Hebrews

1. THE SUPERIORITY OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH (1:1–10:18)

A. Jesus Christ superior to the prophets (1:1–4). The dramatic exordium is less an introduction than a thunderous opening salvo. This written sermon goes forth precisely to arrest a waning of conviction regarding the divine supremacy of Christ and the decisiveness of his work as the redeemer of sinners. The assertion of the Son’s preeminence among the prophets and the finality of his revelation is possibly intended to correct the expectation of an eschatological prophet within the circle of Judaism from which these readers have come and to which they are now tempted to return.

1:1–2. No distinction is made between the message spoken formerly (1:1) and “in these last days” (1:2). It is not the message but the dignity of the messengers and the times and circumstances of their revelation that differ. God spoke then and now, and indeed continues to speak, through the ancient prophets as through his Son (e.g., 3:7; 10:37–38). One needs to remember that the living and active word of God (4:12) was for this author largely what is now called the OT.

“These last days” (1:2) is taken from the phrase used in the OT to designate the prophetic future (cf. Gn 49:1; Dt 4:30; Is 2:2; Ezk 38:16). It refers to the future days prophesied in the OT, or some of those days, or the beginning of them (cf. Heb 9:26).

1:3–4. “Radiance” (1:3a) indicates the Son’s sharing of the divine attributes (cf. Jn 1:14; 2 Co 4:6), and “exact expression” indicates the correspondence of his nature with the Father’s (cf. Col 1:15). “Sustaining all things” refers to his government by which he brings the course of history to its appointed end. “Sat down” (1:3b) signifies the completion of the atonement (10:12–14) and suggests Christ’s present activity as priest (4:14–16) and king (12:2). If the Son’s person and work are as described, any religion that does not place them at its center, in which he is not the hope and joy of sinners and the chief object of faith and worship, stands self-condemned. [The Deity and Humanity of Christ]

That the Son’s superior name is inherited (1:4) indicates that Jesus Christ is here being considered not in his eternal and essential dignity as the Son of God but as the mediator, the “man Christ Jesus” (1 Tm 2:5), who by his humiliation became superior to the angels (Heb 2:9).

B. Jesus Christ superior to angels (1:5–2:18). The superiority of the Son to the angels is now distinctly stated and demonstrated (1:5–14). The author’s interest in providing conclusive proof surely indicates that this was a matter of dispute. Possibly the audience attributed an unwarranted eminence to angels as mediators through whom God revealed the law (2:2; cf. Ac 7:53; Gl 3:19). Since the readers were Jews and Christians, their retreat from Christianity was resulting in a growing hesitance to ascribe divinity to Jesus while yet wishing to revere him, leaving him as less than God but more than man.

1:5. The fact that the author has the incarnate Son of God in view helps in understanding Ps 2:7, the first of the seven citations from Scripture (1:5a), which figures prominently in the NT as a prophecy of the incarnation, the messianic ministry, and especially the resurrection (Mk 1:11; Lk 1:32; Ac 13:33; Heb 5:5; cf. Rm 1:4). The eternal Son could be said to become or to be begotten as the Son of God only with reference to the exaltation of the human nature he took to himself when he came into the world.

The second citation (1:5b; see 2 Sm 7:14), God’s promise to David concerning Solomon, was extended in OT prophecy and became the basis of the expectation of the messianic king of Davidic descent who would usher in God’s everlasting kingdom (Ps 72:1–20; Is 9:7; 11:1–9; Jr 23:5–6; Lk 1:32–33).

1:6. The third citation (Dt 32:43, from the longer text of the Septuagint and Dead Sea Scrolls; cf. Ps 97:7) verifies that when the Son of God came into the world as a man, he was worshiped as divine. Perhaps the specific allusion is to Lk 2:13. “Firstborn” is another messianic title (Ps 89:27). It suggests his consecration to God (Ex 13:2) and his precedence as an heir. The application of this text to Christ is an instance of the attribution of the divine name Yahweh to Jesus.

1:7–9. The contrasting fourth (1:7; see Ps 104:4) and fifth (1:8–9; see Ps 45:6–7) citations establish that the superiority of the Son to the angels is as clear and great as that of a king to those who do his bidding, indeed, as that of God to his creatures. Psalm 45, a wedding song for an Israelite king, is properly applied to the one who establishes the reign of which the OT kingship was but a foreshadowing. The ascription of this text to Christ results in one of the few places in the NT where Christ is directly referred to as God (cf. Jn 1:1; 20:28; Rm 9:5).

1:10–14. The sixth citation (1:10–12; see Ps 102:25–27) serves to recapitulate the divine dignity of the incarnate Son of God as the Creator (1:2) and his majesty as the eternal Lord.

The final citation (1:13–14) is from Ps 110 and climactically reiterates the divine honor bestowed on Christ, the royal status he presently enjoys, and the inheritance soon to be his. On the other hand, the angels are but servants (cf. Ps 103:20–21); some stand (Lk 1:19), but none sit in Christ’s seat of honor. Their special ministry is to those who will share in Christ’s inheritance. In this first mention of salvation, the author characteristically views it as yet future (2:5; 9:28).

2:1–4. The preceding exposition is now applied in the first of many exhortatory sections that punctuate the letter and demonstrate its true purpose. The readers had no reservations concerning the legitimacy and severity of the sanctions of the Mosaic law, though it was mediated by angels (2:2; cf. Dt 33:2 LXX; Ac 7:53; Gl 3:19). How much more, then, ought they to fear the consequences of slighting a revelation communicated immediately by one far greater than angels, attested by eyewitnesses, and confirmed by miraculous signs of various kinds (2:3–4)?

The author is not belittling the law. It too was a revelation of God attested with marvelous signs (Heb 12:18–27). But that only serves to heighten the sanction that attaches to the Son’s own announcement of God’s salvation. “Drift away” (2:1) and “neglect” (2:3) suggest less a deliberate repudiation of the faith than a squandering of salvation through an unwillingness to meet its stern requirements (3:12–13).

2:5. In the next section (2:5–18) the contrast between Christ and the angels continues. The assertion of the sovereignty of the Son over the world to come may be a direct rebuttal of such speculation regarding the role of angels in the coming kingdom entertained among some Jews. “The world to come” is the author’s theme and thus may be identified with the salvation just mentioned in 2:3 (cf. 9:28). Throughout Hebrews, the author views salvation in terms of its future consummation. Its present dimensions are not emphasized, since they are not immediately relevant to the author’s purpose, which is to call readers to that persevering faith which alone obtains entrance to the heavenly country (10:35–39).

2:6–9. The citation of Ps 8:4–6 (2:6b–8a) is introduced with an expression of striking indifference to the human authorship of Scripture (2:6a). The psalm itself harks back to Gn 1:26 and the supreme dignity bestowed on humanity, God’s unique image bearer and vice regent. Elsewhere in the NT (Mt 21:16; 1 Co 15:27; Eph 1:22) it receives a messianic interpretation. Jesus is the perfect fulfillment of that dignity as the Son of Man and last Adam.

The incarnate Son’s history has two periods: that of his humiliation and that of his eternal exaltation (2:9). Those in Christ recapitulate his history—they too, though lower now, will one day rule over angels (1 Co 6:3). Though the subjection of all things to Christ awaits the consummation (2:8b), it is guaranteed by his exaltation to God’s right hand, a reward for his self-sacrifice for sinners (Heb 10:13–14; 12:2; Php 2:6–11).

2:10. In the following paragraphs (2:10–18) the author explains why the Son had to become human and suffer and die. As the larger subject of the comparison of the Son to angels is not forgotten (2:16), it may be assumed that this explanation is offered in part to allay the suspicion of the readers that Jesus’s reputation, on account of his humanity and humiliation at the hands of mere mortals, suffers in comparison with that of such purely spiritual and mighty beings.

