Reflection on Hebrews 6:17-20
Mine:
So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner after becoming a high priest after the order of Melchizedek.
Real:
So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.
Unified Diff:
8,9c8,9
< forerunner after becoming a high priest after the order of
< Melchizedek.
---
> forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after
> the order of Melchizedek.
One thing I really dig about this passage is God’s mercy and kindness towards us. As an example of this I’d take you over to Judges 6-10 for the story of Gideon.
Gideon floors me every time. The issue is that God seems to be really harsh sometimes (such as Moses and the exodus account) and at other times he’s unbelievably merciful. For instance, Gideon clearly does not have much intrinsic worth for the purposes of throwing off the oppression of the Midianites: He is not fighting but instead participating in the cowardly activities of the people around him, he isn’t strong, he’s not of a good tribe, etc. However, God calls him (his ‘might’ is that he longs to see the things that God had done in the past; he realized the nation’s barrenness!) anyway. But, then he questions it! First he’s too fearful to even destroy the altar of Baal and the Asherah tree in the daylight, then he refuses to go out against the Midianites until God confirms it to his doubting heart, twice, and then after his army’s reduced to 300 men, he gets a 3rd supernatural confirmation! Unbelievable!
In the same way the author of Hebrews is telling us about a mercy that God extends to us, which is that he’s not unwilling to prove himself to us. God, who has no intrinsic reason whatsoever to give us anything and who was ultimately betrayed by me and all of us, actually looks at our weak and doubting hearts and says, “I’ll give you assurances so that you don’t have to doubt”!
I love the connection with Jesus and us here. It’s such an awesome picture of his union to us through his atoning work. Jesus died on the cross and as a man (which he will be forever), as our high priest (which he will be forever), he entered into the place where we would never have been able to go on our own strength and merit and made a way for us to come after him. And, he did this on our behalf! Sw33t. ^_^
- On February 11, 2009 @ 6:00 am
- In Bible, Commentary
- Tagged 6, Commentary, hebrews, memorization
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