201 - Divine Discipline [B]

Hebrews Lesson 201    June 17, 2010

^NKJ Romans 8:28 And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.

Open your Bible to Hebrews 12. We are in a very important section of Hebrews beginning with verse 3 where the focus is on the discipline in the spiritual life, divine discipline. Now unfortunately when most of us hear the words "divine discipline" the first thing that comes into mind is some sort of punitive action from God because of spiritual disobedience. That really isn't the primary focus of divine discipline. That is one aspect of it. Discipline itself is a training term. It is to discipline someone who has no self -control, no boundaries to limit that which is unprofitable, and to focus on that which is spiritually profitable. It is learning to exercise self-control, which is a fruit of the Spirit to live on the basis of wisdom, which is really an Old Testament concept that was fairly well developed in especially in the Old Testament book of Proverbs. 

In Proverbs the contrast is between wisdom on the one hand and foolishness on the other hand. Wisdom is an outgrowth of spiritual training and spiritual education in the Torah, learning the instruction of the Word; using "Torah" in its broader sense. Usually we think of Torah meaning the Law; but the root idea in "Torah" is just instruction – the instruction, the teaching the training of the individual believer whereas foolishness is the opposite. That's what occurs when somebody lacks discipline and lacks control and lacks training and lacks education. The consequence there is usually where punitive action comes in in various different ways. For the believer that is progressing even though there are times when it may seem like it's punitive action; it is not that.  It is simply training us to be controlled in our spiritual life.

I ended up the last class going over this chart that I developed many years ago. It's a flowchart to help us understand the overall plan that God uses in our life. It starts with salvation, and salvation is very simple in the Christian life. Salvation comes simply by faith in Jesus Christ who said:

^NKJ John 14:6 …"I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.

Jesus made a very exclusive statement. That means that either He was telling the Truth or He was lying. If He was lying, He was the greatest deceiver in all of history. If He was not lying, then He was telling the Truth and therefore we should listen to Him. 

He claimed to be the only way because all throughout history God always set up exclusive ways of obedience. There was only one way to survive the Noahic flood – to be on the ark. There was only one way to enter into the Tabernacle to worship God. There was only one way to enter into the Tabernacle.  There weren't many gates or entrances. There was only one. Any one who entered into the Tabernacle or Temple had to do so on the basis of a blood sacrifice, which indicated that sin had been dealt with in terms of cleansing. This was usually covered under the concept of atonement. Atonement – often translated by a Greek word meaning cleansing in the Septuagint and also had the idea of satisfaction or appeasing the justice of God that the penalty for sin had to be taken care of. 

At least three of the offerings that were necessary that were described in the first part of Leviticus all had to do with the cleansing, the atonement for sin. There was the burnt offering, the sin offering and the guilt offering. All these had to do with dealing with the problem of sin, the problem of guilt. A person is saved by trusting Christ as Savior. And that's spiritual infancy also referred to as spiritual birth, regeneration, being born again, becoming a new creature in Christ. 

Then we have tests. As we grow up, we go through various phases of testing. It happened when you grew up. You went through all kinds of tests, situations that challenged your volition. That's what a test is. It's not necessarily something that is a major event. It is that you have learned something. 

I remember when I was 3 or 4 years old and my parents decided it was time to start teaching me some table manners. So we would learn how to properly hold a knife and fork and spoon. 

Then the next night it was, "Okay. How do you properly hold a fork?" 

So you learn something and then there's an evaluation and testing and reminders. Then when there was failure to do it right, there was some sort of punishment. If you did it right, then there was praise. The punishment wasn't harsh. I don't if it was rapping me on the knuckles. I might have acted like that or made me think that but that never happened. 

So we go through life with tests. Any time we come into a circumstance where we have a choice between applying the Word of God or not applying the Word of God – that's a test - whether it's a small situation, small event or major event. That always brings into focus our volition – how we decide. 

That is the key issue in life. We become the results of the decisions that we make. So we can either choose to be obedient to God and walk in fellowship with Him or we can choose to be disobedient. On any given day we will live part of the day choosing one way and part of the day choosing another way.  That is the nature of human existence because of sin. We often make wrong choices for a variety of different reasons. 

