the country.” Knowledge of God comes through Bible doctrine. We know the Lord Jesus Christ because we have been studying doctrine. We know a lot of things about Jesus Christ that people on the outside do not know. So in verse 1 we have no doctrine, no grace, no knowledge of God, the worst thing that ever could happen.

Verse 2 — “By swearing and lying” means dishonest business practice in the Hebrew. Swearing is actually lying about the price you are charging for something, and lying is also used for business. These are two business terms and it means that once the country loses doctrine the country loses principle, and that means that you can’t trust anyone in business.

“killing and stealing” — the killing has to do with crime, not with killing the enemy in the military. The word “killing” is the qal active participle of ratsach and it means murder rather than killing, and has to do with crime. So killing and stealing are crime type words, and the two of them together show again the degeneration of a nation without doctrine. When a nation doesn’t have doctrine it doesn’t have principle and then it loses track of the importance of such things as capital punishment. When you don’t have capital punishment then you are in serious trouble because you don’t have control over crime.

“and committing adultery they break out and blood toucheth blood” — it isn’t talking about adultery here, it is talking about rape. Literally it says, “they break in to commit adultery.” In other words, this isn’t a case of adultery, this is a case of rape where the woman’s volition is not involved. Then “blood touches blood” is literally “blood reaches blood” meaning violence and no one to stop it. So altogether what you have in verse two are the results of the indictment of the previous verse. What is the indictment? What is the Lord’s controversy with these people? Three things: no doctrine, no grace, no knowledge of God. There is where we fail as believers. As goes the believer in the nation so goes the nation. That is why we are called the salt of the earth. In the ancient world salt was used as a preservative, and when salt is a preservative then the food doesn’t spoil. Now we are the salt of the land and if we study doctrine and advance to the high ground of the supergrace life then there is the wonderful principle of the preservation of the freedom of a nation. Now people may or may not agree with you with regard to Bible doctrine but when Bible doctrine is resident in your soul it means that people, even unbelievers, are going to live by principle. it is principle that keeps the nation, then, from falling apart.

Verse 3 — what is the result of all of this? When a nation starts to fall apart we have the law of the five cycles of discipline. Under the fourth cycle of discipline an enemy power invades the land. Under the fifth cycle of discipline they win a victory which conquers the nation. “Therefore the land shall mourn.” The qal imperfect from abal means to lament the death of loved ones in battle, it means lamentation, mourning for loved ones who have died in battlefields. But it means more than that, it is used as a Hebrew idiom for defeat. It means universal lamentation, it means that because of poor training and because no one has ever backed up any military organisation that they commit themselves to battle without the proper training and they squander the lives of the men. It means that in the squandering of the lives of the men they are tactically defeated and there is therefore mourning and lamentation throughout the land.

“and everyone that dwelleth therein shall languish” — which isn’t what it says at all. This is the pual perfect of the verb amal, and the pual stem means to be weak in character, and weakness in character means not immorality, it means failure to live by principle. Principle to us is Bible doctrine resident in the soul; principle to the unbeliever are the laws of divine establishment in the soul. So we have, then, the principle of defeat in battle, we have mourning because of the death of loved ones, and we have in addition to that weakness of character. The citizens of the land are weak in character and they are “taken away” into slavery, according to the end of verse three.

Verse 4 — “Yet let no man strive, nor reprove another.” “Let no man strive” is the qal perfect of the verb ribh it means quarreling and dissension. It means that because there are no principles, because there is no authority there is dissension. No nation can enjoy its freedom without two factors: authority and discipline. “Nor reprove” is the hiphil imperfect of jakach. In the hiphil stem it means to reproach, to punish, to judge, and it also means to stick your long proboscis into someone else’s business. It means to fail to recognise the privacy and the rights of another individual. “Let no one reject authority or stick their nose into someone else’s business”, it means to judge.

“for thy people are as they that strive with the priest” — the priest here is the Levitical priesthood. The Levitical priesthood at this time in Israel was responsible for the communication of the written Word. They were responsible to teach Bible doctrine, they were responsible to crank out doctrine and they were being rejected. When they strive with the communicator of doctrine they are rejecting his authority, and rejecting authority of the one who communicates doctrine means negative volition toward doctrine, and negative volition toward doctrine destroys a nation.

