Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.
Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you.
Pray for us, for we are sure that we have a clear conscience, desiring to act honorably in all things. I urge you the more earnestly to do this in order that I may be restored to you the sooner.
Hebrews 13:15-19 ESV
As we have been observing, this final chapter of Hebrews is largely a series of quick closing exhortations. Of course, these commands do not stand in a vacuum but are predicated upon everything that the author has labored to explain over the previous twelve chapters. Indeed, although the rest of the book also contains plenty of pointed exhortation, the purpose of this chapter can be captured in the question: How then shall we live?
The first verse, which I believe to be thesis of the entire chapter, called for us to continue in brotherly love. Such love for our brothers and sisters in Christ will be shown through our hospitality, our caring for the imprisoned and mistreated, our honoring of marriage, and our contentment with our earthly possessions. Such love cannot grow up out of strange and diverse doctrines but can only be rooted in our faith in Jesus Christ, who is the same yesterday, today, and forever. We concluded our previous passage with the author reminding us of the reproach that Christ bore to deliver us from our sins and calling us to also bear the reproach of marking ourselves as His disciples.
In the passage before us, the author explicitly binds the public confession of our faith in Christ to the love that we ought to show to one another, calling these pleasing sacrifices of praise to God. We will then see how submission to godly leadership is a safeguard against being led astray into strange and diverse doctrines and the importance of prayer as the greatest good that we can show to one another.
PLEASING SACRIFICES // VERSES 15-16
Particularly in the center of the book, the author of Hebrews labored to show that Christ is the absolute, perfect, and final fulfillment of all sacrifices for sins, according to the Old Testament law. Indeed, he noted that the chief benefit of the sacrificial system under the old covenant was to constantly remind God’s people of their sins and of their need for a perfect Redeemer.
Yet we should also remember that sin offerings were not the only kind of sacrifice that could be given. “Others were required as acts of worship denoting praise and thanksgiving to God and denoting the consecration of the worshiper to God. Of such kind were the burnt-offerings and the thank-offerings. The question naturally arises: The sin-offerings of the old covenant have been set aside by the offering of the reality to which they pointed. Have the offerings of praise and thanksgiving to God and denoting the consecration also been set aside? Does God still require his people to appear at the temple to perform sacrifices of worship and consecration as under the old covenant? Or with the superseding of the old covenant system is this also done away with?”[1]
Indeed, we can easily imagine that becoming a line of argument from some Jewish Christians: “We aren’t making sin offerings; we know that Jesus did that once for all. We’re only making sacrifices of thanksgiving.” What then is the answer? Have such offerings ceased, or are they still required of God’s people? The answer is yes and no. Yes, God’s people are still to bring to Him freewill offerings of thanksgiving and praise. We read that explicitly in verse 15: let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God.
However, making physical animal sacrifices has ceased. Just as the blood of animals in the sin offerings pointed toward their perfect fulfillment in the sacrifice of Christ, so the blood of animals in thanksgiving offerings also pointed toward something greater to come through Christ. You see, as long as these offerings of praise were bound to the animal sacrifices, they were severely limited. They were limited to being made only the temple. They were limited by the availability of the priests. They were limited by the resources that each person had.
Our sacrifices of praise no longer have such limitations under the new covenant. We are able to offer them continually… to God because they are no longer being made through the blood of bulls and goats but through him, that is Christ. All of our freewill offerings of praise and thanksgiving to God are now made through Christ, who forever sits interceding for us in prayer before the Father. Therefore, we can give continual sacrifices of praise to God because Christ is continually interceding for us and we have continual access to Him as our Mediator and great High Priest.
But what exactly do such sacrifices of praise look like today? The author himself clarifies what that ought to look like: that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. Continually acknowledging (or confessing) the name of Jesus is the sacrifice of praise that God now desires from His people. We certainly confess Christ’s name each Lord’s Day as we sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to Him. But since author just commanded us to go to Christ outside the camp and bear His reproach, we should think of this more in terms of not being ashamed of Christ before those who would mock Him or (as is more common with us today) who we fear may mock us because of Him.
Of course, even within the Old Testament, there were explicit declarations that confessing lips were more pleasing to God than the blood of animals. Consider David’s great prayer of repentance in Psalm 51:12-17:
Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
and uphold me with a willing spirit.
Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
and sinners will return to you.
Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God,
O God of my salvation,
and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness.
O Lord, open my lips,
and my mouth will declare your praise.
