Hebrews Chapter Eleven, Pleasing God

 

Hebrews 11:6 But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.

 

The author appears to pause here, reflecting on the previous verse. In Hebrews 11:5 it reads, “that he (Enoch) pleased God.” But Enoch’s walk sans faith, or Abel’s offering sans faith would not have pleased Him. Our works without faith are offerings made to substitute for that substance we lack, and which God finds pleasing.

Paul writes, “but to those who are…unbelieving nothing is pure…they profess to know God, but in works they deny Him,” Titus 1:15, 16. Even James implies the need for faith as the foundation for the works that perfect it when he writes, “Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead,” James 2:17. A faith that produces works, in James’ view, is profitable, James 2:16. Yet that profit is not to earn grace from God, but to serve our fellow man, Titus 3:8. James 2:18 demonstrates that he is speaking from a humanly observational level by writing, “Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works,” James 2:18. Does God need to see our works to know that we have faith? Of course not. Noah found grace in God’s eyes, Genesis 6:8. He did not merit it. Abram believed what God told him, and it was accounted to him for righteousness, Genesis 15:6.

 

This is where works enter a saint’s walk. When we genuinely believe God, our actions ought to conform to our belief. Hence faith molds our mindset, which in turn naturally produces actions, or works, commensurate to our confession. Faith bereft of works is tantamount to intellectual assent, which is facile and costs the adherent nothing. It costs them nothing because the confessor’s faith does not compel him to distinguish himself as any different from the unsaved world he lives in the midst of. It is a benign faith, safe and harmless, both for himself and those around him, who will never be in danger of being exposed to Christ. But if such a confessor is so comfortable leaving his friends and loved ones in their lost states without so much as a word or prayer, James argues that such a soul is himself still lost, and shares the faith of the demons.

 

We read in Jeremiah, “And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart,” Jeremiah 29:13. Paul, in his excellent apology regarding the Christian faith, told his Greek audience, “And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings,” Acts 19:26. What is the reason for God’s sovereign direction governing the nations and families of mankind? “So that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us,” verse 27. Certain Greek poets, including Epimenides, a 7^th century poet from Knossos or Phaistos, as well as Aratus (315-240 BC) and Cleanthus (330-230 BC), seem to have had an ennobled concept of deity, ascribing that a single, great God had created all men.

 

In Jeremiah, God used the exile as a vehicle or catalyst to bring Israel to their collective senses and restore them to true faith in Him, Jeremiah 29:14. In Acts, Paul explains that God sets the boundaries of mankind, with their rising and falling, so that when they reflect on these things they might seek for Him. God holds the answers to our existence, and when the poets and philosophers and theologians cease speaking, we know that first and foremost, our own existence is paramount in our thoughts. We need answers, and the cardinal answer we need is: where did I come from? Or worded differently, why am I here? The corollary to the first question would include: where am I going? The first logical reality one must face is that God exists.

 

Now when I posit the word God, I don’t mean an abstract form, concept, idea, force or power. God is transcendent, but He is not unknowable. God is omnipresent, but incredibly personal. God is a person. Who is God? Isn’t that a strange question to ask in the middle of such a deeply rich theological epistle? But the writer challenges us with the latter portion of this verse by stating we must believe that God is. God has an identity, and the Bible, in part, was written to provide His identity, culminating in the advent of Jesus Christ, who is the express image of God, Hebrews 1:3, 2 Corinthians 4:4.

 

Hinduism does not lead to God, and knows nothing of the transcendent, personal, relational, triune God revealed in Scripture. Islam does not reveal God, since Allah is not personal, or relational, incomplete in his aloof isolation and incapable of loving or being loved until man arrived. Buddhism, essentially Atheistic at its core, (though some sects worship Buddha as a god) does not know God. Religion does not know God; I have said it before, but religion is man’s substitute for God, and posits moral authority in religious power rather than God’s personal investment or presence. God is unique, and has traits uniquely His. Like the people He created, there are none like Him. I am uniquely me, and there will never be another Ian Curtis identical to me in existence. The same goes for all humanity. If we are so wonderfully different from one another, why does humanity dishonestly insist that God is in all religions, or that spirituality, vaguely defined by the New Age movement, leads to God? The God of the New Age robs a person of their unique identity by claiming we are gods, and possess a god-consciousness. But God is not something innately within that needs awakening. This does nothing to explain daily reality. Neither does the insistence (disingenuous at absolutely best) that all religion reflects God’s character. It does not, because all religion disagrees about every significant doctrine that theologians could hope to discuss. There are two more searching answers to pursue than the New Age mixture of religion-lite, and religious ecumenism. One is Atheism, the religious belief that there is no God, all theistic religions are false, and the universe is a product of time and chance. But this belief robs humanity of purpose, not to mention dignity, and puts the mechanism for creation into some obscure admix of vagaries to explain away how nothing could become something and non-life could beget life, given enormous enough amounts of time. The second sincere approach is theism; a belief that there is a God in Heaven, and He is responsible for man’s presence on earth; in fact He is responsible for earth itself, and the vastness of space our planet finds itself in.