JohnSWilson3 Blog

As I read Chapter 11 of Hebrews time and again “by faith” is obviously the key word and makes this chapter one of the key chapters of the New Testament if not the entire Bible. I think though too often many take this as a chapter of just an historical account alone, i.e. in the “old days” God’s people lived by faith and so today we are to do the same. While I see that as well, what if God has something more to open up to us about this chapter? What if we saw it more in light of the previous chapter and the following chapter, what if we saw it in light of the letter itself and even the eternal purpose of God from before eternity? As I write that last sentence the obvious thought that came to mind is that this is how we should read and look at anything written in our Bible. I have been trying and learning to do this in these blogs, chronologically going through scripture to see Christ and learning to live by Him together with my brothers and sisters. I too can get myopic as I write about certain parts of the writings.

As we read any of the letters in the New Testament, just like the Pharisees before us, we can too often focus on the outward things. In the letter of Hebrews we can look at the outward things the author says in helping the ekklesia stay true to living by Christ. But this is looking at the cart before the horse. This is looking at it from a soul perspective, doing this versus doing that, which tends to cause me to do exactly the opposite of what the author was intending, actually moving me into a form of legalism instead of forward in Christ. The heart is pretty deceptive, even more so when we really are not living a shared life in Christ with brothers and sisters.

If you have been slandered, have been the one gossiped against, whose integrity has been maligned based on hearsay and not truth that does something inside you, in your spirit to your soul. Will I by faith love? Paul told the Galatian ekklesias, who were in danger of falling back into legalism, that “the only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.” Paul told the Roman ekklesia that “everything that does not come from faith is sin,” it misses the mark of God’s eternal purpose, the increase of the expression of the Son in His body, full of love, grace, and truth.

I am realizing more and more now that love really is the expression of faith, not just words in the Bible. Loving others sacrificially, no matter the circumstance, is expressing faith. In our gatherings while we speak about the things of Christ, He is this and He is that, what about living by faith in love for one another? My guess is that the things about Christ, the things of Christ are the elementary things that the author mentioned in Chapter 6, whether it is from the Old or New Testament writings, or even the analogies of Him we see in the world around us. They teach us about Christ. The concern is that if this is all our gatherings become, our focus being only about Christ, then it is only about knowledge, which puffs up. But when we hear Him, who lives in us, and by faith love others in word or deed a new door opens, a new reality occurs, in learning to live by His life. At least this is something that is becoming more and more real to me today.

Perhaps this is a kind of cycle in organic church life, perhaps as we are learning to live a shared life, especially when we have a season of growth in new believers or receiving those from institutional church in our gatherings we help others put on their “training wheels,” to express Him, seeing Him as our everything in the scriptures and in the analogies, learning to participate together. Perhaps this is what those with an apostolic function did first, helping each member see their freedom in Christ to participate. These are the elementary steps of faith, learning to participate together in freedom and love for one another. Then the things of life happen and the “training wheels” are taken off, difficult circumstances occur, and we are called to live by faith in love for others. It becomes a part of our experience, obtaining a witness, which God commends. As I look at scripture this seems to be the theme of the life of Christ in the ekklesia. In this trying situation the author of Hebrews takes a positive position: “We are of faith!”

Then the author immediate says “now faith is the reality of things being hoped for, the proof of things not being seen.” (1) Notice the words used by the author. If you are in Christ, isn’t this what you have experienced as well? This is something that is other than this world, spiritual. Living by faith seems to bring one closer to the reality of our life in Christ. This new door, if you will, of seeing life from His perspective, actually moving beyond the things about Christ, brings us into living by His Spirit, which is reality. The author said at the beginning of his letter, Christ is the reality of God. To live by the Spirit is to live in reality, totally other than this world. This is what is commended in Chapter 11 of Hebrews. This is how we live together, by faith in love for one another by His life, seeing life from His perspective.

