The Activity of the Spirit in the Church, Part 56

John Farley
Pastor-Teacher
Wednesday,
September 11, 2013

The Activity of the Holy Spirit in the lives of Church Age believers, part 56.

Faith: a total reliance on Christ who lives in me.

Faith is our one big activity in our Christian life.

The New Testament says that we are to work at faith, Joh 6:29; 1Th 1:3 .

We are to persevere in faith.

Faith is something that we are supposed to continue in; Col 1:23.

We fight by keeping faith, 1Ti 1:18-19; 1Ti 6:12

Faith is something which grows as we exercise it.

God in His word warns us, as believers, against the perils of unbelief, and that in the strongest possible terms.

Our portion for studying the perils of unbelief will be Hebrews chapters 3 and 4.

The purpose of the book of Hebrews is to instruct Jewish believers that Judaism had been superceded by our Lord Jesus Christ.

The method employed by the Holy Spirit is to show the absolute superiority of Christ over all that had gone before.

1. Christ’s superiority over the prophets in Heb 1:1-3.

2. Christ’s superiority over the angels in Heb 1:4 to 2:18.

3. Christ’s superiority over Moses in Heb 3:1-19.

4. Christ’s superiority over Joshua in Heb 4:1-13.

5. Christ’s superiority over Abraham and Aaron in Heb 5:14 to 7:18.

6. Christ’s superiority over the whole ritual sacrificial system of Judaism, in Heb 7:19 to 10:39.

7. Christ’s superiority over each and all of the Old Testament saints, in Heb 11:1 to 12:3.

“The great object of Hebrews, then, is to set before these believers’ eyes, CHRIST, the Son of God; the Son of Man; the Great High Priest in Heaven;

and to cause them constantly to occupy their thought and worship with God, into Whose presence Christ by His blood has brought them.”

Please see our Father’s love for us behind these warnings.

The original audience for Hebrews was a group of Jewish Christians who had converted to Christianity years ago.

They were discouraged because they were suffering, and because they were still dealing with their sinfulness.

They were tempted to turn their back on Christ and return to the Jewish religion with its temple sacrifices for sin ,

thereby (to their way of thinking) ending the persecution they were under for being Christians.

They happily endured the confiscation of their property; but now they were being banished from the holy places.

Unless they renounced their faith in Jesus, and forsook the assembling of themselves together, they were not allowed to enter the Temple.

They were banished from the altar, the sacrifices, the high priest, the Temple in Jerusalem.

Our loving Father, in His mercy and grace, rushed to meet this great need by having the Holy Spirit move His servant to write this great Epistle to them.

This letter was written as an encouragement, an exhortation to persevere in their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

It was written to rally these Jewish Christians around the absolute superiority of the Lord Jesus Christ, in particular over all that had gone before.

Hebrews encourages faithful perseverance in light of the superlative final word God has spoken in Christ.

Christ is superior to everything that went before:

The old revelation
Its angelic mediators
The first exodus (Moses and Joshua)
The entire priestly system

God’s people can have complete confidence in God’s Son, the perfect High Priest, who gives all believers full access to God.

 

 


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