Sunday's Hymn: Let Us Love, and Sing, and Wonder

Let us love, and sing, and wonder,
Let us praise the Saviour’s name!
He has hushed the law’s loud thunder,
He has quenched Mount Sinai’s flame;
He has washed us with his blood,
He has brought us nigh to God.

Let us love the Lord who bought us,
Pitied us when enemies,
Called us by his grace, and taught us,
Gave us ears and gave us eyes:
He has washed us with his blood,
He presents our souls to God.

Let us sing, though fierce temptation
Threaten hard to bear us down!
For the Lord, our strong salvation,
Holds in view the conqueror’s crown,
He who washed us with his blood,
Soon will bring us home to God.

Let us wonder; grace and justice
Join, and point to mercy’s store;
When through grace in Christ our trust is,
Justice smiles, and asks no more:
He who washed us with his blood,
Has secured our way to God.

Let us praise, and join the chorus
Of the saints enthroned on high;
Here they trusted him before us,
Now their praises fill the sky:
“Thou hast washed us with thy blood;
Thou art worthy, Lamb of God!”

—John Newton

Other hymns, worship songs, or quotes for this Sunday:

• Let Every Lamp Be Burning Bright at The Happy Wonderer

What Are Dead Works?

 

For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh,  how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God. (Hebrews 9:13–14 ESV)

I host a Bible study on the New Testament book of Hebrews in my home, and a couple of months ago, we discussed these verses. We asked (and tried to answer) several questions about this text, questions like, “What’s up with sprinkling heifer ashes?” and “What does it mean to purify the flesh?” The question that intrigued me the most seems simpler than either of those: What exactly are the dead works that Jesus’s blood cleanses from our conscience?” 

Because I’m a reformed protestant, I see the word works in the Bible and automatically think of acts someone does to try to improve their standing before God. Some may give money to charity, for instance, or help the poor, or attend church in hopes of gaining God’s favour. Others perform religious rites, like (since it’s the season) giving up something for Lent. We could call these “dead works” in the sense that they cannot bring life. They will not gain God’s favor. No matter how many good works we do, we cannot perform ourselves into a better standing before God.

A couple of the commenters and preachers I read to prepare for the Bible study thought the dead works in this text were exactly these sorts of acts. Others thought the phrase referred to acts done in accordance with the Old Testament ceremonial system. S. Lewis Johnson, for instance, said dead works are “Levitical works. They have no power, really, to bring life. That’s why they are dead.” 

Neither of these answers to the question of the meaning of dead works in Hebrews 9:14 satisfied me. According to this verse, people needed to be cleansed from the inner defilement their dead works caused. Was a faithful Jew defiled inwardly by keeping all the Levitical laws? Considered in themselves without regard to motive, do giving to charity, helping the poor, and going to church defile us? I don’t think so.

I’ve concluded that the actual meaning of dead works in this passage is simpler than either of these explanations. The phrase “dead works” is used one other time in Hebrews, and this text helps explain what the author means by it: 

Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, (Hebrews 6:1 ESV)

The writer of Hebrews says “repentance from dead works and faith toward God” is a foundational truth of the Christian faith. It’s his formula for the gospel. It means the same thing as “repentance from sin and faith in Jesus.” Dead works in Hebrews, then, are simply sinful acts. They are dead because they bring death. They are dead because they result in the condemnation of God. The NIV translates “dead works” as “acts that lead to death” and I think that’s exactly what it means. 

Our sinful acts defile our consciences, and Jesus’s sacrifice cleanses that defilement. The Levitical sacrifices effected cleansing from physical defilement, like the defilement that came from close contact with death, but they could not clean the inner defilement that came from intentional disobedience.

And—carrying on with the verse—a conscience purified by Jesus’s sacrifice is set free to serve the living God. We work for God, not to make ourselves clean, but because we have already been made clean. As the outflow of a cleansed conscience, we joyfully do the good works the living God prepared for us to do. 

Theological Term of the Week: Spiritual Body

spiritual body
The type of physical body believers will receive at the future resurrection—a body that is glorious, incorruptible, and enlivened by the Holy Spirit; also called resurrection body or glorified body.

• From Scripture:

But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?” [36] You foolish person! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. [37] And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. [38] But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body. [39] For not all flesh is the same, but there is one kind for humans, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish. [40] There are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is of one kind, and the glory of the earthly is of another. [41] There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory.

[42] So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. [43] It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. [44] It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. [45] Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. [46] But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual. [47] The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. [48] As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. [49] Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven. (1 Corinthians 15:35–49 ESV)

• From Systematic Theology by Louis Berkhof:

There were some in the days of Paul who regarded the resurrection as spiritual, II Tim. 2:18. And there are many in the present day who believe only in a spiritual resurrection. But the Bible is very explicit in teaching the resurrection of the body. Christ is called the “firstfruits” of the resurrection, I Cor. 15:20,23, and “the firstborn of the dead,” Col. 1:18; Rev. 1:5. This implies that the resurrection of the people of God will be like that of their heavenly Lord. His resurrection was a bodily resurrection, and theirs will be of the same kind. Moreover, the redemption wrought by Christ is also said to include the body, Rom. 8:23; I Cor. 6:13-20. In Rom. 8:11 we are told explicitly that God through His Spirit will raise up our mortal bodies. And it is clearly the body that is prominently before the mind of the apostle in I Cor. 15, cf. especially the verses 35-49. According to Scripture there will be a resurrection of the body, that is, not an entirely new creation, but a body that will be in a fundamental sense identical with the present body. God will not create a new body for every man, but will raise up the very body that was deposited in the earth. This cannot only be inferred from the term “resurrection,” but is clearly stated in Rom. 8:11, I Cor. 15:53, and is further implied in the figure of the seed sown in the earth, which the apostle employs in I Cor. 15:36-38. Moreover, Christ, the firstfruits of the resurrection, conclusively proved the identity of His body to His disciples. At the same time Scripture makes it perfectly evident that the body will be greatly changed. Christ’s body was not yet fully glorified during the period of transition between the resurrection and the ascension; yet it had already undergone a remarkable change. Paul refers to the change that will take place, when he says that in sowing a seed we do not sow the body that shall be; we do not intend to pick the same seed out of the ground. Yet we do expect to reap something that is in a fundamental sense identical with the seed deposited in the earth. While there is a certain identity between the seed sown and the seeds that develop out of it, yet there is also a remarkable difference. We shall be changed, says the apostle, “for this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.” The body “is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption: it is sown in dishonor; it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body.” Change is not inconsistent with the retention of identity. We are told that even now every particle in our bodies changes every seven years, but through it all the body retains its identity. There will be a certain physical connection between the old body and the new, but the nature of this connection is not revealed. Some theologians speak of a remaining germ from which the new body develops; others say that the organizing principle of the body remains. Origen had something of that kind in mind; so did Kuyper and Milligan. If we bear all this in mind, the old objection against the doctrine of the resurrection, namely, that it is impossible that a body could be raised up, consisting of the same particles that constituted it at death, since these particles pass into other forms of existence and perhaps into hundreds of other bodies, loses its force completely.

Learn more:

1. Blue Letter Bible: What Will the Resurrected Bodies of the Righteous Be Like?
2. Got Questions: What is a spiritual body?
3. Wyatt Graham: What Will Our Resurrection Body Be Like?
4. Matt Perman: The Great Christian Hope of Glorification
5. Derek Thomas: A New Body! The Resurrection of the Body (MP3)
6. Jerry Bridges: A Resurrected Body - 1 Corinthians 15:35-58 (MP3)

Related terms:  

• glorification
• resurrection of Jesus

Filed under Salvation

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