Introduction to Hebrews

Long ago God spoke to our ancestors by the prophets at different times and in different ways. In these last days, he has spoken to us by his Son. God has appointed him heir of all things and made the universe through him. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact expression of his nature, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.

This is the Word of God, for the people of God. Thanks be to God.

When we look at a book of the Bible to study it and understand it, there are usually three things that we want to know in order to help us know the context of the book.

Who wrote it? Who was it written to? Why was it written?

When we studied Philippians, it was pretty easy to find the answers to those three questions. Philippians was written by Paul and Timothy to the church at Philippi to thank them for the gift they had sent him and to address some issues Paul had heard were going on in that church. Simple enough.

Unfortunately, we do not have any of those specifics for the book of Hebrews. To start, we do not know who wrote the book. Hebrews is written more like a homily, or sermon, than it is a letter, and so there is no name at the beginning to give an introduction of who is writing this book.

There are many people who have been attributed with the writing of Hebrews. The most common attribution in the early church was that Paul wrote it. This book was actually one of just a few that had controversy concerning whether it could be considered part of Sacred Scripture. Since there was no name attached to this book, there was no way to authenticate the apostolic authority of the book. The reason it finally came to be accepted as part of our set of 27 NT books is that the consensus at the time was that Paul wrote Hebrews. Today, there are hardly any scholars or theologians who believe that Paul was the author of Hebrews.

Luke has been mentioned as a writer of Hebrews as well. Luke was a physician, and so was well educated. Many scholars view the Greek text of the book of Hebrews to be one of the most beautiful and eloquent uses of the Greek language in writing, especially compared to the rest of the NT books. There is also a theory that was held by some early church fathers like Clement of Rome, St Augustine, and Thomas Aquinas, that Hebrews was a sermon given by Paul (due to its theology and use of the OT), but was written down by Luke (due to its similarities in structure and syntax with Luke and Acts).

Other names thrown out there have been Apollos or Barnabas. An interesting name thrown out there has been Theophilus. He was the one to whom Luke wrote his books of Luke and Acts. And as it turns out, there was a high priest named Theophilus from 37 to 41 AD. As a high priest, he would have known the OT very well, and in becoming a Christian, would have understood how Jesus fulfilled the OT law.

What we must understand, though, is that we simply cannot know conclusively who wrote this book. And it is okay that we don’t know, because the content so obviously points to the glory of Christ and aligns with the orthodox teachings of the church.

This gets us to the audience of this letter. While we can obviously see that the was written to Jewish Christians, we do not know where these specific Christians were located. Many believe they were in Jerusalem specifically, while others believe they were in the general area of Israel and Palestine. Some believe that the specific Hebrews being addressed were Jewish priests who had converted to Christianity. Again, we simply don’t know for sure.

Finally, we want to try and see why the book was written. What is the author trying to address? Some scholars believe it was a warning to Jewish Christians not to step away from their faith in the face of persecution. Hebrews was likely written during the mid-60s AD, during the reign of Nero, and before the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem in AD 70.

Though we don’t know the exact occasion for the writing of Hebrews, we will see as we go through the book that there were some issues that obviously needed to be addressed in this Jewish-Christian faith community.

What we can understand from the book of Hebrews is that the author wants his readers to see that Christ is above all things. Christ is superior to all of creation.

Big Idea: Christ is superior to all of creation.

One of the themes that we will see throughout the book of Hebrews is that Jesus is our ultimate Prophet, Priest, and King. These were the three main offices given by God to the people to help guide them in his truth, love, and justice. The prophet was the one who spoke to the people on behalf of God. The priest spoke to God on behalf of the people. The king was to rule in truth and justice to protect his subjects. We are actually going to see all three of these roles of Christ in our passage this morning.

Hebrews 1:1

Long ago God spoke to our ancestors by the prophets at different times and in different ways.

