So after some break, we continue in our series on regeneration, renewal and perfection. And there is more to be said about perfection. And I wonder whether after so many messages on perfection, whether now you have a very clear understanding. And I'm inclined to think that there's still more that remains to be understood.
We have seen that the whole goal of our being regenerated, born again, is in order to be renewed. And the purpose of renewal, this constant process of being renewed, is to be conformed to the image of God's Son. And that this is what is called perfection. Therefore, we have described perfection, and I am careful to point this out again, not as a sinless state in the New Testament, not as the eradication of sin, but as the victory over sin, the consistent victory over sin. Sin does not disappear from our lives, but it is being conquered in our life by the grace, the power of God granted to us. Perfection then is victory over sin. We have also seen perfection as holiness in this sense in the New Testament. We have seen perfection as meaning the expression of mercifulness, that is, of love. Perfection is love in action.
But today we want to look at perfection in yet another sense. That sense as it is found in the letter to the Hebrews. So that you can say today's message is in some sense a bringing out of the essence of the book of Hebrews. Hebrews is for many people a very mysterious book, or a very Jewish book, or a book that concerns itself a great deal with the sacrificial system of the Old Testament, which no one seems to understand very much about these days. But it is very important that we understand it. One could even say that if you don't understand the book of Hebrews, you really don't understand the spiritual meaning of the Old Testament at all.
You can say that in the book of Hebrews, the whole spiritual essence of the Old Testament is summed up for us there, very concretely. You might say then that Hebrews is the key to the Old Testament. Failure to understand Hebrews is failure to understand the meaning of the whole Old Testament for us as Christians. Now, in order to understand Hebrews, of course, I can hardly give you an exposition of the whole of Hebrews, but I can only put a key in your hand to understand the book of Hebrews. And this key, in fact, is found in the word perfection, perfect.
I wonder if you have noticed how many times the word perfect occurred in the letter to the Hebrews. In the verb form, the word perfect occurs nine times. To be perfect, to be made perfect, in a passive form, to be made perfect, to become perfect, occurs nine times. In this form of the word perfect, the verb form, occurs 23 times in the New Testament, in the whole of the New Testament, of which nine times occurs in Hebrews. That is, nearly half the occurrences of the word perfect in the verbal form occurs in Hebrews. If you add to that a number of other cognate forms, related forms, perfection is spoken of 14 times in Hebrews. So just statistically, it's quite easy for you to see that the idea of perfection is very central to the book of Hebrews.
The problem, though, remains as to how to understand perfect, the meaning of the word perfect, in Hebrews. As you know that it is not for us, in Scripture, to impose a meaning upon the word. Our task is to find out what the word means. We don't go to a dictionary and see the word perfect in the Oxford English Dictionary, and decide that that is what the writer to the Hebrews means. That may not be what he means at all. The important thing is to find out what does he mean. And the only way to find out what he means is to look at the way he uses that word. And we have no difficulty, because as we said, the writer to the Hebrews uses the word perfect in its various forms 14 times, so it's quite easy to check out what he means. If the word occurs only once or twice, you might be left with a certain degree of guesswork. But when it occurs 14 times, you really have no problem establishing its meaning.
Now, you will remember, as I said, that the book of Hebrews is concerned with sacrifices. The whole Old Testament sacrificial system, and the whole priestly system, as it is related to the sacrificial system. And therefore, the context of perfect has to do with this system of the law and the sacrifices. And when you look at it, soon the meaning begins to emerge.
Let's narrow our field down, and base what we are saying on Hebrews chapter 10 to begin with. And then widen our field from there. Hebrews chapter 10, in this chapter the word perfect occurs twice, within the first 14 verses. And we are not going to read this whole section. But let's look at the first verse of Hebrews chapter 10. For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices which are continually offered year after year, make perfect those who draw near. The sacrificial system cannot make anyone perfect. Those who want to draw near to God find that there is a problem here. The sacrifices offered year after year, without fail, very consistently and very faithfully, even though it is offered faithfully, cannot make a person perfect.
Now what does perfect mean in this context? The sacrifices, in other words, are designed or should be able to help a person to draw near to God, but the imperfection that still remains in us, even after the sacrifices are offered, prevent us from the close communion with God that we seek and we desire. Only after the sacrifice of Christ do we have boldness to enter into the holiest. We can now draw near.
So verse 14 of this same chapter, for by a single offering Jesus has perfected for all time those who are sanctified. Jesus has perfected by his sacrifice. The sacrifices of the Old Testament, many though they were, complex system though it is, could not perfect the worshippers. But Jesus himself, with one sacrifice, perfected us. Perfected us in such a way that it does not need to be repeated. That is why it is for all time. His sacrifice, unlike the Old Testament sacrifices which have to be all the time repeated, did not ever need to be repeated again. His sacrifice is for all time. It is once for all. And who does that sacrifice perfect? Those who are sanctified. It is not perfecting anyone, but it perfects those who are sanctified through faith.
Now, what then does the word perfect mean? Well, as we keep looking at this, the meaning should begin to emerge as we look through this chapter. Let's go back to chapter 10 verse 1 again. In verse 1 it says, it could never — notice the strong word — it could never, no matter how often you offer the Old Testament sacrifice, it could never perfect those who draw near. What do you think perfect means here? Well, verse 2 goes on, otherwise, if they could have been perfected by the Old Testament sacrifice, would they not have ceased to be offered? If the sacrifices could perfect you, then you wouldn't need to offer them anymore. Therefore, the very fact that they have to be constantly offered shows that they are not efficacious to make perfect.
