The Mind of a Hebrew

As I return to Hebrews today to continue my quest to uncover roots of bitterness, I began to think about who this book was written to and the possible reasons they may have had to entertain bitterness. Hebrews were Jews, the chosen nation, the people of God for many centuries to reveal to the rest of the world the truth about God. They finally rejected that position so completely that God had to accept their demand for divorce and revealed His backup plan – the body of Christ, His new bride. But this body was not distinct and separate from the Israelites but an outgrowth of them as is explained in Romans. The Jewish “branches” were broken off and Gentile branches were grafted in their place. But the trunk was not replaced and the opportunity is always there for the original branches to be grafted back in quite easily.

But if I was a Jew in those days listening to Paul's words about all of this and seeing thousands of non-Jews being welcomed into the favor of God that I thought was exclusively my prerogative, there would be a lot of potential for bitterness in my mind. And that was certainly demonstrated many times by the treatment by the Jews toward the Christians in those days. Most of the persecution suffered by Christians was instigated by jealous and bitter Jews trying to prevent God's plan to replace them as His chosen people on earth. They had for generations long believed that God's favor was only for Jews and just being born a Hebrew was enough to guarantee them a place ahead of everyone else in God's system.

Now, one of their most celebrated and zealous champions of that very belief had turned traitor on them and was now the zealous champion of their worst enemies, the Christians. And this very man, Paul, was going around teaching that Gentiles were considered in God's eyes as equally favored by Him when they accepted what seemed like a terribly watered down version of truth. Not only was Paul inviting millions of heathen and barbarians into fellowship with God that were disgusting to any good Jew, but he was also teaching that most of the strict requirements for being a chosen one were no longer valid. He was basically replacing all the good, religious doctrines that had been cultivated and worked out for centuries by the experts in religion with a bunch of mumbo-jumbo about love and faith and other emotional stuff that seemed to have no place in true piety. This sounded like heresy of the highest order and most Jews simply could not tolerate such perversion of what they strongly believed was “the truth”.

But remember, Paul is writing here presumably to converted Jews who are now part of the Christian believers. But that does not mean that they are free of all the previous baggage and beliefs about God from their past. It is also clear throughout the New Testament that there was a long-running undercurrent of discontent among the Jewish Christians about how Gentiles seemed to get off so easy compared to what the Jews believed was required to be a real Christian. They still could not believe in their heart that the gospel could really be that simple and easy to experience as the teachings of Paul seemed to imply. Because of this there was even within the church a lot of discontent and even bitterness in the hearts and minds of many Jewish Christians who felt that Paul was not strict enough in his teachings and beliefs.

The Jews were just like many, if not most people today in the religious world. They believed that one has to have a certain amount of tradition and rule-based behavior control to be a successful Christian. Sure you had to have help from God, but the responsibility for producing righteousness in the life to please a very austere, just God was the job of each person who expected to get to heaven. They believed that the gospel as Paul taught it was dangerously deficient in legal structure and requirements. They insisted that righteousness could only be accomplished through the imposition of strong regulations and ceremonies and discipline to keep people in line. They assumed that since God had taught them all of these “truths” for so many generations that it was simply absurd to throw them all away and embrace a completely new paradigm of thinking and relating to God. They promoted a more pragmatic approach to progress, a modification and improvement of the old ways but not such a radical break with the past. This was simply going too far and was sure to offend God and make Him angry with them. This would surely lead to the loss of many souls through dangerous deception and the disintegration of God's plans on earth.

It is at this point that the real problem begins to emerge. The fundamental misunderstanding in their thinking (and with ours) was their perception of what God is really like. They assumed from their view of the past that God was one who had to be placated and appeased or there would be dire consequences. God, they were certain, was very demanding of strict obedience to all the rules of law that had been compiled and revealed over history. Sure, maybe they had gone too far in their multiplication of rules and regulations and needed to revise and trim them down in certain areas, but fundamentally they still could not let go of their picture of God as a legal-based being who was more interested in obedience to law than He was in salvaging and restoring the hearts of His lost children. That was too much emotional based kind of thinking, had no real power to control people with fear and therefore had little place in “true religion”.

I believe this is likely a reasonable description of the general mindset of the average Jewish Christian in Paul's day. I'm sure there was a lot more involved, but basically human nature has not changed much over the centuries and the same problems tend to be repeated over and over again. The pervasive thinking in legal-oriented people today is pretty close to reflecting the same kind of thinking that has plagued people in all ages.

Given this context and placing myself in this mindset while reading Hebrews 12 it is easier to see why the writer is saying the things I find here. A Jew, or any legalistically-minded individual, would need to hear the various warnings and advice and instructions put down in this passage.

• There needs to be a better understanding of what faith really is and to experience more of it in our own life.

• There needs to be an understanding of our true relationship with those people who lived in Old Testament times.

• We need to understand the true nature and identity of beliefs that are really preventing us from entering fully into the freedom and peace that God wants for us as Christians.

• There needs to be a great deal more focus on Jesus and the intimate role He has in the true Christian's life.

• We need to understand the truth about Jesus' example and how to apply that to our own life.

• We need to see what sin really is outside the legal model and then how we are to resist it.

• We need to understand our relationship to God as children instead of slaves and what that means for interpreting the circumstances that come into our lives within that context.

• We must realize that the way our earthly fathers treated us is often not the right paradigm for understanding how God disciplines us.

• We must realize what God's real goal is for us – sharing in His holiness at the heart level, not external-oriented perfectionism. (We also need to know what these words really mean)

• We need to realize that much of our depression and discouragement comes from our misconceptions about God and His disposition toward us.

• We need to understand that our legalism has a wilting, discouraging effect on others in the body of Christ and that instead we need to be strengthening others, not making them weaker by our condemnation.

• We need to realize that instead of pursuing our righteousness and external perfectionism that God's desire for us is to pursue peace and sanctification (another seriously misinterpreted word), but in the ways He has outlined for us in the true gospel, not in the old ways of the letter of the law.

• All of these things are potential roots that if not corrected in our minds and hearts become sources of bitterness that cause endless trouble and defile the spirit of many around us.

Once again this passage is trying to get across to us the radical nature of the difference between the true gospel of God and the religious ideas that have been cultivated by humans throughout all of history. The fountain of the heart must be purified before the streams can become pure. He who is trying to reach heaven by his own works in keeping the law is attempting an impossibility. There is no safety for one who has merely a legal religion, a form of godliness. The Christian's life is not a modification or improvement of the old, but a transformation of nature. There is a death to self and sin, and a new life altogether. This change can be brought about only by the effectual working of the Holy Spirit. {DA 172}

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