The author starts out by saying that God spoke to “the fathers” through the prophets. Often in Jewish culture, “fathers” refers specifically to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. However, in this instance, this is a more general term for Jewish ancestors. When we see it say “in different times,” we cannot limit that to only the time of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as that would only be about 200-250 years or so.

If we look at the OT as a whole, we can see God speaking to his people in the garden of Eden, during the Exodus, during the times of the judges, during the monarchies, and during the exile. That is a time period of about 3000-3500 years.

We can also see how God spoke to his people in different ways throughout the OT. God spoke through dreams, through a burning bush, through Urim and Thummim (like dice that were cast to determine God’s will), through a whirlwind, and through a still, small voice. I am sure the writer has all of these different modes of God speaking to his people as he writes of “many ways.”

Then we see the writer take a turn.

Hebrews 1:2a

In these last days, he has spoken to us by his Son.

Here we see Christ as the prophet. The author points to the new way that God has chosen to speak to his people - through his Son, Jesus Christ. This does not mean that the old ways that God spoke to the people are inferior or that we now just forget what was said in the past. When God spoke to Moses through the burning bush, it was just as authoritative as when Jesus spoke to the people during his ministry on earth.

What the author of Hebrews is trying to get at is that, though God spoke through all of these various ways throughout the various times of the OT, He has now spoken to his people through Jesus Christ. It is through the life and teachings of Jesus that we see the fulfillment of the things God said in the OT. Speaking through Jesus gives finality to God’s revelation to his people.

I believe, just as St Augustine is quoted as saying:

"The New (Testament) is in the Old concealed; the Old (Testament) is in the New revealed."

St. Augustine

God did not just speak to his people through words. Though God spoke to Moses in the burning bush, God showed the people his power and protection through the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night. He showed the Hebrew people his salvation for them through the 10 plagues of Egypt and the parting of the Red Sea.

We cannot just look to the words of Jesus to see what God is saying to us. We must also look at his actions and his life here on earth. That is why we must study through books like Hebrews, the writings of Paul, Peter, John, James, Jude, and Luke to see the explanation of Christ’s actions, telling us how he fulfilled what God spoke through the OT prophets.

There are Christians that we could call “red-letter” Christians. The only important parts of the NT, or of the entire Bible in some cases, are the words in red. For those of you who don’t know what I mean by red letters, there are Bibles that have all of the words spoken by Jesus in red.

Can I tell you a secret? I don’t like red-letter Bibles. Though they can help to provide some context by showing which words are specifically from the lips of Jesus, red-letter copies of the Bible have helped to give the false impression that Jesus’ words are more important than the words of Paul, John, or James.

And so there are people who claim Christ, who say that part of Scripture must be “less inspired” than other parts of Scripture because those other words didn’t come from Jesus. I cannot tell you how many times I have heard basic truths and teachings of Scripture dismissed because, “Oh, well, that was Paul who said that. Jesus never said that.” Using this type of reasoning to dismiss what the Bible says is falling for the “doctrines of demons” that Paul described in his first letter to Timothy. It is the same deception that Satan used in the garden when he asked Eve, “Did God really say…?”

In John 16, Jesus is teaching his disciples during their last supper together before his crucifixion. He tells them a few different times that he will be sending them the Holy Spirit to help them.

John 16:13-15

When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth. For he will not speak on his own, but he will speak whatever he hears. He will also declare to you what is to come. He will glorify me, because he will take from what is mine and declare it to you. Everything the Father has is mine. This is why I told you that he takes from what is mine and will declare it to you.

As Christians, we believe that the Scriptures were written down by men, but through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. This text in John is Jesus telling his disciples that the Holy Spirit will guide them in truth, declaring what he hears from the Son, and will glorify the Son through these declarations. So when these men were writing down their accounts of the life of Jesus and explaining in letters to fellow Christians about what Jesus had said and done and how we are to respond to that instruction, they were given those words by the Holy Spirit, who received them from Jesus himself.

