Chapter 4

Verse 2 — we begin with an adjunctive kai. The word “For” is not “for.” We do not have the particle gar, we have kai. Kai is not a particle, it is a true conjunction. The adjunctive use of kai means “Also.” Then, with that, the particle comes in. It is an illitive particle, it introduces a reason. The reason, of course, is based on fear in the previous verse. Why be afraid? Why ever have an exception to “Fear thou not”? So the whole structure, “For also”, is designed to cause us to understand that there is a reason why we should be afraid about one thing only. If you have received Jesus Christ as saviour you should be absolutely afraid of living in phase two as a member of the family of God and missing the blessing of God pouring for you. God has fantastic supergrace blessings that are only available with supergrace capacity. Supergrace capacity precedes supergrace blessing. In other words, if you don’t have a cup in the soul God doesn’t pour. And when God can’t pour He is disgusted because in eternity past He provided fantastic supergrace blessings for you.

Our next problem is that “unto us” is not there in the Greek. All it says is “For also.” Then the next phrase is not correctly translated because we have four words to mistranslate a periphrastic — “was the gospel preached.” We have a periphrastic construction because it is a perfect periphrastic. This is taken from the Greek word frasij which means to combine, and with peri it means to combine around. In other words, you form a concept around a very strong grammatical structure. The perfect periphrastic is composed of a verb and a participle. The verb is the present active indicative of e)imi, the absolute status quo verb. Along with this we have a perfect passive participle from the verb e)uaggelizw. The first problem comes in that e)uaggelizw in the passive voice means to receive the Gospel, it doesn’t have anything to do with the Gospel preached. This passive voice means in the Greek, as always, the subject receives the action of the verb, and so e)uaggelizw means to have received the Gospel or to have been evangelised. The perfect periphrastic is what is called an intensive and consummative structure. This brings out the meanings of the perfect tense in the Greek. The periphrastic indicates the thoroughness of the evangelism of the Exodus generation and the generation to whom Hebrews is addressed, Jews living in Jerusalem in 67 AD. The intensive concept means the evangelism of Jerusalem in 67 AD was complete. In addition to that we have the consummative concept which means there are results in that. The results are that there are many people in heaven as a result of this evangelism.

It adds up to this. The Exodus generation was a totally evangelised generation. Approximately two-million people left Egypt, freed by the grace of God. They were all saved. The generation to whom Hebrews is addressed are Jews living in Jerusalem three years before the great catastrophe, the fall of Jerusalem to the Roman legions. They, too, have been thoroughly evangelised. The issue is not salvation. The issue is beyond salvation. Salvation is a very periodic, fleeting issue, always. Evangelisation is the first issue to the human race. Once an individual is evangelised he never has to be evangelised again.

Psalm 95 uses the Exodus generation, thoroughly evangelised. The psalm, which takes in David’s day which was a thoroughly evangelised generation, then goes to Jerusalem of the apostolic times in 67 AD, and there is an analogy between the Exodus generation and the Jews living at that time to whom Hebrews was addressed. One thing is made clear by the periphrastic: the Gospel is not the issue to the Exodus generation and the Gospel is not the issue to the Jewish generation. Jesus Christ as saviour is not the issue to those who have responded to the Gospel. The issue is: What do you think of doctrine?

The Exodus generation flunked. They had the best doctrinal teaching in the world at that time, but they were guilty of secondary negative volition. The same problem occurs to those to whom Hebrews was originally addressed. They, too, have heard the Gospel and are now believers in phase two, very legalistic, and they have said no to doctrine. Their problem is they live in Jerusalem where no longer is there a tabernacle but a temple, and they love to go to the temple and go through the ritual of the temple. They had accepted Jesus Christ as saviour but they still had great respect for the priest. Their respect for the priesthood was so great, and it was ingrained in them and inculcated in such a manner, that they observed the ritual of the Passover even though they were saved and the Passover was no longer pertinent. Therefore they would spend Sundays listening to the teaching of doctrine and spend Saturdays observing the ritual of Israel and they never really went beyond the salvation issue, although they had been saved for a long time. The Gospel was no longer an issue, the issue now was Bible doctrine, and this they rejected.

This helps to understand what is coming up. The isagogics are important here. The issue here is not whether you grab a promise or two, the issue is whether you realise the importance of doctrine. It is the only way you are going to get to supergrace. Supergrace is the issue and this book is about the priesthood of the believer and there is no normal function of the priesthood until you get to supergrace. The fact you are a priest doesn’t mean a thing until you have the normal function of the priest and that comes through supergrace. This periphrastic says, “Look, you’re all saved. That is not the issue.” The issue is doctrine. The corrected translation so far is: “For we also have been permanently evangelised.”

“as well as them” — the adverb is kaqaper which means “even as” or “just as.” And you never translate the nominative case “them”; “them” is accusative. So it should be “they.” However, we have a nominative masculine plural from a compound demonstrative pronoun. This is kakeinoj. This is made up of two words, kai and e)kainoj. The first word here is the adjunctive use of kai which means “also,” and e)keinoj means “they”. So you do not translate this “them” or even “they” correctly, it is “they also” — “just as [or, even as] they also.” “They also” refers to the fact that the Exodus generation was perfectly evangelised. The periphrastic applies to the Exodus generation even as it applies to the people to whom this passage was originally addressed. So note the parallel between maximum evangelisation of the Exodus generation and maximum evangelisation of the Jews in Jerusalem in 67 AD. The Jews of the Exodus were saved but generally reversionistic. The Jews of 67 AD living in Jerusalem were saved but generally reversionistic. Reversionism blinded the Jews of 67 AD to the impending disaster of the siege of Jerusalem. And there is a principle that comes out of this very interesting structure of a compound demonstrative pronoun: reversionism cannot interpret history.

“We have been permanently evangelised even as they also were permanently evangelised,” is what is says here. Principle: Reversionism cannot interpret history. The Exodus generation could not interpret the time in which they lived and in which they died because they couldn’t interpret history. There is a second principle: Jesus Christ controls history, and since He does the easiest way to interpret history is to be occupied with the person who controls history. That leads to a third consideration: The supergrace believer can interpret contemporary history. If a person isn’t occupied with Christ obviously he can’t interpret history. So reversionism is always blind to impending historical disaster.

We have been evangelised. We have passed that and have believed in Christ but the issue is no longer Christ as saviour. You will hear soteriology from time to time from the scripture, this helps your understanding of grace. But the issue is the doctrine of soteriology as one of the classifications of doctrine in scripture and when you learn it, along with all of the other facets of doctrine, it all has the same concept: to give you the cup in your soul, the supergrace capacity for supergrace blessing.

So now we have an adversative conjunction, “but” — a)lla. This sets up a contrast between salvation as the issue of phase one and doctrine as the issue of phase two. The issue in phase one is Christ: “What think ye of Christ?” The issue in phase two is doctrine: “What think ye of doctrine?” After salvation everything depends on the believer’s attitude to Bible doctrine. To be positive toward doctrine is the road to supergrace, the road to occupation with the person of Christ. The difference between blessing and cursing is the difference between positive and negative volition toward doctrine. The principle: Your attitude toward doctrine determines your blessing or cursing in phase two.

“the word” — o( logoj, refers to the doctrines of the canon of scripture. They are all gathered up into one word here — “the doctrine.” The word “preached” isn’t there in the Greek. There is a genitive of description noun and it doesn’t mean preach, it means hearing. It isn’t talking, it is listening. It is the genitive singular of a)koh, and it means “of hearing”. So it is literally, “the doctrine of hearing”, the doctrine you hear, in other words. A)koh means hearing, it also means instruction or inculcation. The noun emphasises the fact that believers cannot learn doctrine directly from the Bible. They cannot classify directly from the Bible. That’s why we have the gift of pastor-teacher.

“did not profit” — the aorist active indicative of w)felew. The word means to help, to profit, to benefit. In fact, all of the meanings of the verb apply here. The aorist tense is a constative aorist, it gathers up into one ball of wax forty years of great Bible teaching by Moses, by Aaron, by the use of the tabernacle, by angels; all the doctrine that they ever had in forty years. And, by the way, they assembled. They listened. They were constantly exposed to the teaching of doctrine. The active voice: the Exodus generation produced the action of the verb. They did not profit from what they were taught. They refused to transfer doctrine by faith-rest from the left lobe to the human spirit. The indicative mood is the reality of being hearers of the Word and not doers. “Did not Profit” brings up the whole issue of negative volition.

The doctrine of negative volition

There are six areas of negative volition whereby you can fail to take in doctrine or fail to utilise doctrine or fail to reach supergrace.

1. Refusal to hear. This is the person who fails to assemble. This does not include the Exodus generation, we have already in this passage “the word of hearing did not profit.” This is the person who has rejected today his right pastor and doctrine, or both. That is primary negative volition.

2. Refusal to rebound after assembling to hear the Word. This is the person who assembles but because he is not filled with the Spirit he cannot take in the Word and the Word does not become objective reality in his left lobe. No gnwsij because he is quenching or grieving the Spirit, or both, while he sits in the assembly.

3. Refusal to use faith in the transfer. This is secondary negative volition. This is the believer who hears the doctrine under the filling of the Spirit and he understands the doctrine in his left lobe. This is the person that James calls a hearer of the Word but not a doer.

James 1:19 — the perfect passage on secondary negative volition, refusal to transfer doctrine from the left lobe to the human spirit. “Wherefore” is really “Know this” — perfect active imperative of o)ida used as a present tense. “Every man” means “every one”, every believer, every member of the body of Christ , every believer priest — “be” is a present active imperative. The present tense of the imperative is linear aktionsart, “keep on being”. And the first factor is “swift to hear.” That is positive volition for assembling. The adjective “swift”, taxuj, means prompt, speedy. It means to have the mental attitude that goes with the function. Then we have a prepositional phrase e)ij plus an infinitive — “swift for hearing.” “Slow to speak” means, in context, you can’t talk and learn at the same time. “Slow to wrath” reflects the mental attitude when you assemble. If you’ve blown your cork you can’t learn anything either. All of this is the first phase of GAP. “Swift to hear”: positive volition at the point of assembly; “slow to speak”: you can’t talk and learn at the same time; “slow to wrath”: your mental attitude is vitally important and involved.

“Know this, my beloved brethren, everyone keep on being swift for the purpose of hearing, slow for the purpose of chatting, slow with reference to mental attitude sins like anger.”

Verse 20 — “For the anger of the noble believer [the believer who assembles] does not produce righteousness from the source of God.” Righteousness is in view here for several reasons. As far as GAPing it is concerned it is to understand who and what God is.

Verse 21 — in order to rectify this problem in GAPing it we have the rebound technique. “Having removed all pollution [mental attitude sins] and the overflow of wickedness [sins of the tongue and overt sins] ...”

And then we get back to GAPing it again. “Receive is an aorist middle imperative of dexomai and it means to embrace. It is a constative aorist and it gathers into one ball of wax or one entirety every time that you GAP it. The middle voice connected with dexomai means to welcome and retain. The imperative mood: it is an order. “Meekness” is the mental attitude toward doctrine, toward the one teaching doctrine in the assembly. This is included by God the Holy Spirit through the writer James to remind you that there is no such thing in GAP as a personality conflict. You either have the right pastor or you don’t. He may rub you the wrong way, that is not the point. What he teaches is the issue. You take it from the Lord.

“the engrafted word” — the “ingerminated” or “impregnated” word, actually. Doctrine is no good unless it makes you pregnant. Pregnancy is the passing of doctrine from the left lobe to the human spirit, from the human spirit to the right lobe. That’s where it begins to really count.

“which is able to deliver your souls” — you are delivered from scar tissue, from the devil’s world.

Verse 22 — “Be ye” — present middle imperative of ginomai, “keep on becoming”, present tense, linear aktionsart. Active voice: you as a believer produce the action of the verb. Imperative mood: it is an order that you do this, that you transfer. This is the command right here which offsets secondary negative volition.

“doers” is a noun, the nominative plural of poihthj. This does not mean that you have to be running around “doing things for God”. Doing is function in the soul. The function is not necessarily overt, the function in this case is inside of the soul. “Keep on becoming doers of doctrine, both hearers only.” You have to be a hearer first, that is the first stage of GAP. The hearer is a believer who is positive and takes in ICE teaching from his right pastor. He is filled with the Holy Spirit because he rebounds whenever necessary so that he has an objective understanding of doctrine inside of his left lobe. This is a hearer. But you can’t stop there. Doctrine in the left lobe is not useable and volition must handle it. If you are positive faith will transfer it down to the human spirit where it becomes e)pignwsij. But the big problem with the believers in Jerusalem in 67 AD, and the big problem with the Exodus generation was that they were negative right here. Objective understanding of doctrine is being a hearer, and that doctrine has to go to work. So there is a great barrier that the doctrine has to cross. The barrier is between the left lobe, called the nouj or the mind, and the human spirit. The final objective: there is a line from the frame of reference right into the human spirit, and it is a vacuum line which pumps this doctrine right into the heart or the right lobe. So, “keep on becoming doers of the word.” That means you must persist in transferring doctrine from the left lobe to the human spirit.

“not hearers only” — if you have doctrine in your left lobe you can give it back on a piece of paper, you can pass an examination with it, but unless you transfer it you are is a state of self-deceit — “deceiving your own selves”, present middle participle of paralogizomai, which means to defraud or deceive yourself.

Verse 23 — “is like a noble believer contemplating his natural face in a mirror”.

Verse 24 — “he observes himself, and departs, and immediately disregards what sort of a person he is”. The whole point is that by looking into a mirror every day you are oriented to what you are. If you only look into a mirror once in a while you are never oriented. A mirror is a basic principle for orientation in life. “He immediately disregards what he looked like.” In other words, he is oriented for the day. Now, much more important is looking into another mirror, and that is the Word of God.

Verse 25 — “But he that looketh into the perfect law of liberty”. That refers to the Bible, and it refers to GAPing it daily. We have an adversative conjunction here. The word “looketh” is an aorist active participle of parakuptw, a verb for concentration. It means to stoop down and stare vigorously. So it means to concentrate. “He that concentrates on the perfect [completed] law [the canon of scripture] of liberty [Bible doctrine gives freedom to serve God, freedom to function under the priesthood]”

“and continueth” — here is the important thing. We have the aorist active participle of paramenw which means “and having continued” [Doing this all the time]. This is persisting in taking in Bible doctrine.

“he being” is literally, “he having become” — “the one having become not a hearer of oblivion but a doer of work, this man shall be happy in the action of doing.”

Translation: “The one having looked intently [concentrated] on the perfect law of freedom [Bible teaching], and having persisted, the one having become not a hearer of oblivion, but a doer of work [Bible doctrine going into the various areas of the soul where growth in involved], this one shall be happy in the action of doing [happiness in the function of GAP].”

James says “transfer”; Hebrews says, “this is what happens if you don’t transfer. Hebrews looks at it from the standpoint of faith or no faith, from the standpoint of volition in the soul. James looks at the happiness of being a doer of the Word, someone whose doctrine is working for him.

Hebrews 4:2 — “did not benefit them.”

The doctrine of negative volition (continued)

4. Refusal to be consistent. Here is the person who functions correctly under GAP, but when under adversity he won’t function correctly. When he has any kind of difficulty in his life or when he wants something from the Lord he is always in Bible class. But this person is highly unstable and with a little prosperity he begins to neglect Bible doctrine.

5. Negative vulnerability. This is the believer who reaches supergrace but reacts. here is a believer who GAPs it consistently all the way to supergrace. Once he reaches supergrace he begins to react. He had supergrace capacity, started to receive supergrace blessings, and one day he reacted toward the reaction column — disillusion, boredom, discouragement, self-pity, loneliness, frustration, being jilted, being under some kind of mental attitude sin such as jealousy or bitterness or implacability. These are some of the things that cause reaction. Any time you are bored or disillusioned, or any of these others, you are vulnerable to the whole realm of negation toward doctrine. This is negative vulnerability in which in a frantic search for happiness reaction you lose the ECS, you have blackout of the soul, you lose everything.

6. Negative emotionalism, which is the believer becoming negative to doctrine through emotional revolt of the soul. This is what happens to holy-rollers, etc.

“not being mixed with faith” — The iterative perfect emphasises the process by which the action is completed. In this case with the negative the process was not completed. These people did not have the blessings of supergrace. God was very angry with the congregation of the Exodus generation because He had all of these fantastic blessings He was waiting to pour and He couldn’t pour. The iterative perfect is a continuous process which is emphasised under recurrent circumstances. The continuous process is GAPing it. The recurrent circumstances” every time doctrine is available through the function of GAP. The completion of the action here is reversionism because of the negative. Iterative means the process by which the action was achieved.

How did they get that way? They didn’t blend with doctrine into the soul. Doctrine was available in the Word through those who taught it. The assembly was in existence then, the assembly of Israel in a different dispensation. Now we have the assembly today, only it is the local church which is the classroom. So at every point God has preserved doctrine and those who communicate doctrine. God has a special modus operandi and He deals in a special way with those who communicate doctrine: double cursing or discipline, double blessing where blessing is involved. The perfect tense indicates that God has preserved doctrine in the canon. He has preserved those who communicate it and He has preserved sheep in the pasture to feed. The tragedy is for the believer to be in Bible class and at some future time to go negative, or to keep on going to Bible class to hear the Word but never transfer it to the human spirit, to be a hearer and not a doer. All of the malfunctions lie within the soul.

“not being mixed with faith” — the passive voice: the believer through the breakdown of positive volition, the breakdown of faith-rest, fails to cycle doctrine to the human spirit, to the right lobe. Doctrine is only meaningful and useful in the right lobe. This is translated: “but the word of hearing doctrine did not benefit them, not having been blended” — not “with” faith, this is the instrumental singular of pistij plus the definite article. It has the definite article and this is what is called an instrumental of manner, it expresses the method by means which the function of GAP is performed; “by the faith” — the definite article always characterises or defines the noun in the context; “in them that heard it” — the dative plural aorist active participle of a)kouw. This is the dative of advantage. It is to our advantage to listen to doctrine, to take in doctrine, to GAP it daily. It was to the advantage of the Exodus believers to hear Moses communicate doctrine to them. This is also an aorist participle, and the action of the aorist participle precedes the action of the main verb. The main verb: “did not benefit”. What a tragedy. They heard the doctrine but did not benefit from hearing it. Believers heard doctrine taught before they refused to blend it with their faith. The various ingredients of doctrine are no good in their separate classifications until they are blended with your faith.

Translation: “We also have been permanently evangelised, even as they also [the Exodus generation] were permanently evangelised: but the word of hearing [hearing doctrine] did not benefit them, not having been blended with faith [the faith] on the part of the ones having heard.”

1. Here is a direct analogy to the Exodus generation of Israel. This also pertains to the apostolic generation of believers in Jerusalem in 67 AD.

2. Both generations were saved. To them, as well as to us, salvation is not the issue. Salvation is only an issue to the unbeliever.

3. The Exodus generation was in reversionism for forty years.

4. The apostolic generation of born again Jews in Jerusalem would shortly have an identical forty years of reversionism — from Pentecost in 30 AD to 70 AD.

5. However, Hebrews was a warning in the 37th year of the reversionistic apostasy of the born again Jews in Jerusalem. The greatest demonstration of the apostasy of these born again Jews is their rejection of the ministry of the apostle Paul in Jerusalem. Paul visited Jerusalem, his ministry was totally rejected. In that way they differed from the Exodus generation. The Exodus generation gave Moses a hearing, and after the hearing they said no. The born again Jews of Jerusalem said no, they would not give Paul a hearing. The Exodus generation had secondary negative volition; the Jews in Jerusalem had primary negative volition.

6. Only supergrace status will provide the basis for deliverance from that great historical catastrophe of the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD.

7. The reversionistic Jerusalemites are about to reap what they have sowed instead of reaping what God sowed. Negative volition eventuates in reaping what you sow.

Verse 3 — the word “For” is epexegetical use of the particle gar. Here gar is used for additional explanation. it can be translated “For” or “Now you see.”

“we which have believed” is an aorist active participle of the verb pisteuw. The aorist tense is a constative aorist which gathers into one entirety a similar series of experiences. Here it refers to those times when the believers of the Exodus generation were exposed to Bible teaching. The concept here is the fulfilment of the second stage of GAP. However, the ones in the Exodus generation were very few who responded, and the issue now is that they failed and that there are always those in the same generation who succeed. The fact that you are rubbing elbows with a nation full of failures, with a government that has failed, with people who have lost their minds and their common sense and establishment, does not mean that you have to fail. So here is the success stream. No matter how a nation fails, no matter how a group of people fail, no matter how a church fails, you do not have to. Just keep right on GAPing it. The aorist participle should be translated, “For the ones having believed.” In other words, success means firstly, that you pass the test of primary negative volition when you assemble. Having assembled you pass the test of negative volition by rebound. Your are positive toward the rebound principle of the priesthood. Now the great issue. You listen to ICE teaching, you concentrate, you are controlled by the Spirit because you have passed the first two volitional tests, and you have doctrine in your left lobe. This is a doer of the Word. The great barrier is right here: your attitude toward doctrine once you understand it objectively. Objective information is not workable in formation and in order for this particular information to become functional positive volition, which is always non-meritorious and therefore faith, transfers it to the human spirit where it becomes e)pignwsij. E)pignwsij is the issue because e)pignwsij is picked up by a vacuum line and taken into the right lobe, into the frame of reference, becomes a part of the vocabulary, the categories, the norms and standards, and the launching pad. It is doctrine coming out of this launching pad which creates the first vacuum. Along with that e)pignwsij builds the ECS. The fourth floor is capacity for love. Category #1 love also creates a vacuum. So you have maximum doctrine coming out of the launching pad, category #1 love coming from the ECS, and this creates a vacuum going right back into eternity past, and through this vacuum God pours supergrace blessings — wealth, promotion, success, etc., those things which even in the devil’s world are associated with happiness.

The aorist tense indicates the road by which you reach supergrace: the transferring of doctrine from the left lobe to the human spirit, converting gnwsij into e)pignwsij. Believing is the converter. The active voice indicates that the believer under the function of GAP produces the action of the verb by faith. He transfers doctrine from his left lobe to his human spirit. The participle is an aorist participle. Not always, but generally, the action of the aorist participle precedes the action of the main verb. The main verb follows: “do enter into.” You cannot enter into supergrace until you have transferred X number of times doctrine from the left lobe to the human spirit. The real issue, then, is faith.

