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Recap: Last week we completed Leviticus, a book rich in liturgy and law, which concluded with dire promises of punishment - as well as a bright outlook if the children of Israel obeyed all God had commanded.
All through our Leviticus study, and in particular when we studied the five great offerings in chapters 1-7, and Yom Kippur in Lev. 16, we referred to Hebrews, the NT book which is a "gloss" on Leviticus. Tonight, we'll look at the first three chapters of Hebrews to relate them to what we've studied.
Hebrews: Hebrews' author is unknown, though traditionally it was attributed to the apostle Paul. However, several other names have also been advanced: Barnabus, Apollos, Priscilla. But there is no evidence to completely support any of them as the writer. But like the Shakespeare controversy, it's a moot point: we have the work, the letter, and it's a gem. It was written in the first century A.D., and most scholars put it in the late 60s prior to the Temple's destruction in 70 A.D. because the writer refers to the Temple in ways that imply its existence. In the book, the writer makes 82 references to the OT; notice in the first three chapters how often the Psalms are quoted.
The purpose of the book was to convince Jewish Christians to hang onto their faith in Jesus as the Messiah, the fulfillment of prophecy and completion of the law. The first century was a time of controversy and turmoil; it was also a time of persecution. (We know, for example, that Saul/Paul before his conversion was enthusiastic about rounding up Christians for punishment and even death). It would have been easy for Jewish Christians to return to the worship of their past - Temple liturgy, sacrifices, the law. But Hebrews 2:1 says "We must pay more careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away." And the book is designed as an argument offering proof and reasoning to these Christians (and to us) that Jesus is the ONLY way to the Father; that Jesus is THE atoning sacrifice for sin, made once and for all. And in Heb. 2:3, the writer asks "how shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation?" Why is it great? Because of Jesus, the sinless Son of God, who became a man to die for us - he was the sin offering, the burnt offering, the fellowship and peace offering.
Hebrews 1: In the first chapter, the writer wastes no time in building his case. The King James Version gets it just right here:
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1 God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, 2 Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; 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 on the right hand of the Majesty on high: 4 Being made so much better than the angels, as he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they.
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Notice that the writer begins with God - God the creator of all things; God the one who spoke to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph, Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, and many others, but who had been silent for 400 years before Jesus' birth. He doesn't try to prove that God exists; he assumes that we all know that God exists. He talks first of prophecy and prophets, angels and other means of revelation through which God made his message known. In Genesis, how did God contact human beings? He walked with Adam and Eve; he spoke to Noah and told him to build an ark; he called Abraham, and appeared to Abraham in human and in angelic form. He spoke to Abraham on Mt. Moriah through The Angel of God, whom many believe is the pre-Incarnate Christ. He spoke to Joseph through dreams; in Exodus, we read about God calling Moses from a burning bush. Later, he passed by Moses after he put Moses into the cleft of a rock, so that Moses could see God's glory. Moses says he talked with God face to face, metaphorically speaking. Now, however, in the writer's time - and ours - God revealed his message through his Son, Jesus, whom John describes as the Word (John 1:1: "In the beginning was the Word.") Jesus, the living Word, embodies God's message; he IS the message. Paul says in Col. 1:15 that "Christ is the visible image of the invisible God." He is God - all that God is (mercy, compassion, goodness, love, grace) in a human body.. And the writer says, Jesus is greater than anyone else either created or divine: he is God's Son; he is God. He is greater than the angels in several ways: he has a greater name, greater honor, he is eternal, God anointed him, he is the creator, and he sits at God's right hand. The writer offers OT proof of Jesus relationship to God and man; in Heb. 1, he discusses what he knows about God and the Messiah through the OT; now in the second chapter, he begins to tell us about the New Covenant.