Remember in John 1:1 where the Apostle John tells us that, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Jesus is the Word. And then in John 17, as Jesus is praying for his disciples, he says, “Sanctify them in truth, Your word is truth.”

We call this book the Word of God, because this whole book points to Jesus, who is The Word. Every instruction is from him, not just the ones we color with red.

There are parts of Scripture that grate against what I want life to be like. There are other parts of Scripture that tell me things that I don’t want to be true. However, the problem is not with Scripture. I am the problem. This book tells us what is true. If I don’t like it, I am the one who needs to change!

Next Step: I will submit to Scripture, even when I don’t like what it says.

Hebrews 1:2b

God has appointed him heir of all things and made the universe through him.

The author says that Christ Jesus, as the Son of God, has been appointed as the heir of all things. When we think of someone being an heir, especially in the context of the ancient world, to whom would the term “heir” be referring to? The firstborn son.

The author also says that God created the world through Jesus. Paul uses this same type of language when he wrote to the Colossians about the superiority of Christ over all things:

Colossians 1:15-17

He is the image of the invisible God,

the firstborn over all creation.

For everything was created by him,

in heaven and on earth,

the visible and the invisible,

whether thrones or dominions

or rulers or authorities—

all things have been created through him and for him.

He is before all things,

and by him all things hold together.

In writing to the Colossians, Paul calls Jesus the “firstborn” of God. This does not mean that Jesus was the first created being by God as the Jehovah’s Witnesses believe. Christ being called the “firstborn” refers to his existence before creation because it was through Christ that God created the world. Calling Christ the “firstborn” is meant to provide a picture for us of the relationship between God the Father and God the Son, not as a literal interpretation of Jesus being created by the Father.

This passage in Colossians says that everything was not only created through Christ, but it was created for Christ. Jesus being the heir of all things means that all things are under his rule. Things in heaven, things on earth, visible, invisible, thrones, dominions or powers, rulers, and authorities were all created by Christ, and in that, they were created for Christ.

What the author of Hebrews is saying in verse two of this first chapter is that Jesus, the eternal Son of God who has always existed with the Father, the one who created all things and for whom all things have been created, THAT Jesus is the one by whom God has spoken to his people.

As we have seen in our main passage today, as well as in Colossians, God created the world through Christ, which means that Christ is the means through which creation came about. And how did God create through Christ? He spoke. It was creation through his word. In Genesis 1, we see the account of creation. And every time something new is created, we see this phrase, “God said…”

CS Lewis gave his own, allegorical depiction of creation in his book The Magician’s Nephew. In the book, the characters can go between different worlds using these magic rings and going through portals in a “middle world” of sorts. A group of characters find themselves in this dark world, where they can tell that they are standing on something, but there is utter darkness around them.

Then, in the darkness, they hear a voice begin to sing. The voice is described as beyond comparison, the most beautiful voice they had ever heard. Suddenly, the skies are filled with stars. The horizon starts to have some light coming over it, and in the distance, they see where the song was coming from: a lion standing on the horizon. What they are witnessing is Aslan creating Narnia with a song. It is a wonderfully written allegorical picture of how Christ created the world.

Christ creates with his words. We cannot. There are false teachers who try to claim that we can speak things into existence because Scripture says that our words have the power of life and death, and that the power that raised Jesus from the dead is inside of us. But if we look at the passages they use to try to justify this claim, we see that our words can lift people up (give life) or tear them down (bring death). We can see that the power of the Holy Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead does live within Christians, but that power is changing us into the image of Christ. It is not a power that we wield to do what we want. It is the power of the Holy Spirit working within us as God wants.

Humans speaking things into existence has no basis in Scripture and actually comes from humanistic and New Age principles.

Hebrews 1:3a

The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact expression of his nature, sustaining all things by his powerful word.

This verse here is the inspiration for the graphic that we are using for our Hebrews sermon series.