The doctrine of faith

1. Faith is non-meritorious thinking, a non-meritorious system of perception. it is in contrast to meritorious systems of perception like rationalism and empiricism. Faith is something that everyone uses.

It is the basis for all of the knowledge, all of the perception which you have right up to this moment. Everything that you have ever learned is based upon a faith base.

2. In the Greek language we have five words that are pertinent to the study of faith in the Bible. The first of these is a noun called pistij. This means faith or faithful or reliable, or that which is believed. With the absence of the definite article with this noun would indicate the quality of the noun. The definite article added to this noun defines it. So we have the difference between the definition and quality. When the definite article comes with this word is means that which is believed and/or doctrine. So this noun can mean everything from the English word “faith” to the English word “doctrine.” Context plus the use of the definite article or the absence of the definite article will determine its exact meaning.

The second word is an adjective, pistoj. This means dependable, inspiring trust. It is also used, in the sense of an adjective, faith, believing, the believing ones.

Next is the verb pisteuw. Pisteuw means to believe. It is a transitive verb. In the Word of God the object of this transitive verb always has the merit. The subject is non-meritorious. A transitive verb has a subject and an object stated or implied. The subject, for example, in phase one is any member of the human race. The object is Jesus Christ. Anyone believing in Jesus Christ, and the result is salvation. Why? Christ did the work in salvation. He is the object; He has the merit. There is no merit in the subject of this transitive verb. The issue in phase two is a little different. This time the object of faith is doctrine, the subject is the believer priest. The believing is the second stage of GAP. It is doctrine believed that is actually transferred.

The next verb, often translated “faith,” is just a little off-shade from that. Number four is peiqw. It means really to obey. It has a little different meaning in each one of the tenses. The present tense means to obey. In the aorist tense it means to persuade. In the perfect tense it means to have confidence. But in the present tense it means obedience. It generally what is known an iterative present.

The fifth one is pistow and is rather rare. It means to show one’s self faithful. It also means to have confidence.

3. The Hebrew etymology. The first of all of the Hebrew verbs from Genesis 15:6 where we get the pattern of Old Testament salvation — aman. The root concept of this verb is a foundation, and it means, for example, in the hiphil stem to use God as a foundation and therefore is a basic word for salvation in the Old Testament. “Abraham had believed in the Lord [or had used God as a foundation] and it was credited to his account for righteousness.”

There are several nouns that go with this verb. In fact, the next three in our etymology are based upon this verb. Emun which means faithfulness. It means to be consistent in whatever you are doing as a believer. That is a masculine noun. The next is a feminine noun, Emunah, and this word means truth, steadiness. The fourth is amen which means simply truth. Then there is an offshoot of this, another noun built on the participle, omen, which means faithfulness. it is often used of God’s faithfulness to us. The sixth means doctrine, though not always translated that way. Sometimes it is just translated “truth” — emeth. These are all roots of amen, to believe. Number seven goes back to the verbs — batach, the basic faith-rest verb. This was originally a wrestling term — the body slam. From that came the concept of slamming your problems on the Lord, and from that faith in the sense faith-rest. It is also used in Psalm 37:3 and Psalm 91:2. Generally you will find it in the King James version translated “trust.” Next is found in Psalm 57:1 — cherish. It is used of a rabbit fleeing from a larger animal in the desert. The rabbit hides in a crack in a rock and because the larger animal cannot get in the rabbit is safe. It really means to trust in the sense of taking refuge in. The ninth is also a verb, found in Job 13:15; Lamentation 3:21,24 — jachal, which means to trust God in great pressure or in great pain. The tenth, found in Isaiah 40:31; Lamentations 3:25, is the strongest of all the words for faith — qawah. It loses its strength in the King James translation because it is generally translated to “wait”, like “they that wait upon the Lord.” However, the word means that we are hopeless, helpless and useless, just like a piece of thread. You can take a piece of thread in your hand and snap it. That is the way we are. But when you wrap that thread or weave it into a great rope then it cannot be broken. So it means to bind or to twist strands together. Hence, it becomes the strongest of all words for faith and it is often used for faith in the supergrace status or the celebrityship of Jesus Christ status.

4. The Bible itself occasionally uses a descriptive definition for faith. We derive our definition from the etymology of the Hebrew and the Greek. We also derive our understanding from descriptive definitions, like Hebrews 11:1 or 2 Corinthians 4:18. Most of the definitions, as these two, describe faith as reality in the unseen things. “We look not at the things which are seen but at the things which are unseen. The things which are seen are temporal but the things which are unseen are eternal. Faith is the evidence of things not seen.”

5. In the verb to believe, whether one of the five Hebrew verbs, whether pisteuw or peiqw, the verb that is generally used is a transitive verb. Again, this means that it must have a subject, it must have an object. Because of the differences in languages the subject or the object may not be stated, especially the subject. The subject is often found in the suffix of the verb. But whether stated or not there is a subject and there is an object. Since faith is non-meritorious perception point 5 recognises the principle from the transitive verb: the whole value or efficacy of faith always lies in its object, not in its subject.

6. Classification of the objects of faith. Since there is merit only in the object we need a classification of objects.

a) Salvation. The object of faith in salvation is Jesus Christ the only saviour — Acts 16:31; John 3:18, 36; 20:31.

b) In phase two the object of faith is the Word of God or Bible doctrine. Promises under our basic study of faith-rest are for babies, and sooner or later if you start taking in doctrine you are going to grow up and the object of your faith will be the doctrine itself, and the transfer of that doctrine will lead to the supergrace life. Once you are in the supergrace life you are going to live like an adult spiritually. So the object of faith is Bible doctrine — 2 Corinthians 5:7; Hebrews 4:1-3; 11:6.

7. Out of the first six points we develop a concept of faith.

a) All the believing in the world secures nothing but condemnation from God. Having faith doesn’t mean a thing because faith is the basic system of perception. The first things you ever learned you learned by faith. Rationalism and empiricism came later.

b) However, the tiniest bit of faith in Christ secures eternal salvation, but it must be in Christ.

c) Therefore the efficacy of faith lies in the object of faith, not in the amount of faith. It is the quality of the object not the quantity of the faith — Acts 4:12.

d) Since Christ did all the work for salvation on the cross the only response to that work is faith in Jesus Christ.

e) Therefore, faith is not something we do but faith is a channel whereby we appropriate what God has done for us.

7. The development of faith. After salvation faith must take on muscle and strength. So how do you develop faith?

a) The daily function of GAP begins to put strength in your faith — Romans 10:17. But why? Because you have an object for your faith and you believe doctrine as it is taught. This puts strength in your faith.

b) The filling of the Spirit also produces faith — Galatians 5:22.

c) The function of faith-rest produces faith — Hebrews 4:1-3, and, again, this is related to GAP.

d) Once you begin to develop a little bit of faith it has to be tested. Suffering is designed to test faith — 1 Peter 1:7,8. Same concept as doing weight lifting. Testing is putting pressure on your muscles to test them. The testing, when successful, develops your strength.

e) The quintessence of faith strength is occupation with the person of Jesus Christ — Hebrews 12:2.

8. The victory of faith — 1 John 5:4,5.

Hebrews 4:3 — “For the ones having believed” — constative aorist tense. Active voice: the believer produces the action of the verb through the function of GAP. The participle: the action of the aorist participle precedes the action of the main verb. The main verb has to do with entering the supergrace life.

Next comes the main verb: “do enter into” — present middle indicative of the verb e)iserxomai. The present tense is a customary present, it denotes that which habitually occurs or may be expected to occur. When the believer is consistent in the function of GAP, consistent in transferring doctrine from his left lobe to his human spirit and right lobe, the result is that he enters into supergrace which is the objective of the Christian way of life. Out of the 36 things that happened to us at salvation one of them was that we were entered into union with Christ. Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father as out high priest. When Christ was seated at the right hand of the Father as a member of the human race He was superior to all angels. Now, everyone of us as of the moment of salvation are in union with Jesus Christ. We are seated, therefore, positionally at the right hand of the Father. That is our position in Christ. This is the place of absolute victory in the angelic conflict. That is the thing that broke Satan’s back. The customary indicates that if you GAP it it can reasonably be expected that you will enter supergrace. Once you enter supergrace you have for the first time the capacity — that is the cup constructed out of doctrine — and God in eternity past had all of these blessings for you. And God starts pouring. The more He pours the more He is glorified. God is glorified by blessing you under supergrace. Why? Because if God can take you and keep you alive in the devil’s world, keep you alive in time, and bless you to the maximum on the basis of positive volition toward doctrine and you supergrace capacity, then it glorifies God. Rewards in heaven for people in the pew are based upon being promoted, being successful, being wealthy, having a great sex life, a great social life, etc. This bit about “suffering for Jesus” is Satanic propaganda.

In the middle voice the subject, which in this case is the believer priest, participates in the results of the action. As a result of GAPing and believing the believer enters into the rest of the supergrace life. This is what is called a permissive middle voice in which the believer voluntarily yields himself to the results of the action and is benefited by the action of the verb. The indicative mood is the reality of entrance into supergrace through believing doctrine which is located in the left lobe and bringing it over into the right lobe via the human spirit.

“into the rest” — the preposition e)ij plus the accusative singular of katapausij. Kata means norm, pausij means rest, but it really means rest according to a norm or standard. The norm or standard is grace, grace provision. All you do is fulfil Romans 8:28 which is for supergrace believers only. “All things work together for good.” Thing one is all of the supergrace blessings which God provided for you in eternity past. Then you reach supergrace capacity, that is the cup. Supergrace blessings [thing one] are poured into supergrace capacity [thing two] and you come out with supergrace blessings, supergrace prosperity, supergrace wealth, supergrace life, whatever it may be. All things do not work together for good for all believers, only those believers “who love God.” That is the qualifying statement, and the qualifying statement indicates a supergrace believer. So here we have katapausij used for the supergrace life.

As far as the Exodus generation was concerned katapausij was Canaan, and in order to enter Canaan they had to have supergrace capacity. They didn’t have the supergrace capacity so they didn’t have the supergrace blessing of Canaan. In supergrace the believer is blessed on the basis of reaping what God sowed in eternity past. However, in contrast to that, in reversionism the believer reaps what the believer sows, which is misery. Supergrace, then, is the basis for the function of Romans 8:28.

The doctrine of supergrace

1. Supergrace is the final stage of growth beyond the ECS, as far as phase two is concerned. It is the area of reaping what God sows. It is characterised by occupation with Christ, supergrace capacity like, freedom, life, happiness, prosperity and adversity; and supergrace blessings like wealth, success, and so on.

2. Characteristics: The supergrace life is characterised by the cup that runs over — Psalm 23:5. The cup or the supergrace capacity is built upon maximum intake of Bible doctrine through consistent function of GAP. With the cup in the soul you reap what God sowed for you in eternity past. God is, as it were, tapping His foot waiting to provide these things for us.

3. The first distinction arises. Supergrace must be distinguished from God’s grace and the distinction comes from words like James 4:6 — “supergrace.” Grace is God’s eternal provision apart from human volition. God provided certain things for you totally apart from your volition — salvation, daily needs, protection in the angelic conflict. But “more grace” or “greater grace” of James 4:6 is God’s provision for the believer based on human volition. The issue in the angelic conflict is supergrace or greater grace. Grace is not an issue because grace is provided for you apart from your volition.

4. The supergrace life is analogous to God resting on the seventh day of restoration.

5. The love problem: Under the love problem God loves every believer with a maximum love because of propitiation. However, the believer’s love response varies according to the amount of doctrine in the soul. The supergrace believer loves God, as per Romans 8:28 or 1 John 4:19. God’s love for the supergrace believer is expressed in blessing, but God’s love for the reversionist is expressed in discipline or cursing — Hebrews 12:6.

6. The key to the supergrace life begins with the happiness spectrum. Remember that +H begins with supergrace and it is a spectrum. It starts with tranquillity and goes all the way to ecstatics; it has many, many variations. Certain parts of the happiness spectrum apply when you’re under pressure — like tranquillity, others apply when you’re under some kind of promotion or prosperity — like ecstatics. The supergrace life is the place of maximum God-given happiness — Philippians 4:4; 1 Thessalonians 5:16. This happiness is acquired through the intake of doctrine — 1 John 1:4. The same doctrine which provides +H produces the supergrace status.

7. The celebrityship of Christ: The supergrace believer has maximum love and appreciation of Christ — Lamentations 3:22-25; Hebrews 12:2; Colossians 3:1,2. This is called the celebrityship status. Christ is only a celebrity to the supergrace believer. This celebrityship of Christ is always tested at the communion table.

8. The capacity factor: The supergrace believer has capacity in the following categories. a) Freedom — Galatians 5:1; James 1:25-2:12; Romans 8:21; 2 Corinthians 3:17; b) Capacity for life — 1 Samuel 17:47; 18:5, 14, 40; c) Love. Category #1 love: Deuteronomy 6:6; 30:20; Joshua 23:10,11; 1 John 2:5; 4:19. Category #2 love: Song of Solomon 8:6,7; Category #3 love: 2 Samuel 1:26 d) Happiness — Psalm 9:1,2; 21:1; 31:7; 43:4; 97:12; John 17:13; 1 John 1:4. e) Capacity for suffering — 2 Corinthians 12:7-10.

The availability of supergrace is beautifully described in Isaiah 30:18. The promotion of supergrace is described in Psalm 84, illustrated by 1 Samuel 17. The supergrace believer is always God’s man for the crisis.

“as he said” — the adverb “as”, kaqoj cites Old Testament documentation; “he said” is the perfect active indicative of legw and means “as he has perfectly communicated.” Now we have a quotation again from Psalm 95:11. This time the quotation begins with the word “as,” a comparative particle w(j which indicates the manner in which something proceeds. it is used as a correlative adverb and should be translated here, “in keeping with the facts.” What are the facts? Reversionism in the Exodus generation.

“I sware” — aorist active indicative of o)mnumi, which means to promise with a solemn oath. This is a gnomic aorist referring to an absolute. The active voice: God produces the action in the case of all reversionists. All reversionists, if they persist, wind up under the sin unto death. Why? Because they have missed the only basic issue of the Christian way of life: What think ye of doctrine? The indicative mood is the reality of divine discipline on reversionism. They sow what they reap; they wind up under the sin unto death.

“in my wrath” — e)n plus the locative of o)rgh, used for indignation or disgust. God loves the reversionistic believer but He is disgusted with him. Why? Because God has all these wonderful things to give him and he is not getting them. And He is disgusted because all kinds of fallen angels are watching these idiots. Here they are with all of these wonderful things available but the reversionist doesn’t have any cup into which God can pour.

Then we have an elliptical oath. An elliptical oath always begins with “If” which is preceded by whoever the person is. He takes an oath in his own name. So this idiom should be translated, “I am not God if.”

“they shall enter” — future active indicative of e)iserxomai, referring to the supergrace life, originally to Canaan. The future tense expresses the character of a verbal idea but instead of indicating progress, as does the present and the imperfect tenses, it connotes an aoristic or punctiliar concept. We have here a gnomic future. The gnomic future tense is used to present a statement of fact as an absolute. The active voice: this is the reversionistic believer not entering the supergrace life. The indicative mood is the reality of no supergrace blessings for the reversionist.

“into my rest” — e)ij plus katapausij, referring to Canaan as an illustration of supergrace blessing.

“although” — kaitoi, which means “and yet.” This is a compound conjunction, it explains the disgust of God.

“the works” — the genitive plural of e)rgon. This is the beginning of another genitive absolute. The genitive absolute stands apart in this particular construction as a Greek idiom to show great emphasis. It is composed of a noun and a participle. God’s grace provides something totally apart from anything else this world has to offer. No one in this world can do anything for you that is even comparable to God’s grace and God’s supergrace blessing. The noun refers to the divine provision — “works,” plural. The works for you! God loves to demonstrate in every generation to his majesty the devil who rules this world that He can take care of members of His family. He took care of them from eternity past and does a better job than anything the devil has to offer. No wonder Christ turned down the devil when he offered Him the kingdoms of this world. God the Son had something much greater. And He now has it for you, and He is disgusted because you don’t have it and you should. You don’t have to wait for heaven for blessing.

Now we have the aorist passive participle in the genitive plural of ginomai which means to become — aorist participle, “having become.” This is a culminative aorist. The culminative aorist indicates that whatever God provided for you by way of supergrace blessings it was completed in eternity past. The passive voice: the blessings of supergrace were completed before the world was created. The participle: the action of the aorist participle precedes the action of the main verb, the main verb: “do enter into.” These things were in existence before you entered — “and yet, the works having been brought into existence.” The works are supergrace blessings and they were brought into existence in eternity past — “from the foundation of the world”.

“foundation” — preposition a)po plus the genitive of katabolh — “from the ultimate source of the foundation of the world.”

Translation: “For the ones having believed are to enter into the rest of supergrace, as he has said in the past with the result that it stands perfectly communicated forever, In keeping with the facts I have made a solemn promise in my disgust, I am not God if they shall enter into my rest [supergrace blessing]: and yet the works [supergrace blessings] have been brought into existence from the ultimate source of the foundation of the world.”

In other words, God’s supergrace blessings existed long before man was created. God sowed in eternity past so that you and I might reap in time. But God’s sowing in eternity past is only reaped by the supergrace believer. To be a reaper you must be in supergrace, otherwise the reaper becomes a weeper. The reversionist cannot harvest what God has sown in eternity past, he can only harvest what he sows in time. There is a choice: what God sowed in eternity past or what you sow in time.

Verse 4 — “For” is the explanatory particle gar, which is simply a signal that we are about to have something explained to us; “he spake”, the perfect active indicative of the verb legw. Legw means to say or to speak. Here it means to communicate because it is referring to an Old Testament quotation. The perfect tense of the Greek verb is the tense of completed action. Whatever has been communicated was communicated in the past, says the perfect tense. This is also what is called in the syntax of the Greek an intensive perfect which views the completed action from the standpoint of its results. In other words, Psalm 95 also had this perfect tense, it is a part of the scripture. It was recorded in the past with the result that we still study it. Now we go a little further back this time, to Genesis 2:2. Genesis 2:2 was recorded in the days of Moses with the result that we still have it today and we still have it in the original languages. When the attention is directed to the results of the action stress on the existing facts is intensified. That is why this is called an intensive perfect. So Genesis 2:2 was communicated to Moses by God the Holy Spirit and became a part of the scripture with the result that we study it as a part of scripture today. The active voice: Moses communicated this originally. The indicative mood is the reality of permanence of the canon of scripture. The Word of God liveth and abideth forever.

“in a certain place” — this is an enclitic indefinite particle, pou, and it should be translated “somewhere”. It refers to Genesis 2:2.

“of the seventh day” is a prepositional phrase, and incorrectly translated. The word peri is translated “of”. It is a preposition and it means “concerning.” There is no word for “day” here, it is simply “concerning the e(bdomoj”. The e(bdomoj refers to the seventh day and is the Greek word for the Sabbath — “on this wise” — the adverb says “in this manner.” Literally then, “For he has communicated somewhere concerning the seventh day in this manner.”

The communication is found back in Genesis 2:2 — “And on the seventh day” — God restored the earth in six days for man’s occupancy — “God ended”, the piel imperfect of kalah means He completed something. The piel stem is an intensive stem and it should be translated “Elohim completed his work.” This means that in six days Elohim took the earth and converted it into a wonderful place to live. In six days He provided everything that man would need in the status quo of innocence. Why did God rest? On the seventh day God rested because He had completed His work.

“which he had made” — the qal perfect of asah means that which He had manufactured. God had manufactured everything necessary, He had restored everything that needed to be restored. And He had actually created for man perfect environment. So we read, “therefore on the seventh day Elohim completed his work which he had produced [or manufactured]” out of chaos — “and he rested,” the qal imperfect of shabath. The word Saturday was originally the Sabbath and it is derived from the fact that God rested. Why did God rest? This is what we call the rest of grace. Everything that man would ever need in innocence before the fall was provided. Perfect environment was provided on restored planet earth and nothing could be added to it. This is what we call grace. God does the work; man does the benefiting. man does not earn or deserve or merit what God provides, and from Genesis 2:2 to Exodus 16 no reference is made to the Sabbath. The Sabbath finally in Israel became a day of rest. Man rested on the seventh day in Israel to remind him that you can’t work for salvation, you can’t work for divine provision, you can’t work for grace. Grace and works are antagonistic, they are not compatible in any way, they are mutually exclusive. Therefore man in Israel only had to rest on the seventh day so he would remember that. Six days God works; on the seventh day, God rests. Why? Because there is nothing else to provide. And what God provided for man in perfect environment God has provided for you in eternity past. Therefore the Sabbath always had this connotation.

The doctrine of the Sabbath

1. The original Sabbath of Genesis 2:2 was designed by God to teach grace. God rested because everything was provided in grace for man. There was nothing else He could do. The seventh day was always a memorial to who and what God is and to what God does. It was a memorial to grace.

2. In Exodus 16:14-26 the Sabbath had to be called to the attention of the Jews. And it was called to their attention in a special way. Manna represents divine provision for the believer in time. Manna was the food that God provided for the Jews in the desert. And Exodus 16:14 said, “Look, you will always gather manna on day one, day two, day three, day four, day five and day six. And on day six (Friday) you will gather a double portion because on day seven I will provide no manna and you will not, gather manna.” So this was the first specific reference to the Sabbath day since God rested in the restoration of Genesis 2:2. All of that time man understood this principle without being nudged.

3. The Jewish Sabbath: a day had to be instituted finally. The Jewish Sabbath is the fourth commandment of the decalogue — Exodus 20:8-11; Deuteronomy 5:12-15. It is also mentioned in Leviticus 23:3. It was designed with one purpose in mind: to commemorate grace by doing no work on the Sabbath day. This is in fulfilment of the concept of Genesis 2:2. The Sabbath was never designed to be any kind of trouble or difficulty, it was designed to be a time of rest, relaxation and tranquillity, a reminder of grace.

