A Study Of The Apostle Pauls Letter To The Hebrews

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AStudyOf TheApostlePauls LetterTo The
Hebrews
How can we neglect so greata salvation?
Hebrews 23
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Hebrews Christ Is Superior! Superior Person
(11413) Superior to Prophets
(11-3) Superior to Angels (14218) Superior
to Moses (31-19) but Well only get to verses
1-6 today. Superior to Joshua (41-13) Superior
Priest (414728) Superior to Aaron
(414612) Superior to Melchizedek
(61375) Superior to Levi (76-28)
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Hebrews Christ Is Superior! Superior Pact to
Moses (811018) Superior Promises
(81-13) Superior Sanctuary (91-15) Superior
Sacrifice (916-28) Superior Results
(101-18) Superior Principle (Faith) to Moses
(10191325) Superior Things (1019-39) Superio
r Actions (111-40) Superior Relationship
(121-29) Superior Way of Life (131-25)
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Our last six studies have concerned The
Superiority of Christs Person in relation to the
prophets angels. Now Hebrews Chapter 3
initiates the study of Christs Superiority to
the Old Testament Priest-hood by beginning with
Moses (who, incidentally, was a priest, Psa.
996). He-brews 3 could be outlined as follows
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Christ is greater than Moses in office
(31-2). Christ is greater than Moses in ministry
(33-6). And Christ is greater than Moses in
reward (37-19). See If Paul could prove that
Jesus was/is superior to Moses, then how could
they turn back to Judaism when what Christ
offered was so much greater than what Moses
offered?
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Therefore holy brethren, partak-ers of the
heaven-ly calling, consid-er the Apostle and High
Priest of our confession, Christ Jesus
Hebrews 31 ?
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Therefore holy brethren, partak-ers of the
heaven-ly calling, consid-er the Apostle and High
Priest of our confession, Christ Jesus
Here holy describes someone set apart by, for,
and to Goda saint, someone who has been
sanc-tified (cf. 211). An interesting point here
is that NT peo-ple become brethren voluntarily
through their decision to be-come holy, while OT
people were born as brethren. (We get into more
this at 810-11.)
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Therefore holy brethren, partak-ers of the
heaven-ly calling, consid-er the Apostle and High
Priest of our confession, Christ Jesus
This word (as discuss-ed in 214) is the
particular Greek term referring to people who
volun-tarily take some-thing upon them-selves
i.e., these brethren were not saved against their
willthey chose to accept Gods call. (This same
term is used in Luke 57 in reference to partners
in a fishing venture cf. Heb. 314.)
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Therefore holy brethren, partak-ers of the
heaven-ly calling, consid-er the Apostle and High
Priest of our confession, Christ Jesus
This phrase has re-ference to the idea found in 2
The. 213-14 where Paul said that God for
sal-vation called you by the Gospel. And God,
via the Gospel, called them to what? To a
heavenly coun-try (1116) or the heavenly
Jerusalem (1222), rendering them citizens of
Heaven (Php. 320).
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Therefore holy brethren, partak-ers of the
heaven-ly calling, consid-er the Apostle and High
Priest of our confession, Christ Jesus
This word means to fix ones eyes upon (cf. NIV).
As we dis-cussed back in 21, they were slowly
re-moving their eyes from Jesus and turn-ing them
back to Moses. Later, in 122, Paul told them to
look to Jesus, the Author and Finisher of their
faith, cor- responding to 210.
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Therefore holy brethren, partak-ers of the
heaven-ly calling, consid-er the Apostle and High
Priest of our confession, Christ Jesus
Just as Paul indi-rectly contrasted the first
Adam with the second Adam in chapter 2, here in
chapter 3 he con-trasted the first
apostleMoseswith the second apostleJesus.
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Therefore holy brethren, partak-ers of the
heaven-ly calling, consid-er the Apostle and High
Priest of our confession, Christ Jesus
This is said of Jesus, meaning that He was the
One they named in their confession when they were
saved in Rom. 10 9-10 Paul wrote, If you
confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus you will
be saved. For with the mouth confes-sion is
made unto salvation.
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Therefore holy brethren, partak-ers of the
heaven-ly calling, consid-er the Apostle and High
Priest of our confession, Christ Jesus
This word means to agree with another, which is
what we do in our confession for salvation i.e.,
God called Jesus His Son at His baptism and
transfiguration, and we agree with Gods claim
when we say, I believe that Jesus is the Son of
God(cf. 1 John 415).
