Introduction to Hebrews

1     God, after He aspoke long ago to the fathers in bthe prophets in many portions and cin many ways,

 2     1ain these last days bhas spoken to us 2in cHis Son, whom He appointed dheir of all things, ethrough whom also He made the 3fworld.

 3     1And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact arepresentation of His nature, and 2bupholds all things by the word of His power. When He had made cpurification of sins, He dsat down at the right hand of the eMajesty on high,

I have titled this study of the book of Hebrews,

“The Incomparability of Jesus Christ.”

Jesus Christ is superior to and preeminent over everyone and everything.

→    The first three verses provide a fitting introduction.

But before we look at these, we need some background as a foundation for our study.

Studying Hebrews is a thrilling adventure.

Part of that adventure is due to the difficulty of the book.

It is a book that has many, many deep truths that are difficult to grasp and that demand diligent and faithful study.

There are things here that are beyond understanding apart from complete reliance on God’s Spirit and sincere commitment to understand His Word.

It’s been said, that you cannot understand the book of Hebrews unless you understand the book of Leviticus, because the book of Hebrews is based upon the principles of the Levitical priesthood.

But don’t worry about your lack of understanding of Leviticus.

By the time we get through Hebrews, you should have a pretty good grasp of Leviticus as well.

It would be a definite advantage, however, if, on your own, you began to familiarize yourself with Leviticus.

→    It contains the ceremonial symbols for which Hebrews presents the realities.

Authorship

This epistle was written by an unknown author.

Some say it was by Paul, some say by Apollos, some say by Peter, some say by this, that, or another person.

Due to differences in style, vocabulary, and pattern of personal reference in the epistles known to be his, I do not believe it was written by Paul.

In fact, only one of the many commentators think Paul did.

We know it was written by a believer, under inspiration, to a suffering, persecuted group of Jews somewhere in the East, outside of Israel.

As to the exact human authorship, I stand with one of the great teachers of the early church by the name of

→    Origen, who said simply, “No one knows.”

How fitting, since the book’s purpose is to exalt Christ.

Throughout this study we will refer to the fact that it was written, as was all Scripture, by the Holy Spirit—whom we do know.

Audience

There are no references to Gentiles in the book.

Problems between Gentiles and Jews in the church are not mentioned or reflected here, indicating almost certainly that the congregation being addressed was strictly Jewish.

To these suffering Jewish believers—and some unbelievers—are revealed the merits of the Lord Jesus Christ and the New Covenant, in contrast to the Old Covenant, under which they had so long lived and worshiped.

We do not know the exact location of this group of Hebrews.

They were perhaps somewhere near Greece.

→    We do know that this community had been evangelized by apostles and prophets (2:3-4).

By prophets, of course, is meant New Testament prophets (Eph. 2:20).

Evidently this church had been founded fairly soon after Christ’s ascension.

By the time the letter was written, a small congregation of believers already existed there.

→    Also addressed in the letter are unbelievers, who evidently were a part of this Jewish community.

Unlike many Jews in Palestine, these had never had opportunity to meet Jesus.

Anything they may have known about Him was secondhand (Heb. 2:3-4).

They of course had no New Testament writings, as such, as a testimony, for it had not yet been brought together.

Whatever they knew of Christ and His gospel they knew from believing neighbors, or perhaps directly from the mouth of an apostle or prophet.

The letter had to have been written after Christ’s ascension, which was about a.d. 30, and before the destruction of Jerusalem in a.d. 70, since the Temple must still have been standing.

Many believe it was probably written close to 70, perhaps as early as 65.

We know that there were not any apostolic missionaries from Jerusalem until at least seven years after the church there had been founded.

Likely it was some time later that they would have reached this Jewish community, perhaps many miles away.

And, after they had been reached, the believers would had to have had a certain amount of time to have been taught, as reflected in the letter itself.

For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for some one to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food. (5:12)

→    He says, in other words, “You’ve had enough time to become mature, but you are not.”

→    We must understand that three basic groups of people are in view throughout this epistle.

If one does not keep these groups in mind, the book becomes very confusing.

If, for example, as some have said, it was written exclusively to Christians, extreme problems arise in interpreting a number of passages which could hardly apply to believers.

And because it so frequently addresses believers, it could not have been written primarily to unbelievers either.

So it must have been written to include both.

In fact three basic groups in this Jewish community are addressed.

Here is the critical basis for understanding the epistle; and here is where people often get mixed up, especially in interpreting chapters 6 and 10.

Group I: Hebrew Christians

First of all, there was in this Jewish community a congregation of true believers in the Lord Jesus Christ.

They had come out of Judaism, in which they had been born and raised.

