In this Bible study podcast, Andy Davis goes line by line through Hebrews 4:12-16. The author of Hebrews culminates his exhortation in chapter 4 by meditating on the power of God’s word to uncover hidden sin and the power of Christ’s ministry as high priest to help us through our “times of need”. The author is thus exhorting the Hebrews to fight sin (unbelief and transgressions that come from unbelief) through the Bible and constant prayer in Jesus’ name. Jesus’ ministry as great high priest is opened up for the first time, with a focus on His sympathetic understanding of our weakness. All of this is a powerful inducement to “hold fast our confession” in a hostile world that tempts us to forsake Christ.
The author of Hebrews culminates his exhortation in chapter 4 by meditating on the power of God’s word to uncover hidden sin and the power of Christ’s ministry as high priest to help us through our “times of need”. The author is thus exhorting the Hebrews to fight sin (unbelief and transgressions that come from unbelief) through the Bible and constant prayer in Jesus’ name. Jesus’ ministry as great high priest is opened up for the first time, with a focus on His sympathetic understanding of our weakness. All of this is a powerful inducement to “hold fast our confession” in a hostile world that tempts us to forsake Christ.
– PODCAST TRANSCRIPT –
Joel
Hi, welcome to the Two Journeys podcast. This is episode 9 in the book of Hebrews, titled: “The Word of God is Living and Active,” Hebrews 4:12-16. I’m your host, Joel Hartford, and I’m here with Pastor Andy Davis. Andy, as I mentioned at the end of the last podcast, this is possibly one of the most famous verses in the entire Bible or famous sections. Can you give us a brief overview of what we’re going to see in this really incredible section of scripture?
Andy
The whole epistle is a warning epistle, and the beginning in chapter 4, he says, verse 2, “Let us fear,”(Hebrews 4:1) and he’s been meditating very powerfully and fruitfully on one little section of a Psalm, Psalm 95. It’s almost like the author just stops and says, “Isn’t the word of God amazing? Look at the power of a Psalm written 1,000 years ago and still powerful and active.” And so he’s marveling on the timeless, powerful nature of the word of God, but he’s not just doing it because he is filled with joy or there’s poetic elation in him. He’s doing it because he wants his hearers to combine with faith the word they hear, so the Word has the power to save your soul. Paul says in Romans 1:16, “I’m not ashamed of the gospel because it [the gospel] is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes,”(Paraphrase of Romans 1:16) so if you will take and combine the Word with faith, it will save your soul, but it’s going to do more than that. It’s going to convict you, it’s going to guide you, it’s going to give you wisdom. It’s going to do everything you need for a saved life, a life of eternal forgiveness, but also a fruitful life. So we’re going to see that, and then he moves from that into perhaps an even loftier meditation on the ministry of Jesus as our great high priest who we can go to with our problems and can help us in our weakness. So you really have the word of God in prayer here for us. We should read the Word because it’s living and active, and we should go to Jesus because He’s interceding for us, and we should lay all our burdens on him. So it’s really the Word and prayer together here for us.
“We should read the Word because it’s living and active, and we should go to Jesus because He’s interceding for us, and we should lay all our burdens on him.”
Joel
For the sake of our audience, I’m going to read verses 12-16,
For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account. Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
So, Andy, the first question I have for you is just the word of God, how is the word of God living and active?
Andy
It’s very powerful, and as I mentioned in the introductory comments, the author does this because he’s just marveling at the power of Psalm 95, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your heart.”(Psalm 95:8) And that’s also vital for that concept. How can you hear his voice? Well, by the word of God, and that’s exactly how the word of God is living. Now, here’s what’s really interesting about Scripture. Scripture is unchanging, to some degree, immobile, and yet living. How can that be? Scripture is engraved in stone by the finger of God. That’s where it all started, with the 10 Commandments on Mount Sinai and God engraved in stone. When you talk about something that’s engraved or etched in stone, it means it never changes. So the word of God really is unchanging. Yet for all of that, it’s living. To me, something that is unchanging, immobile, is something that’s dead. It’s something that has no life. One of the things about life is, constantly, there’s motion, there’s movement, there’s biological processes going on all the time. So what we have in the Word is an amazing combination of immutability linked to God and constant applicability. It’s constantly applicable to us, and we’re alive, we’re at different places in our lives, and there are different things going on around us all the time. There’s no two days exactly alike. Every day is unique. So, “Today, if you hear his voice,” so today is unique. It’s got some common principles. You’re married to the same woman, you have the same kids, maybe the same job, same address. So there’s some same things as yesterday, but the things that are orchestrated for God, by God, for you today, the good works he has for you to walk in, the trials you’re going to face, he knows them all before they happen, but you don’t know any of them.
So it’s a unique day. So the Word which never changes is going to be applied in some different ways today. So that’s the idea here, that the word of God is living, though unchanging, though immutable like God himself. It’s living because, also, I would say it produces life. We were dead in our transgressions and sins, the Word comes in, and now we’re alive. So the Word produces life through us so that we have a harvest of righteousness. We have fruitful things that come from us by the Word. So I like to think of the Word as living, not that it changes or it’s dynamic, a theological liberal might say, “The Word is constantly evolving, our understanding, you hear that like the patriarchal people that were shepherds and they were out there with cattle and it led rural lives, we’re now steel and glass, high rise, 21st century technological people. The Word’s evolved.” I don’t believe that at all. The word of God never changes, and it’s perfect the way it is, but it is alive in that it constantly is applied in different circumstances, and it produces life in us and through us.
Joel
Yeah, it produces life. God creates what he speaks into existence, right?
Andy
Amen.
Joel
It’s going from Genesis. Paul, in 2 Corinthians 4, “The God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness.’ Has caused this light in our hearts.”(Paraphrase of 2 Corinthians 4:6) But then also we see in Hebrews this cutting aspect. So what are we going to learn by the analogy of the sword, how it pierces and cuts?
Andy
Sure. So the word of God, which is living and active, it’s living and active in us because it cuts us. It cuts through us, I think. So the image here is of a sharp, double-edged sword. So the author is definitely putting a picture in your mind. Back then, and for really the overwhelming majority of human history, the most powerful military weapon was the sword until gun powder came and effectively made the sword obsolete to some degree, but the sword became a symbol of military conquest or even sayings like Jesus saying, “You live by the sword, you die by the sword.”(Paraphrase of Matthew 26:52) And so the idea here is very well established in the minds of the hearers here.
So they knew we were talking about a very powerful weapon, and the sword had to be sharp or it couldn’t do anything. Imagine if it were completely blunt. It’d be more like a club, and that would do its own damage. But the sword is able to penetrate the skin, let’s say, and produce death. It’s able to divide vital organs from themselves and produce death. So you generally think of the sword as ministering death, and it has that power to sever a head from a body. So that’s the way that people would think of it. But this sword is different. This sword actually produces life by its severing.