The reason that the Son became human and incurred such ignominy was precisely that in no other way could God save his people from their sins (5:8–9; 9:15). The incarnation was not a pageant but a tragic necessity, for a salvation that would meet the exigencies of sinful humans and a just God required such suffering as only a divine-human Savior could endure. The Father is identified both as the original source of salvation in Christ and the ultimate beneficiary (cf. 1 Co 15:24, 28; 2 Co 5:18–21). “Source,” as in Heb 12:2, refers to one who opens the way that others might follow (cf. 6:20).

2:11–13. In Hebrews the sanctification that results from Christ’s sacrifice is reconciliation to God (2:11a; cf. 10:10, 14, 29). What makes Christ one with the beneficiaries of his sacrifice is not that they have the same Father (both being children of God) but that they share a common humanity. “Is not ashamed” (2:11b) is an affirmation of the compassionate identification of Christ with his unworthy people, which led him to empty himself (cf. Php 2:6–8).

Three citations are now offered to demonstrate the Son’s solidarity with the people of God. The first (2:12), from the unmistakably messianic Ps 22, attests Christ’s brotherhood with the redeemed. The second and third (2:13) are from Is 8:17–18, the prophet’s cry of the heart interpreted messianically, especially on the strength of 2:14 (cf. Rm 9:33; 1 Pt 2:8). Jesus is so much a human being that he too must trust in God, and the people of God are his fellows not only as his brothers and sisters but also as his offspring (cf. Is 53:10).

2:14–15. The point of Christ’s sharing humanity is recapitulated and elaborated. It was necessary that the Son of God become human, since a human death was required for the sin that separated humankind from God and rendered humankind subject to the devil (2:14). Only a human could die, and only the God-man could die for the sins of the world (Gl 4:4–5). The breaking of the devil’s grip is accomplished precisely by the breaking of the grip of sin (Eph 2:1–5), and liberation from the fear of death (2:15) is nothing else but liberation from the guilt of sin or liability to God’s wrath (1 Co 15:54–57).

2:16–18. The author further develops the rationale for the incarnation. Because Christ’s purpose was to “help” the people of God rather than angels (2:16), he had to become human. Abraham’s descendants are characteristically viewed as a spiritual rather than a racial entity—the elect of God (Rm 9:6; 11:1–8; Gl 3:29). To deliver humankind required that Christ become his people’s high priest, to represent them in offering himself as their substitute, and in dying for them to appease God’s holy wrath against their sin (2:17). Christ’s atonement is at once the gift of God’s love and the requirement of his justice.

Further, the experience of suffering temptation gained during his life in the world equipped him to help his people now in their temptations (2:18), an especially relevant point in this sermon to a people under temptation (cf. 4:15). Christ is both sympathetic and strong, offering understanding, which misery craves, and relief, which misery craves even more.

C. Jesus Christ superior to Moses (3:1–4:13). 3:1. The author draws together the previous themes in a striking exhortation that concludes the previous section and introduces the next. The readers’ failure to give Christ the place in their minds and hearts that his divine supremacy, mediatorial work, and human sympathy deserve has led to their crisis of faith. Only in Hebrews is Jesus called an apostle, though the fact that Jesus was sent by God to act on his behalf is commonplace in the NT (cf. Jn 5:36).

3:2–6. The author now compares Jesus with Moses (3:2–3), again perhaps to counter an unhealthy veneration of Moses at the expense of Christ. There is but one house of God in which Moses served but which Christ built, and that house includes us. The Son is the builder (3:4) only as the executor of the Father’s will (1:2), unless the author intends here to call Jesus God. Moses was never anything more than a member of the house that Christ was building and a servant in that house over which Christ rules as God’s Son (3:5–6). Further, as a prophet, Moses pointed away from himself to Christ; his message was of salvation in Christ (cf. Jn 5:46; Rm 10:6–10). Believers today belong to that house, as did 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.

3:7–11. The warning of 3:6 that membership in God’s household is suspended on a living and persevering faith introduces a long exhortatory section (3:7–4:13) in which the danger of apostasy and the necessity of an enduring faith are illustrated from the history of Israel. Here the author cites the warning of Ps 95:7–11 as the living and active word of God (Heb 4:12) demanding to be heard and obeyed now as then. It is introduced as the word of the Holy Spirit (3:7), though later it is ascribed to David (4:7), an example of the consistent assumption of the writers of the NT that what Scripture says, God says (cf. Rm 9:15, 17; Gl 3:8; Heb 9:8; 10:15).

The cited portion of the psalm is an admonition not to imitate the wilderness generation in its faithlessness, only one particular instance of which is recollected in 3:8: rebellion and testing (Ex 17:1–7; cf. Nm 20:1–13; 1 Co 10:1–11; Jd 5). The burden of the citation is the judgment pronounced on unbelief (3:11). As the argument proceeds, it becomes clear that the failure to enter God’s rest means nothing less than the failure to obtain eternal life, of which entrance into the promised land was only a figure.

3:12–14. The point of the citation in 3:7–11 is driven home as the author reminds the readers that in this fundamental respect nothing has changed since the wilderness: it is still possible for those numbered outwardly among the people of God to forfeit the eternal country; it still requires nothing more than spiritual neglect to harden a heart to the point that it will turn away from God (3:12); and it is still as vitally necessary to stand fast in faith all of one’s life (3:13) and to help one another stand (10:23–25). As throughout the letter, the subject is not unbelief per se but apostasy, the rejection of Christ and the faith by one who professed to believe and was considered to belong to the church of God (3:12).

The author of Hebrews warns against apostasy (Heb 3:12), but this warning does not contradict the biblical witness to the security of the elect, which is rooted in the merits of Christ and the immutable love of God (Jn 10:27–29; Rm 8:28–39). The elect are kept by the power of God through faith (1 Pt 1:5), which is strengthened by warnings such as these. Further, many who claim to believe in fact do not. Some manifest the falseness of their faith by apostasy (1 Jn 2:19), while others remain undetected until the day of Christ (Mt 7:21–23; 13:36–43).

3:15–19. For a readership that was inclined to consider the life of Israel in the wilderness as a paradigm for their own, it was particularly necessary to emphasize that it was precisely that generation, the generation lifted out of Egypt on eagles’ wings, that was rejected by God for unbelief (3:16–18). The exhortation of 3:12–14 is thus reinforced by this explicit recollection of Israel’s forfeiture of the rest of God.

4:1–2. That the alternatives Israel faced in the wilderness are the same ones believers face today is demonstrated by the use of the terms “promise” (4:1; cf. 6:12; 9:15; 10:36; 11:39–40) and “good news” (4:2; cf. 4:6; Rm 10:16; Gl 3:8). This verifies the author’s consistent assumption that the gospel and its demands have remained unchanged from the beginning and that the spiritual world of the ancient people of God with its conditions, blessings, and powers is identical to that in which the readers now live.

4:3–8. The rest that faithless Israel failed to obtain but that believers will obtain is now identified as participation in God’s own rest that began after the creation of the world (4:3–5; cf. Gn 2:2–3). The present tense in 4:3 (“we . . . enter the rest”) expresses a principle or rule and so looks to the future (cf. Ac 14:22). Israel, therefore, failed to obtain the rest not because the rest itself was not yet available but solely because of unbelief. Further, Israel’s forfeiture of the rest is at issue (4:6–8), not the failure to enter Canaan, as if the rest were one thing in the OT and another today. Canaan was only a symbol of the eternal inheritance that faith obtains (11:9–10, 13–16). Joshua brought Israel into the land, and generations of Israelites had lived in the promised land when God issued the warning of Ps 95. It was quite possible to inhabit Canaan and yet forfeit God’s rest.

4:9–11. So God’s rest has always been available to women and men and remains so today (4:9). The sole question is whether we will exercise that persevering faith that alone obtains rest. For it is a rest that one enters not in this life but only in the world to come, when the believer has rested from work (10:36).

