A Lord's Supper Devotional

Heb 10:19 Therefore, brothers,

     since we have(bold) confidence to enter the holy places

          by the blood of Jesus,

          20 by the new and living way

               that he opened for us through the curtain,

               that is, through his flesh,

     21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God,

22 let us draw near

     with a true heart

     in full assurance of faith,

     with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience

     and our bodies washed with pure water.

I so love the Book of Hebrews!

since we have(bold) confidence – Before Christ came there was no confidence or boldness to enter into God’s presence. Humanity had no indwelling presence and only fear and loathing.

to enter the holy places  - If you went into the Lord’s presence and weren't permitted to, you could be struck dead. If you were a priest and you went at the wrong time, you could be struck dead. Why? Because of our sinful nature.

But now, by the blood of Jesus – Because the perfect Lamb of God, not a dumb lamb, goat or bull, shed his blood, the way is open. God wrath is assuaged.

And, 20 by the new and living way – New as it is the New Covenant, and Living because none of the old sacrifices lived. Jesus alone rose from the dead!

he opened for us through the curtain,  that is his flesh – As the Veil separated the Holy from the Holiest, and blocked the approach of man to God, so the body of Christ veiled His divinity! Humans had no access through the veil except at God’s beck and call, and not without blood. But to grant access, through the Body of Christ, to God; Jesus gave up His life for us on the cross. Because the body was ‘broken’ and died, along with the blood shed, we have Boldness to enter. Both Body and blood are invoked here, just as in Christ’s last supper.

21 and since we have a great priest – The priest is the go-between, between God and Man. Priests are chosen by God, they're human, and they accept and perform the duties of priesthood.

So the writer is saying, Jesus is both Priest and the sacrifice!

And because of these things - 22 let us draw near – That is God’s Goal! To draw his bride near to Him. He paid a high price for it because He loves us so. And since He loves us He wants us to draw near. Not in some pretend Romantic play, but…

with a true heart – Not with the heart of wickedness and deceit, but a heart changed by the application of Christ’s character. This is done in counterpart to the application of His righteousness to our standing before God, when God conforms us to the image of Christ, and sanctifies us. Psa 51:6

in full assurance of faith – reminds us there is no righteousness, alluded to by “true heart”, without faith! Abraham believed and it was credited to him as righteousness. Without faith it is impossible to please God. So this faith, granted to us, is required, and it accompanies the true heart as we draw near.

with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience – Another allusion to Old Testament ritual is seen in the sprinkling. Blood of sacrifices was sprinkled on both items and people who were being consecrated to God. The evil conscience reminds us that our conscience and self-awareness includes evil and wickedness but also the misery of guilt and the results of sin. But the blood shed for us, and the sprinkling suggests it is applied to us, so that both wickedness and guilt are removed.

and our bodies washed with pure water – often considered an allusion to Christian baptism, it is another reference to ancient ritual, as when Aaron and his sons were bathed with water as a part of their purification as priests.

These sprinkling and washing references are most important to the passage precisely because they do invoke the picture of the sanctification of priests under the Old Covenant. Because in the New Covenant all God’s people are His Royal Priesthood. It is because of this that we all have access to God and may, in fact are called and commanded to, Draw Near!

So Draw near today. Draw Near in Worship, giving God praise for all He has done, for who He is and specifically for Jesus Christ opening the way for us to draw near.

Draw near in prayer, as we bare our hearts to Him and make our requests known.

Draw near in taking the Lord’s Supper as a reminder of His work, a reminder of our current salvation, and a reminder of His return , to once again draw us to Himself, only this time with eternal bodies to be with Him for ever and ever.

Forever Eternally Imperishably Saved Part Dos

Second, let’s consider scriptures that talk about the “How” of Salvation:

Eze 36:25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. 26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.

See all the “I wills” of God here? God does all those things not believers. If you can reject God after salvation what happens to the new heart and God’s Spirit He gave you? That which is eternal cannot die by nature of the fact that it is eternal.

John 1:12  But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

Faith produces sonship, but new birth (regeneration) is strictly the work of God. It has NOTHING to do with man’s will. We do not ‘choose’ to be born. (1^st time or 2^nd) What happens to a New Creature if he rejects Christ? Can he cease to be a new creature?

Eph 2:1 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2. in which you once walked, following the course of this world...

Eph 2:4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love... 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ--by grace you have been saved-- 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,

 

We were dead. We could not repent and believe until we were made alive. Drowning men can grab a lifeline, but Dead men can’t. Also see: Col 2:13 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses,

Jas 1:17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights... 18 Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first-fruits of his creatures.

Salvation is a gift, as are repentance and faith[1]. The word “Grace” means gift. If you ‘could’ choose to believe it would not be entirely of His Will.

Act 16:14 One who heard us was a woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira... who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul.

Why did God open her heart?

1Co 2:14 the natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.

            You see, the ‘natural’ man cannot receive the things of God. That would include the gifts of faith and repentance. He must be changed by regeneration in order to understand, believe, repent, follow etc.

            Yes! People do have a will. There are many places where choices made by humanity are called for and even required. “Choose you this day whom you will serve...”, “Come unto me all who labor...”, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ...” There is such a thing as man’s will, but no where in scripture is man said to have a free will. Maybe, in the Garden before the fall, man had a free will. (I still don’t think he could fly so his will has always been limited to some degree, because our will is always limited by our abilities.[2]) But after the fall, man’s will was limited all the more.

            What did the Fall of Adam produce?

Gen 6:5 “The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”

            Man’s fallen will is corrupted and has little to do with Salvation. Man was bent toward sin.[3] He sinned “Freely” not under compulsion to sin, but sin was a necessary outcome because his nature was sinful.

            God’s nature is Holy. Does God have a free will? Well, let’s consider this. He only does good and He does not sin, why? Because, He acts according to His nature; which is Holiness and Love, He is merciful and just, and all powerful.

            The whole idea of "Totally Free" will in man is false and irrelevant. In effect it wants to say, Man doesn’t need God’s intervention. And THAT makes it dangerous, too. Satan may be said to have started this delusion when he said to Eve, “You shall not surely die.”

            Men who insist on their Free Will are insisting in contradiction to the Sovereignty of God, or the Perfect Foreknowledge of God, or both.[4] Being locked into the idea of "Free Will" People often come to scripture and force the paradigm they they believe in onto what Scripture says. All of us are capable of doing that. But we need to see scripture for what it truly teaches not what we want it to teach. 

Once one realizes that salvation begins with God’s initiative and God’s act to regenerate, however, one realizes what God makes eternally alive, no man can kill!

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[1] Eph_2:8 by grace you’ve been saved through faith. And it is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,

[2] God, it could be said, has no limit on His abilities.

  Rom_5:14 Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam.... 1Co_15:22 For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. 

[4] I used to hear God described as a Gentleman who won’t force you to do His will. First, nowhere does the Bible say God is a gentleman. Second, He does in fact force Hell on sinners who don’t repent.