The Book of Hebrews
The Introduction.
Hebrews ... what a name for a book. It sounds like a language. And it is a language spoken by Israelites. The Israelites are often called Hebrews, and this could be because, many years ago, Abraham ... father of the Hebrew race, was also the great grandson of one Eber. Some scholars believe this name is just one step away from the word 'Hebrew'. The Biblical word Hebrew is spelled Ivri (in Hebrew) and means to traverse or pass over. Shem, the oldest of the sons of Noah, is referred to as the father of the sons of Eber. The meaning of Shem's name is similar. So the Israelites of today could be called, Jews (after Judah), Israelites (after Jacob), Hebrews (after Eber) or Shemites ... actually Semetic. The book of Hebrews really refers to none of the above. More on this later.
Necessary background information:
Written when?:
Written somewhere between AD 67-69. This means that Jerusalem had not yet been destroyed by Titus (the Roman) in ad 70. 1,2,3 John were all written later, as was the book of Revelation.
Written to whom?
Hebrews? Obviously. But what kind of Hebrews. There are only two kinds. Hebrews who are not Christians and those who are. In our previous study of the book of Acts you might remember that for the first while all the new believers were Hebrews converting to Christianity. So the first church was made up of saved or converted Jews. Then, you remember, Stephen preached a sermon out on the street that angered the non-Christian Jews to the point of killing him. That killing prompted a rash of persecution against the church that grew so severe it caused the believers to scatter like a covey of quail. Only the apostles remained in Jerusalem. Small churches sprang up all over Judea. We can accurately say, these were Hebrew Christians. Other waves of persecution would follow driving these Hebrews ever farther into remote quarters of their world. They ran for their lives. They hoped to live quiet and safe lives. While this may sound natural and normal, their situation was certainly less secure than what we have enjoyed for the last hundreds of years.
Peter also wrote to these people. 1Pe 1:1 ¶ Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To God’s elect, strangers in the world, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia,
James wrote to them. James 1:1 ¶ James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, To the twelve tribes scattered among the nations: Greetings.
Written by whom?
Probably the Apostle Paul. Some have argued that it couldn’t have been Paul simply because he always wrote in Greek. He did not name himself in this epistle like he always did in the other books he wrote.
The evidence is quite strong, however that it was Paul. Here are just a few reasons. Even though there is evidence of it's having been written in Hebrew, there is greater evidence that it was first written in Greek. Just a bit of evidence: In the book of Hebrews there are a few references to Old Testament verses. The Old testament, as you know was written in Hebrew. But the entire Old Testament was also available in Greek. The Greek translation is known as the Septuagint. The quotes from the Old Testament that are in the Hebrew version of Hebrews are all worded as if taken from the Septuagint. If the Hebrew was the original, the quotes would also be in Hebrew from the Hebrew OT. So the book of Hebrews was written in Greek first, and then translated to Hebrew for whatever reason.
Another important observation, the Greek grammar used in the book is superior … almost exactly like that which Luke used in his writings. Do you remember that Luke was Paul's traveling companion for years? So very possibly Luke was the writer. Why was he the writer? After all, while Paul and Luke were together, Paul used others to do his transcribing. Why this time did he use Luke? And why this time did he not include his name in the book?
A good reason for Paul to not use his name was simply that the Secular Jews hated him and the Jewish Christians probably did not like him all that much because of Paul's controversial ministry to the Gentiles. It was to Jewish Christians he had to defend his own apostleship as you can read about in 2 Corinthians. So, by leaving his name out of it, they might actually read it.
What about the literary style that is so superb? Remember Paul said that he became all things to all men so that he could reach them? He said that to the gentiles he became as a gentile and to the Jew he talked to like a Jew. Many gentile unbelievers had a Greek based tendency to worship eloquence and therefore Paul purposely simplified his speech. He did not have to do that when addressing people of a Jewish background.
Finally I draw your attention to a statement of Peter’s.
2Pe 3:15 ... and consider that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation——as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, has written to you,
Peter is writing to the scattered Hebrew Christians … here he mentions that Paul has already written to them. In all of the other thirteen epistles written by Paul, they are all addressed to gentile believers … none to the Hebrews. But here Peter clearly says that Paul had written to the Hebrews. So for this reason (and many other reasons too numerous to mention, based on internal evidence) I believe the book was written by the Apostle Paul.
Written Why?
These scattered Hebrew believers … in Paul's mind at least, were in danger of giving up their Christianity and returning to Judaism. I am sure he had a reason to believe this.