The author speaks of a “Sabbath rest” (4:9) to connect the rest that the believer will obtain with God’s own rest (4:10; cf. 4:4; Gn 2:2–3). It does not refer directly to the weekly Sabbath but points to eternal salvation as different from and following this life of work. The use of this unusual term, “Sabbath rest,” suggests that the weekly Sabbath, or Lord’s day, is an eschatological sign pointing to a fulfillment still to come. It should not be thought that this rest is inactivity, however, for God’s rest is not (Jn 5:17).

The consideration of this future blessedness concludes with another summary exhortation (4:11) to eschew the example of Israel, to fear the wrath of God that befell Israel, to set mind and heart on the life to come, and to strive to live by faith.

4:12–13. This appeal is enforced by a consideration of the character of the word of God, which confronted Israel and confronts us still today. It is the living voice of God, which is never disobeyed with impunity. Here the word is thought of as an instrument of God’s judgment, discerning the secrets and motives of the heart (cf. 1 Co 4:5). The author’s readers must not suppose that they will obtain the rest of God because they are accepted by human beings or are counted as members of the people of God. The faith required is to be exercised and will be measured in the day of Christ as much in the thoughts of the heart as in outward conformity to the will of God. The phrases “soul and spirit, joints and marrow” (4:12) denote the inner life of humankind in all its aspects.

In addition to words of comfort and encouragement, Hebrews is full of words of warning and challenge (e.g., Heb 4:11). The author commands the readers to beware and also to take care on each other’s behalf (Heb 4:1; cf. Heb 10:24–25). Eternal salvation must never be taken for granted but must be worked out in fear and trembling (Php 2:12–13), all the more as it is possible to belong to the people of God in an outward way and yet, for want of a genuine and enduring faith, fail to obtain eternal life.

D. Jesus Christ superior to Aaron (4:14–10:18). 4:14–16. In 4:14–5:10, the author discusses Jesus Christ’s qualifications as our great high priest, picking up the thread of the earlier statement that Christ is the high priest of his people (2:17–3:1). The author offers consolation and encouragement to those who have discovered that the life of faith is full of painful difficulties and severe temptations. Jesus, true God and true human being, is the high priest who combines perfect understanding of and sympathy with the struggling believer’s lot in this world of sin (4:15) with his unlimited ability to help. He knows how to deliver the godly from temptation, having been victorious himself in every moment of his sorely tested life (cf. 2:18).

That Jesus is now seated on a heavenly throne signifies both that his sacrifice for sin has been accepted by God (1:3; 10:12–14) and that his perfect sympathy as a fellow man and brother of the saints (2:11–14) is joined with divine omnipotence. Therefore, the believer who addresses Jesus should not doubt that he or she will receive both forgiveness for past sins and strength to bear up under present trials. “Approach” (4:16) translates a Greek term that the Septuagint often employs for the priest’s approach to God in the sacrificial ritual (e.g., Lv 21:17, 21). The sinner must rely on Jesus, not on priests or sacrificial ritual, for mercy and grace (Heb 10:1–3).

5:1–4. The author now takes care to establish in the minds of the readers, steeped as they are in Levitical regulations, that Jesus is in every way qualified to be the believer’s great high priest (5:1–10). First, as a representative of humanity, a priest must be a man with fellow feeling for those he represents to God (5:1–3). As one who offers sacrifices for sin, he must know what it is to do battle with sin. In the Levitical ritual, this was emphatically expressed in the requirement that even the high priest must offer sacrifice for his own sins (Lv 16:6). Second, the high priest must be appointed to his office (5:4; cf. Nm 20:23–28).

5:5–10. Now the author demonstrates in reverse order that Jesus meets both requirements (5:5–6). The two citations from the Psalter, both in the form of an address by the Father to the Son, establish that Jesus has his priestly office by divine appointment. Psalm 110:4 introduces the theme of Melchizedek to which the author will return in 6:20–7:28. Jesus also meets the requirement of sympathy with those he represents (5:7–10). It is true that he did not sin and needed no sacrifice for his own sins (5:3), but he was tempted more severely than any other person, and only the one who has resisted to the end knows the full weight of any temptation.

The point made twice before (2:17–18; 4:15) is now elaborated. Christ as a human being discovered what it is to cry out to God in fear and distress (5:7). The allusion to Gethsemane (Mt 26:36–46) is unmistakable. He learned to say “Your will be done” (Mt 26:42) when the will of God was the way of the cross. In answer to his prayer he was enabled to bear his trial just as he will enable believers to bear theirs (4:15–16). Though he was the Son of God and a sinless man, Jesus was not exempt from the principle that it is through suffering that a person discovers the true nature and cost of obedience (5:8–9; cf. 2:10; Is 53:3).

5:11–14. The exposition of Christ’s high priesthood is interrupted in the interest of another exhortation to persevere in faith (5:11–6:8). This section begins with a rebuke and is more severe in tone. The author intends to say more of Christ’s priesthood but must first prepare the audience to listen. Their spiritual childishness shows itself in a disposition to content themselves with their theological and spiritual status quo (5:11–13), apparently since by further progress they would only put greater distance between themselves and their Jewish past and sharpen the opposition they were already suffering. But such spiritual stagnation is dangerous; spiritual life is sustained by the solid food of sound doctrine, and it is protected by that spiritual and ethical discernment that is the fruit of an ever-deepening knowledge and constant exercise of faith (5:14).

6:1–3. Though in their present state of spiritual immaturity the process of digestion will be more painful, solid food is urgently required to invigorate their flagging faith (see 5:14). Each of the elementary teachings (6:1–2) mentioned had a place in Judaism but had been invested with new significance in Christian preaching. These basics are not to be discarded, but neither are they sufficient. This sentence amounts to a ringing affirmation both of the obligation laid on believers to cultivate their spiritual lives and of the importance of doctrine to sanctification. Knowledge feeds faith. “Dead works” (6:1) are not attempts to gain righteousness by means of works of the law or rituals but simply sins in general, all evil thoughts and actions from which the conscience must be cleansed (9:14; cf. Rm 6:21).

Jesus was “a man of suffering” (Is 53:3), and it is precisely that suffering and perfect obedience in suffering (Heb 5:8) that make him fit for his roles as Savior and High Priest. Just as Jesus learned obedience to the Father, we also learn obedience to Christ. Our obedience is just as necessary as our faith, for true faith and obedience are always found together, the latter the product and the sign of the former (Heb 3:18–19; 4:2, 6).

Though the believer is obliged to pursue maturity, God’s grace and action are necessary (6:3). In the case of apostates, God is unwilling and not permitting that they repent. Perhaps some in this community had already apostatized; others were alarmingly near to doing so, prompting the author to warn of the grim and irrevocable effects of deserting the faith.

6:4–8. The severity of this warning and the gravity of the situation contemplated must not be mitigated. Scripture is not silent regarding the hopeless condition of those who, having been numbered among the people of God, professed faith in Christ, received instruction in the Word of God, and experienced some measure of the blessing of the Holy Spirit’s ministry and the reality of the unseen world, then deliberately repudiate Christ’s lordship and salvation (6:4–6; cf. 10:26–27; Mt 12:31–32; 1 Jn 5:16–17). Of course, it is imperative to maintain that, appearances notwithstanding, such people were never born again or made genuine partakers of the redemption purchased by Christ (Jn 6:39; 10:27–29; Rm 9:29–30; 1 Pt 1:3–5, 23). [Warning Passages in Hebrews]

The brief parable in 6:7–8, similar to others in the Bible (Is 5:1–7; Mt 13:1–9, 18–30, 36–43), reminds us of the impossibility of distinguishing infallibly between the truly converted and the hypocrite and that spiritual fruit is the evidence of living faith. It also illustrates the righteousness of God’s condemnation of those who spurn his favor.

