Hebrews 13

1-19 Service Well-Pleasing to God

• Advice about personal lifestyle
• Continue to love each other.
• Be hospitable to strangers.
• Remember those in prison. This could be talking about persecuted Christians, in light of 6:9-12.
• Honor your marriages.
• Be free from the love of money, confident in God, not money, for he will never leave nor forsake us.
• Advice about spiritual lifestyle
• Imitate the faith of your leaders.
• Don’t be carried away by strange teachings: “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.”
• You can’t partake of the type – the Jewish rituals and sacrifices – and the anti-type, who is Christ.
• Serving him shows a willingness to suffer as he suffered.
• Let us continually praise God through Christ.
• Sacrificing to God includes doing good and sharing what you have.
• Submit to your leaders; do not make their work harder than it needs to be.
• Pray for us, that we have a clear conscience.

20-21 Benediction

• May God -who brought Jesus – our great shepherd – back from the dead...
• Make you complete so that you may do his will.

22-25 Final Exhortation and Greeting

• Bear with my exhortation.
• Timothy has been set free, so he is coming with me to see you.
• Greet your leaders; those in Italy greet you.

Hebrews 12

1-13 The Example of Jesus

Note: I appreciate the way the NRSV has subtitled this section of chapters 11 and 12 – something I had not noticed before. Chapter 11 begins with “The Meaning of Faith,” then it goes through examples of faith: Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Other Israelite Heroes, then finally, “The Example of Jesus,” making him also a hero of faith, as were his predecessors.

• With so great a cloud of witnesses (from Abel to the prophets), let us shed the weight of sin and run the race.
• More than just another hero of faith, Jesus is the “pioneer and perfecter” of our faith. He goes before us – showing us the way – and follows behind us – completing what we lack.
• [Like Moses (11:24-26),] Jesus disregarded the shame of the cross for the sake of future joy – which he now enjoys as he sits at the right hand of God.
• Therefore – in light of Jesus’ example - persevere! Because though you struggle, you haven’t shed any blood.
• As children of God, look at suffering as a form of discipline, just as you were disciplined as physical children by parents who loved you.
• Discipline is a mark of legitimacy and a cause for respecting your parents, who did what seemed best at the time.
• So, respect God for his discipline, which brings life and the “peaceful fruit of righteousness.”
• Therefore, pick yourself up and walk a straight path.

14-29 Warnings against Rejecting God’s Grace

• Instructions:
  • Pursue peace with everyone.
  • Prevent roots of bitterness from springing up – they defile people.
  • Don’t sell your birthright for temporary relief, as Esau did.
• You have not come to Mount Sinai – fiery, dark, untouchable and fearful.
• You have come to Mount Zion – the city of God, heavenly Jerusalem, assembly of angels and the firstborn – and to Jesus, mediator of a new covenant.
• If they [Israelites] didn’t escape when warned by [Moses], how will you escape warnings from heaven?
• Give thanks for a kingdom that will never be shaken, with reverence and awe.
• “Our God is a consuming fire.” Yes, through Christ, God is now approachable as he never was before, but we still must approach him with the respect due to one who has such great power and majesty.We are in danger when we mistake his mercy for license.

Hebrews 11

1-3 The Meaning of Faith

Faith is:

• Not just hope, but assurance
• Being convinced, that though we can’t see it, it’s there
• The means by which our [spiritual] ancestors were approved
• What helps us understand that the Word of God created the world, making things we can see out of things we can’t see. And I would interpret Word here to mean God the Son, the eternal logos (John 1:1-4).