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Therefore holy brethren, partak-ers of the
heaven-ly calling, consid-er the Apostle and High
Priest of our confession, Christ Jesus
A passage that cor-responds very well to this
verse is 1 Tim. 612 where Paul told Timothy to
lay hold on eternal life to which you were called
and have con-fessed the good con-fession in the
pre-sence of many wit-nesses.
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Therefore holy brethren, partak-ers of the
heaven-ly calling, consid-er the Apostle and High
Priest of our confession, Christ Jesus
Paul made it a point to refer to their pre-vious
confession of Jesus as the Christthe Messiah, so
now they were being urged to stick to it!
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who was faith-ful to Him who appointed Him, as
Moses also was faithful in all His house.
Hebrews 32 ?
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who was faith-ful to Him who appointed Him, as
Moses also was faithful in all His house.
The original term for was here should be
translated is Jesus is faithful. (I dont know
why its trans-lated was as if Christs work were
finished at the time of this writing when it
clearly wasnt.)
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who was faith-ful to Him who appointed Him, as
Moses also was faithful in all His house.
The original term for appointed here lit-erally
means to make i.e., just as God made Moses the
apostle to the Jews and Aaron the High Priest for
the Jews (1 Sam. 126), so God made Jesus both
our Apostle and High Priest.
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who was faith-ful to Him who appointed Him, as
Moses also was faithful in all His house.
Moses was referred to here, not only be-cause he
was the most revered charac- ter of the OT, but
also because he was the representative of the OT
just as Jesus is the repre-sentative of the NT.
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who was faith-ful to Him who appointed Him, as
Moses also was faithful in all His house.
This pronoun refers to God, not to Moses i.e.,
Moses was faith- ful in fulfilling his apostolic
duties in Gods OT house (or church, Acts 738)
which was the house or family of Israel. We can
be sure of this since verse 2b is based on Num.
12 7 where God said of Moses, he is faithful in
all My house.
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who was faith-ful to Him who appointed Him, as
Moses also was faithful in all His house.
Because this verse and verse 5 refer to Gods OT
house that Moses was a part of, and because verse
6 refers to the NT house that Jesus reigns over,
then verse 2a here must refer to the
faithful-ness of Jesus who was set in position
over Gods NT house. So ? ? ?
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who was faith-ful to Him who appointed Him, as
Moses also was faithful in all His house.
They needed to fix their eyes upon Jesus, who
(because He never sinned) was even more faithful
than their beloved Moses. Why? To encourage them
to remain faithful, of course!
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For this One has been counted worthy of more
glory than Moses, inasmuch as he who built the
house has more honor than the house.
Hebrews 33 ?
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For this One has been counted worthy of more
glory than Moses, inasmuch as he who built the
house has more honor than the house.
This is Jesus i.e., Paul was saying, consider
Jesus (v. 1) because He has been counted worthy
of more glory than Moses.
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For this One has been counted worthy of more
glory than Moses, inasmuch as he who built the
house has more honor than the house.
This word could sim-ply be replaced by the word
just. More literally, then, verse 3b could read,
just as the builder has more honor than the house
be builds. The NLT reads, just as a person who
builds a fine house deserves more praise than the
house itself.
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For every house is built by someone, but He who
built all things is God.
Hebrews 34 ?
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For every house is built by someone, but He who
built all things is God.
After wrestling quite a while with verses 3-4,
Ive concluded that verses 3b-4 are merely a
parenthe-tical analogy that came into Pauls mind
by his refer-ence to a house in verse 2. I
mention this because ? ?
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For every house is built by someone, but He who
built all things is God.
I dont believe Paul was trying to teach anything
doctrinal, such as the notion that Jesus built
the OT house of Israel rather, I believe he was
merely illustrat-ing how (not why , but how)
Jesus was worthy of more honor than Moses.
Besides ? ?
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For every house is built by someone, but He who
built all things is God.
Verses 5-6 are what actually follow verse 3a in
the flow of thought which is that Jesus is a son
over Gods house, while Moses was a mere servant
in Gods house.Furthermore ? ?
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For every house is built by someone, but He who
built all things is God.
Although he always came right back to it, Paul
often digressed from his main point, which is
what I be-lieve verse 4 here is its a short
slight digression of his flow of thought which
brought glory for everything (old and new)
ultimately to God. So it might read like this
Consider Jesus who is worthy of more respect than
Moses (just as the builder is more worthy of
honor than his building after all, every house
is built by someone, even though in the end all
things are of God).
