Discipline Through Godly Sorrow - Hebrews Part 3 - Jason Willis

One of the ways that God disciplines His children is through our sorrow of sins, that deep sorrow that we have after we've sinned against God. That's not something that the world experiences. They sin, sin, sin, and there's no sorrow.

So last week we looked at Hebrews chapter 1, verses 1 and 2, and we got a little bit into verse 3. And today we're going to finish up verse 3, and we're going to look at verse 4. And just to remind us of where we left off last week, we'll read 1 and 2 again. So God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in times past to the fathers by the prophets, He has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed to be heir of all things, and whom also He made the world.

Who being the brightness of His glory and the expressed image of this person, and upholding all things by the word of His power. And this is where we left off, so let's pick up here. So I found an article on a website called theblueletterbible.com. It might have been.org, I'm not 100% sure.

And it had a very fascinating way of illustrating this particular verse, the idea of Christ upholding all things by the word of His power. And it was a pretty long article, so I'm not going to read the whole thing. I'm just going to kind of summarize it and give you the gist of it. And for the record, the article, it makes some scientific claims that I didn't take the time to actually verify all of them. This comes with a 100% unverified, no satisfaction guarantee on the scientific aspect of all of the details.

We're going to talk a little bit about our existence, the existence of all things, really. We're going to be looking at the existence at the atomic level. Thank you, Patrick.

And though I'm getting this data from secondary sources, I have heard this explained many other times from the scientific community, including grade school. I learned a lot of this in grade school. So I believe the data to be credible, but you can really dig into it yourself if you want to know for sure. So let's talk about the atomy of atoms that make up everything. They consist of three components. We have protons, neutrons, and electrons. In the center, there's what's called a nucleus. And this is made up of protons and neutrons, and those are the red balls and the blue balls you see on your screen there. The pink balls outside are the electrons, and these orbit the nucleus much like the planets orbit around the sun.

So now let's talk a little bit about the scale of an atom. So if a proton, one of those red balls, were the size of a basketball, then the electrons would be about the size of a golf ball. So the electrons are smaller. So if this were the size of a basketball, then this here would be the size of a golf ball.

And the distance between the nucleus and the orbiting electrons, that distance of empty space, would be about five miles away to scale. So think about that. If I stand here and I hold a basketball, and I give you a golf ball, and you get in your car and you drive five miles down the road, and you get out and you hold up that basketball, to scale the distance of empty space would be five miles. That's how much empty space is in that atom.

So think about the incredible emptiness that exists at the atomic level. Some have put it this way. This means that atomically speaking, you don't exist more than you do exist. Physically, you are more nothing than you are something. And then the article goes further to illustrate it by saying this: If you took all of the atoms that make up your body and you removed all of the empty space within the atoms between the nucleus and the electrons, you would exist in a size of about the speck of a dust.

And so keep that in mind. We're going to shift gears just a little bit, and we're going to discuss the intense, repelling nature of positive and negative charges. And we all know about this concept through what we all know about magnets. Magnets have a positive charge and a negative charge, and built into God's design are laws of electricity, which include the fact that like charges will repel each other, and opposite charges will attract each other. We see on the screen here, this is a magnet that's just literally floating there.

It defies gravity. It just floats in midair because the two positive sides of the magnet are facing one another there. And the opposite is true of opposite charges. If we turn that magnet upside down, the top one upside down, then we have this.

So it just attracts the other and just smashes the magnet. So to put these two ideas into perspective, if you had one tablespoon of positive charges, talking about only positive charges, remove all the empty space, solid positive charges, and you place that at the north pole, and then you've got another tablespoon of positive charges, and you set it at the south pole, it would take 33 tons of pressure to hold those positive charges to the Earth. That's 66,000 pounds of pressure that would be required to keep those positive charges from repelling each other and flying out into outer space.

And this is where it gets interesting. In the atomic structure, there is an interesting phenomenon in that there are positive charges clustered together in the atom of the nucleus, which is contrary to Colombo's law of electricity, which tells us that there is a repelling force of positive charges.

So let me explain this. In the nucleus, there's two things. We talked about protons and neutrons. Now, neutrons are neutral. They're not positive. They're not negative. But along with the neutrons, there are clusters of protons, and all of these are positive. And what this means is that in the very nucleus of an atom that makes up the world that we live in, there are clusters of positive charges that by all accounts should be repelling each other, but they're not. Somehow, they're all being held together tightly.