Now, I will say that the word of God, if spoken to the reprobate, spoken to the damned, produces death as well. If God says, “Depart from me, you who are cursed.”(Matthew 25:41) You are severed from all the living. You’re severed from God himself in terms of a living fellowship, and it produces death. So Jesus has a sharp, double-edged sword coming out of his mouth at the second coming, and he’s not ministering life at that point. So he has the ability to speak death. But here in this context, the word of God is living and active and produces salvation in those that hear it.
So I like to think of it this way. In our sin, in our spiritual deadness, we put up walls so we are stiff-necked, we’re hard-hearted, and the walls become a symbol of the blindness that Satan has worked, spiritual blindness. So we put up those walls, and the word of God can cut right through them. It can just cut right through them. So you have this language in Acts 2, when Peter preached the gospel, he said, they said, the text says, “When they heard the gospel that was preached by Peter, they were cut to the heart. They were pierced and said, ‘Brothers, what shall we do?'”(Paraphrase of Acts 2:37) So I think you were going to say something about that text. I could tell.
Joel
I was going to speak of that exact text there, “Pierced to the heart.”
Andy
The Holy Spirit’s working in both of us the same, but they’re cut to the heart. So we need that. We still need it. I’ve got so much hardness in my heart. I have so many barriers, and the word of God can come in and convict me, as we’re going to see in Hebrews 11:1, “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, but also the conviction of things not seen.” The word of God has the power to sting me, to hurt me, to convict me. Think about the time that Jesus hurt Peter after his resurrection. Peter had denied him three times, and he said three times, “Do you love me?”(John 21:17) And it said Peter was hurt. So I do believe that the word of God can hurt us, but it only hurts us to heal us. If you think about most-
Joel
Like a surgeon’s scalpel or something?
Andy
Absolutely.
Joel
Yeah.
Andy
Yeah, that’s exactly where I was going to go. If you think about most therapies in the world, they generally produce health by pain. They produce… I think about physical therapists or occupational therapists. They’re ministering torture to all of their patients as they’re stretching out ligaments and muscles that haven’t been used in a while, and it’s like, it hurts, but their motive is healing. So God unleashes this living and active double-edged sword to cut us apart in the terms of conviction, conviction of sin.
Joel
Okay, so just piggybacking on that, how does this piercing nature of the Word of God relate to what the author’s already warned them about, about the deceitfulness of sin, about the drifting away, chapter 2?
Andy
That’s great. So those things come from hardness of heart. “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your heart.”(Psalm 95:8) It’s said in chapter 3 that sin’s deceitfulness can produce a hardness of heart that turns away from the living God, the remedy is the word of God and let’s not leave out the Holy Spirit. Now the Word of God alone is not enough, but the Spirit uses or wields specific texts of scripture to bring us to tears sometimes. Or in James 4:9, it says, “Grieve, mourn, and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom.” In the life of a Christian, that happens after conviction of sin. It’s like, “What have I done? Why did I say that? Why did I do that?” And it hurts you so it can heal you. So there’s that piercing. It’s able to divide soul and spirit, joints and marrow.
So the language of dividing soul and spirit is really interesting. To some degree, the words soul and spirit are used interchangeably. Sometimes it seems that they’re distinguished from each other. So there’s been debates about the essential nature of humans. Are we made up of three parts or two? For me, I tend to punt on it, I say we are a material and an immaterial part, but if there is a division to be made between soul and spirit, the word of God can do it. Then joints and marrow, that’s more of the natural use of a sword. It can cut a leg off, and so it can divide up. It’s just very, very sharp.
Joel
Now, what’s the significance of nothing being hidden from his sight?
Andy
Yeah, we’re going to go into the soul and spirit, joints and marrow. These things are all internal to the body. They’re inside us. And so, also, are our problems. We can look good on the outside, but there could be some corruption going on. The author to Hebrews is dealing with people who have made a profession of faith in Christ, but they’re under severe temptation. Temptation only works its way with us in that there’s inward corruption. It’s like a magnetic force, only works on iron. So there’s the iron of corruption inside our souls. We are tempted. So these people were being severely tempted to turn their backs on Jesus. That’s a shameful thing, isn’t it? The fact that there is that inward hidden corruption, but the Lord sees everything. Jesus says, “I am he who searches hearts and minds.”(Revelation 2:23) He says that in Revelation, and he’s able to see right through it. He has eyes of blazing fire.
So God can see right through us. He knows who we are. If you think about what he said to Nathaniel when he said, “Now here is a true Israelite in whom there’s no guile.”(Paraphrase of John 1:47) In other words, he is what he appears to be. He’s a rock-solid citizen. He’s not a trickster. He is not a con artist. Nathaniel said, “How did you know me?” he said, “I saw you under the fig tree.”(Paraphrase of John 1:48) So Jesus looked at somebody and knew them right through. So the fact is, we need to stand under that gaze. I think about Psalm 139, “Oh Lord, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise.”(Psalm 139:1-2) You know everything about me, but you know me. You know my inward heart, the inmost thoughts and recesses of my heart. And at the end, the Psalmist invites him, “Oh Lord, search me, oh God, and know my heart. Show me if there’s any offensive way in me.”(Paraphrase of Psalm 139:23-24) So I really would want to combine that Psalm 139:24-25 with this, which is-
Joel
Discerning the thoughts and attention to the heart.
Andy
Yes.
Joel
Yeah.
Andy
Also, it points us ahead to judgment day. We may think we’ve got some secrets going on, people using internet pornography, or they’ve got some covetousness. They’re living for money. They’ve got some hidden bitterness or anger, rage in their hearts, some hidden idolatries. Someday, it’s all going to be out in the open. So Jesus said, “There’s nothing concealed that will not be disclosed.” The word of God reminds us of that, that God can see right through us. So it’s good to just lay under the searching ministry of the Word and say, “God, take out all of my darkness, all of my secrets. I pray that I would be a man or a woman of integrity, that I would be what I appear to be straight through.” And we’re not. We’re so twisted. So the word of God can make us more and more people of integrity, to be what we actually appear to be on the outside.
“The word of God can make us more and more people of integrity, to be what we actually appear to be on the outside.”
Joel
Now, you mentioned judgment day. It says, “Naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.”(Hebrews 4:13)
Andy
Yeah.
Joel
Can you talk more about this giving an account? Is this a scriptural idea that every single person, even Christians, will have to give an account?
Andy
Yeah, absolutely. The more that we are mindful of that, the better. It says in Romans 14, I think it says, “Each of us will give an account of himself to God.”(Romans 14:12) 2 Corinthians 5 says that, “We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done in the body, whether good or bad.”(2 Corinthians 5:10) So judgment day is coming. So I think for us, the more we can, by faith, experience judgment day now and the sting of conviction now, the holier lives we will live and the less we’ll be ashamed of on judgment day.
Joel
That makes a lot of sense. It’s also very sobering. I think many Christians think that because they’ve come to faith in Christ, they’re exempt from judgment day, they’re exempt from having to go through that painful experience.
