4 By faith Abel offered God a better sacrifice than Cain did. By faith he was commended as a righteous man, when God spoke well of his offerings. And by faith he still speaks, even though he is dead.
God has always intended works to be the result of salvation, not the way of salvation.
From MacArthur,
he wants to show the Jewish reader particularly and all men for that matter, but particularly the Jewish reader, the Hebrews that they have always been related to God on the basis of faith, that they never had a works system. That faith has always been that which pleased God, and of course the statement, "The just shall live by faith," is a quote from Habakkuk, one of their own prophets who said that. And so he wants to re-establish in their minds the character of faith and the absolute nature of faith by which a man comes to God. So he does it by defining it and then by giving illustrations from the history of Israel of men of faith.
Now the first example of faith was Abel....
In Abel we see a man worshiping, bringing a sacrifice, beginning the life of faith. And you never begin the life of faith until you come on the basis of sacrifice, right? Even today we don't come to God and just say, God I'm deciding to walk with You. Like the song says, I'll walk with God da- da, da- da, da- da. Well that's a nice sentiment. The only way you'll ever walk with God is when you come to God to begin with on the basis of a sacrifice, and the only sacrifice that opens up the way to God is the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Abel illustrates that, he came to God and worshiped through sacrifice.
From his previous sermon...
You know there's nothing at all in the text to indicate that Abel was any better than Cain? They were both sinners. The only thing that obtained righteousness for Abel was he did what God told him, Cain didn't. That's the only difference. That's the only thing that changes any man's relationship to God, it's not how good you are, it's not that you're better or worse than anybody else, it's that you came to God on the terms that God set down, that's all He asks. Abel was as much a sinner as Cain but he believed God and he obeyed and because of that faith was counted to him for righteousness and God accepted him. You see it's that kind of faith that enables God to move in on our behalf and make us righteous. Do you know that true faith is always obedient, do you know that? Always....
what is Abel saying to us? Three point sermon. Number one, man comes to God by faith not works, did you hear him say that? Point number two, man cannot follow reason and ignore revelation, he must abide by God's standard and obey it. Point number three, sin is severely punished for the one who doesn't obey. So Abel is the preacher, and he preaches a timeless sermon, and it says in effect just what the Holy Spirit wanted the reader's of Hebrews to hear, "The just shall live (what?) by faith."
1 comment:
Amen!!!
Galatians also says this, especially in ch 3-4, if you're interested in seeing this logically spelled out by Paul using different examples except for the Habakkuk quote which your post pointed out. :) The whole book really speaks to this and is a very quick read.
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