So here is where the book will fit into our lives. So many of us start out well. Then for one reason or another we get tired or disillusioned and we think of quitting. Maybe we even quit on the inside but just continue going through the motions of Christianity on the outside. I believe this book can pull us back to the path, back to loving Jesus and living for him.
We will see Jesus in this book. We will see Him compared with all the alternatives and see that He is the only way. We will find reasons to love Him more than ever before.
So, let’s begin.
Verses 1 – 3
Jesus is presented by Paul in two ways; (1) as our mediator/Savior and (2) as our eternal God.
We now come to a group of verses that contrasts Jesus to angels.
Why do we suppose the writer is doing this? Probably because angels were held in the highest regard by the Jews, as the ones who brought the original ten commandments to Moses.
De 33:2 He said: "The LORD came from Sinai and dawned over them from Seir; he shone forth from Mount Paran. He came with myriads of holy ones from the south, from his mountain slopes.
Ac 7:53 you who have received the law that was put into effect through angels but have not obeyed it."
Heb 2:2 For if the message spoken by angels was binding, and every violation and disobedience received its just punishment,
Ga 3:19 ¶ What, then, was the purpose of the law? It was added because of transgressions until the Seed to whom the promise referred had come. The law was put into effect through angels by a mediator.
The Old Testament law was held in highest regard by the Jews. Why? For several reasons but for one in particular, it was given by and in the company of thousands of angels. Who could top that? The unbelieving Jews, the Jesus rejecting Jews tried to discredit Jesus' ministry by pointing out … He was not an angel. He was just a man. If the Jewish Christians could ever be persuaded to go back to Judaism it would likely be that they listened to this line of reasoning and then gave in to it.
The apostle has stated that God spoke by prophets … but now by his son, Jesus, Who by the way, is greater than both prophets and angels. He is the creator, Himself (v2), and then verse 3:
Heb 1:3 who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,
So this is Paul's main point....the Holy Spirit's main point. The rest of the book will round this out beautifully and at the same time deal with many other topics.
To God and to Paul ... any 'slippage' of Jesus in our eyes or estimation is extremely dangerous. We have a list of ways in which God spoke to Israel in the past. All of the ways were good. So what we have here is what is best ... possibly being replaced by what is good. Do we ever do that?
How had God spoken in the past – first by prophets. Also by angels; and by that person the Jews really held as special; Moses. He includes Israel's Godly general, Joshua. The writer of Hebrews will move on to deal with Levi and his descendants who were the priests of Israel. Each was a voice from the past. God had used them ... that was good ... but Jesus is better. Actually, Jesus is best. He is the only one to whom we now look. To go backward to any of the others in the list would be fatal to our faith.1
Jesus is shown to be superior in the following six ways:
2Revelation 19:13
3Exodus 3:13 Moses said to God, "Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?"
14 God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’"
4William Barclay
Hebrews ... what a name for a book. It sounds like a language. And it is a language spoken by Israelites. The Israelites are often called Hebrews, and this could be because, many years ago, Abraham ... father of the Hebrew race, was also the great grandson of one Eber. Some scholars believe this name is just one step away from the word 'Hebrew'. The Biblical word Hebrew is spelled Ivri (in Hebrew) and means to traverse or pass over. Shem, the oldest of the sons of Noah, is referred to as the father of the sons of Eber. The meaning of Shem's name is similar. So the Israelites of today could be called, Jews (after Judah), Israelites (after Jacob), Hebrews (after Eber) or Shemites ... actually Semetic. The book of Hebrews really refers to none of the above. More on this later.
Necessary background information:
Written when?:
Written somewhere between AD 67-69. This means that Jerusalem had not yet been destroyed by Titus (the Roman) in ad 70. 1,2,3 John were all written later, as was the book of Revelation.
Written to whom?
Hebrews? Obviously. But what kind of Hebrews. There are only two kinds. Hebrews who are not Christians and those who are. In our previous study of the book of Acts you might remember that for the first while all the new believers were Hebrews converting to Christianity. So the first church was made up of saved or converted Jews. Then, you remember, Stephen preached a sermon out on the street that angered the non-Christian Jews to the point of killing him. That killing prompted a rash of persecution against the church that grew so severe it caused the believers to scatter like a covey of quail. Only the apostles remained in Jerusalem. Small churches sprang up all over Judea. We can accurately say, these were Hebrew Christians. Other waves of persecution would follow driving these Hebrews ever farther into remote quarters of their world. They ran for their lives. They hoped to live quiet and safe lives. While this may sound natural and normal, their situation was certainly less secure than what we have enjoyed for the last hundreds of years.