Andy
Yeah, I’ve taught a painful judgment day for years, and I almost always get some pretty strong pushback from some people. I remember one woman, in particular, use a certain phraseology that I’ve heard in other settings too, “My Bible says that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” It’s as though we were reading from different Bibles. It’s like, “My Bible says the same thing.” But there’s a big difference between there’s no condemnation and that there’s no accountability or there’s no judgment or evaluation. We are all going to be evaluated. But the elect, those who have come to faith in Christ by judgment day, all the elect who will have come to faith in Christ, they will not be condemned. They will not hear the words, “Depart from me, you who are cursed.” But I do believe that we’re going to have some painful moments on that day, and that’s hard to figure out how all that works, how saints who are absent from the body, present with the Lord, then later have to be brought to some measure of grief over the way they live their lives. That’s hard. I can’t figure all that out. But I think there is just one judgment day, and we’re all gathered, sheep and goats together, and we have an evaluation, and with the sheep, there’s going to be good and bad. It’s not just bad. We need to realize that. Yeah, it’s going to be hard, but it’s also going to be pretty sweet too, because there, at last, we’re going to get our first clear commendation from God for the good works we’ve done. That will be pretty sweetly encouraging.
Joel
Amen.
Andy
But still, there is this judgment day, and we need to get ready. We need to get ready for the negative part and minimize the damage. Basically, minimize the damage.
Joel
I find it interesting that as soon as the author brings up this judgment day, we must give an account. He immediately, right after that, brings in the priestly ministry of Jesus, and we get multiple chapters on the great high priesthood of Jesus Christ.
Andy
Yeah.
Joel
Can you talk about this, verse 14, “Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession”(Hebrews 4:14)?
Andy
Yeah. Jesus is very much the issue here. Although he is not been overtly mentioned for the last two chapters, he is the Sabbath rest. So really, if you think about what the Jewish professors of faith were tempted to do, is turn their backs on Jesus, specifically on Jesus. So the author has been going on at great lengths concerning the superiority of Christ. Now, this is the first overt, clear mention of the great high priest, but we had a mention of his priestly ministry right from the beginning of the book, where it says, “After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.”(Hebrews 1:3) So that’s priestly ministry. He offered satisfaction through his blood for our sins. So let’s remind ourselves who we have. We have a great high priest, so we’re going to need him because once the word of God starts cutting us apart, we’re going to start weeping and we’re going to start confessing sins. We’re not going to find that the word of God said, “No, you guys are fine. I see no unrighteousness in you at all. You’re perfectly holy.” It’s like, “No, I see all kinds of sin.” And we’re going to need to run and cling to our great high priest who made satisfaction for us.
Joel
Now, what is the significance of this phrase, “Who has passed through the heavens,”(Hebrews 4:14) as opposed with the old priests passed through, which is the curtain to go in and make atonement?
Andy
Yeah, that’s a very provocative phrase. It gives us a sense of, I think, circles of heaven or realms of heaven that are higher and higher and higher. So Jesus is in the highest heavens. You get the sense that there’s a realm apart from all creation, almost, that almighty God dwells in alone. So when Satan wanted to ascend to the heights, he wanted to get up to the highest level, and no one can occupy that but almighty God. So Jesus doesn’t end up in the heavens, he, to some degree, passes through the heavens and goes up to the uncreated highest realm, which is where the throne of God is. So you could get that image there. So Jesus passed through all the created realms. So there is an invisible spiritual realm in which all these created things are, these spiritual realities, and the things that are physical on earth are types and shadows of those. But Jesus passes through all of that right up to the highest place, the right hand of God.
Joel
Now, right after that, there’s this exhortation, “Let us hold fast our confession.” So in light of Jesus’ high priestly ministry atoning for our sins and what he just said about judgment day giving account, why is it so critical that we hold fast our confession?
Andy
This is the point of the whole book. The author just keeps going again and again to this issue. This is the emergency. This is why he is writing the whole book, and their confession or profession is faith in Christ. So he brings in that Jesus is the Son of God. He uses the term here, Son of God. He is our great high priest. You can’t turn your back on him. God, the Father, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, will not hear you any other back channel away. So you turn your back on Jesus, and you try to go in the old Covenant way, skirting Jesus, denying Jesus because you’re going to have to say negative things about him, “He’s not who he claimed to be. He’s a blasphemer and a divider of the people, misleading the people.” You can’t just be neutral, “I don’t know about Jesus, but I’m going to go back to what I used to do.” No, you got to trample him underfoot, effectively. If you do that, you’ve turned your back on your own salvation. The author here is speaking very positively. He said, “Let us draw near to this high priest and hold fast our confession of Jesus as our great high priest.”(Paraphrase of Hebrews 4:14) And later, the author is going to give the image of, he is the new and living way open for us through the curtain or through the wall into the very presence of God.
Joel
Now, in talking about Jesus, he says, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses,”(Hebrews 4:15) You know, one might think that the divine Son of God couldn’t identify with human beings since he is God, but he says, “No, he’s able to sympathize with our weaknesses.” But then he talks about, he says, “Who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.”(Hebrews 4:15)
Andy
Sure.
Joel
So how is Jesus actually tempted when he himself had no desire for wickedness or unrighteousness?
Andy
Yeah. Let me pick up on the first part, that we don’t have a high priest who’s unable to sympathize. That’s a clear example of a double negative. So we do have a high priest who can sympathize. He’s very sympathetic, and the author is going to tell us very plainly. Why? Because he’s been tempted as we are. He knows what it’s like to be tempted. It’s hard to be physical, to have a stomach that demands food, and you haven’t eaten in 40 days as he did in the desert. He knows what it feels like to be intensely hungry, so he can sympathize. So he is sympathetic to us, and this is so vital for us to realize how merciful, how sympathetic Jesus is to brokenhearted sinners. He’s hard on self-righteous people, very hard on them, but he’s incredibly soft and tender toward people who know that they’re sinners.
Think about how he was a friend of tax collectors and sinners. How the prostitute came and wept over Jesus’ feet and wiped his feet with her hair. How tender he was with her. How tender he is with people who are sick, lepers, or outsiders. He’s moved with compassion. As a matter of fact, the number one emotion that Jesus shows is compassion. He is very soft and easily moved by us. So he’s a very compassionate high priest. He’s not a hard man. Now, if you think about, I think in medieval Europe, where you have a hierarchical system, higher and higher. So like a Duke or then a regional ruler, the nobles, and then the prince and the king, and it’s like they’re just circles that are so far above you as a peasant, you could never, never get there. To have somebody who could advocate for you one step up; that was pretty big. But most of these people were just a whole different level, and you could never approach them. Oftentimes, though, if you knew, let’s say, the king’s mother, she’d be sympathetic because women are tender-hearted. If you knew the king’s mother, she could go in and whisper in her son’s ear and say, “Hey, can I get a minute? I’ve got somebody I want you to listen to.” And that’s where Mary came in. People would choose, the medieval Catholics would choose, there was a cult of Mary because she would be sympathetic, she could listen, and she could go in and whisper in her son’s ear on your behalf. I think the whole thing is so tragic because it minimizes what’s said right here in the text. Jesus is 100% sympathetic to his people who are hurting and struggling. We don’t need a female mediator between us and the true mediator. Mary was a godly woman who was saved by faith in Christ.