6:9–12. In the next section (6:9–20), the author encourages the readers to press on. As a matter of fact, the author has good hopes that the warnings will be taken to heart and be God’s instrument to invigorate the readers’ flagging faith (6:9). This confidence rests on the author’s acquaintance with the genuinely faithful lives they have lived as Christians (6:10), especially in the early days of their faith in Jesus Christ (10:32–34). Such faith, love, and obedience, however, must continue as long as they live in the world (6:11–12). The exhortation for readers to imitate the faithful of the former epoch (as appears from the following verses) characteristically anticipates a theme that the author will subsequently enlarge on (11:1–12:1).

6:13–15. Abraham, to whom all Jews look as their father, is mentioned as a man of faith deserving of their emulation (cf. 2:16; 11:8–19), but the theme now is not Abraham’s faith but the certainty of God’s promise (6:13). Since faith must wait so long for its reward (11:13), the believer may be sorely tempted to grow weary and lose heart. The wait cannot be shortened, but hope can be revived by a reminder that hope in God will never be disappointed (6:19). Abraham had to wait many years for even the beginning of the fulfillment of the promise God made to him (Gn 12:2; 17:5, 19, 21), but he did not wait in vain (6:15). The Lord added a solemn oath to his promise (6:14; see Gn 22:15–18) to strengthen Abraham’s faith during the lengthy wait.

Significantly, the incident in Gn 22 followed not only the birth of Isaac but the trial of Abraham’s faith when God commanded him to offer his son as a sacrifice. In speaking of Abraham’s obtaining the promise (6:15), then, the author seems to be thinking of the fulfillment of the age to come (11:13–16, 39–40). As in Heb 3 and 4, the author assumes that the principles of life and salvation that applied in the days of Abraham and Israel are fundamentally the same as those that apply today. The promise was offered then as now (4:1) and is obtained by a patient and enduring faith now as then.

6:16–20. The oath God swore was a condescension on his part to his people’s frailty (6:16–18). His word needs no confirmation (Jn 17:17; Ti 1:2), but humankind’s faith is weak, the wait is long, and God takes pity on his children. Christ’s exaltation to the right hand of God (Heb 1:3; 2:9; 4:14) only further confirms the certainty of the eventual fulfillment of God’s promise of eternal rest for those who trust in him. These readers were no more secure than Abraham had been, resting as he did on the immutable promise of God, but they had further cause to be encouraged and less excuse for a wavering faith now that Christ had appeared and accomplished eternal redemption.

“The inner sanctuary” (6:19), a reference to the innermost chamber of the tabernacle and temple, anticipates the exposition of 9:6–14 and the contrast drawn there between the ineffectuality of the Levitical ritual and the power of Christ’s sacrifice to save to the uttermost.

7:1–3. The author now turns to discuss Melchizedek the priest (7:1–28). The few details about Melchizedek (7:1–3) are taken from Gn 14:18–20. In distinction to the necessity of Aaronic ancestry as a prerequisite for Levitical priestly service (Heb 7:14), nothing is said either of Melchizedek’s birth and ancestry or his death and posterity (7:3a). For the author’s purpose, this fact demonstrates the existence in Scripture of another order of priesthood wholly separate from the Levitical. In this, Melchizedek serves as a type or embodied prophecy of Christ’s non-Levitical and eternal priesthood (7:3b), which is confirmed not only directly in Ps 110:4 (already cited in Heb 5:6) but also by his name (“king of righteousness”) and his title (“king of peace”), both redolent of Christ’s messianic office and dignity (7:2; cf. Is 9:6; Jr 23:6; Zch 9:9–10).

7:4–10. Attention is now drawn to the fact that, according to Gn 14, Abraham, though the heir of the promise and even in his hour of triumph, clearly behaves as Melchizedek’s inferior, in both paying him tithes and receiving his blessing (7:4, 6). Abraham was under no legal obligation to pay tithes to Melchizedek as Israelites would later be required by God’s law to pay a tithe to the Levitical priesthood; hence, his paying of a tithe amounted to a voluntary recognition of Melchizedek’s inherent dignity as a priest of God (7:5–6; cf. 7:16). “Scripture testifies that he lives” (7:8) looks back to 7:3 and the silence of the record regarding Melchizedek’s birth and death. By the absence of this information, the type is perfected and more perfectly foreshadows Christ’s eternal priesthood.

“We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure” (Heb 6:19). Ancient anchors could be made of stone, lead, bronze, or iron.

7:11. With the ground thus laid, the author sets out to show that, of the two priesthoods reported in Scripture, Jesus’s is superior (7:11–28) and the only source of salvation (see 5:9). The author is criticizing the Levitical institutions precisely for failing to provide in themselves the forgiveness of sins and the perfection of the conscience (7:18–19; 9:13–14). The readers of the letter, tempted to return to the comfortable paths of their former faith and associations, were inclined to precisely the opposite conclusions—namely, that perfection could come through the Levitical priesthood and that the sacrifices could make perfect those who offered them. The author’s contrast is between two ways of salvation—one by ritual performance and the other by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. The argument advanced is designed to correct a misplaced confidence in rituals and to confirm the conviction that salvation is and could only be in Christ alone.

7:12–19. The author rejects the argument that since the inauguration of the Levitical priesthood came later, it superseded Melchizedek’s order; for long after Aaron, the Word of God (Ps 110:4) speaks of another priest in the order of Melchizedek (7:12–17). The law was served by the priesthood that upheld it, and the priesthood was, in turn, regulated by the law. But the law made no provision for a priesthood outside the tribe of Levi, and Jesus was of the tribe of Judah (7:13–14). Christ’s appointment as priest and all the more as an eternal priest of a wholly different order thus constitutes a superseding of the Levitical institutions and a further demonstration that they were by no means God’s definitive provision for the salvation of humankind. That point is now repeated in a striking statement of the ineffectuality of that ritual. The author heaps scorn on it precisely for its failure to bring the sinner near to God (7:18–19).

The author’s intention is not to contrast believing life and experience in the OT with that of the NT; it is fundamental to the author’s whole outlook and argument that sinners of the old epoch were saved just as sinners are now: by Christ, through the gospel and faith. This is underscored by the reference to a better hope (7:19). “Better” is an important term in Hebrews and refers to the blessings of God’s eternal salvation, grasped by faith by the saints of all ages, in comparison with the false and worldly hopes of sinful humanity (cf. 7:22; 8:6; 9:3; 10:34; 11:16, 35, 40; 12:24).

7:20–22. The superiority of Christ’s priesthood is further confirmed by its enactment through divine oath (7:20–21). Characteristically, the author anticipates the development of this argument in 8:6–13. It is noteworthy that in this first reference to the new covenant, Jesus is said to be its guarantor (7:22). In keeping with the author’s already well-established perspective, the new covenant is not something the faithful of the former epoch awaited in hope but that Christians today enjoy as a present possession. One does not require a guarantor for what one already has (6:17–20). The new covenant, the rest of God, the promise, even salvation itself are presented in Hebrews as different aspects of the future consummation and the fulfillment of the world to come.

The author of Hebrews criticizes the Levitical priesthood for failing to provide what it was never intended to provide, a fact pious Israelites understood (Ps 51:16–17). Following in the steps of their ancestors, however (Ps 50:7–15; Jr 7:1–26), the letter’s Jewish Christian recipients view the sacrificial rituals as a way of salvation. Thus, the author sets aside all thought of the true significance of sacrifice in order to pour contempt on these ceremonies as incapable of making sinners right with God. In this, the author simply imitates the technique and the argument of the OT prophets (Is 1:10–20; Am 5:21–25; cf. 1 Co 10:1–5).

7:23–28. The permanence of Christ’s priesthood sets it above the Levitical (7:23–25). Christ’s priesthood does not need to be replaced generation after generation, which lends a continual efficacy to all aspects of his priestly work, including his intercession (Is 53:12; Jn 17:8–9; Rm 8:34).

