Reformed Evangelical Synod of America

Posts Tagged ‘book of hebrews’

Are you satisfied with who you are?

Are you happy with the way your life is?

If you aren’t would you say your life just needs a “mild tweak” to nudge it forward into “perfection”?

If it needs “something more” – how radical a change are you willing to admit you need?

As the Lord’s Day lections for Proper 19 in Year B continue the Church’s readings through John 6 (John 6:41-51), we find our Lord’s encounter with the Jewish leaders who despise His assertion “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” In our Lord’s response we find some of His most open assertions of His own diety and exclusive claims as the unique Savior of not only God’s ancient covenant people, but also, all nations of the world.

In dismissing their arguments against Him as the fountain of salvation because they recognize him outwardly as truly man but not as He who is truly Immanuel, God with us, He equates the logic they find so convincing to mere whining – the opposite of the blessing they should pronounce upon the manifestation of God’s true heavenly bread.

Jesus’ hearers are not condemned for their failure to penetrate the mysteries of the Holy Trinity – instead they are criticized for their spiritual presumption. In a practical sense, they denied their need for a Messiah who offered more than a superficial restructuring of the failed Old Covenant economy. The failure of that economy becomes the focus of passages such as Galatians 3:10-12 and the extended argument of the Book of Hebrews.

To the holy nation which is so clearly suffering the effects of God’s curse for their sin (Deut. 28:16ff) and even in Jesus’ Day only experiencing the preliminary blessings of the restoration promised by the prophets and yet to be fully revealed in the New Covenant (Ezek. 36:24ff), Jesus the Messiah offers more than they are willing to hope for! To those whose wedding day joy is about be stifled by the absence of wine, Jesus turns the water into wine (John 2). He offers the life that characterizes the love, joy, peace and transfiguring power of heaven itself to those who believe Yahweh only offers them some pale extension of the life known through Adam (John 3).

Their sin is in underestimating the grace of God and the power of God. They presume that they as an accursed people already have the fullness of light (John 1) and that they are not blind but are able to discern what the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ requires of them and has planned for them (John 9). Therefore Jesus says in John 6:49 “Your fathers ate manna in the wilderness and they died.”

Our Old Testament  lection from 1 Kings 19:3-9 is one of the many lessons from Scripture demonstrating our Lord’s point. When Israel was on  the verge of a complete apostasy under King Ahab, God’s prophet Elijah is raised up. Though empowered by the living God to defeat the prophets of Baal (1 Kings 18), in the hour of his need and human fear and weakness even the prophet who was taken up directly into heaven must be fed by bread from heaven. That manna which fed a generation in the wilderness did not suffice and God’s gracious sustenance from the Angel of the Lord’s own hand must be given for a new day.

Presumption on God’s grace from the past had become an obstacle to entering into the blessing Jesus comes into the world to establish. Presumption on past grace, then, means that they had established a new idolatry that trusted their present status quo as sufficient, as is, to inherit God’s blessing without the Angel of the Lord coming to not only give bread from heaven but to be the bread of heaven.

The One who becomes for us the bread of heaven unto eternal life gives Himself to those who trust not in the nourishment present in themselves or available to them by any natural means. He is the bread of eternal life to all those who feast upon His flesh through faith (6:47). Unlike the former bread given in the wilderness, this bread does not spoil by nightfall – nor do those who partake of this bread ever die (6:50). Like the bush through which God Almighty revealed His covenant name (Exodus 3:1ff) was not consumed, He who is heaven’s bread is likewise never consumed because He is the living bread ever pulsating with life in and of Himself and renewing  with heaven’s life all those who commune with Him.

Presumption on past blessing prevents present grace. It is true for us as well as these self-satisfied grumblers. We are in constant danger of embracing an idolatrous view of our own strength, our own spiritual capacities, and the status of our relationship with God and deny the radical transformation yet required in us. We too are an accursed people without hope except that which comes from feeding upon Jesus Christ.

This day there are those who trust in a distant baptism or a prior religious experience they equate with the operations of God’s Spirit.  Yet they walk in the way of sin and darkness. They declare themselves Christians and yet reveal by their lives they have not been known by God or been taught by Him. They – as much as Jesus’ hearers then – are in danger or worshipping an illusion of spiritual security. Instead all people are called to examine themselves and feed by faith upon Jesus Christ the Risen Lord and the bread of Heaven come down.

Will you give yourself to the One who can transform you radically? Will you lay down your life for Him?

A sermon with study notes is available here: Presumption On Past Blessing Prevents Present Grace