Try to put the positive poles together of a magnet, and you'll find that it takes force to hold them together. You can put them together, but you have to hold them together by force, but because of the laws of positive charges that they will repel each other. Yet within the nucleus of an atom, we find clusters of these positive charges defying the laws of electricity. Now, we have humans. We have learned that we can upset the balance of a nucleus of an atom. We can allow the positive charges to flow as they naturally want to. And this is how we get the atomic bomb, through atomic fusion. What we're doing with the atomic bomb is we are upsetting the balance, the structure inside of the nucleus of the atom, allowing those positive charges to be released and to stop being held tightly together the way they do.

And we know the tremendous power that was unleashed when we dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. What is amazing is that the same amount of power that was released from those bombs, equal power is necessary for those atoms to remain held together.

So God has created an interesting universe in that there is a self-destruct mechanism built into every single atom. It was all spoken into existence by His word, and it is all held together by the power of His word. For all things to cease to exist, all He would have to do is simply let go, to stop holding things together with the word of His power.

Boom. So who being the brightness of His glory and the expressed image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power. Let's move on. When He had by Himself purged our sins. Now, the Greek word for this purge is katharismon. It means a cleansing or a purifying.

The ESV and the NIV translations say it this way. They say, "After making purification for our sins," which I think gives a little more clear understanding, at least in my mind. But interestingly, both the ESV and the NIV, they leave out the phrase or the words of Himself or by Himself, which I think is one of those Old Testament shadows of Jesus that we see. In Hebrews 9:7, it talks about the Old Testament when the high priest would go into the Holy of Holies once per year to make atonement for the sins of the people. It says, "But in the second part," this is talking about the Holy of Holies, "the high priest went alone," that's key, "once per year and not without blood," that's another key, "which He offered for Himself and for the people's sins committed in ignorance."

So the high priest would enter into the Holy of Holies by Himself alone to make atonement for the sins of God's people. And this was a shadow pointing to Christ who would by Himself purge us of our sins or cleanse us of our sins.

Now, I don't remember exactly where I've got this next part here. It was probably from a YouTube video, but it was a speaker talking about how when Jesus was tempted by the devil in the desert, that an angel came and ministered to Him. And then before the cross, when He was in the Garden of Gethsemane, that an angel came to minister to Him there.

But when He was at the cross or on the cross, there was no one there to minister to Him. That He went to the cross alone to by Himself purge our sins. Like the high priest entering into the Holy of Holies by Himself and never without blood to make atonement, the Son likewise went to the cross by Himself and not without blood to be the perfect sacrifice and to make atonement for the sins of His people.

And then afterwards, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high. Now, John Chrysostom, commenting on this verse, he said, "For in saying He sat on the right hand and in saying having by Himself purged our sins," though Paul has put into our minds the image of the cross, he quickly adds the reference to the resurrection and the ascension. And notice His unspeakable wisdom. He did not say that He was commanded to sit down, but instead that He sat down.

Here we get the picture of the Father not commanding the Son, that the Son ascends into the heaven, and He walks into the throne room of God. And without a word needing to be said, He knows His rightful place. He walks right up and He sits in His rightful place at the right hand of the Father above all things. And this term on high, it means to be above all things.

So a little recap of where we're at so far. So in times past, in many ways, God has spoken to man through the prophets, but we have now entered into the last days, now that the Father has spoken to us through His Son. We learned about that last week. And the Son is greater than the prophets in all respects. He is the Alpha and the Omega, the brightness of the Father's glory, the expressed image of His person. And all things exist through the Son. And He holds all things together with the power of His word. And He has by Himself purged our sins. And now He sits at the right hand, His rightful place at the right hand of the Father.

So that's verses 1 through 3, establishing that Jesus is greater than the prophets. Now, the next verse is verses 10 through 14 or so, which we won't get to today. Jesus is going to make a comparison to the angels. We'll begin to get to that today. But before we do, I would like to camp a little bit on this idea of Jesus cleansing us of our sins.

Question: Is there something that believers must do in order for our sins to be purged or cleansed by the blood of Jesus? It's an open question. Are there anything that we must do in order for this to, excuse me, take place in our lives?

Any ideas on that?

Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and all shall be saved. Very good. Anything else?

Initially, baptism. Baptism. That's what I was thinking. It was on my mind after this past weekend. And now, why are you waiting? Arise and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on the name of the Lord. Now, listen to how Clement of Alexandria describes how God deals with our sin before baptism versus the way He deals with it after baptism. And Melita and Braden, this is something that I wish somebody taught me when I was your age. This is something that I didn't get until I was almost 40.

Those who fall into sin after baptism are those who are subject to discipline, for the deeds done before baptism are remitted or purged or cleansed in baptism. However, those deeds committed after baptism are purged through discipline. Now, I think another good translation for this word discipline is repentance. When you see the word discipline, I think that you can put repentance there. And I say this because repentance and discipline are like peanut butter and jelly. They're definitely not the same, but they surely do belong together.