For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it.
you will not be pleased with a burnt offering.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit,
a broken and contrite heart,
O God, you will not despise.
With David’s prayer in mind, Richard Phillips is right to note:
Far more valuable to God than any outward religious display we offer, is that we should sacrificially devote our speech to him. This is something we should seek in prayer and cultivate as a Christian duty. Ask God to sanctify your lips, that they would be servants of his will and a source of pleasure to him. Of course, this will require the sanctification of your heart, which is the whole point. In large part we measure our heart sanctification by the sanctity of our speech, as gossip and coarse joking and cursing and complaining give way to encouraging, edifying, wise, and God-praising words.[2]
Such sacrifices of praise imitate the faith of those who have finished their race before us and glorify Christ as our altogether lovely Savior. Verse 16 presents another means: Do not neglect to do good and share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God. Just as acknowledging Jesus’ name has cost many Christians their lives and has heaped scorn upon many others, so too is doing good and sharing what we have with others always sacrificial. Because we live in a world that is still broken under the curse of sin, sinning is always easier (at first) than obedience. More specifically to the author’s point, it is also always easier to neglect doing good to others, just as it is always easier to neglect hospitality (v. 2). Yet in doing so, especially to the household of faith, we are also doing for our Lord (Matthew 25).
I think it is worth pointing out again that the author specifically has doing good to and sharing with our fellow believers. Although this may make me sound rather Scrooge-y, I believe that the general emphasis in many churches upon large mercy ministries is often not worth the time or financial commitment given to them. Like large outreach events, I certainly acknowledge that good and even salvations have come through them. However, mercy ministries often (again, a large generality that does not apply everywhere) seem to bear the fruit of Christians feeling good about serving the poor and perhaps the poor who were served thinking, “What nice people.” If our focus was primarily upon radically doing good and sharing with one another and with those connected to us, we would better present a community that people would actually desire to be a part of. Remember that the world (that is, non-Christians) will know that we are disciples of Christ (Christians) by our love for one another. If would do the best good for the world, we must give a glimpse of Jerusalem to those who have only ever known Babylon.
such sacrifices are pleasing to God. Recall from Hebrews 11 that this idea of having please God is connected to our being commended by God, which is the highest joy that can ever be known. As Lewis called it, it is the joy that the inferior takes in pleasing the superior. And what greater delight can there be for any creature than to know that the Creator is pleased with it. It amazes me to see my seven-month-old already trying to impress with whatever she is doing, but that is the natural inclination of a child to its father. A mother’s love is a child’s security, but a father’s approval is their confidence. If that is true of flawed, earthly fathers, how much more with our heavenly Father?
Of course, just as these sacrifices are not sacrifices for sin but of praise and thanksgiving to God, so too is God’s pleasure in us ultimately and fully secured through the finished work of Christ. But in a marvel of marvels, because Christ has redeemed us and is making us into new creations through the Holy Spirit, we are now able to do good works that please God. Only those who are in Christ have this privilege. Since “without faith it is impossible to please God” (11:6), those apart from Christ cannot do good works that please God, for outside of Christ they cannot do them in faith. But through him we are now able to offer pleasing sacrifices to God our Father.
KEEPING WATCH OVER YOUR SOULS // VERSE 17
With our two pleasing sacrifices to God explained in verses 15-16, the author continues on with the following exhortation:
Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you.
You will recall that back in verse 7 the author commanded his readers to remember their former leaders who were now with Christ and to imitate their faith. Now he commands them to obey and submit to their current leaders. Since authority, obedience, and submission are generally considered to be more offensive today than certain four-letter words, we should by all means take a moment to clarify what this means.
We must note that the authority of church leaders is entirely dependent upon the Word of God. Verse 7 described leaders as “those who spoke to you the word of God.” Pastors and elders are authoritative because they proclaim God’s Word, not by virtue of who they are or the office that they hold. If your pastor says to you, “don’t be a lover of money,” that is a command to be obeyed because it is a faithful summary of what Scripture commanded us in verse 5 of this chapter. If he says, “everyone must give an extra five percent of their income to the building fund or face church discipline,” that would be a legalistic abuse of authority that is not worthy of being obeyed or submitted to. Or as Phillips notes:
We should not say, “I believe it because Reverend or Doctor So-and-so said so,” but rather, “I have been taught that this is the Word of God, it has been explained to me by my pastor, and my conscience now is bound to God to believe and obey.[3]
With that understanding of authority in mind, we can move on to understanding the commands to obey and submit. Martin notes that the Greek word used here for obey carries with it the idea of being fully persuaded of something. So this is not blind obedience but a obedience that is rooted in the conviction that this is the right thing to do. Submission, on the other hand, implies yielding on matters that are not areas of obedience.