Hebrews 2: The writer continues his argument: If, he reasons, the message delivered through angels was true (and has been proven true), then how much more faith can we have in the message Jesus, God's son brought us? In v3, the writer reveals that he did not hear Jesus firsthand, but has heard the Gospel from those who DID hear Jesus. "It was passed on to us by those who heard him speak," eye (and ear-) witnesses. Peter, in his 2nd epistle, makes very clear that he and the disciples didn't make up the message: "We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty." (2 Pet. 1:16). And the verses that follow said that "We ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were with him on the sacred mountain." Peter, John and James heard God speak to Jesus at the Transfiguration. They were powerfully convinced first by Jesus himself and God's confirmation. So the writer of Hebrews heard these eyewitnesses and believed in Jesus. And in v. 4, he says that signs and wonders followed the message: Look at Matt. 4, the introduction of Jesus public ministry. In Matt.4:23, we read: "Jesus went throughout Galilee teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness." Signs and wonders. This was Jesus' ministry: teaching, preaching and healing. The apostles, following the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, also taught, preached, and healed "in Jesus name." Jesus had told then before his death that "I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it." (John 14:12-14). And in Acts 3, we see Peter and John reach out in healing to a crippled man - a ministry of teaching and healing as Jesus had said they'd have. In Hebrews 2, the writer continues to present this kind of evidence to show that Jesus, though temporarily on earth in a human body, will reign with the Father in heaven for all eternity. He brings with him all of us who believe: we are his brothers, other children of God. And we're told that Jesus "shared in [our] humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death - that is the devil - and free all those whose lives were held in slavery by their fear of death." (Heb. 2:14-15) And then he turns to one of the major themes of Hebrews that Jesus was our sacrifice, THE sacrifice for sin: he was a merciful high priest and he also makes atonement for sin. He is both priest and sacrifice. And then he adds that Jesus "because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted." (Heb. 2:18) One cannot be any more human than that.
Hebrews 3: Now the writer gets to the nitty gritty argument: Moses, whom the Jews revere as the giver of the law, is compared to Jesus and Jesus is superior. In the wilderness, the ancestors of the Jews to whom he is writing did not obey God and were punished for it. And so the writer updates it: don't be like your fathers. Don't harden your hearts against the truth Jesus brought us. We who have been given such a great salvation, a once-for-all sacrifice atoning for sins, cannot follow the path of those who were in the wilderness and failed to receive God's best because of their disbelief. (Lev. 26 God promises blessings and/or punishment; the people chose to disobey and were punished).
Hebrews is a book which, as we discovered in Leviticus, continues to argue for Jesus as the atoning sacrifice - a superior sacrifice to those Aaron and his sons offered year after year in the tabernacle. But as you know, we'll learn about Jesus coming, his ministry, his death and resurrection in the gospel Matthew wrote; Matthew, one of the original 12 disciples and an apostle, wrote as an eye-witness who lived beside, walked with and ministered with Jesus for three years.
Matthew: In January, we'll begin our study of the first of the four Gospels, and the first of the three which are called synoptic (syn = same or equivalent; optic = eye, seeing): Matthew, Mark and Luke. The writers present much of the same content: the ministry of Jesus, his death, resurrection and assension, each from a slightly different perspective. John has an entirely different approach, a more reflective look at what Christ's teachings meant. John wrote his gospel late in his life, which may account for his style. Matthew quotes and refers to the Old Testament more often than any other gospel writer; he is a Jew writing to Jews. His goal was to convince Jews that Jesus, the son of God, was the Messiah they'd been waiting for for hundreds of years. This is why Matthew begins with Abraham and David as the very first ancestors in Jesus' genealogy: both are revered by Jews, and Matthew, reaching clear back into their history, helps them see where Jesus originated.
The first promise of a savior was in Gen. 3:15, and the entire Hebrew Bible points to the fulfillment of this promise. Jesus' birth was THE PIVOTAL event in the world's history; it changed everything. And that's what Matthew sets out to show.
Starting January 12, 2004, the study of the Gospel according to Matthew.
Let's close in prayer.
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