Joel
She’s the one who needs the mediator.
Andy
She needed, and she has one, and she’s a righteous, godly woman, and that’s all. But we don’t need to go to Mary to get to Jesus. Jesus himself is a merciful or a sympathetic high priest. And, to pick up on the second part that you asked, he’s been tempted in every way, just as we are. So this is the full humanity of Jesus. He was 100% human, and he experienced temptations. In this way, he was qualified or made perfect. It’s going to say in the next chapter to be our high priest by his sufferings. He was made perfect by suffering. It doesn’t mean he was imperfect before, but I would say he was qualified. He went through it, he experienced it, and was therefore qualified to be our great high priest because he was tempted, and I would say, we could argue, he was more tempted than we will ever be because he never yielded to any temptation. Let’s say temptation had a strength from 0% to 100%. We usually kick out around 40% of that temptation, or 55% if you’re really strong. We hang in there. Jesus never kicked out. So every temptation that ever came his way, he felt it and exhausted it. Like Samson, He laid it to the ground and killed it, all of His temptations. So he was 100% tempted. Satan would leave him and come back at an opportune time to tempt him again. He was assaulted by temptation. So he knows what it’s like to be tempted, but he also is an expert at temptation and not sinning. He never once yielded to temptation.
Joel
Right. Now, this, then, gives us the confidence. He says there’s this exhortation, “Let us then…” In verse 16, “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace.”(Hebrews 4:16) So I want to ask you first about this confidence, and then I want you to really explore this notion of the throne of grace. I think this is the first time that grace is mentioned in the book of Hebrews, and it says that we might find grace in time of need. So how does the priestly ministry of Jesus give us confidence to enter the throne room and receive grace?
Andy
First of all, we need boldness; we need confidence, when we think it is who it is we’re approaching. Let’s realize, the God we are approaching is the God of Sinai. He’s the God that descended to the top of Mount Sinai in fire, and terror was on everyone who surrounded that mountain, and the ground was shaking under their feet. As the author is going to tell us later, “The sight was so terrifying that Moses said, ‘I’m trembling with fear.'” So that’s the God we’re approaching. If you don’t think you need boldness to approach a God like that, you don’t know him. You don’t know who he is, “Our God is a consuming fire.”(Paraphrase of Deuteronomy 4:24) So to be able, as a sinner, to draw near to the throne, we generally would be drawn near to be executed. So the Holy Spirit works that conviction on us, makes us realize that’s who we are. We deserve to have been executed, and so we need boldness. Think about, even Queen Esther knew that if she came into the presence of the king uninvited, without access, without a kingly warrant, she could be executed. That was the law, the Medes and Persians. She could be executed. So she took her life in her hands to approach even her own husband because, in that case, his office was emperor, king of the realm. You can’t just be having any person, even your wife, come into your presence without access. But we have access. When Esther came into her husband’s presence, he extended the scepter to her, and she touched it, and she was welcome now. Jesus is the scepter extended to us. He is the new and living way open for us. So we have someone who is basically, if you can imagine in the antechamber, before we enter the throne room, Jesus is saying, “Do not fear. The King is my Father. Everything I ask him to do, he does. He loves me, and you’re with me. So come, let’s go into his presence.” So now we have confidence because of the word that he spoke. “You are welcome here. You are forgiven. You are seen to be in me, perfectly righteous.” So let’s come. Let’s not stay away out of terror that he will strike us dead, but let us have boldness to enter.
Joel
What is the significance of the words, “Throne of grace”(Hebrews 4:16)? What are we seeking to find here? And what is God extending to us?
Andy
First and foremost, grace always has to do with sin. I never see grace applied to holy angels. They don’t need it. So grace has to do with us in our sin. It covers our sin. Then that’s the conduit of many blessings that flow into our life, which are themselves called graces from God. So fundamentally, then grace has to do with sin. So what you’re going to find at the throne of grace is forgiveness, but you need more than forgiveness. We need to be transformed. So we don’t sin like that anymore. So we need to find mercy from God. Also, sin has done a lot of things to us that don’t have to do with our volitional sinning. We might have a disease. We might have cancer, and that’s in the world because of sin, Adam’s sin, but we’re still going to need grace and mercy because of our affliction. Or it might be somebody that we love that has some affliction like cancer, or it could be some poor person that needs finances. But fundamentally, we’re drawing near to the throne to receive forgiveness of sins and covering and a transformation that he can give, “Would you please make me different, change my heart, change my nature so I stop sinning in this way?” So let us draw near. Also, I want to say about this, the tendency in our pride is to go fix it ourselves and bring the finished work that’s now fixed to the throne and say, “Look what I did.” And we must not do that. You can’t fix it yourself. So you’re messed up, you’re addicted to some sin, you’re sinning in some powerful way. Draw near with that thing; bring that mess to the throne, say, “Oh God, would you cover this?”
Joel
Yeah, because he says to, “Find grace to help in time of need.”(Hebrews 4:16) So if you think you can get it together yourself, you’re saying, “I don’t need you.”
Andy
Yeah. I think what wisdom comes maturity is, you realize every single moment is a time of need. Even if you haven’t volitionally sinned, as far as you know today. You’ve not violated your conscience today, you’re still needy. You’re being assaulted by the world, the flesh, and the devil. It’s a time of need. You need grace for protection, grace to filter the temptations. So draw near, draw near, draw near. Continually draw near. Pray without ceasing. Draw near to the throne of grace all the time. So let’s combine some images that are difficult to combine. So you got here a kingly image of a throne and coming into a throne room plus an agricultural image of, “I am the vine and you are the branches. Apart from me, you can do nothing.”(Paraphrase of John 15:5) So the idea is to continually be near or almost on the throne of grace, like we’re sitting in his lap. We’re going to reign with Christ. So get as close to that throne as you possibly can, all the time. Say, “Oh God, I need You. Cover my sins. Help me. If You leave me, I will sin. There’s no doubt about it, but if you’ll help me, I will not sin. I’ll stand firm in this temptation.” So let’s draw near, draw near, draw near to the throne of grace.
Joel
Do you have any final comments on verses 12-16?
Andy
Yeah, read them. Read them again, and just keep reading, and reading and just the helpful headings of the word of God and prayer is just so helpful for me. It’s just like having been convicted and instructed by the living and active word of God. Having realized someday I’m going to have to stand before God and give him an account, I want to just go right into his presence. Let’s get it done right now. Show me where I’m sinful. Help me to change. Help me to live out a life of repentance. Oh, Jesus, be my inner seat or my mediator, and stand in between us and help me because, oh, is this a time of need? I am instructed by the Word. Right now is the time of need, right now. Then we can do the same for others. We can intercede for others. We can be praying for others. So yeah, I would just say read, saturate yourself, memorize these things, and take advantage. Obey them. Read the word of God and draw near to the throne of grace.