Finally, Christ’s priesthood excels the Levitical by reason of his personal perfection (7:28). The eternally holy Son of God lived a sinless life as a man (4:15) and advanced through suffering to the full-orbed perfection of human maturity (5:8–9). Unlike Levitical priests, then, he had no need to offer sacrifices for his own sin (7:27). His sacrifice of himself—the eternal Son of God and the true and perfectly obedient man (2:17–18)—thus has unlimited potency. These verses serve to recapitulate the argument so far presented. [The Jewish High Priest]

8:1–6. Jesus’s priesthood is exercised in heaven, in the very presence of God, and its effectuality is therefore neither earthly nor temporary but spiritual and eternal (8:1–2; cf. 4:14). He exercises his priesthood not at some distance from God but in God’s immediate presence (see 9:24). The point is reiterated to allay the suspicions of the Jewish readership (8:3–5). Although Christ is not now visible to his people as a priest, his priestly work is no less authentic inasmuch as it involves the offering of sacrifice (5:1)—that of himself, not that of the law (7:27; 9:14).

The recipients of the letter are attracted to the rites of the temple, but this earthly round of ritual and its setting are but a copy of the real, heavenly sacrifice, which Christ offered once and for all and on the basis of which he now intercedes for his people. The detailed instruction God gave to Moses concerning the construction of the tabernacle (Ex 25–40) demonstrates that the tabernacle and, by implication, the temple were not the reality but only copies of it (8:5). The author’s readership is in danger of preferring the copy to the genuine article, of accepting an imitation as the true principle of salvation.

8:7–13. Now the author presents Jesus Christ as the guarantor of a better covenant (7:22; 8:6). The argument introduced in 8:7 parallels that of 7:11 and 10:2. Hebrews was written to a community inclined to regard the covenant life and experience of Israel, especially the wilderness period, as a paradigm for their own. These Jewish Christians were disposed to feel that they required nothing more than to duplicate the pattern of life with its outward forms established by their forebears. That pattern, in their minds, was the Mosaic covenant, but in fact they conceived of that covenant not as the proclamation of the gospel (4:1) but in legalistic and ritualistic terms. The author now argues that the very fact that another covenant was promised to replace the covenant with the ancestors ipso facto demonstrates that the former covenant is obsolete and cannot serve as a paradigm for believers today.

But what are these two covenants? The old covenant is the broken relationship with God that resulted from Israel’s response of unbelief and disobedience. Such a situation prevailed when the gospel was not combined with faith (4:2). Thus, the old covenant represents Israel’s culpable and damning unbelief in the gospel (8:8a). The new covenant, contrarily, is the living relationship God creates with his people by means of his gracious and powerful working within them, calling them to faith and obedience. The difference between the old covenant and the new is the difference between the forfeiture of salvation (8:9) and subjective redemption (8:10), between death and eternal life. The new covenant of grace is contemplated in Jeremiah’s prophecy (Jr 31:31–34) from the vantage point of its consummation at the end of the history of the world (8:8b, 10), but, of course, it embraces all the people of God as one (11:39–40). This covenant, which is simply the divine application of the redemption that is in Christ to those who are being saved, mediates the heavenly realities of eternal life that have always been the hope of the faithful.

Moses was warned to build the tabernacle “according to the pattern shown to you on the mountain,” because the sanctuary is “a copy and shadow of the heavenly things” (Heb 8:5; see Ex 25:40). Shown here is a life-size model of the tabernacle (Timnah, Israel).

As the argument is presented in 8:7, 13 and unfolds subsequently, the author seems interested in but two features of Jeremiah’s prophecy: the covenant guaranteed by Jesus promises forgiveness, and the very fact of such a promise of the new covenant constitutes a condemnation of the old. In saying that the old covenant is soon to disappear (8:13), the author means that the entire ritual system of Israel—the contrast of the two covenants is presented in terms of that ritual (8:1–6)—is about to disappear (7:18). That system stands under divine judgment because it has been denatured by its separation from the gospel.

9:1–5. The tabernacle and its ritual frame the discussion in 9:1–10. The author continues to demonstrate that the Levitical institutions are ineffective to deal with sin and that forgiveness can be found only in Christ. Returning to the argument of 8:1–5, the author describes the earthly sanctuary and its furniture. The focus here on the tabernacle (9:2), not the similar plan of the temple, is perhaps because of the readers’ fascination with the wilderness period of Israel’s history. The altar of incense (9:4) appears to have been located in the holy place (Ex 30:6; Lv 16:12, 18), not the most holy place. The wording here recalls that of 1 Kg 6:22 and perhaps is intended to suggest the intimate connection between this altar and the ark of the covenant in the priestly ritual (9:4–5).

Jeremiah’s prophecy in 31:31–34, quoted in Heb 8:8–12, has many affinities with other prophetic texts that portray the triumph and consummation of the kingdom of God in the world (e.g., Is 11:6–9; 54:11–15; 59:20–21; Jr 32:36–41; 33:14–26; Ezk 16:59–63; cf. Rm 11:26–27).

9:6–10. The activity of the priests and of the high priest on the Day of Atonement is described in 9:6–10 but now in the present tense, furnishing an argument that Hebrews was written before the destruction of the temple and the cessation of its ritual in AD 70 and serving as a reminder that Jewish Christians were still participating without prejudice in that ritual (Ac 21:20–26). The fact that the divinely appointed order so severely restricted access to the most holy place (9:6–7) was an enacted lesson that the true, decisive ransom, of which the Levitical sacrifices were but a figure, had not yet been paid and that those sacrifices could not remove guilt (9:8–9). Under discussion is the single question of what sacrifice is the basis of salvation—the Levitical sacrifice or the sacrifice of Christ. The author is belittling his readers’ view of the Levitical rites, separated as they were from Christ and from living faith, as mere externalities and, what is more, only temporary (9:10).

9:11–12. The next major subsection (9:11–10:18) focuses on the sufficiency of the redemption obtained by Jesus Christ. The imagery continues to be that of the Day of Atonement, but Christ’s offering of himself is a transaction that transcends the earthly sphere and the potentialities of mere humans and their rituals. Though he died on a cross near Jerusalem (13:12), his sacrifice is thought of as being offered in heaven (9:11). Offering himself once and for all, Christ thus secured eternal redemption for his people (9:12). Having obtained this redemption, he entered heaven and sat down there to represent his people to God as their great high priest and to await the consummation (9:24, 28; 10:12–13).

Redemption (Heb 9:12)—that is, deliverance from some bondage by the payment of a price or ransom (Ex 6:6; 13:13–15; Lv 25:25–27, 47–54; Mk 10:45; Rm 3:24; Eph 1:7)—is a key concept in the Bible for the representation of the character and effect of Christ’s saving work. The bondage is that of sinners to death, to the devil, and to divine wrath; the ransom is the death of Christ in the sinner’s place (Gl 3:13; Heb 2:14–17).

9:13–14. The Levitical sacrifices and other rituals did avail to remove ceremonial defilement (for the ritual of sprinkling water containing the ashes of a heifer in 9:13, see Nm 19). But the sacrifice of the incarnate Son of God, infinite in his perfection as a substitute for his guilty people (Heb 2:9–10), actually satisfied the demands of God’s justice on their behalf and turned away his holy wrath from them (1:3; 2:17; 9:27, 28); it thus provided the removal of sin and guilt and established a living communion with God. “Eternal Spirit” (9:14) likely refers to the divine enablement of the Third Person of the Godhead, by which Jesus performed his mission (Is 42:1; Mk 1:10).