When we follow the path of obedience, this is the cycle that we begin to follow. It produces divine good, i.e. a "good" that is the result of the energy (the power) of God the Holy Spirit working in our life. It produces a quality of life that is beyond that of what we can expect normally without the involvement with God. It also produces the evidence in our life that obedience to God is a good thing. 

That produces endurance. Endurance leads to spiritual maturity and this whole cycle is described as walking by the Holy Spirit. 

James 1:2-4 is a foundational verse for understanding this procedure. 

On the other side when we go in the other direction then when we disobey God (violate His character, violate His standards), that's sin. But we can also in living in independence from God we can do morally good things. But because we're doing them even in disobedience to God it is not something of value that has eternal value or spiritual value so we refer to that as simply human good. This also (living on the basis of the sin nature) leads to a temporal death. Life is not what it ought to be. If we continue this we can come under a lot of divine punishment for disobedience. This is also destructive in our life. A lot of the divine discipline that we get is simply the result of our own bad decisions or self-induced misery. This leads to a spiritual weakness or instability and then eventually if we continue in that mode of rebellion then it can lead to spiritual regression and what the Bible refers to as a hardened heart. That is a standard progression. 

Then at the end of life there's an evaluation that takes place. For the believer the focus of the evaluation is not to decide whether you've done enough good deeds to get into heaven or not. Your eternal destiny is a result of deciding about Jesus Christ. You trust in Christ, your destiny is heaven. Now the issue is in terms of future roles, responsibilities and rewards at the Judgment Seat of Christ.  So the evaluation is on how much is produced in terms of our spiritual walk and that which is produced in the upper cycle is rewarded. That which is produced in the other cycle is lost. There may be a loss of rewards and temporary shame. 

So this is basically a flowchart you can look at to give you an idea of how God is working in terms of preparing us for the endgame, which is the ruling and reigning with Christ in the kingdom and in eternity. That's the endgame – living today in light of eternity. 

Another way of looking at this chart is in the 3 categories. 

1. We have the first phase, which is where we are freed from the penalty of sin – phase 1. There is no more death in terms of eternal death and separation from God. 
2. Phase 2 is the spiritual life where we learn to live free from the power of the sin nature. 
3. Then phase 3 where we are free from the presence of sin in righteousness. 

So this then presents the overall flowchart.

Let's go back and pick up a few things I didn't quite cover as we got into this section beginning in verse 3. I want to go back and point out some other things and bring us up to date and maybe we will get down to verse 7 or 8 tonight. 

Verse 3 is an explanation coming out of the first 2 verses. The first 2 verses present the conclusion coming out of chapter 11, but also lay the foundation for this exhortation that comes – the challenge that comes every believer. The teaching section in this last teaching section in Hebrews was chapter 11 about faith, about using the examples of the Old Testament saints to show that there are those who live in light of eternity. They focused on their destiny. They focused on the promise of God even though it wasn't fulfilled in their lifetime; even though they didn't in the case of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob they didn't see the land. They didn't see the conquest or the possession of the land. They knew that it would come far off. We saw that in our study Tuesday night talking about the New Jerusalem that they knew that there was a city, a heavenly city a city not built with human hands and that was their destiny. So they lived in light of that. Their future destiny motivated their present reality.

Then we came into verses 1 and 2 where we are to focus on the Lord Jesus Christ and His spiritual life – occupation with Christ. 

^NKJ Hebrews 12:1 Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses,

Now I pointed out that there is a metaphor that runs through this whole chapter. This metaphor is a race metaphor. It's an athletic metaphor of someone who is in an athletic contest, a race in a stadium. The witnesses who surround him are those who have gone before. They're witnesses in a sense of the examples of their lives. 

This isn't teaching that those who are dead are in heaven watching us on earth. That would be a complete distortion and misrepresentation of the metaphor.  It's an athletic metaphor that runs through the whole thing comparing the Christian life to running a race and the importance of reaching the finish line and not quitting half way through because you get tired and weary or distracted - so keeping our focus on the endgame. 

