The last few episodes highlight a central goal of salvation: pure, undefiled worship/service of God. Embrace of this objective, according to Hebrews 6:1 is through "repentance from dead works" and "faith toward God." This episode poses a simple question designed to test if we've truly repented from dead works: "Why do we go to church?" The Biblical answer, according to Hebrews 9:14, is that it enables us to become better worshippers. We correctly seek to be equipped for the work of ministry SO THAT we can serve God better. A common answer among those who have only partly repented from dead works is that they go to church to be better people, possibly indicating that worship and service of God is not really the ultimate objective. Their anthropocentric religious activity is aimed at self-improvement, mostly gaged by feelings and comparative assessments with others. (see the Pharisee and the Publican, Luke 18:9-14). Theocentric worship, not anthropocentric worship decked out with the form of godliness, must be the goal. Consequently, repentance from dead works is a repudiation of EVERYTHING and EVERY WORK that ultimately replaces worship of God with another substitute. And, it is absolutely essential to produce good works acceptable to God.
Good Works and a Clean Conscience
Unbelievers are unable to do good works because all their works are described as "dead." This fact alone severely corrupts true worship. The author of Hebrews made this connection in Heb. 9:14: "how much more will the blood of Christ cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God." Since good works are essentially the outflow of sincere worship of God, and pure worship cannot flow from a defiled conscience, it naturally follows that unbelievers with defiled consciences cannot truly worship/serve God and produce good works as a result. This episode stresses that salvation cleanses the conscience of all DEAD and so--called "good" works" based mostly on self-idolatry, for the purpose of undefiled, exclusive worship of the LIVING God.
Good Works and Worship
This episode tackles the false dichotomy between "worship" and "service" made by many unbelievers, where "good works" are mostly about service to others and don't flow from worship. Christ Himself exploded this distinction in Mat 4:10, connecting service to worship, "You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him alone shall you serve." Service then is an expression of worship. Unbelievers don't typically connect service to worship of anyone, preferring to emphasize outward service divorced from worship as the basis of good works. The episode highlights that genuine worship of God sometimes conflicts with "service" to man, where affirmation and toleration of behavior, divorced from God's standards, is evidence of virtue or goodness. Good works in the form of "service" to man, even when it looks "intolerant," flows from worship of God. Not embracing God's standards, unbelievers usually omit "worship" from a discussion on "good works," instead imposing an anthropocentric psuedo-morality that emphasizes tolerance and outward acts of service as the ground of good works.
See His Glory and Repent
This episode highlights the dynamics involved in the reversal of the Great Exchange. When we were not in Christ, we had exchanged the glory of God for images and produced a litany of sins based on this fundamental idolatry. In sanctification the Holy Spirit progressively reverses the Great Exchange, moving us to repent from dead works and live for the glory of God. Very interesting is one of the means that the Holy Spirit uses to inspire us to repent. The Holy Spirit uncovers some of the glory of Christ, and we perceive the vileness of our idolatry contrasted with the glory of Christ. The more we see the glory of God in the person of Christ, the more we sin our sinfulness, losing all hope apart from the mercy and grace in Christ. So when we have degrees of the beatific vision in this life, when we progressively behold God's glory, we repent and change our mind about our particular sins based on self-idolatry. The result is we become more and more like Christ. Struggling to repent of particular sins? Ask God to uncover His glory, and that experience will devastate and transform you.