Joel
Amen. That was episode 9 in the book of Hebrews. Please join us next time. We’ll talk about Hebrews 5:1-10, and we’ll dive more into this concept of Jesus as the great high priest. Thank you for listening to the Two Journeys podcast, and God bless you all.
The author of Hebrews culminates his exhortation in chapter 4 by meditating on the power of God’s word to uncover hidden sin and the power of Christ’s ministry as high priest to help us through our “times of need”. The author is thus exhorting the Hebrews to fight sin (unbelief and transgressions that come from unbelief) through the Bible and constant prayer in Jesus’ name. Jesus’ ministry as great high priest is opened up for the first time, with a focus on His sympathetic understanding of our weakness. All of this is a powerful inducement to “hold fast our confession” in a hostile world that tempts us to forsake Christ.
– PODCAST TRANSCRIPT –
Joel
Hi, welcome to the Two Journeys podcast. This is episode 9 in the book of Hebrews, titled: “The Word of God is Living and Active,” Hebrews 4:12-16. I’m your host, Joel Hartford, and I’m here with Pastor Andy Davis. Andy, as I mentioned at the end of the last podcast, this is possibly one of the most famous verses in the entire Bible or famous sections. Can you give us a brief overview of what we’re going to see in this really incredible section of scripture?
Andy
The whole epistle is a warning epistle, and the beginning in chapter 4, he says, verse 2, “Let us fear,”(Hebrews 4:1) and he’s been meditating very powerfully and fruitfully on one little section of a Psalm, Psalm 95. It’s almost like the author just stops and says, “Isn’t the word of God amazing? Look at the power of a Psalm written 1,000 years ago and still powerful and active.” And so he’s marveling on the timeless, powerful nature of the word of God, but he’s not just doing it because he is filled with joy or there’s poetic elation in him. He’s doing it because he wants his hearers to combine with faith the word they hear, so the Word has the power to save your soul. Paul says in Romans 1:16, “I’m not ashamed of the gospel because it [the gospel] is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes,”(Paraphrase of Romans 1:16) so if you will take and combine the Word with faith, it will save your soul, but it’s going to do more than that. It’s going to convict you, it’s going to guide you, it’s going to give you wisdom. It’s going to do everything you need for a saved life, a life of eternal forgiveness, but also a fruitful life. So we’re going to see that, and then he moves from that into perhaps an even loftier meditation on the ministry of Jesus as our great high priest who we can go to with our problems and can help us in our weakness. So you really have the word of God in prayer here for us. We should read the Word because it’s living and active, and we should go to Jesus because He’s interceding for us, and we should lay all our burdens on him. So it’s really the Word and prayer together here for us.
“We should read the Word because it’s living and active, and we should go to Jesus because He’s interceding for us, and we should lay all our burdens on him.”
Joel
For the sake of our audience, I’m going to read verses 12-16,
For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account. Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
So, Andy, the first question I have for you is just the word of God, how is the word of God living and active?
Andy
It’s very powerful, and as I mentioned in the introductory comments, the author does this because he’s just marveling at the power of Psalm 95, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your heart.”(Psalm 95:8) And that’s also vital for that concept. How can you hear his voice? Well, by the word of God, and that’s exactly how the word of God is living. Now, here’s what’s really interesting about Scripture. Scripture is unchanging, to some degree, immobile, and yet living. How can that be? Scripture is engraved in stone by the finger of God. That’s where it all started, with the 10 Commandments on Mount Sinai and God engraved in stone. When you talk about something that’s engraved or etched in stone, it means it never changes. So the word of God really is unchanging. Yet for all of that, it’s living. To me, something that is unchanging, immobile, is something that’s dead. It’s something that has no life. One of the things about life is, constantly, there’s motion, there’s movement, there’s biological processes going on all the time. So what we have in the Word is an amazing combination of immutability linked to God and constant applicability. It’s constantly applicable to us, and we’re alive, we’re at different places in our lives, and there are different things going on around us all the time. There’s no two days exactly alike. Every day is unique. So, “Today, if you hear his voice,” so today is unique. It’s got some common principles. You’re married to the same woman, you have the same kids, maybe the same job, same address. So there’s some same things as yesterday, but the things that are orchestrated for God, by God, for you today, the good works he has for you to walk in, the trials you’re going to face, he knows them all before they happen, but you don’t know any of them.
So it’s a unique day. So the Word which never changes is going to be applied in some different ways today. So that’s the idea here, that the word of God is living, though unchanging, though immutable like God himself. It’s living because, also, I would say it produces life. We were dead in our transgressions and sins, the Word comes in, and now we’re alive. So the Word produces life through us so that we have a harvest of righteousness. We have fruitful things that come from us by the Word. So I like to think of the Word as living, not that it changes or it’s dynamic, a theological liberal might say, “The Word is constantly evolving, our understanding, you hear that like the patriarchal people that were shepherds and they were out there with cattle and it led rural lives, we’re now steel and glass, high rise, 21st century technological people. The Word’s evolved.” I don’t believe that at all. The word of God never changes, and it’s perfect the way it is, but it is alive in that it constantly is applied in different circumstances, and it produces life in us and through us.
Joel
Yeah, it produces life. God creates what he speaks into existence, right?
Andy
Amen.
Joel
It’s going from Genesis. Paul, in 2 Corinthians 4, “The God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness.’ Has caused this light in our hearts.”(Paraphrase of 2 Corinthians 4:6) But then also we see in Hebrews this cutting aspect. So what are we going to learn by the analogy of the sword, how it pierces and cuts?
Andy
Sure. So the word of God, which is living and active, it’s living and active in us because it cuts us. It cuts through us, I think. So the image here is of a sharp, double-edged sword. So the author is definitely putting a picture in your mind. Back then, and for really the overwhelming majority of human history, the most powerful military weapon was the sword until gun powder came and effectively made the sword obsolete to some degree, but the sword became a symbol of military conquest or even sayings like Jesus saying, “You live by the sword, you die by the sword.”(Paraphrase of Matthew 26:52) And so the idea here is very well established in the minds of the hearers here.
So they knew we were talking about a very powerful weapon, and the sword had to be sharp or it couldn’t do anything. Imagine if it were completely blunt. It’d be more like a club, and that would do its own damage. But the sword is able to penetrate the skin, let’s say, and produce death. It’s able to divide vital organs from themselves and produce death. So you generally think of the sword as ministering death, and it has that power to sever a head from a body. So that’s the way that people would think of it. But this sword is different. This sword actually produces life by its severing.
Now, I will say that the word of God, if spoken to the reprobate, spoken to the damned, produces death as well. If God says, “Depart from me, you who are cursed.”(Matthew 25:41) You are severed from all the living. You’re severed from God himself in terms of a living fellowship, and it produces death. So Jesus has a sharp, double-edged sword coming out of his mouth at the second coming, and he’s not ministering life at that point. So he has the ability to speak death. But here in this context, the word of God is living and active and produces salvation in those that hear it.