4. Then there is a temporal Sabbath which is mentioned in Hebrews 3:11. This is the supergrace Sabbath. It became obvious in the Age of Israel that observing Saturday could be distorted too easily. The Jews began to set up rules and regulations that were ridiculous and had nothing to do with grace. The Sabbath was not designed for overt activity, it was designed for mental activity — to remember grace. Therefore, God had to change it. So we have the supergrace Sabbath mentioned Hebrews 3:11. This is also known as the moment by moment Sabbath whereby you depend day by day and rest entirely on what God has provided. The moment by moment Sabbath is doctrine in the soul, the ECS, the creation by Bible doctrine of capacity — the cup. The cup represents supergrace capacity based on doctrine, and God pouring and pouring and pouring. That is supergrace and the supergrace Sabbath is a moment by moment Sabbath. In other words, God doesn’t bless on one day of the week, God blesses on every day of the week. One thing that happened when the Church Age superseded the Age of Israel is that Saturday was set aside. Saturday was a time of animal sacrifices, a time of a specialised priesthood, the priesthood of the tribe of Levi. It was a time for special activities and a time for assembly worship. But the Jewish Age ended suddenly with the cross, the resurrection, the ascension and the session of Jesus Christ. And as the Jewish Age terminated, very shortly thereafter the Church Age began. Now in the Church Age every believer is a priest, so things are different. Now there is no longer a special day. Why? Because every believer is a priest and the objective is for every believer priest to become spiritually self-sustaining. The priesthood of Aaron is set aside.

There were a couple of feasts that the Jews had that really bothered them The Passover they could handle because that was a day which began the feast of unleavened bread. The feast of unleavened bread they could handle. But on the first Sunday, and always on Sunday, they had the feast of the firstfruits and that used to drive them up the wall. The reason was that the feast of the firstfruits speaks of resurrection — the resurrection of Jesus Christ — and it was always on Sunday, and there was one thing the Jews couldn’t stand and that was to have a Sunday Sabbath. A Sabbath to them was any day that they worshipped. Often the priest would go out all by himself and wave a sheaf of grain before the Lord, the feast of the firstfruits.

Fifty days from that Sunday there was another observation which always bothered them because fifty days from Sunday is always a Sunday — Pentecost. Jesus Christ was resurrected on a Sunday; Jesus Christ began the Church on the first Pentecost Sunday, fifty days after His resurrection. Jesus Christ was forty days on the earth before He ascended to the right hand of the Father. Another ten days and then the Church began on Sunday. So there has to be a day when assembly worship is authorised, when they all come together, and it was Sunday. We observe the resurrection and the beginning of the Church Age every Sunday. The Jews always had to have a Sabbath day; we have a first day. This is something new, something that begins all over again.

5. In addition to the supergrace Sabbath there was also an eternal Sabbath, which is also a moment by moment Sabbath — Matthew 11:28. This refers to eternal salvation.

6. The Jews already began to crack under observing the of the Sabbath day and all the ritual. So they had to be further reminded. In Leviticus chapter 25 we discover that they had a seventh year, a sabbatical year. On the seventh year they were to stop all sowing, all planting, all harvesting. Under an agricultural economy that looks as though people will starve. But no. God says, “If you will stop on the seventh year and make it a memorial to grace, then grace will provide what you need.” Of course, they never would. God called their bluff right from the start: the Sabbath would never mean a thing to them. They never observed the sabbatical year, and finally, in a period of 490 years of Jewish history they had missed seventy Sabbath years. So God gave them all of the seventy years in captivity.

7. God knew that they would not observe the Sabbath, or the sabbatical year, so He gave them another one: the Jubilee year. The Jubilee year is found in the 25th chapter of Leviticus and this is what is called the generation test. On the fiftieth year everyone who owned property was to return it. And, again, on the fiftieth year they failed to observe. So the rejection of the Sabbath concept was total in Israel. It was total because they had no doctrine. Sabbath is a ritual, not just a day. Observing a day has ritual connected with it. Sabbath means rest, and the Jews had to stop working because that is physical rest. But that is rest ritual and it is not meaningful unless you have doctrine in the soul to appreciate it. The Lord’s table, the communion table, is not meaningful unless you have doctrine in the soul to appreciate it. And so it was with the Jews in the past. Doctrine in the soul was necessary.

8. Now in the Church Age the Sabbath is interrupted even as the Age of Israel is interrupted. This is taught in Colossians 2:16,17. As the Church Age interrupts the Age of Israel so the Saturday Sabbath is set aside. Now in the Church Age we start with something brand new. On the Day of Pentecost, the first day of the Church Age and a Sunday, God the Holy Spirit took all believers alive in Jerusalem and entered them into union with Christ. Thereafter, when any person believes in Christ, one of the things he receives is the baptism of the Spirit; he enters into union with Jesus Christ. This means that Christianity is not a religion.

The heart or the right is the container for doctrine, and when doctrine is in the right lobe this impresses God. In other words, God is not impressed with people but God is impressed with doctrine. God is impressed with His Word. He has magnified His Word above His name. Therefore, when there is doctrine in the right lobe of an individual God is impressed with that doctrine and God blesses on the basis if that doctrine. The cup that runs over is doctrine in the soul. This is why the Jews failed. There were always a few who succeeded but their failure is emphasised in Hebrews chapter three. The Exodus generation failed because there was not doctrine in the heart, no doctrine in the right lobe. Having no doctrine in the right lobe they couldn’t appreciate the Sabbath day, the Sabbath year, the year of Jubilee. They couldn’t appreciate the ritual that was followed on those days.

So during the Church Age Saturday is out. Not only is Saturday out but so is every seventh year and the year of Jubilee. The Sabbath is all over. Now we are starting all over and so we start with the first day of the week, Sunday, the day the Church began. That is what for the last two-thousand years most people observe Sunday. Once you start assembling on Sunday you pick up on doctrine and you find out that you must regard every day as a gift from God, every day is to be regarded alike. But, the special days are always the days when a nation has won its victories in battle. Why? Because it is the military that provides freedom for a nation and no nation ever had freedom apart from its military, that is a divine law.

Hebrews 4:4b — “And God did rest the seventh day from all his works.” The word for “rest” is the aorist active indicative of katapauw. This word means to cease, to desist from all work according to a norm or standard. The norm or standard is God’s essence. God in His omniscience knew that there was nothing else to be provided. The original Sabbath day, the day when God rested from restoration of the earth is the key to everything. God had a standard, His own perfect character according to which there was nothing left to provide. The aorist tense is a culminative aorist, it views the event in its entirety from the standpoint of existing results. The existing results: Adam had everything he wanted in the garden. The active voice: God produces the action which is the concept of grace. God resting is a sign that everything has been provided. The indicative mood is the reality of God ceasing from His restorative work plus the creative work involved with mankind. So the seventh day became a memorial to the grace of God. Under grace God does the working, God does the providing, and man does the receiving, man does the benefiting. Therefore, God sows; man reaps. Divine blessing always depends on who and what God is, what He does for man, not what we can do for Him.

The final phrase says, “from all of his works,” a prepositional phrase, a)po plus the genitive of e)rgon. E)rgon means His production, everything that was necessary; a)po is from the ultimate source of all of His works. When God provided for man in innocence it was equivalent to our supergrace blessings. The capacity for innocence came from the fact that Jesus Christ taught man daily in the garden. The blessings included right woman, promotion [Adam was the ruler of the world at that time], wealth, success, everything that man would ever want.

Translation: “For he has communicated somewhere concerning the seventh day in the following manner, And the God rested on the seventh day from all of his works.”

Innocence is a perfect analogy to what God has available to us today. Just as God provided everything for Adam in six days God provided every blessing would ever need in eternity past. So the issue is this: God is still resting today because in eternity past he provided everything you would ever need. That is why God is resting right now. Furthermore, He has provided a table for us in doctrine so that our cup will run over, and from this point on it is strictly up to you. It depends entirely upon your attitude toward Bible doctrine whether you ever realise this or not. What a tragedy to think that God is tapping His foot waiting to bless you right now, having all of these wonderful things for you and yet not able to give them because you have no cup. Your cup can only overflow if you have a cup in the soul. A cup in the soul is Bible doctrine.

Verse 5 — “And in this place again.” In the original there is no word for “place” and it should literally be “And in this again.” This is the third time in our context that we have had a quotation of Psalm 95:11. It was first quoted in Hebrews 3:11, then in Hebrews 4:3, and now in Hebrews 4:5. This is the passage with the elliptical oath. In fact, this passage is so strong by its repetition that it time to find out exactly why must be repeated again and again. One obvious factor immediately: an elliptical oath puts God’s character on the line. And just as certain as God exists and just as definite as the essence of God He will not pour for those who have no capacity, even though the supergrace provision existed from before the foundation of the world.

This brings us to the elliptical oath — “if,” the word we have first in the oath, introduces the elliptical idiom. Before the “if”, whoever is making the promise puts his own person on the line. In this case God puts Himself on the line. The elliptical oath is therefore an idiom in which one takes an oath on the basis of his own existence: when God is making a promise by His own existence and by His own essence, that no reversionistic believer will ever receive supergrace blessing unless he enters the supergrace life. And God is no respecter of persons. So the idiom, again, must be translated “I am not God if”.

“they shall enter” is the future active indicative of the verb e)iserxomai. This is the same verb we have been using for entering into supergrace blessings and rest. The future tense is a gnomic future to express an absolute, something that is so definite that even though it is in the future tense it remains true. The gnomic future goes with the solemn oath that God makes. He says, “I am not God if they shall enter into my rest.” This means — the Father is speaking: He is sovereignty, He has made a decision. No supergrace blessings unless you have supergrace capacity; no supergrace capacity without GAPing it on a consistent basis. The righteousness of God is also at stake. If God lets one reversionist receive supergrace blessings then God is not God, we have no salvation. Justice: God would be unfair if He allows one nice, sweet, self-righteous, personable, scintillating believer to have supergrace blessings. But God does not bless on the basis of your personality, on the basis of your attractiveness, on the basis of your self-righteousness, or anything else that you have to offer. Love: It is not incompatible with God’s love to refuse supergrace blessings to the reversionistic believer. In other words, God has to express His love to all believers, it is just a matter of how He is going to do it. To those who enter supergrace God expresses His love in supergrace blessings — “all things blend together for good.” But to the reversionistic believer God expresses His love through discipline — “whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth”. Eternal life: God still has eternal life, God has always existed, there never was a time when God didn’t exist. The fact that he has always existed means there never was a time when these blessings were not prepared for you, but even though they are prepared God will chance being disgusted with you and not pouring in your case. Then there is omniscience: God knew in eternity past that blessing would go unclaimed because of reversionism. Omnipotence: He has the ability to stick by His Word and say absolutely not to any reversionist who tries to twist and distort grace and say, as it were, let me in, let me have some of these things. Omnipresence: Jesus Christ is a personal witness, God the Father is a personal witness, and God the Holy Spirit is a personal witness to anything that you think or anything that you do, and there is no way that any member of the Godhead can be deceived. Immutability: God does not conform to you because you are impressed with yourself. God does not conform to your wishes and your desires whether expressed in prayer or expressed with great sincerity and beautiful theological language. God does not bend Himself or conform to you because you are nice. Veracity: When God gives an oath or a promise you can count on it that it is true.

“they shall enter” is also the active voice in which the reversionistic believers do not reach supergrace. No matter how you slice it, if you do not have doctrine in your soul you cannot in time of disaster, you cannot in any time suddenly run to the Bible, grab a verse and try to claim it. It won’t work. God is not blessing under supergrace those who do not have the supergrace capacity. In other words, if you do not have a cup God will not pour. The indicative mood is the principle of doctrine. No supergrace for the reversionist. That is what happened to the Exodus generation. No matter what you have in life it is no fun, it is no good, it is absolutely totally meaningless unless you have doctrinal capacity of the soul. God does not withhold any good thing from those who love Him, but “those who love Him” is the qualifying factor. “He withholdeth no good thing from them that love Him” means God will never stint, He will pour and pour and pour for those who have reached supergrace and for those who have the supergrace capacity. Everything you ever wanted and then some is waiting for you in eternity past, not in the future. You can’t die and get it, you have to live to get it. And there is the problem, because living to get it means taking in doctrine, taking in doctrine, taking in doctrine, and then some more, and then you go all the way to supergrace. You cannot glorify God in time unless you have supergrace blessings being poured out. God is glorified by blessing you.

“into my rest” — again, we have the prepositional phrase, e)ij plus katapausij. Katapausij is the object of the preposition. Katapausij refers specifically to the Exodus generation to Canaan, for Canaan equals supergrace blessings. All of the supergrace blessings were in a geographical area for the Jews. Canaan was where they were to get their supergrace blessings, and God timed it so that it would take about a year, and in that year they would have the capacity to enjoy the blessings of Canaan. But by the end of that year when they cane to Kadesh-barnea they were not ready, they were in reversionism. So God said no, and He turned them around, and for 39 years these reversionists wandered through the desert until they were all dead. Why? No capacity for Canaan. Canaan was a picture of the blessings of supergrace, not the supergrace life.

1. The quotation is from Psalm 95:11 and describes the failure of the Exodus generation because of their reversionism.

2. The failure of the Exodus generation is analogous to the failure of every believer in any dispensation of time who lives his life on this earth in reversionism.

3. God has grace provision for all believers in time.

4. But this grace provision is not based upon volition. You get it whether you want it or not. God gives us a day at a time, food, clothing, shelter, the necessities of life, and whatever else is necessary.

5. But God also has supergrace provision based on volition, based on positive volition toward Bible doctrine.

6. Happiness [+H] and supergrace blessing has a principle: God makes love to the believer through Bible doctrine and the believer responds through the daily function of GAP. The believer reacts by forsaking the assembling of himself together with other believers.

7. Grace provision is for all believers in phase two; supergrace blessing is for supergrace believers only.

8. Those who are occupied with Christ have supergrace capacity or the cup into which God pours, but there is no supergrace blessing for any believer in reversionism.

Now we have a new paragraph in which we see the potentialities of supergrace — verses 6-9.

Verse 6 — the first thing we notice is that “seeing” is not seeing. There are only two ways that you can have the word “seeing” at the beginning of a sentence. One is to have the verb blepw in one of its forms which means to see. You could possibly have another verb, o(raw, but o(raw has more of the concept of a panoramic view. Then you can have gar — epexegetical gar used in an explanatory sense, and that, too, can be “for you see”. But the word “seeing” here is a conjunction, e)pei, which doesn’t mean “seeing” at all, it means “since.”

“Since it remaineth” — present passive indicative of a)poleipw. The verb is a compound verb: a)po, the preposition of ultimate source, and leipw which means to be left over. Therefore, while the active voice of this verb means to leave behind the passive voice means something left over. There is a lot of difference between being left behind and something being left over. It you are left behind you are out of it; if you’re left over, you’re in it. Add to this an inferential particle, o)un. This inferential particle forces the conclusion that even though people have failed to enter it in any specific generation, like the Exodus, it’s still open for the next generation. In other words, God still has supergrace blessings for all believers in the next generation, the next generation, the next, and so on. That is why it is important to understand that the passive voice mean to be left over and not to be left behind or left out — “Since therefore it is left over.” Believers in any generation can reap what God sows through supergrace status. That is what is mean here. This is a dramatic present. The dramatic present indicates that this is something that must be emphasised again and again. The indicative mood is the reality of the fact that there never will be a born again believer in all of human history for whom God has not designed and provided supergrace blessings in eternity past. It is all there, and even though others have failed this does not have anything to do with you. You can be in the midst of a whole generation of failures and still get that supergrace blessing.

“that some” — masculine accusative plural of the indefinite pronoun tij. This indefinite pronoun is used in a lot of ways but it is used primarily to define a category. It refers, for example, to a category in a failure generation. The failure generation was the Exodus generation. “Some” refers specifically to Caleb and Joshua. “Some” refers to Moses and his second wife, but Caleb and Joshua are the best illustrations because they entered the land. it refers to David, to Jeremiah, the apostle Paul. No matter how a generation fails there are always those who get to supergrace and enjoy its blessing. God started pouring for Jeremiah after he was seventy years old, therefore Jeremiah is the greatest illustration ever of how God can bless a man in old age. These all illustrate the point of the indefinite pronoun which says that no matter how a generation fails there is always someone in every generation who realises that doctrine is more important than anything else in life.

“must enter” — aorist active infinitive of e)iserxomai, the word for entrance into supergrace. The Exodus generation was given Canaan as their supergrace blessing. They did not have Canaan because they did not have supergrace capacity — “therein” should be translated “into it” — e)ij plus the intensive pronoun a)utoj. “It” refers to Canaan as a supergrace blessing based on supergrace capacity. The Jews of the Exodus generation did not enter Canaan because Canaan was a supergrace blessing and because they did not have the capacity. They had doctrine presented to them, they gave doctrine a hearing, but after they gave doctrine a hearing they went negative.

“and they” — reference to the Exodus generation; “to whom it was first preached” — “first” is an adverb, proteron, and it means the entire Exodus generation which heard doctrine.

“it was preached” is not a very good translation. We have the aorist passive participle of e)uaggelizw which means to proclaim doctrine, to communicate something good. The aorist tense is a constative aorist that gathers into its entirety all of the Bible teaching that occurred over the forty years. The passive voice: the Exodus generation received doctrine constantly. They received manna; that’s grace. They received doctrine; that’s grace. All of this was designed so they could have supergrace. This doctrinal teaching which they rejected became the basis of their cursing. This is also a participle. The action of the aorist participle precedes the action of the main verb, “they entered not”. So first of all they turned down doctrine and therefore never acquired the supergrace blessings which God had for them. They rejected doctrine, therefore they did not enter supergrace. No capacity for supergrace means no supergrace blessing. God will not pour unless there is a cup.

“did not enter in” — e)ijerxomai again, only this time it is a culminative aorist which means it gathers together in its entirety every act of negative volition toward doctrine and expresses it as a result. The active voice: the reversionistic generation in which Moses preached produced the action of the verb. The indicative mood is the reality of failure on the part of the Exodus generation. A whole generation of people missed the boat in phase two. Why?

“because of unbelief” — dia plus the accusative of a)peiqeia. A)peiqeia does not mean unbelief. The word for unbelief a)pistia, which is not used here. While they are related words they are not the same. A)peiqeia connotes uncompliance of disposition. In other words, a mule-head! It means also obstinacy, bullheadedness, or disobedience in the sense of rejecting authority. Peiqeia means obedience; a)peiqeia means no obedience, it means rejection of the authority of the communicator — “because of obstinacy [negative volition toward authority].”

Translation: “Since therefore it [supergrace blessings] is left over for some [positive types] to enter into it, and they [the Exodus generation] to whom the doctrinal good news was first communicated did not enter in because of obstinacy”.

1. Canaan represents supergrace blessing.

2. However, supergrace capacity precedes supergrace blessing.

3. In other words, you must have a cup before God pours.

4. The Exodus generation did not have the cup because they refused doctrine.

5. This means that the Exodus generation lacked occupation with Christ as well as supergrace capacity. Christ was not their celebrity.

6. However, their reversionism did not hinder the availability of supergrace blessings to the following generation.

7. This is illustrated in the next verse where supergrace blessing was still available 400 years later in David’s generation.

8. Therefore, conclusion: The failure of one generation does not close the door to the next generation or future generations. Conclusion: The failure of one generation does not close the door to positive believers in that generation. And supergrace blessings are just as available now as they were to the Exodus generation in the desert.

Verse 7 — this verse indicates that the use of the Hebrew ha jom in Psalm 95 refers to supergrace capacity preceding supergrace blessing, and it was still open in David’s day. Not only was it open in David’s day but David is one of those people who explored new frontiers in supergrace blessing. For variety of blessing no one has ever exceeded the great record held by David. David is a man after God’s own heart, he holds the most phenomenal of all records. God was more impressed with David than anyone else, not because God was impressed with David but, because God is inevitably impressed with His Word. And God must vindicate His Word in the soul of any believer who possesses it. There is no greater possession in life, there is nothing for which we should have greater desire, than the Word of God.

So we begin with the adverb palin which is correctly translated “Again.” Palin is used to express the repetition or continuation of something already done, something that is already provided. That something is supergrace blessing provided in eternity past. God is perfect, His plan is perfect. God has provided in eternity past not only grace at salvation for you but grace for you in phase two, supergrace blessings for you in phase two, and surpassing blessings or surpassing grace for you in phrase three.

“he limiteth” — an erroneous translation. God doesn’t do any limiting here at all. This is the present active indicative of o(rizw. O(rizw means to appoint, to set up limits, to mark out, to designate boundaries, and it even means to determine or to decree. The present tense is an iterative present. The iterative present is used to describe something which recurs at successive intervals, the successive intervals being the change from one generation to another. This is sometimes called the present tense of repeated action and the concept is that supergrace blessing is open to every generation. There never was a believer in all of human history who did not have for him designed in eternity past the most phenomenal supergrace blessings. Even though 99 per cent of believers in this generation may fail to acquire them they are still open for you. The failure of one generation never cuts it off for the next. The failure of one generation certainly has an effect upon natural life and definitely has been demonstrated historically to put the generation succeeding behind the eight ball. But this is not true in the spiritual realm. The failure of our parents, the failure of our grandparents, the failure of our forbears does not in any way limit us or keep us from supergrace blessing. Anything that the devil offers today God offers it better in quality and more in quantity, and the capacity to enjoy it. That is what o(rizw means in the iterative present. The active voice: God appoints or decrees the continuation of supergrace blessings for every generation of believers. The indicative mood is the reality of the fact that God has determined as a part of His plan to pour out supergrace blessings to the believers who have the cup in the soul.

“a certain day” — tina h(meran. “A certain day” refers to the supergrace life. “A certain day” is the day when you arrive at the point of occupation with Christ because of doctrine in the soul, because of the construction of the ECS. It is the point of celebrityship of Jesus Christ for you. It is the point at which you love Jesus Christ more than you love anything else in life. It is the point at which Jesus Christ who is absent from the earth is more real to you than things on the earth, where you reach the point where you just don’t give a damn whether you have anything or not, or whether you live another day or not. But you are interested in one thing and that is who and what Jesus Christ is, and He is personally very important to you, more important than anything else. It isn’t put on and it isn’t faked. It isn’t emotional, it isn’t any type of a pseudo love, it is the real thing.

The more God can bless you with the blessings of this materialistic world the greater He is glorified. Principle of doctrine: God is glorified by blessing you.

“saying” — present active participle of legw, meaning to communicate — present tense, linear aktionsart. The active voice, subject producing the action of the verb: the Psalm, David writing in a Psalm. The participle strengthens the concept of linear aktionsart, and it should be translated “constantly communicating”. Why is it constant communication? Because Psalm 95 will never be taken out of the Bible, it will be there for your children, your great grandchildren and your great grandchildren to see. it will always be there. “David” is another way of saying the Psalms since David is the human author of most of the Psalms, but not all. However, the Psalms are often known as “David”. This is the preposition e)n plus the instrumental of Dauid, and it can be translated “by means of David” since David is the human author of Psalm 95 and since, again, we have a quotation of Psalm 95:7,8.