9:15. The eternally effective sacrifice of himself constituted Christ the mediator, or better, guarantor of the new covenant—that is, of the eternal salvation that the gospel promises, which faith embraces, but the fulfillment of which awaits the consummation (7:22). “The transgressions committed under the first covenant” are the sins connected with that covenant—that is, Israel’s broken relationship with God, namely, unbelief and disobedience (3:18–19; 4:1, 6), which are conceived to be the fundamental sins and root of every actual transgression. Christ’s dying for these old covenant sins guarantees the inheritance of this community of second-generation Christians (9:14; “our consciences”). “Those who are called” is intended to include the entire company of the elect (cf. 2:9–10; 9:28). The sins for which Christ suffered punishment in his people’s place are the sins that prevented Israel (and anyone) from sharing in the eternal inheritance. By the payment of his own life, Christ has delivered those whom God is calling to salvation from the guilt and the power of unbelief and disobedience, which alienate them from God.

9:16–22. The mention of inheritance in verse 15 perhaps prompted the author to draw an illustration from everyday life, made easier by the fact that diathēkē, which ordinarily means “covenant” in biblical Greek, commonly meant “last will and testament” in the Greek of the author’s day (see the CSB footnote to 9:15). Of course, a will takes effect only after the death of the testator (9:16–17). The new covenant (i.e., the living relationship that God has established with the called and the promise of eternal life) is made effectual by Christ’s death, a principle illustrated in the inauguration of the covenant at Sinai with blood (9:18–21).

9:23–28. Recapitulating 7:27–28; 8:1–5; and 9:1–14, the author distinguishes the earthly ceremonies and sanctuary from the sacrifice of the Son and the spiritual and heavenly sphere of his priestly work (9:23–24). The principle of true salvation is not the oft-repeated Levitical rituals but the once-for-all, eternally effective self-sacrifice of Christ, sufficient to cover all the sins of all the called for all time (9:25–26).

“End of the ages” (9:26) suggests that human destiny and the purpose of history pivots on this single event. As humans die but once, so he who took their place (2:14, 17) dies but once, but with eternal effect; however, the full manifestation and development of this await Christ’s return (9:27–28). [Judgment]

10:1–4. The Levitical sacrifices are portrayed as inadequate. They only foreshadowed the true salvation, which Christ has guaranteed and will someday bring to completion (10:1). The appeal to the repetitive character of Levitical worship and its inability to cleanse the conscience (10:2–3; cf. 9:13–14) indicates that the author has not deviated from the letter’s original purpose. The author is determined to persuade the readers that for salvation they must trust in Christ and his sacrifice and not in the rituals of Judaism.

At the time Hebrews was written, a Christian might still have participated in the temple ritual (Ac 21:26) but could not think that such externalities were the substance of salvation any more than the faithful of the former epoch did (Ps 51:16–17). Believers in the former era rejoiced in the freedom from guilt that God’s grace provided (Ex 34:6–7; Pss 32:1–2; 103:10–12; 130:1–8; Is 38:17; Mc 7:18–19), a grace and forgiveness represented through the cleansing of sins by sacrifices in the temple.

10:5–7. Unwilling to leave a single stone unturned in the attempt to demonstrate to the readers that the Levitical rituals are an insubstantial foundation on which to rest one’s hope of salvation, the author launches into another argument that adds some new points and recapitulates others (10:5–18). The author understands Ps 40:6–8 to be prophetic of Christ. The author takes the phrase “you prepared a body for me” (10:5), from the Greek Septuagint rather than the Hebrew Masoretic Text, as referring to the body the Son of God assumed at his incarnation, the human nature in which he obeyed God and died in his people’s place (Heb 2:14; 5:8; cf. Jn 6:38; Php 2:7–8). The citation is perfectly suited because it compares the Levitical sacrifices unfavorably with the work of Christ.

10:8–10. It was a truism of the OT revelation that the Levitical ritual served no good purpose without faith and obedience on the part of the worshiper (1 Sm 15:22; Ps 51:16–19; Is 1:11–17; Am 5:21–24). This is the simple meaning of Ps 40:6–8. Further, the faithful of the former era did offer such willing obedience, and their sacrifices were pleasing to God (10:8; cf. 11:4; Lv 1:9). But the author is dealing with the whole Levitical ritual in itself, which had no intrinsic power to save from sin. Yet Christ and his sacrifice have just that saving efficacy in themselves that the Levitical ritual lacks (10:10). The contrast drawn between the alternatives of the psalm citation is intended to nullify any idea that the sacrificial ritual could ever be the substance of salvation. This holiness or perfection has both present and future aspects (6:1; 10:14; 12:23).

10:11–14. The point made in 10:1–4 is recapitulated here. The ineffectuality of sacrifices that must be performed repeatedly is contrasted with the once-for-all sacrifice of Christ, the effectuality of which is attested by the singular honor of a place at God’s right hand (10:11–12). The priests continue to stand (cf. Dt 10:8; Ps 134:1); the great high priest has sat, a sign both of the ultimacy of his single sacrifice for sin (Heb 1:3–4; 2:9) and of his royal dominion, now hidden but soon to be revealed (1:13; 2:7–8). It is to Christ, therefore, not to Levitical priests and rituals, that sinners must come.

10:15–18. The author now returns to the citation from Jr 31:31–34 (cf. Heb 8:8–12) for the dramatic conclusion to the great demonstration begun at 4:14 of the superiority of Christ’s priesthood and sacrifice (10:15–17). The true salvation in Christ that God promises and applies to the hearts of those he calls eventuates in a full and permanent absolution. Looking to some regularly repeated sacrificial ritual as the basis of forgiveness, as the readers were tempted to do, amounts to a repudiation of the glorious gospel of salvation by the grace of God (10:18; cf. 13:9).

2. EXHORTATIONS TO PERSEVERE IN CHRISTIAN FAITH (10:19–12:29)

A. The danger of apostasy (10:19–31). The author has demonstrated that salvation is to be found in Christ and is based on his sacrifice and not the Levitical rituals. Now the author applies that lengthy argument to the crisis of faith in the community to which Hebrews is addressed. The exhortation that follows recapitulates the earlier exhortatory sections (2:1–2; 3:7–13; 4:1–11; 6:1–12) and confirms that the author has had a single purpose throughout: to reverse an incipient apostasy and to strengthen flagging faith.

10:19–21. First, the just-completed argument is passed briefly in review. Christ’s death for sin and his abiding priesthood provide free access to God (10:19; cf. 4:15–16; 6:19–20; 7:23–25; 9:8, 12–15). The “new and living way” (10:20) does not suggest that believers of the former age were somehow fettered in their access to God (see “draw near” in 10:22; 11:6). The old-new contrast in the Bible is never merely chronological. “Old” signifies the situation of humankind in sin, “new” the experience of God’s salvation (Ps 98:1; Rm 6:4, 6; 7:6; 1 Co 5:7, 8; 2 Co 3:6, 14; 5:17; Eph 4:22–23; Col 3:9, 10; Rv 2:17; 5:9; 21:1, 5). “The curtain (that is, through his flesh)” (10:20) is best understood as a comparison between the curtain through which the high priest gained access to the most holy place (cf. Heb 9:3; Mk 15:38) and Christ’s bodily sacrifice, by which believers gain access to God.

10:22–25. The exhortation to “hold on to the confession of our hope” (10:23) reiterates the author’s previous admonitions to persevere in faith with eyes fixed firmly on Christ (3:6, 14; 4:14). But such endurance requires the encouragement of others, and that is given and received chiefly in the life of the congregation (10:24–25). That the exhortation is in the first person throughout (“let us”) expresses the author’s personal interest in the readers, hopes for their restoration, and solidarity with them in the good fight of faith (cf. 6:9; on “hearts sprinkled” [10:22] see 9:13–14; Lv 14:6–7; Ps 51:7, 10). “Bodies washed” (10:22) is no doubt a reference to baptism but in its spiritual signification (cf. Ezk 36:25; Jn 3:5; Eph 5:26; 1 Pt 3:21).