4-7 Abel, Enoch and Noah

• By faith:
  • Abel was counted as righteous, because God approved of his gifts
  • Enoch pleased God; therefore, God took him before he died.
  • Noah built an ark to save his household, thereby condemning the world but inheriting righteousness.
• Without faith,
  • We can’t please God
  • We can’t approach God
  • We won’t seek God

8-22 Abraham

• By faith, Abraham
  • Set out for an unknown destination, knowing only that it would be his inheritance
  • Lived in a tent in a foreign land (just as co-heirs Isaac and Joseph had done), because he anticipated a more substantial city designed and built by God. Did not Abraham live in tents all his life? (See Genesis 24:67-25:8) If this is not talking about Jerusalem, does it mean that Abraham had a concept of heaven, or is it the Hebrew writer’s way of saying that Abraham knew by faith that God would eventually give him something better?
  • Received “power of procreation,” even though he was old, and thus produced descendants that were as many as the sands by the seashore.
  • Offered up Isaac, even though he was the means by which God’s promises would be fulfilled, believing that God could raise him up again, which in essence, he did.
• By faith, Jacob blessed each of his sons
• By faith, Joseph gave instructions about the burial of his bones, because he knew about the Exodus, which was still hundreds of years in the future. (Genesis 50:24-26)
• All these:
  • Died in faith without receiving the promises, yet from a distance they not only saw them but greeted them. This indicates not only an acknowledgment of something better, but a joyful anticipation of it.
  • Confessed they were strangers and foreigners on the earth. (“This world is not my home, I’m just a-passing through.”)
  • Did not think of the land they had left behind
  • Desire a better country, a heavenly one. Which answers my previous question about Abraham. If this is so, maybe the Hebrews did have a concept of the afterlife. It is interesting here, though, that in the first three bullets, the writer uses the past tense, while desire is in the present tense.
• Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God – and he has prepared a place for them. With all their faults, they pleased God because they not only believed in him, they believed what he told them.

23-28 Moses

By faith:

• Moses’ parents hid him for 3 months after his birth, because he was beautiful, and they were not afraid of the king’s edict
• Moses refused to be called a son of Pharaoh, choosing to suffer rather than enjoy “fleeting pleasures of sin.” And that’s the society Moses lived in – either give in to sinful pleasures, or suffer.
• He considered suffering for the Messiah to be more rewarding than the treasures of Egypt.
• He left Egypt, unafraid of the king’s anger
• He persevered, as if seeing him who is invisible. Somehow we (I) have tended to think that the Patriarchs of Faith believed only what God told them about the here and now: Abraham having a son, Moses entering the promised land. But the Hebrew writer intimates that they believed in something more ephemeral. Abraham saw a city he would never live in, and Moses suffered for a Messiah who was as yet undefined.
• He kept the Passover and the sprinkling of blood so the destroyer would not touch Israel’s first-born.

29-40 Other Israelite Heroes

By faith:

• The people passed through the Red Sea on dry land, but the Egyptians drowned in it.
• The walls of Jericho fell down
• Rahab the prostitute did not perish with the disobedient
• Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephtha, David, Samuel, the prophets and others – “of whom the world was not worthy” – performed both mighty works and suffered unimaginable persecutions -- “in order to obtain a better resurrection.” Again, a belief in a spiritual resurrection, not just a promised land or earthly success.

Yet – they did not receive what was promised. Their hope was not complete “without us.” Our faith is a continuation – and a completion – of their hope. We have very large shoes to fill, made larger still because we know the end of their story.

Blogger Labels: Faith,Abel,Enoch,Noah,Abraham,Isaac,Joseph,Genesis,heaven,Jacob,Moses,Pharaoh,Patriarchs,Passover,Israel

Hebrews 10

1-18 Christ’s Sacrifice Once for All

• The law has only a shadow of things to come, and not the true form. Is there any significance in the fact that we see the shadow before we see the real thing?
• It required continuous sacrifices. If these sacrifices had made men perfect, they wouldn’t have had to be repeated year after year.
• Their purpose? Not to take away sin, but to remind people of the cost of sin. As many have said before, one of the benefits of reading the Book of Leviticus is to help us realize the constant blood-letting necessary for sin and appreciate the enormity of what Christ’s sacrifice accomplished.
• Christ acknowledged that God didn’t want the blood of animals, so he offered himself in order to sanctify us. In Psalm 40:6, David uses this phrase to refer to himself, but ultimately it is a prophecy of Christ, who had already offered himself as a human sacrifice. In the Hebrew, “You have prepared a body for me” is translated “You have opened (or dug) my ear,” indicating complete submission, as a freed slave whose ear has been pierced to show he’s a servant by choice.
• “He abolishes the first in order to establish the second.” With a change in sacrifice comes a change in the law.
• He had to make the sacrifice only once, after which he sat at the right hand of God.
• He is waiting to conquer his enemies, having perfected all those who were sanctified, for all time. His sacrifice cleansed not only those who had sinned, but sinners yet to be born. The conquer of his enemies is explained well in 1 Corinthians 15:20-34, particularly verses 25 and 26:

