Hebrews Chapter Thirteen, Being Established Or Occupied

 

Hebrews 13:9b For it is good that the heart be established by grace, not with foods which have not profited those who have been occupied with them.

 

A contrast is clearly made in the latter portion of the verse. The heart may be established by one of two things: grace, or a different kind of nourishment, which is unprofitable to those who consume it. The author states that such people are occupied with the latter option when they become entangled with it. This latter option is religion. Be it humanistic philosophy, modern psychology, Wicca, or institutionalized religion, they fall into the same camp. They are inedible foods that poison and ultimately kill those who partake in them.

Salvation is by grace through faith, and this not of ourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works so that no man may boast, see Ephesians 2:8, 9. This is the method the Bible commends on how the heart should be established. Its opponent establishes the heart with an all you can eat buffet of works and self-effort. Salvation—however the medium defines it—is incremental and demands the individual’s cooperation and effort. It is an exchange: human effort for continued “results,” however they are defined. Rome has sold this lie most famously and for the longest, masquerading as a Christian church but touting so many anti-biblical and extra-biblical teachings that it is utterly farcical. It’s contempt for truth led to the slaughter of many Bible believing saints over the centuries. It advocates prayers to Mary, the saints, the Mass, Purgatory, extreme unction, a clergy class, forced celibacy, and is more of a political entity than a spiritual. This is but one flavor of food that kills. They are, in reality, legion.

 

C.S. Lewis wrote that it didn’t matter which direction one went in a desert if you missed the only oasis. Every direction at that point led to the same end. I believe this verse is the chrysalis from which he derived that allegory. The unprofitable food is human effort to appease a Creator that already defined the terms of approach to Him, and how man may be reconciled. Religion occupies the supplicant with chores that focus one’s attention in part or in whole on oneself. God, if He exists in a given religion, is a tool man uses to ascend the ladder of salvation. No gracious words lauding Him can mask our actions when they betray what we profess. Jesus is my Savior…but I must continue to work to save myself. Yes, He is giving me His grace, accomplished on the cross at Calvary…to continue to work and ensure that I can enter Heaven once I have done enough. And so it goes. The words proclaim that Christ is Savior. Actions tell another story, and the incongruity, once apparent, becomes a festering hypocrisy that no workload can save you from.

 

The Greek word for “good” in this verse is, “kalos” and has a surprisingly complex meaning for so seemingly simple a word. Our English language falters a little conveying the nuanced definition of this term. Strong’s Concordance lists four chief definitions for the word, all of which are determined by the context in which it is used, and I believe the most fitting would be the fourth listed, which reads, “good, excellent in its nature and characteristics, and therefore well adapted to its ends, praiseworthy, noble.” The “good” of our verse is not directly related to the established heart, but the grace that establishes said heart. The author has an elevated view of God’s grace, which is His condescending love toward us. I do not use the word condescending in a derogatory way; rather, it is meant to illuminate the notion that while God’s love descends in grace, human love ascends in worship. True worship is bound in love, which comes from the heart.

 

The end of grace is to bestow upon its undeserving recipient eternal life. The alternative is the aforementioned altar, whose unprofitable food does not confer grace but death. Paul dissects this issue carefully, demonstrating beyond any reasonable doubt that grace and work are antithetical. “Now to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace but as debt,” Romans 4:4. In the Greek, the term used for debt in this verse translates literally into, “that which is legally due.” In other words, God owes you for the work you have put in on His behalf. This is the song Rome plays, as does every cult and other religion, which men made and not God. God’s salvation is of grace, which opposes work because God owes us nothing, Job 41:11, Psalm 50:7-15. Nor can man use the escape route of claiming that grace is dispensed through certain rituals and works; that is a thinly veiled attempt to sanctify human effort, couching it in terms that sound biblical, but oppose the true gospel and condemn everyone that eats from this altar. After God reproved Israel for sins, He informed them that it was not sacrifice and ritual that would save them. Rather, “Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I shall rescue you, and you will honor Me,” Psalm 50:15, NASB. “For “whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved,” Romans 10:13.