Verse 5 — “Therefore shalt thou fall in the day.” “Thou shall fall” is the qal perfect of kashal. This doesn’t mean to fall, it means to become defeated as a nation. it means to stagger, to totter, to become feeble. “In a day” is a prophetic utterance. In 721 BC the Assyrian army attacked Samaria, the capital of the northern kingdom. They didn’t wipe it out in a day but this doesn’t really mean a day, this means in a period of time and it means a period of degeneracy. It means when people depart from doctrine, when people depart from principle, when there is nothing worth fighting for, nothing worth dying for, then this kashal applies. Kashal means they become feeble of soul, they become degenerate, that they have no principles, it is just dog eat dog with them. No nation survives that attitude.

“and the prophet shall fall” — the prophet here is the false prophet, the one who teaches turn the other cheek, the one who wants to disarm, to get rid of the military. This is the one who says “peace, peace, and there is no peace.”

“I will destroy your mother” — the nation. “Motherland” means national heritage.

Verse 6 — “My people are destroyed”, the niphal perfect of damah which means total defeat, to be taken over by the enemy. And what causes people to go down? “Lack of knowledge” — lack of Bible doctrine.

“because thou hast rejected knowledge” — the word for “reject” is stronger than that, it is the qal perfect of maas, and the word means to neglect and disregard and finally come to scorn — “you have disregarded knowledge”.

“I will disregard you, that thou shalt be no priest” — no one left to teach doctrine — “to me; seeing thou hast forgotten the law [doctrine] of thy God, I will also forget thy children” — I will destroy and blot out the nation.

This passage was given by Hosea around 700 BC, over 2600 years ago. But sometimes when Hosea is read in the Hebrew it almost seems like reading the newspaper of today.

Hebrews 10:36 — the exploitation of the breakthrough. “For” — the explanatory use of gar means we are going to get an explanation now. Why are we here? What are we doing? Answer, “you have” — and there again we have that present active indicative of e)xw, having and holding. The retroactive progressive present means you keep on having. We have some that is more valuable than anything else: the Word of God. We have the promises, the categories, the doctrines, the principles. So you keep on needing something with this, and here it is.

“for you keep on having need of patience” — the genitive singular of u(pomonh, but it doesn’t mean patience, it means perseverance. The Lord Jesus Christ has left to us a spiritual legacy, a spiritual heritage called Bible doctrine. And here we have the attitude we must have toward doctrine: perseverance. Once you start the advance you must continue the advance. The objective is to continue the advance, to keep moving. U(pomonh means to be under discipline. You need to be under discipline, you need to have perseverance, the discipline to take in Bible doctrine today, tomorrow, the next day, the next and the next.

“that, after you have done the will of God” — what is the will of God for you? To take in Bible doctrine. Your soul must be prepared for the advance as the military must prepare for combat. Therefore, “you have need of perseverance.” You must constantly have going up from your soul positive signals toward Bible doctrine. That is the will of God for your life — to take it in, to grow in grace, to begin to develop that ECS.

The doctrine of the importance of Bible doctrine

1. Definition. Bible doctrine is the content of the canon of scripture, but the content which emphasises communication. Bible doctrine is what the Bible has to say when it is taught. It is the communication of Bible information on the basis of exegesis, classification, analysis, interpretation of scripture by authorised personnel — someone who has the gift of pastor-teacher and someone who is prepared through study to communicate Bible doctrine. Since Bible doctrine is the mind of Christ — 1 Corinthians 2:16 — it must be communicated by those who have been authorised, and beginning in the past this means the prophet, the Levitical priesthood, the apostle, and the pastor-teacher in this particular period of history.

2. In His dying breath the Lord Jesus Christ made doctrine the spiritual legacy of the royal family of God. Our Lord Jesus Christ died twice on the cross. His first death was a spiritual death bearing our sins, taking our place. He was judged in our place, He became our substitute. And because Jesus Christ completed the work of salvation while He was very much alive He said “It is finished.” Finished means that salvation was completed. Nothing could be added to it, nothing could be taken from it, salvation was a completed fact. Then Jesus Christ began that very quick process of dying physically. He exhaled one breath before He died, and in His last breath He uttered the words of Psalm 31:5 — “Into your hands I deposit my spirit, for you have delivered me O Jehovah, God of doctrine.” So the Lord Jesus Christ Himself explained where He had the spiritual stamina, the strength, the motivation, the courage, the nobility, to take the most awful course in history and follow it to the object which was the cross. According to Colossians 2:14,15, Hebrews 2:14,15 the Lord Jesus Christ broke the back of Satan on the cross, He accomplished the strategic victory, He provided everything necessary in that moment for our eternal salvation. Now something is added to it because of the work of Christ, because of the strategic victory, because of His resurrection, ascension and session the Age of Israel was suddenly interrupted. A new dispensation was begun, the dispensation of the Church, the age of the royal family of God, a dispensation in which we find ourselves today at this moment. And in order that the royal family of God might understand its mission on earth, its objective, Christ has passed on to it the regimental colours of Bible doctrine.