25 For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.26 The last enemy to be destroyed is death.

• This is a fulfillment of the promise made through Jeremiah 31:33:

But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

• And he adds to it “I will no longer remember their sins” (a reference back to verse 3 – under the old law, sins were to be remembered year after year).
• Since our sins are forgiven, what’s the use of more sacrifices?

19-31 A Call to Persevere

Note: In verses 19-25, I see a pattern for salvation.

Since through Christ we have confidence and a great priest, we can approach God:

1. with a true heart (repentance),
2. in full assurance of faith,
3. with our hearts sprinkled (repentance) and our bodies washed with pure water (baptism),
4. holding fast to the confession of our hope,
5. encouraging one another to love and good deeds (pure and undefiled religion, as in James 1:27),
6. not neglecting to meet together to encourage one another.

• The sacrifice of Christ is our last hope. If we willfully reject his salvation, nothing remains.
• In fact, it will be worse for us than for those under the old law, because our salvation is so much greater than theirs, bought by the sacrifice of the Son himself.
• Remember the early days, when you endured persecution, abuse, the loss of your possessions, having compassion on the imprisoned?
• Don’t abandon the confidence you had in those days.

My soul takes no pleasure in one who shrinks back.

Hebrews 9

1-22 The Earthly and the Heavenly Sanctuaries

• In the first tent were the Holy Place – which contained the lamp stand, table, and bread of the Presence – and the Holy of Holies, which contained the golden altar of incense, the golden ark of the covenant (holding manna, Aaron’s rod and covenant tablets) above which were the cherubim of glory hovering over the mercy seat.
• The priests went continually into the Holy Place to carry out their ritual duties, but only once a year did the High Priest go into the Holy of Holies, to offer blood for himself and for the people.
• This means that as long as the first tent stands, we have no entry into the sanctuary. By this, I think the author means that under Jewish law, even priests had no direct access to God. He accepted their worship, but access to God was limited to the High Priest, under strict rules. The sacrifices they offered could not make them perfect enough to stand in his presence. Even when the High Priest entered the Holy of Holies, it was filled with smoke.
• BUT when Christ came as High Priest, he entered into the Holy of Holies – not the earthly, symbolic one, but the heavenly dwelling of God – by offering not the blood of animals but his own blood.
• HIS sacrifice was able to make us perfect before God.
• THEREFORE, he is the mediator of a new covenant – a new will and testament – made effective by his death, just as all wills become effective at death.
• As the first covenant was established by blood (of calves and goats), so the second was established by blood.
• “Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.” This is a spiritual axiom.

23-28 Christ’s Sacrifice Takes Away Sin

• Heavenly things need to be cleansed with better sacrifices than earthly things.
• Christ did not enter into the copy of heaven (the tabernacle Holy of Holies) but into heaven itself.
• Nor did he have to do it annually, as the Jewish High Priest did, for then he would have to suffer again and again.
• He sacrificed himself “once for all” to remove sin, dying only once – just as all mortals die only once – to appear again – not to deal with sin, but to save those who wait for him to come. There will be no sacrifice for sin when he comes again, no sin imputed to him for which he must die, only the gathering of the righteous, those who look forward to his coming.

