Hebrews Chapter Thirteen, Praise & Sharing

 

Hebrews 13:15 Therefore by Him let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name. [16] But do not forget to do good and share, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.

 

Here the writer teaches about two types of sacrifice. Verse 15 tells us that by Christ we may offer the sacrifice of praise to God the Father. This praise is something the Christian is to do continually, something vocalized so men may hear. By our confession we approach God through Jesus Christ our Lord, contributing further veracity to His testimony that none may come to the Father apart from Him, John 14:6.

We are in agreement with the truth and testify before men that praise is only acceptable to God when it is offered through the Lord Jesus Christ. The mention of His name alludes to the notion of clarifying who it is the saint aligns himself or herself with. God is not a generic term for the saint. In the Hebrew, the word God is Elohim, a name reserved specifically for the God of the Hebrews. God’s proper name with His covenant people, translated “Lord” in the KJV or NKJV is Yahweh (also translated Jehovah). Neither name is “correct” per say, since the Tetragrammaton, or the Hebrew name for Lord is YHWH. Both Yahweh and Jehovah are transliterated. The Hebrew name, out of reverence for God, was not spoken aloud. Sufficed to say, the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ contention about the name of God being Jehovah is inaccurate and sophomoric, since the Tetragrammaton is not correctly (or incorrectly) translated into either Yahweh or Jehovah.

 

The name of God defines His person. Using a personal example, my wife, Gillian Curtis, is uniquely defined by the name that belongs to her. Her personality, character traits, strengths and weaknesses, et al. culminate to comprise who she is, summarized succinctly by the utterance of her specific name. Now granted, there are many women of that name out there, but that is why differentiation must be practiced. To say that one is the same as the other is to practice and be blinded by a nigh-fatal naiveté that betrays an unwillingness to permit an individual’s characteristics to define their uniqueness. A person’s name is like a fingerprint: entirely and completely unique to the owner: a veritable stamp of individuality that marks them for who they are, no matter who “shares” their name in a superficial way.

 

If this is so for people, how much more for God, and for the gods that jockey to rob the Lord of His unique deity and rule? God explained Himself through His Son, Hebrews 1:2. When someone asks who God is, the Christian has the answer. He is Jesus Christ, for in Him all the fullness of the Godhead resides, Colossians 2:9. Jesus, as we learned in Hebrews, is the express image of God’s person. When the saint glorifies the Father through the Son, they are testifying that Father and Son are one, and to possess one, we must have both, 2 John 9. The doctrine that every religion reveals different attributes of the same God, or that every religion simply reveals God from a different angle is illogical. Why? A cursory examination of every major religion (to say nothing for minor religions and cults) reveals a gross contrast in the revelation of God’s person. The only logical conclusion one may arrive at if the premise of every religion revealing some facet of God is true is that God is a schizophrenic.

 

The alternative theory that possesses superior explanatory power is that God expressed His power and person most vividly through His Son. Confessing His name and praising the true God through Jesus Christ reveals God’s person on an intimate level to the honest seeker. To those who prefer that God hide behind a wall of mysticism or skepticism so as to avoid culpability for their choices in life, they will reject the Savior, who reveals the Father to those who embrace the truth. A universal God far off is safe; a God personally defined, actively engaged in His children’s lives and ruling over the universe providentially brings man’s purported autonomy crashing down in a fiery heap. Jesus is not rejected because His claims are false; our Lord is rejected because His revelation is inconvenient to how we’ve chosen to live; namely when we choose to live contrarily to His revealed will, in rebellion to the truth.

 

Linked to this narrative, and a logical outgrowth of it, the author reminds the Hebrew saints that they ought not to forget to do good and share. These too, they are informed, are pleasing sacrifices to the Lord. Paul writes to Titus, “these things I want you to affirm constantly, that those who have believed in God should be careful to maintain good works. These things are good and profitable to men,” Titus 3:8. These things, Paul asserts, must be constantly affirmed within the church. What are these things? That if someone has believed in God that good works follow, which are both good and profitable to our fellow man. This belief in God Paul mentions is associated with Hebrews 13:15, where the believer’s confession invokes the name of Jesus Christ when referencing the true God.

 

The believer’s faith does not end when assent is given that God exists. God does exist, and does not need our permission to do so. Our acceptance or rejection of objective truth in no way nullifies its reality, no matter what people may think as we live in an age when one may identity as something that departs from reality and enters into fantasy. The writer himself states that we must not only believe that God is, given the testimony He has given of Himself through nature, the conscience, and Scripture, but that He rewards those that diligently seek Him, Hebrews 11:6. God informs Jeremiah, “And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart,” Jeremiah 29:12. Conformity to God’s will is a part of biblical faith, or belief. Talking to the prophet still, God relates, “Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you,” Jeremiah 29:11. Even the formerly blind man understood this rudimentary spiritual truth when he told the Sanhedrin, “Now we know that God does not hear sinners; but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does His will, He hears him,” John 9:31. God will not hear sinners; He will, however, hear those who have believed and do His will. Prayer to God is futile without conformity to His revealed will. Conformity to His will is impossible without a clearly defined understanding of what His will entails. Arriving at what His will entails is a futile gesture if we refuse to permit God to differentiate Himself from the army of pretenders that try to usurp His authority in the host of human religions that masquerade as truth.

 

To do good is synonymous with sharing. In effect, the writer is telling the Hebrew Christians that a pleasing sacrifice to God is to willingly give to others, and fulfill the command that believers should love one’s neighbor as himself. James addresses this lack of profit should we refrain from giving when he writes, “If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, “Depart in peace, be armed and filled,” but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit?” James 2:15, 16. John concurs when he writes, “But whoever has this world’s goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him?” 1 John 3:17. A giving spirit, a selfless spirit, should be the outcome of our faith. “So let each one give as he purposes in his heart, not grudgingly or of necessity; for God loves a cheerful giver,” 2 Corinthians 9:7.