“Again, he decrees a certain day” [the day at which you arrive at supergrace], communicating by means of David ...”

“Today” — that is the great day. “Today”, shmeron, means it is available now. Why do you think you have a day at a time? Because one of those days is going to be different from any day you’ve ever had.

“after so long a time” — meta tosouton xronon. Tosouton means such a long time, or so long. It can be translated “after such a long time” or “after the elapse of time.” After the elapse of time between the Exodus generation and David’s generation, a period of 400 years. After all of the accumulated failures of that 400 years does not hinder the grace of God in David’s day, and David broke all records in supergrace. It was just as available after 400 years of failure as it was at the time of Moses. It is always available, that is the point. It is available to you right now. And some of you just may be selfish enough and smart enough to stay with doctrine and arrive there.

“as” — we have a temporal use of the adverb kaqwj, and then Psalm 95 is quoted again — “as it is said,” the perfect passive indicative of prolegw. Pro means above, or again here — “after so long a time elapsed; as it has been cited again.” The perfect tense: it has been cited but by now the repetition of it and the teaching of it and the studying of it and the analysis of it ought to begin to break through. That is the perfect tense. The passive voice: we have received the citation of this passage three times now — “after so long a time elapsed; as it has been cited previously [or above].”

Then we have “Today” again — shmeron begins the quotation in the middle of Psalm 95:7. The availability of the supergrace life is based on the daily intake of Bible doctrine to the soul. God gives the believer one day at a time, and you regard every day alike but when that one day hits that is going to be a special day no matter how you slice it — “Today if” — “if” is a third class condition, the conjunctive particle e)an. Here is emphasis on the believer’s volition related to the teaching of doctrine. “Today if you will hear” — getting right back to it: doctrine today, doctrine tomorrow, doctrine the next day, and so on, and all of a sudden it is the greatest day of your life — the aorist active indicative of a)kouw, the daily function of GAP. The aorist tense is a constative aorist which gathers into one entirety every time the believer assembles to listen to the teaching of the Word of God. The active voice: the believer produces the action of the verb by GAPing it today, tomorrow, etc. The subjunctive mood is the part of the third class condition which emphasises the potentiality of this. Some days you won’t feel like it, some days you won’t want to, whatever it is, but you GAP it anyway. The active voice: you have to produce the action but the subjunctive mood is potential, it depends on volition.

“if you will listen and accept the authority of” — if you will listen and concentrate. The biggest problem in life today is lack of authority, failure to recognise authority, rejection of authority, antagonism toward authority. Authority has been all but eliminated from life and yet authority is the way that you come to love Jesus Christ. “If you will hear his voice” — this is the Bible, the teaching of Bible doctrine. This is the absolute authority of the scripture as contained in the canon in the original languages. This is the descriptive genitive of the noun fwnh.

“harden not” — present active subjunctive of sklhrunw with the negative mh. It is in the present tense. The present tense is a progressive present, it denotes persistence. And it means persistence in not hardening your hearts toward doctrine. You have to persist in it. The progressive present says you can’t just say today I’m going to harden my heart, I’m going to go negative. You have to persist through all kinds of testing and pressure and difficulties. You have to persist, and you can’t persist by saying today what you are going to do tomorrow. It is the persistence under all kinds of situations that counts. The progressive present is used to denote persistence. The active voice: the negative believer produces the action of the verb, “harden”. The subjunctive mood is a prohibitive subjunctive with the negative. It carries the force of a command while recognition is given to the involvement of human volition.

Translation: “Again, he decrees a certain day [supergrace life], communicating by means of David [human author, quotation: Psalm 95], Today, after so long a time elapsed; as has been previously cited in the context, Today if you will hear [and recognise the authority of ] and concentrate on his voice, stop hardening your right lobes.”

The doctrine of the hardening process

1. While the believer is commanded to persist there are certain attitudes, moods, status of soul, that hinder persistence or become antagonistic toward persistence. These attitudes are disillusion, boredom, discouragement, self-pity, loneliness, frustration, bitterness, jealousy.

2. It is not unusual nor abnormal to suddenly discover in your life these enemies of positive volition. The abnormal and unusual thing is to cater to them, and the believer caters to them by reaction. The believer caters to this status by reacting with a frantic search for happiness.

3. The frantic search for happiness always upsets the balance of the soul, and in this upset balance emotion takes over from the heart. The heart becomes hardened because the emotion doesn’t respond to it. Remember that the heart of the soul is the right man and the emotion is the right woman, and if the heart initiates and the emotion turns around and takes over the heart hardens. So coterminous with or immediately following is the upset balance of the soul which we call emotional revolt of the soul. Emotional revolt of the soul gives added intensity to the frantic search for happiness. If it happens to be a self-righteous search this is how we get holy-rollers. If it happens to be a lascivious frantic search this is how you get into the phallic cult.

4. The combination results in a changed attitude toward doctrine. The changed attitude can be apathy, indifference, or antagonism. This leads to some form of negative volition.

5. Negative volition toward doctrine produces the necessary scar tissue of the soul which creates a vacuum to the heart. The heart has already been hardened, now there is a vacuum line going to the heart of the soul. This vacuum line draws in doctrine of demons — 1 Timothy 4:1 — which is how we get the cup of demons in the devil’s communion table of 1 Corinthians 10:21. To drink of the cup of the Lord: supergrace; to drink of the cup of demons: reversionism. This is not demon possession, this is demon influence.

6. Resultant demon influence causes a blackout of the soul. The hardness of the heart shortens out all the systems of the soul. This blackout of the soul is immediately followed by a complete change of life, a spiritual and negative change called reverse process reversionism.

7. Under the hardening process the believer begins to sow that he reaps. First, in the category of self-induced misery, and secondly, in the category of divine discipline.

Verse 8 — “For if Joshua (not Jesus)”. The word “for” is the conjunctive particle gar used in the explanatory sense, designed at this particular point to show us the fact that even though in the past born again believers have failed to reach supergrace it is still available today, and past failure on the part of anyone is no hindrance to anyone receiving supergrace blessings today.

“if” is a conditional particle used as a second class condition e)i. Whenever you have this particle and you have with it an aorist tense in the protasis and the imperfect in the apodosis, plus the little particle a)n, this is always the second class condition. In the Greek syntax this is called a contrary to fact conditional clause — “if” and it is not true. The premise is assumed to be contrary to the facts. So the conditional clause states a thing as being untrue: “If Joshua had given them rest [and he didn’t].” Notice that we have the word “Jesus” in the English text. That is because the English word “Jesus” is a transliteration of the Greek word I)hsouj. But I)hsouj is actually taken from the Hebrew Yeshua or Joshua, and it refers here, as in Acts 7:45, not to the Lord Jesus Christ but to Joshua who succeeded Moses. So it should be translated, “For if Joshua.”

1. This verse is speaking of the generation immediately following the Exodus generation. The Exodus generation is often designated by its leader, Moses. The generation that followed is called the Joshua generation after its leader, Joshua. So this verse is speaking of the Joshua generation which succeeds the Exodus generation and actually entered the land.

2. The Joshua generation entered Canaan but did not have capacity for Canaan as indicated by their incomplete conquest of the land. They did not take all of the land that God had promised them. So the conquest was incomplete. it was the supergrace generation of David that finally came through and conquered all of the land given to them.

So we have the phrase, “For if Joshua [and he didn’t, but if he had].” The “if” again indicates that the failure of the Joshua generation was not in crossing the Jordan but the failure to have supergrace capacity as a military people. In moving into the land they had to fight for it. In moving into the land and having the freedom provided under the ten commandments and the rest of the Mosaic law they had to fight for these freedoms. And, of course, they were incompetent in fighting not because they lacked the physical ability, not because they lacked the military training, but because they did not have the capacity of soul. Joshua himself had the soul for fighting but, unfortunately, Joshua had a an army staff with a lot of week people in reversionism. Joshua gave orders to wipe out everyone at Ai but they didn’t do it. No supergrace status means no supergrace blessings. Only those believers in supergrace had capacity for blessing in the land of Canaan, and actually the great hero of the Joshua generation was Caleb. Caleb was the old man. He was 85 years old but he marched up the hill and whipped the giants. Not only did he defeat the giants but he killed them all. God poured for Caleb as an old man.

“had given them rest” — the aorist active indicative of katapauw. We have the transitive use of the verb here which means to cause to rest — “For if Joshua had caused them to rest”. That is freedom from tyranny by totally successful military victory. The aorist tense is the constative aorist, it takes an occurrence and regardless of the extent of time or the duration of time gathers it into a single whole. The entire generation of Joshua spent many years fighting and conquering but many of them lacked supergrace capacity and therefore no supergrace blessings in the land. Their parents died the sin unto death outside of the land, but they didn’t have supergrace capacity so they didn’t have supergrace blessing in the land. The constative aorist plus the second class condition emphasises a principle: Prosperous environment without supergrace capacity is just as miserable as adversity without supergrace capacity. Environment makes no difference. Either you have doctrine in your soul or you do not. And it is not your environment, it is the capacity of your soul that counts. It is the capacity of soul that makes the prosperous items of life enjoyable, and the people who enjoy prosperity are the same people who hold up in adversity because it is capacity of soul that counts — doctrine in the soul. So this constative aorist plus the second class condition is a reminder of that principle. The active voice: the believers of Joshua’s generation failed to produce the action of the verb not because they lacked military ability or physical stamina but because they lacked doctrine in the soul. They failed because of reversionism. The indicative mood is the reality of reversionism in the Joshua generation. However, this state of reversionism did not close the door to supergrace blessing in every generation, as pointed out by the next verse.

Next we have the Greek particle which is always a part of the second class condition. It is translated “then”. It introduces the apodosis of the second class condition. The particle is a)n. The literal Greek of the apodosis is different from what we have in the King James version. It is o)uk a)n peri a)llhj e)lalei meta tauta h(meraj. The word a)n means “then” — peri a)llhj, concerning another, and then h(meraj for “day”. Literally, “then concerning another day.” Then, “he would not be speaking” — we take o)uk, the negative, which is at the beginning — “not”, a very strong objective negative, and e)lalei goes with o)uk — “he would not be speaking”. Then it ends up with meta plus the accusative plural of tauta and means “after these things.” Meta plus the genitive means “with,” but meta plus the accusative means “after”. Literal translation: “Then concerning another day he would not be speaking after these things.” What does it mean?

“Then” means now we go from the failure of the Joshua generation after the failure of the Exodus generation and draw conclusions with regard to every generation. The real key is what we have in our English “would he not have spoken” which is really “he would not be speaking”. It is an imperfect active indicative of lalew. Here is the key right here. The verb is lalew in the imperfect tense. It has that negative with it. The imperfect tense is what is called an iterative imperfect, it describes the action of the verb as recurring at successive intervals of time. But it has to be successive intervals in past time. God opened the supergrace life to believers in the previous generation, He opened it to believers of the Joshua generation, He opens it in every past generation. So this particular imperfect tells us this: From the time of Adam’s fall right up to the present there has never been a generation to whom the supergrace blessings from God have not been available. This does not mean that other generations have acquired them but it is available. So doctrine was available for believers in every generation: to Adam after the fall, to the Cain and Abel generation, to the Noah generation. There never was a generation that didn’t have enough doctrine to reach supergrace and supergrace blessings. That is the iterative imperfect. The active voice: God produces the action of the verb. If the failure of one generation closed the door to supergrace then God would keep the offer open, as He obviously did in David’s day — Psalm 95:7-11. The indicative mood of this verb says that we have reality, the reality of God keeping supergrace open to every generation. This means that supergrace is open to any believer on consistent positive volition today, and will be in this generation no matter how badly things go historically.

The prepositional phrase, peri a)llhj h(meraj, which is peri plus the genitive, is translated “concerning another of the same kind of day.” A)llhj is the genitive of a)lloj, and a)lloj means another of the same kind. That means that every generation has the opportunity for supergrace — “concerning another of the same kind of day”, and then the prepositional phrase meta tauta, “after these things.”

Translation: “For if Joshua had caused them to rest [but he didn’t], then concerning another day [of supergrace opportunity] he [the Holy Spirit speaking to David in Psalm 95] would not be speaking after these things [after the failure of past generations].”

The prepositional phrase “after these things” refers to the fact that past failure did exist, but past failure did not hinder the availability of supergrace. In other words, when we come to our own generation we have a long history of failure in the past on the part of other believers. This does not in any way hinder us. The failure of past generations definitely has some effect on the next generation, and the only way that can be changed is through Bible doctrine. It means that in the generation of our children the nation will either go down or recover.

Summary

1. The Exodus generation failed to enter the supergrace life with its occupation with Christ, supergrace capacity, and supergrace blessings. Because of no capacity God kept that generation out of the land. They weren’t even qualified to fight. They lacked qualification not because of their military potential but because of their failure of the soul. Reversionism destroys a people as far as fighting for freedom is concerned.

2. The failure of the Exodus generation, however, did not shut the door to supergrace. The Joshua generation entered the land. However, many without supergrace capacity and therefore they did not completely occupy the land, they did not completely win the land, and for generations afterward they were often enslaved because of their failure of conquest. This is the whole story of the book of Judges.

3. The failure of the Exodus generation, Joshua generation, the failure of the generations covered by the book of Judges, does not result in withdrawal of supergrace opportunity.

4. In David’s generation supergrace was still available — Psalm 95:7-11.

5. For this reason the writer of Hebrews reminds the apostolic generation residing in Jerusalem that supergrace is still available to them in the year 67 AD.

6. Whatever failure of reversionism has occurred between the apostolic generation and the twentieth century it has not hindered the opportunity for supergrace right now. In other words, supergrace is open to you right now.

7. Supergrace living is open to every generation of believers. God provides the doctrine as well as the communicators of doctrine. Supergrace living includes entering into the celebrityship of Jesus Christ. This is the spiritual status that glorifies Him — occupation with Christ, supergrace capacity, and supergrace blessings.

Verse 9 — we have a conclusion. “There remaineth” is a present passive indicative of the verb a)poleipw. In the present passive indicative this verb means to have something left over, something remaining behind. The present tense of the verb is a customary present, it indicates that which habitually occurs or what may be reasonably expected to occur. Hence, the supergrace life is available to every generation of believers. This is the customary present, it is linear aktionsart. In the Church Age every believer is a priest.

Every believer priest has available to him:

a) Bible doctrine in permanent form, the canon of scripture, the Bible; b) A continual flow of communicators of doctrine, the gift of pastor-teacher; c) A classroom where doctrine can be assimilated, the local church.

The passive voice: this verb in the active voice means to go berserk, to go AWOL, to leave behind, but in the passive voice the verb changes its meaning and comes to mean to be left over. The indicative mood is the reality of divine sowing for supergrace blessings for every believer, and this is accomplished in eternity past. So God is waiting to pour. God faces every generation with great and fantastic blessings, as it were, a full load of blessings waiting to pour these things.

“therefore” is the illitive use of the inferential particle a)ra, it means to provide a conclusion to the paragraph.

“a rest” — we have not the usual word katapausij here. This has been the word “rest” for the last two chapters. It is used for the supergrace life because the work is accomplished by God. But now we have a different Greek word, it is a synonym with a slightly different meaning — sabbatismoj. This word was used by Plutarch in the concept of God has been resting since eternity past with regard to supergrace blessings. The reason it is available to you is because all supergrace blessings were provided in eternity past. Everything God wanted you to have was provided billions of years ago. Katapausij talks about receiving these things and enjoying these things, sabbatismoj looks at it from God’s viewpoint. Sabbatismoj says, God has been resting before time began because when it comes to surpassing grace blessings, and supergrace blessings, they were all provided in eternity past. Everything you will ever have in eternity was already provided. Therefore these are obviously available. In eternity past God wanted you to share in His perfect happiness, and He combines that with defeating Satan in time Because by giving you supergrace blessings, by pouring for you, God not only fulfils His desire from eternity past to make you happy but your happiness under these conditions also is the great temporal defeat of Satan. It is a tactical defeat, the strategical defeat occurred at the cross. And God found a way not only to save you but to reward you. The rewards in eternity come from being blessed in time.

“to the people” — dative singular from laoj. Laoj is the dative case is a dative of reference, and it is a reference to distinguish those qualified for supergrace. This could also be what is known as an ablative of separation, which accomplishes the same thing. Only the supergrace believer reaps what God sows — Romans 8:28 applies to supergrace. Then we have a genitive of possession from qeoj plus the definite article, and it should be translated “the God”.

Translation: “Therefore there is left over a sabbatical rest [supergrace blessings] with reference to the people of the God.”

1. Here is the conclusion of the paragraph. Failure on the part of one generation does not hinder supergrace blessings for future generations.

2. Failure on the part of one believer does not close the door for supergrace blessings for another.

3. Supergrace, therefore, is open in spite of failures in past history.

4. Supergrace is open in spite of your past spiritual failures.

5. God has set up a marker to remind us of this. The marker is the continual existence of the canon of scripture where the pertinent information continues to be available for every generation.

Verse 10 — the principle of supergrace. The word “For” the explanatory use of the particle gar, and in this particular passage gar should be translated “For you see.” As a result of the study of the first nine verses we can now begin to see forming a very definite conclusion, and that is the use of the Greek particle at this point.

“he that is entered into” — the aorist active participle of the verb e)iserxomai. E)iserxomai is used in this passage for entrance into supergrace capacity. It includes the concept of occupation with Christ [category #1 love maximum], plus entrance into the supergrace capacity and the supergrace blessing. The aorist here is the constative aorist which indicates something of the mechanics. It gathers up into one entirety every time the believer GAPs it, every time the believer takes in doctrine. He starts out zero and ends up 100 per cent — the consistency of taking in Bible doctrine. The active voice in the Greek: the believer produces the action of the verb and he produces it by studying the Word of God daily. This is an aorist participle. The action of the aorist participle precedes the action of the main verb. The main verb is that God has ceased from His own works. God has already ceased from His works and therefore you enter into what God has ceased to do it’s nothing but blessing. This is the concept of grace.

“his rest” — here is one of three words found in the New Testament for rest. This is the noun katapausij. This word is the act of resting. The act of resting means that God is doing all the blessing and you are doing nothing about it. You are not earning or working or deserving for blessing. There is another word which is used only in Matthew 11:28, 29: a)napausij which is very similar — a)na, meaning again, pausij meaning rest, and it means to rest again or it is used for regeneration. A)napausij is also used for the phase three rest of surpassing grace. We studied in the previous verse a third word which is used: sabbatismoj, which connotes rest because work is accomplished and it emphasises the divine side of grace. Supergrace blessing in eternity past is sabbatismoj. Surpassing grace of phase three is a)napausij or phase one, salvation. So kakapausij is reserved for time, and the blessings we receive in time. Because this supergrace blessing is available to all believers we now have the challenge of verses 11 and 12.

Verse 11 — “Let us labour” is incorrectly translated. This is the aorist active subjunctive of the verb spoudazw. This means to be eager, to make every effort to be diligent, it connotes a very strong motivation in the soul. This is the ingressive aorist, it must begin to be strong motivation in the soul. Remember, the soul is composed of self-consciousness by which you relate yourself to time, to people, and in this passage, relate yourself to God. You also have the thinking process of the soul, the two frontal lobes. The left lobe in for objective information, the right lobe is where it is used. In both the Old Testament and the New Testament the left lobe is simply translated by the word “mind” and the right lobe is translated by the word heart. The heart is where you do all of your thinking. Like “the fool has said in his heart there is no God,” that’s thinking. Then we have volition which is the great issue in the angelic conflict. We have emotion, the appreciator of what one has in the right lobe — in his frame of reference, in his vocabulary and categories, his norms and standards and his launching pad. The emotion is designed to respond to what is in the right lobe. We have a new motivater based upon Bible doctrine. Bible doctrine motivates properly in the Christian life. The ingressive aorist means that this must have a beginning. The ingressive aorist look at something form its entirety but the action of the verb is at the beginning, and so usually it is translated “to begin” something. Here the word spoudazw means “let us begin to be diligent” — let us begin to have the proper mental attitude. Then active voice: this is the positive believer producing the action of the verb in his attitude toward doctrine. The subjunctive mood is called a hortatory conjunction. A hortatory subjunctive carries the weight of a command but recognises the volition of the individual involved, it recognises that volition is a true issue. So from your own free will as a believer priest you must desire the Word of God. “Let us begin to be diligent therefore”. “Therefore” is the inferential particle o)un which always occurs in the middle of a sentence or at the beginning but is never the first word in a sentence. This inferential particle indicates somewhere in the sentence that a conclusion is being drawn. The conclusion is that every believer is not going to fulfil the purpose for remaining in this life unless he enters the supergrace life with its occupation with Christ, with its cup — which is the capacity for life, freedom, love, adversity and happiness — and the actual pouring of blessings so that you can say with David, “My cup runneth over”. That is the supergrace status. The point here is, that no believer is ever going to enter this status apart from doctrine. To enter this status it takes day after day after day of GAPing it, taking in Bible doctrine. It takes persistence in all kinds of situations. Therefore, “Let us begin to be diligent” means to be motivated, motivated to enter supergrace. So we have the concept of motivation. The motivation must be positive volition.

In the middle of this verse, “let us be motivated therefore to enter into that rest lest,” the word “enter into”, again, is an aorist active infinitive of e)iserxomai, referring to entering into the supergrace life, but this time we have a culminative aorist. There are basically three kinds of aorist tense. The aorist tense basically gathers into one ball of wax. The duration of the time is dependent upon whatever verb is used. it can be anything from almost instantaneous to a long period of time. Since e)iserxomai is discussing entrance into the supergrace life there must be at the beginning of your Bible study that takes you there — your intake of the Word — the proper mental attitude. So here we have the ingressive aorist. This is the attitude that you carry into GAPing it daily to supergrace; there must be positive volition toward doctrine. And as a result of that eventually you will arrive at the supergrace life and that’s a culminative aorist. So in one sentence here we have the ingressive aorist — “let us be properly motivated” or “let us be diligent” — and “to enter into” is a culminative aorist indicating the result of GAPing it. In other words, when you begin your Christian life and you realise the issue is doctrine, and you realise the importance of doctrine, your motivation is changed. That is the ingressive aorist of this hortatory subjunctive, “let us be diligent”. Then, when you get to the end of the road you will have arrived at supergrace. The ball of wax itself is GAPing it every day to the point of supergrace. That is the concept.