Well, what does it still mean? It goes on. If the worshippers had once been, what, cleansed. Ah, now we're getting closer. They would no longer have any consciousness of sin. Now, clearly, perfection has to do with cleansing, isn't it? If we had been cleansed, if we had been perfected, we wouldn't need to be offering the same sacrifices again. But because it could not cleanse us in a fundamental sense, we had to keep offering those same sacrifices in the Old Testament. But instead, what happens is that these sacrifices, it says in verse 3, became a reminder of sin. Instead of cleansing us from sin, they simply keep reminding us of sin that hasn't been cleansed. So we have a problem here with these sacrifices. We still have the consciousness of sin, because we couldn't be cleansed from sin.
And then verse 4, he says, the meaning is very easy to understand, for it is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sin. Now, that is what perfection is. Why did the sacrifices have to be offered again and again? Because those sacrifices couldn't take away sin. So now we have several words parallel with each other, explaining one another. Perfect means cleansed. Cleansed means to take away sin. So perfection has to do with the removal of sin.
This meaning is established as we go along. As we go on, we saw that sanctified — what does sanctified mean? Sanctified has the same meaning. To be cleansed from sin. To be made holy. And because we are cleansed from sin and made holy, we can now draw near to God. We can now be His, in a sense in which we could not be His before. That is why every Christian in the scripture is called a saint. The word saint and sanctified in the Greek are the same root word, the same related words. The one who is a saint is one who is sanctified. The one who is sanctified is one who has been perfected. One who has been perfected is one who has been cleansed from sin. The sin has been taken away.
Now, the result of this is that once sin has been removed from you, you are no longer conscious of sin. That is, you are no longer burdened with a sense of guilt. Now, all this points us to the meaning of perfection in Hebrews. What is perfection in Hebrews? Perfection in Hebrews is simply freedom. Freedom from sin. So now we begin to see the meaning of New Testament perfection from a number of angles. We see that it means love in action, showing mercy. It means holiness, as we saw, sanctified. Why is it holiness? Because it is holiness in view of the fact that the sacrifice of Christ has freed us, has cleansed us, has taken away sin from us.
Now, what that specifically means, we will have to look at more fully in a moment. But first, let us establish that as you check through the references of perfection in Hebrews, you will see that it consistently means a freedom from sin. And this applies even to the Lord Jesus himself. As you know, in chapter 5 of Hebrews, as well, and earlier than that too, the Lord Jesus is said to himself have been perfected through suffering. Now, how can Jesus be perfected if he is sinless? Well, because, as earlier in Hebrews it says, in Hebrews chapter 2, that the Lord Jesus took on our nature. That even as we were partakers of flesh and blood, so he became partakers of flesh and blood. And because he became partakers of the same nature as you and me, then he was subjected to the same temptations. The same pressures of sin were experienced by the Lord Jesus.
But finally, when he was through suffering, made perfect, as the scripture says here in Hebrews, that when God had made the author of our salvation perfect through suffering, that means, through the grappling with temptation, he came through free, without having submitted to sin. Victorious over sin. Now, the only way you can be victorious over sin is to first be free from it. Otherwise, you are a slave. If you are a slave to sin, you are subject to it. And no slave can win the victory over sin. No slave can dominate his master. You will always lose so long as you are a slave to sin. But insofar as you are free from sin, then you can be victorious over sin.
The Lord Jesus, then, was victorious over sin. He was free from sin. In all points tempted as we are, yet without sinning. That means, he was subjected to the pressures of sin. He wrestled with sin. But he was victorious over sin. He maintained and demonstrated freedom from sin. Now, all this is very important for us to understand. Perfection, then, means freedom from sin.
But here, we must immediately tackle two questions. Two dangers that relate to this matter of freedom from sin. And if we fail in either of these points, we are in trouble. The Lord Jesus said, if the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed. Let us understand that there is no real freedom in any aspect of life, unless there is freedom from sin.
Now, a drug addict may be free in terms of the legal constitution of Canada. That means he has all the rights of a citizen. He may be free from want. That means he has no problem with his finances. He may be free in any other sense of the word free you like, that can be defined legally. But so long as he is not free from sin or from drug addiction, he is not free in any meaningful sense of the word free. Now, today you may be free in the sense that your bank account is reasonably healthy. You may not be a very rich person, but at least you are not going to miss tonight's supper for lack of money. You are not going to be kicked out of your apartment for being unable to pay your rent. You are free in the sense that financially, you are in a reasonably healthy condition. You are free from disease. You are reasonably healthy. You are free in that sense too. You are free in the sense that nobody is going to give you trouble in the next few days or in the foreseeable future. Your rights under the Canadian constitution are guaranteed. You are a free person in that sense too. But if you are a slave of sin, whatever that sin may be, whether it is a sin of a sexual kind, of a drug kind, of a greed for or lust for power or for money, whatever dominates your life, you are a slave to that and you are not free.
So long as sin is in your life, you have no meaningful sense in which you are truly free. If the Son shall make you free, free from what? Free from sin, of course, then you are truly free. The Lord says the same thing in John chapter 8 verses 31 and 32. You shall know the truth as it is in Christ and that truth in Him will make you free. Free from what? Free from sin. In scripture then, whenever freedom is being talked about, it is not talking about political freedom or financial freedom or whatever other freedom. It is talking of course about spiritual freedom. The freedom from sin. Without which no other freedom really has any significant meaning. Especially no long term meaning.
But having said all this, I want to come back to talk about the two dangers that face our understanding of freedom. The first is the danger of self-deception. To think that you are free when you are not free. Now this is a very serious problem which we want to address. The second danger is to misuse a freedom which you really do possess. The first is to have no real freedom but to think you are free, which is a piece of self-delusion. The other is to really be free and then to misuse that freedom. Now both of these are dealt with in scripture. And let us very quickly deal with these.
