More Excellent than Moses

Hebrews 3:1-6

Hebrews Sermon 3

More excellent than Moses.

I was going to begin this talk on Hebrews at chapter 3 with the topic of Moses, but the first verse of the chapter insisted that I go back to chapter 2. The first verse of chapter 3 says;

Therefore, holy brothers, who share in the heavenly calling...

When you god back to chapter 2 you are immediately struck by the quotation from Psalm 8

What is mankind that you are mindful of them,

a son of man that you care for him?

You made them a little lower than the angels;

you crowned them with glory and honor

and put everything under their feet.”

This quotation is not about the Messiah, but about man and his place in creation as God had wanted it to be. It was to be just as we read in Genesis 1;28

God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

Then verse 31

God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.

All that changed with the Fall. The writer to the Hebrews acknowledged this in verse 8:

In putting everything under them, God left nothing that is not subject to them. Yet at present we do not see everything subject to them.

That’s the current situation; we live in a fallen world and the evidence of that is all around us, just as it was when the writer sent his letter to the Hebrews.

God could justifiably have left man and his world to their fate, but no, He had a solution.

Look at verse 9 of chapter 2

But we do see Jesus, who was made lower than the angels for a little while, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.

This is God’s amazing plan of reconciliation and restoration of man and the world. And it was the only way: salvation for mankind through the suffering of Jesus. His purpose was to bring many sons to glory and to bring them back into the family.

11 Both the one who makes people holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters.

It is no mistake that the writer now quotes from Psalm 22, the psalm of the cross. It was written by David a thousand years before the event, and, perhaps more than any other passage of scripture, penetrates to the actual suffering of our crucified Lord; the pierced hands and feet, the body itself aginizingly pulled apart, the racking thirst, the mocking onlookers. The psalm takes us to that place of crucifixion and compels us to see the reality of what God did for us in the person of his Son, Jesus Christ. When the writer quotes from this psalm to the Jewish Christians he was clearly implying that the suffering servant in it was indeed Jesus. But when he says these words

22 I will declare your name to my people;

in the assembly I will praise you.

he was quoting from the final triumphant section of the psalm. They are not the words of one who has been defeated in death. They are the words of one who has been victorious over death.

And although the writer does not include it, the Jewish Christians would certainly have remembered the next verse of the psalm:

23 You who fear the LORD, praise him!

All you descendants of Jacob, honor him!

Revere him, all you descendants of Israel!

Verse14 makes it clear that Jesus that Jesus had to be born as man.

Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil — and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.

So this is the situation and promise of chapter 2. Mankind lost through sin the paradise that God had given him at the beginning, but Jesus was made for a time a little lower than the angels and, as man, suffered death, tasted death for everyone. And through his death he became the captain or author of salvation, leading those who would follow to Glory to stand with him in the congregation, singing God’s praise as he says:

Here am I, and the children God has given me.

Our sins are forgiven and we are restored to God’s family.

That’s the encouragement at the start of chapter 3. The Jewish Christians, many of whom were tempted to abandon their faith, were addressed as holy brothers, a reminder of their place in the family, and their “heavenly calling” showing that their call was from God and to God, in the confident knowledge that while waiting here on earth, their citizenship is in Heaven.

So with all that in mind the writer’s call is to fix our thoughts on Jesus, the Apostle and High Priest.

In verse 2, the writer, talking about Jesus, says this:

He was faithful to the one who appointed him, just as Moses was faithful in all God’s house. Jesus has been found worthy of greater honour than Moses.

There is a telling verse in John chapter 9, shortly after Jesus has healed a man who had been born blind and the pharisees were investigating the healing and refusing to believe that Jesus had worked the miracle. They were addressing the blind man and we read this:

Then they hurled insults at him and said, “You are this fellow’s disciple! We are disciples of Moses! We know that God spoke to Moses, but as for this fellow, we don’t even know where he comes from.”

It is difficult for people who are not Jews to appreciate fully the esteem and honour in which Moses was held by them. We catch glimpses of it in the New Testament, for example when Moses appeared with Elijah to stand with Jesus at the Transfiguration, or when Jesus Told the man cured from leprosy to go to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded (Mark 1:44). Jesus himself referred to Moses several times:

John 3:14 Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, t 15 that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.”

John 5: 45-46 “But do not think I will accuse you before the Father. Your accuser is Moses, on whom your hopes are set. If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me.

Matthew 23: 2-3 The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. So you must be careful to do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practise what they preach.

Mark 7:10 For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and mother,’

In the question of divorce Jesus asked

Mark 10: 3 What did Mose command you?

The Jews claimed the authority of Moses when they challenged Jesus as they brought the woman caught in adultery to him:

Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.

In all their religious life, in all their practices and thinking, everything connected with God was also connected with his servant Moses. He was a great Apostle to them. In the history of God’s people, Moses had a unique position, called by God to a great purpose and his place in the story of God’s people is recounted every year at Passover. We see the hand of God in Moses’ life from the beginning, when his life was preserved as a babe in Egypt to the end when God allowed Moses to see the Promised land but not enter it.

Deuteronomy 34: 5-6 And Moses the servant of the LORD died there in Moab, as the LORD had said. He buried him in Moab, in the valley opposite Beth Peor, but to this day no one knows where his grave is. Moses was a hundred and twenty years old when he died, yet his eyes were not weak nor his strength gone.