Hebrews 8

1-13 Mediator of a Better Covenant

• [As Christians,] we have a high priest who is seated at the right hand of God.
• He is a minister of the true tent of the LORD – not the earthly tent that Moses had to build according to the pattern he was given; it was only a sketch and shadow of the heavenly one.
• He has a more excellent ministry than earthly priests, is mediator of a better covenant (which was imperfect and had to be replaced), carried out through better promises.
• What were these promises? [Quote from Jeremiah 31:31-34]:utof Egypt, because they did

10-11 In this covenant, my laws will be in their minds and their hearts. They won’t need to teach each other, for they’ll already know me. People living under this new covenant – Christians – have become children of the covenant not by birth – as the Jews did – but by choice, by submitting their hearts and minds to God. They already know the terms and promises of the covenant; therefore, they have no need to be taught.

12 I will no longer remember their sins.

• [Hebrews writer’s note:] Speaking of an new covenant indicates the old one is obsolete.

Hebrews 7

1-10 Priestly Order of Melchizedek

• About King Melchizedek (See Genesis 14)
  • He was priest of the Most High God
  • His name means “king of righteousness”
  • He was king of Salem, i.e. “king of peace”
  • We have no record of his birth, his death, or his genealogy
  • He blessed Abraham after Abraham defeated 4 kings (Genesis 14:1-16)
  • Abraham gave him 1/10 of all the spoils (Genesis 14:17-24)
  • He remains a priest forever
• Melchizedek’s Significance
  • According to Jewish law, only Levites receive tithes, but Melchizedek was not a Levite. He as not even a Jew!
  • Blessing Abraham means he was superior to Abraham.
  • In essence, Levi himself – “in the loins of Abraham” – paid tithes to Melchizedek.

11-28 Another Priest, Like Melchizedek

• Why is there another priest after Melchizedek’s order? Because the Levitical priesthood did not produce perfection.
• A change in priesthood necessitates a change in the law.
• Christ was a descendant of Judah; Moses never mentioned Judah’s descendants as priests.
• Christ is a priest not by physical descent but because of his indestructible life – a priest forever. His enemies thought they had destroyed him, but he rose from the dead.
• An ineffectual law is replaced by a better hope. In other places in Hebrews, it will speak of the new covenant being superior to the old covenant, but here it talks of its replacement with a better hope, not a better law. Law replaced by hope? What a blessing it is to live in the Christian age!
• Mortal priests – there had to be many of them, because they died – have been replaced by an eternal priest.
• Christ as a blameless high priest does not need to offer daily sacrifices for his own sins, and then ours.
• He is holy and undefiled and offered himself as the sacrifice once and for all.
• The oath – coming after the law (Psalm 110:4) – appoints a Son who is perfect forever.

Hebrews 6

1-12 The Peril of Falling Away

• Therefore (because so many of you are still immature), we must leave behind basic teachings:
  • repentance and faith
  • resurrection
  • laying on of hands
  • eternal judgment
• It is impossible to restore those who have
  • once been enlightened
  • tasted the heavenly gift
  • shared the Holy Spirit
  • tasted the goodness of the Word of God
  • tasted the powers of the age to come
• …and then fallen away, because they are
  • again crucifying Christ
  • holding Christ up to contempt

Note: This is evidence that even the sincerest Christian – one who has recognized all the blessings in Christ – is not immune to falling away from him. We must not only encourage one another to remain faithful; we must also not become arrogant about our own faithfulness. We must continue to grow in knowledge and in good work, for that is how we exercise our faith. Just as in the physical world, if we never use our muscles, they atrophy.

• Rain-soaked ground that produces fruit is blessed, but if it produces thorns, it will be burned up.
• This is hard talk, but we are confident of better things of you, for God has seen your work, love and service.
• Show the same diligence to persevere to the end; imitate those who through faith and patience inherit the promise.

13-20 The Certainty of God’s Promise

• God swore (before himself) to Abraham that he would bless him and multiply him.
• Abraham endured and received the promise.
• When we swear by something greater than ourselves, it’s taken as confirmation of what we say.
• We can hope in God’s promise, because 1) he never lies; 2) he guaranteed it with an oath. God condescended to our practice by backing up his promise to Abraham with an oath.
• Our hope
  • is a sure anchor of the soul
  • enters the most holy place because Jesus has gone there before us as a high priest after the order of Melchizedek.