Peter also wrote to these people. 1Pe 1:1 ¶ Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To God’s elect, strangers in the world, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia,
James wrote to them. James 1:1 ¶ James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, To the twelve tribes scattered among the nations: Greetings.
Written by whom?
Probably the Apostle Paul. Some have argued that it couldn’t have been Paul simply because he always wrote in Greek. He did not name himself in this epistle like he always did in the other books he wrote.
The evidence is quite strong, however that it was Paul. Here are just a few reasons. Even though there is evidence of it's having been written in Hebrew, there is greater evidence that it was first written in Greek. Just a bit of evidence: In the book of Hebrews there are a few references to Old Testament verses. The Old testament, as you know was written in Hebrew. But the entire Old Testament was also available in Greek. The Greek translation is known as the Septuagint. The quotes from the Old Testament that are in the Hebrew version of Hebrews are all worded as if taken from the Septuagint. If the Hebrew was the original, the quotes would also be in Hebrew from the Hebrew OT. So the book of Hebrews was written in Greek first, and then translated to Hebrew for whatever reason.
Another important observation, the Greek grammar used in the book is superior … almost exactly like that which Luke used in his writings. Do you remember that Luke was Paul's traveling companion for years? So very possibly Luke was the writer. Why was he the writer? After all, while Paul and Luke were together, Paul used others to do his transcribing. Why this time did he use Luke? And why this time did he not include his name in the book?
A good reason for Paul to not use his name was simply that the Secular Jews hated him and the Jewish Christians probably did not like him all that much because of Paul's controversial ministry to the Gentiles. It was to Jewish Christians he had to defend his own apostleship as you can read about in 2 Corinthians. So, by leaving his name out of it, they might actually read it.
What about the literary style that is so superb? Remember Paul said that he became all things to all men so that he could reach them? He said that to the gentiles he became as a gentile and to the Jew he talked to like a Jew. Many gentile unbelievers had a Greek based tendency to worship eloquence and therefore Paul purposely simplified his speech. He did not have to do that when addressing people of a Jewish background.
Finally I draw your attention to a statement of Peter’s.
2Pe 3:15 ... and consider that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation——as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, has written to you,
Peter is writing to the scattered Hebrew Christians … here he mentions that Paul has already written to them. In all of the other thirteen epistles written by Paul, they are all addressed to gentile believers … none to the Hebrews. But here Peter clearly says that Paul had written to the Hebrews. So for this reason (and many other reasons too numerous to mention, based on internal evidence) I believe the book was written by the Apostle Paul.
Written Why?
These scattered Hebrew believers … in Paul's mind at least, were in danger of giving up their Christianity and returning to Judaism. I am sure he had a reason to believe this.
So here is where the book will fit into our lives. So many of us start out well. Then for one reason or another we get tired or disillusioned and we think of quitting. Maybe we even quit on the inside but just continue going through the motions of Christianity on the outside. I believe this book can pull us back to the path, back to loving Jesus and living for him.
We will see Jesus in this book. We will see Him compared with all the alternatives and see that He is the only way. We will find reasons to love Him more than ever before.
So, let’s begin.
Verses 1 – 3
Jesus is presented by Paul in two ways; (1) as our mediator/Savior and (2) as our eternal God.
- The ‘God-man’, Jesus, came to earth and spoke to us.
- He was appointed – became the heir of ‘all things’.
- He was the one who created all things in the beginning.
- He is the one who died and purged our sins.
We now come to a group of verses that contrasts Jesus to angels.
Why do we suppose the writer is doing this? Probably because angels were held in the highest regard by the Jews, as the ones who brought the original ten commandments to Moses.
De 33:2 He said: "The LORD came from Sinai and dawned over them from Seir; he shone forth from Mount Paran. He came with myriads of holy ones from the south, from his mountain slopes.
Ac 7:53 you who have received the law that was put into effect through angels but have not obeyed it."
Heb 2:2 For if the message spoken by angels was binding, and every violation and disobedience received its just punishment,
Ga 3:19 ¶ What, then, was the purpose of the law? It was added because of transgressions until the Seed to whom the promise referred had come. The law was put into effect through angels by a mediator.