3. This legacy, this spiritual heritage of Bible doctrine, also existed in Old Testament times. Psalm 138:2 — this particular passage is talking about David as a soldier. This verse is generally misunderstood because two or three words are not quite correctly translated. “I will worship” — the hithpael imperfect of the verb shachah. The hithpael stem is a reflexive stem. Every time that you have a verb in the Hebrew it always has five possible meanings, depending on the stem. The hithpael stem is reflexive but it is also the stem of freedom. Shachah, again, is the word for worship. Actually, it means to bow down but eventually it came to mean worship. This is not quite correctly translated unless you understand that when it says “I will worship” the subject “I” is free to worship or not to worship. It means that no one must ever be coerced into worship. You must want to worship, you must be motivated to worship. You must worship because it comes from the capacity of doctrine in your own soul. That is why the communion service is such a wonderful examination, it tests to see how much doctrine you have in your own soul. So we translate that “I myself will worship toward the temple.” Problem: There is no temple at that time. It will be built in Solomon’s day. So what do we have here? Actually, the temple here refers to the fact that David is worshipping toward heaven. When he worships he is looking up, he is not bowing his head. David recognises where headquarters is, he recognises that heaven is the abode of God, he is occupied with the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, as a great soldier he has a maximum amount of Bible doctrine in his soul, and when he says “I will worship toward the temple” he is talking about the real holy of holies. He is prophetically anticipating the fact that the veil would be torn apart at the cross and that you and I would live in the holy of holies. So here is a king looking forward to the day when there would be a royal family on the earth and every believer would live in the palace. You and I today live in the palace because of the dispensation in which we were saved. David will not be a king in heaven. We will be royal family in heaven and he will be there but he will not be a king at that time, but he was looking forward to it, and when he was looking forward to it he was recognising something else. He was recognising that God is perfect, and if God is perfect any time He has a plan it can only be a perfect plan. It is impossible for a perfect God to come up with an imperfect plan. Therefore he was recognising that everything depended on who and what God is, and that God had already set up the five paragraph field order, God had already made the issue clear and it was merely a matter of being oriented himself. And when David said, “I myself will worship” in effect he was saying “I am oriented to the plan of God”. In other words, we are looking at David at a time when he had maximum doctrine in his soul, we are looking at David on the edge of the supergrace life, on the high ground. David is on the high ground, he is holding the high ground at the time that he says this.

“of your holiness” — in other words when he takes the high ground his first look is an upward look. David never lost track after those dismal days as a battalion commander and as a mercenary force hired out to the Philistines. After he recovered from that stage of reversionism he never had any illusions as to the source of his grace and blessing. Therefore, this is actually a statement of occupation with the person of Jesus Christ. David is standing at a high spot, he has taken the high ground, he has made the point of maturity, he is now a supergrace believer as he utters these words.

“and praise” — the hiphil imperfect of the verb jadah. The hiphil stem is causative active voice. He is caused or motivated to praise. But it doesn’t really mean praise. Basically this word means to celebrate. You will never praise or celebrate the Lord until you are motivated, and you will never be motivated until it comes from inside you — not some herd-bound thing, but inside you. If it comes from inside you it comes from your soul, and if it comes from your soul it is because you kept going, you kept going, you never let anything stop you.

“your name” is literally “your person.” The word shem means reputation or person. Here it means person, later on we will see it as reputation — “and celebrate your person.” Ritual must have something in the soul to relate it to reality. Ritual without reality is meaningless and because we have doctrine in the soul we love and appreciate who and what Christ is, and because we have doctrine in the soul we love and appreciate the traditions of our freedom as they relate to our military organisations.

The next word is “for”, but it is not for at all, it is the causal waw which is almost like the Greek gar which has so many meanings. Gar can be explanatory, it can be inferential, it can be a lot of things. So with waw. This is what is called a causal waw and therefore you never translate it “for”, you translate it “because.” He is going to explain to us why he worships the Lord, why he is occupied with Christ, why he recognises the celebrityship of Jesus Christ. He is going to explain all of this in detail, very quickly.

