The Teaching of Righteousness


 

In my last article I talked about how the writer of Hebrews was encouraging the believers to whom he was writing to move from the milk of belief to the meat of solid doctrine. They had failed to study and practice what they had been taught and should have been reading in what we now call the Old Testament as well as the letters and the teachings of the Apostles which had been working their way around to the churches. I don't know if the recipients of this letter had received Paul's letters to the churches or if they received their teachings from Peter or the other Apostles. I guess after a little bit of consideration, in my mind it seems unlikely that this letter to the Hebrews was from Paul, as he had moved to concentrating his work among the Gentiles. But whoever had brought them to salvation and whomever was writing this letter to them, it is clear that the Hebrews seemed to understand that salvation was the destination when it is really just the start of the journey.

Since these believers had not moved on from the first step of the acceptance of the gift of salvation through submission to Jesus, they had no understanding of "the teaching of righteousness" that the author mentions in Hebrews 5:13. Like many Christians today, there is a lack of understanding of what is expected of them after having accepted Christ as their Saviour. I don't think it is necessarily fair to blame the Hebrews for their lack of growth and forward motion in their faith walk. Like all new believers, they needed someone to come alongside them to disciple them in God's Word. This was a brand new teaching and belief system to them. They were moving from reliance on strict adherence to the Law for their redemption to a system that didn't seem to ask much of them at all. They had grown up being taught that they had to obey God by obeying the Law, but if the Law no longer had sovereignty over them as the only way to God, they had to figure out what to do, since their position with God no longer relied on their own efforts. What does obedience to God look like when the letter of the Law no longer rules? They had to now determine the spirit of the Law in order to understand what this new way of living was supposed to look like.

As I mentioned earlier, if these believers were not lead to Christ by Paul, then they may not have received Paul's letters to the churches, in particular, his letter to the Romans. A few years ago I was reading Romans six when I discovered for myself the steps of faith from salvation to eternal life. This is not to say that eternal life as it is understood has to be earned; it does not. There is, however, a path that is placed before us which we are expected to walk as we walk with God. Again, salvation is merely the first step.

 Let's start by first looking at Romans 6:16-22;  "Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness? 17 But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed, 18 and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. 19 I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, resulting in further lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification. 20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. 21 Therefore what benefit were you then deriving from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the outcome of those things is death. 22 But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life.

Now remember, the above is taken from a letter written by Paul to Gentile believers who were living in Rome. They had previously been living completely apart from God. The Romans believed in many gods, including the deity of their Emperor. The Gentiles in Rome were coming from a pagan belief system and were getting introduced to a system in which they recognized only one God and His rules for righteousness. The Hebrews were coming from the complete opposite end of the spectrum. They had already known the One God and the rules that has been implemented since the time of Moses. But these rules were only a shadow of what was to come later, and this change occurred in the lifetimes of these Hebrew believers.

The Romans made themselves slaves to a multitude of gods who had their own rules for obedience and the earning of their benevolence, whereas the Hebrews had already made themselves slaves to the One God, but the rules of the Old Testament, as given to them by this One God, were intended to point them to the knowledge of sin and judgment while not actually delivering them from that judgment. Even though Adam and Eve had attained the knowledge of the difference between good and evil when they ate of the fruit in the Garden of Eden, that knowledge apparently didn't include the knowledge of what God considered good or evil, this is why God had to give mankind the Law so they could determine what was good and what was evil.

But the Law was just a signpost pointing to God. The Hebrews were now slaves to the Law, and thereby they were slaves to God. But while God was the Master of the Law, the Hebrews still did not know God. They were merely slaves to the system which was supposed to point them to God. Just like in modern Christianity, there were those living under the Law who adhered to the rules but had no relationship with the Life Giver, while there were also those who could look past the Law to the Law Giver and were able to cultivate a relationship with Him; men such as David and the prophets.