^NKJ Hebrews 12:1 Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,

I said this is comparable to the whole concept of confession of sin. Before we can run (which has to do with forward advance in the spiritual life) we have to remove that which distracts us, which is sin. That doesn't mean that we clean up our life along the way. It's not a works oriented thing because we can't do that following the athletic metaphor.  The athletes in the ancient world ran – I mean in the Greek contests - ran naked. They stripped off all of their clothes so there would be nothing – the togas wouldn't get in the way. Nothing would hinder them or distract them in running the race. They had to remove their clothes before they could run the race. 

Now we carry that over to the spiritual life. That means that it can't be talking about completely removing all areas of sin or disobedience to God before we can ever have a spiritual life. That would be impossible. No one can do that, unless you have a very shallow view of sin. 

There's always a few people you run into who don't think they're sinners because they don't really understand what sin is. Sin isn't the worst 5 things that you can think of or the 3 worst things you can think of. Sin is anything that violates the standard of God. It can be anything from self-centeredness and self-absorption, arrogance, pride. These are some of the major sins that are mentioned in the Old Testament. We often think of the overt sins as the worst sins; but those are simply manifestations of underlying mental attitude sins that are among the worst. Bitterness, anger, resentment – these are also sins. All of these make up sins and often you find people who say, "Well you know, I haven't sinned in 10 or 20 years." Then you just put them in front of a computer, have something go wrong and have them dial customer service. Then you find out whether they sin any more or not. It doesn't take long.

It's impossible. That's the whole point of Scripture. Man can never on his own measure up to God. He can never on his own meet God's high standard of absolute perfection. Only God can do that. And in grace God has provided that for us so that we can have the sin problem dealt with by someone else which is the substitutionary sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross. Because He paid the penalty then when we trust Him, His righteousness is credited to us. It's on that basis that the believer is justified or saved. 

So the laying aside of every weight and sin is confession and then moving forward. I pointed out the Greek construction there indicates the precondition for running is laying aside the weight.

But we run the race by:

^NKJ Hebrews 12:2 looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher

Who is the pioneer or the progenitor (the initiator)…

of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Now what happens starting in verse 3 is an explanation of that developing this out in terms of application to the Christian life.

^NKJ Hebrews 12:3 For

…indicates that explanation.

consider Him

...means that we are to focus our attention on Him. It's a thought word. We are to meditate, contemplate and reflect upon His life.

who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your soul

We will never face the kind of opposition He faced. He did not grow weary, discouraged. He didn't give up. He didn't go off and have a little pity party. He didn't whine about it. He continued to have a perfect joy because of His focus on God's plan. 

^NKJ Hebrews 12:4 You have not yet resisted to bloodshed,

Jesus did.

striving against sin.

^NKJ Hebrews 12:5 And you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as to sons: "My son, do not despise the chastening of the LORD, Nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him;

Now he is going to quote from the Old Testament from Proverbs 3:11-12. I want to spend a little more time going over this again today, looking at the differences here. The quote in the Greek that's in Hebrews 12:5-6 comes from the Septuagint. As we've seen all the way through our study of Hebrews the writer of Hebrews (like most of the New Testament writers) was quoted most of the time from the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament – the Greek translation being known as the Septuagint. So the Greek behind the text is a little different from what you find in the Masoretic text, but when the Holy Spirit uses that and brings that into the New Testament under the principle of inspiration; then it is legitimized as correct because it does communicate something that is true. 

So the quote as we read it in verses 5 and 6 of Hebrews:

^NKJ Hebrews 12:5 … "My son, do not despise the chastening of the LORD, Nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him;

^NKJ Hebrews 12:6 For whom the LORD loves He chastens, And scourges every son whom He receives."

Now the first key word to recognize here or phrase really is "My son." This is addressed to someone who is within the family of God, not every person who is born is in the family of God. God is not a person's Father simply because He is the creator of all. Scripture teaches that there was a distinction between those who were His and those who were not in the Old Testament. Israel is an adopted son of God. Israel has the right to address God as Father, but the pagan Gentiles who rejected Him did not. The same principle was true in the New Testament. Those who were rebellious against God were addressed as being of their father the devil, not those who had trusted in God. They were in the family of God. 