Each of these men and women that are mentioned in Chapter 11 lived by faith. If you read the specific accounts in the Old Testament you can see that this life of faith was mostly progressive, it was learned. These “older persons” learned to ride their bikes using the “training wheels” they were given and when the difficult things of life happened they decided to trust God and love. Each story gives us a glimpse of how they lived by faith and loved and interestingly enough each is a wonderful picture of the different types and shadows of Christ in the Old Testament. In each story the author doesn’t argue about the details of interpreting the stories, only how in certain events each lived by faith expressing itself through love. Each had an incredible vision of the purpose of God, of the love of God. Each had the spiritual sight that God was far more worthy of their devotion than the things of this world. To live by faith is the only thing that counts, it is the only thing that is “well pleasing” to God. And what is amazing is that while we have all of the promises of God now revealed in Christ, these Old Testament brothers and sisters only saw them from a distance but still lived by faith!

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.”

(1) Alfred Marshall, The Interlinear KJV-NIV Parallel New Testament in Greek and English, 1975, The Zondervan Corporation, 657.

The phrase “possession (obtainment) of soul life” used here in Hebrews is similar to what Jesus said in the good news that Luke wrote. Luke uses this similar word for possession or obtainment that Hebrews uses. (I have added the actual Greek word or additional meaning in parenthesis in the below passages):

Luke 17:33; Whoever seeks to keep (peripoiesasthai) his (soul life) will lose it, and whoever loses his (soul life) will preserve (zoogonesei) it.”

To put off the flesh, to put off the old man, is to deny, to lose the soul life. In this passage Jesus makes it clear that we are not the ones who are to try and possess or obtain our soul life, because He is the one who possesses us, we are His possession, therefore we must “lose the soul life,” we must put it off, because the life that He desires to have expressed is His life. This passage relates to an earlier statement Jesus made in Luke’s gospel:

Luke 9:21-27; But He warned them and instructed them not to tell this to anyone, saying, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed and be raised up on the third day.” And He was saying to them all, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his (soul life) will lose it, but whoever loses his (soul life) for My sake, he is the one who will save it. For what is a man profited if he gains the whole world, and loses or forfeits himself? For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when He comes in His glory, and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels. But I say to you truthfully, there are some of those standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God.”

Interestingly the gospel writers felt this statement of Jesus was so important that each writer mentions it. Matthew and Luke mention it twice and in the gospel of John Jesus mentions it during his last week in Jerusalem. This would indicate that Jesus may have mentioned this on numerous occasions during his three year earthly ministry. In Matthew’s and Mark’s gospel Jesus says the same as Luke in one instance (Matthew 16:24-26; Mark 8:34-37) but then in an earlier instance (Matthew 10:38-39) says to the disciples not to try and “find” the soul life but in losing the soul life one will “find” it. In John 12:20-33 Jesus speaks about not loving the soul life in order to keep it for “life eternal.” In this passage from John’s gospel, during Jesus’ last week in Jerusalem, He makes a profound statement:

John 12:20-33; Now there were some Greeks among those who were going up to worship at the feast; these then came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida of Galilee, and began to ask him, saying, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” Philip came and told Andrew; Andrew and Philip came and told Jesus. And Jesus answered them, saying, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. He who loves (philon) his (soul life) loses it, and he who hates (mison) his (soul life) in this world will keep it to life eternal. If anyone serves Me, he must follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also; if anyone serves Me, the Father will honor him. “Now My (soul life) has become troubled; and what shall I say, ‘Father, save Me from this hour’? But for this purpose I came to this hour. Father, glorify Your name.” Then a voice came out of heaven: “I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.” So the crowd of people who stood by and heard it were saying that it had thundered; others were saying, “An angel has spoken to Him.” Jesus answered and said, “This voice has not come for My sake, but for your sakes. Now judgment is upon this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out. And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to Myself.” But He was saying this to indicate the kind of death by which He was to die.

Our soul is precious to our Lord. So much so that He came to save it, to find it, to keep it, and possess it, and He has done so! But that’s not where it stops, that’s not His full thought. His full thought, His full desire is to see the fullness of His life lived through it. Jesus is not just our example, because His life is in us and is our life, He is working His life in and to and through us. The life that Christ experienced is the same we will experience if we go on with Him. Jesus denied the soul life, it ultimately went into death, and lived by the life of His Father. As a result His glory, full of grace and truth was expressed. Now the greater work is His life being fully expressed through His ekklesia who gather in every place around this world, but our soul life, those things that focus on self, must go into death. And this is learned as we live a shared life together.