This picture was done by an artist whose ministry is called “Full of Eyes.” He provides biblical interpretation through visual art. And so this is his representation of Christ being the radiance of God’s glory. To be radiant is to shine or glow.

One of the early church fathers, Gregory of Nyssa compared the connection between the Father and Son to a lamp and its light.

“As the light from a lamp is of the nature of that which sheds the brightness, and is united with it (for as soon as the lamp appears the light that comes from it shines out simultaneously), so in this place the Apostle would have us consider both that the Son is of the Father, and that the Father is never without the Son; for it is impossible that glory should be without radiance, as it is impossible that the lamp should be without brightness.”

Gregory of Nyssa

And so Christ, being one with God, is what we can see of God’s glory. Not only that, but it also says that Christ is the “exact expression” of the nature of God. That means that the Son and the Father have the exact same nature. This is how we get the language for the relationship of the Trinity (Father, Son, and Spirit), where we say that they are one in essence but three in person. Though the three persons of the Trinity are different in function and roles within the world, they are of the same essence. They are unified in purpose.

In commenting on this verse, Charles Spurgeon said this of the relationship of Christ and the Father:

“There is no glory in God but what is also in Christ. Whatever God is, Christ is.”

Charles Haddon Spurgeon

When we think about Christ as the exact representation of God’s nature and the radiance of God’s glory, being the visible image of God, it can help us to see some stories in the OT in a different light.

There are episodes in the OT where we see an appearance of an angel, or we hear the Lord speak, many of these events are called “Christophanies” or appearances of Christ.

Genesis 18: The visitation of the three men (often interpreted as the Lord and two angels) to Abraham.

Genesis 32:24-30: Jacob wrestles with a mysterious man and declares, "I have seen God face to face," suggesting a theophany of Christ.

Exodus 3:2-6: The burning bush where Moses encounters God. The voice from the bush is sometimes understood as a pre-incarnate appearance of Christ.

Daniel 3:25: In the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, a fourth figure is seen in the fiery furnace, described as "like a son of the gods." This figure is interpreted by many as Christ.

In Exodus 33 and 34, Moses meets with God on Mount Sinai and asks to see God’s face. God tells Moses that no man can look upon his face and live. So instead, God hides Moses in a cleft of the rock, covering Moses with his hand, and then removes his hand, allowing Moses to see a momentary glimpse of the back.

When Moses came down from the mountain, his face shone so brightly from seeing the radiant glory of the Lord that he had to wear a veil over his face. Since God the Father is spirit, without a body, we must assume that the encounter that Moses had with God was the pre-incarnate Jesus.

In the NT, we get to see this “radience” of Jesus in Matthew 17 on the Mount of Transfiguration. Peter, James, and John are with Jesus when his face begins to shine like the sun and his clothes become as white as the light. This was a “peeling back” of the human nature of Christ so that his divine nature was shining through, revealing the radiance of his glory to these three disciples.

After saying that Jesus is the exact representation of God, the author says that Jesus is the one who sustains all things by his powerful word. The passage that we read in Colossians said that not only is Christ before all things, but that Christ holds all things together. According to Hebrews, this holding together is made possible by Christ’s word.

The Son, through whom all things were created, holds all things together through his word, through his speaking, through the same words that created electrons, protons, and neutrons, giving them the ability to combine in different ways to form atoms, which can join with other atoms of both similar and different kinds in order to form physical substances, which then make up things like the cells in our bodies, the air we breath, the sun, moon, and stars we see, the angels, the heavens, and everything else. The words that were powerful enough to form all that are also powerful enough to hold it all together!

Hebrews 1:3b

After making purification for sins…

This is where we see Jesus as our Priest. In the OT law, the high priest would go through a preparation process, which included ritual cleansing and offering a sacrifice to atone for his own sins. Once he had gone through that process, he then offered a sacrifice for the sins of the people.

In a way, this is what Jesus went through when he came to this earth. Now, Jesus was without sin and did not need to provide any sacrifice for his own sins. However, Jesus went through a process of preparation before offering the sacrifice of his own life for our sins.