“thy loving kindness” — lovingkindness is an old English word which is anachronistic, it really doesn’t have too much meaning to us any more because the word “love” has been so abused. In the Hebrew “lovingkindness” is a very short noun, chesedh, and it means grace. Grace depends on who and what God is. Under grace God does the planning, God provides, God meets the need. It should be translated “because of your grace.”

“for thy truth” — emeth, which means doctrine — “and because of your doctrine.”

“for” — once more it is a causal concept, but this time it is a conjunction. Instead of being the causal waw it is a little stronger, ki; and then we have “thou hast magnified” — the hiphil perfect of gadal; then we have “thy word” — im rah, which means categorical, analytical, exegetical discourse. We will simply translate it “doctrinal teaching.”

“above all thy name” — this is a prepositional phrase, al plus shem which means fame, renown, or reputation. It should be translated “over your reputation” — “you have magnified your doctrinal teaching over your reputation.” In other words, God’s character is no the line with Bible doctrine. The principle of doctrine is more important than reputation.

Translation: “I myself will worship toward the temple of your holiness [heaven], and celebrate your person [occupation with the person of Christ] because of your grace and because of your doctrine; because you have magnified your doctrinal teaching over your reputation.”

God is revealed, God utilises, God has centered everything for us in Bible doctrine. Therefore, Bible doctrine is more important than the air that you breathe. God the Father attaches the highest importance to doctrine because it expresses who and what Christ is, because it expresses His plan, because it provides the logistics for His plan, because it provides everything that we will ever need at any time. God the Father attaches the highest honour to the person and the work of Christ but that would be obscure apart from Bible doctrine.

4. Bible doctrine preexisted the human race. Bible doctrine is the thinking of Christ, Bible doctrine was the plan of God the Father, Bible doctrine is authored by the Holy Spirit; and since God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit always existed Bible doctrine preexisted with them — Proverbs chapter eight.

5. Attitude toward Bible doctrine determines whether the believer is going to be blessed or disciplined.

Proverbs 8:33-36 —

Verse 33 — “Pay attention to doctrinal teaching [heed instruction]” — listen to the teaching of doctrine. And what happens when you do? — “so that you will be wise” — wisdom is maximum doctrine on the launching pad. Wisdom is spiritual common sense, Bible doctrine on the launching pad, the utilisation of Bible doctrine. Wisdom is more than common sense though, wisdom is living by divine principles, basing your life on divine principles. It means to have principles — “do not neglect it”. How can you neglect it? When anything else is more important than assembling for Bible teaching.

Verse 34 — “Blessed” — ashere is “happinesses”, plural because as you advance and follow the colours to the high ground and to the tactical victory you have two kinds of happiness, spiritual and material. One is related to the person of Christ and the other is related to supergrace blessings.

“to the man who listens to me” — “me” is Bible doctrine. This is a personification of Bible doctrine — “watching daily” — the daily function of GAP — “at my gates” — the gates of the ancient world was the place for assembly, an auditorium — “waiting at my door posts” — that indicates a positive attitude toward the Word of God.

Verse 35 — “For he who finds me [Bible doctrine] finds capacity for life, and obtains supergrace from the Lord.”

Verse 36 — the other side for those who will not persevere. “But he who sins against me [negative volition toward doctrine] injures himself; and those who hate me [doctrine] love death [the sin unto death].”

6. Therefore, doctrine is the basis for the distribution of supergrace blessings — Isaiah 53:12, “Therefore I [God the Father] will distribute the spoil of victory to him [Christ]” — Christ is the victor in the great angelic warfare — “because of the many [believers, members of the royal family], then he will distribute the plunder of victory to the great ones [the heroes, any believer who GAPS it to supergrace], because he poured out his soul to death; prior to this he was identified with the [Levitical] offerings for sin;” — in other words, He fulfilled them all — “because he himself carried the sin of the many [human race], and about the offering for sin it was caused to fall upon him.”

The strategic victory of Christ began on the cross when He bore our sins in His own body on the tree.

7. Bible doctrine is more real than empirical knowledge — 2 Peter 1:12-21. When a believer continues to take in doctrine it becomes more real to him than anything else. With this viewpoint he is motivated for everything in life for which God designed him to do.

