Zooming Out To A "God's Eye View" (In Search Of Truth, Hebrews 1:1-12:17 Recap)

We've been away from Hebrews for awhile and I'm very excited to jump back in. But before moving forward I'd like to once again zoom out and get an updated overview of the book so far to help give context to the text as we zoom back in next time.

A significant theme of Hebrews has been "holding on to hope and confidence in Yahweh so that we can be engaged in his plans and experience his blessing and rest". 

Some quick chapter overviews:

(Chapter 1) Jesus is superior to all messengers of God that came before him and the "heir" of all things in creation. (Believers are also referred to in verse 14 as those who "inherit salvation".)

(Chapter 2) Jesus is the source of our rescue from the power and penalty of sin. We are warned not to neglect the ongoing rescue Jesus offers. 

(Chapters 3-5) There is a rest still available for God's people that the Israelites neglected. A rest found in our pursuit of God and participation in his plans. A rest found by fully relying on Jesus to be our "Great High Priest", trusting him, not our own efforts, to secure and maintain our good standing with God. 

(Chapter 6) Believers who fail to increasingly pursue and place their trust in Jesus burn out or drift from faith as a result, and may even reject Jesus in contempt. Those who go down this road don't lose the gift of eternal life (John 5:24, Romans 6:23, Romans 11:29, 2 Timothy 2:13), but they do miss out on rest and inheriting the full promises of God given to Abraham (6:12, 17-20). (This idea of retaining eternal life but missing out on reward is taught more explicitly in 1 Corinthians 3:14-15. "If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.")

The author doesn't want his readers to end up in that situation, and so continues to build the case for trusting in Jesus as the ultimate priest/go-between for our relationship with God. 

(Chapter 7) Jesus' credentials as both our king and advocate are established by comparing him to the King-Priest of the Old Testament, Melchizedek. Jesus is a category of "priest" that is all his own, superior to and unlike any priest before him, without beginning or end.

(Chapter 8) The Old Covenant of temple sacrifices to repair and maintain relationship between God and humanity was lacking and was never meant to last forever.

(Chapter 9) The Old Covenant sacrificial system only dealt with sin superficially. Jesus' sacrifice is complete and perfect payment for our sin that we are powerless to add anything to. 

(Chapter 10) Believers in Jesus are so intensely purified by Christ's sacrifice that we can boldly enter into the most holy, sacred habitations of God. Because of this, we should recognize our ability to engage in the work of God and therefore not neglect involvement in what he is doing. We should also endure, trusting in God as we serve him, so that we don't miss out on the reward God promises those who invest in serving him during this life.

(Chapter 11) Faith is defined and explored. Faith facilitates understanding, trusts that God will provide for us, makes sense of self-sacrifice, trusts God's justice and his plan for dealing with evil, gives pleasure to God, searches for God, investigates God, scrutinizes God, begs for God and craves God.

Faith is largely not an intellectual struggle, but a struggle of will against our own tendencies. Faith is a catalyst for miraculous intervention, hopes in the future, gives up worry and control, sees value being hated because of Christ, pursues availability for God's plans and can be used powerfully even in small measure.

Faith enters conflict only when it will serve Yahweh. Faith sees God's agenda as worth dying horribly for. Faith takes risks to trust God's evaluation of us more than our own. Faith is honored by God even when mixed with sin. Faith daily  submits to Yahweh's authority and sees him as the primary plaintiff when we sin.

Faith informs every area of life, results in humility, craves no respect, gains us promised rewards, can result in supernatural protection, can bring the dead back to life or help us endure suffering in service to Christ.

Faith treats the promises of God as more concrete and tangible than the suffering we experience in life. Faith isn't blind, but also doesn't require all the answers before committing to obedience.

(Chapter 12, so far...) Because of the historical, living examples of faith we've been given, who themselves are watching us exercise faith now, we should pursue lives of faith. This should involve not only setting aside sin, but also anything not sinful that is hindering the pursuit of what God has commanded for us. If it's not useful, we should throw it aside.

We are to see our struggles and suffering in light of how Christ approached suffering, and in light of the equipping and rewards that result from suffering. While pursuing this we are to live in community with other believers, pursuing peace in our relationships and interactions, keeping bitterness from infecting ourselves and other believers. We are to view sex and marriage the way God views them and not prioritize pleasure in the moment over the full inheritance and reward intended for our future.

To try and condense the book of Hebrews up to this point even further, we might summarize with the following:

Jesus is worth trusting. He offers us real rest amidst the mode of "striving" we naturally lock into, and it's a tragedy not to trust him for that. As much as we try to with each other, we can't justify ourselves and prove that we are checking all the right boxes in life. Our defensive efforts to justify our lives are insufficient and obsolete. Jesus is our "rightness" now. So much so that we have every right to enter God's all-perfect presence and play a role in his amazing plans. On top of that we're rewarded for doing those things! So we should engage with our faith in order to transform how we view and approach every mundane corner of our lives, looking to scripture for examples and encouragement. 

We should recognize the purpose of suffering as we exercise our faith, and live well in Christian community as we pursue God's agenda. 

SO WHAT'S IN THIS FOR GEEKS?

In the same way that we're "zooming out" to get a better perspective on this book, this book is calling us to "zoom out" and see life with a better, more accurate perspective. 

For multiple reasons, we as geeks are naturally inclined to staying zoomed in on our own little perspective. For some that's because we're super-engaged with entertainment, and moment-to-moment pleasure is a high priority which we also try to use as pain medication for life's wounds instead of seeing life as God does. For others we're zoomed in on our private thoughts and perspective because we've been horribly mistreated. Escaping inward seems like a good way to avoid further pain. We might adamantly hold on to our own perspective to readily deflect the criticisms or judgments of others.

Hebrews is challenging us to let go of the natural, personal perspective we're locked into. In fact it's even challenging us, as it challenged its Hebrew readers, to let go of what we may be convinced is a godly view of life. As was the case with most 1st century Hebrews, that "godly" view of ours may actually be a worldview we brought with us with which to interpret scripture, rather than what we naturally find in scripture as we see what God is revealing there.

Hebrews is calling us to rest and reward and offers encouragement through suffering. But for all of those things we have to be willing to see reality as it really is. Our faith cannot be just a list of facts we nod in agreement to. To be where God wants us, and to do what he's prepared for us, our faith has to change the way we value things, think about things and feel about things.

Complete life overhaul that promises rest and reward if we're willing to embrace it.