What do we mean by self-deception? Well, what I mean by this, based here still on Hebrews chapter 10 verse 2 — notice verse 2, it says here that if we are truly freed by the sacrifice from sin, if the worshippers had once been cleansed, what would happen? If we have been cleansed, they would no longer have any consciousness of sin. Now that — the consciousness of sin remained for those under the Old Testament system. But we saw in verse 14 that Christ has indeed freed us from sin by his once for all sacrifice. Therefore, we should have, if that statement is true, no longer consciousness of sin.
Now let us be very careful with this sentence. Are we saying that becoming a Christian is something psychological? That is, that we are simply freed from a sense of guilt. You are free from a sense of guilt because you believe Jesus died for you, his blood has taken your sins away, and you now have no more consciousness of sin in the sense that you are no longer feeling the guilt of sin. Is, in other words, being a Christian primarily a psychological thing? That is, Christianity is good for you because a feeling of guilt is not healthy for your mental health, and therefore it is good to become a Christian so that you can get rid of all these burdens and guilt complexes and the like, and you are free from the feeling of guilt because Jesus has died for you, and now you are healed psychologically. You are healed psychologically because you are no longer under the pressure of this feeling of guilt which is said to be very unhealthy. But whether it is unhealthy or not I will not debate. I am not a psychiatrist or a psychologist.
But the question is, we could be in danger of a piece of dangerous self-deception. What do we mean by dangerous self-deception? Let's say then the question hinges entirely on this fact: whether you feel that you have been forgiven or not is one question; the other question is, have you really been freed from sin? You see what we are getting at is quite simple. If you are not really freed from the power of sin but you feel that you don't have any more feeling of guilt, then you are in a dangerous piece of self-deception. That is, you are still a slave of sin but now you have taken spiritual narcotics. You have taken spiritual opium, and Lenin's accusation of the church might be right after all. Lenin said that Christianity or religion is the opiate of the people, the opium of the people. It makes you feel good when in fact nothing has really changed in your situation.
It makes the working masses feel good that they are going to heaven even if they are kept under poverty, though they are oppressed by the landlords, oppressed by the capitalists, as Lenin would put it. But in fact they are feeling good. Why? Because the oppressors have put enough opium into the foolish mouth of these foolish people to make them feel good with religion and forget the real situation they are in. And so they are happily paying out of their money to make the capitalists richer and the oppressors even stronger than they were before, when in fact these wretched people are nothing but slaves who, because of the opium of religion, are made to feel good.
One has a suspicion that up to a point Lenin might just be right. I think that if we are not careful we will become spiritual drug traffickers, meeting out spiritual opium to a people whose real condition is very bad. It's like a soldier who got badly wounded. He got hit and the pain is unbearable, and somebody gives him a shot of morphine so he doesn't feel it. Is he any better? He certainly feels good. Hey, I'm alright now after this shot. But the poor guy is bleeding to death and he doesn't know it because he doesn't feel it anymore.
Now let us be exceedingly careful what we are talking about from the word of God, because so help me God I will have nothing to do with selling spiritual opium. I will not have anything to do with any type of self-delusion, and I pray to God that you will not be engaged in self-delusion. Now a situation of self-delusion arises when you are not really free from sin but you imagine yourself to be free from sin, or you convince yourself that you are free from sin on the basis of some doctrine that is being told to you.
Now let me say again, unfortunately this is very much the kind of situation we are finding has developed in the churches today, because the gospel is being preached in telling you that all you got to do is simply accept that you have been forgiven and you are forgiven. Now that sounds quite nice in a way. Accept that you have been forgiven and you have been forgiven. Just take it by faith that you have been forgiven and you have been forgiven. Okay, so I accept that I have been forgiven, so I have been forgiven. But please tell me, what happens to the sin under which I am, and the bondage too? Because all that will happen is that my sin, which is still there according to this teaching, my sinful nature is still there and it's still dominating in my life.
And I am told, don't worry too much about it. Don't worry about it because why? Because your sins are forgiven. Okay, my sins are forgiven, but the problem is my debt is building up all the time. So every week I have to come back — no, not every week, every single day I have to come back. Lord, I'm sorry I failed you today, and I failed you yesterday and the day before, and I'm going to fail you tomorrow and the day after that. And what kind of a life is this? This is called Christianity?
Well, maybe we should go one step further — not only ask for forgiveness but be so kind as to lose the consciousness of sin. In other words, if you fail, don't talk about it. Okay, don't think about it, don't worry about it, because the blood of Jesus will cleanse you. He will cleanse you before, He will cleanse you now, and He will cleanse you forever. And so, no worry about sin. The cancer of sin may eat you to death, but don't you worry about it, my friend, because no matter how much sin your state will produce, there's always enough forgiveness. In other words, you may be living in spiritual bankruptcy and you are counting up more debt. Your past debt has been written off. Okay, oh praise the Lord, it's all written off. You're a million dollars in debt, or whatever you like, if you go on the parable of the debt. And then it's all written off, and you're going to clock up more debts today, and more debts tomorrow, and more debts the day after that. But who worries? Because Jesus' infinite account will keep writing off all your debts, so you just keep writing up more debts.
Hey, there's something wrong with this thinking here somewhere. There's some kind of problem here. Do you find some problem with this kind of doctrine? I'm sure there's some problem going on here. We're going to just keep on writing up more debts because the Scriptures say, "Forgive us our debts." Amen. So forgive us our debts, keep on doing it, and your bank account is healthy enough and you've got enough to pay for it forever, so I can keep on — something's not quite right here. I am not free from the debt. I am not free from the tendency to write up more debts. I am not free from the sin that is eating me away, but I have unlimited forgiveness. If that's the case, why should I worry about my sins? You see what a dangerous situation is coming up. We can actually no longer worry about sin.