A couple of Tuesdays ago at Rich's house, don't see him here today, we have a Bible study at Rich's house on Tuesdays, and we were talking about how repentance and discipline and how they're tied together. And in my own experience, I see that one of the ways that God disciplines His children is through our sorrow of sins, that deep sorrow that we have after we've sinned against God.

That's not something that the world experiences. They sin, sin, sin. There's no sorrow. But part of our discipline is that sorrow that we have. And it's hard for me to tell which one comes first. It's like the chicken or the egg. Does the sorrow come and then it lead me to repentance? Or does that sorrow flood my soul of them as I'm in the midst of repentance? I don't know. But I do know that this, that discipline and godly sorrow and repentance are tightly knit together.

So Clement says that before baptism, our sins are washed away or remitted in that baptism, and then sins committed after baptism are purged through discipline and repentance. And then now listen to how Hermes describes the way that God deals with our sin after baptism. He goes a little bit deeper. He says, "These are the ones who have now heard my commandments and repented with their whole hearts."

Three things listen for. When the Lord saw that their repentance was good and pure and that they were able to remain in it, then He ordered their former sins to be blotted out. So again, he's not talking about the sins that committed before baptism. Those are washed away. But this is the process that God deals with our sins through repentance after our baptism. And this quote here has had a huge impact on my life. Huge. And to be honest, it's a little scary because of this phrase right here, and that they were able to remain in it. This phrase implies something.

It implies that it's possible for me to think that I'm in a state of repentance, but that God has not seen yet that I'm able to remain in it. That my efforts at this moment do not necessarily mean that my sins have been blotted out of the books.

Now, I know I could get some pushback from this with some people, but keep this in mind. I'm speaking from my own life, my own experience. After reading this over and over, I kept thinking to myself, "You know what? I know that the writings of Hermes, they're not scripture.

It is possible he could be in error." Then immediately the question would flood my mind, "But what if he's not wrong? What if he's right?" And so I went through a time period where I studied what all of the early church fathers taught about repentance, and I learned that what I believed did not in any way line up with what they believed. They were opposites. Opposites. Complete opposites.

And so there's something else I want you to keep in mind as we think through this, is that I was baptized as a teenager. And then after that, I dove headlong into sin for about two and a half decades. I was drinking. I was doing drugs. I was growing drugs. I was fornicating. And the whole time, all of that time, I had this idea that I had an unrevocable one-way ticket to heaven. I believed that. That was the reality to me. I would be drunk and stoned and looking at porn. And that very hour, sometimes 10 minutes later, I would be on my knees, still drunk, thanking God for sending His Son to die for my sins.

I'm describing what my life was like. What a slap to the face of God. After spitting in the face of God for so many years on end, the question is fair. How long must I remain in my repentance before God sees that it's good and it's pure and that I'm able to remain in it? How long must I remain here before my sins are actually blotted out of the book?

Who knows? Maybe it's the moment that you ask. Maybe it's just beyond your next temptation that you have victory in. Maybe it's different ways for different people based on where they're at in their lives. How can we know these things?

These days, I find myself praying like this, "Father, I beg you, please let me live long enough to repent of this. Please let me live enough days for this." Listen to how the apostolic constitution says it. How do you know, "O man, when you sin, whether you will live a sufficient number of days in this present state in order for you to have time to repent?" How do you know? You have enough days left. For the time of your departure out of this world are uncertain. And if you die in your sins, there will remain no repentance for you. This is the apostolic constitution. This was written somewhere around 375 AD.

But you almost never hear this spoken in this world. People will say, "Well, you know, Jason, you don't need to be so hard on yourself. God's forgiven you." How do you know that? How do people tell that to me? They don't know what kind of sin I practiced. They don't know. You don't know how hardened somebody's heart is to just proclaim to someone, "Oh, they've forgiven you so quickly with so few details."

How do people know the minds of God? "Well, you know, Jason, God wants you to have assurance of your salvation." Well, yeah, of course He does. If He didn't, He wouldn't have given us 1 John. But let me ask you something. What's more important? What's more important? My own assurance of my own salvation or my own fear of God? The Bible doesn't say that the assurance of your salvation is the beginning of wisdom. It says your fear of God is the beginning of wisdom.

And it might sound like I'm on a soapbox a little because I am a little bit. These were dangerous things that were taught to me. The Jesus loves you, don't be so hard on yourself response to the confession of sin, it's not good for people. It's not safe for people.

