Posted by Randy Peterman on 6/28/2007
Hebrews 12:18-24 is a powerful passage describing the contrast of the Old Testament Law with the New Testament position that the saint has. The author of Hebrews writes with great brilliance as He points out the opposite nature of the Israelite at Mount Sinai and their relationship to the Almighty God and the saint’s relationship with the Almighty God in the New Testament. One involves trembling, a sense of conviction and separation and the other a comfort and certainty.
Tonight at Bible study we looked at this passage and I was so impressed by the visual descriptions. The graphical theology in this text is not unheard of in Hebrews, the author uses descriptive language to instill rich images in the mind of the reader, but this particular passage shows the weight of the Law in contrast to the waiting on the Lord. When you read this passage meditate on God’s unfathomable presentation of who He is in both places yet how God’s work through Christ changes who we are in the heavenly place. This is awesome. We are sanctified by the blood that allows us to be present with the judge of all humanity.
Posted by Randy Peterman on 1/3/2007
While the topic of this post is probably worthy of a book (which I probably would have to devote huge amounts of time to) I wanted to touch on the idea of God’s eternal nature. Often I hear, and just moments ago I heard it again, that our lives are like the lifespan of a gnat compared to the timeline of God. Does God exist only inside of the time-space continuum? Does God have to sit and wait? Instead I believe God looks over all of time and space at once (and as Norm Geisler says in his Encyclopedia of Christian Apologets, He knows every alternative futures as well).
God is eternal in history and future (to force a time vocabulary onto a non-time based God) as recorded in Psalm 90:1-3. If He has no beginning and has no end why would you take the powerful nature of God
and try to describe it in finite terms? Considering the discussion of time my 9th grade history teacher drew a long line across two very wide dry-erase boards and then took a piece of paper and scratched a minuscule slice out of the black ink on the baord and said, “That is the length of your life.” He then proceeded to tell us that the line didn’t start and stop on the board, but instead he explained that it went from end to end infinitely. Why would a secular teacher (who did not like Christianity) explain infinity better than a pastor in a sermon [I was listening to Joshua Harris in this MP3 message]?
Describing the beginning and end of God in a sermon illustration was not his point, his point was to describe the finite nature of our lives. However, it rings in my ears when I hear people describe our lives in comparison to God. The importance, as J. Harris explained later, is that we recognize the eternal nature of God and our residence in Him! In God you have eternal life, and that life is not bound by the time space continuum. You attempt to use the word eternal because it is a finite way to describe that which is infinite. Infinity itself is still a concept we try to grasp as humans because we want to think of infinity as being still within the constraints of knowledge. Is the pursuit of the infinite outside of God silly? Certainly, but if God was before the world and will certainly be after the world we should be resting in His eternal hands – trusting that we are not like gnats, nor are we like any other creating thing because our identity is within Him, the uncreated one.
Posted by Randy Peterman on 11/16/2006
Hebrews 8:1-3
1 Now the main point in what has been said is this: we have such a high priest, who has taken His seat at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens,
2 a minister in the sanctuary and in the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, not man.
3 For every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices; so it is necessary that this high priest also have something to offer.
This passage was part of the material that was covered in tonight’s Bible study that is taught by Elder Mike Doyle. This passage is in the greater context of Jesus’ Christ being qualified to be a priest due to His purity and perfection. That’s what the ‘such a high priest’ is in reference to. However, the passage is building on the platform of Christ’s high priesthood and emphasizing Christ’s current position on the seat next the God the Father’s throne. What is Christ doing on that throne? He’s ministering to us. Ephesians 1:3 says that we’re given every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places with Christ. Christ’s blessing ministry is ongoing in the life of believers due to the once and for all work on the Cross.
While there is a huge amount that can be gleaned from this passage the point that got me thinking was that Christ is offering to each and every believer every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies. We often focus on earthly wealth or earthly knowledge or earthly blessing. Do you walk in belief of your heavenly blessings right now? Christ is ministring them freely and abundantly. Have I been walking as though I have every spiritual blessing in my walk? No, the answer is that I haven’t been. However, I am now. I’m resting in the fact that I have been given those with my position in Christ.
Posted by Randy Peterman on 5/7/2006
The title of this post is not quite a double-entendre. The concept that I was thinking about was that God is all powerful and is limited only in the positive sense of His character. That is to say that He cannot do evil things, but He can love with his pure, infinite, perfect love. However, the ‘Nothing is too great for you to do,’ part of this title is actually the crux of the issue: we, as humans, want to do a whole lot. Doing nothing kills us. Which is a good thing. God wants us to rest in Him, but instead we often want to be active and eager about doing something.