It's very tiring to keep saying Lord I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I mean, this should come to an end sometime. I mean, forever saying sorry — that gets big, all your prayer time you can only say sorry. It must be very boring exercise in prayer, and you are thinking, how long is God going to sit there and listen to this? In other words, we are trying to gain a sense of forgiveness from sin when we have not really been freed from the power of sin. That is self-deception.
Is that what the writer to the Hebrews means in verse 2 of chapter 10, that there is no longer consciousness of sin once the sacrifice is efficacious? Now if this whole thing is purely a psychological feeling of being forgiven, if being a Christian is just the psychology of forgiveness, then let me ask you, why shouldn't the Old Testament sacrifices be equally efficacious to that end? Why not? You explain to me what's wrong with Old Testament sacrifices. If it is a psychological thing, then why should it not be sufficient for the blood of bulls and goats? I see those poor animals dying for me and I say, God accepts that because He instituted that. Now if He instituted the sacrifices, it should cleanse my conscience. I have confessed my sins, the animals have died, I am clean. I wonder why psychologically it shouldn't work. It seems to me it should work perfectly psychologically, if all there is to it is psychology.
There is no reason under the sun why psychologically the Old Testament sacrifices do not avail. Can you tell me any reason why they don't avail? Of course they do avail. Most certainly they will avail psychologically. The problem that the writer to the Hebrews is dealing with is not psychology. He is dealing with spirituality before God. They don't avail — that's the whole point. They don't avail before God. They do avail as far as your psychology is concerned. I have not heard any Jews complaining that the Old Testament sacrifices did not remove a sense of guilt. Have you heard them complain? I have heard no such thing. I have read through the rabbis, I have not heard any complaint. Psychologically, the sacrifice of the Old Testament animal should certainly cleanse you from the sense of guilt. What the writer to the Hebrews is saying is, it doesn't cleanse you as far as God is concerned, and as far as your experience will soon tell you.
The whole problem with the Old Testament sacrificial system was that it could give you a certain comfort in your heart, as any religion will do. You don't have to be a Christian. Any religion will give you a certain comfort. It can minister to you psychologically at that level. Virtually any religion should be able to do something for you. Why not? I mean, a Buddhist certainly gets some kind of emotional comfort out of being a Buddhist, and so does a Muslim, I'm sure, and so does virtually anyone in any religion.
# The Meaning of Perfection in Hebrews (Part 2)
If we admit to a psychological cure, I would think that you might as well just see a psychiatrist. He might think of something else to cure you with. Maybe a good swim somewhere in Jamaica. Have you ever noticed how nice you feel after a good holiday? All the blues were chased away, you see. Psychologically, a holiday can do a lot for you. You don't even have to go to church. I mean, if you're going to church, you might come out feeling quite depressed after a message like this. I mean, here you go to Jesus and instead of giving you a good time, he gives you a bad time. He says, you cannot be my disciple unless you deny yourself. I was feeling quite good until I heard that. And now I hear this and I'm feeling really bad. I come here and you tell me to deny myself. What is this? This is not psychology. You're right. It's not psychology. It's exactly the opposite of psychology. Which psychologist ever told you to deny your ego? You put the ego up and you feel good. You break the ego down and you feel bad. That's not psychology. And the Lord Jesus never preached psychology, neither do I. Neither does the Word of God.
Any religion can cater to your psychology, to your mental health, if you like, to some extent anyway. Maybe one is more effective than another. But whichever, you just take a bigger dose. I heard some medicine being touted as being very expensive — 900 grams of Anacin in two tablets. I was saying to Joe and Tim, what a ridiculous advertisement is this? 900 grams of Anacin in two tablets. I think four tablets of something else, you can also get 900 grams of Anacin. Surely, what kind of Anacin? This is psychology at its worst, I must say. It's too ridiculous.
If then all we have to offer is some kind of a spiritual painkiller to kill the pain of guilt, it seems to me virtually any religion will do. And certainly the Old Testament sacrifices will do. And if the writer of the Hebrews is saying that psychologically the consciousness of sin could not be removed, he is wrong. Yes, for sure he is wrong. But that's not what he is talking about. He is talking about freedom from sin. Now, there is a distinction. If you are really free from sin, then of course you don't have consciousness of guilt, because you are freed from its power.
Let's take the drug addict. He is still a drug addict. And you say to him, well, I know this is really bad for you, so don't worry about this thing. You know, everybody takes drugs nowadays. Don't just throw away the sense of guilt. You are ministering to him psychologically. But he is still under the power of drugs. And soon he begins to come feeling that this is destroying his health, destroying him financially. And he begins to feel the consciousness that something is wrong, no matter what you tell him. And that's exactly where the gospel of psychology backfires on you.
You tell him, you know Jesus has forgiven your sin and you are okay. But he feels something is wrong. And you keep telling him that's okay, God has forgiven you. And he still feels something is wrong. And then you say to him, the problem with you is you don't have faith. He doesn't have faith. His fault is that he didn't take hold of the free gift of forgiveness. You should have just accepted forgiveness. And if you keep on sinning, well, who can help that? I mean, everybody goes on sinning anyway, just take hold of the forgiveness. What are we telling people to do? To ignore the problem of the power of sin? That's apparently what's happening.
He realizes that no matter how he takes hold of God's forgiveness, he's got a problem. The power of sin is making him sin more and more all the time. And he's asking for more forgiveness. And he knows that's not the right situation to be in. And yet the Christians are telling him, the problem with you is lack of faith. Now, what is happening? We really have a lot of cracked doctors with the wrong diagnosis around.
