December 18, 2020 Bible Study Placing Our Faith In God, Not In Dead Works

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Hebrews 6-9.

Interestingly, the translators’ notes in the footnotes says that the words translated here as “evil deeds’ literally translate as “dead works”.  Using that makes more sense of what the writer is saying than what they chose here: “So let us stop going over the basic teachings about Christ again and again. Let us go on instead and become mature in our understanding. Surely we don’t need to start again with the fundamental importance of repenting from dead works evil deeds and placing our faith in God.”   The writer appears to me to be telling his audience that they should be past arguing about the importance of rituals and particular actions.  In particular, the writer seems to be discussing the rituals and practices of Jewish Law, although I do not believe his point applies exclusively to them.  He goes on to point out how the high priest under Mosaic Law was so constrained to continually offer sacrifices that he was unable to truly intercede on our behalf with God.  Jesus does not suffer that liability, since His one time sacrifice was sufficient for eternity.  This means that Jesus can function as an advocate before God for us.  Just as each of us will die once, so Jesus died once.  And since Jesus was resurrected, we know that He will be there to bring us before God for resurrection if we put our faith in Him.