This makes an issue out of something. In salvation the issue is the Lord Jesus Christ. What think ye of Christ? determines your eternal future. “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life; he that believeth not the Son shall not see life but the wrath of God abideth on him.” Your attitude toward Christ determines whether you are saved or not. To believe in Jesus Christ, at the moment of salvation you receive 36 things. In one second, you believe. In the second you believe in Jesus Christ God gives you these 36 things that you will have forever. But that is only phase one and the issue now is, What do you think of doctrine? Your attitude toward doctrine in time determines which way you are going. If your attitude is positive, as suggested by this first verb “let us be diligent” then eventually you’re going to reach supergrace. And when you do you are going to be occupied with the person of Christ, you are going to have supergrace capacity, and God is going to be glorified because with that capacity in the soul God pours and this becomes the tactical victory of the angelic conflict. When God can pour he is glorified because you are blessed exceedingly; but God is glorified and that is the great issue. The way your Christian life goes depends entirely on your attitude toward Bible doctrine. It must be consistent, it must be positive, and it must be daily. This, therefore, leads to the supergrace life, it leads to the rest we have been studying. This is why the Exodus generation failed. They failed because they didn’t have the capacity for the land, therefore they didn’t enter the land.

“let us be motivated therefore to enter into that rest” — the culminative aorist is employed to view an asset in its entirety but to regard it from the standpoint of existing results. This and the previous aorist then combine to put the daily function of GAP in between them. You start with an attitude, you start with positive volition, and that is the beginning. Positive volition causes you to GAP it today, tomorrow, the next day, the next day, and so on, until eventually you reach supergrace. This is the ball of wax. The mental attitude is at the beginning, and at the end you have the great prosperity that belongs to the believer. The active voice of this infinitive: the believer produces the action, any believer. All believers are in full time Christian service. Every believer is a priest, every believer is indwelt by the Holy Spirit, every believer is indwelt by Christ, every believer is in union with Christ, and therefore the objective can be accomplished for any believer. One of the 36 things we receive at the moment of salvation is entrance into union with Christ. This keeps Christianity from being a religion. Christianity is not a religion, it is a relationship. And, as Jesus Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father so positionally we are the right hand of the Father and therefore share in the strategical victory of the angelic conflict. Jesus Christ is eternal life, we share that life; Jesus Christ is absolute righteousness, we share that righteousness. He is the Son, we share His sonship, His heirship, His priesthood, His election. His destiny. In short, we share everything that Christ is because we are in union with Him. Once you are in that relationship you cannot get out, and the issue is not union with Christ, the issue is supergrace versus the sin unto death. It is learning about union with Christ that motivates the believer to GAP it to supergrace instead of to be negative in volition and to end up like the Exodus generation whose corpses were strewn all over the desert.

The infinitive of the Greek here is an infinitive of purpose, it expresses the objective of the action of the verb. The purpose of GAP and positive volition is to enter into the supergrace life. You have been saved and kept on this earth for that purpose. “Therefore let us begin to be diligent to enter into that rest.” The word “that” is a demonstrative pronoun in the accusative — e)keinoj. A demonstrative pronoun is used to refer to something which is very well known by this time in the context, something that has been previously mentioned, and something though previously mentioned must be emphasised. So “that” used for this particular demonstrative pronoun is to emphasise once again the importance of the noun in the accusative case, katapausij, which refers to the supergrace life, the supergrace life which is characterised by occupation with the person of Jesus Christ. No one truly loves God until he reaches that point. All divine blessing always comes in the supergrace life and without supergrace capacity blessing, success, happiness, it meaningless to you as a believer. Only when blessings are related to the angelic conflict in tactical victory does it become meaningful. That is the concept right here.

The word “lest” introduces a negative purpose clause. We have a conjunction i(na plus the subjective negative mh, which gives us our negative purpose clause — “that no one.” We have an indefinite pronoun, tij, but plus the negative mh “anyone” becomes “no one”. “That no one fall” — the aorist active subjunctive of the verb piptw, used for reversionism both here and in other passages. Both piptw and its compounds are used for reversionism. Now we have our first ingressive aorist. The verb piptw is an ingressive aorist which regards the action at the beginning when the believer has reacted to the usual things. This is an ingressive aorist of reaction. Here we have it again: You are going to be disillusioned at some time, bored by something, discouraged by something, etc. This leads to a great frustration. Then you have mental attitude sins intruding — jealousy, bitterness, being jilted, etc. These are reactor factors. This verb piptw is related to reactor factors. Here is where piptw or falling begins. When you fall, by the way, you never lose your salvation. Falling means to go into reversionism. You react to these things. You go on your own little frantic search for happiness. What kind of a frantic search that is depends upon the trend of your old sin nature.

“Therefore let us begin to be diligent to enter into that specific rest [of the supergrace life] lest anyone begin to fall”. It is doctrine that protects the believer from reversionism. The active voice: the believer reacting by a frantic search for happiness plus emotional revolt produces the action of the verb. The action of the verb eventuates in negative volition. So, again, we have an aorist tense and this time the ingressive aorist shows reaction to the reactors, resulting in a frantic search for happiness. Then, emotional revolt and at the end negative volition toward doctrine, and that, of course, leads to the reversionism. The subjunctive mood is what is called a potential subjunctive, it introduces the element of contingency, a possible condition. The compound of this verb piptw, parapiptw, is used to describe a person who is already in reversionism. This we will study in Hebrews 6:6.

Now let’s see if we can chart this. Starting with the reactors: disillusion, boredom, discouragement, self-pity, loneliness, the concept of frustration; the mental attitude sins: jealousy, bitterness, vindictiveness, the experience of being jilted. These are reactors. This time we will have the reaction, the frantic search for happiness, coming right out of it. The frantic search for happiness leads to emotional revolt of the soul. The emotional revolt of the soul leads to a condition called “obstinacy” in our passage, or negative volition toward doctrine. This obstinacy or negative volition toward doctrine then starts a series of conditions that produce a full-blown reversionistic life. The first of these is scar tissue of the soul. From scar tissue it goes rather rapidly to demon influence, not demon possession. No believer can be demon-possessed. Demon influence is doctrine of demons entering the soul, entering the right lobe. This blacks out the soul, so next we have blackout of the soul. By this time the born again believer is looking at life strictly from the Satanic viewpoint. This eventuates in the practice of reverse process reversionism. This is about as low as you can go, and this also includes divine discipline. Self-induced misery begins at the point of emotional revolt, but you have divine discipline in three categories: the knocking or the warning stage, the intensified stage, and the dying stage. This is the obstinacy which we find as this passage continues.

“after the same example of unbelief” is really “after the same example of obstinacy”. Our noun is a)peiqeia, which should be translated “obstinacy.” It is a genitive of description and it should be translated “with reference to the same example of obstinacy.”

Translation: “Therefore let us begin to be diligent to enter into that specific rest [supergrace] lest anyone begin to fall with reference to the same example of obstinacy.”

This brings us to the solution, to our very life on this earth. More important than the air that we breathe is Bible doctrine.

Verse 12 — “For,” the explanatory use of gar to indicate a solution to obstinacy, to show how you can avoid a)peiqeia — obstinacy, negative volition.

“the word of God” — o( logoj tou qeou, doctrine that belongs to God. This is a title for our spiritual food. The Bible contains spiritual food for the believer, nourishment for his soul, blessing for the function of his priesthood.

The doctrine of inspiration

1. The general principle of inspiration is found in a Greek noun, qeopneustoj. Pneustoj means breathe and qeo means God. It is translated “inspiration” but it should be translated “God-breathed” — 2 Timothy 3:16, “All scripture is God-breathed.” This noun indicates mechanics. The mechanics start with the third person of the Trinity, God the Holy Spirit, and move to the human writers, and eventuate in a canon of scripture. This is accomplished over a long period of time, starting with Moses as a human writer and ending with John in 96 AD. All scripture originates with a member of the Trinity, God the Holy Spirit. This scripture is said to be the thinking or the mind of Christ in 1 Corinthians 2:16. God the Holy Spirit communicates to human writers like Paul, for example. He communicates a complete and coherent message. This principle is called the principle of inhale whereby God the Holy Spirit communicates to the soul of a human writer — 2 Samuel 23:2,3; Isaiah 59:21; Jeremiah 1:9; Matthew 22:42,43; Mark 12:36; Acts 4:24-26; 25:28. Then the human author, and in the case of the Old Testament the human author had to be a prophet — in the case of Moses, he had the gift plus the office of prophet; in the case of the second part of the Hebrew canon it was the office of prophet, like Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel; in the case of the third portion of the canon of scripture it was the gift of prophecy, like David and Solomon in Psalms and Proverbs. But the Old Testament human author had to be a prophet. The New Testament human author had to be an apostle or one closely associated with an apostle, like Mark in his association with Peter writing the Gospel of Mark. The human authors of scripture exhaled this information in writing. They wrote without waiving their human intelligence, their vocabulary, their personality, their individuality, their personal feelings. God’s complete message to man was perfectly recorded with perfect accuracy in the original scripture [not in translations].

2. The origin of scripture is not human viewpoint. God the Holy Spirit uses human agency and human language — 2 Peter 1:20,21.

3. The Word of God is also said to be the mind of Christ, therefore the absolute criterion for believers — 1 Corinthians 2:16 cf. Psalm 138:2.

4. Consequently, the Bible as the mind of Christ existed in eternity past prior to being written in human form — Proverbs chapter eight.

5. Pre-canon revelation from God occurred through the Holy Spirit. We also have before the canon was written God revealed Himself — 2 Samuel 23:2; Ezekiel 2:2; 8:3; 11:1; Micah 3:4; Hebrews 3:7.

6. There are four categories of Old Testament revelation: the spoken word, “Thus saith the Lord”; dreams as in Genesis 15:12; 31:10-13; Numbers 12:6; Daniel 10:9; visions as in Isaiah 1:1 and 6:1; 1 Kings 22:19; angelic teaching as in Deuteronomy 33:2; Psalm 68:17; Acts 7:53; Galatians 3:19.

7. The extent of inspiration includes a number of things. a) For example, the Bible teaches accurately the historical past before any historical records were kept or an accurate once. Genesis chapters 1-11 is an illustration of what God has provided by way of giving us information regarding the historical past. b) While the Bible is not a textbook it gives accurate historical information about ancient history. All the historical citations in the Bible are accurate. They are not intended to be a complete history but their accuracy as a part of the canon of scripture is guaranteed by the ministry of God the Holy Spirit. These historical citations are not only accurate and form the basis for background in communicating doctrine but it is the basis of isagogics as the means of interpreting the scripture. c) There is objective type law. The Bible contains many laws for individuals as well as national life. These can be summarised under the concept of the laws of divine establishment. These laws perfectly express the essence of God. They contain His will for the people to whom they are given. They also give a basis for survival in the devil’s world. Repetition of these laws and subsequent recording of them demonstrate their application to every generation. d) Dictation. Some portions of the scriptures contain direct quotations from God. The doctrine of inspiration guarantees that the commands, the quotations, are properly recorded, accurately recorded just as they were given from God to man. e) There is also some devotional literature in the Bible: the Psalms, for example. They are related to the experiences of human life, they are accurate in their relationship, and they portray doctrines pertinent to us today. f) There is also in the Bible the recording of falsehoods. The Bible in inspiration does not sanction these falsehoods, such as the Satanic lies, but instead it indicates that this is accurate, this is the way they were, this is the way the devil said it. It does not condone falsehood, it records it accurately. The doctrine of inspiration guarantees the accuracy of the lie. g) Prophecy. Inspiration involves both the selection of prophetic materials as well as their complete accuracy. We do not have a complete and detailed account of everything in the future but we do have enough so that we can put together a very beautiful picture for the believer in phase three.

“For the word of God.” First of all it is said to be “quick” — the present active participle of zaw. Zaw in the present active participle is linear aktionsart and should be translated “keeps on being alive.” In other words, Bible doctrine is pertinent to every age, every dispensation, every generation including our own. Bible doctrine is the capacity for life. The linear aktionsart in the participle indicates that Bible doctrine always has been and always will be pertinent to our life. It gives us capacity for life and without that capacity for life there cannot be any happiness. Happiness depends on capacity for life. So the linear aktionsart of this passage indicates that the supergrace is available regardless of anyone’s past failures. As long as you are alive the status of supergrace is available. The failure of the Exodus generation does not hinder subsequent generations from entering into supergrace.

“and powerful” — the word “powerful” is e)nerghj. It means effective, active, energetic, efficient, effectual. Actually, this word means four things and all of them are pertinent. a) First of all, e)nerghj means effective. Bible doctrine is effective in producing the supergrace status of occupation with Christ. b) A transliteration: energetic. Bible doctrine produces motivation for GAPing it to supergrace. c) It means also efficient. Bible doctrine is efficient in getting believers into supergrace. d) It means effectual. That means that Bible doctrine is adapted to accomplish the intended result of getting all believers into the area of supergrace or the tactical victory of the angelic conflict.

“and sharper” — this is the comparative adjective of tomoj and should be translated “and more cutting.”

“than” — the preposition u(per is a preposition of comparison as translated. And then we have “any two-edged sword” — this is actually one word in the Greek, maxaira. This was the famous Roman sword that was one of the greatest military inventions of the ancient world. This was a very short sword of about eighteen inches long. It had a sharp point and two sharp sides. The Roman recruits were so drilled with this sword that they could use it very effectively. It was light, well-balanced, and did a very excellent job. It was quite in contrast to other swords of the ancient world. The maxaira in the hands of a well-trained Roman soldier was the most effective weapon of its day . The Bible, of course, does not use other words which are found in the ancient world for sword. For example, dolon is never used. This was a sword in a cane. It usually only has a sharp point and is hidden. Bible doctrine is not hidden so God the Holy Spirit did not permit this word to be used. Then there was the r(omphaia, the Greek broadsword which was about six feet long and had one broad edge. it had only one effective edge, and the Bible does not have just one effective edge, all of it is important. Then there was a sword first introduced by the high-ranking generals of the Persian army, called an a)kinakhj. This was a very ornate sword, it demonstrated something of your rank. It was a very beautiful thing but no good for killing anything. It was just gingerbread. And that is just the trouble with a lot of believers, they think the Word of God is just gingerbread. They want all of the “thees” and the “thous” included, and they want nice, sweet flowing words that they cannot understand. But the objective of the Bible is the antithesis of that. It is to be understood. Another type of sword was the cifoj, a sword that had only a thrusting point. The Bible doesn’t have a point here and a point there, all of the Bible is important. So God the Holy Spirit has carefully selected the proper word which is maxaira. Every part of the Word of God is important, every part is effective.

This is brought out now by another participle, “piercing” — diikeneonai, a rare verb which means penetrating, breaking through, not being hindered by bones. This means that neither bone nor muscle nor any kind of flesh will prevent the person from being seriously if not fatally wounded.

“dividing asunder” is an adverb a)xri plus merismoj. It means that swords, like the old weapons, were intended to kill the enemy, were intended to fulfil an objective. And it means penetrating so as to separate. The Word of God as a sword is meant to reach the soul of the individual believer. That is the purpose here. This phrase, a)xri plus merismoj, was used for killing the enemy and recognising it as a part of the laws of divine establishment.

So fare we have then, “For the word of God keeps on being alive, and effectual [accomplishing its purpose], and more cutting than every maxaira, penetrating ...”

What is the purpose of the penetration of the Word? So as to separate soul and spirit. There is a vast difference between the human soul and the human spirit.

Verse 12b — the Bible is the only book which actually distinguished between the soul and the spirit.

The doctrine of the soul

1. In category mankind the real person in located in the soul. The real person is not what is observed by others around you, or even by yourself when you look in the mirror, the real person is located in the soul — Genesis 2:7. The human body is only a temporary residence for you.

2. The soul has essence, invisible and immaterial. This is why the Bible says that man was created in the image of God. God has essence which is invisible and immaterial. The invisible and immaterial essence of God is similar to the fact that man’s real being is immaterial and invisible. The soul is located somewhere in the cranium and this is the most protected part of the human body. The first characteristic of the soul is self-consciousness, which means you are aware of your own existence. Secondly, there is mentality. The mentality of the soul is divided up into two parts. The first part is called in the Greek the nouj, which is generally translated “mind.” The other part of the mentality of the soul is called kardia in the Greek, and is translated in the King James version “heart.” Heart and mind make up the mentality of the soul. The left lobe is where information is first received, and there it becomes objective knowledge. This is the only place where things start. This is, however, not the place where knowledge is useable. That place is the heart or the right lobe. Everyone has as the mentality of the soul the final objective for all information which is the heart. The heart has a frame of reference. All information in life to be useable must enter the frame of reference. Then it has a memory centre which does many things with information in the frame of reference. It starts to form a vocabulary, and the greater your vocabulary the greater your thought pattern. Then it develops from vocabulary into sentences, sentences into paragraphs, paragraphs into categories. Categories are the concepts which reside inside of your right lobe. And then you have your conscience, your norms and standards whereby you determine what is right, what is wrong, whereby you evaluate everything any everyone in life. This is also the area of the soul whereby God seeks to instill through doctrine His concepts. And then, of course, there is a launching pad. This is where you make the application, this is where the unbeliever has common sense, this is where the believer has great discernment. And on this launching pad, when it is doctrine, there is the divine viewpoint and this determines a great deal about your activities in life. So the soul possesses self-consciousness and mentality. In addition to that the third factor is volition or free will. Free will was created in man in order to extend the angelic conflict. The creation of man is for the purpose of demonstrating that Satan’s objection to the lake of fire is not valid, and to invalidate Satan’s objections man was created and given the same free will that all the angels possess. Next we have the emotion, the responder to what you have in the right lobe. If you would say, that in the human body you have male and female hormones — everyone does — then you would also have to say the same thing about the soul. The male hormone is equivalent to the heart or the right lobe, and the female is the emotion. The heart is the right man and the emotion is the right woman. The right woman responds to the right man. So the emotion is designed so that you can have a responder to what goes on in your heart or your right lobe, and that is the normal function of your emotion. As long as the emotion is responding to what you have, regardless of the area of life, it is a bona fide function. It may be in the field of music, it may be in drama, art or literature. It may be in the field of athletics or in the field of relationships with human beings, but whatever it happens to be the emotion is the responder and therefore becomes the enjoyer of the soul. However, when the emotion dominates the soul everything is out of kilter and the soul of the person who is in that status quo is destroyed.

3. The soul also has something equivalent to lungs for breathing, for inhale and exhale. The left bank of the soul is designed for taking in things in relationship with God, the right bank is for relationship with the human race.

4. The Bible distinguishes between two inner parts of man. The first inner part is the soul and the second inner part is the spirit. The original man was trichotomous — body, soul, and spirit — according to Genesis 2:7. But the unbeliever is said to be dichotomous. he is called “the soulish man” in the Greek of 1 Corinthians 2:14 and also in Jude 19. So that when Adam sinned he lost his human spirit, and one of those 36 things we receive at the point of salvation is the acquisition of the human spirit once again so that the believer is said to be trichotomous — body, soul, and spirit — in 1 Thessalonians 5:23.

5. Only the soul, not the body, was made in the image of God — Genesis 1:26,27; 2:7. Again, the image of God means not the same essence that God possesses but the same type of essence, immaterial and invisible.

6. Only the soul, not the body, is saved in regeneration — Psalm 19:7; 34:22; Mark 8:36, 37; Hebrews 10:39; 1 Peter 1:9 tell us that only the soul is saved. The body is not saved, we receive in resurrection a new body.

7. Since the soul contains knowledge — Proverbs 19:2 — it is subject to Satanic attack, according to Matthew 10:28; Ephesians 4:17-19. This is important to understand about the soul, that the soul is the source of attack, and therefore Bible doctrine’s objective is to so enter the soul as to protect the individual believer from that attack.

8. The soul, therefore, becomes a battleground during phase two — Psalm 100:33.

9. The soul is also the area of the worst type of sinning — the mental attitude sin. This is taught in Job 21:25; Zechariah 11:8.

10. Since the soul is the worst area of sinning it causes the accumulation of scar tissue. The soul, therefore, with accumulated scar tissue becomes the seat of human misery. The greatest unhappiness you will ever know will be that which resides inside your soul and is of your own making.

11. The soul is also the area for the capacities of life — capacity for love, fore example — 1 Samuel 18:1; 1 Peter 1:22. It is also the area for capacity for freedom and all of the other capacities that contribute to your happiness.

12. Physical death is the departure of the soul from the physical body — Job 27:8; Psalm 16:10; 2 Corinthians 5:8.

The Bible distinguishes between what you are in the soul and the human spirit. The human spirit is distinguished from the soul in our passage, Hebrews 4:12. In the original creation of mankind the human spirit was the basis of fellowship with God. It was the basis of having relationship with God, and when man sinned the human spirit was destroyed immediately and man was spiritually dead with no possibility of having fellowship with God. So the unbeliever is declared even today to be minus the human spirit — Jude 19; 1 Corinthians 2:14. Since the unbeliever does not possess a human spirit it is the ministry of God the Holy Spirit at the point of hearing the Gospel to take Gospel information which enters the left lobe and make that Gospel a reality. Then positive volition toward the Gospel causes the person to believe in Jesus Christ, so that even the very basis for our salvation is not even discernible or understandable until God the Holy Spirit has made it a reality in the left lobe. So the Holy Spirit, therefore, must act as a human spirit in the area of the unbeliever understanding spiritual phenomena. The human spirit is the target for storage in the function of GAP. When a believer hears Bible doctrine and it goes into his left lobe God the Holy Spirit makes that doctrine objective reality, but non-meritorious positive volition, transfers it to the human spirit where that knowledge becomes e)pignwsij. It is e)pignwsij that is useable. E)pignwsij is sucked into the right lobe. E)pignwsij is the basis for the ECS, and e)pignwsij is the basis for entering the supergrace life. So the human soul, then, becomes very important as far as the function of the believer is concerned. The spiritual IQ of the believer is determined by the amount of doctrine in his human spirit. GAP only functions when the believer is filled with the Spirit and it is the Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that gives us reality in the Christian life.

So this verse says, “For the word of God keeps on being alive, and effectual [it accomplishes its objective], and more cutting than every maxaira, penetrating to the separation of the soul and the spirit.” All of the immaterial, invisible parts in humanity are understood through Bible doctrine. That’s why the Bible has its own beautiful type of psychology and that’s why the Bible can define as well as give the answer to every problem in human life.