^NKJ John 1:12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name:

So we have the whole concept of adoption that when a person believes in Christ (when a person becomes a believer) at that point he enters into the family of God and cannot be removed from that position. So "My son" addresses believer. 

do not despise the chastening of the LORD, Nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him;

The first verb there to focus on is "despise" which is from the Greek word oligoreo which means to think lightly of something, to despise it, to ridicule it, to think of it as being insignificant, to disrespect it. So don't have disrespect for the discipline of the Lord. Don't treat it lightly as if it is insignificant. Don't have a shallow superficial attitude toward it.

Now what is "the chastening of the Lord?" This is really the key word that opens up this entire section down through verse 11 for either the noun or the verb here carries through in every verse that we have from 5 down through 11. 

Here we have the noun form paideia, which has to do with upbringing, training, instruction or discipline. The fact is that in the ancient world especially in the Greek culture, paideia was a term that referred to the training of the child. Once a baby was born in the house, then it was understood that that child needed to be trained so that they could function with maturity in the culture, in the city. The Athenians had their view of paideia related to how they understood a productive citizen. The Spartans had a slightly different view because of their strong emphasis on military training. So the way they instilled the discipline and the training varied; but it all came under the same category. It had to do with the kind of training and instruction and discipline that a parent would instill in a child, so that by the time they reached adulthood they could be mature and productive members of society. So this is the idea of paideia or the verb is paideuo. We have both forms in the next 5 verses. 

In this section of the New King James version the translator always used the same English word to translate a form of paideia.

So don't despise this training. We could translate it that way because it's not just penalty or punishment here. It's focusing on the fact that God wants to train you to be a mature believer. That's the endgame – not to stay in diapers, not to wallow around, mess in your diapers in the spiritual nursery of the local church, but to reach a level of spiritual maturity so you can be a productive believer in living out your Christian life. 

It's been almost 20 years now since I went out to a pastors' conference in Arizona (in Phoenix) back in the early 90's. John Miller was the pastor of a church out there. I think it's Glenwood (Glen-something), a suburb of Phoenix. One of the speakers was Earl Radmacher. Earl at the time was the chancellor of Western Conservative Baptist Theological Seminary. They had opened up a campus in Phoenix. He was the head of that campus so he was speaking on the spiritual life. He made what I thought was one of the most insightful comments and observations about modern Christianity. He said that the evangelical church in America was the largest nursery in the world. The biggest problem was that there was hardly any nursery worker (by analogy that means a pastor) who had any idea how to get the babies out of the nursery. 

In fact I would add to that by saying that the problem that we have today is that by the philosophy of ministry adopted by almost every pastor in this country, they are trying to get every believer back into the nursery and to keep them there. They don't have a clue what the goal is. They just want to go in and entertain everybody on Sunday morning. They only give them shallow superficial teaching. 

Now it always seems to me – why is it that the one hour of the week that the pastor has the largest audience that he gives them nothing more than baby food?  Physically, a person cannot receive the kind of nourishment and the kind of vitamins and everything else that he needs – the kind of diet that he needs to grow and become a healthy adult if all he eats is baby food. At some point you have to feed them adult food. They have to have a more complex diet so that everything can grow. The muscles can grow. The bones can grow, and everything can grow, and they can be strong and healthy, physically mature adults. 

By analogy the same thing is true in the spiritual life. We see the analogy used by Peter. We've seen this in 1 Peter 2:2 that we are to desire the sincere milk of the Word that we may grow by it. He's using "milk of the Word" there not by contrast to meat as Paul did but simply as a source of nourishment. It's the Word that produces growth; and if you're not taught the Word, then you can't grow as a believer. What we have is churches that teach at such a superficial level on Sunday morning – people cannot grow beyond the depth of teaching they're receiving. So if you never put more than an inch of water in the swimming pool, nobody will ever learn to swim. If you think of the teaching of the church by analogy as the depth of the water in the pool, the water has been getting shallower every year for the last 50 years until now it's so shallow that nobody ever has to swim. So they can be very comfortable by going to church and never having their pagan existential humanist pragmatic American worldview challenged by the teaching of God's Word. That would be too disruptive and then they would have to figure out how to swim. Of course they can never do that in an inch of water. There is no concept of training, and part of the job of the pastor is to fit within that training agenda by teaching the principles of the Word of God.