If Christ is now our life, and by faith we understand that we are now His possession, and Christ will be faithful to complete what He started in us, then we can by faith deny this soul life, take up the difficult circumstances of life, our crosses, as they occur, with the realization that it is meant for our good and will in the end bring glory to Christ, because His life will be expressed in the process. And as Paul noted in his letters, especially to the ekklesia in Corinth, this will often be learned as we gather together, thinking not of ourselves but of our brothers and sisters as we love and serve one another by His life. Jesus says that this is how we are to follow Him. Jesus says this is where much fruit is born, the fruit of His life. Jesus tells His disciples “in the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.”

And for some reason I have the idea that the word “possession” doesn’t mean just going around the thing once and having it in it’s completeness, but perhaps a cycle of sorts, a cycle of seasons in life perhaps, indicating a continuous process, perhaps as one goes through the cycle the cycle gets smaller and smaller until at some future point in time you obtain the thing in the center, that which is complete. This cycle involves crucifixion and resurrection. The continuous cycle of crucifixion and resurrection is the life of the ekklesia. Perhaps how often we gather together to express our Lord has some measure of how much of His fullness we experience, how much of is fullness is expressed. May we know Christ together in His completeness, in His fullness, as we together experience Him and endure the difficult circumstances of life together with Him by faith with love. Perhaps the problems that we see with the “institutional church,” the lack of faith with love, is this very thing that has been lost because of religious traditions, because of the soul life not being put off. But this is the issue with every ekklesia, that which hinders the life of Christ from being fully expressed in and to and through His body.

We cannot truly follow our Lord, live by His life unless we take no thought for this soul life of ours and by faith take up those difficult circumstances and allow them to do its spiritual work of helping us know Christ better. When we allow our indwelling Lord in us to divide between soul and spirit, when He lays before us that which must be put to death, may we hear Him, believe Him, and follow Him and by faith put that which is contrary to Him to death. Letting the soul life go into death, denying the soul life is the deep work of the cross of Christ. Frank Viola puts it this way: “God takes away to establish, and what He establishes is always better than what He takes away.” (Frank Viola, “Revise Us Again.”) Something I don’t think we have really yet to experience in any large degree. But it is a comfort to know that Jesus is with us to the end. So then let us together deny this soul life and fix “our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider Him who has ensured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you may not grow weary and lose heart.”

I think these words from “Revise Us Again” by Frank Viola sums this up:

“Let me pass on a word of advice. If you ever hit a fork in the road with the people with whom you do church (whatever that looks like), there’s one sure way that the Lord can get what He wants. Drop whatever is causing the problem, and let it go into death.
“There is nothing for us to cling to except the Lord Jesus Christ. Nothing. So let that other thing that is causing division go into death. Give it up, and watch what the Lord can do.
“This is the principle of death and resurrection. Whenever we place something into death, if it is born of Christ to begin with, it will return again. It will come forth out of the ground. But when it comes forth, it will always look different from what it looked like before it died.
“Everything looks different in resurrection.”

Some, including myself, have difficulty understanding what it means to lose the soul life, we are very attached to ourselves, to our way of life, to our personalities, to our likes, dislikes, and wants. We are selfish, we are self serving to the limitation of the life of Christ in His body. To lose the soul life, to deny self, to be selfless, to serve others is to allow Christ to get what He wants. He will shine brighter through our soul life and He will be more fully expressed in and to and through His ekklesia. May the Lord have His hearts desire! “But we are not of withdrawal to destruction of wellbeing, but of faith to possession of the soul life.”

This is a curious statement “But we are not of withdrawal to destruction of wellbeing, but of faith to possession of the soul life.” The NASB seems to be the only modern translation that keeps the sense of the Greek language. Most translators interpret “possession of soul” as “salvation” but that is not the Greek letters used. “Salvation,” while it describes the end result, “possession of soul” gives us insight into the process, or the journey, that God is involved with in His body. This process is vitally important to how God gets what He wants. A process that Paul mentions in his letters and even Christ Himself describes in the gospels.

“But we are…of faith to the possession (peripoiēsin) of the soul.” The specific Greek word for possession or obtainment, “peripoiēsin,” here is only used four times in the New Testament. One in each letter to the Thessalonians and once in Peter’s first letter and the same root word is used in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. The translators are not in agreement as to its actual meaning in each case where it is used. The word literally means “to do or make around.” (Vines, 440) The prefix of the word is where we get our English word “perimeter” which means the complete distance or length around something. Vine’s seems to see the word as meaning “‘the act of obtaining’ anything, as of salvation in its completeness.” I tend to agree with Vine’s as the word and its context in the New Testament seem to imply obtaining or possessing something in its completeness.