Next we notice “and of the joints and the marrow.” It should be translated, “both joints and marrow.” The word for joints a)rmoj is the word we use today for joints, and we also have another genitive plural, mueloj, which is translated marrow. These two words are descriptive genitives in the Greek. The mueloj or the marrow refers to the highly vascular soft tissue which fills the cavities of most bones. Hence, the Bible not only splits hairs but it splits invisible and very fine hairs because all discernment must come from distinguishing one principle from another. Every distinction the Bible emphasises must be brought to the attention of every believer priest and when the Bible makes distinctions, no matter how small, no matter how great, they are extremely important to each one of us as believers. God has designed each one of us as a priest, we are to represent ourselves on the earth, we are to be spiritually self-sustaining. That is the objective. God not only wants us to be spiritually self-sustaining but He wants us to have the greatest possible happiness. Great happiness was designed for each one of us in eternity past. So the Bible, then, recognises the most minute of distinctions. Just as there is a difference between the joint bone and what the bone contains by way of marrow so there is a great distinction between certain doctrines in life.

Next we have the word “discerner,” and that is the Greek word kritikoj. Kritikoj has come down to us in the English word “critic”. Kritikoj actually means a judge. So the Bible and Bible doctrine becomes our critic or our judge. It tells us when we are right and when we are wrong, it tells us when we are in the right direction or the wrong direction, it keeps us constantly aware of what we should be doing and should not be doing, what our attitude should be, and so on.

“of the thoughts” — the word for “thoughts” here could be one of three or four Greek words. This is a genitive plural of e)nqumhsij. This is a very complimentary word to us because it implies that all of us at some time in our lives actually have thoughts! Other words do not imply that, such as nouj and noew, and so on. But this means the actual act or function of thinking. This means to take whatever vocabulary you have in your right lobe and to come to conclusions in life. Of course, no vocabulary means not many conclusions. It also indicates that your life and the real you is not what you do but really what you think. What you do is merely coordinated with either by response or reaction to what you think. Once again, the real you is what you think. “As a man thinketh in his heart, so he is.”

The Bible is a critic of everything we think and therefore it becomes a critic of our motivation. The word “intents” is another descriptive genitive plural — e)nnoia. E)nnoia, like e)nqumoj means something on the inside. Notice that both of these nouns begin with the word e)n which makes them compounds. That is simply the preposition for “inside,” what is going on inside. The first one refers to what you think and the second refers to what motivations are formed from what you think.

“the heart” refers to the right lobe which is the very key to the soul. As goes the heart so goes the soul. The heart or the right lobe is where you do your thinking. It is in the genitive singular and, again, it is a descriptive genitive — kardia, referring to the right lobe: frame of reference, memory centre, vocabulary and categories, conscience, norms or standards, and launching pad. This is the real you and whatever occurs in that is the real you. Translation: “For the word of God keeps on being alive, and effectual, and more cutting than any maxaira, for it penetrates so as to separate soul and spirit, both joints and marrow, and a judge of cogitations and intentions of the right lobe.”

The Bible, then, is our very life. This is the air that we breathe and this is the most important factor in our lives after salvation. The Bible contains many commands, like commands to love. It is impossible to love, it is impossible to do anything without having the capacity for it, and capacity for the believer comes from Bible doctrine in the soul. This means, of course, that the doctrine must be transferred from the page of the book into your soul before it can be of any use to you at all.

Verse 13 — why is Bible doctrine so important? Because God vindicates His Word in the believer’s soul. And that is the objective of God in phase two. Remember that God is not a respecter of persons; God does have perfect respect for His own Word. He has magnified His Word above His name — Psalm 138:2. Verse 13 gives us the application of this section: God vindicates His Word only in the believer’s soul.

“Neither” — the conjunction kai. This is a transitive conjunction here and it should be translated better by the English conjunction “and.” Kai is a connective conjunction which the power of Bible doctrine to your particular soul, and when you have that doctrine in your soul then God will vindicate His Word. God’s attitude toward His Word is expressed in Psalm 138:2. When the believer GAPs it to supergrace God must vindicate His Word by pouring supergrace blessings for that individual. In other words, if you don’t have a cup in your soul God will not pour. The cup is Bible doctrine which has been transferred from the page of the Word and has eventually formed a cup in your soul. Once this occurs then God begins to pour. Once these supergrace blessings are poured then God is glorified.

“and there is not” — the present active indicative of e)imi plus the strong objective negative o)uk. The word “any” is not found in the original but the word “creature” is — “there is not a created thing,” and the word for created thing is ktisij, and here ktisij applies to the fact that every member of the human race does not become a member of the human race until after he is born and God gives him the very spark of life.

“that is not manifest” is incorrect. It should be translated in the form of the adjective, which is a)fanhj, as hidden or invisible — “from his sight” — “there is not a created thing hidden from his sight”. This means that every thought you have ever had, every function of the soul that has ever existed, was known to God in eternity past, long before these functions of the soul actually occurred in your life. So that God is aware of every true and false thought, false motive, of how much doctrine there would be in your soul, and it is God’s desire to pour but he cannot pour where there is no doctrine in the soul.

Next we have a particle used as an adversative conjunction — de. Often we have the regular conjunction for setting up a contrast. The adversative conjunction is a)lla, but a)lla is not used here. Why? Because this is not quite as string an adversative because it has almost been stated positively in the negative side of the sentence. Therefore it isn’t necessary to use a strong conjunction when a particle will do just as well. So God the Holy Spirit has placed an adversative particle here to show that you already get the point but let’s hear the other side anyway.

“all things” — the nominative neuter plural of paj. The neuter gender of paj here indicates that this is what you think. These are the thoughts that go through the soul. These “all things” also include what you do as a result of what you think — your motives, your deeds, everything that occurs, your sins of the mind, are all included at this point.

“are naked” — the nominative neuter plural of gumnoj. The omniscience of God is well aware of every thought you would ever have and every deed that you would ever do, and He knew this in eternity past. The word “open” is the perfect passive participle of traxelizw. The word means to bend back the head of a sacrificial animal in order to expose its throat. So it means to expose something so that it is understood, to expose a target even. That is exactly what is meant here, that everything was exposed to God in eternity past. The perfect tense is an intensive perfect. It means that this occurred in eternity past with the result that God knew what we would think and made preparation accordingly.

“unto the eyes of him” is an anthropomorphism. God does not have eyes in the sense that we have eyes, but explain a policy, a function of God eyes are used at this point.

“with whom” — proj plus the accusative which means “face to face with whom” — “we have to do”— there is no verb here in “we have to do”. Actually, it is the word “our account”. So it is, “face to face with whom we have an account”. The word is logoj — “with whom we have our logoj [or our account, or our doctrine]”. All doctrine comes from God and it is doctrine that makes the difference in our lives. Our accounting or our doctrine is based on what we have in the soul, not what is in the Word of God. And God the Father is no respecter of persons — 1 Samuel 16:7; 2 Samuel 14:14; Acts 10:34; Job 27:23, 24. Only doctrine in the soul impresses God. Doctrine is His Word and He is impressed with doctrine in the soul. The only way to get doctrine in the soul is GAP, and when we GAP it to supergrace then God is so impressed with that that he pours the blessings. It is doctrine in the soul that becomes the capacity for life. That is when God starts to pour and to pour and to pour, and that is when life becomes exactly what God wanted it to be. When God can pour these things then you have reached the point of glorifying Him, and that is why you and I are here.

We have come to the fourteenth verse which is the transition verse and bring us to the very subject, the very purpose for which we have this passage. The word “seeing” is a particle o)un used as an inferential conjunction. This inferential conjunction means that we are now reaching a conclusion. This is the real challenge. Up to this point we have seen reversionism as a hindrance to the supergrace life, a hindrance to everything in life. Now we see the other side of the fence. The celebrityship of Jesus Christ is presented in this verse and this becomes, therefore, the transitional verse for the entire book. The purpose of the book of Hebrews is to bring every believer into occupation with the person of Jesus Christ. The objective in to bring everyone to the point of celebrityship of Christ whereby there is a bona fide and true love for the Lord Jesus Christ based upon Bible doctrine in the soul. At that point begins the priesthood which will be mentioned in this verse. For the first time the word “priest” is mentioned, and when the word priest is mentioned it applies to you. Every believer is priest in this dispensation and therefore the life of every believer has meaning and purpose and definition as far as God is concerned. Therefore this first word, translated “seeing then” is really an inferential conjunction and should be translated “therefore,” indicates we have now come to the most important part of this passage. If Jesus Christ is not the only celebrity in your life it means one of several things: it means that you are negative toward doctrine, it means that you are minus doctrine, it means that you are without benefit of doctrine in your soul. It means that at some time in your life you have been reacting, you have become discouraged and reacted to it. Or you have become bored and reacted to it. Or you have become disillusioned and reacted to it. Or you have been overcome with self-pity and reacted to it. Or you have become lonely and reacted to it. Or you have become frustrated and reacted to it. Or you have been jilted by someone you loved and have reacted to it. This reaction leads to a frantic search for happiness. The frantic search for happiness then triggers emotional revolt and emotional revolt then intensifies whatever reactor factors you have in your soul. As this occurs then you become indifferent, you neglect, you become hostile toward Bible doctrine, and when you do then the mataiothj is opened up and you have the attack on the right lobe. This attack brings in Satanic doctrine so that the believer comes under Satanic influence or demon influence. Whatever doctrine is left in the right lobe moves over to the left lobe where it is totally non-useable and, at this point, there is the blackout of the soul which is followed by the practice of reverse process reversionism. This, of course, leads eventually to the sin unto death. So matter how you slice it the priesthood does not work under these conditions and the situation is totally abnormal. And under these conditions there is nothing but divine discipline, reaping what you sow and the sin unto death. But under conditions of taking in doctrine on a daily basis, GAPing it, then you get to the point of Romans 8:28 which is for the supergrace believer only, it does not apply to every believer. It only applies to those who love God and the only ones who love God are supergrace believers and no one else. You have to be in supergrace. That is when God starts to pour and then there isn’t anything in life that you cannot handle. And that is the objective of the Christian life because that is where the tactical victory begins.

At the cross we have the beginning of the strategical victory. Jesus Christ bore our sins in His own body on the tree. Until the time of the cross Satan’s objective was to keep Christ from getting to the cross. But once He died for our sins and took our place, and then went into the grave for three days and rose again and was ascended, once He was seated at the right hand of the Father, we have a completion of the strategical victory of the angelic conflict. The cross broke the back of Satan, says Colossians 2:14, and ascension makes it very certain that Jesus Christ as a man is now higher than all angels. Jesus Christ is the only one in resurrection body. Operation footstool, the next step, will see the return of Christ to the earth at which point He will begin to reign, and at this point Satan and all fallen angels will be removed.

During the interim we have an interruption of the Jewish Age. We live in the Church Age, the dispensation of the Church, and in this particular dispensation God has a very specific purpose. This is the age of tactical victory. Every time a believer reaches the supergrace life it becomes a tactical victory because when a believer is in supergrace then God can do what He desires to do for every believer: give him wealth, success, promotion, great happiness, great blessing. In other words, the believer has a cup and God pours. When God pours blessings into that cup God Himself is glorified. He does the pouring and the believer glorifies God when he reaches supergrace. God’s objective is to bless every believer priest in this dispensation and it can only be accomplished through the intake of doctrine, and that is why so few are blessed because so few have a positive consistent attitude toward Bible doctrine. God is glorified when the believer is blessed to the maximum; that is the concept and that is the objective of the Christian way of life.

With that in mind we now move from the inferential particle to see what we have. “Seeing therefore that we have” — present active participle from the verb e)xw which means not only to have but it really means to have and to hold. it is a present active participle in the Greek and that means linear aktionsart, something we have because we have been in it every day — taking in Bible doctrine. This is also a dramatic present to indicate the having and the holding of something that is of the utmost importance to us. Because we are born again, because we are children of God, because Jesus Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father, because Jesus Christ is our high priest, and because we were commissioned priests at e is God the point of salvation, we keep on having something therefore. The active voice: the subject produces the action of the verb, and you are the subject. Every believer is the subject. The participle, again, indicates linear aktionsart, and it should be translated literally, “having therefore a great high priest.” The adjective megaj means uniqueness in this particular case, and absolutely unique person, different from anyone else. Then we have with it a noun in the accusative case, a)rxiereuj, the word for high priest or chief priest.

“that is passed into” — the perfect active participle of dierxomai shows us the strategical victory in the angelic conflict. The perfect tense is a consummative perfect, it emphasises the results of the completed action of the verb. The work is already accomplished, the victory is already there, and we simply as believers in this dispensation are here for one reason: to exploit the strategic victory of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross, resurrection and session. We are here for the purpose of exploitation and the greatest function of the priesthood is to exploit that victory. That victory is exploited through entrance into the supergrace life. It is missing the supergrace life which is the subject of chapter three and chapter four.

Then we have an active voice. Jesus Christ, our high priest produced the action. This verb emphasises the doctrines of resurrection, ascension, and session. Jesus Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father in His humanity. As God Jesus Christ doesn’t sit any more than the Father sits. As God, Jesus Christ is omnipresent, he is imminent and transcendent, He is everywhere. It is His humanity which sits down. Note, therefore, the contrast with the Levitical priesthood. Aaron’s place of ministry was on the earth. Aaron was the chief of the Levitical priesthood, its founder, whereas the Lord Jesus Christ, the founder of our priesthood sits in heaven Aaron ministered with shadows but Jesus Christ ministers with reality. We happen to live in the age of reality.

The strategic victory has to be emphasised again and again. It is possible to have a strategic victory and to lose out tactically. Christ won the strategic victory at the cross. Why are we here? You and I are here to exploit the strategic of the cross, and the exploitation of the strategic victory of the cross comes through recognition of the celebrityship of Jesus Christ. But until you get Bible doctrine in your soul you don’t know what it is all about. Once you get doctrine in your soul you are ready for it, and then you will have it, and you will have the very purpose for which you are alive — to exploit strategic victory — and the tactical victory which exploits it is your blessing in this life. Why does God keep you here right under the nose of the devil? Who is the ruler of this world? Satan himself. What are you doing here, then, in the devil’s world? Right under the devil’s very nose Jesus Christ can give you blessing that the devil could never provide. This is the devil’s world, he has a lot of power, he has a lot of things whereby he can promote his own. This is the devil’s world whereby he can make it attractive for a lot of people, but since the day that we were born again and since the day that we became priests we do not owe his majesty the devil a thing. We are here as the guests of the Lord Jesus Christ, as kingdom of priests we owe the devil nothing, and therefore it is our high priest who will provide for us in the devil’s word — and does through His Word. That is why verse 12 which have just studied comes before verse 14. It is the Word of God that makes the difference in our souls. And God has a purpose for keeping us here: to, right under the devil’s nose, provide everything that Satan can provide for his own and more besides, the very capacity for life, to share the very happiness of God, to receive the blessings of God, to receive the very things you have associated with happiness and to receive them in such a way that God is glorified and you have the best time ever. Heaven on earth is the supergrace life.

The doctrine of ascension

1. The resurrection body of the Lord Jesus Christ was capable of space travel. The humanity of Christ in resurrection travelled through three heavens, according to John 20:17.

2. Once He arrived in the presence of the Father the Father told Him to sit down — Psalm 110:1; Romans 8:34; Ephesians 1:20; Colossians 3:1; Hebrews 1:3,13; 10:12; 12:2; 1 Peter 3:22, and other passages. This is something that is documented time and time again because the Lord Jesus Christ seated at the right hand of the Father is the final point in the strategic victory of the angelic conflict. The fact that Jesus Christ as a man in a resurrection body is acceptable to God the Father guarantees the acceptability of every person in the Church Age who believes in Jesus Christ.

3. The ascension and session of Christ form the basis of victory, then, in the angelic conflict — Hebrews chapter one.

4. The ascension and session of Christ begin a new sphere of the angelic conflict: tactical exploitation — Ephesians 1:20,22; 4:7-10. And we are involved in the tactical exploitation, it is the objective of keeping us alive that we might reach supergrace, that God might pour those blessings He has for us, that God might pour in the midst of that certain adversities that we might take in stride as a demonstration to all the fallen angels that God can provide for His own and that the Word of God will always be vindicated. For we live under a principle: God must vindicate His Word, and God vindicates His Word in the souls of individual believers as they take it in. So we have a new sphere of the angelic conflict, and since the strategic victory is accomplished we are now under the principle of the intensity of the angelic conflict.

5. The ascension and session begin operation footstool prophesied in Psalm 110:1, quoted in Luke 20:42,23, in Acts 2:33,34. Operation footstool recognises the final victory of the Lord Jesus Christ at the second advent. At that time angels will be removed from the world. Throughout history fallen angels have been permitted to remain around in order to prove the principle of the angelic conflict. For when Satan objected to being sentenced to the lake of fire the basis of his objection has become the very source of all human history. Man was created to glorify God by resolving the angelic conflict. But God has some wonderful things along the way. In resolving the angelic conflict it is God’s intention that every believer priest have perfect happiness and blessing from God, and therefore the Lord Jesus Christ has provided in His departure that we might have this wonderful priesthood into which we might enter into celebrityship of Jesus Christ.

6. The second advent will conclude operation footstool — Daniel 7:13,14; Zechariah 13:2; Colossians 2:15; Revelation 20:1-3. When the Lord Jesus Christ returns he returns with the Church to, the Armageddon campaign, and there is where the Lord Jesus Christ as the greatest soldier in all of history will break His own record in killing the enemy. The record for killing the enemy at this point is 185,000 in one second. There will be over a million people personally killed by the Lord Jesus Christ at the Armageddon campaign.

7. The ascension and session completes the glorification of Christ in His hypostatic union — Acts 2:33; 5:31; Philippians 2:9; 1 Peter 3:22.

8. The ascension and session explains the uniqueness f Jesus Christ, according to John 7:37-39.

9. The ascension and session is the key to the victory of the angelic conflict — Hebrews 1:4.

No sooner does it state the fact that Jesus Christ is ascended in this passage than immediately we have a very interesting study of Him. We have the phrase “Jesus the Son of God.” The word “Jesus” refers to His humanity. This name always emphasises the humanity of Christ and, of course, His high priesthood. Remember that a priest is a man representing man before God, according to Hebrews 10:5-10. And that is exactly what we have in the name of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the high priest who wins the victory, but He is also called the Son of God. So we have the phrase “Jesus the Son of God.” The words “Son of God” refer to His deity. He is just as much God as the Father, just as much God as the Holy Spirit, He is coequal and coeternal with them. But at the same time He is man. He has a body, He has a soul, He has a human spirit, so He is a trichotomous being. As the God-Man He came into this world to accomplish the strategic victory. As God He can’t die on the cross. As God He is eternal life; eternal life cannot die. He is sovereignty: sovereignty isn’t subject to death. As God he is omnipresent; omnipresence cannot reduce itself to one point, like the cross. As God He is immutability; He can’t change His characteristics and die on the cross as God. So He became true humanity, but He had to be humanity minus the old sin nature, humanity minus any personal sin and minus the imputation of Adam’s sin. So through the virgin birth He accomplished the first two, and through living 33 years without personal sin He accomplished the last, so that when Jesus Christ came to the cross he came to the cross as perfect man. He is the God-Man, and as He was hanging upon the cross He bore our sins in His own body on the tree. All these sins came from the area of weakness of our old sin nature. We also have an area of strength which produces human good. He rejected all human good. Human good belongs to Satan and to the devil’s world and human good has always been rejected by God. Our righteousnesses are filthy rags in His sight, and right down to the cross and forever after human good has never been acceptable to God. Therefore when Christ took our place and was judged for us He provided this so great salvation. He offered Himself as a sacrifice, the first and only sacrifice of our priesthood. Christ takes our place and becomes our substitute so that when we believe in Jesus Christ we have eternal life, we enter into His plan, we are related to the strategic victory and we are now in line for tactical victory. That is the objective of our life on this earth; the tactical victory of the supergrace life, the tactical victory of occupation with the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the unique person of the universe. He is different from God in that he is man; He is different from man in that he is God. He is different from all other members of the human race in that He is perfect man and at the same time God. he is different from the Father and from the Holy Spirit in that He is the God-man. Jesus Christ is absolutely unique, no matter how you observe Him; He is the only celebrity of our priesthood.

The doctrine of the hypostatic union (the uniqueness of the person of Christ)

1. By way of definition: In the person of Jesus Christ are two natures inseparably united, without mixture or loss of separate identity, without loss or transfer property or attributes, the union being personal and eternal.

2. The scriptural verification: John 1:1-14; Romans 1:2-5; 9:5; Philippians 2:5-11; summarised in 1 Timothy 3:16; Hebrews 2:14.

3. The incarnate person of Christ includes His deity. Jesus Christ is God, coequal, coeternal with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. The incarnation does not diminish His deity; He is, therefore, undiminished deity.

4. The incarnate person of Christ is also true humanity. He is bona fide humanity with a body, a soul, and with a human spirit, but minus the old sin nature. Through the virgin birth Jesus Christ avoided both the imputation of Adam’s sin and spiritual death at birth. So Jesus Christ came into the world without an old sin nature. The only way He could have acquired one is to sin as Adam did, though negative volition. But He through free will avoided that.

5. The two natures of Christ are united without transfer of attributes. In other words, the attributes adhere to their corresponding natures. The essence of deity cannot be changed — immutability. The infinite cannot be transferred to the finite. To rob God of a single attribute would destroy His deity and would be blasphemous. To rob the humanity of Christ of a single attribute of His humanity would also destroy His humanity and therefore the hypostatic union. So the two natures of Christ are united without transfer of attributes at any time.

6. No attribute of essence of deity was changed at the incarnation. In fulfilling the purpose of the first advent certain attributes of deity were used, but this does not imply that they were either surrendered or destroyed. There is a false doctrine of Kenosis and under that doctrine it says that certain attributes of deity were surrendered. However, the true doctrine of Kenosis says that Christ voluntarily restricted the independent use of divine attributes in keeping with the plan of the Father. In other words, the humanity of Christ recognised the authority of the Father. This is demonstrated by the three great temptations. You may go forty days without food but the devil is never going to come to you and tempt you to turn stones into bread. Our Lord actually had the power. Why did He refuse? That would be violating God’s plan for Jesus Christ agreed to depend upon the provision of the Father. If Jesus Christ had turned those stones into bread as the devil tempted Him to do so then Jesus Christ would have violated the plan of the Father and rejected the authority of the Father, and would be in a state of sin and therefore would not be our saviour. Satan also offered Him the kingdoms of the world. Why? Because he is the ruler of this world. It was a bona fide offer and Jesus Christ refused this.

