In Hebrews 3:14, “We come to share in Christ when our confidence and trust in him hold firm.” So what does “sharing in Christ” mean – and why is our confidence so important in experiencing it?
According to Hebrews 5, both points are answered in “the obedience Jesus learnt from what he suffered” (8), because in his obedience to God he “became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him” (9) and he was “designated by God to be high priest in the order of Melchizedek” (10). To share in Christ, then, is to experience both his eternal salvation and priesthood in our lives, and the confidence that gives us. And so long as our confidence remains firm we’ll continue to share in Christ’s eternal salvation and priesthood.
The key to sharing in Christ, then, is our confidence and trust in him holding firm – a lesson well illustrated in the lives of the Israelites who also experienced God’s salvation and priesthood in their lives, but even after forty years of seeing him in action on their behalf, “their hearts were always going astray” (3:9-10).
So all those amazing miracles God did to rescue them from Egypt, protect and feed them on route to Canaan, enable them to defeat fortress cities all over Canaan, and prove himself real to them again and again, didn’t have the desired effect of trusting him no matter what.
Something was missing in their lives – but what? The Holy Spirit drops a clue in Hebrews 3:7, when he says, “Today, if you hear his voice.” The point being, that no matter what temptations they faced, nasty surprises they came up against, or their own minds doing a real number on them – each day hear God’s voice above them all.
That’s what Jesus did. “Every day of Jesus’ life on earth….reverent submission” to his Father’s voice was first on the list (5:7). It was tough but “obedience became a habit no matter what he suffered” (8).
And now it’s our turn – in our case to “fix our thoughts on Jesus,” because as an “apostle” (3:1) he’s the one God is speaking to us through (1:2). Jesus, therefore, is the one we obey, because to “all who obey him” (5:9) he shares the same confidence and trust in God that he had.
But where did his confidence and trust come from? According to Hebrews it was “Through the eternal Spirit”….(next blog)
Buck To Basics 