Then the Holy Spirit takes that and He's the one who applies it in your life and your thinking. Then God is the one who supervises the events in our lives so that we get the opportunity to apply it. 

So I just have the simple part of that and that's teaching you the principles. God has the rough part of the plan, and I don't get involved in that. Now, when we look at those two ideas there - that we don't despise the training, we recognize that we are in a training program. 

Now the verses that we looked at in 5 and 6 quote from Proverbs 3:11-12.

^NKJ Proverbs 3:11 My son, do not despise the chastening of the LORD,

There you see the word discipline is used in the English versus chastening. 

Nor detest His correction;

^NKJ Proverbs 3:12 For whom the LORD loves He corrects, Just as a father the son in whom he delights.

Now here when we get into the Old Testament, we have various similar concepts. We have the word despise there that is the translation of the Hebrew ma-as indicating – don't reject it, don't despise it, don't ignore it. Same idea, don't treat it lightly. 

Then the word for discipline in the Hebrew is the word musar, which has the idea of discipline. But it comes from the root word which means to bind something. See what discipline really does is it binds your selfish, self-oriented self-absorbed desires so that rather than going out and just doing whatever you want to whenever you want to you learn to discipline yourself (to control your desires and your appetites) so that you can be productive in any endeavor whether you're talking athletics or arts or music. If you don't learn to discipline yourself (to restrict yourself) from doing things that will not allow you to achieve your goal, then you will never get anything accomplished. 

That's the idea in binding is learning to restrict your life so that you don't do the things that are not profitable for you that would not allow you to achieve the end goal and for the believer that is the end goal of spiritual maturity. 

It's a reminder of the verse that we find in Proverbs later on, Proverbs 22:15.

^NKJ Proverbs 22:15 Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child; The rod of correction will drive it far from him.

That should be mounted on every parent's door, every child's door (or something) today. That's the same idea that we were talking about earlier with binding. It is that if you have a child and you never discipline and you never instruct you never teach, you just always let them do whatever they want to do and give them whatever they want whenever they want it, you know what the result is. It's someone that no one wants to be around ever. You develop a child that is totally self-absorbed, goes way beyond any notion of being spoiled and somebody who will become a sociopath and criminal before they're 10 years of age. 

There has to be both positive training and negative punishment in order to teach responsibility and the fact that there are consequences, and sometimes negative, harsh consequences to bad decisions.

Now we come back to this idea of discipline, emphasizing this control so that it emphasizes the fact that in the last sentence there in the definition the purposes of this discipline was to restrict man's impulses to evil. Now a lot of people have problems with what the Bible teaches about sin. 

I referred to this on Sunday morning. Recently I read an editorial from the New York Times I think. It was a book review written by a man. He was an atheist. 

He said, "Evil really is a legitimate concept."

His premise was right: that you can't talk about evil unless you can talk about God. It was an odd statement for an atheist, but we live in a world where people don't think consistently any more. 

As George Bernard Shaw said, "Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. Why bother yourself with being consistent all the time?" 

But anyway, that was his point. Now he went on to define evil as an event that was way beyond the norm in human criminality or bad deeds. He should have stuck with his original premise related to God because in the Bible evil is always related to God. In the Old Testament evil was always related to the rejection of God. All those kings in the Northern Kingdom of Israel did evil because they what? They followed after the sin of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat in terms of idolatry. They were disloyal to God. I mean they rejected Him and worshipped something else. 

Now in Judaism they recognized this principle very much that a person can either go in the direction of evil or the direction of good. In Judaism there are two principles – the Yetzer hara and the principle Yetzer hatov. The first is the principle of evil. That last syllable in the second word there (ra) is the Hebrew word for evil. This refers to the evil inclination that one is born with. People can and do choose to do evil things. 

But there is also the fact that they can choose to do good. They can have an inclination to do good. So this again emphasizes the principle of volition. That's inherent in the Old Testament. 

