From the TeachingtheWord Bible Knowledgebase

Part 8 of a series. Read part 7.

The Holy Spirit inspired the book of Hebrews to deal with a perennial problem in all the centuries of the church: Doubt about the all-sufficiency of Christ.

A Woman In Doubt

Biographers of Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones record that when he came to his first pastorate in Wales, something quite striking occurred: Many in the congregation who everyone had thought were Christians came, for the first time, to saving faith in Christ. One of those was the least expected of all - the pastor's own wife.

Like her husband, Bethan Lloyd-Jones had grown up in the evangelical church. And like him, she was also a qualified medical doctor. But she gave up her medical career to marry the man she knew would soon leave medicine for the ministry, and he took up his charge in Wales right after their honeymoon.

Bethan had heard her future husband preach for the first time only a few months before. He preached on the account of Zacchaeus in Luke chapter 19, and the point of his message was that all men in all circumstances are equally in need of salvation from sin. The message disturbed her greatly, even frightened her. She resented the idea that she was in the same category as someone who was not religious at all. Her state of unrest went on for many months. As she later wrote,

I was for two years under Martyn's ministry before I really understood what the Gospel was. I used to listen to him on Sunday morning and I used to feel, Well, if this is Christianity I really don't know anything about it. On Sunday night I used to pray that somebody would be converted; I thought you had to be a drunkard or a prostitute to be converted. I remember how I used to rejoice to see drunkards become Christians and envy them with all my heart, because here they were, full of joy, and free, and here I was in such a different condition.¹

During this time, she felt a growing conviction of sin, and wondered if her sin could be greater than the merit of the blood of Christ. Through the patient counsel of her husband, and his suggestion that she read an evangelistic book by John Angell James called The Anxious Enquirer Directed, she at last came to understand the Gospel - that Christ's atonement alone "was well able to clear my sins away." The pastor's own wife came to the place of personal repentance from sin, and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as her Savior from God's wrath.

Mrs. Lloyd-Jones was by no means alone in the long history of the church. The people to whom the epistle to the Hebrews was written were already believers, but they were having similar doubts. They feared that the Judaizers among them were right - that an individual needed to add works, in the form of the keeping of the Old Covenant law, to the work of Christ in order to be saved. They were being told, in effect, that the Holy One of Israel is not enough.

Demolishing Doubt About Christ's Sufficiency

The writer to the Hebrews demolishes such sinful thinking by pointing his readers to the qualifications of Christ. He states unequivocally that to turn back to the Old Covenant types and symbols, once and for all fulfilled in the person and work of the Holy One of Israel, is to deny the true faith:

For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, if they fall away, to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God, and put Him to an open shame. (Hebrews 6:4-6)

Why is this so? Because, the writer declares,

the law made nothing perfect; on the other hand, there is the bringing in of a better hope, through which we draw near to God. And inasmuch as He was not made priest without an oath (for they have become priests without an oath, but He with an oath by Him who said to Him: "The Lord has sworn and will not relent, 'You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek' "), by so much more Jesus has become a surety of a better covenant.

Also there were many priests, because they were prevented by death from continuing. But He, because He continues forever, has an unchangeable priesthood. Therefore He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.

For such a High Priest was fitting for us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and has become higher than the heavens; who does not need daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His own sins and then for the people's, for this He did once for all when He offered up Himself. For the law appoints as high priests men who have weakness, but the word of the oath, which came after the law, appoints the Son who has been perfected [teteleiomenon, brought to completion] forever. (Hebrews 7:19-28)

The original Greek of verse 26 is very rich and specific. The writer of Hebrews under Divine inspiration piles one adjective upon another to emphasize not merely Christ's experiential sinlessness after taking on human flesh, but His impeccability - His inability to sin. His holiness is an absolute holiness. Jesus is "holy" - hosios, religiously right and holy, as opposed to that which is unrighteous or polluted. Jesus is "harmless" - akakos, void of evil. Jesus is "undefiled" - amiantos, free from contamination. Jesus is "separate from sinners" - kechoorismenos apo toon hamartooloon, literally, divided asunder from those who miss the mark.

To the person and work of such a Holy One we need not - indeed we cannot - add the smallest thing. The great cosmic reason for the person and work of the Holy One of Israel, the writer declares, is not that we should pursue the impossible task of earning a righteousness of our own, but "that we may be partakers of His holiness" (12:10).

Next: The Apostolic Eyewitnesses

References:

1. Ian H. Murray, D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: The First Forty Years, (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1982) , page 166.

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