So, if a person comes and says, I have a lot of pain. I think I've got a disease here. You say, well, don't worry about the pain. Here's the painkiller, take it. It's a symptomatic treatment. This is self-delusion that I'm speaking about. So, I beg of you to understand this. Let God search your heart to see whether the sacrifice of Jesus and the power of his blood has really set you free from the power of sin. Not psychologically that you feel okay. I'm not asking how you feel. I hope you feel bad if you're not free from the power of sin. On the contrary, I hope you feel really bad, so bad that you say, Lord Jesus, get me out of this power of sin. Otherwise, you're going to go there to the confession every day.
So, the first thing is, I ask you again — to talk about perfection is totally meaningless. My whole series of messages will be utter nonsense here. Because to talk about perfection while you're under bondage to sin is utter nonsense. There's no way we can talk about perfection. No wonder the churches don't want to talk about perfection. They regard this as impractical, far too far above the blue. It's floating somewhere in the air. We all live in sin and let's get ready to talk about this, and just keep on getting forgiveness. And let's not talk about perfection. Who talks about perfection today? Only foolish people like me. And thanks to God, I find it in Scripture.
So, there is no way of talking about perfection until we understand perfection has to do with freedom from sin. And freedom from sin, not psychologically merely, but actually. If you are truly freed from the power of sin, of course, nobody has to tell you to feel free from sin because you are free from sin. The psychological follows the actual state without any trickery needing to be applied. If you are really free, you are free. The drug addict who is free from drugs, of course, feels no more sense of guilt about taking drugs because he doesn't. It's as simple as that.
The second thing is to misuse our freedom. And this one I will come back to in another moment because this is very germane to what we are talking about today. But let me summarize briefly what we have talked about thus far. And that is this: there are two ways of looking at sin. One is that we have just been talking about, that Christ has paid the penalty of sin, so now, although we still continue to sin, it doesn't really matter. In other words, the dangerous self-delusion out of this concept of sin is that sin is no longer serious for us because we have managed to destroy our sensitivity to it. We have managed to quench our conscience with a dose of religion. Very dangerous indeed.
The other possibility, the other alternative rather, is that Christ paid the penalty for sin indeed. But if Christ had to die for sin, if God spared not his own Son, neither will he spare the sinner. That means the first view is the light view of sin. And a psychological treatment of the gospel inevitably ends up with a light view of sin. The second is a very serious view of sin. And if I am not mistaken in my study of the Lord's teaching, the Lord Jesus took a very, very serious view of sin. Even for the Christian.
I have spoken of post-baptismal sin about a year ago. But now, I am talking about the view of sin as the Lord Jesus sees it. We need only look at Matthew chapter 5 verses 29 and 30 for example. Where he says to his disciples, if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. It is better to enter into life with one eye than with two eyes to go into hell. If there is no possibility for his disciples to go to hell, this kind of statement doesn't need to be made. And he says, if your hand causes you to sin, chop it off. It is better to enter into the kingdom of God with one hand than to enter into hell with two hands.
Now of course, everyone knows the Lord Jesus is speaking spiritually. No one in the history of the church known to us has ever plucked his eye out or chopped his hand off. I think no one is so foolish as to imagine that by plucking an eye out, you have dealt with the problem of sin in the heart. But it illustrates the seriousness of sin in the view of the Lord Jesus. Sin is something you cannot play around with. If you have any inclination to play around with it, get rid of your hand so you can't play around with it. Sin is nothing to be looking at, to be admiring. If you have any inclination to admire it, get your eye out. It is better that you don't see it so that you don't get into hell. That is how seriously the Lord Jesus treats sin. And this saying occurs twice in Matthew alone. It occurs again in Matthew 18 verses 8 and 9, almost in exactly the same words as in Matthew 5, 29 and 30. Of course, it is repeated again in Mark chapter 9, in the whole section from chapter 9 verses 43 to 48.
Now I beg of you then to understand that a light view of sin simply because atonement is available is not the teaching of the Lord Jesus. Atonement was so costly to the Lord Jesus that anyone who treats sin lightly doesn't understand the atonement at all. There is a certain faith that is mere presumption. Take it by faith. Is that faith or is it presumption? To presume upon the forgiving kindness of God is the biggest mistake that you can make. That is why Hebrews says it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. And here in chapter 10, as we shall see in a moment, the same thing occurred.
Now in the Old Testament, and I must move on very quickly here, there are two ways. Sin is regarded in two ways. There are a number of words used for sin. But the basic idea of sin, the word hatah in Hebrew, means to miss the goal or to miss the way. There are two kinds of sin in the Old Testament, and I'm not going to go through all the many words that the Hebrew Old Testament uses for sin. Suffice it to say that sin in the Old Testament can be separated into two main categories. And that is unwitting sin and willful sin. Those are the only two main categories of sin, no matter what different kind of Hebrew words are used.
Unwitting sin is sin that you committed without really realizing that you had done the wrong thing. You transgressed some command of the Lord without realizing it. That is unwitting sin. It is an error. You missed — the word sin means basically to miss the goal, to miss the way. We are to live a certain kind of Christian life. That is the goal. When you fail to live the Christian life as depicted for us in the New Testament, you have sinned. Whether by commission or by omission, whichever way it is, you miss the goal, you miss the mark, you miss the calling.
Now, the only kind of sin in the Bible — I would like you to understand very carefully — that is how seriously the Scripture takes sin. So seriously that the only kind of sin that can be forgiven in the Old Testament through any sacrifice is unintentional sin. Sin that you did by mistake. Now, I'd like you to notice this because Christians often distinguish between mistake and sin. Quite erroneously. What is your concept of sin? You say, I didn't sin, I just made a mistake. Wrong. That shows you don't understand what sin is in the Bible. You have taken a light view of sin. Because the mistake is the sin.