Now it's interesting that in the Old Testament there are actually 7 or 8 different words that are used to describe sin. I'm just going to focus on 3 of them this evening. We find all 3 of these in a verse back in Exodus 34:7. I've included verse 6 to give us a context for these verses. We read this Isaiah 34:6-7. We read first about God and His goodness and His grace and mercy. See you can't ever talk about sin (or you shouldn't) without first making sure people understand about God's goodness and grace. God is a merciful God. God understands that man cannot do anything about his sin and his iniquity and that God and God alone can do something about that. So we have a wonderful statement here in verse 6.

^NKJ Exodus 34:6 And the LORD passed before him and proclaimed, "The LORD, the LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering

Now mercy and grace are two of the most important concepts in the Bible. Grace means unmerited or undeserved favor – that God is going to treat man, not as man deserves to be treated but in terms of goodness because of who God is and not on the basis of what man does. So God is going to extend to man again and again and again His grace, His kindness, His goodness – giving man chance after chance after chance, opportunity after opportunity to turn to God.  God is not up there wanting to squash every man like a bug every time you make a bad decision or do something wrong. The Lord is merciful. Mercy is the application of grace to a specific situations and events. He is longsuffering. That means God puts up with our rebellion and sinfulness to give us time to make decisions to turn to him. 

and abounding in goodness and truth,

^NKJ Exodus 34:7 "keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin

See those 3 words pretty much completely circumscribe sin. All of sin falls into those 3 categories. So God forgives iniquity and transgression and sin. 

by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children's children to the third and the fourth generation."

That's dealing with those who do not seek God's forgiveness for iniquity and transgression and sin. 

So we have these 3 words here, and I'm going to start with the third word because that is the more all-encompassing word. It's the Hebrew word chatah. It means to miss something, to miss the target, miss the mark, miss the way. It's to come short of a standard, as a result of missing the standard, falling short in terms of obedience. It brings about guilt (legal guilt) because you broke a law. You violated a commandment, mitsvah. You have broken the commandment.  So, you have incurred guilt. 

There is a need there for purity. So it's used to describe the sin offering and the purification from uncleanness in a sin offering as well. But we have this word in some key passages. In fact if you want a couple of passages in the Old Testament to show the universality of sin. Go to Isaiah 1 for one particular verse and Isaiah 64:6 is another. Those are as good a place as any to establish that. 

Isaiah 1:4 in addressing the nation with God's indictment, Isaiah says:

^NKJ Isaiah 1:4 Alas, sinful nation,

There we have the word chatah. The whole nation is sinful; every one of them. It doesn't mean that there weren't those obedient to God but that all had committed sin. 

A people laden with iniquity,

Awon, which will be a second word we'll look at in a second for sin is usually translated "iniquity". 

A brood of evildoers,

There we have the word ra which is not one of the 3 words I'm looking at; but that is another word that is used to describe sin in the Old Testament. 

Children who are corrupters!

See children aren't these little innocent – in God's viewpoint children are not born innocent. They are born capable of sin and evil. 

They have forsaken the LORD, They have provoked to anger The Holy One of Israel, They have turned away backward.

So it's an indictment to the whole nation that they have rejected God. Now the second word that is also seen in that verse is the Hebrew word awon, that is translated usually iniquity, sometimes guilt or the punishment for guilt. This also comes from a root word that means twisted. So you have somehow twisted in terms of violating the standard of God. A principle of truth or truth itself has been perverted or twisted. So it came to mean iniquity, a perversion or a twisting of God's standard. 

Isaiah 1:4 says that the people are laden with iniquity. Does that apply to all people? Well, Isaiah 64:6 seems to suggest that. There Isaiah said:

^NKJ Isaiah 64:6 But we are all like an unclean thing, And all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags; We all fade as a leaf, And our iniquities, like the wind, Have taken us away.

All of us - he included himself. We will see that in a minute in Isaiah 6 when he goes into the presence of God in heaven. He says:

^NKJ Isaiah 6:5 So I said: "Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, …

Even the best prophet, the best priest, the highest individual in the Old Testament still was a sinner, someone who was guilty before God. 