Now they were born again.

They had received Jesus Christ as their personal Messiah and Savior.

They had become His followers.

The frequent result was tremendous hostility from their own people—ostracism from their families, persecution and suffering of many sorts, though not yet martyrdom (10:32-34; 12:4).

They suffered greatly, persecuted not only by their fellow Jews, but also perhaps by Gentiles.

They should have anticipated as much and have been mature enough to deal with it.

But they had not and they were not.

They lacked full confidence in the gospel, and consequently in their Lord.

They were in danger of going back into the standards and patterns of Judaism—not of losing their salvation but of confusing the gospel with Jewish ceremony and legalism and of thereby weakening their faith and testimony.

They could not bring themselves to accept the clear-cut distinction between the gospel, the New Covenant in Christ, and the forms, ceremonies, patterns, and methods of Judaism.

They were still hung up, for example, on the Temple ritual and worship.

That is why the Spirit talks to them so much about the new priesthood and the new Temple and the new sacrifice and the new sanctuary, all of which are better than the old ones.

They had gone beyond Judaism in receiving Jesus Christ but, understandably, they were tempted to hang on to many of the Judaistic habits that had been so much a part of their lives.

When their friends and their countrymen began to persecute them in earnest, the pressure led them to hold even tighter to some of the old Jewish traditions.

They felt they had to keep a foothold in their old and familiar relationships.

It was hard to make a clean break.

With all that pressure, together with their weak faith and spiritual ignorance, they were in great danger of mixing the new with the old.

They were in great danger of coming up with a ritualistic, ceremonial, legalistic Christianity.

They were a whole congregation of “weaker brothers” (cf. Rom. 14:2; 1 Cor. 8:9),

who were still calling “unclean” what the Lord had sanctified (Mark 7:19; Acts 10:15; Rom. 14:12; 1 Tim. 4:1-5).

→    The Holy Spirit directed this letter to them to strengthen their faith in the New Covenant, to show them that they did not need the old Temple (which in a few years would be completely destroyed by Titus Vespasian anyway, showing that God had brought an end to that economy; cf. Luke 21:5-6).

They did not need the old Aaronic-Levitical priesthood.

They did not need the old day-in, day-out, day-in, day-out sacrifices.

They did not need the ceremonies. They had a new and better covenant with a new and better priesthood, a new and better sanctuary, and a new and better sacrifice.

→    The pictures and symbols were to give way to the reality.

The book of Hebrews was written to give confidence to these floundering believers.

The Lord was speaking to Christians and telling them to hold to the better covenant and the better priesthood, and not go back into the patterns of Judaism, either to that priesthood or to that assemblage.

They must steadfastly and exclusively live in, and live out, their new relationship in Christ.

Group I: Hebrew Christians

Group II: Hebrew Non-Christians Who Were Intellectually Convinced

We have all met people who have heard the truth of Jesus Christ and who are intellectually convinced that He is indeed who He claimed to be, and yet are not willing to make a commitment of faith in Him.

In the group of Hebrews to whom this epistle was written, there were such non-Christians, as there are in many groups today.

It is likely that every church group since Pentecost has had people in it who have been convinced that Jesus is the Christ but who have never committed themselves to Him.

These Hebrew non-Christians, intellectually convinced but spiritually uncommitted, are the object of some of the things that the writer has to say.

→    They believed that Jesus was the Messiah, the Christ, spoken of in the Jewish Scriptures (what we now call the Old Testament),

→    but they had not been willing to receive Him personally as their Savior and Lord.

Why?

Perhaps, like those described by John, they believed in Him, but they loved the approval of men more than the approval of God (John 12:42-43).

They were not willing to make the necessary sacrifice of giving up self!

And so they are exhorted by the Holy Spirit to go all the way to saving faith; to go all the way to commitment to the lordship of Christ.

In chapter 2 is one of the special statements to this group of the intellectually convinced but spiritually uncommitted.

For this reason we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. For if the word spoken through angels proved unalterable, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense, how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? (2:1-3a)

They were at the point of acknowledging but not of committing.

→    They were guilty of the great sin of neglecting to do what one is intellectually convinced is right.

The truth of the gospel had even been confirmed to them by the apostles, with all the miracles and gifts of the Holy Spirit (v. 4).

→    In chapter six this group is addressed again.

For in the case of those who have once been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance, since they again crucify to themselves the Son of God, and put Him to open shame. (6:4-6)

→    Here is a warning to the merely intellectually convinced not to stop where he is.

Ø If he stops after having received full revelation, and especially after he is convinced of the truth of the revelation, he has only one way to go.