So I like to think of it this way. In our sin, in our spiritual deadness, we put up walls so we are stiff-necked, we’re hard-hearted, and the walls become a symbol of the blindness that Satan has worked, spiritual blindness. So we put up those walls, and the word of God can cut right through them. It can just cut right through them. So you have this language in Acts 2, when Peter preached the gospel, he said, they said, the text says, “When they heard the gospel that was preached by Peter, they were cut to the heart. They were pierced and said, ‘Brothers, what shall we do?'”(Paraphrase of Acts 2:37) So I think you were going to say something about that text. I could tell.
Joel
I was going to speak of that exact text there, “Pierced to the heart.”
Andy
The Holy Spirit’s working in both of us the same, but they’re cut to the heart. So we need that. We still need it. I’ve got so much hardness in my heart. I have so many barriers, and the word of God can come in and convict me, as we’re going to see in Hebrews 11:1, “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, but also the conviction of things not seen.” The word of God has the power to sting me, to hurt me, to convict me. Think about the time that Jesus hurt Peter after his resurrection. Peter had denied him three times, and he said three times, “Do you love me?”(John 21:17) And it said Peter was hurt. So I do believe that the word of God can hurt us, but it only hurts us to heal us. If you think about most-
Joel
Like a surgeon’s scalpel or something?
Andy
Absolutely.
Joel
Yeah.
Andy
Yeah, that’s exactly where I was going to go. If you think about most therapies in the world, they generally produce health by pain. They produce… I think about physical therapists or occupational therapists. They’re ministering torture to all of their patients as they’re stretching out ligaments and muscles that haven’t been used in a while, and it’s like, it hurts, but their motive is healing. So God unleashes this living and active double-edged sword to cut us apart in the terms of conviction, conviction of sin.
Joel
Okay, so just piggybacking on that, how does this piercing nature of the Word of God relate to what the author’s already warned them about, about the deceitfulness of sin, about the drifting away, chapter 2?
Andy
That’s great. So those things come from hardness of heart. “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your heart.”(Psalm 95:8) It’s said in chapter 3 that sin’s deceitfulness can produce a hardness of heart that turns away from the living God, the remedy is the word of God and let’s not leave out the Holy Spirit. Now the Word of God alone is not enough, but the Spirit uses or wields specific texts of scripture to bring us to tears sometimes. Or in James 4:9, it says, “Grieve, mourn, and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom.” In the life of a Christian, that happens after conviction of sin. It’s like, “What have I done? Why did I say that? Why did I do that?” And it hurts you so it can heal you. So there’s that piercing. It’s able to divide soul and spirit, joints and marrow.
So the language of dividing soul and spirit is really interesting. To some degree, the words soul and spirit are used interchangeably. Sometimes it seems that they’re distinguished from each other. So there’s been debates about the essential nature of humans. Are we made up of three parts or two? For me, I tend to punt on it, I say we are a material and an immaterial part, but if there is a division to be made between soul and spirit, the word of God can do it. Then joints and marrow, that’s more of the natural use of a sword. It can cut a leg off, and so it can divide up. It’s just very, very sharp.
Joel
Now, what’s the significance of nothing being hidden from his sight?
Andy
Yeah, we’re going to go into the soul and spirit, joints and marrow. These things are all internal to the body. They’re inside us. And so, also, are our problems. We can look good on the outside, but there could be some corruption going on. The author to Hebrews is dealing with people who have made a profession of faith in Christ, but they’re under severe temptation. Temptation only works its way with us in that there’s inward corruption. It’s like a magnetic force, only works on iron. So there’s the iron of corruption inside our souls. We are tempted. So these people were being severely tempted to turn their backs on Jesus. That’s a shameful thing, isn’t it? The fact that there is that inward hidden corruption, but the Lord sees everything. Jesus says, “I am he who searches hearts and minds.”(Revelation 2:23) He says that in Revelation, and he’s able to see right through it. He has eyes of blazing fire.
So God can see right through us. He knows who we are. If you think about what he said to Nathaniel when he said, “Now here is a true Israelite in whom there’s no guile.”(Paraphrase of John 1:47) In other words, he is what he appears to be. He’s a rock-solid citizen. He’s not a trickster. He is not a con artist. Nathaniel said, “How did you know me?” he said, “I saw you under the fig tree.”(Paraphrase of John 1:48) So Jesus looked at somebody and knew them right through. So the fact is, we need to stand under that gaze. I think about Psalm 139, “Oh Lord, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise.”(Psalm 139:1-2) You know everything about me, but you know me. You know my inward heart, the inmost thoughts and recesses of my heart. And at the end, the Psalmist invites him, “Oh Lord, search me, oh God, and know my heart. Show me if there’s any offensive way in me.”(Paraphrase of Psalm 139:23-24) So I really would want to combine that Psalm 139:24-25 with this, which is-
Joel
Discerning the thoughts and attention to the heart.
Andy
Yes.
Joel
Yeah.
Andy
Also, it points us ahead to judgment day. We may think we’ve got some secrets going on, people using internet pornography, or they’ve got some covetousness. They’re living for money. They’ve got some hidden bitterness or anger, rage in their hearts, some hidden idolatries. Someday, it’s all going to be out in the open. So Jesus said, “There’s nothing concealed that will not be disclosed.” The word of God reminds us of that, that God can see right through us. So it’s good to just lay under the searching ministry of the Word and say, “God, take out all of my darkness, all of my secrets. I pray that I would be a man or a woman of integrity, that I would be what I appear to be straight through.” And we’re not. We’re so twisted. So the word of God can make us more and more people of integrity, to be what we actually appear to be on the outside.
“The word of God can make us more and more people of integrity, to be what we actually appear to be on the outside.”
Joel
Now, you mentioned judgment day. It says, “Naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.”(Hebrews 4:13)
Andy
Yeah.
Joel
Can you talk more about this giving an account? Is this a scriptural idea that every single person, even Christians, will have to give an account?
Andy
Yeah, absolutely. The more that we are mindful of that, the better. It says in Romans 14, I think it says, “Each of us will give an account of himself to God.”(Romans 14:12) 2 Corinthians 5 says that, “We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done in the body, whether good or bad.”(2 Corinthians 5:10) So judgment day is coming. So I think for us, the more we can, by faith, experience judgment day now and the sting of conviction now, the holier lives we will live and the less we’ll be ashamed of on judgment day.
Joel
That makes a lot of sense. It’s also very sobering. I think many Christians think that because they’ve come to faith in Christ, they’re exempt from judgment day, they’re exempt from having to go through that painful experience.