8. The plan of God is advanced and vindicated through Bible doctrine — Isaiah 53:10. God the Father in eternity past appointed Jesus Christ the mission of eternal salvation for the human race. When he was on the cross bearing our sins and taking our place that mission was accomplished. Now we simply believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and have eternal salvation. “He shall see his seed” — the royal family of the Church Age — “he shall prolong his days” — the future rule over Israel — “therefore the plan of Jehovah the Father shall advance by his hand.” The plan of God advances through the Lord Jesus Christ. The plan of God advances today because Jesus Christ has given to us the heritage of Bible doctrine. In another way, Romans 3:4 says the same thing — “Shall unbelief cancel the faithfulness of God?” If someone says I no longer believe, does that cancel anything? No. God remains faithful no matter what our instabilities may be in life. Answer: “Definitely not. Moreover, let God continue truthful though every man a liar; even as it stands written, That you might become vindicated by means of your doctrine [the doctrine you learn], and that you might become victorious when you are being maligned.”

9. Lack of doctrine destroys a nation — Hosea 4:1-6.

10. The communicator of Bible doctrine authorised for the Church Age is the pastor-teacher — Ephesians 4:11-13; Colossians 1:25-29; Hebrews 13:7,17.

11. The communication of doctrine establishes the balance of residency in the soul of the believer. When the believer is filled with the Spirit the Holy Spirit controls the soul as well as the body. There is something missing — minus doctrine in the soul. Therefore we have the word of God, we have the communicator authorised to do so, we have the local church as the classroom, in order that this minus might become a plus. The filling of the Spirit plus doctrine resident in the soul is the dynamics of the royal family on this earth. Therefore Bible doctrine is important to balance out the residency of the soul. Without Bible doctrine in the soul and only the filling of the Spirit you have unbalance and this must be rectified. It is rectified by doctrine in the soul — balance of residency.

a) Bible doctrine is transferred from the written page of the Word of God to the soul of the believer under the function of GAP. That means that there is doctrine resident in the Word. That means that there is a communicator authorised by God and a place to do it which is the local church. That means that when this doctrine is communicated under the ministry of the Holy Spirit it becomes resident in the left lobe only. But doctrine in the left lobe won’t do it. James says that you must be a doer of the Word and not a hearer only. A doer of the Word is one who has doctrine in his right lobe or on the launching pad. So hearing the Word is the first stage. Transferring it over is a grace function, but the point is that the doctrine you use is the doctrine you have transferred to your right lobe. We call that a grace apparatus for perception because regardless of your human IQ God has provided at the point of salvation a system, an apparatus of the soul, whereby you can understand doctrine whether you are two points above a moron or a genius. Your human IQ is never an issue. There is no such thing as a person who is a believer who cannot through persistence understand Bible doctrine.

b) The purpose of this transfer is to establish in the soul of the believer balance of residency, the stability necessary for us to fulfill our objective in life.

c) As a badge of royalty the body of every Church Age believer is indwelt by God the Holy Spirit.

d) When the believer is filled with the Spirit in compliance to Ephesians 5:18 a residency of the third person of the Trinity is established.

e) Since the Spirit works through the Word, or Bible doctrine, the filling of the Spirit creates a vacancy in the soul.

f) This vacancy is filled by the daily function of GAP creating a balance of residency necessary for the function of the royal family on earth.

12. Consequently, the importance of consistency in the function of GAP. It is important that we persist, that we continue to take it in, today, tomorrow, the next day, and the next, regardless of other circumstances in life — Hebrews 10:25.

Principles

1. The promise mentioned in verse 36 has to do with your paragraph of supergrace blessing.

2. The promise, then, refers to supergrace blessings promised in eternity past. These supergrace blessings come to you on the basis of persistence, of perseverance, in following the colours.

3. Consistency, then, is the secret to growing up spiritually, therefore the secret to taking the higher ground of the supergrace life.

4. The believer must be challenged to GAP it daily regardless of the circumstances which arise in his life. The principle is that no matter what we must realise the importance of Bible doctrine.

5. No matter what is perfectly expressed in this life it is always going to be distorted. Therefore, when you do not understand what is being taught from any given passage your persistence must recognise that your persistence will understand when the time comes.