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And Moses indeed was faithful in all His house as
a ser-vant, for a testi-mony of those things that
would be spoken of afterward
Hebrews 35 ?
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In verse 2 he point-ed his readers to Num. 127
where God said that Moses was faithful in His
house (just not in what capacity) so now in
verse 5 Paul went on to bring Num. 128 to mind,
because there God went on to describe the
position Moses held in Gods house he was a
servant.
And Moses indeed was faithful in all His house as
a ser-vant, for a testi-mony of those things that
would be spoken of afterward
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The original term for servant here is not the
usual one for slave rather, this one carries
with it the idea that Moses was what he was and
did what he did voluntarily and con-scientiously.
And Moses indeed was faithful in all His house as
a ser-vant, for a testi-mony of those things that
would be spoken of afterward
34
Since this word will come up various times in
Hebrews, lets be sure we un-derstand the history
of the word what it meant to Pauls readersthe
Jews. To do that we must go back 4,000 years to
Abraham, the first man ever to be circumcised.
(To cir-cumcise means to cut around). So ? ?
And Moses indeed was faithful in all His house as
a ser-vant, for a testi-mony of those things that
would be spoken of afterward
35
Why did God con-trive this idea of cir-cumcision
anyway? Because (to be brief for times sake) He
made a promise to or a covenant with Abraham that
via his seed the Messiah would eventually arise
(Gen. 15) so the cutting off of some unnecessary
skin on his repro- ductive organ was logical
(Gen. 17).
And Moses indeed was faithful in all His house as
a ser-vant, for a testi-mony of those things that
would be spoken of afterward
(By the way, the word generation is from the word
genital.)
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So because that or-gan carried the sign of a
promise of God Himself, to the anci-ents there
seemed to be nothing better upon which to make an
oath. So ? ?
And Moses indeed was faithful in all His house as
a ser-vant, for a testi-mony of those things that
would be spoken of afterward
37
This is why we have the incident in Gen. 242-3
which, ironi-cally, concerned Abrahams lineage
Abe said to his ser-vant, put your hand under my
thigh, and Ill make you swear by the Lord that
you will not take a wife for my son from the
daughters of the Canaanites. Now
And Moses indeed was faithful in all His house as
a ser-vant, for a testi-mony of those things that
would be spoken of afterward
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Some of you may be wondering how this connects to
the word testimony. Well the answer is actually
quite logical words like testify testi-mony
are rooted in the word testes, the term for the
male reproductive glands that produce seed. In
fact, one can find a law against male genital
mutilation in Deu. 2511-12.
And Moses indeed was faithful in all His house as
a ser-vant, for a testi-mony of those things that
would be spoken of afterward
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The whole point here is that testimony or to
testify was con- sidered to be a very serious
matter to God since it was con- nected to an oath
made on a sign of Gods covenant the equivalent
today, of course, is found when the right hand is
placed on the Bible in our courts.
And Moses indeed was faithful in all His house as
a ser-vant, for a testi-mony of those things that
would be spoken of afterward
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Although much of Hebrews deals with it, verse 5b
is the first time the typo-logy found within the
Law of Moses is directly alluded to.
And Moses indeed was faithful in all His house as
a ser-vant, for a testi-mony of those things that
would be spoken of afterward
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Hebrews 85 speaks of the OT priests who served
the copy and shadow of the heavenly things, as
Moses was divinely instructed when he was about
to make the tabernacle. For God said, See that
you make all things according to the pattern
shown to you, and he did conscientiously.
And Moses indeed was faithful in all His house as
a ser-vant, for a testi-mony of those things that
would be spoken of afterward
42
Hebrews 99 says that it was symbolic for the
present time. And 101 says that the Law was a
shad-ow of good things to come. And even Col.
217 speaks of the Law as a shadow of good things
to come, but the substance (that which casts a
shadow) is of Christ.
And Moses indeed was faithful in all His house as
a ser-vant, for a testi-mony of those things that
would be spoken of afterward
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In John 546 Jesus said, If you believed Moses,
you would believe Me, for he wrote about Me. In
Deu. 1815 Moses said, The Lord your God will
raise up for you a Prophet like me. So
? ?