I didn't need someone to tell me that Jesus wasn't mad at me or that I was in the dispensation of grace or that I needed to not be so hard on myself. I needed someone to tell me that I was spitting in the face of God. And that if I didn't repent, He was going to crush me. That's what I needed.

But I couldn't get that from the Protestant world.

Assurance of salvation is a great and beautiful thing. I am not denying that in any way. But wisdom says this. If you read 1 John and then afterwards, you're still questioning your salvation, then do not seek for someone to help convince you that you're saved. Don't do that. Instead, seek the fear of God. Seek to tremble before the mighty God of creation. Seek the fear of God that will lead you to a repentance that leads to obedience. Do everything in your power to walk in the light as He is in the light and fear Him who can and will destroy both your body and soul in hell if you practice sin and live an unrepented life. 1 John says, "But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another."

And here's where it is. And the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanses us of our sins. So this ties it to Hebrews. But there's a condition. If we walk in the light as He is in the light, then we have fellowship with one another and the blood of the Son cleanses us of our sin. And this ties us right back to Hebrews when He had by Himself cleansed us of our sins.

So I'm off my soapbox there. Now let's move on to the angels. This should be the last verse we get to today. Having become so much better than the angels, some translations say having become so much more superior than the angels, He has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they. Now, things are a little different for us today than they were for the Jews.

If we say that Jesus is greater than the angels, it's kind of a no-brainer. Well, you know, Jesus is God. The angels are not God. Okay, duh. Jesus is greater than the angels, right? But we should remember a few things. Number one, angels interacted and appeared to men more often in times past. They may interact just the same amount today. I can't know that. But they definitely don't appear and manifest the way that they did in the past, seemingly from both sides.

We see less demon possessions or obvious demon possessions today than what it seems to happen in scripture. Again, I'm not saying these things are happening. I believe that Satan's tactics have actually changed, at least in our parts of the world, that he seeks to present the idea that spiritual things just don't exist, that all this religious stuff is just primitive superstition that kooky religious people simply haven't evolved out of yet.

That's Satan's approach to it. Number two, the second thing we need to remember is that the Son has spoken. God is not using angels to be the messenger to mankind any longer. We learned about that last week. His word has been revealed, spoken to us by His Son, and the canon has been closed now that the apostles have passed on. But the Jews had a much more hands-on experience with angelic beings than we do today. And we need to keep this in mind.

The prophets spoke God's word and performed miracles, but prophets were still men. Angels, on the other hand, were supernatural beings in the heavens who appeared to the Jews throughout their history. In the first century, angels represented one of the closest experiences with the heavenly realms. In the first century to the Jews, angelic beings represented one of the closest experiences that they had with heavenly realms. When God showed up so often, it was through a messenger.

The Jews had a different fear of angels. In a quick search, I found 15. I spent less than two minutes, and I found 15 times where angels appeared to men, and the first thing out of their mouth is, "Do not be afraid." Then in 2 Kings, we have one single angel slaughtering 185,000 men in one night. That's 23,125 men per hour, per eight hours straight.

In Revelation, John sees an angel, and what does he do? He falls on his face, and he begins to worship the angel, and the angel says, "Stop. Don't do that." And then later, like one page later, he sees another angel, and he falls on his face, and the angel's like, "Dude, stop. Don't do that."

It's difficult. It's hard for men to know even how to act in the presence of an angel. We're talking about John, one of the three men who had the privilege to be on the Mount of Transfiguration with Jesus, and he's seeing an angel and he's fallen to worship.

So let's not be too hard on the Jews. They had a different relationship with angels.

It is understandable how the first century, many Christians were confused about how they should relate to Jesus. Is He only a man, or is He only God? Some may have been tempted to see Jesus as a part of the angelic creation. After all, they were often sent by God as messengers, and they did mighty deeds. So you can't blame them for thinking maybe Jesus was some kind of angel, a very special angel. The idea could easily creep into the early church because of the long history that Jews had with angels.

Now, that was a quote from Mike Mazzalongo. And for the record, I listened, I think, to two sermons of his on YouTube. I don't know much about the guy. I don't know what church he goes to. I don't know where he stands on key doctrines. I don't know, but I felt like that quote was I felt like he was spot on, so I put that in there.

So this sets the stage for next week where Paul is going to be laying out his case for why Jesus is superior to the angels. And he's going to do this by quoting different Old Testament passages and showing how these Old Testament passages were actually prophecies that were fulfilled in Jesus Christ.

So we have about 5, 10 minutes left, so we can open it up for conversation. These are just the four points that we talked about today, just to jog your memory for conversation's sake. So yeah, if anyone had any comments or anything you would like to add or questions, feel free.