The Old Testament law was held in highest regard by the Jews. Why? For several reasons but for one in particular, it was given by and in the company of thousands of angels. Who could top that? The unbelieving Jews, the Jesus rejecting Jews tried to discredit Jesus' ministry by pointing out … He was not an angel. He was just a man. If the Jewish Christians could ever be persuaded to go back to Judaism it would likely be that they listened to this line of reasoning and then gave in to it.
The apostle has stated that God spoke by prophets … but now by his son, Jesus, Who by the way, is greater than both prophets and angels. He is the creator, Himself (v2), and then verse 3:
Heb 1:3 who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,
So this is Paul's main point....the Holy Spirit's main point. The rest of the book will round this out beautifully and at the same time deal with many other topics.
To God and to Paul ... any 'slippage' of Jesus in our eyes or estimation is extremely dangerous. We have a list of ways in which God spoke to Israel in the past. All of the ways were good. So what we have here is what is best ... possibly being replaced by what is good. Do we ever do that?
How had God spoken in the past – first by prophets. Also by angels; and by that person the Jews really held as special; Moses. He includes Israel's Godly general, Joshua. The writer of Hebrews will move on to deal with Levi and his descendants who were the priests of Israel. Each was a voice from the past. God had used them ... that was good ... but Jesus is better. Actually, Jesus is best. He is the only one to whom we now look. To go backward to any of the others in the list would be fatal to our faith.1
Jesus is shown to be superior in the following six ways:
- He is the Son.
- He is Creator
- He fully shares the Divine nature
- He is the sustainer of all things
- He fully purged us of sin
- He 'sat down'.
- He is the Son.
As the Son He speaks with authority and completeness. We read at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets,. This communication from God was not what one would call complete in any sense. It came is sections and pieces. It came somewhat spasmodically. In all of what God had said in the Old Testament ... it was not enough. He spoke finally through His Son. The Son is called The Word of God2.
Paul addressed the issue of partial versus complete in 1 Corinthians 13:8-13
Here Paul says that up to now (that is, in his day) knowledge is in bits and pieces and what they heard from God was also in little segments. He is actually dealing with another aspect of what he is referring to in Hebrews. In the Corinthian letter he is pointing out that even the gifts given to persons in the early church were not a complete picture and summary of God's word. Although someone was given the gift of knowledge (so that they could write, and what they wrote would be called scripture) and even though they could get up to preach and words from God would automatically flow (gift of prophecy) he recognizes that even then, not only did they not have it all, but even the gifts were fading. They were fading at about the same rate as something permanent was taking its place. Paul said, when that which is complete has come (the bible), then that which is partial (the gifts) would be done away.
Jesus is the Word. The final Word and the complete Word. (The phrase 'in these last days' refers to their day --- all the way to the return of Christ)
- He is Creator – Refer to Colossians 1:15-17. Jesus is found at the beginning of Creation. And He is found at the very end of Revelation. Refer also to Matthew 21:33-43.
- He fully shares the Divine nature
Jesus said to Philip, "Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father" (John 14:9). The JW's place Jesus as the very highest product of creation. Is this 'honour' that they place on Christ enough? Consider this verse: John 8:24b "... if you do not believe that I am (He), you will die in your sins." The simple answer is anyone who refuses to believe that Jesus is the 'I Am', is unsaved and will die in their sins. Who is the I Am? Moses talked to Him in the burning bush. The speaker, Jehovah God, referred to himself as 'I Am'.3
- He is the sustainer of all things.
Col 1:17 And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. Creation would not continue to work without the hand of Jesus, continually sustaining it. In the past he has moved the sun-dial backward by 15 degrees. He caused the sun to 'stand still' for about a day during a battle in Joshua's time. He will shorten days from 24 hours to 18 hours during the latter part of the tribulation period coming (soon). He is creator and controller. He makes the rain fall on the just and the unjust.
- He fully purged us of sin
“by Himself” is added by many manuscripts. No one stood in for him, as the Muslims teach. “The glory of God is not the glory of shattering power but glory of suffering love”4
- He 'sat down'.
From the cross Jesus said, It is finished! The statement that Jesus sat down is not to point out what he physically did at the moment, but it is to emphasize that His work of redemption was over. Later Paul will point out that the work of priests involved standing ... continually. Jesus sat down. On a side note – when Stephen was being killed and was at the point of death ... he said 'I see Jesus standing ...' I think this symbolically is a wonderful thing. The first martyr is about to enter heaven ... Jesus stood up!
2Revelation 19:13
3Exodus 3:13 Moses said to God, "Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?"
14 God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’"
4William Barclay