Simply put, in this passage the command to “obey” seems to imply yielding in obedience from the position of a persuaded mind, while to “submit” seems to imply yielding in obedience even from the position of a contrary judgment to that reached by your elders. This command, therefore, focuses even more closely on the issue of the will than the preceding one; for the acid test of submission is yielding where our own natural inclination would take us in another direction.[4]
Such obedience and submission should be given because they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Although these leaders are not called elders or pastors, the action of keeping watch certainly has pastoral tones to it, particularly the sleepless watching over a flock during the night. Again, this is primarily through the Word of God and prayer (Acts 6:4). A shepherd keeps watch at night because that is when wolves are most likely to attack. Likewise, pastors and elders are vigilantly watching for any diverse and strange teachings that may lead those under the care away, while also properly feeding the congregation the Word of God. Feeding the sheep and watching for wolves is exactly what Paul commands of pastors in Titus 1:9: “He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it.” They do this as those who will have to give an account. Pastors are “God’s steward” over His people (Titus 1:7) and will be judged by the chief and great Shepherd whenever He comes.
I think it is worth noting some particular hindrances that living in the Internet Age poses to this command, both for pastors and for church members. For pastors, a temptation now exists to prepare sermons and teachings more for the Internet than for their own congregation. He could select texts and topics based on what may have the best online traction, or he may feel the need to address online debates and scuffles as if they were happening within his own congregation. Of course, I do not think that pastors must refrain from putting their sermons on online (although that may be best for some). Furthermore, since the Internet has become the modern public arena, I believe we need more pastors to serve as public theologians. Yet such ministries should always be secondary and subordinate to speaking the Word of God to his own church. Regardless of the form or rationality, if a pastor is not supremely studying the Word and praying for his own congregation, then he is not properly keeping watch over the souls that are actually entrusted to him.
A similar temptation is before every Christian today as well. Just as a pastor can be tempted to preach more for the Internet than his own congregation, so too can Christians follow more closely the teachings and ministries of online pastors than their own elders. Of course, there is much to be gained from the abundance of resources that are now found online, and we will no doubt face the greater judgment than people of other languages who do not yet have so much teaching available to them. And it is a great resource for churches to now be able to learn from other congregations around the world. However, as beneficial as those things are, if they breed discontent within your souls or if you follow So-and-so’s ministry more closely than you do your flesh and blood leaders and brother and sisters, we are in danger of creating a pornographic version of the Christian life. I mean that in the sense that Samuel James calls the whole Internet pornographic: “Just as online porn invites users into a seemingly risk-free fantasy to consume beautiful bodies without any rejection or commitment, the web itself helps to grow this fantasy in our hearts as we consume identities, ideas, opinions, and even one another in lonely isolation.”[5] Indeed, as with the Internet as a whole, I would say that if we use online ministries as merely one of many resources then we have an appropriate mindset, but whenever the digital fantasy pulls us away from those who are physically around us, it becomes sin.
Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you. Joyful leaders and saints who hunger to obey God’s Word makes a positive feedback loop. Seeing his congregation’s appetite for the Scriptures makes the labor of studying and of interceding in prayer for them into a joy, and his joy in speaking the Word of God will ignite an even deeper hunger for the Scriptures, producing even more joy in their leader, and so the cycle goes. Thus, joyful leaders are advantageous to the entire church.
On the other hand, groaning leaders and saints who do not hunger to obey and submit to God’s Word form a negative feedback loop. Seeing his congregation reject or simply neglect the Scriptures makes the labor of studying and prayer into a time of lamentation, and his groaning proclamation of the Word of God makes the Scriptures even more bitter to the congregation, which produces even more bitterness in him, and so the cycle also continues. Thus, groaning leaders are of no advantage to the church.
Even though that feedback loop, whether positive or negative, can began with either leadership or the congregation, the author is here calling the church, out of their own godly self-interest, to make their leaders’ work a joy. In 1 Peter 5:2, the command is placed fully upon the elders: “shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you.” However, as Ligon Duncan notes, “But the author of Hebrews is looking at it from the standpoint of those who are being ministered to and saying, ‘Make it your business that your leaders have joy in leading you.’” And for godly leaders, their joy will be the same as John’s: “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth” (3 John 4).