7. Therefore, the union of divine essence and human nature of the incarnate Christ must be considered hypostatic and personal. That means that Jesus Christ is now at the right hand of the Father, true humanity. He is eternal God, He does not cease to be God, He does not cease to be a member of the human race. He is true humanity is resurrection body. He will be that way forever. He will be an eternal symbol to everything that is related to grace. In order to save mankind, in order to provide eternal salvation for us, in order that we might live forever and ever with God apart from the lake of fire where all of the fallen angels will be God had to come up with something special, God had to find a way. And grace found a way. There is no way that salvation can be accomplished through any member of the human race. Salvation had to be accomplished by the only one who was qualified to do so: Jesus Christ as the God-Man. Therefore the divine essence of God and His human essence in one person forever is the absolute uniqueness in the universe.

8. There is a false interpretation of the hypostatic union: that deity possessed humanity or that the deity of Christ indwelt the humanity of Christ. Or, as the liberals say. “there was harmony and sympathy.”

However, the Bible makes it very clear that it is personal. The two natures, divine and human, have been combined in one hypostasis forever. Jesus Christ, then, is undiminished deity and true humanity in one person forever.

9. Therefore, Jesus Christ, the God-Man has one essence forever. The attributes of both divine and human nature belong to the person of Christ always. The characteristics of one nature are never attributed to the other. This means that during His first advent Jesus was weak and at the same time he was omnipotent. He was ignorant and He was omniscient. However, the ignorance of His humanity was quickly overcome by the daily function of GAP and the erection of the ECS — Luke 2:40, 52; John 1:14. The word “glory” in John 1:14 is the ECS of the humanity of Christ.

10. Why did Jesus Christ, eternal God, coequal with the Father and coequal with the Holy Spirit, have to become a member of the human race?

a) Jesus Christ had to become a member of the human race to be our saviour — Philippians 2:7,8; Hebrews 2:14,15.

b) Jesus Christ is the mediator. According to the book of Job a mediator must be equal with both parties in the mediation. Party of the first part is God; party of the second part is man. The mediator, if he is going to bring both parties, God and man, together he must be equal with both parties — Job 9:32-33 demands this; 1 Timothy 2:5,6 explains it. Jesus Christ was always God, coequal with the Father and with the Holy Spirit; He became true humanity. Therefore He is the mediator between God and man. However, to fulfil the mediation He had to die, and the cross fulfils the mediation. Now man can be brought to God in the basis of Jesus Christ the mediator. So He is not only our saviour but He is the mediator. he is the God-Man. He is coequal with man, He is coequal with the Father, He is superior to all other members of the human race, and therefore He is the only mediator.

c) Jesus Christ had to become a man to be a priest. A priest is a man who represents man before God — Hebrews 7:4, 5, 14, 28; 10:5-14. These passages tell us in definition that a priest must be a man representing man before God. The tribe of Levi, the family of Aaron, represented the entire nation of Israel, and they had to be true members of the human race, they had to be born of the line of Aaron in order to fulfil that principle. Jesus Christ is said to be our high priest. To be our high priest He has to become a man, and therefore the importance of His humanity.

d) God promised David in supergrace something special that his dynasty would last forever. God promised David that he would have a son who would rule the earth forever, not just Israel which is included but all the entire earth. He promised this unconditionally, no strings attached — 2 Samuel 7:8-16. He repeated this promise in Psalm 89:20-37. In order for that promise to be fulfilled Jesus Christ not only had to become true humanity but He had to be born into the direct line of David. And, as a matter of fact, He was. He was descended from David through Solomon on one side and Solomon’s brother Nathan on the other. The line of Solomon goes down through Joseph; the line of Nathan goes down through Mary. Through the virgin birth Jesus Christ is directly descended from David, through Nathan to Mary. Then. on the legal side, Joseph, the legal father but not the real father, is descended from Solomon. So on both sides the Lord Jesus Christ is born by directly in the line of David and therefore He is often called the son of David. In this way God keeps His Word, God fulfils His promise to David when Jesus Christ returns. So it becomes, therefore, necessary for Jesus Christ to become a true member of the human race other wise He could not fulfil the Davidic covenant., otherwise he could not be a mediator, otherwise He could not be our high priest, and otherwise he could not be our saviour. Therefore this is a pivotal doctrine, one that you must master and understand in order to appreciate the celebrityship of Jesus Christ.

11. Everything verbally communicated by Christ during the incarnation came from one of three sources: from His deity, as in John 8:58 where Jesus said, “Before Abraham was I existed eternally”; or from His humanity where He said in John 19:28, “I thirst” — deity doesn’t thirst, only humanity; or many times He spoke from His hypostatic union, as in Matthew 11:28 when He said, “Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest,” or in John 14:6 where He said, “I am the way, the truth and the life, no man cometh unto the Father but by me.” In His hypostatic union He often declared the principle of salvation for the hypostatic union was necessary for eternal salvation.

So we can see very briefly, then, from this sketch some of the concepts involved in the celebrityship of the Lord Jesus Christ: His strategic victory by being seated at the right hand of the Father, His great uniqueness which makes the intensity of the Church Age in the angelic conflict a reality. And when we see this phrase, as it occurs occasionally, “Jesus the Son of God,” we are looking at the hypostatic union, the uniqueness of the person of Jesus Christ.

Now, He is called our high priest, and that leads us now to the doctrine of the high priesthood of Jesus Christ. This, too, is a part of His uniqueness.

The doctrine of the high priesthood of Jesus Christ

1. There are three different priesthoods in the scripture. When the word “priest” is mentioned you must remember a priest is a man representing man before God. Each of the three priesthoods mentioned in the scripture corresponds to a dispensation in the past or current. For example, the first dispensation in history was the Age of the Gentiles, and in that age there was a bona fide priesthood. The family priesthood was made up of the head of every family. For example, anyone who was the head of a family was the priest, anyone who was the firstborn became the priest upon the death of his father. Foe example, Abraham was a priest, Job was a priest, Melchizedek was a priest. (Melchizedek was not Jesus Christ, he was a member of the human race. In fact he was a king and a priest and illustrates the priesthood of Christ) In the dispensation of Israel we have the Levitical priesthood. The family of Aaron in the tribe of Levi was appointed. The elder surviving son was commissioned as a high priest, and the priesthood was commissioned by the Mosaic law. The objective was to communicate written doctrine and to explain the ritual and the shadows under which Israel worshipped and respected the Lord Jesus Christ. There is a special reason why Levi became the priestly tribe. The firstborn was Reuben. He had three things going for him as the firstborn. He was the family ruler, he was the family priest, he was also the family heir and therefore had the double portion. Reuben, because of reversionism, lost all three. The rulership went to the tribe of Judah; the priesthood went to the tribe of Levi; the double portion went to the tribe of Joseph — Joseph has two tribes, Ephraim and Mannaseh. So we have the tribe of Levi and the specialised priesthood of the previous dispensation. A specialised priesthood calls for a specialised modus operandi. That is why we have so much ritual in the Age of Israel. That is why they had a tabernacle and that is why they had a temple: so the priests could function and teach and communicate. That is why they had animal sacrifices. That is why they had special holy days like the Passover, the unleavened bread, the firstfruits, Pentecost. These special holy days called for a certain type of ritual. This ritual taught the celebrityship of Jesus Christ before Christ went to the cross. It was a specialised priesthood to communicate information with regard to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now we have the dispensation of the Church. In the dispensation of the Church Jesus Christ is now out high priest and we are a kingdom of priests. That means that every believer in this dispensation is a priest — 1 Peter 2:5, 9.

2. As the high priest Jesus Christ is the minister of spiritual things — Hebrews 5:1. Jesus Christ has left us a legacy of spiritual things in the Word of God. The completed canon of scripture is the legacy through which he ministers.

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

4. Christ offered Himself as a sacrifice for the priesthood — Hebrews 9:26, 27. The first function of Jesus Christ as the high priest was to solve the problem of the old sin nature. When Jesus Christ was hanging on the cross the sins of the world were poured out upon Jesus Christ and all human good was rejected. He paid in full, this is the first function of the high priest. The high priest offered sacrifices in the Old Testament. On the day of atonement he offered sacrifices out in front of the tabernacle, and later on the temple. Then he took the blood of those sacrifices into the holy of holies twice: once for himself and once for the people. Now Jesus Christ has fulfilled that on the cross by taking our place and bearing our sins.

5. Christ has an eternal and untransmissable priesthood — Hebrews 7:20,21,24. This priesthood will never be changed, never be superseded, and we are a part of it. This is another reminder of the doctrine of eternal security. When we believe in Jesus Christ we are entered at that moment into union with Christ. Jesus Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father, we enter into union with Him, His priesthood becomes our priesthood, and His priesthood cannot be superseded or transferred.

6. Because of positional sanctification, union with Christ, every believer is to function as a priest in this life — 1 Peter 2:5,9; Revelation 1:6; 5:10; 20:6. That function is to reach the supergrace life, to come to the place where God pours out His blessings upon you without measure, to share the very happiness which He has provided and to share these blessings which He has stored up for you from eternity past.

7. Christ as high priest performs a ministry of intercession for the believer on earth — Hebrews 7:25. The high priesthood of Christ in the field of intercession is a reminder of the fact that you and I can never be adequate in prayer. We are commanded to pray, we are to utilise prayer, but no matter how good a prayer warrior you are you will never be good enough. There are things that you are not aware of, areas of ignorance that cannot be overcome, and therefore the Lord Jesus Christ as your celebrity, your high priest also makes intercession for you. That is why all prayer offered to God must come through Jesus Christ, that is the channel, that is the authority.

8. The believer priest in phase two possesses a number of sacrifices or functions different or related to the Levitical code by way of illustration. We have, for example, the sacrifice of the believer’s body — Romans 12:1. This is tantamount to the rebound technique, the principle of 1 John 1:9, the first function of the priesthood. The second sacrifice is the sacrifice of praise — Hebrews 13:15. The sacrifice of praise is not standing and saying, “Praise the Lord”, or “hallelujah”. Instead, it is reaching the supergrace life. We can only glorify God as supergrace believers. At that point Jesus Christ becomes our only celebrity and we love Him as He first loved us. The third sacrifice was actually twofold: the production of divine good and giving — Hebrews 13:16. The final one is obedience to the authority of the local church — Hebrews 13:17. This is the sacrifice of the priesthood, this is the way you learn Bible doctrine.

The high priesthood of Jesus Christ is a reminder that every believer is a priest in this dispensation, and that every believer therefore is in full time Christian service. You do not dedicate yourself to full time Christian service, you are as of the moment of salvation. Our purpose is to be prepared for the possible victory of the angelic conflict and to be prepared for great blessing as we take in the Word of God. The primary function of the priesthood is the intake of God’s Word that we might reach the supergrace status.

In verse 24 the translation “having therefore a great high priest, having passed through the heavens”, not “that is passed into.” The perfect active participle of dierxomai indicates that part of the strategic victory of the angelic conflict. The perfect tense indicates something that happened in the past with results that continue forever. This is a consummative perfect emphasising the results of the completed action. The active voice indicates that Jesus Christ has accomplished this in the resurrection body and that this is a part of the strategical victory. The whole issue in the angelic conflict after the fall of man is the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. First, on the cross bearing our sins and taking our place. Our sins were poured out on Him and judged. Then having born our sins, having accomplished eternal salvation, He said, “Finished.” That is in the perfect tense too, another consummative perfect indicating the results of Christ bearing our sins and Christ being judged for our sins. Then Jesus Christ died physically. Having dismissed His spirit, His spirit went into the presence of the Father, His soul went to Paradise which is a part of Hades or Sheol, and His body went into the grave. Three days later His soul came from Paradise, His spirit came from the presence of the Father, rejoined His body in resurrection, and He was resurrected. Then for forty days after His resurrection He was on the earth, making some seventeen appearances, and then He ascended into the presence of the Father where He was seated at the right hand of the Father. When the Father said, Sit down at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool, that is the ultimate in strategic victory. That is the point at which Jesus Christ in a resurrection body in His humanity is infinitely superior to all fallen angels. That is the point, therefore, when the Lord Jesus Christ gained the victory over Satan. As Colossians 2:14 indicates, He broke the back of Satan at that time. This is also the subject of Hebrews 2:14,15. So this is the strategical victory.

The strategical victory having been accomplished, the Jewish Age is interrupted ten days later for the Church Age. We live in the dispensation of the Church. Once the Jewish Age is interrupted, then with the high priest at the right hand of the Father, having gained for us a strategical victory, we now live in the intensified stage of the angelic conflict. For up until the ascension of Christ He was the major target for Satan’s activities. But with Jesus Christ glorified at the right hand of the Father the major target in now His representation on earth. Therefore we live in the intensified stage of the angelic conflict. We therefore live in a time when the life of each one of us has great meaning and purpose and definition. As never before in history the emphasis is now on the individual believer, the emphasis is on you as a believer priest. As a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ you are a priest, you are an ambassador, and very important. You are therefore in full time Christian service and therefore the weapon for tactical victory in the angelic conflict. The tactical victory. however, depends upon your attitude toward Bible doctrine. If you are positive toward doctrine and GAP it consistently you will eventually get into supergrace with occupation with the person of Christ, our high priest, with supergrace capacity. Supergrace capacity is that amount of Bible doctrine in the soul that gives you a cup. The supergrace blessing. God pours into that cup. God has for you, billions of years ago, prepared wonderful and fantastic blessings, everything you have ever associated as happiness is yours plus the capacity to enjoy it. This is the time you receive God’s happiness, this is the time when all of these blessings become yours. This is the objective. And when God pours, since God is the host and does the pouring, he is glorified. This is the tactical victory. God is glorified by the completion of His plan with Christ at the right hand of the Father. God is glorified by pouring for you. When God can give you great wealth, promotion, success, prosperity, when God can pour these things for you then He is glorified and you are blessed. The only way a believer can glorify God in the Church Age is through the constant intake of doctrine until he reaches the supergrace life. This is the objective, and whether you like it or not you were born again to be happy, to be blessed, to have great prosperity.

Many believers have been psyched out by the suffering-for-Jesus crowd, the crowd who have rejected Bible doctrine, the reversionistic crowd, those who have gone negative toward Bible doctrine and are under self-induced misery, those who have reacted to their discouragement, to their boredom, to their disillusion, to their self-pity, to their frustration, loneliness, etc. These lead to a frantic search for happiness, there are reactors factors, and that frantic search for happiness always causes emotional revolt of the soul.

The issue from the rest of this chapter and into the next two: Are you going to be in tactical victory or defeat? In Hebrews chapter five, verses 11-16, we see tactical defeat. In Hebrews chapter six, verses 1-6, the tactical defeat is amplified with demonstrations as to how it can turn to victory. The last half of chapter six and for the rest of the book we see the principle of tactical victory. At this point there is a relationship between strategical and tactical victory in the Christian life. You say, What is strategy? It is the manoeuvre of troops over a large area to get in position so that their concentration at the point of meeting the enemy is greater than the enemy, whereas tactics are all of the manoeuvres on a battlefield. So there is a difference between strategy and tactics historically in the military, much more so historically in the angelic conflict. You are already on the winning side of the strategical conflict with Satan. With the session of Christ operation footstool is the next part of the strategical movement, and in operation footstool Christ will come back to the earth — we will accompany Him — and He will defeat the Armageddon armies seeking to destroy Israel. He will also at the same time eliminate from the earth all unbelievers, He will begin His Millennial reign, He will fulfil the Davidic covenant, and that again is strategical victory. The first and second advents are strategical victories in the angelic conflict. In between the first and second advents we have the Church Age and our tactical participation. So don’t ever say, not matter how you have failed, no matter what you have done, no matter how stupid you may feel at this particular moment even, that there isn’t a purpose for your life. Don’t ever say that your life is meaningless, because it is meaningful. If you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ you are a priest, if you are a believer priest God has a purpose for your life and that purpose is tactical victory. Tactical victory means you with millions of dollars, you with business success, you promoted in your profession, you with your right woman or right man having the most wonderful rapport of soul and body, you having social success and prosperity, you having blessing in every field that you have ever associated with blessing, you having materialistic things, you possessing things from God, Jesus Christ making it possible for God the Father to pour out upon you, into your cup, so that your cup overflows. It is no accident that you were appointed a priest at the point of new birth, it is no accident that you are here today as a believer being challenged with the importance of doctrine in your life. It is no accident that God has set up a principle for this dispensation: He must vindicate His Word, and the vindication of His Word occurs in your soul. The vindication of His Word in the Bible is the preservation of the canon of scripture and we have it right now even though Satan has attacked it for centuries. God vindicates His Word, God will vindicate His Word, but His Word must reside in the soul of every believer. No matter what you do in life, no matter where you are, not matter what you are involved in, God vindicates His Word in one specific way, and that is through His Word in your soul, and that means consistency in the function of GAP. The grace apparatus for perception is designed to take in every part of the Word of God. That is the issue in the celebrityship of Jesus Christ. Without the celebrityship of Christ there would be no supergrace life for this dispensation, there would be no pouring as God desires to pour. But these things are available, these things belong to each one of us now. The tragedy of our day is the neglect of doctrine and a maximum number of believers in reversionism.

Now we come in verse 14 to the application. “Let us hold fast” — the present active subjunctive of the verb kratew. Kratew as a verb means to seize, to hold fast, to take possession of something. It has a lot of meanings. Here the one that is pertinent is taking possession. This is a progressive present, it signifies the persistence of a status, a status that we have had for a long time without knowing it, but it is knowing it that makes the difference. The status is supergrace and the priesthood is where it begins. The priesthood does not function properly until we reach supergrace but you are appointed a priest at the point of salvation. “Let us hold fast” means here to take possession of what we have. What we need to do is to GAP it to supergrace so that our priesthood will function. We need to take possession of our priesthood. The present tense indicates that concept. The active voice: the believer priest produces the action by GAPing it to supergrace, by maintaining supergrace through GAP when he gets there. The subjunctive mood is a hortatory subjunctive in which the writer encourages other believers to join him in a course of action, join him in the function of the priesthood in supergrace — join me and take possession of what was given to you at salvation.

The next word is “profession”. This is an objective genitive from the noun o(mologia. We are familiar with this word under o(mologew, which means to confess or acknowledge your sin, or using 1 John 1:9. The cognate is o(mologia and is taken from the verb. Ordinarily, when a noun is taken from the verb, if it means confess it means “let us take possession of a confession”. However, the word doesn’t mean “confess”, it means to acknowledge. So this should be translated, “take possession of the acknowledgement”. The acknowledgement is the fact that at the point of salvation every believer was appointed a priest. You are a priest, you do represent yourself on this earth. You as a priest are designed for the greatest possible blessing. You have been designed for supergrace and the function of your priesthood. That is the issue, that is what is important in this passage. “Let us take possession of he acknowledgement”. This means the believer acknowledges that he is a priest as of the moment of salvation but he cannot take possession of that acknowledgement until he GAPs it to supergrace, until he has a cup in his soul and God begins to pour those supergrace blessings. Here, then, is a command to enter the supergrace life, to use the priesthood, to exploit the priesthood, to recognise the celebrityship of Jesus Christ, to become effective to enter into the tactical victory of the angelic conflict.

Translation: “Having therefore a great high priest, who having travelled through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us take possession of the acknowledgement.”

The hortatory subjunctive is a little different from the imperative mood because it recognises this: the imperative mood is a command you can obey immediately. If it is a negative command, Stop doing something, you can stop it immediately. If it is a command to do something, it is something you can do immediately. But under the subjunctive mood you can’t do it immediately. You can’t say in one second, “I am in supergrace, I am going to take possession of a possession.” Something is in between: functioning under GAP today, tomorrow, the next day, the next, the next, and so on. There is between the command given and the fulfilment in supergrace an elapse of time in which the believer must be consistent in the function of GAP until he reaches occupation with Christ and supergrace capacity. So the subjunctive recognises that the volition is involved in going from point X to point SG [supergrace]. You can’t do it immediately.

Verse 15 — the compassion of the Lord Jesus Christ. This verse tells us a great deal about the compassion of our only celebrity. There is nothing that you have gone through but what Jesus Christ endured that same agony of soul, that same suffering of body, that same frustration of desire. The only difference is that during His life on this earth Christ never succumbed to any sin. And that even made it worse. That intensified every temptation, every testing.

“For” is a conjunctive particle gar used to express a cause or a reason — “we have not,” the present active indicative of e)xw, to have and to hold, plus the negative o)uk. The negative o)uk is an objective negative and therefore this is a very clearly delineated concept without any subjective concepts put in on the side. “We have not and hold not a high priest”. Notice again, we were to have or to hold our acknowledgement. Now we have not, our acknowledgement is obviously the high priest. This sets up the celebrityship of Christ by placing Him in contrast, by the way, with all high priests in history.

“which cannot” — present active participle of dinamai, and this is a tendencial present to indicate a status. This is the status of our Lord Jesus Christ. But notice that “cannot” includes a negative and now we have a subjective negative, mh. Notice that we go from one verb with o)uk, an objective negative, to a verb with mh. That tells us that we are now getting into our personal feelings, and our personal feelings become a subjective concept. And often in our personal feelings we are filled with self-pity or bitterness or resentment or disillusion or frustration. And this negative followed by another type of negative — o)uk followed by mh — indicates God thorough, complete, and total understanding of our status quo under the greatest of pressures. “For we have not a high priest unable”.

The words to “be touched” — aorist active infinitive of sumpaqew, the word from which we get the word “sympathy.” It means to suffer with, to sympathise with. Jesus Christ our high priest has personally endured every affliction, every testing, every pressure we will ever face. The only exception means without sin. The aorist tense is the constative aorist which gathers up into one entirety the life of Jesus Christ on earth in the incarnation. The active voice: our high priest, Jesus Christ, produces the action of the verb. The infinitive relates God’s purpose in the incarnation to our lives. God knew ahead of time everything we would ever face or suffer and these circumstances were established so that Jesus Christ would go ahead of us in all of these things.

Notice the phrase “with the feeling of”. It is not found in the original. The word “infirmities” is a)sqenia which really means “weaknesses” — weaknesses and pressures.

“but” — the adversative conjunction de, emphasising a contrast between the Lord Jesus Christ as our high priest being tempted or being tested and we as believers being tempted or tested.