The writer of the letter, in that great chapter on faith, says this of Moses:

He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward.

The story of Moses is familiar to us, perhaps too familiar sometimes that we miss important details. Of his people in Egypt, he was the only one who was free and against all the riches of Egypt, of his own choice he sided with the Israelites, which brought him into conflict with Pharaoh and led him into obscurity for forty years, a time of meditation and, unknown to him, preparation. Then came the call of God and his appointment to be Israel’s deliverer and lead them out of Egypt, followed by those forty years in the wilderness, where, as prophet, he was the mouthpiece of God to his people, and, as priest, he was the people’s representative before God.

We see in Moses a man of God, who, in his dealings with Pharaoh, and even with his own people, was met with opposition, rejection, unbelief, yet held to his faith and was obedient to all that God was asking him to do. He was zealous for the Lord and we find several verses like this

Exodus 7:17 This is what the LORD says: By this you will know that I am the LORD: With the staff that is in my hand I will strike the water of the Nile, and it will be changed into blood

Exodus 8: 10-11 Moses replied, “It will be as you say, so that you may know there is no one like the LORD our God. 11 The frogs will leave you and your houses, your officials and your people; they will remain only in the Nile.”

Exodus 9:13,14 Then the LORD said to Moses, “Get up early in the morning, confront Pharaoh and say to him, ‘This is what the LORD, the God of the Hebrews, says: Let my people go, so that they may worship me, 14 or this time I will send the full force of my plagues against you and against your officials and your people, so you may know that there is no one like me in all the earth.

Exodus 10: 1-2 Then the LORD said to Moses, “Go to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the hearts of his officials so that I may perform these signs of mine among them 2 that you may tell your children and grandchildren how I dealt harshly with the Egyptians and how I performed my signs among them, and that you may know that I am the LORD.”

And faced with the Red sea before them and Pharaoh’s army behind in pursuit:

Exodus 14:13,14 Moses answered the people, “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the LORD will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. 14 The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still.”

Not only was he zealous for the Lord, he also had a heart of love for his people, even though they disappointed him time and again. time after time they sinned and time after time Moses pleaded on their behalf before God, even to the extent of offering his own life if God will forgive them. You remember the incident where the golden calf had been made. Here’s what we read in Exodus 32:31-32

So Moses went back to the LORD and said, “Oh, what a great sin these people have committed! They have made themselves gods of gold. But now, please forgive their sin—but if not, then blot me out of the book you have written.”

When the writer of Hebrews mentions Moses, he would have known that there was no one in all of their history who was held in higher esteem. There was no-one who could be closer to God than Moses. The prophets had visions and dreams and God communicated with them in various ways, but with Moses it was altogether different. Moses spoke with God face to face.

Here is what we read in Numbers chapter 12:

“When there is a prophet among you,

I, the LORD, reveal myself to them in visions,

I speak to them in dreams.

7 But this is not true of my servant Moses;

he is faithful in all my house.

8 With him I speak face to face,

clearly and not in riddles;

he sees the form of the LORD.

When, in verse three, he says that Jesus has been found worthy of greater honour than Moses, he was not denying the honour due to Moses. Far from it for he writes of Moses as being faithful in all God’s house and Moses as a faithful servant.

The writer uses the picture of God’s house and we can understand it in two ways. First in the sense that the world is God’s House and Jesus, the Son is the creator of this world, the builder of all things and Moses is part of God’s creation. The second sense is that God’s house is his family and Jesus is the founder of that family of which we, his redeemed are members. Moses did not establish this house. He only served in it and he served faithfully. Numbers 12:3 tells us that Moses was a very humble man, more humble that anyone else on the face of the earth. Moses did not speak of himself, all his life as a servant pointed forward to that greater servant Jesus Christ.

Look at what Moses said in Deuteronomy 18

15 The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your fellow Israelites. You must listen to him. 16 For this is what you asked of the LORD your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly when you said, “Let us not hear the voice of the LORD our God nor see this great fire anymore, or we will die.”

17 The LORD said to me: “What they say is good. 18 I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their fellow Israelites, and I will put my words in his mouth. He will tell them everything I command him.

This is the quotation that Peter used in his to the people in Jerusalem in Acts chapter 3. It is worth looking at that part of Peter’s speech carefully

Acts 3: 21-26

Heaven must receive him until the time comes for God to restore everything, as he promised long ago through his holy prophets. 22 For Moses said, ‘The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people; you must listen to everything he tells you. 23 Anyone who does not listen to him will be completely cut off from their people.’ r

24 “Indeed, beginning with Samuel, all the prophets who have spoken have foretold these days. 25 And you are heirs of the prophets and of the covenant God made with your fathers. He said to Abraham, ‘Through your offspring all peoples on earth will be blessed.’ v 26 When God raised up his servant, he sent him first to you to bless you by turning each of you from your wicked ways.”

Peter was talking to the Jewish onlookers when he said that they were heirs of the prophets and of the covenant. That’s just what the writer to the Hebrews says at the conclusion of this section:

And we are his house, if indeed we hold firmly to our confidence and the hope in which we glory.

And that is the call to us today; Hold fast to our confidence. That’s a two way thing. As we learn to trust in Him, God’s Holy Spirit will help us in our weakness. I’ll finish with the words of Paul in Romans 15;

13 May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.