Andy
Yeah, I’ve taught a painful judgment day for years, and I almost always get some pretty strong pushback from some people. I remember one woman, in particular, use a certain phraseology that I’ve heard in other settings too, “My Bible says that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” It’s as though we were reading from different Bibles. It’s like, “My Bible says the same thing.” But there’s a big difference between there’s no condemnation and that there’s no accountability or there’s no judgment or evaluation. We are all going to be evaluated. But the elect, those who have come to faith in Christ by judgment day, all the elect who will have come to faith in Christ, they will not be condemned. They will not hear the words, “Depart from me, you who are cursed.” But I do believe that we’re going to have some painful moments on that day, and that’s hard to figure out how all that works, how saints who are absent from the body, present with the Lord, then later have to be brought to some measure of grief over the way they live their lives. That’s hard. I can’t figure all that out. But I think there is just one judgment day, and we’re all gathered, sheep and goats together, and we have an evaluation, and with the sheep, there’s going to be good and bad. It’s not just bad. We need to realize that. Yeah, it’s going to be hard, but it’s also going to be pretty sweet too, because there, at last, we’re going to get our first clear commendation from God for the good works we’ve done. That will be pretty sweetly encouraging.
Joel
Amen.
Andy
But still, there is this judgment day, and we need to get ready. We need to get ready for the negative part and minimize the damage. Basically, minimize the damage.
Joel
I find it interesting that as soon as the author brings up this judgment day, we must give an account. He immediately, right after that, brings in the priestly ministry of Jesus, and we get multiple chapters on the great high priesthood of Jesus Christ.
Andy
Yeah.
Joel
Can you talk about this, verse 14, “Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession”(Hebrews 4:14)?
Andy
Yeah. Jesus is very much the issue here. Although he is not been overtly mentioned for the last two chapters, he is the Sabbath rest. So really, if you think about what the Jewish professors of faith were tempted to do, is turn their backs on Jesus, specifically on Jesus. So the author has been going on at great lengths concerning the superiority of Christ. Now, this is the first overt, clear mention of the great high priest, but we had a mention of his priestly ministry right from the beginning of the book, where it says, “After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.”(Hebrews 1:3) So that’s priestly ministry. He offered satisfaction through his blood for our sins. So let’s remind ourselves who we have. We have a great high priest, so we’re going to need him because once the word of God starts cutting us apart, we’re going to start weeping and we’re going to start confessing sins. We’re not going to find that the word of God said, “No, you guys are fine. I see no unrighteousness in you at all. You’re perfectly holy.” It’s like, “No, I see all kinds of sin.” And we’re going to need to run and cling to our great high priest who made satisfaction for us.
Joel
Now, what is the significance of this phrase, “Who has passed through the heavens,”(Hebrews 4:14) as opposed with the old priests passed through, which is the curtain to go in and make atonement?
Andy
Yeah, that’s a very provocative phrase. It gives us a sense of, I think, circles of heaven or realms of heaven that are higher and higher and higher. So Jesus is in the highest heavens. You get the sense that there’s a realm apart from all creation, almost, that almighty God dwells in alone. So when Satan wanted to ascend to the heights, he wanted to get up to the highest level, and no one can occupy that but almighty God. So Jesus doesn’t end up in the heavens, he, to some degree, passes through the heavens and goes up to the uncreated highest realm, which is where the throne of God is. So you could get that image there. So Jesus passed through all the created realms. So there is an invisible spiritual realm in which all these created things are, these spiritual realities, and the things that are physical on earth are types and shadows of those. But Jesus passes through all of that right up to the highest place, the right hand of God.
Joel
Now, right after that, there’s this exhortation, “Let us hold fast our confession.” So in light of Jesus’ high priestly ministry atoning for our sins and what he just said about judgment day giving account, why is it so critical that we hold fast our confession?
Andy
This is the point of the whole book. The author just keeps going again and again to this issue. This is the emergency. This is why he is writing the whole book, and their confession or profession is faith in Christ. So he brings in that Jesus is the Son of God. He uses the term here, Son of God. He is our great high priest. You can’t turn your back on him. God, the Father, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, will not hear you any other back channel away. So you turn your back on Jesus, and you try to go in the old Covenant way, skirting Jesus, denying Jesus because you’re going to have to say negative things about him, “He’s not who he claimed to be. He’s a blasphemer and a divider of the people, misleading the people.” You can’t just be neutral, “I don’t know about Jesus, but I’m going to go back to what I used to do.” No, you got to trample him underfoot, effectively. If you do that, you’ve turned your back on your own salvation. The author here is speaking very positively. He said, “Let us draw near to this high priest and hold fast our confession of Jesus as our great high priest.”(Paraphrase of Hebrews 4:14) And later, the author is going to give the image of, he is the new and living way open for us through the curtain or through the wall into the very presence of God.
Joel
Now, in talking about Jesus, he says, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses,”(Hebrews 4:15) You know, one might think that the divine Son of God couldn’t identify with human beings since he is God, but he says, “No, he’s able to sympathize with our weaknesses.” But then he talks about, he says, “Who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.”(Hebrews 4:15)
Andy
Sure.
Joel
So how is Jesus actually tempted when he himself had no desire for wickedness or unrighteousness?
Andy
Yeah. Let me pick up on the first part, that we don’t have a high priest who’s unable to sympathize. That’s a clear example of a double negative. So we do have a high priest who can sympathize. He’s very sympathetic, and the author is going to tell us very plainly. Why? Because he’s been tempted as we are. He knows what it’s like to be tempted. It’s hard to be physical, to have a stomach that demands food, and you haven’t eaten in 40 days as he did in the desert. He knows what it feels like to be intensely hungry, so he can sympathize. So he is sympathetic to us, and this is so vital for us to realize how merciful, how sympathetic Jesus is to brokenhearted sinners. He’s hard on self-righteous people, very hard on them, but he’s incredibly soft and tender toward people who know that they’re sinners.
Think about how he was a friend of tax collectors and sinners. How the prostitute came and wept over Jesus’ feet and wiped his feet with her hair. How tender he was with her. How tender he is with people who are sick, lepers, or outsiders. He’s moved with compassion. As a matter of fact, the number one emotion that Jesus shows is compassion. He is very soft and easily moved by us. So he’s a very compassionate high priest. He’s not a hard man. Now, if you think about, I think in medieval Europe, where you have a hierarchical system, higher and higher. So like a Duke or then a regional ruler, the nobles, and then the prince and the king, and it’s like they’re just circles that are so far above you as a peasant, you could never, never get there. To have somebody who could advocate for you one step up; that was pretty big. But most of these people were just a whole different level, and you could never approach them. Oftentimes, though, if you knew, let’s say, the king’s mother, she’d be sympathetic because women are tender-hearted. If you knew the king’s mother, she could go in and whisper in her son’s ear and say, “Hey, can I get a minute? I’ve got somebody I want you to listen to.” And that’s where Mary came in. People would choose, the medieval Catholics would choose, there was a cult of Mary because she would be sympathetic, she could listen, and she could go in and whisper in her son’s ear on your behalf. I think the whole thing is so tragic because it minimizes what’s said right here in the text. Jesus is 100% sympathetic to his people who are hurting and struggling. We don’t need a female mediator between us and the true mediator. Mary was a godly woman who was saved by faith in Christ.
Joel
She’s the one who needs the mediator.