If, when a man is totally convinced that Jesus Christ is who He claimed to be, he then refuses to believe, this man is without excuse and without hope—because, though convinced of the truth of the gospel, he still will not put his trust in it.

He is here warned that there is nothing else God can do.

What is the greatest sin that a man can commit?

→    The sin of rejecting Christ.

For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins. (10:26)

If a man has heard the gospel, understands it, and is intellectually convinced of its truth, but then willfully rejects Christ, what more can God do?

Nothing!

All God can now promise this man is “a certain terrifying expectation of judgment, and the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries” (v. 27).

The warning continues:

How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled under foot the Son of God, and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace? (10:29)

→    When you know the truth of the gospel and reject it, the consequences are terrible and permanent.

In chapter twelve, verse fifteen, is still another warning.

See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God; that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, and by it many he defiled; that there he no immoral or godless person like Esau, who sold his own birthright for a single meal. For you know that even afterwards, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought for it with tears. (12:15-17)

This is the tragedy of being too late—with no one to blame but ourselves.

These are controversial passages, and we will deal with them in detail as we get to them.

Group I: Hebrew Christians

Group II: Hebrew Non-Christians Who Were Intellectually Convinced

Group III: Hebrew Non-Christians Who Were Not Convinced

Ø Not only does the Holy Spirit in this book speak to Christians in order to strengthen their faith

Ø and

Ø to the intellectually convinced in order to push them over the line to saving faith,

Ø but He also speaks to those who have not believed at all, to those who may not yet be convinced of any part of the gospel.

He seeks to show them clearly that Jesus is in fact who He claimed to be, and this truth is the main thrust of chapter nine.

For example, in 9:11 He says:

But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things to come, He entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation. (9:11)

And He goes on to explain Christ’s new priesthood:

How much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? And for this reason He is the mediator of a new covenant, in order that since a death has taken place for the redemption of the transgressions that were committed under the first covenant, those who have been called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance.… And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment, so Christ also, having been offered once to hear the sins of many shall appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin, to those who eagerly await Him. (9:14-15, 27-28)

These messages speak directly to unbelievers, not to Christians and not to those who are already convinced of the gospel intellectually.

They are given to those who first need to know who Christ really is.

→    These, then, are the three groups in view in the epistle.

The key to interpreting any part of Hebrews is to understand which group is being addressed.

If we do not understand that, we are bound to confuse issues.

For example, the Spirit is surely not saying to believers, “It is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment” (9:27).

We must always understand what group it is to whom He speaks.

As we study the book of Hebrews, we will relate each text to one of the three groups.

→    The primary message is addressed to believers.

Periodically there are interspersed warnings to the two unbelieving groups.

In a masterful way, in a way that could only be divine, the Holy Spirit speaks to all three.

He meets every one of their particular needs and their specific questions in this one supernatural masterpiece.

Ø In Hebrews there is confidence and assurance for the Christian.

Ø There is warning to the intellectually convinced that he must receive Christ or his knowledge will damn him.

Ø Finally, there is a convincing presentation to the unbelieving Jew who is not even intellectually persuaded that he should believe in Jesus Christ.

To these three groups Hebrews is a presentation of Christ, the Messiah, the Author of a New Covenant greater than the one God had made in the Old Testament.

The old one was not bad or wrong; it was God-given and therefore good.

But it was incomplete and preliminary.

It set the stage for the new.

Invitation

A Thematic Outline of the Book of Hebrews

As I stated before, the overall theme is the superiority, or the preeminence, of Christ.

→    He is better than anything that was before.

→    He is better than any Old Testament person;

→    He is better than any Old Testament institution;

→    He is better than any Old Testament ritual;

→    He is better than any Old Testament sacrifice;

→    He is better than anyone and everything else.

This general outline of the book of Hebrews shows the basic pattern of presenting the superiority of Jesus Christ.

We will loosely follow this pattern as we study.

→    The letter begins with the general superiority of Christ to everyone and everything, a kind of a summary of the whole epistle in the first three verses.

Ø Next comes the superiority of Christ to angels,

Ø then the superiority of Christ to Moses,

Ø the superiority of Christ to Joshua,

Ø the superiority of Christ to Aaron

Ø and his priesthood, the superiority of Christ to the Old Covenant,

Ø the superiority of Christ’s sacrifice to old sacrifices,

Ø the superiority of Christ’s faithful people to all the faithless,

Ø and the superiority of Christ’s testimony to that of any other.

This brief outline gives us the flow of the book, which, above all else, teaches the total, complete, and absolute superiority of Jesus Christ.