I've many times heard a child saying, why did you do this? Oh, it was just a mistake. It was just an accident. The implication is because it was a mistake, it was an accident, it's not a sin. But that is the definition of sin in the Old Testament. You've got to understand. That's how different the standard of the Scripture is from our standard. If you think that because you made a mistake, that's no sin, you haven't understood sin yet according to the Bible. If you think a thing is only a sin because you deliberately did it, you haven't understood the Scriptures.
So far today is the church from understanding the meaning of sin in Scripture that it is pitiful. If you deliberately tell a lie, you are in big trouble because that is not unwitting sin, unintentional sin. That was by deliberate intent. Let me tell you the terrible news about this in Scripture: for deliberate sin, there is no forgiveness in the Old Testament. None. Does that scare you? Well, it scares me. And it scared the Apostle Paul. So frightened was the Apostle Paul because he, being trained as a rabbi, understood sin in its biblical meaning. He is the one who says in Philippians 2, I work out my salvation with fear and trembling. I've asked many Christians what that means. Nobody can tell me what that means. Why should a Christian work out their salvation with fear and trembling? They don't know. Paul understood it.
When you make a mistake, an accident, as it is called, you did something which was wrong, but you didn't realize at the time, you were inconsiderate, for example, or you forgot to do something you should do — that is sin in the Scripture. There is no plea of saying, well, it was only a mistake, therefore that's not a sin. Wrong. I must drive this point into your mind if you want to understand biblical teaching of sin. And that kind of sin, let me say it again at the risk of repeating myself, that is the definition of sin. Just look it up in the Hebrew dictionary, you'll see. Hata means to make a mistake, to commit an error. And that is the only kind of sin that can find forgiveness.
If, however, you sin in any other sense, deliberately, of your own choice — no forgiveness. There is no sacrifice for sin. Let's look at Hebrews chapter 10, which says exactly the same thing. Exactly the same thing, which scares a lot of Christians. And they like to water this passage down. But you can do what you like with the Word of God. The Word of God stands there for us to look at.
Hebrews chapter 10, verse 26. For if we sin deliberately, after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins. He is not talking to non-Christians. He is talking about those who have accepted the truth. And he emphasizes this point yet more clearly if you haven't understood it by verse 29. How much worse punishment do you think will be deserved by the man who has spurned the Son of God? You say, yeah, yeah, that's the non-Christian. Quite wrong. And who profaned the blood of the covenant? That's the non-Christian? No. By which he himself was sanctified. Remember verse 14? For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are sanctified. But if after you have been sanctified you spurned the blood of the covenant, there's no more sacrifice.
What kind of punishment? If under the Old Testament that punishment was so severe, the writer of the Hebrews is saying, verse 28, if a man who violated the law of Moses was punishable by death, how much more, he says in verse 28 into verse 29, do you think the Christian will be punished? The one who spurns the blood by which he was sanctified. Strange. Today, the church doesn't want to listen to the New Testament. They'll say, no, no, no, no, this cannot be, this is all a mistake. Is it really? Unless our eyes deceive us and our ears do not understand the language properly, read it for yourself.
Now, I'm not going into this matter, but I'm talking about this word "deliberately." Verse 26, if we sin intentionally, deliberately — this word, the Greek word hekousios, is used in the Old Testament many times to talk about free will offering. For example, in Psalm 53 in the Septuagint, the Greek Hebrew version, Psalm 54 and verse 6, the word hekousios describes a free will offering. That means a person sins deliberately means he sins under no compulsion from outside, no external force has made it. He chose to sin. He sins of his own free will. For such a person, there is no more sacrifice. Frightening, isn't it?
Let me tell you, the Scripture does intend to frighten us for our own good. We live in astonishing complacency. The same thing occurs — the same word is used elsewhere in the New Testament. For example, in 1 Peter, chapter 5 and verse 2, where it speaks of the contrast between willingly and by compulsion. You see, there you have the word willingly, intentionally, gladly, freely, as contrasted to being under compulsion.
Now this is very important. There is another point I need to bring out here. Under the Old Testament, a person who sinned deliberately, yet under a certain inner compulsion, not external compulsion, inner compulsion, was put to death, as the writer of the Hebrews says here, without mercy. Even though he committed the sin in weakness. Weakness — let's take the sin of adultery. Two people may have committed adultery not by any plan or design. They didn't say, well, let's get together and we'll do this thing. No, no. But one day they found themselves together and as the time wore on, the mutual attraction gets stronger and stronger, and in their weakness, the inability to resist the temptation, they committed adultery.
Do you think that the fact that it was not by plan or design, that they didn't get together that day by previous arrangement, but that simply in weakness they committed the sin — do you think that under the law of Moses that is pardonable? Just read the law and you will see. It is not pardonable. The fact that it was committed through the weakness of the flesh still resulted in the sentence of death. Weakness is not a plea under the Old Testament. Do you think it's a plea under the New Testament? No, it cannot be a plea under the New Testament.
You know why? Quite simple. We have no excuse for weakness under the New Testament because He has given us all the power we need through the Holy Spirit. That's what the whole of Romans chapter 8 is about. There is no plea of weakness acceptable under the relatively excusable circumstances of the Old Testament. Much less under the New Testament. Under the Old Testament they could say, we didn't have the Holy Spirit. We couldn't fight temptation. That's what Paul says in Romans chapter 7. The good that I would, I do not. And the evil that I would not, that I do. I haven't the strength to overcome sin. Weakness or infirmity of human nature should have been a better legal plea under the Old Testament, but it was not acceptable. A person who committed adultery or who stole because he couldn't resist the temptation, who murdered in a fit of anger because he had the weakness of a bad temper — none of this constitutes a plea of forgiveness. The man dies.