So now the Romans were being told that obedience to God, as their new Master, would result in righteousness with God, and this obedience began with the recognition that Jesus was the Son of God. In the case of the Old Covenant, righteousness was achieved through obedience to the Law; in the case of the New Covenant, the Law was no longer the end-all be-all of righteousness. Just as the Sanctuary in the desert was a shadow of the Temple that was to come, adherence to the Law, the old covenant, was a shadow of the new covenant. Now the Hebrews had to learn the lesson that the Romans had learned from Paul, and we need to make sure that we learn it too.

So we already know that the acceptance of the payment of our sin debt, salvation, saves us from the judgment of eternity away from God in Hell. That's a good place to start, but what does verse 16 say? We are either slaves to sin that leads to death, or we are slaves to obedience which results in righteousness. So once we have accepted the gift of salvation, there is the expectation of obedience to God, and this obedience results in our righteousness, or our state of being right with God. This should be a wake up call to some people who claim to have accepted the gift of salvation but have not done anything to further their relationship with God. You may have dodged a bullet, but you may be about to get clubbed! You are not yet right with God. Salvation is assured; blessing and heavenly rewards are not. Remember, there is a dichotomy; either sin or obedience. If you are not obeying, then you are sinning. I have sometimes stated that there are many people who believe in God and who say that they love Jesus, but when they get to eternity they will find that they do not get a mansion. They will find that they will enter the gates of paradise and be pointed to what will amount to a cardboard box or a tent along the wall that surrounds the city of gold, and this will be because they have not understood the requirement of obedience and everything that follows. Only those who obey and progress can expect a mansion in glory.

Now we look ahead to verse 19 where we learn that because of our continued and continual obedience that has lead us to attain and retain righteousness, the result is that we have become sanctified. Sanctification is the setting aside of something or someone for a purpose. The instruments of the Temple were purified and sanctified for the specific purpose of ministering before God. If we are sanctified for God, this means that we are devoted to Him and to service to Him. There are many ways that we can serve Him in the church, but this does not necessarily mean that we are sanctified to God. I believe that true sanctification means that we are prepared to do what God tells to do, when He tells us to do it, in exactly the way that He tells us to do it. Whatever, wherever, whenever, however. There are admittedly not many people who get to this level of commitment to God. It may require a greater sacrifice than we are or think that we are willing to make. We can never know the extent to which God is going to call us to sacrifice until we actually make that commitment, so if you are committing yourself to sanctification, be prepared to be surprised at what God may ask of you.

Now we move on to verse 22. As we work to obey to righteousness and we are sanctified by God to His purposes, we are assured of eternal life. There is eternal life available at salvation, prior to sanctification and even before righteousness, but I do not hold to the notion that once you are saved you are always saved. One can receive salvation and then turn away from all that God would have them do. One can obey to righteousness, until one stops obeying and forfeits their righteousness. But once we have obeyed and become sanctified to God, then our salvation is assured. My belief is that if you ignore God long enough, He will no longer consider you His child. But if you keep walking the path of faith, progressing from obedience to righteousness to sanctification, you are committing your life to God and your eternity will be assured, and this seems to be laid out in the Scriptures that we are looking at today. How else can we interpret that eternal life, or at least the assurance of it, comes as a result of all of these steps?

I once used the following illustration for some young people that I was talking to. When you receive salvation, your name gets written into the Book of Life. Everyday that you live for God your name gets written over again, tracing the letters that had been previously written. But if you fail to live for God, the letters do not get traced for that day and everyday the letters will fade a little bit. This will happen more and more until at last, if you have forsaken God, your name will have faded right out of the Book of Life, and it is this Book in which you want your name found at the end of time (Rev. 20:12 & 15).

I don't believe that a person can say some words at one point in their life and assume that, regardless of whatever they do for the rest of their days, they will have assurance of an eternity in God's presence. I just don't think that the Bible offers this doctrine. The best way to assure your salvation is to continually walk with God, obeying His instructions to you, striving to remain right with Him and committing yourself to Him for His purposes, whatever they may be. I believe that this is the "teaching of righteousness" that the Hebrews had failed to grasp by their failure to move of from the spiritual milk of salvation. This is the meat of sound doctrine that they were encouraged to consume.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this article. Please leave me a note in the comments section below.

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