And Moses indeed was faithful in all His house as
a ser-vant, for a testi-mony of those things that
would be spoken of afterward
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Jesus shined the light (2 Tim. 110), while Moses
worked in its shadow (Heb. 85) we could even
say that Jesus was the light (John 95), while
Moses was His shadow. Well ?
And Moses indeed was faithful in all His house as
a ser-vant, for a testi-mony of those things that
would be spoken of afterward
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Heres Pauls query If Moses created things that
typified Jesus His church, and if Moses
pro-phesied of Jesus His new way, and if Moses
himself was a type of the very Jesus who you
con-fessed as the Christ, why are you even
considering the no-tion of going back to Judaism?
And Moses indeed was faithful in all His house as
a ser-vant, for a testi-mony of those things that
would be spoken of afterward
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The main point here is that, although Moses was
faithful to God, he was just a servant.
And Moses indeed was faithful in all His house as
a ser-vant, for a testi-mony of those things that
would be spoken of afterward
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but Christ as a Son over His own house, whose
house we are if we hold fast the con-fidence and
the rejoicing of the hope to the end.
Hebrews 36 ?
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but Christ as a Son over His own house, whose
house we are if we hold fast the con-fidence and
the rejoicing of the hope to the end.
While Moses was a servant in Gods house, Jesus
is a Son over it.
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but Christ as a Son over His own house, whose
house we are if we hold fast the con-fidence and
the rejoicing of the hope to the end.
This word is not in the original, and the
parallelism in this context indicates that this
house be-longs to God i.e., Jesus is a Son who
God placed in authority over His house. Now ? ?
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but Christ as a Son over His own house, whose
house we are if we hold fast the con-fidence and
the rejoicing of the hope to the end.
Im not saying that the church doesnt belong to
Christ (for even 213 implies that) Im merely
saying that such is not the analogy that Paul was
making in this context. Interest-ingly, the NT
always calls it Gods house (cf. Eph. 219, 1
Tim. 315, Heb. 1021, 1 Pet. 417).
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but Christ as a Son over His own house, whose
house we are if we hold fast the con-fidence and
the rejoicing of the hope to the end.
The tense of this phrase carries with it the idea
of whose house we are and will continue to be
if we hold fast to the end. Incidental-ly, by
saying that Christians are now the house of God,
Paul was implying that the Jews were no longer
the house of God.
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but Christ as a Son over His own house, whose
house we are if we hold fast the con-fidence and
the rejoicing of the hope to the end.
This phrase is from a nautical term which means
to hold ones course in fact, its translated
made for shore in Acts 2740. Also I think its
important to not neglect to notice the big little
word if, indicating once again that they could
lose their stat-ustheir salvation!
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but Christ as a Son over His own house, whose
house we are if we hold fast the con-fidence and
the rejoicing of the hope to the end.
Holding fast or being faithful consisted in
maintaining confi-dence or trust in Jesus (which
caused them to rejoice in the hope of their
salvation, cf. 114), something that was in
contrast to the crying and complaining of Isra-el
(cf. 1 Cor. 10).
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but Christ as a Son over His own house, whose
house we are if we hold fast the con-fidence and
the rejoicing of the hope to the end.
This phrase is found 4 times in the NKJV of
Hebrews (36 14, 611, 926), and the last
one defines it for all of Hebrews But now, once
at the end of the ages, Jesus has appeared to put
away sin by the sacrifice of Him-self. What end?
The end of the ages that Paul said was nowin his
time.
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Paraphrase So (you who became saints and
brethren by choosing to accept Gods Gospel
invitation) fix your attention on Jesus Christ,
the Apostle and High Priest of our confession.
Why? Because, just as Moses was faithful in Gods
Old Testament family to fulfill all his duties,
Jesus is like-wise faithful to His Father who
selected Him for those offices. Why? Because,
just as a builder is worthy of more honor than a
house he builds, Jesus is worthy of more glory
than Moses. (After all even though everything is
ultimately built by God every house is built by
someone.) ? (vv. 5-6) ?
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Am I belittling Moses? No, for he was in-deed
faithful in everything he did in Gods Old
Testament familyas a servant, a servant who
realized that what he was and did was an
acknowledgement of Him who would come after
himthe Christ. Jesus, on the other hand, was
faithfulas a Son, a Son over Gods New Testament
family, whose family we are IF we hold firmly
onto the confidence and the rejoicing we have in
our expectation of salvation until the time of
the end of our tribulations.