PRAY FOR US // VERSES 18-19
Pray for us, for we are sure that we have a clear conscience, desiring to act honorably in all things. I urge you the more earnestly to do this in order that I may be restored to you the sooner.
Our final verses are an exhortation for prayer. Notice that the command proper is plural: us rather than me. It seems most natural to connect this statement with verse 17 and see this as an exhortation to pray for their leaders, which includes the author himself even though he is not with them physically. This aligns with my suggestion that the author of Hebrews was an elder of a particular congregation who was likely sent out by them on what we would now call missional work, and he has written this sermon-letter to them as a pastoral word of exhortation, while he is still absence from them. And we see his desire to return to his congregation in the second half of the verse where he does speak of himself particularly, saying, I urge you the more earnestly to do this in order that I may be restored to you the sooner.
All throughout this sermon-letter the author has emphasized that the spiritual realities that can presently only be seen by faith are more real and more substantial than the physical realities that are all around us. It may be more physically appealing to take a goat as a sacrifice for sin, but the fact that Christ’s sacrifice only needed to be made once is a far greater comfort, even though it cannot be seen or touched. Likewise, in our very text the author told us how sacrifices of thanksgiving and praise can now be offered continually by acknowledging Jesus as the Christ before all men and by doing good to our brothers. But there is maybe no greater display of this heavenly mindset in the author than this final command: pray for us.
We find prayer so difficult precisely because it is spiritual work that can only be done by faith. Yet because prayer is appealing directly to God and calling upon the Almighty Creator of heaven and earth, who is also our Father through Jesus our Lord, to act on our behalf, what can be more important?
The author has already exhorted us to such prayer in 4:16: “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in the time of need.” And again in 10:22: “let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.” So often, by our actions, we treat prayer as auxiliary to whatever work of ministry that God has laid before us. Yet prayer ought to be the foundational work of all God’s people. Our sovereign Lord has seen fit to work through the prayers of His people, and He has promised to hear us through the mediation of Christ.
Although this exhortation to prayer could very well be its own sermon, let me simply conclude with two questions regarding prayer. First, do you see prayer as a privilege or as a duty? If you primarily view prayer as a duty that must be given to God, you will find that your prayers joyless and full of toil. If you regularly remind yourself that you are only able to pray with confidence that the Father hears you through sacrifice of Christ and by the indwelling Holy Spirit, you will still need to labor and persevere in prayer, but you will do so like Jacob working to make Rachel his bride: “So Jacob served seven years for Rachel, and they seemed to him but a few days because of the love he had for her” (Genesis 29:20).
Second, do you believe that prayer works? Notice that the author believed that the prayers of his readers would lead to his returning sooner to them. He had a confidence that God works through the prayers of His people. If you have a fatalistic view of God’s sovereignty, you will find little motivation to pray. However, in Scripture we find both truths presented: that God works all things according to His own will and that He works through the prayers of His people. Such things are too great for my finite mind to grasp, so we must accept them both as God’s Word has revealed. May we all view prayer as Spurgeon did, appealing to his congregation:
My people! Shall I ever lose your prayers? Will ye ever cease your supplications?… Will ye then ever cease to pray? I fear ye have not uttered so many prayers this morning as ye should have done; I fear there has not been so much earnest devotion as might have been poured forth. For my own part, I have not felt the wondrous power I sometimes experience.[6]
Indeed, let us be fully convinced of prayer’s power, especially as we come now to the Lord’s Supper. In this ordinary bread and cup, we have a marvelous proclamation of the death of God’s Son for the purchase of our adoption as co-heirs with Christ. And while this Table is a gracious remembrance of Christ’s once for all sacrifice, it should also remind us that Christ’s priestly work has not ceased. Yes, the work of our justification was finished upon the cross, and Christ is now seated at the Father’s right hand. Yet He sits beside the Father, interceding for you and I continuously in prayer. Although we are often slothful in our prayers, He never is. Although we are often rebellious to His Word, He graciously continues to speak it. Although we frequently neglect to do good and share what we have with others, He has held nothing from us, for He has given us Himself. While we have often failed to acknowledge His name through fear of men, He despised the shame of the cross and is not ashamed even now to call us His brothers.
[1] Robert Paul Martin, Hebrews, 719.
[2] Richard Phillips, Hebrews, 614.
[3] Richard Phillips, Hebrews, 617.
[4] Robert Paul Martin, Hebrews, 694.
[5] Samuel James, Digital Liturgies, 143.
B. C. Newton 