The same concept is found in Colossians 2:6,7. Paul in Colossians 2 is setting up a defense perimeter to regroup the Colossians. They had been pretty badly mauled by some false doctrine. So in setting up a defense perimeter to regroup them, this is what he says. “According as you have received to yourselves Christ Jesus the Lord, so keep walking in him.” Now what he is saying is this. How did you begin the Christian way of life? Well at first you didn’t know anything. Then somewhere along the line you were squared away by hearing what the true gospel is. As a spiritual baby it was a brand new ball game and gradually you had to learn the whole thing, and it took a little time. Don’t be discouraged is the principle. Then in Colossians 2:7 Paul sets up that perimeter — “Having been rooted and constantly being built up in him, being stabilised by means of doctrine, in the manner that you have been taught, over flowing with thanksgiving.”

Hebrews 10:36 — “For you keep on having need of perseverance [persistence], in order that, when you have accomplished the will of God [the daily function of GAP], you might carry off for yourself the promise.” God has something special for you on that high ground.

Verses 37,38 — the importance of taking the high ground. In this importance we have three quotations from the Old Testament. The first of these in verse 37 is a quotation from Isaiah 26:20. In the quotation of it it is kind of mixed up as we have it in the English. This is not a correctly translated passage. We have e)ti gar mikron. Then there are two more words which are identical — o(son o(son.

Gar is a conjunctive particle, it indicates that an explanation is due. If we are going to persevere, if we are going to take the high ground, if we are going to follow the colours, we need some kind of an explanation. We need to understand a little better from God why the objective and what it is all about. Why are we told to do this? Why every day? Why persevere?

Next we have e)ti, a particle, an adverb of time, and it means that we are in time and being in time we have a purpose. No matter how humble your circumstances your life has a purpose. Therefore the adverb of time is translated “yet.”

Number three is the word mikron which means little. It is the nominative neuter adjective meaning little and it has to do with something that is very, very important. It means that God has assigned to each one of us a certain amount of time on this earth after salvation. In His plan we have a time allotment. The adverb e)ti plus the adjective mikron means that every member of the royal family of God has a time allotment on this earth. In that time God has certain definite objectives for you. Therefore we have the phrase, “For yet a little while.”

The next word “and” isn’t even found in the original. Instead of “and” there are two words which aren’t even translated at all. We have o(son, o(son. O(son is a correlative demonstrative pronoun from toj o)utoj, a very strong classical Greek word. When it is connected with a temporal adverb it means “how short.” So this is what we have: “For yet a little while, how short, how short.” When troops are committed to battle they should have been thoroughly trained. All military service is always training for battle. It is important to always be in training, first in mental attitude and then in other ways. That is exactly what this means — “how short, how short.” The opportunity is always a short one, therefore you are always prepared for it. This is what “how short, how short” means. It means that sometime in your life you are going to have a full-blown disaster. You will walk into catastrophe, and when you do if you do not have Bible doctrine you are going to be caught short and you are going to fall apart like any idiot can do, and you are not going to be able to stand up under the pressure. But if you take in Bible doctrine today, tomorrow, the next, the next, when some disaster hits you are able to stand up under it. You “train and train and train” and when the difficult hour comes it is short, it is short, it is short. As in the military, when you finally get to combat it is something that is short. You are not going to spend your whole life under disaster. Everything in life that is worthwhile, everything in life that is wonderful, demands soul preparation. And so sometime when you are taking down the 25 points on suffering, or the ten points on the faithfulness of God, or whatever category it may be, just remember that when these categories become a part of you they are instantly alert to any adversity of life.

“For yet a little while, how short, how short” is a quotation from Isaiah 26:20. The second quotation is from Habakkuk 2:3 — “he that shall come will come, and will not tarry.” This is our future. “He that shall come” is the present active participle of e)rxomai. It has to do with a future time: the resurrection of the royal family of God. In the original context it referred to the second advent but here it is applied to the resurrection or, as it is known theologically, the Rapture of the Church. The Rapture of the Church terminates the Church Age. The royal family has been on the earth for almost 2000 years. This is the age of the royal family, but there is a time coming when the Church is going to be removed so that the Age of Israel can continue and that history can move on in that particular direction. So we have now a quotation from Habakkuk which applied to us refers to the Rapture. The futuristic present tense denotes something which is still future and when this occurs it means that we are going to be taken out as an entire body. The active voice: Jesus Christ produces the action of the verb for the royal family. The participle is circumstantial. So He is the one coming — “and the one coming will come” is the future active indicative of a different word. This time we don’t have e)rxomai, we have h(kw which as a verb means to arrive. It is in the future tense. The active voice: Christ produces the action. it is the indicative mood. It should be translated, “the one [Christ] coming will arrive, and will not tarry [delay].” The plan of God is going to move on with or without, as it were.