Is doing nothing too great for you? If God’s word tells us to rest in Him, His works, His plan, and trust Him to conform us to the image of His Son, why do we find that rest to be such a challenge? Is it because we want to prove something? Do we want to prove God’s done something in us? If so, the rest should be our reaction, the world does something as a reaction, our reaction to God’s powerful work in us should be doing nothing of the flesh and resting in our relationship with the Holy Spirit. This doesn’t mean we won’t ever appear to be doing things outwardly, but it does mean that we’ll be doing things because inwardly the Holy Spirit has prompted us.
Ephesians 2:10 tells us that we will be doing good works that God has planned ahead for us to do. Those are sure-fire winners. Guaranteed gold for the rewards crowns we can look forward to heaven. It means that I don’t have to sit around wondering if I’ll do those things, I can ‘sit around’, instead, resting. Nothing is too great for me to do in the flesh, but the only thing I should be doing in the flesh if I’m walking in the direction and constant relationship of the Holy Spirit. Because those works are not too great for God!
Posted by Randy Peterman on 2/16/2006
As I’ve grown in my walk with the Lord there are a list of concepts that I have found to be revolutionary and rooting in my walk:
- Identificaion Truths
- Positional Truths
- Abiding
- Hermeneutics
- Understanding of Covenants and Dispensations
Identification Truths
This is the concept that is presented strongly in Romans 6 and various other places confirm and expound on the idea that we were identified with Christ in His crucification, death, burial and resurrection. We were identified with Christ and so we therefore are not slaves to sin. We still will sin due to our bodies being strapped to the sin nature but that is why Paul writes that we should reckon our bodies dead. Instead of focusing on the flesh we should set our minds on the things above (Colossians 3:1-3).
Positional Truths
This is the concept that my position is in Christ. Right now I’m hidden with Christ (Colossians 3 again) and no matter what I do in this human body I am baptized into Christ and cannot be seperated from Him. My relationship with Christ should be consuming and not my keeping track of my condition. My condition is what I’m experiencing now on the earth. My position is perfect in Christ due to my identification with Him, but my condition can at times not match my position. However, as we walk in fellowship with Christ we will have our condition match our position. This is the process of sanctification, there is no hindrance to our sanctification we will be conformed to the image of Christ, even if we have ‘Jonah’ moments where we walk in the flesh and try to walk away. Ephesians 2:10 says that God has good works planned for us, which means that even if he needs to bring about a large fish to relocate us, get a donkey to talk to us, or bring us to the bottom of things in our condition, He is sanctifying our lives and conforming us to the image of Christ!
Abiding in Christ
Instead of trying to figure out what righteousness looks like in a to-do list fashion we should be focusing on our relationship with Christ. This guarantees us a righteous walk and that we will exceed any set of rules or laws that we may be able to construct. Instead of trying to live down to laws, which only put us into bondage, we need to abide in Christ (see John 15) and this will produce the fruit of Christ in our lives. Don’t get distracted by junk that you can do, but instead be focused on Christ who will do pure and rewardable things in your life!
Hermeneutics
This is a consistent and methodical approach to reading and understanding scripture. Inconsistancy in interpretation is one of the major reasons that there are differences in believer’s theology (that’s a rather obvious statement, sorry). Paul tells us that we need to be united in our doctrine and I think that one of the big issues that I see today in the church is that we don’t recognize that the author of scripture (the Holy Spirit) had one intended meaning for what He inspired through the human writers. I have written about hermeneutics before, you can read it here.
Understanding of Covenants and Dispensations
Understanding the major sections of scripture and the agreements God made with mankind helped me get a feel for the plan of God for the world. Understanding the Noahic covenant was critical in grasping God’s plan for grace, capital punishment, God’s provision for eating meat, and God’s faithfulness in not destroying the world with another flood. Then you learn about Abraham’s covenant, which is really God’s covenant with himself to Abraham and his descendents. After that you learn about God’s covenant with Israel, God’s covenant with David and then the New Covenant in Jeremiah. Grasping these covenants, seeing who they relate to, when they relate to and how they fit into the timeline of scripture is awesome and something I suggest every believer study and grow in.
From there you can grow in many, many areas because of God’s word being so amazing, but those things really helped me grasp my relationship with God and helped me understand the Bible more wholely. Reading scripture (or listening) and understanding what your reading makes it easier to grow as well as discern when others are teaching law or mis-understanding God’s word because you know what it means with certainty because you have a consistent method and a broader knowledge of the Bible.
Resting in Him,
Randy Peterman