Andy
She needed, and she has one, and she’s a righteous, godly woman, and that’s all. But we don’t need to go to Mary to get to Jesus. Jesus himself is a merciful or a sympathetic high priest. And, to pick up on the second part that you asked, he’s been tempted in every way, just as we are. So this is the full humanity of Jesus. He was 100% human, and he experienced temptations. In this way, he was qualified or made perfect. It’s going to say in the next chapter to be our high priest by his sufferings. He was made perfect by suffering. It doesn’t mean he was imperfect before, but I would say he was qualified. He went through it, he experienced it, and was therefore qualified to be our great high priest because he was tempted, and I would say, we could argue, he was more tempted than we will ever be because he never yielded to any temptation. Let’s say temptation had a strength from 0% to 100%. We usually kick out around 40% of that temptation, or 55% if you’re really strong. We hang in there. Jesus never kicked out. So every temptation that ever came his way, he felt it and exhausted it. Like Samson, He laid it to the ground and killed it, all of His temptations. So he was 100% tempted. Satan would leave him and come back at an opportune time to tempt him again. He was assaulted by temptation. So he knows what it’s like to be tempted, but he also is an expert at temptation and not sinning. He never once yielded to temptation.
Joel
Right. Now, this, then, gives us the confidence. He says there’s this exhortation, “Let us then…” In verse 16, “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace.”(Hebrews 4:16) So I want to ask you first about this confidence, and then I want you to really explore this notion of the throne of grace. I think this is the first time that grace is mentioned in the book of Hebrews, and it says that we might find grace in time of need. So how does the priestly ministry of Jesus give us confidence to enter the throne room and receive grace?
Andy
First of all, we need boldness; we need confidence, when we think it is who it is we’re approaching. Let’s realize, the God we are approaching is the God of Sinai. He’s the God that descended to the top of Mount Sinai in fire, and terror was on everyone who surrounded that mountain, and the ground was shaking under their feet. As the author is going to tell us later, “The sight was so terrifying that Moses said, ‘I’m trembling with fear.'” So that’s the God we’re approaching. If you don’t think you need boldness to approach a God like that, you don’t know him. You don’t know who he is, “Our God is a consuming fire.”(Paraphrase of Deuteronomy 4:24) So to be able, as a sinner, to draw near to the throne, we generally would be drawn near to be executed. So the Holy Spirit works that conviction on us, makes us realize that’s who we are. We deserve to have been executed, and so we need boldness. Think about, even Queen Esther knew that if she came into the presence of the king uninvited, without access, without a kingly warrant, she could be executed. That was the law, the Medes and Persians. She could be executed. So she took her life in her hands to approach even her own husband because, in that case, his office was emperor, king of the realm. You can’t just be having any person, even your wife, come into your presence without access. But we have access. When Esther came into her husband’s presence, he extended the scepter to her, and she touched it, and she was welcome now. Jesus is the scepter extended to us. He is the new and living way open for us. So we have someone who is basically, if you can imagine in the antechamber, before we enter the throne room, Jesus is saying, “Do not fear. The King is my Father. Everything I ask him to do, he does. He loves me, and you’re with me. So come, let’s go into his presence.” So now we have confidence because of the word that he spoke. “You are welcome here. You are forgiven. You are seen to be in me, perfectly righteous.” So let’s come. Let’s not stay away out of terror that he will strike us dead, but let us have boldness to enter.
Joel
What is the significance of the words, “Throne of grace”(Hebrews 4:16)? What are we seeking to find here? And what is God extending to us?
Andy
First and foremost, grace always has to do with sin. I never see grace applied to holy angels. They don’t need it. So grace has to do with us in our sin. It covers our sin. Then that’s the conduit of many blessings that flow into our life, which are themselves called graces from God. So fundamentally, then grace has to do with sin. So what you’re going to find at the throne of grace is forgiveness, but you need more than forgiveness. We need to be transformed. So we don’t sin like that anymore. So we need to find mercy from God. Also, sin has done a lot of things to us that don’t have to do with our volitional sinning. We might have a disease. We might have cancer, and that’s in the world because of sin, Adam’s sin, but we’re still going to need grace and mercy because of our affliction. Or it might be somebody that we love that has some affliction like cancer, or it could be some poor person that needs finances. But fundamentally, we’re drawing near to the throne to receive forgiveness of sins and covering and a transformation that he can give, “Would you please make me different, change my heart, change my nature so I stop sinning in this way?” So let us draw near. Also, I want to say about this, the tendency in our pride is to go fix it ourselves and bring the finished work that’s now fixed to the throne and say, “Look what I did.” And we must not do that. You can’t fix it yourself. So you’re messed up, you’re addicted to some sin, you’re sinning in some powerful way. Draw near with that thing; bring that mess to the throne, say, “Oh God, would you cover this?”
Joel
Yeah, because he says to, “Find grace to help in time of need.”(Hebrews 4:16) So if you think you can get it together yourself, you’re saying, “I don’t need you.”
Andy
Yeah. I think what wisdom comes maturity is, you realize every single moment is a time of need. Even if you haven’t volitionally sinned, as far as you know today. You’ve not violated your conscience today, you’re still needy. You’re being assaulted by the world, the flesh, and the devil. It’s a time of need. You need grace for protection, grace to filter the temptations. So draw near, draw near, draw near. Continually draw near. Pray without ceasing. Draw near to the throne of grace all the time. So let’s combine some images that are difficult to combine. So you got here a kingly image of a throne and coming into a throne room plus an agricultural image of, “I am the vine and you are the branches. Apart from me, you can do nothing.”(Paraphrase of John 15:5) So the idea is to continually be near or almost on the throne of grace, like we’re sitting in his lap. We’re going to reign with Christ. So get as close to that throne as you possibly can, all the time. Say, “Oh God, I need You. Cover my sins. Help me. If You leave me, I will sin. There’s no doubt about it, but if you’ll help me, I will not sin. I’ll stand firm in this temptation.” So let’s draw near, draw near, draw near to the throne of grace.
Joel
Do you have any final comments on verses 12-16?
Andy
Yeah, read them. Read them again, and just keep reading, and reading and just the helpful headings of the word of God and prayer is just so helpful for me. It’s just like having been convicted and instructed by the living and active word of God. Having realized someday I’m going to have to stand before God and give him an account, I want to just go right into his presence. Let’s get it done right now. Show me where I’m sinful. Help me to change. Help me to live out a life of repentance. Oh, Jesus, be my inner seat or my mediator, and stand in between us and help me because, oh, is this a time of need? I am instructed by the Word. Right now is the time of need, right now. Then we can do the same for others. We can intercede for others. We can be praying for others. So yeah, I would just say read, saturate yourself, memorize these things, and take advantage. Obey them. Read the word of God and draw near to the throne of grace.
Joel
Amen. That was episode 9 in the book of Hebrews. Please join us next time. We’ll talk about Hebrews 5:1-10, and we’ll dive more into this concept of Jesus as the great high priest. Thank you for listening to the Two Journeys podcast, and God bless you all.