A. A Few Background Observations

I.                 No Jew Could See God and Live

→    Before we begin looking at particular passages and verses, let me suggest a couple of footnotes.

To the Jew it had always been a dangerous thing to approach God.

†      “No man can see Me and live” (Ex. 33:20).

→    On the great Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur), which occurred one time a year and which many Jews today still keep to one degree or another—at that time and that time alone could the High Priest enter into the Holy of Holies, where the Shekinah Glory dwelt, where God was uniquely present.

They could not see God, they could not behold God.

They could not even approach Him except on this one day a year—and only one person, the high priest, could do this.

And he had to go in and get out quickly.

He could not linger there lest he put Israel in terror of judgment.

Since there was naturally no personal nearness to God, there had to be some basis for communion between God and Israel.

So God established a covenant.

In this covenant God, in His grace, and in His sovereign initiative, offered to Israel a special relationship with Himself.

→    In a unique way He would be their God and they would be His people to reach the world.

They would have special access to Him if they obeyed His law.

To break His law was sin, and sin interrupted their access to Him.

Since there was always sin, access was always being interrupted.

I.                 No Jew Could See God and Live

II.             The Old Sacrifices

Through the Levitical priesthood, sacrifices were made to symbolize atonement for sin, in order that the barrier might be taken down and there might be access to God.

→    It worked something like this: God gave His covenant, which included His law, and thereby offered the people access to Him.

→    Man sinned, the law was broken, and the barrier went up again.

Another repentant act of sacrifice was then made so that the barrier would be dropped and the relationship reestablished.

We naturally wonder how often they had to make sacrifices.

The answer is incessantly—hour after hour, day after day, month after month, year after year.

They never stopped.

Besides this, the priests themselves were sinners.

They had to make sacrifices for their own sins before they could make sacrifices for the sins of the people.

And so the barrier went up and down, up and down, up and down.

→    This in itself proved the ineffectiveness of the system.

It was a losing battle against sin and the barrier it erects.

And besides this, the whole system never removed sin fully and finally.

It only covered it up.

!→   What man needed was a Perfect Priest and a Perfect Sacrifice to open the way once and for all—a sacrifice that was not just a picture and that did not deal just with one sin at a time, over and over again, but one that took it all away once and for all.

→    That, says the writer of Hebrews, is exactly what Jesus was and what He did.

I.                 No Jew Could See God and Live

II.             The Old Sacrifices

III.         The New Sacrifice

Jesus Christ came as the Mediator of a better covenant because it is one that does not have to be repeated every hour, or even every month or year.

Christ comes as the mediator of a better covenant because His sacrifice once and for all removes every sin ever committed.

Christ comes as the mediator of a better covenant because He is a priest who does not need to make any sacrifices for Himself.

He is totally perfect, the Perfect Priest and the Perfect Sacrifice.

→    Jesus Christ, in His own sacrifice—His sacrifice of Himself—showed the perfection that eliminated sin.

†      By this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. (10:10)

→    Sanctified here means “made pure,” and the emphasis is: “… through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ ONCE.”

That is something wonderfully new in the sacrificial system—one sacrifice, once offered.

That is indeed a wonderfully better covenant.

†      But He, having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God. (10:12)

→    That is something no priest could ever do.

There were not even any seats where the sacrifices were made in the Tabernacle or the Temple.

The priests had to keep making sacrifices;

their task was never finished.

Jesus made His sacrifice and “sat down.”

It was finished. It was done.

†      “For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified” (10:14).

I.                 No Jew Could See God and Live

II.             The Old Sacrifices

III.         The New Sacrifice

IV.         Better Priest, Better Sacrifice

Thus there is a better priest making a better sacrifice.

This is a central message of the book of Hebrews.

Ø To the believing Jew the Spirit says,

†      “Continue to have confidence in this Priest and this sacrifice.”

Ø To the one intellectually convinced He says,

†      “Receive this Priest and accept the sacrifice He made.

You are on the borderline of decision; don’t fall into perdition when you are only a step away.”

Ø And to the unconvinced He says,

†      “Look at Jesus Christ. See how much better He is than the Levitical priests and how much better His one sacrifice is than all of their innumerable sacrifices. Receive Him.”

→    The Spirit is saying,

†      “All of your lives you Jews have been looking for the Perfect Priest. You’ve been looking for the Perfect Final Sacrifice. I present Him to you—Jesus Christ.”

I.                 No Jew Could See God and Live

II.             The Old Sacrifices

III.         The New Sacrifice

IV.         Better Priest, Better Sacrifice

V.             Difficulties for Jewish Christians

Keep in mind (as I stated last week) that the idea of a new covenant was not easy for Jews to accept.