In his first letter to the Thessalonian ekklesia Paul says:

1 Thessalonians 5:8-9; “But since we are of the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet, the hope of salvation. For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining (to obtainment of) salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

This passage is constructed very similar to the Hebrews 10:39 verse. But instead of “possession (obtainment) of soul” it is “possession (obtainment) of salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.” But notice the process: “having put on…faith and love…and…hope.” Paul said something similar to the Roman ekklesia. And Paul mentions later to the Ephesians and Colossian ekklesias to “put on the New Man” (capitalization mine). But this armor cannot be put on unless the ekklesias “put aside the deeds of darkness” or “put off the old man.” This is not something that we do but rather realize, have spiritual sight of, that Christ has already done this! Christ has “put to death” the old man and we are now called and empowered by His Spirit to live by His life, the New Man! Because of this hope that we have been given in Christ we now by faith love one another, even those who we disagree with or even hurt us, our enemies.

In his second letter to the Thessalonian ekklesia Paul says:

2 Thessalonians 2:13-15; “But we should always give thanks to God for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth. And it was for this He called you through our gospel, that you may gain (to obtainment of) the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. So then brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught, whether by word of mouth or by letter from us.”

In this letter it is “possession (obtainment) of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Here possession (obtainment) is connected to sanctification, or being set apart to God. This sanctification is by the Spirit. It is Christ’s life who is doing this as we live by faith in Jesus, who is truth. In both letters and in his former letters it seems Paul is using different words to describe the same thing, but each giving a different view of the same process. But what is amazing is that in this letter to the Thessalonians Paul has in view God’s glory being expressed! Christ is God’s glory! When we put on Christ, live by His life together with love by faith, it is the glory of God that is being expressed, the very life of Jesus Christ our Lord! Could we put our arms around this!

In his letter to the Ephesian ekklesia Paul says:

Ephesians 1:13-14: “In Him, you also, after listening to the message (Logos) of truth, the gospel of your salvation – having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of His glory.”

What an incredible statement! In Christ, we are His possession (obtainment)! But as His possession He is in the process of redeeming us. Here Paul describes the “possession (obtainment) of soul life” from a different perspective. While we are His possession we are still in the possession process. While we have been redeemed we are still in the redeeming process. While we are saved, we are still in the saving process. While we are set apart to God, we are still in the separating apart to God process. God has something much larger in store, the full expression of His Son through His ekklesia! The body must learn together to live by its new nature, to its fullest. “To the mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.”

The author of the letter to Hebrews has been describing this process throughout the letter to these believers. This ekklesia was facing difficult circumstances and as a result are being tempted to return to living under the law of Moses, under religion instead of by the life of Christ, His Spirit. The author has been encouraging them to see Jesus Christ, giving the brothers and sisters a wonderfully glorious view of Christ, His supremacy and centrality over everything. Christ in them is able to help them, but they must listen to Him, hear Him, and by faith follow Him together, loving one another. Only by trusting the Lord Jesus in these difficult circumstances would they truly experience more of Him, “the author of their salvation through sufferings.” The issues, the circumstances, the difficult things in life that we face as brothers and sisters are something we will face. And it is in these difficult circumstances where we learn to live by Christ in greater measure!

T. Austin-Sparks notes as we go on with the Lord, organically living by His life, these circumstances will only get harder. “The further we go on with the Lord, the longer we live with Him and the closer we walk with Him, the more intense becomes this travail of life.” (Sparks, “The Holy Spirit’s Biography of Christ”) They are a kind of spiritual smelting of removing the dross of the flesh and allowing the pure light of Christ to shine through our souls. In fact it is through this process that the Father gets what He wants, the increase of Christ’s life through His body, so that more of Christ’s life is expressed instead of the flesh. It is a spiritual process, something not of this earth, where we learn to live by the Spirit and not by the soul life. What then is vital to allow Christ’s life to increase to flow through our souls? How does one live by the Spirit and not by the soul life? This by the way is something I am still learning.