^NKJ Isaiah 64:6 But we are all like an unclean thing, And all our righteousnesses

Not our unrighteousness, but all of our righteousness – the very best that we can do Isaiah says are like filthy rags in the sight of God. We just can't get to the point where we can be perfect as God is perfect and holy as God is holy. 

And all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags; We all fade as a leaf, And our iniquities,

There's our word. 

like the wind, Have taken us away.

Paul says it the same way in the New Testament that we've all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God – same idea.

Isaiah 13:11 is another case of using this word. God says:

^NKJ Isaiah 13:11 "I will punish the world for its evil,

That's ra. 

And the wicked for their iniquity;

That's the whole nation. The punishment that he's talking about is the removal of the nation under divine discipline in 586. So he's not talking about simply a subset. The whole nation is viewed as having rejected Him. 

I will halt the arrogance of the proud, And will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible.

The root sin is arrogance, pride.

Now here in Isaiah 6:7 we have the same word iniquity used awon when Isaiah is in the presence of God as he says:

^NKJ Isaiah 6:5 So I said: "Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, The LORD of hosts."

⁶ Then flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar: {having...: Heb. and in his hand a live coal}

 ⁷ And he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away,

See God provides the solution for removing the guilt of sin. The last phrase…

and thy sin purged.

The word that is translated "purged" there is the Hebrew word kaphar, which is where we get the word translated "atonement" – Yom Kippur. Kippur is a form of that word for atonement.

Why did Israel need to have a Day of Atonement every year if they did not recognize that all in the nation were sinners and needed to be – and that sin needed to be purged by the sacrifice on the Day of Atonement? Yet that sacrifice had to come year after year after year. There was not a permanent fix from the sacrifice. 

Zechariah 3:4 uses the same term again. And this is another tremendous picture of what we teach as the doctrine of justification by faith and the imputation of righteousness. This is a vision Zechariah has before the throne of God. YHWH is speaking to the Angel of YHWH. So you have two divine persons there, which indicate that there is a multiplicity in the deity in the Old Testament. You have a number of passages that indicate that:  the Spirit of God, the Angel of the Lord and the Lord. 

^NKJ Zechariah 3:4 Then He answered

God is being challenged. Satan is challenging God as the accuser.

and spoke to those who stood before Him, saying, "Take away the filthy garments from him." And to him He said, "

The scene is you have Joshua the High Priest standing before God. He's wearing his filthy garments.

Satan the accuser says, "How can he serve as the High Priest? He's guilty." 

So God says:

See, I have removed your iniquity from you, and I will clothe you with rich robes."

That is what we teach as the imputation of righteousness. We are born with unrighteousness. All of our righteousness is like filthy rags. That has to be replaced (covered) with clean garments. That's the righteousness of Christ. When you trust in Jesus Christ as your Savior, His righteousness is given to you.  Then when God looks at you, He doesn't look at your sin, your failings. He looks at the righteousness of Christ and for that you are declared just. 

^NKJ Zechariah 3:4 Then He answered and spoke to those who stood before Him, saying, "Take away the filthy garments from him." And to him He said, "See, I have removed your iniquity from you, and I will clothe you with rich robes."

^NKJ Zechariah 3:4 Then He answered and spoke to those who stood before Him, saying, "Take away the filthy garments from him." And to him He said, "See, I have removed your iniquity from you, and I will clothe you with rich robes."

That applies to every single human being - can have their iniquity removed from them and flow with rich robes. 

We see this word again in Isaiah 53 dealing with the Suffering Servant. This is one of the greatest prophecies of the Messiah in the Old Testament.

^NKJ Isaiah 53:11 He shall see the labor of His soul,

That is God would see the work of the Messiah …

and be satisfied. By His knowledge My righteous Servant

That is the Messiah who dies obviously in the passage.

shall justify many, For He shall bear their iniquities.

Justification only comes because the Righteousness Servant is the one who bears our iniquities, not us. The Righteous Servant is the Messiah of Israel, the Lord Jesus Christ. 