Even after they accepted the new, it was hard for them to make a clean break with the old.

The Gentiles did not have that problem, of course, since they had never been a part of the old.

They had long before lost any real knowledge of the true God, and in consequence were worshiping idols—some of them primitive and some of them sophisticated—but all of them idols (see Rom. 1:21-25).

But the Jews had always had a divine religion.

For centuries they had known a divinely appointed place of worship and a divinely revealed way of worshiping.

God Himself had established their religion.

 One might effectively say, when witnessing to a Gentile,

†      “Here is the truth.” But when you went to a Jew and said, “Here is the truth,” he would likely say, “I already know the truth.” When you countered, “But this truth is from the one true God,” he would respond, “So is the truth that I have.”

→    It was not an easy thing for a Jew to forsake completely all his heritage, especially when he knew that much of it, at least, was God-given.

Even after a Jew received the Lord Jesus Christ this was difficult.

He had a traditional desire to retain some of the forms and ceremonies that had been a part of his life since earliest childhood. Part of the purpose of the book of Hebrews, therefore, was to confront that born-again Jew with the fact that he could, and should, let go of all his Judaistic trappings.

But since the Temple was still standing and the priests still ministered in it, this was especially hard to do.

Letting go became easier after the Temple was destroyed in a.d. 70.

When you consider the intense persecution Jewish Christians were going through at this time, it is easy to appreciate the difficulties and temptations they faced.

The high priest Ananias was especially hard and unrelenting.

He had all Christian Jews automatically banished from the holy places.

That was tough.

All their lives they had had access to these sacred places.

Now they could have no part in the God-ordained services.

They were now considered unclean.

They could not go to the synagogue, much less the Temple; they could not offer any sacrifices; they could not communicate with the priests.

They could have nothing to do with their own people.

They were cut off from their own society.

For clinging to Jesus as the Messiah, they were banished from almost every sacred thing they had ever known.

→    Though in God’s eyes they were the only true Jews (Rom. 2:28-29), they were considered by fellow Jews to be worse than Gentiles.

→    Many Jewish Christians were beginning to say to themselves,

“This is rough. We received the gospel and believed it. But it’s hard to break with our old religion and with our own people and the traditions we have always held and to face persecution. It is hard for us not to doubt that Jesus is the Messiah.”

Such doubts were a great problem for them, because they were spiritually infantile.

→    Throughout Hebrews these immature, but beloved, Christians are told to keep their confidence in Christ, the mediator of a better covenant and their new Great High Priest.

They are reminded that they were losing nothing for which they were not getting something infinitely better.

→    They had been deprived of an earthly temple but they were going to get a heavenly one.

→    They had been deprived of an earthly priesthood but they now had a heavenly Priest.

→    They had been deprived of the old pattern of sacrifices but now they had one final sacrifice.

A. A Few Background Observations

B. Better Everything

→    In this epistle, contrast reigns.

Everything presented is presented as better:

·       a better hope,

·       a better testament,

·       a better promise,

·       a better sacrifice,

·       a better substance,

·       a better country,

·       a better resurrection,

·       a better everything.

Jesus Christ is presented here as the supreme Best.

→    And we are presented as being in Him and as dwelling in a completely new dimension—the heavenlies.

·       We read of the heavenly Christ,

·       the heavenly calling,

·       the heavenly gift,

·       the heavenly country,

·       the heavenly Jerusalem,

→    and of our names being written in the heavenlies.

→    Everything is new.

→    Everything is better.

We don’t need the old.

†      Now the point in what has been said is this: we have such a high priest, who has taken His seat at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens. (8:1)

→    Here is the whole summary of Hebrews in one sentence.

----

a John 9:29; 16:13; Heb 2:2f; 3:5; 4:8; 5:5; 11:18; 12:25

b Acts 2:30; 3:21

c Num 12:6, 8; Joel 2:28

1 Or at the end of these days

a Matt 13:39; 1 Pet 1:20

b John 9:29

2 Lit in Son; or in the person of a Son

c John 5:26, 27; Heb 3:6; 5:8; 7:28

d Ps 2:8; Matt 28:18; Mark 12:7; Rom 8:17; Heb 2:8

e John 1:3; 1 Cor 8:6; Col 1:16

3 Lit ages

f 1 Cor 2:7; Heb 11:3

1 Lit Who being

a 2 Cor 4:4

2 Lit upholding

b Col 1:17

c Titus 2:14; Heb 9:14

d Mark 16:19; Heb 8:1; 10:12; 12:2

e 2 Pet 1:17

[1]New American Standard Bible : 1995 Update (LaHabra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995), Heb 1:1-3.