Under the New Testament, what are you going to plead, brothers and sisters, for deliberate sin? If you should ever fall into adultery or any other such sin, what are you going to plead? Weakness? Why are you weak, when God has given you the Holy Spirit? If you are a Christian, you have the Holy Spirit. Therefore, your only reason for sinning was deliberate, intentional sin. For this, there is no sacrifice. Scary. No wonder in the early church, people dared not get baptized until they were on their death bed. Because they didn't know what to do. If they committed sin, there is no more forgiveness. It terrified them.
I should weaken this statement a little bit, if I may dare to do so. And that is, it seems to me, if I understand the Scripture correctly — but I dare not bank on it — that if a person commits deliberate sin of this sort, he may and he should repent and plead for forgiveness. Whether his forgiveness will be granted him, I have no authority to say on the basis of this text. I don't know. The words here are so clear that one dare not say anything. Even the Apostle John, the apostle of love, as you remember in his fifth chapter of the first epistle, says there is a sin which is mortal. And I do not say you should pray for that sin. There is no more prayer. Maybe God will forgive. And I trust, if I may be so daring to say, that He will forgive. He will, if you truly repent. But don't bank on it. The Scripture does not allow us to depend on it. You will have to live in fear and tremble.
But you say, wow, isn't that harsh? I didn't say these words, beloved. Those are there. And as a servant of the Lord, do I dare to twist Scripture? I dare not twist it. Wherein then, how shall we avoid this disaster? How shall we be certain of the freedom that is ours in Christ? How shall we press on to the perfection which is the command of which we have no choice? Be perfect is the command.
Let me close this message today by telling you a real life account which I read in Jamaica. In fact, this illustrates the point that I'm trying to bring up: do not misuse your freedom. This is the second point, by now you'll have noticed. You can sin deliberately. When you became a Christian, you need not sin. It doesn't mean you cannot sin.
This is the story I read in the newspaper in Jamaica. This newspaper in Jamaica is called the Daily Gleaner. And I read this account and I meditated because I was meditating on this message for some time. This story has to do with a police chief in Mexico City. This police chief of Mexico City who was police chief until about one and a half years ago. And they found that this police chief was exceedingly rich. This is what it says here. He owned two enormous residences. This police chief is called Durazo. He owned seventeen thoroughbred racing horses, nineteen collector's cars. Most people have trouble affording one. He's got nineteen, not ordinary cars, nineteen collector's cars, each of which would be worth maybe tens of thousands of dollars. He had a whole private store of weapons in his houses. He had a super modern disco set to entertain himself and his guests. He had two estates, one of them in a resort city in Mexico. This was decorated with fountains and statues, marble and gold bathrooms and so forth.
He made a tax declaration claiming that his net worth was six hundred thousand dollars, which would be more than half a million dollars and not too bad by anyone's standard. In fact, his estimated worth is twelve point five million dollars. Twelve and a half million dollars. You have to do pretty good as a police chief to make twelve and a half million dollars. Well, when the story came out in public, of course, that Mexico, which is a very poor country, the citizens were outraged. One of his chief aides, the chief aide of this police chief, published a book describing this fellow's life. Sometimes he would have a party and he would use police helicopters to ship in three hundred or more guests to come to his parties, using the public funds, of course, to do this.
He encouraged his officers to take bribes, and that's why Mexico City drivers found that they had routinely to pay heavy bribes in order to get out of parking tickets or not to be issued parking tickets. Because if you go to Mexico City you'll see that the traffic is in such a mess that you can't find anywhere to park. And the way to do it is to give the policeman on the beat a regular bribe so he won't give you any tickets. And these bribes pass on and on, and so you see it goes up to the chief who had other ways of getting more money than small bribes.
Then also this former officer of his described the fact that he was involved in drug smuggling, in fraud, in homicide, which is murder. And in fact this man who wrote about, who described the account, who confessed the whole account, said that he carried out several of the murders himself on this police chief's orders. And because he was police chief, he felt himself to be secure from any prosecution. Who could prosecute him? Or who would dare to prosecute him? Well, when the investigations began and they wanted to deal with the man, he was nowhere to be found. He had already made his exit, taken much of his money and disappeared.
Now what made me think about this whole thing as I meditated on this matter is this. Here is a chief law enforcement officer who was supposed to protect citizens and supposed to look after the rights of people, who was supposed to safeguard the interests of the poor, and in his time in office he manages to make in those few years twelve and a half million dollars. In other words, the chief guardian of the law was the biggest crook of all. Now, without going much more into this whole wretched story — and those of you who are from Hong Kong are quite familiar with the police activities in Hong Kong and the police chiefs who made quite a packet themselves — I ask this question as it relates to the Christian life.
I ask this question: did this police chief, in the first place, did he go into the police force knowing that his intention was to reach the top and make a pile by crooked means? In other words, did he become a policeman when he was really a criminal in the first place? And used the police uniform and police office as a means of practicing his crime? Or was it that he went in as a young police officer with a great ideal to be a genuine policeman, a good cop, but as the temptations grew, he couldn't resist them and he finally ended up becoming the top criminal of all? Which do you think? Was he a criminal in the first place, playing a police officer, or was he a genuine police officer who became a criminal through temptation?
Well, how to analyze this thing? We would have to analyze him psychologically or ask him to tell us which was the case, and he's certainly not going to tell you. But you know, the point I'm getting at is this: in the end it doesn't really matter which of the two is right, because they come to exactly the same thing. The end result is the same. Whether he started as a criminal and ended as a criminal, or he started as a good man and ended as a criminal, the point is, either way he ended up as a criminal and it doesn't really matter which was the case.