Hebrews 4-5

Hebrews 4

1-12 A Promised Rest

• Take care to enter God’s rest, by heeding God’s message, not like those who “were not united by faith with those who listened.” Faith helps our ability to hear.
• When God speaks about “his rest,” he refers both to the day he rested, the Sabbath, and to another rest, which is still available for some to enter.
• This is not referring only to the rest Joshua offered [Canaan], because David, who lived later, referred to a rest (Psalm 95:7-11) that some would not enter because of their hardened hearts.
• This is a sabbath rest that still remains for the people of God, where they will rest from their labors, just as God rested from his.
• [Speaking of disobedience,]

12 Indeed, the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. 13 And before him no creature is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account.

Note: The passage above is one of my favorites for what it says about the power of God’s word. Like a skilled surgeon, it can lay us open and enter into the deepest part of our souls, revealing the disease – which may be hidden even from ourselves – and surgically removing it. The surgery will be painful, but without it, we’ll suffer eternal death.

14-16 Jesus the Great High Priest

• “Since” we have a great high priest… This seems to refer back to verse 6, where Christ as Son is compared to Moses as servant. Verses 7-13 are an interlude, as if the writer is saying, “Speaking of Moses reminds me of the unbelief that caused the followers of Moses to fail. Don’t follow their example.”
• [As Christians,] our high priest is none other than the Son of God, who – because he lived as a man – understands our weaknesses, though he never sinned.
• Because he understands, we can approach Christ on his throne without fear, recipients of mercy (not receiving the punishment we deserve) and grace (receiving gifts we don’t deserve)

Hebrews 5

1-10 Jesus the High Priest (cont’d)

• Mortal high priests are chosen as sons of Aaron to offer sacrifices for the sins of the people, as well as their own.
• He was not a descendant of Aaron, but Christ was chosen by God to be a high priest, somewhat like Melchizedek, who was a Gentile. (See Genesis 14:17-20)
• What did Jesus offer? Prayers and supplications. And he was heard “because of his reverent submission.” Not because he was the Son of God, but because he was submissive. This person who was part of creation, equal with God, was heard by the Father because he submitted. Amazing.
• He “learned obedience.” As part of the godhead, one with God in intention and power, he had never had to be obedient before. Although all-knowing, he hadn’t experienced what it was to submit to another’s will, because his will and God’s had always been the same. Now, with not only knowledge but experience of submission, he is complete, “perfect.”

11-14 Warning against Falling Away

• Another exhortation: I could tell you more about this, but your eyes would glaze over, for you don’t have the spiritual depth to understand it.
• When you should be teachers, you need to be taught; when you should be chewing meat, you’re still needing milk.
• Definition of mature: Those who have been trained in righteousness by actually practicing it, not just learning it. In spirituality, as in so much of life, knowledge with experience is superior to knowledge by itself.

Hebrews 3

1-6 Moses a Servant, Christ a Son

• Jesus was faithful in God's house, just as Moses was.
• Yet Jesus is worthy of more glory, because Jesus was faithful over the house, as a son, while Moses was a faithful servant in the house.
• The builder of the house receives more glory than the house.
• We are his house "if we hold firm the confidence and pride that belong to hope." Interesting concept here, which I don't remember seeing before, that our hope in Christ is a source of confidence and even pride. (NASV and ASV translate this "boast of our hope" and "glorying of our hope.")

7-19 Warning Against Unbelief

• The Holy Spirit says, Do not harden your hearts, as they did in the wilderness, testing me after seeing my works for 40 years, after which I swore they would not enter into my rest. This sounds like something God would say, doesn't it? Yet it's a message from the Holy Spirit, speaking of his works. Further evidence that no distinction is made among the members of the godhead. They work as one.
• Take care, and exhort one another, so that you don't succumb to the same unbelief and become "hardened by the deceifulness of sin." Hardened is a scary word. It means that sin, being deceptively attractive, will cause our hearts to be hardened to the point where we don't care anymore.
• Those who sinned 1) had been under Moses' leadership; 2) fell in the wilderness
• Unbelief condemned them.

