Text Of Interest:
“But
ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly
Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and
church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of
all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, And to Jesus the mediator of
the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things
than that of Abel.”
Heb
12:22 – 24 (KJV)
Continued from the last episode:
So anyone in the beginning and in the old
order that heard the gospel of the sacrificial lamb and believes it is
accounted unto him or her righteous. Therefore, the belief in the sacrificial
lamb becomes the standard to measure or becoming righteous in the sight of God.
This is an indication that it was not about what these people did that made
them righteous but what they have believed in, which is the blood of the lamb.
In that case the substance of their faith was anchored on something they hoped
for and the evidence was something not seen but registered in their hearts. As
a result of this, they were righteous which by implication suggests that they
were blessed people because they didn’t see but believed. As Jesus puts it to
Thomas “Jesus saith unto him, Thomas,
because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not
seen, and yet have believed. (Jn 20:29). One thing to point out here is
that faith is developed or gained in the heart of the person that receives the
message because he or she has great value to the integrity of the messenger and
his words, whether in the past, present and future. Here, it means that these
people in the beginning and old order that had faith in the massage did so
because they regarded the integrity of the person that spoke the word to them,
in other words they regarded God’s integrity.
On the other hand, their believe in
the substance of something hope for, means that the substance inasmuch as it is
still something hope for, it is not visible which means that their faith was
established on something they didn’t see. However, it is obvious that there is
no way they would have been convinced to believe if there was nothing that
motivated them. So their faith was built on something that they heard, since
faith is by hearing ( .i.e by hearing what
God has done, is doing and will do), and what was spoken to them was the
message of the Lamb. Therefore, the message is powered by the spirit of the
message of the Lamb and it became fixated in their hearts and as well quickened
their hearts to believe. Considering what Apostle Peter said in his epistle
that “Of which salvation the prophets have enquired and searched diligently,
who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you. Searching what or what
manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it
testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should
follow.” (1 Peter 1:10-11).
The Spirit of Christ in them did speak
to them about Christ and His sufferings and glory. That is to say that they
really heard the right message from the Spirit of Christ. Although, the Spirit
was not in them but was upon them, and motivated them as the message came to
them to begin to believe what was said and they started to act accordingly and
it was called faith. As a result they were called righteous or people that
obtained good report. So this act of faith cause or enabled them to receive a
promising salvation deal or a placement in Christ. One interesting thing to
point out here is that though they didn’t see Christ physically they believed
in Him by mere message that was given to them as a result they were declared
righteous before God because of their faith in the message. Therefore, their
righteousness was the righteousness of faith not righteousness of doing, because
it was obvious that from their antecedents they had loads of issues that were
not consistent with the character of people assumed to be ‘righteous’ in the
sight of men. So, their unbecoming characters were not recorded but their act
of faith was recorded and by that they were qualified to be called righteous
irrespective of their negative shades.
Let’s painstakingly scrutinize these
characters in the bible called the elders who obtained good report by faith and
were declared righteous; to find out what exactly they did that made them
outstanding. The detail accounts of their acts of faith are made in the book of
Hebrews and let’s see what it says in Hebrews chapter 11, as we take them one
after the other to analyze what their acts of faith was. It is important to
mention here that in verse one of Hebrews chapter 11, the statement there is
not a definition of faith but a description of a particular faith called the
faith of the elders. This is so because if one tries to juxtapose the
description in chapter 11 verse one of Hebrews with the rest verses in the Scripture
were faith is mentioned, it is clear that this description cannot fit into the
verses as a definition of faith. Therefore, faith could be described in a
verse(s) it appears based on the content and context of the writing, hence
faith doesn’t have a general or omnibus definition in application.
I said all of these above because it
will help us to position things fittingly as we proceed in this topic.
To be continued…..
Till I come your way again, keep on
basking in the Arena of Indubitable Truth!
Chukwuemeka C. Asiegbu
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