We saw this in Philippians 2 when Paul describes the humility of Christ.

Philippians 2:6-8

who, existing in the form of God,

did not consider equality with God

as something to be exploited.

Instead he emptied himself

by assuming the form of a servant,

taking on the likeness of humanity.

And when he had come as a man,

he humbled himself by becoming obedient

to the point of death—

even to death on a cross.

When Jesus offered himself as a sacrifice for our sins, he had already gone through a preparation process. He went through ritual cleansing by being baptized by John in the Jordan River. He lived a life of perfect obedience to the Law of God, which we can theorize that JESUS was the one who gave the Law to Moses on Mount Sinai.

Jesus could not just die for our sins. He had to be the perfect, spotless lamb like what was offered before the angel of death swept through Egypt to take the lives of the firstborn of every house whose doorposts were not marked by the blood of that sacrificial lamb. Jesus had to live a life of perfect obedience to the law, making him like the spotless lamb, earning righteousness from the law that we could not earn ourselves.

Then, as our high priest, he offered the sacrifice of himself, so that everyone who has submitted to him, believing in him for their salvation, has his blood marking the doorposts of their hearts, showing that they are a part of God’s people.

After he had done that Hebrews tells us:

Hebrews 1:3c

…he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.

Here we see the crowning of our King. Let’s go back to Philippians 2 one more time and look at the rest of that ancient hymn that Paul records in his letter.

Philippians 2:9-11

For this reason God highly exalted him

and gave him the name

that is above every name,

so that at the name of Jesus

every knee will bow—

in heaven and on earth

and under the earth—

and every tongue will confess

that Jesus Christ is Lord,

to the glory of God the Father.

Jesus, having provided the sufficient sacrifice for sin, was placed in the ultimate place of honor, the right hand of God. Because of the fact God the Father does not have a right hand, Jesus is obviously not sitting just to the right of God the Father. God is spirit. However, being placed at someone’s right hand in the ancient world was a place of respect and dignity. Even today, you may hear a person being called someone’s “right-hand man.”

This is how Joseph is often described when he was honored by Pharaoh, having interpreted Pharaoh’s dreams and showing the wisdom of God. In Genesis 41:44 we see how high Pharaoh had exalted or raised up Joseph in the ranks of the Egyptian government:

Genesis 41:44

And Pharaoh said to him, “I am Pharaoh, but no one will lift a hand or foot in the entire land of Egypt without your approval.”

After Jesus gave his life for our sins, was resurrected, and ascended into heaven, God did the same thing for Jesus, but with authority beyond just Egypt. When Christ was seated at the right hand of the Father, he was given the name “LORD,” which is above all other names. And because Jesus has the name Lord, every knee will bow to him. It won’t be just the knees of humans bowing to Christ, but the knees of every creature in heaven, on earth, and under the earth. The angels, the demons (which are just fallen angels who were cast out of heaven), and Satan himself will bow their knees to Jesus and declare that he is Lord of ALL!

That is the Jesus we serve. That Jesus is our Prophet, Priest, and King.

Today, I urge you to consider the truth we have seen today that Jesus Christ is the ultimate expression of God’s love and sacrifice. In Hebrews 1:1-3, we learn that God has spoken to us through His Son, revealing His glory and nature. This is not merely a historical account; it is an invitation to transform your life.

The greatest sacrifice you can offer to God is not just words, but the surrender of your entire being to Christ. In repentance, lay down your sins and burdens before Him. Acknowledge the ways you've lived apart from His will and turn towards His loving embrace. Understand that Christ, our Priest, made purification for our sins through His own sacrifice, opening the way for us to be restored.

Submit your life to Him, allowing His powerful word to reshape your heart and mind. Embrace this new life—one that reflects His glory and purpose. Remember, it is in yielding to Christ that you find true freedom and fulfillment.

Next Step: I will submit my life to Christ.

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