Hebrews Chapter Five, Christ: The Author Of Salvation

 

Hebrews 5:9 And having been perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him,

 

The NT synonym for “perfect” is “mature.” Yet in this instance in Hebrews I do not believe that is what is necessarily meant. Scripture always explains itself, so if we look we may find answers. When Jesus our Lord was walking through the villages teaching, heading toward Jerusalem, He was warned by some Pharisees that Herod sought His death. Jesus’ response was most interesting. “Go, tell that fox, ‘Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I shall be perfected,” Luke 13:32. 

The RSV renders the final portion of the verse, “I finish my course.” The NASB translates it, “I reach My goal,” with, “I am perfected,” in the footnotes. The HCSB renders the verse, “I will complete My work.” Every translation tends to the idea of perfecting something. But what is it Jesus is perfecting? Continuing the narrative Luke records we find, “Nevertheless I must journey today, tomorrow, and the day following; for it cannot be that a prophet should perish outside of Jerusalem,” Luke 13:33. His perfection then is His death and subsequent resurrection.

 

Mind you, our Lord was making His way toward Jerusalem when He made this prophetic statement about His own demise, Luke 13:22. He was invalidating Herod’s desire to kill Him, since it was impossible to do so until the appointed time, and at the appointed place. It was the place where scores of His servants the prophets already met their end, and it was where He knew He would meet His own, killed by sinful man. Having accomplished this perfection, resurrecting in His immortal, spiritual body to minister forever as High Priest before the Father, Christ became the author of eternal salvation. Jesus is salvation’s author. The Greek word for “author,” is “aitios.” It means, “that which (literally) causes something to happen.” The angel expressed that His name, when born, would be Jesus, “for He will save His people from their sins,” Matthew 1:21. Jesus literally causes salvation because He IS salvation. His name means Savior. We are saved by what He has done, and simply because of who He is.

 

The writer expresses the nature of the salvation we receive from the Savior. He calls it eternal. It is everlasting, undying, perpetual, unending, ceaseless salvation. At the risk of overplaying my point here: can someone lose or forfeit everlasting, undying, perpetual, unending, ceaseless salvation? If so, then the descriptors are wrong, Christ is not a Savior, because He failed to save us, and by extension He is likewise not salvation’s author. John writes, “These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God,” 1 John 5:13. John informs us that eternal life is something the believer presently possesses when he trusts in Jesus. In the New Testament the various authors employ the phrase “eternal life” no less than 22 times in connection with the nature of the life one receives from believing in Jesus Christ. If you contribute its sister term “everlasting” we find a bare minimum of 14 more uses. Hebrews 5:9 stands as a stark testimony of salvation’s nature and origin. Its genesis is in Christ, who is life (John 14:6), who provides life eternal to anyone willing to receive it through faith, because eternal is the quality of life that abides in Him. He can do no less, for when He imparts life, it is unending.

 

Our Lord imparts this life to, “all who obey Him.” While a surface brush may imply that obedience (works) equates into gaining salvation, we turn back in Hebrews a little and are reminded that unbelief equates into rebellion, while belief equals obedience, Hebrews 3:16-19, 4:2, 3. Faith (or its absence) is a cause: obedience (or its opposite, rebellion) is an effect. In other words, works cannot gain salvation if they replace or rival faith. Rather, works are an outflowing of faith when the heart responds out of love for God. Works no longer focus on us and how they might benefit or better our standing with God; selfless obedience focuses on God’s glory and man’s good. Works done for reward will always have an austere and fearful component in them because their very enactment displays a mistrust of God residing in our heart.

 

Jesus posed a rhetorical question once, saying, “But why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord’ and do not the things which I say?” Luke 6:46. Pleasing God from the heart goes well beyond doing “good works.” Good works tends to become a counter balance to the sin nature in us that compels us to enjoy evil. The scales balance (we hope) by doing good things in His name and hoping (without Biblical basis) that the good cancels out the bad. Romans chapter 2 is devoted to countering this type of religious hypocrisy, which, far from helping, serves to condemn the practitioner. James’ epistle is replete with similar testimony. James explains that obedience is an outward sign that one IS saved, not that one hopes to be, or is accruing credit toward eternal life. Our works issue forth from a heart indwelt by God the Holy Spirit, whose ministry in us creates the fruit of righteousness. From this new life comes forth works pleasing to God; a supernatural operation that we, in the flesh, cannot hope to replicate or mimic.

 

When Jesus separates the sheep from the goats in Matthew chapter 25 He makes the criterion kindness or love (charity in the KJV) toward His brethren: Jewish or Gentile believers. This love is only manifest in those already saved, who express the Holy Spirit’s interest by seeking out the needy and helping them, providing visible evidence of their salvation. The damned demonstrate their lost state by their negligence toward His brethren and are thrust into “everlasting punishment,” while the righteous enter “eternal life,” Matthew 25:46. Both states are unending, Christ applying identical descriptors for them. How we reach them is determinant on our standing with Jesus Christ, our Savior. He is the author of eternal salvation to those who obey Him. This begins one way: “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent,” John 6:29.