Hebrews 3:1-6
What does it mean to be faithful?
Why are we faithful to those things?
Who belongs to God?
This phrase renders the adjective “holy” (hagioi [40, 41]), that is, set apart as God’s own people (the same word is translated as “other believers” in 6:10 and as “believers” in 13:24).
holy
Christians share in a Heavenly Calling
Observe Him
Understand Him
Perceive Him
Concentrate Him
Confess Him
The true superiority of Jesus to Moses will be adequately measured only in this way: Moses was never anything more than a member of the house Christ was building and a servant in that house over which Christ ruled as God’s Son (vv. 5–6). Further, as a prophet, Moses pointed away from himself to Christ; his message was of salvation in Christ (cf. John 5:46; Rom. 10:6–10). Believers today belong to that house as Moses and the faithful before and after him (Heb. 11:1–40) if they hold fast to Christ and to no one and nothing else for salvation.
Here the author of Hebrews draws on a well-known biblical passage in which God warned Moses’ brother Aaron and sister Miriam that “if there were prophets among you, I, the LORD, would reveal myself in visions. I would speak to them in dreams. But not my servant Moses. Of all my house, he is the one I trust. I speak to him face to face, clearly, and not in riddles!” (Num 12:6–8).
Moses was “faithful in God’s house as a servant” (3:5, my italics), but Jesus was faithful as “the Son” (3:6) over or “in charge of” God’s house (see note on 3:2), for Jesus radiates the “glory” and “very character” of God (see 1:3). Jesus is greater than Moses, just as surely as he was greater than the angels.
The author drives home the point by comparing Jesus to the builder and Moses to the house (3:3), a puzzling comparison until we realize that God’s “house” (oikos [3624, 3875]) is a metaphor not for a place (such as the world, or heaven, or the Temple in Jerusalem) but for a people. “We are God’s house,” the author adds (3:6, my italics). To compare Moses to “the house itself” (3:3) is simply to acknowledge that Moses, despite his great preeminence, was one of God’s people. He was not God. By contrast, the Son is both human and divine. While his solidarity with his people has already been established (2:11–18), here the author insists equally on his solidarity with God, precisely as “Son” (see 1:2–4). If “the one who built everything is God” (3:4), then in some sense the Son is the builder as well, and we are the “house” (3:6).
Yet there are conditions attached: “We are God’s house, if we keep our courage and remain confident in our hope in Christ” (3:6, my italics). The “if” is crucial to the entire passage. The author wants his readers, first, to “think carefully about this Jesus” (3:1), and now finally to “remain confident” in Jesus (3:6). In short, he is urging faithfulness to our heavenly calling (3:1), just as Moses and Christ were faithful (pistos [4103, 4412]; 3:2, 5) to their respective callings as God’s servant and God’s Son. Because we are God’s “children” and Christ’s “brothers and sisters,” the words, “I will put my trust in him” (2:13) must be ours as well. We are “God’s house” if—and only if—we maintain faith, courage, and hope. The tone is positive, but the little word “if” signals warnings to come. The warnings follow immediately (3:7–4:11), but in the course of giving them, the author will again drive home the positive point that “if we are faithful to the end, trusting God just as firmly as when we first believed, we will share in all that belongs to Christ” (3:14, my italics).