Then we have the third word that we're looking at for sin and that is the word pasha. It refers to rebellion or revolt and that is the essence of sin that man is in rebellion against God. He revolts. Every time you disobey God it's a rebellion against God. Isaiah 1:2 (again the first chapter of Isaiah) reminds us of this, uses this terminology. Again it starts off addressing the heavens and the earth just as Moses did when he lays down the indictment to Israel (the warnings) and the blessing and cursing prophecy of Deuteronomy 28-8-30. Isaiah says:

^NKJ Isaiah 1:2 Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth! For the LORD has spoken: "I have nourished and brought up children, And they have rebelled against Me;

Sometimes this word is translated as transgression as in Isaiah 1:28. 

^NKJ Isaiah 1:28 The destruction of transgressors and of sinners

Pasha

shall be together, And those who forsake the LORD shall be consumed.

There is judgment for those who are disobedient. 

This word is also used in relationship to atonement and the Day of Atonement in Leviticus 16:16.

^NKJ Leviticus 16:16 "So he shall make atonement for the Holy Place, because of the uncleanness of the children of Israel,

The whole nation! That is why they had to have a Day of Atonement because every one sinned. 

and because of their transgressions, for all their sins; and so he shall do for the tabernacle of meeting which remains among them in the midst of their uncleanness.

So the word "transgressions" is the word pasha. 

We find it in Isaiah 53 again in the passage dealing with the work of the Messiah, the Righteous Servant. 

^NKJ Isaiah 53:5 But He was wounded for our transgressions,

He was bruised for our iniquities;

There's that word again awon for iniquities. 

The chastisement for our peace was upon Him

He was punished so that we could have peace with God.

And by His stripes we are healed.

Also in Isaiah 53:12:

^NKJ Isaiah 53:12 Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the great, And He shall divide the spoil with the strong, Because He poured out His soul unto death, And He was numbered with the transgressors,

The Suffering Righteousness Servant is identified with the transgressors so that He can bear our iniquities.

And He bore the sin of many, And made intercession for the transgressors.

So when we look at the principle of discipline in Hebrews dealing with the Old Testament passage we have to recognize that what underlies that is the issue and the problem dealing with sin. 

Now when we come to looking at the second part of that phrase in verse 5 –

^NKJ Hebrews 12:5 And you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as to sons: "My son, do not despise the chastening of the LORD, Nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him;

Now this is one use of the word chastening that uses a different word. All the rest of them use a form of the word paideuo, but this one uses the Greek word mastigao, which refers to whipping, flogging scourging; a strong harsh word for punishment, for being chastised. So the Lord is going to bring even harsh discipline if necessary in order to bring the disobedient believer back into line. 

Why? Because God is mean? No, because He is a loving God. He wants us to be the best we can be and to grow to spiritual maturity. So whom the Lord loves He chastens.

^NKJ Hebrews 12:6 For whom the LORD loves He chastens, And scourges every son whom He receives."

Here we have the word scourge. That's the word mastigao. Chastens is paideuo. So He chastens and scourges. I got confused there with the slides. Scourges is mastagao. 

^NKJ Hebrews 12:7 If you endure chastening,

As God starts training you, don't be like one of those whiny little kids who wants to complain that he's having to be disciplined and having to be trained. 

God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten?

Both words there are paideuo  - that you are trained. If you are in the family of God, God is going to start training you. No exceptions!

Then verse 8 tells you if you are an illegitimate child.

^NKJ Hebrews 12:8 But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons.

See that phrase "of which all have become partakers" is the writer recognizing that those to whom he is writing have been going through this process.  He's not questioning their salvation. 

He is saying, "You've all become part of this process. You're not illegitimate. Of course those who don't would be illegitimate and not sons"

Then he goes on in verse 9 to use the illustration of human fathers.

^NKJ Hebrews 12:9 Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live?

In other words quit trying to rebel and leave Christianity just because you're going through a training process. Don't give up. Stick with it. 

^NKJ Hebrews 12:10 For they indeed for a few days chastened us

That is, the human fathers.

as seemed best to them, but He

That is God the Father doesn't. 

for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness.

So that's the end game, is our sanctification.

Now we'll stop there and come back next time and pick it up in verse 11 and then follow it on down into the next section which is a very important section in verse 12 especially picking up the whole athletic race (athletic contest) metaphor in terms of strengthening the hands and evil deeds.