To Ezekiel it didn't matter either. The word of God through Ezekiel was this: if you start as a righteous man and end up as a bad man, you will be judged as a bad man, not as a righteous man. The last state is what is determining the matter. The thing here, when we analyze it spiritually, is this: either way there is a problem of commitment. A problem of commitment. Either he entered the police force with no commitment to justice and to truth, or he entered the police force with some commitment to the truth. But in the end it doesn't matter.
To sum up, the point I'm getting at from this story is simply this — and this is not a story, this is actually from February the 7th, this month's newspaper — is this, and very important for the point I'm making about sin and perfection. Why would anyone sin deliberately? Why? It is a problem of the will. In order to avoid this situation, brothers and sisters, mentioned in Hebrews 10 verse 26, there is only one way to avoid it: that you will never sin deliberately. How? To make sure that your will is fully subjected to God. No one who is totally submitted to God in his will will deliberately sin against God. He will not do it. He will not commit sin. That's what John says in his letter. He that abides in God, in Him, will not sin. He that is born of God will not commit sin. He will not deliberately sin.
And this is the point I would like to leave you with as we close. It is this. You must make sure that your will is in line with God's will. That is commitment. We have talked about total commitment. What is total commitment? Simply this: total commitment is the total committing of your will to God. It is that every part of your will, every part of your life, is unreservedly wholly committed to Him. Because if you don't do that, brothers and sisters, you are going to find one of these days you are going to sin deliberately.
You see, no commitment and partial commitment, as we see from that story, ends up in the same way. And partial commitment is the most dangerous self-delusion of all. And I wonder how many of you here, sitting here today, say that you are committed to the Lord and you are only partially committed. Partially. Some part, maybe 90% of your will is committed to God, but you have kept back 10%. That means to say that if you are under pressure or under temptation, you might yet say yes to it, because your will is kept back to yourself. You see, a partially committed person is actually an uncommitted person because he reserves the right to decide how much he commits and how much he will not commit. Therefore, he is still lord of his own life, not Christ. You see, I still decide how much I give, how much I don't give of my will.
Partial commitment, brothers and sisters, I beg of you to understand, will lead you into destructive self-delusion. Self-delusion because you can say, I am committed, but it's a delusion because it's not a whole commitment. That means that, for example, if you are under severe persecution one of these days, you will leave yourself a backdoor. You see, total commitment means that I have burned all my bridges, I put my hand to the plow and I will never look back. The past is finished. Forgetting the things which are behind, I look only forward. I have no past as far as my spiritual journey is concerned. The past is dead. I live into the future. I don't look back anymore. I have one way to go and that is forward. That's the only way I go.
But the partially committed person, like Lot's wife, is inclined to sneak a look back. And if the going gets too hot, he has an exit hatch available that he will sneak out through the side door. And that's where you're going to end up in deliberate sin. Your commitment to your brother and sister, is it total? Two people get married, why do they divorce? Because the commitment was partial. And when the going got tough in marriage, they exited through the side door. There's always an escape hatch to go. But if the commitment was total, we say there is no question of divorce, there is no question of separation. I stick this thing in my commitment through to the end. I will love, and I will love to the end. Whether my love is requited or not, whether I am rewarded or not, no matter. Commitment is a commitment. I see it to the end.
There are those who might enter training, for example, and they're really trying it out, like trying a marriage out. Now let me tell you, never try out a marriage. A marriage is not something you can try like a pair of shoes, and when you find it doesn't fit, you take it off again. Because people treat marriage like that today. That's why it's getting painful — I take it off, divorce, finish. There is no way you can do this. But there are people who try out the Christian life, like now we are educated to free trial. You don't like it, in ten days you return. But Christianity is not even better — you can't try it for a lifetime. It's putting your hand to the plow and never looking back.
Check your commitment. Check your commitment to your brother or sister. Check your commitment to the training, for example. Can it be that when the training gets too tough, when my co-workers get too difficult for me, and finally I say, okay, I've been waiting to get out of this exit hatch for a long time, and now it's my good time to come. So out you go. So we do that to the Christian life, we do it to our roommates, our apartment mates, our brothers and sisters — they're too difficult for me, I quit. If you do that, you reveal that your commitment was never complete. You sin deliberately, knowingly that you will exit when the going gets bad.
I hope there's no one in the training, none of us as Christians even, that when the going gets bad, we will exit. When the persecution gets hot, we quit. Because if we sin deliberately, it will mean it's apostasy, whichever way you go. You deny Him by your words, or you deny Him by your actions. It doesn't matter which way. It will be apostasy. So I beg of you to grasp this thing: perfection is out of reach for anyone who is not totally committed. It's just not on to talk about it.
I beg of you to grasp this thing very clearly. I say this particularly for some of you who will be leaving us soon. Check your commitment before you go. I never understand why people go to another place and their faith starts going downhill. Why should it go downhill? Why should circumstances make any difference? My commitment is to Him. It's not affected by external circumstances. Why does the job tempt me to reduce my commitment to the Lord? Why do people say, yeah, it's so difficult to be a Christian in this working environment? Why should it make any difference? I haven't noticed a difference. I have also worked in my time. I have studied in the most hostile environment, whether it be in China or in a liberal theological college. It never weakened my commitment. It certainly put a lot of pressure on me. But I never put a backward glance. Not even a sideward glance. Forward. That's the way I go. Totally committed to Him. Totally committed to the church. No way I would sin deliberately.
So, I sum up then today. Freedom. Freedom from sin. But no one will enjoy that freedom. No one will experience the joy of that freedom until once and for all you have settled it in your heart that your commitment is without reservation to the Lord. Without any conditional clauses. Without escape hatches. Without backward glances. May the Lord grant you to understand and experience this kind of freedom.
Let's pray. Keep going. Thank you.