10:26–31. Exhortation is now reinforced with solemn warnings (cf. 6:4–8) regarding the horrifying and irremediable consequences of apostasy (cf. 2:2–3; 2 Pt 2:20–22). “Deliberately go on sinning” (10:26) refers not to the immense sinfulness that remains in every believer’s life, over which one mourns, of which one repents, and for which one turns to Christ (Heb 4:15–5:12), but to the renunciation of the faith (3:12; 6:6). If, having once become acquainted with and having laid claim to the final and perfect sacrifice of Christ, one rejects it as the hope of salvation, all hope is forever lost.

This striking and grim definition of apostasy is a reminder of how differently the same thing may appear to a human and to God. What the apostate defends as a calculated step to serve his or her best interests, God regards as contempt for his beloved Son, as disdain for the terrible suffering and death he endured, and as an outrage against the Holy Spirit, impeaching the Spirit’s testimony to Christ’s lordship (10:29; cf. 6:4; 1 Jn 5:6, 10). The certainty and ferocity of God’s wrath toward his enemies (10:27), especially among his own highly favored people (Am 3:2), is as unmistakable a datum of divine revelation (10:30; see Dt 32:35–36) as his mercy toward those who repent and believe. That God is living (10:31) renders his judgment inescapable by mere mortals. The author will return to this thought of God’s fierce judgment in 12:18–29.

B. Encouragements to press on (10:32–39). 10:32–36. As in 6:9–12, warning is followed by encouragement, as the author reminds the readers of their noble steadfastness in the days of their first love (10:32). They have endured public scorn, willingly identified themselves with those already in prison for faith in Christ (and so exposed themselves to the possibility of a similar fate), and suffered the loss of their property by looting or as a legal penalty, which happened frequently when Christians became the objects of a community’s wrath (10:33–34). They suffered all but martyrdom (12:4) courageously, even gladly, confident that they would reap an eternal harvest if they did not give up (Gl 6:9; cf. Mt 5:11–12; Ac 5:41; 1 Pt 4:13). They must not lose heart now and have no excuse to do so (10:35–36). The Lord helped them before to resist the opposition that now unnerves them, and he will do so again. The living faith that alone obtains the eternal inheritance expresses itself in a tenacity in the face of worldly opposition and temptation and the long waiting made necessary by the futurity of the consummation.

10:37–39. The citation of Hab 2:3–4 derives from the Greek Septuagint, which has interpreted the original “it” (the revelation of divine judgment) as “he” (a personal deliverer), an interpretation that is ratified by the author of Hebrews, who adds the definite article to the Septuagint’s “he will surely come,” yielding “the Coming One,” virtually a messianic title (cf. Mt 11:3), though now with reference to Christ’s coming again (10:37–38). There are but two alternatives and two destinies (10:39), and the author is confident that at least most of the readers, having flirted with danger, will at last stand fast.

C. Faith defined and exemplified (11:1–40). 11:1–3. As a stronger faith is the need of the hour, the author sets before the readers the example of heroes of the faith. It is comforting to be reminded that the temptations one faces are neither unique nor even as severe as others have courageously endured, and the stirring examples of faith under trial will strengthen one’s determination to be equally worthy of God’s approval (11:2). In a statement similar to Rm 8:24–25, faith is defined as the unshakable confidence in the reality of the yet unseen world and the certainty of God’s yet unfulfilled promises (11:1). This definition of faith is illustrated by reference to the nature of creation by divine fiat (11:3).

11:4–7. The succession of heroes of faith begins with three from before the flood. The author does not explain in what way Abel’s sacrifice was superior, only that it was due to his faith (11:4). Abel was murdered, but he still speaks, crying out for the vindication that God will bring in due time (see 12:24; cf. Gn 4:10; Rv 6:9–11). The signal honor afforded Enoch is the divine answer to his faith because he was commended as one who pleased God, which is impossible apart from faith (11:5–6). Noah’s faith is demonstrated in the remarkable building project he undertook solely on the strength of his confidence in God’s promise (11:7). Noah’s faith was vindicated, while the world that did not heed God’s warning was destroyed (cf. 2 Pt 3:3–7).

11:8–22. The next set of exemplars of faith hail from the patriarchal period. On the strength of God’s promise alone, Abraham left his homeland for parts unknown (11:8), considered his inheritance a land that neither in his own lifetime nor in that of his son and grandson would actually belong to him (apart from a burial plot he purchased [Gn 25:9–10]; 11:9–10), and expected God to give him a son though he was advanced in years and married to an aged and barren woman (11:11). Events have so far vindicated Abraham’s trust in God (11:12).

The patriarchs all died with most of God’s promises to them yet unfulfilled (11:13–16); still they died in the sure hope of their eventual realization (11:20–21), which further confirms the assertion of 11:10. Canaan was no more the true homeland they sought than it was the true rest of God for Israel (4:8–9). God “is not ashamed” (11:16) to be called the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that is, not of the dead but of the living who wait in hope (Mt 22:31–32).

Naturally Abraham occupies the largest place among the heroes of the faith in Heb 11, as Scripture itself singles out his faith (Gn 15:6; Rm 4:1–25; Gl 3:6–9). Abraham understood both that God’s promises are indefectible and that their true fulfillment would be found not in this world but in the next (Heb 11:8–19). Abraham’s obedient faith and perseverance remind us that faith must withstand not only the waiting until the promise is fulfilled but also appearances that seem directly to contradict the believer’s hope.

The supreme illustration of Abraham’s faith as an invincible confidence in the promise of God and in God’s ability to fulfill it in defiance of appearances is his obedience in offering Isaac as a sacrifice (11:17–18). That such indeed was Abraham’s reasoning appears to be suggested in Gn 22:5. One generation after another dies in the certainty that God’s promise will not fail (11:19–22).

11:23–31. The third general section on the heroes of faith covers the period of the exodus and the conquest of the promised land. Moses’s faith first lived in his parents (11:23; cf. 2 Tm 1:5). Their courage in the face of Pharaoh’s edict (Ex 1:22) resulted in greater security and station for their son than they had thought possible. Moses later turned his back on this exalted status to identify himself with the downtrodden people of God (11:24–26). The short-lived pleasures of the Egyptian court were not to be compared with the eternal inheritance that God bestows on those who will deny themselves to follow him. The striking reference to Moses’s “reproach for the sake of Christ” (11:26) agrees with the author’s perspective that Christ was at work in the former epoch and already the object of faith (1:2; 3:2–3; 8:8; 12:2, 25; 13:8; cf. 1 Co 10:4; Jn 5:46; 8:56; Jd 5). Christ was building the house in which Moses was a servant (3:2–6), and Moses gladly bore his master’s reproach in confident expectation of his eternal glory.

“He left Egypt” (11:27) probably refers to Moses’s flight to Midian, which is viewed as an act of discretion, not panic (Ex 2:14–15), and his forty-year sojourn there as a time of patient waiting for the Lord’s call. Time after time Israel’s deliverance was accomplished in defiance of seemingly insurmountable obstacles, when people took God at his word and acted accordingly (11:28–30). The mention of a Gentile prostitute’s faith and courageous action verifies that faith alone and not natural identity or personal history obtains salvation. This may also be an implied rebuke of this Jewish readership (11:31).

11:32–38. Space allows for but a summary of the remainder of the history of faith in the former epoch, from the time of the judges through the heroic resistance of the Maccabean period (compare 11:35 with 2 Maccabees 6:18–31). Some of the historical references are unmistakable (“shut the mouths of lions,” 11:33 [Dn 6:22]; “quenched the raging of fire,” 11:34 [Dn 3:19–27]; “women received their dead,” 11:35 [1 Kg 17:17–22; 2 Kg 4:18–37]); others are less clear. The inclusion of such figures as Samson and Jephthah (11:32) is a reminder that the living faith can coexist with massive imperfection. This faith was as much the pattern of life of many humble people as it was of the heroes of biblical history (11:35–38).

