By him therefore let us offer [the] sacrifice of praise continually to God, that is, [the] fruit of [the] lips confessing his name.
Hebrews has just placed the believer outside the camp, with a Christ the world disowns. So what is left to offer God once sacrifice for sin is finished, who carries that offering up, and how can praise be continual?
Sacrifice after the one sacrifice
The death of Christ ended all offering for sin. So one writer asks a blunt question: does the Christian have nothing left to bring?
We have read of the one perfect sacrifice offered up once for all, so never to be repeated. No more sacrifice for sins can there be. No repetition of that sacrifice in any form is required. We have no altar on which to kill a victim. We are not called to offer to our God any sacrifice for sins, with blood or without. Yet do Christians have no sacrifices to offer? They certainly do, and ones God will accept.
"Through Him"
Our praise goes up through Christ. One writer explains who actually carries it to God.
It is "by Him" that we offer the praise of our lips to God. He it is who offers up to God, as the great High Priest, all the praises rising from those whom the grace of God has made priests.
The fruit of lips
God asks for something small: breath shaped into words. One writer marvels that God calls it a sacrifice at all.
What a little breath, breathed out in a few words of praise, is an "acceptable sacrifice"! One can understand Christ's sacrifice being acceptable — the one sacrifice that makes us perfect for ever. But does the same Spirit, after telling us of that, turn round to you and to me, saying, "I look to you to offer sacrifice"? What! Can God accept as a sacrifice a little breath, carrying to my soul the thought of what He has done? Yes! And I am to offer it to Him continually as the fruit of the lips giving thanks to His name.
Kelly reads the phrase "acknowledge his name" as confession, and names two things this praise is not.
It is making confession to His name. It is in no way our own righteousness, and it is no mere form.
Who may offer it
The verse tells every believer to offer. One writer says this settles who may serve as a priest.
The proof of our priestly place is remarkably complete. So a special class of priests on earth today, acting for Christians and set apart from them, is a fraud. Scripture does not support it. Scripture stands wholly against it, in plain and full testimony.
Where praise belongs
The word "then" ties this praise to a place: outside, with a rejected Christ.
Outside the camp the Christian finds himself with God. His altar, and everything needed for worship God accepts, are provided there. It is by Jesus, whom the world disowns, that we are now called to offer the sacrifice of praise. That praise finds no free voice inside the camp.
"Continually"
The word rules out praise that waits for good conditions. Kelly ties the constancy of the praise to the constancy of what it rests on.
He is the same yesterday and today and forever, and our blessing through Him is as complete as it is everlasting… No wonder we are called to praise God, not as Jews did now and then, but "continually."
Another writer turns the same word into a test of daily temper.
It is not to be only at some specially favoured moment, when everything looks bright and smiling around us… No; the word is, "praise continually." There is no room and no time for complaining and murmuring. There is none for fretfulness and discontent, impatience and irritability, or grumbling about our surroundings, whatever they may be.
Praise before service
One writer sets praise beside doing good, and puts them in order.
Worship gets the first and highest place. Let us never forget this. We might think, in our own wisdom or feelings, that the highest thing is doing good to people — being useful, giving to those in need. But it is not so.
Summary
- Finished. No one can repeat Christ's one sacrifice for sin. What the believer still brings is praise.
- Through Him. We do not carry our own praise up. The great High Priest presents it to God.
- By all. Every believer is a priest here, so a separate class of priests on earth has no place.
- Outside. The altar of this praise stands with the rejected Christ, outside the religious system that refused Him.
- Continually. Because He never changes, praise never pauses — and leaves no room for murmuring.