THE GOD OF PEACE-AND WHAT HE HAS DONE FOR US.
Hebrews 13: 20-21 Now the God of peace, who brought again from the dead the great shepherd of the sheep in the Blood of the Eternal Covenant, even our Lord Jesus, make you perfect.
Now in the last portion of the SECOND HALF-PRACTICAL.
Hebrews Chapters 10:19 - 13:25
Of a Life in the Power of the Great Salvation.
In the last portion of the TWELFTH SECTION
Hebrews 13:1-25
Love and Good Works.
BY THE REV. ANDREW MURRAY
This Epistle began by telling us that in all that Christ is and does it is God speaking in us. The great work of Christ is to bring us to God; His death and His Blood, His ascension and sitting on the Throne, all mean one-thing--- our being brought near to dwell in God's presence. And with what object? That God may have us, to Perfect us, and work in us that which is wellpleasing in His sight. Let no one think that the entrance into the Holiest is the end, it is only the beginning of the true Christ-like Life. It brings us into the right place and the right position, in which God now, in His Divine power, can work out His own power in us, can make us in full Truth one with Christ, and one with Himself, can work the likeness of Christ into us. The very nature of a Father.
We have reached the close of this Epistle. The writer gathers up all his teaching in the two verses of this beautiful closing prayer. As in it he commits his readers to God, the mention of God's name calls up all that he has said of God's work, and the first of the two verses is a summing up of all that God has done for us to bring us to Himself. Then follows, in the second the prayer, with its promise of all that we can count upon this God to do in us, that we may live worthy of Him. He points to the work God has done for us, as the grounds and pledge of what He Will do in us. This Epistle has revealed to us, God in Christ; it seeks to send us out into our New Life with the assurance that as wonderful and mighty and perfect as was the work of God in Christ for us, will be His work through Christ, by the Spirit, in us. Let each one who has listened to the call. Let us draw near, remember that he has been brought to God, that God may now reveal Christ in him, and, as completely as He perfected Christ, perfect each one of us to do His Will. The more we look to what God has done in Christ, as the pledge of what He Wills to do in us, with the more confidence will our faith accept, receive and expect it. And the more our desire is set upon the wonderful work God is yet to do in us, the more will our heart be fixed in adoration on God Himself as our hope and our joy.(Ezekiel 36:26-27)
The God of peace. This is the name by which we are invited to call upon and trust our God. Peace is the opposite of enmity, of war, of care, of unrest. Where everything is finished and perfect, there is Peace and Rest. God has set the Holiest Open for us, in token that we may enter into His Rest, and Trust Him to perfect His work in us. The Peace of God, which passes all understanding, can now keep our hearts and minds by Christ Jesus. Peace, an end of all care and fear and separation, has been proclaimed; the God of Peace is now waiting to do His work in us.
Who brought again from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep, in the Blood of the Everlasting Covenant. This Epistle has nowhere directly made mention of the resurrection of Christ. But this was not needful: all its teaching was based upon the fact that He who died and shed His Blood is now Living in Heaven. We have studied this Epistle in vain, and we shall in vain attempt to live the true Christian life, if we have not learned that our salvation is not in the death of Jesus but in His Life--- in His death only as the Gate to the risen Life. And so the God of Peace, whom we are now invited to Trust in, is spoken of as He who raised Jesus, the Shepherd of the sheep, who gave His life for them, from the dead. Scripture ever points to the resurrection as the mightiest part of God's mighty power; the God of the Resurrection is to be the God in whom we Trust for the work to be done in us. He has raised Christ, as the Shepherd, who watches and tends His sheep, through whom He will do His work. When we have passed through death to our self-will, ego and pride and the world and then to the ascension into the Heaveliest in Christ, this is seen by way of personal inspiration and revelation.
In the Blood of the Everlasting Covenant. We know how the Blood has been coupled in this Epistle with the Redemption of transgressions, the Opening of the entrance into Heaven, and the Cleansing of the heart from all conscience of sin. Were it not for that Blood-shedding Christ would not, no never risen from the dead. In that Blood, even the Blood of the Everlasting Covenant, which could only be made after there had been a Redemption for transgressions, God raised Jesus from the dead. It was the Blood that sealed the New Covenant, by which the Covenant Blessings of perfect pardon, of the New law now written in the heart and upon our mind, and direct intercourse with God were Secured to us. It is with the Blood that we conquer sin and death and hell, that now gives the entrance into Heaven, and cleanses the sinner's heart for the reception and experience of the Heavenly Life. And as those who are sprinkled with this Blood, the Secret of resurrection power, we are invited to Trust the God of the resurrection to work in us.
The God of Peace, who has raised Jesus from the dead in the Blood of the Covenant, make you perfect in every good work to do His Will. The God who perfected His Son through suffering to do His Will, until He raised Him in triumph over death to His own right hand--- O soul! This same God is waiting to do this same work in you in the same power. What He did in Christ for you is all for the sake of what He is now day by day to do in you. All that you have learned of the wonders of His redeeming work, and His receiving you into the Holiest, is that you might now confidently Trust and expect Him to take possession of you and perfect His work within you. Oh, let us draw near and enter in, in the restful, adoring assurance that God Will perfect us in every good thing.
1. Peace Is Rest. To Know the God of Peace Is to enter the Rest of God. And until the soul rests in Him In Sabbath Peace, God cannot do His higher, His perfect work.
2. The works of the Father and the Son for us find their completion in the work of the Holy Spirit within us. All the objective revelation is for the sake of the subjective experience, the mighty power of God working in the heart of His child what He longs to see. It is in what God makes us, that the power of the redemption in Christ is proved.
3. By faith. Here more than ever this must be our watchword. Faith that sees, receives and accepts and dwells in all God has done for us in Christ, and then counts upon His Faithfulness and Power to make it all real within us in Christ through the Spirit.
4. As it was through the Spirit that God wrought that perfect work in Christ by which fallen human nature, as He had taken it upon Himself, was redeemed and raised up and Glorified, so nothing can make us partakers of that redeeming and quickening power but that same Spirit, truly living and wording in our soul and body, in the same manner as It did in the humanity of Christ.
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