Hebrews 2

1-4 Warning to Pay Attention

• Therefore (because the Son is greater than the angels), we must pay greater attention to him so we don't fall away.
• Because if the angels' messages from God were important, his Son's messages are that much more important.
• And we know they are true, because his message was affirmed:
• by the Son himself,
• by those who heard him,
• by God himself, through signs, wonders, miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit

5-9 Lower than Angels

• We are not subject to angels, but (according to Psalm 8:4-6):
• For a little while God has made human beings lower than the angels, making all things subject to them.
• We don’t see everything in subjection to men, but we see Jesus, made lower than the angels for a little while, being crowned with glory and honor because of his death.

Note: Following their decision to be “gender neutral,” the NRSV renders verse 5 “human beings” and “mortals” (Greek anthrōpos). The ASV, KJV, NASV and other equally reliable versions translate it “man” and “the son of man,” then use the singular pronoun “him.” In verse 9, the NRSV uses the singular pronoun, referring to Jesus. At first, this didn’t make sense to me, because I thought the “son of man” must refer to Jesus. But in context, I can see how understanding it to mean “mankind” makes sense.

10-18 Exaltation through Abasement

• The “pioneer of [our] salvation” was made “perfect” through sufferings. I love the use of the word picture pioneer of salvation. “Perfect” here refers to his being made complete: Only one who suffers can fully empathize with others who suffer.
• We (who have been made holy) have a Father in common with Jesus (who makes us holy), which causes him to call us his brothers and sisters.
• He came to earth not to help angels, but we who are flesh and blood, who previously lived in fear of the power of Satan, i.e. death.
• This makes (completes) him, qualifies him to be a merciful high priest – both priest and the sacrificial lamb.

Hebrews 1

1-4 God Has Spoken by His Son

• In times past, God spoke to us by the prophets; now he speaks to us through his Son.
• His Son:
  • is heir of all things
  • was the instrument of creation
  • reflects God’s glory
  • bears God’s exact imprint
  • sustains all things by his word
  • made purification for sins, then
  • sat down on God’s right hand
  • became superior to the angels, just as his name is superior to theirs

5-14 The Son Is Superior to Angels

5-7 None of the angels were called God’s Son; they were told to worship the Son; they were his messengers.

8-9 The Son, on the other hand, is God on an eternal throne, administering righteous judgment, anointed beyond all his companions.

10-12 He founded the earth and made the heavens, which will perish while he remains, never changing.

13-14 God never asked the angels to sit at his right hand; they are divine messengers, sent for the sake of the saved.

Christ is not just another messenger of God.He is the Son of royalty, a Prince who has the same creative power, majesty, judgment and eternal nature as God the Father.

Introduction to Hebrews

adapted from Smith’s Bible Dictionary

1. Author. For many years Paul was considered the author; others think it may have been Luke, Barnabas, or Apollos. Much of the theology and the language are similar to Paul’s, but the authorship of the epistle ia still disputed.
2. To whom written . Probably addressed to the Jews in Jerusalem and Palestine. The argument of the epistle indicates a church consisting exclusively of Jews by birth, personally familiar with the temple service.
3. Date. Evidently written before the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, probably about A.D. 62-64.
4. Place. Probably while Paul was a prisoner at Rome.
5. Contents . While numerous churches throughout Judea, (Acts 9:31;Galatians 1:22) were continually exposed to Jewish persecution (1 Thessalonians 2:14), one additional weapon in the hands of the predominant oppressors of the Christians is the destruction of the magnificent national temple – the knowledge that the end of all the beauty and awfulness of Zion is rapidly approaching. The writer shows that the new faith gives them Christ the Son of God, “more prevailing than the high priest as an intercessor; that his Sabbath awaited them, his covenant, his atonement, his city heavenly not made with hands. Having him, believe in him with all your heart, with a faith in the unseen future strong as that of the saints of old, patient under present and prepared for coming woe, full of energy and hope and holiness and love.”