“was tempted” — perfect passive participle of the verb peirazw. Peirazw is used in a good sense for being put to the test to discover what a person is like. It is used in a bad sense for temptation in the sense of solicitation to sin. Here it is used in the sense of any kind of testing or pressure. The perfect tense is a dramatic perfect which describes the fact in an unusually vivid and realistic way and at the same emphasises the results of the action. This is a very dramatic concept, that nothing that you have suffered or ever will suffer was unknown to Jesus Christ. The passive voice: Christ received both the testing and the temptation during the period of his incarnation and not once did He crack. This should be translated “having been tempted.”

“in all points” — preposition kata plus the accusative of paj, which should be translated “in all things.” Whatever your temptation or testing has been Jesus Christ has already been through it.

“like as we are” is not correct. Again, we have kata plus the accusative, but this time the word is o(moiothj. This is an idiom which should be translated “in quite the same way”. This phrase indicates He went through it just the way we did.

The only exception comes up with an adverb used as a preposition, xwrij, followed by the genitive of a(martia, the most general term for sin and the principle of sin, and even a definition of sin since a(martia originally meant to miss the mark. So it should be translated “apart from sin”. In the areas of temptation Jesus Christ never succumbed. That is the only exception, so He can’t say “I know what it is like to sin” because He never has.

Translation: “For we have not a high priest unable to sympathise with our weaknesses; but having been tempted in all things in quite the same way, apart from sin.”

The doctrine of impeccability

1. Christ did not have an old sin nature by birth, nor did he commit any act of sin during the incarnation — Hebrews 4:15; 1 Peter 1:19; 1 John 3:5. By being born of a virgin Jesus Christ by-passed having an old sin nature.

2. Jesus Christ, however, was tempted in every area of humanity — Hebrews 4:15. The unique temptation — Matthew 4:2-11.

3. As with Adam in innocence or sinlessness and Jesus Christ in hypostatic union all temptation to Christ came from without. He didn’t have an old sin nature. So the temptation is bona fide without a sin nature. Adam and the woman were both minus the sin nature before they fell, and they still sinned. It doesn’t take an old sin nature to sin, all it takes is free will. Sin comes from volition.

4. All temptations to Christ came through His human nature. The human nature of Christ is temptable but the divine nature of Christ is not temptable — James 1:13.

5. Christ resisted the greatest of all temptations at Gethsemane when He faced the cross — Luke 22:42; Matthew 26:39; Mark 14:35,36. When Jesus faced the possibility of the cross He had no old sin nature, no imputation of Adam’s sin, no personal sin, and the idea of personal sin was totally repugnant to Him both in His humanity and in His deity; and therefore He uttered the words in great anguish of soul, “Father, if it be thy will, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not my will, but thine, be done.” And by His own volition He went to the cross, and because He did you and I have eternal life.”

6. Christ also resisted the kenosis temptation in Matthew 4:1-11. He resisted the temptation to use His own divine attributes in independence of God the Father.

7. The categorising of the doctrine involves two factors: the humanity of Christ and the deity of Christ. The deity of Christ is not temptable, not peccable; the humanity of Christ is temptable and peccable.

8. In the hypostatic union Christ is temptable but impeccable.

9. It is possible for the humanity of Christ during the incarnation to suffer all of the physical limitations, all of the adversities and pressures, of any member of the human race apart from sin. None of these sufferings present complications which in any way affect His immutable holiness.

10. The doctrine of impeccability as stated theologically: Christ was able not to sin and not able to sin. Christ is God, God is never the source of evil, temptation or sin. Evil stems from angelic and human volition but never divine sovereignty.

We are involved in the angelic conflict; we are in the intensified stage of the angelic conflict. There is a strategic victory which had preceded our dispensation but gives us the very meaning of the epistle which we are studying. When the Lord Jesus Christ went to the cross He bore our sins in His own body on the tree. He took our place and became our saviour. At the same time, when He was on the cross He rejected human good, since both human good and sin come from the same source but a different area of the sin nature. The sins come from the area of weakness; human good comes from the area of strength. Then the Lord Jesus Christ fulfilled one of His priestly ministries which we will study in the next chapter. That was the famous prayer by which He prayed for the perpetuation of His high priestly ministry. When Jesus Christ became our sacrifice, our saviour, when he offered Himself a sacrifice for sin, that was a ministry of the priesthood, that was a ministry of His high priesthood. But there is another ministry which is also important and that is the ministry of intercession, representing us at the right hand of the Father. For this ministry to be perpetuated there had to be the overcoming of death for death terminates the function of any high priest and someone else is appointed in his place. But the Lord Jesus Christ Himself must perpetuate His high priesthood and therefore He prayed. The reference to this prayer is found in the fifth chapter of Hebrews. It is also found in several other passage: Psalm 69; 22; 19. In this prayer the Lord Jesus Christ, while still on the cross, asked God the Father to raise Him from the dead for the perpetuation of His priesthood. So we are studying the celebrityship of Jesus Christ. We are studying the unique high priest. There is only one high priest in all of history whose ministry was terminated for three days, but He rose again from the dead in answer to prayer.

So the Lord Jesus Christ, then, rose from the dead on the third day and was seated on the right hand of the Father. That was the first phase of the strategic victory of the angelic conflict. This strategic victory is described in the second chapter of Colossians and in the second chapter of Hebrews. Now, once Jesus is seated at the right hand of the Father he is told to sit there until the Father makes His enemies His footstool. This is the end of the first phase of the strategic victory of the angelic conflict. This strategic victory — death , burial, resurrection — is the very basis for the intensification of the angelic conflict. Satan himself has always made Christ and the line of Christ the specific target in the angelic conflict up to this time. Now all of this is changed. Now, Jesus Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father and a new dispensation interrupts the Age of Israel — the Church Age — and every believer is now the target, every believer is a priest. Therefore, at the moment of salvation God the Holy Spirit takes every believer and through the baptism of the Spirit, identifying us with Christ, we are entered into union with Christ as He is seated at the right hand of the Father. We are identified with Christ as He died upon the cross. retroactive positional truth plus current positional truth identifies every believer with the strategic victory of the angelic conflict, and through this identification we are now placed in the position of living on the earth as believers in full time Christians service under a universal priesthood whereby through this identification we are now to move to tactical victory. The tactical victory of the Church Age is reaching the supergrace life through persistence in the function of GAP. Then once the Church, the body of Christ, is completed it is resurrected and becomes the bride of Christ, following the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the Rapture of the Church. Then the second stage of the strategic victory is the second advent of Christ some seven years later at which time the Lord Jesus Christ will break His record as the greatest warrior of all time in the Armageddon campaign. The second thing he is going to do is to remove Satan and all fallen angels from the earth. Satan will no longer rule the world but will be superseded by the Lord Jesus Christ. Satan and all demons will be incarcerated for a thousand years and all unbelievers will be removed from the earth in the baptism of fire. This is all a part of the second stage of the strategic victory of the Lord Jesus Christ. The final stage will come at the end of the Millennium when Jesus Christ puts down forever the Gog and Magog revolution.

Under the principle of the book of Hebrews our priesthood has great significance. It is related to the intensification of the angelic conflict as we saw in the first and second chapters. It is related to the celebrityship of Jesus Christ and we are commanded occupation with Christ as the first move in the supergrace life.

In the classification of grace there is, first of all, phase one grace which is everything that God provided for eternal salvation. God the Father did the planning, God the Son executed the plan all by becoming a member of the human race, entering into the hypostatic union, going to the cross and bearing our sins in His own body on the tree, and completed salvation before He died physically. When He said, “It is finished” all the sins of the world had been judged in Christ, past, present, and future. So that phase one grace, or salvation grace, was completed on the cross. Now it is the ministry of God the Holy Spirit utilising the Word to make this information available to all the human race. Phase one grace involves volition because it is a part of the angelic conflict. It involves the fact that volition, to appropriate this grace, must be non-meritorious. Positive non-meritorious volition is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Once a person accepts Jesus Christ this in itself is where tactical victory becomes a potentiality. But remember this positive volition is related to the strategic victory for God the Holy Spirit makes certain of that by entering each one of us into union with Christ. We are in Christ, we share His life, eternal life, His righteousness, His heirship, His sonship, His destiny, His election. But above all, Hebrews emphasises the fact that we share His priesthood. Therefore our life has meaning and purpose and definition.

The next type of grace is phase two grace which does not involve volition. Phase two grace is every step, everything that God must do to keep us alive in the devil’s world, to keep us from being annihilated by Satan, by unseen forces. Everything, for example, that is necessary to bring us to this hour and to this assembly. To bring us clothed, to bring us fed, to bring us in some sort of condition so that we can listen to the teaching of the Word of God. That does not involve volition. The fact that you and I are alive: our volition is not involved. The fact that God has provided for us to stay alive is because of the grace of God. Remember that Satan has certain powers of death as we are told from the Psalms. He has certain powers of disease, certain ways by which we could be destroyed, were it not for the fact of phase two grace. Volition is not involved. We are alive because of the grace of God and for no other reason.

Then there is another type of grace in phase two or the Christian way of life, and that is supergrace. Supergrace involves volition again. It involves volition because it is a part of the angelic conflict. Persistent positive volition toward Bible leads to the supergrace life, whereas on the other hand, negative volition leads to reversionism. So that in one case we have tactical victory and in the other case we have tactical defeat. The objective of the priesthood is to take us to the supergrace life for that is the first time that we function in a normal manner as priests.

Then there is a fourth type of grace called surpassing grace. Surpassing grace is phase three grace, everything we will receive from the time we leave this earth forever and ever and ever. Again, no volition is involved there because the angelic conflict does not call for it, it is over by the time we reach that stage.

The first objective of Hebrews is to take believers and move them from indifference toward doctrine and some stage of reversionism to the supergrace life so that the priesthood can function, so that there can be tactical victory in the angelic conflict and so that God can be glorified in this dispensation. God is only glorified when he can pour. We start at the cross and we GAP it all of the way to the supergrace life. When we get there we are occupied with the person of Christ, we have maximum category #1 love response. Secondly, we have the cup. That is, we have the supergrace capacity through Bible doctrine in the soul, and having the cup God then begins to pour. God pours and that is supergrace blessing. And that is the objective of the priesthood, so that God can pour for you. He is tapping His foot right now, waiting to bless you. To do that there must be supergrace capacity. This is the only place where all things work together for good. That passage is well known — Romans 8:28 — and glibly quoted, but the fact of the matter is a very simple one. Here we have the principle that the capacity from Bible doctrine in the soul and the things that God has prepared for you by way of great happiness and blessing in eternity past are blended together for good only in supergrace. How do we know that? Because Romans 8:28 is qualified by the phrase “those who love God”. That refers to the believer occupied with the person of Jesus Christ, that refers to entering the supergrace life and the celebrityship status. This is only possible for the believer with doctrine in his soul, with the cup in his soul. God does not pour unless there is a cup. So the purpose of Hebrews, then, is to take us to the point of Romans 8:28.

Why do people fail to take in doctrine? Where is the real problem? The real problem starts with reactor factors. There is disillusion, there is boredom, discouragement, self-pity, loneliness, frustration, jealousy and bitterness, and other mental attitude sins. These are reactor factors, and everyone has an old sin nature and the OSN has trends. It has a trend toward lasciviousness with its obvious expressions and a trend toward asceticism whereby “they give up something for God”. The frantic search for happiness immediately triggers emotional revolt. This immediately shuts down the valves in the heart where we function. First of all, the frame of reference with the memory centre, the vocabulary, the categories, the norms and standards, the launching pad, are all shut down. And doctrine in all of these areas drains right over to the left lobe or the mind where it can’t be used. Doctrine in the left lobe is like being a hearer but not a doer. Doctrine is not useably in the left lobe. This causes negative volition toward doctrine, and this causes the scar tissue that opens up mataiothj through which comes the doctrine of demons. And it comes into a vacuum. Doctrine has been drained out of the heart of the right lobe and the doctrine of demons then functions in all of these areas, so that instead of having the cup of the Lord overflowing you have the cup of demons. A believer cannot drink of the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. This believer, then, is under demon influence. His body is the temple of the Holy Spirit and safe from demon possession but he is worse than a demon-possessed type, he is under demon influence. His soul is under attack. This is our enemy because this leads to hardness of the heart, blackout of the soul, the practice of reverse process reversionism, and then it is just a matter of how long God wants to keep you alive before He takes you out.

Once a believer reaches supergrace he becomes very effective in prayer. Prayer has minimal to fair results in the life of any believer, but prayer is a weapon which is totally useless in the angelic conflict for the reversionist. No reversionist has any prayer that can be heard except the prayer of repentance in one of the three stages of discipline and rebound. That’s all he can do, that’s the only way his priesthood functions. The priesthood of the believer is designed to function under supergrace under the status of tactical victory. That is the issue.

In this tactical victory we must understand that the high priesthood of Christ has been perpetuated, that He Himself offered a prayer by which His own priesthood was perpetuated. This anticipates the middle part of the fifth chapter of Hebrews, especially verses 6-8 where Jesus Christ did something unusual. His priesthood was terminated by His physical death; His priesthood was perpetuated by His resurrection. Therefore Christ is unique as a priest, apart from all of the contrasts with the Aaronic priesthood, apart from the hypostatic union and His impeccability, which all contributes to Hs uniqueness. But here is something else. Jesus Christ is the only person who, as a high priest discontinued for three days but was resumed by resurrection, is the only resurrected member of the human race, right now. He is the only resurrected person in the human race in the presence of all the members of the Godhead — the hypostatic union of Jesus Christ.

And here is something else. You and I are part of that priesthood forever, so that just before you die physically remember this and apply it. You are only temporarily out of it when you die physically because in resurrection body your priesthood will continue too. That is why we have to get out of here so that the Age of Israel can be completed, and that is why when Christ returns for the second phase of the strategic victory we return with resurrection bodies. Why? Because our priesthood is perpetuated with Him. And what is going to hit the earth in the great coup de tat that knocks Satan out of rulership? It is going to be Jesus Christ in His humanity in resurrection body and His bride in resurrection body. We will all be in resurrection bodies and the priesthood will then be perpetuated forever, and will be continued at that point. The first function of the priesthood is going to be to rid the earth of Satan and demons, to rid the earth of unbelievers, in order that there might be one final perfect environment test, the test of the Millennium.

Verse 16 — “Therefore” is an inferential particle, o)un. This particle, by the way, does not come in the first part of the sentence, it always follows something else. It means to come to a conclusion about the supergrace life, it means that we have something to shoot for. If you keep taking in doctrine and taking in doctrine, you will be a prayer warrior. This inferential particle is designed to draw a secondary conclusion. This isn’t the final conclusion of the book and therefore this particle is used to show you this is just one of the conclusions which anticipates some basic things coming up. So o)un is a secondary particle, it means a temporary conclusion to keep you going in the right direction. What is one of the privileges of the priesthood? Prayer. When you reach supergrace you can come boldly to the throne of grace and obtain mercy at any time.

“let us come” — the present middle subjunctive of proserxomai. Proj means face to face; e)rxomai means to come or to approach. It means to approach here. The present tense is a customary present, it denotes what habitually occurs or maybe expected to occur. In other words, when you reach a certain point in your life, when you have taken in a certain amount of doctrine, even before you reach supergrace, you are going to begin to have an effective prayer life. Therefore, this particular present tense means that when you reach this point by the intake of doctrine, the Word of God, then you are going to be able to walk into God’s presence boldly, with confidence, and know that you are going to be heard. Prayer is a great weapon, a great privilege, and it is one of the most misunderstood and abused. We have a middle voice here and it is the permissive middle in which the subject, the believer priest, voluntarily yields himself to the results of the action in his own interest. In other words, here is a person who prays and he knows what he is doing, so obviously he is in supergrace. The subjunctive mood here is the hortatory subjunctive in which the writer invites the reader to join him in a course of action outlined by the verb. The course of action is prayer. “Therefore let us be approaching” is a correct translation.

The next word “boldly” is not correct because it is a prepositional phrase and it is translated like an adverb. The preposition is meta plus the genitive of parrhsia. Parrhsia here means confidence more than boldness, and meta is used here with the genitive as a preposition of association. When you are moving in the right direction, positive toward doctrine and moving toward supergrace, or when you reach it, then you approach the throne of grace with confidence. You know what you are doing.

“unto the throne of grace” — this is a so-called dative of indirect object, but it means that we are benefited. It means whatever the action of the verb is it becomes beneficial to us. It is beneficial to us to get to that throne of grace. And notice that we have the indirect dative of advantage qronoj plus the descriptive genitive, and the descriptive genitive really refers to supergrace here which is where we function the best, or approximating supergrace. How do we know that? Because if it was just grace in general the omission of the definite article gives the quality, but we have a definite article, it is the throne of the grace and it becomes definitive then, and we have, then, the supergrace status.

What can a supergrace believer do with prayer that you can’t? “Therefore let us be approaching the throne of the grace with confidence”

“that” — i(na plus the subjunctive to give us a purpose clause — “we may obtain”, the aorist active subjunctive of the verb lambanw. The aorist tense is a culminative aorist, it views the event from its entirety but emphasises the existing results. Once you reach supergrace you are now ready to use a weapon: prayer. You are now in the place of tactical victory and you can use that weapon. You are a priest, you have been since the day you were saved, but your priesthood functions in the normal way once you reach supergrace. Once of the functions of the priesthood is prayer. Up until now, who has been praying for you? Jesus Christ makes intercession for you at the right hand of the Father, waiting for you to get there. The active voice: the believer receives mercy as his very own possession. The subjunctive mood designates the purpose clause, and it is potential because supergrace is potential, depending upon your attitude toward doctrine.

And what is it that we receive? First of all, e)leoj — “mercy” as it is translated, or benefit from compassion. It even comes to means the concept of grace in action. Here is a great weapon in the hand of a supergrace believer, he can open his mouth and say, “Father”, and benefit.

Then he discovers something. The word “find” means to discover. It is an aorist active subjunctive from e(uriskw. It means to discover. You discover “grace,” the aorist tense is a constative aorist. Now you discover day by day by day what grace is all about. Now you are aware of grace as never before. So you discover grace — supergrace. This is your help in time of need — “grace,” xarij, “to help in time of need” is a Greek prepositional phrase, e)ij e)ukairon bohqeian, which means “with reference to seasonable help.”

Translation: “Therefore let us be approaching to the throne of grace with confidence, that we may receive grace in action and discover grace with reference to seasonable help.”

Prayer

1. The approach. How do you approach? What do you say?

a) All prayer is addressed to God the Father, always — Ephesians 3:14, 1.

b) In the name of the Son — John 14:13,14.

c) In the power of the Spirit — Ephesians 6:18.

2. There are three categories of prayer that are addressed to God the Father. He receives prayer from us. He receives prayer from the Lord Jesus. He receives prayer from the Holy Spirit. Prayer from the source of the Son — Hebrews 7:25; prayer from the source of the Holy Spirit — Romans 8:26,27; prayer from the supergrace believer — Hebrews 4:16.

3. There has to be an agenda. First of all if you think you are out of fellowship, rebound — 1 John 1:9. Second item: thanksgiving, an expression of category #1 love — Ephesians 5:20; 1 Thessalonians 5:18. Then, intercession — Ephesians 6:18. Petition — Hebrews 4:16.

4. Prayer is an exhale of the faith-rest principle — Matthew 21:22; Mark 11:24; Matthew 18:19; John 15:7. Prayer is an exhale of faith, which is directly related to the Word of God.

5. There are eight principles of prayer.

a) Prayer becomes more and more effective as the believer functions consistently under GAP — John 15:7.

b) Prayer is an extension of the faith-rest exhale toward God — Matthew 21:22.

c) Prayer demands cognisance of the will of God. Cognisance of the will of God is based on the intake of Bible doctrine. The more doctrine you know the more effective your prayer life will become — 1 John 5:14.

d) Prayer must be offered in the status of the filling of the Spirit — Ephesians 6:18. Therefore, God the Holy Spirit is related in this matter and in all other matters of the function of your priesthood. God the Holy Spirit indwells you, he keeps out demons. The only way you can get any influence from the devil is through the soul, your body is clear from demons.

e) Prayer is ineffective under any state of carnality. Psalm 66:18 mentions the worst category of sins: mental attitude sins.

f) Prayer in complying with the principle of grace demands that the believer grow in grace through GAPing it daily. Therefore prayer becomes an effective weapon in the angelic conflict when the believer reaches supergrace — Hebrews 4:16.

g) Prayer is ordained as a function of the priesthood as a part of the divine decrees — Jeremiah 33:3.

h) Prayer is directly related to category #1 love and/or occupation with Christ, and/or recognition of the celebrityship status of Christ — Psalm 116:1,2.

6. Nine reasons why prayer isn’t answered.

a) You are not filled with the Spirit — Ephesians 6:18.

b) There is no faith-rest function from doctrine in the soul, therefore no faith rest — Matthew 21:22.

c) Mental attitude carnality — Psalm 66:18.

d) Lust type selfishness — James 4:2-4.

e) Failure in the field of authority, lack of obedience — 1 John 3:22.

f) Noncompliance with the will of God — 1 John 5:14.

g) The specific mental attitude of pride as a basic mental attitude sin and resultant self-righteousness — Job 35:12,13.

i) Lack of compassion (bona fide sensitivity).

j) Lack of domestic tranquillity — 1 Peter 3:7.

7. The principle of grace in prayer

a) Prayer is the privilege and the extension of grace function. Therefore it is impossible to approach God on the basis of human good or human merit.

b) The believer priest approaches God in prayer on the basis of our high priest, Jesus Christ, and His merits.

c) The Father is propitiated with the work of Christ but is no respected of persons among believers offering prayer.

d) God does not hear my prayers because I am fervent, moral, sincere, religious, or self-effacing.

e) God hears my prayers because of the function of GAP, the ministry of the Son, the ministry of the Holy Spirit, and reaching the supergrace life.

8. There are four categories of returns on your prayer — four ways in which God can answer your prayer.

a) He can give you a positive and a negative. In each one of these categories you have a petition and a desire behind that petition. In category #1 God says yes to the petition, no to the desire. Under this category you wanted a million dollars and prayed for it. So God says no, or He says yes to the petition but no to the desire behind it. 1 Samuel 8:5-9; 8:19-20 gives a Biblical illustration. The Jews prayed for a king so they could be like other nations. Petition: We want a king. But they lost all their blessings under the reign of Saul.

b) Negative on the petition and positive on the desire. You pray for a million dollars but this time you don’t get it but you get happiness. Illustration: Genesis 17:18; 18:23-33; 2 Corinthians 12:7-10.

c) Yes and yes. 1 Kings 18:36,37; Judges 16:28; Luke 23:42,43; John 11:41-45.

d) No and no.