Translation: “For yet a little while, how short, how short, he who is coming will arrive, and will not delay his arrival.”

Verse 38 — a third quotation. “Now the just shall live by faith,” a quotation from Habakkuk 2:4. It begins with the conjunctive particle de. it is used in the transitional sense to add another quotation from the Old Testament. The word “just” is not quite correct, it doesn’t really give what the Hebrew says, nor the Greek. Since this is a quotation we will look at the Hebrew first — tsadiq in the plural, and in the plural it should be translated “justified ones.” It does not mean just, it means someone who has been justified. Justification means vindication and there are two areas in which justification or vindication exist. The first of these two areas is salvation. When we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ we are vindicated or justified by faith. After salvation we are called “justified ones” or “vindicated ones.” The reason for that is that God did something for us at salvation. When we are born it is just like being a million dollars in debt, a hopeless debt. When the Lord Jesus Christ went to the cross and paid for our sins by being judged for them He paid off that debt. This is the doctrine of redemption. So that debt is canceled, completely paid off. But that isn’t the whole story of salvation. The other is on the positive side where we have God the Father giving us +R, His righteousness. Then He turns around and looks at that and says, “Vindicated” or “Justified.” So we are justified not because we live good lives or because we are better than anyone else but because of something that God did for us at the point of salvation. And here we have from the Hebrew, tsadiq, which means justified one. And so when it was brought into the Greek in Hebrews the word dikaioj was used. Dikaioj also means a justified one. However, with this we also have a possessive pronoun, and it should be translated “Now my justified ones.”

“shall live” — all of us have moments of discouragement. There never was a person at any time who didn’t find something about which he could be very definitely upset or discouraged. Life must become a frame of reference and we are going to discuss being on the inside and being on the outside. Being on the inside is a love of Bible doctrine, positive volition toward doctrine. The believer on the outside is a reversionist and he is negative toward doctrine. On the inside it is an orderly life, a life where everything is provided through grace. On the inside you have objectives, life has meaning and purpose and definition. But on the outside there is discipline, trouble, disaster, catastrophe, and no way to cope with it. Notice it says, “Now the justified ones shall live,” the future middle indicative of the verb zaw which means the function of life. There are two different words that are used in the Greek, the other one is bioj from which we get biology, and it has an entirely different connotation. Zaw means a life that is orderly, a life that is meaningful and has objectives, and a life where there is enough authority, enough discipline so that there is a great peace and satisfaction and happiness from it. That is exactly what we have in following the colours. The future tense here is a progressive future, it denotes the idea of progress in future time. The middle voice describes the subject as participating in the results of the action of the verb. The subject acts with a view towards participating in the outcome. The active voice emphasises the action the middle voice stresses the agent. In a sense, now, the middle voice tells each one of us whether you know it or not when you believed in Jesus Christ , God in eternity past had a plan for your life. He assigned you, first of all, a certain amount of time on this earth. He assigned you an objective. He also provided for you the logistics so that you would be able to reach that objective. The objective in simple terms: God wants you to be happy, to be successful, to be prosperous. This is the objective. The reason that some do not reach the objective is because they are on the outside, they are negative toward Bible doctrine instead of being on the inside. So far in this verse: “My justified one himself [middle voice] shall live.” The question is, how do we reach these objectives? how do we have all of the wonderful things that God has in store for us? The answer is found in the next two words.

“by faith” — only that isn’t the way it is in the Greek. We have the preposition e)k plus the ablative of the noun pistij. It should be translated “by means of doctrine.” Pistij here means what is believed or a system of doctrine. “Now my justified ones shall live by means of doctrine.” The issue here is the soul. If in your soul you have Bible doctrine you can adjust to monotony, to routine, to everything in life, and you begin to live. Bible doctrine brings you alive and makes you aware of many wonderful things in life, it gives you capacity for life. That is what we have right here, those in the inside.

The next word is “but”, and this is the application of the quotation. It should be translated, however, “and so” — “and so if.” That brings us to a protasis. The word for if is e)an, and it is correctly translated “if”, so it is a protasis of a third class condition — “if”, maybe yes, maybe no. The third class condition always depends on two things: volition and frame of reference.

“draw back” is not very well translated. It is the aorist middle subjunctive of the verb u(postellw which means to retreat. These are the outsiders, the ones who don’t stick with doctrine. To retreat means to fail to follow the colours, it means to turn around and go back. The aorist tense is a constative aorist which contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. In other words, the constative aorist takes up the steps of reversionism — reaction, the frantic search for happiness, operation boomerang which intensifies the reactor factors, negative volition toward doctrine opening up a vacuum which causes false doctrine to go into the mataiothj, the blackout of the soul and then scar tissue of the soul, and then reverse process reversionism. That is what is in view here in this constative aorist. When people retreat they don’t retreat all at once, they retreat gradually. The retreat always starts in the soul before you move away from the objective and go in the opposite direction. The retreat in the soul causes an attitude. This is why people get bored, why people change jobs, why people change wives, why people get out of something instead of sticking with it. The subjunctive mood here means that it is potential, you don’t have to run away just because you have some pressure — “and so if he himself retreats.” The retreat means failure to follow the colours, failure to take the high ground.

“my soul” simply means a divine attitude. The soul is often used for the essence of God — the essence box. When it says “my soul shall not have pleasure in him” it means that the sovereignty of God is displeased with one of the members of the royal family and, of course, that means discipline instead of blessing.

“shall have no pleasure” is a futuristic present, it anticipates the fact that discipline is a future factor, that you can always turn around and go positive toward doctrine — “my soul shall not approve [or have pleasure] in him.”

Translation: “Now my justified ones [the royal family of God] shall live by means of doctrine: consequently if he himself retreats [fails to follow the colours], my soul shall not have pleasure in him.”

Verse 39 — the volitional determination to follow the colours. This should be the attitude of every believer: to take in Bible doctrine today, tomorrow, the next day and the next. “But we” — the word is a pronoun. It is the nominative plural, a proleptic pronoun. The form is e)gw in the Greek and it means we and only we, it means believers. God has a purpose for your life, God has meaning for your life, God has definition for your life.

“are not” — the present active indicative of e)imi plus the negative. We are definitely not going to do something. In other words, here is a way to see the issue that Bible doctrine is more important to you than anything in life and to make your determination that you are going to stay with doctrine no matter what. And so to do that “we are not of them” — “of them” is not found in the original. It should be translated “we are not those who draw back.” But the genitive singular of the noun u(postolh doesn’t mean that, it means a retreating one. We are not the retreating type. This is a descriptive genitive. Bible doctrine inculcated, ingrained, the importance of Bible doctrine in your life, means that you are not the retreating type. You have to make constant decisions. You have to find some way to get doctrine on a consistent basis.

“unto perdition” — the preposition e)ij plus a)poleia means here destruction. So it should be translated “we are not the retreating type for the purpose of destruction”. Destruction means the cancellation of living. The justified ones shall live, and destruction means you are still alive but you are not living, you are a walking zombie. Destruction means a system of discipline that leads to the sin unto death — maximum discipline to the believer — and it means to die apart from dying grace. The sin unto death is divine discipline for those who retreat. We are not the retreating type to be processed by destruction.

“but of them that believer” is wrong. The Greek here says “but we are the doctrinal type.” The phrase “to the saving of the soul” is all incorrect. The words “saving” is a prepositional phrase, and it is e)ij plus the accusative of peripoihsij which does not mean saving, it means possession. It means to possess something that is wonderful, to possess something that is our heritage, to possess something that was designed for us. Why are we here? We are here to get that high ground, to be occupied with the person of Jesus Christ, we are here to get our eyes on the Lord and have the capacity for life and to have those supergrace blessings. We are here to be promoted by God, we are here to be prospered by God, we are here to be blessed by God. God wants us in the devil’s world for the purpose of thumbing His nose at the devil and showing him that cosmos diabolicus cannot offer anyone anything that would even come close to what God offers us. But it must be a volitional thing, you must be free to turn it down and free to take it. That is what it means. Instead of the saving of the soul it should be translated “for the purpose of possession by the soul.” You start with the soul. When you possess doctrine in the soul you are going to possess prosperity on the outside.

The “of the soul” phrase here is what is called the ablative of means. The Greek word is yuxh and it should be translated, then, “But we are not the retreating type designed for destruction [sin unto death]; but we are the doctrinal type for the purpose of doctrinal possession by the soul.”

Doctrinal possession by the soul leads to the supergrace life. The soul of the believer must possess Bible doctrine in order to have tactical victory. The next chapter actually records the believers before the cross who achieved this victory. We have a whole roster of supergrace heroes.

You cannot choose your battlefield

God does that for you;

But you can plant the colours

Where the colours never flew