11:39–40. Just as the faithful of the former era did not receive the promises (11:39), so also the readers have not yet received the promise (see 10:36) and will not unless they persevere in faith to the end as their ancestors did. The “something better” (11:40) is the “better and enduring possession” (10:34), “better place” (11:16), and “better resurrection” (11:35). The consummation was delayed, and the ancients had to wait patiently for it, because God intended many more to share in his salvation. In the same way, believers today must wait until the whole company of the called is gathered in (cf. Mt 24:14; Heb 9:15).

Summary. The entire chapter has been offered as encouragement to persevere in view of the fact that God’s promise remains unfulfilled, and the verses that immediately follow reiterate the same thought: one must persevere to the end if one is to receive God’s promise. The comparison is between what all believers enjoy on earth and what they will receive—after a lifetime of patient waiting—in the heavenly country.

D. Jesus, the superior example of faith (12:1–4). 12:1–2. The author now imagines the ancient heroes of faith as a great company of spectators ready to cheer on the readers in a race the former have already completed but which the latter must yet run (12:1a). Christian athletes must divest themselves of anything that will hamper them in this spiritual race (12:1b), which is another way of saying that a chief principle of Christian spirituality is self-denial or self-discipline (cf. Mt 19:27–29; 1 Co 9:24–27).

“Let us run with endurance the race that lies before us, keeping our eyes on Jesus” (Heb 12:1–2). This statue depicts an athlete tying a victor’s ribbon around his head.

Further, it will greatly help to avoid a harmful distraction or a loss of heart if believers concentrate their attention on the prize they are to obtain at the end, which is Jesus himself (12:2a; cf. 11:26–27; 12:24; Php 3:8; Col 3:1–4). Jesus is to be looked to as the one on whom every believer’s faith depends (cf. Heb 4:14–16). But his life is also the perfect paradigm for the believer, who also will find strength to endure hardship in the prospect of heavenly joy (12:2b).

12:3–4. The recipients of this written sermon are reminded that their present suffering—the opposition they are encountering on account of their faith in Christ—is not to be compared with what Christ endured for them, nor even with the trials of many of their spiritual forebears (11:37), and thus provides no excuse for their present faintheartedness.

E. The meaning and merit of discipline (12:5–13). The testing of the readers’ faith is intended by the Lord to benefit them and indicates his love for them (12:5–6). Any true father disciplines his children, corrects them when they err, and cultivates their maturity by requiring the endurance of adversity (12:7). In this, Christians are only following in their master’s footsteps (5:8). Though painful at the time, the heavenly Father’s discipline will yield its perfect fruit if believers humbly submit to it as from the Lord, trusting him to help them endure it (12:9–11; cf. 1 Co 10:13; Jms 1:2–4). In the confidence that such trials inevitably and necessarily litter the straight and narrow road that leads to life, the readers must press on (12:12–13; cf. Is 35:3–4 and Pr 4:25–27, the language of which the author borrows).

F. Warning not to turn away from God (12:14–29). 12:14–17. Each person must study holiness (12:14), as the gospel requires, and help others to do the same, taking special care to nip sin in the bud when it arises within the community (12:15–16a; cf. Dt 29:18; 1 Co 5:6). Esau exemplifies the person who exchanges the unseen and future inheritance for the sensible and immediate pleasures of this world and, consequently, squanders irrevocably the blessing that was in one’s grasp (12:16b–17; cf. 6:4–6; 10:26–31). Esau’s tears showed remorse for the consequences of his folly, not godly sorrow that brings true repentance (cf. Gn 27:34–40).

12:18–21. These verses present Israel as a paradigm of unbelief that leads to death, in any epoch. That Israel “begged that not another word be spoken to them” (12:19b) was, in the judgment of this author, a culpable act of rebellion against God. Israel’s request (cf. Dt 5:23–29), though not in itself sinful, was neither genuine nor indicative of future commitments. As the citation of Dt 9:19 confirms (12:21), Moses’s fear was not of the awesome manifestations of the divine holiness (12:18–19a)—he had already walked into that fire and gloom to the top of the mountain—but of the prospect of divine judgment against the people for the sin with the golden calf. These verses, then, depict the terror of the apostate face-to-face with the wrath of God, a terror no less the destiny of those who forsake the Lord today (12:25, 29; see also 10:27, 30–31).

12:22–24. Contrarily, the author is confident of better things concerning the readers, the things that are obtained by a living faith (cf. 6:9–10; 10:39). The author is persuaded that the readers are genuinely converted, and thus that their situation is different from Israel’s in the same way it is unlike Esau’s. This confidence is the basis of the appeal to them to persevere. Of course, the blessings enumerated are not peculiar to the new epoch; they are the better things of the heavenly country that believers have always grasped from afar by faith (11:10, 13–16, 26–27) and must so grasp by faith today. Hebrews was written to warn this community of believers that it would, like Israel, forfeit these very blessings if it chose to mimic Israel’s apostasy. “Assembly of the firstborn” (12:23) refers to the privileged station of the saints as set apart to God (Ex 4:22; 13:2) and heirs of all things, the very privileges that Esau squandered (Heb 12:16–17).

12:25–29. The admonition here reiterates 3:7–12 and 4:1–2. The readers must not imitate faithless Israel in the wilderness. The threat of divine judgment is no less serious today. In view of the connection of thought between 12:24 and 12:25 (“which says . . . who speaks”), it is reasonable to assume that Jesus is to be understood as the one who thundered his law at Sinai and who utters the promise of Hg 2:6 (12:26). Believers have not yet taken possession of the better things, but soon they will, and that forever (12:28–29). That prospect ought to awaken them to glad thanksgiving and to a new determination to work out their salvation in fear and trembling so as not to be found at last among those who miss the grace of God (12:15) and instead must face God’s wrath. The warning reiterates Dt 4:23–24 and indicates that the word of God is no less menacing to the unbeliever and the disobedient today than it was in Moses’s day. [Reverence]

3. CONCLUDING EXHORTATIONS (13:1–19)

In what amounts to a postscript to this sermon, the author takes care to specify particular ways in which this true and living faith expresses and evidences itself. As elsewhere in the Bible, the believer is not left to work out the ethical implications of faith in Christ; the particular obedience required is carefully defined.

13:1–6. Pride of place goes to brotherly love (13:1), a costly virtue by which these believers have already distinguished themselves, especially in regard to prisoners (13:3; cf. 6:10; 10:33–34). Abraham is again invoked as an example, this time of hospitality (Gn 18:1–16; cf. 1 Pt 4:9) and of the blessing that attends the gracious host (13:2). Christian sympathy and fellow feeling (cf. Rm 14:15; 1 Co 12:26) will not be satisfied with the simpler forms of charity but will extend itself to those who cannot be brought into the home (13:3; cf. Mt 25:35–36).

Sexual impurity (13:4) and the love of money (13:5a) are linked elsewhere (1 Co 6:9–10; Eph 5:6) as sins of dissatisfaction with God’s provision and thus sins of unbelief, as the citations from Dt 31:6 (13:5b) and Ps 118:6–7 (13:6) demonstrate. Neither the Lord’s threatened judgment of the worldly nor his promise to provide adequately for his children is taken seriously. For both sins, the antidote is contentment and fulfillment in what God has given (13:5b; Pr 5:15–20; 1 Tm 6:6–11, 17, 19).

13:7–8. The leaders mentioned in 13:7a are not the present elders (see 13:17, 24) but those who previously evangelized this community (2:3), provided its initial instruction in the Christian life, and adorned their doctrine by the holiness of their lives (cf. Ti 2:10). As valuable as the examples of heroic faith from the past may be (Heb 11:4–38), there is yet more reason to imitate the sturdy faith of those one has known in the flesh and to whom one is indebted. Whether “outcome” (13:7b) suggests martyrdom or, as is probable, simply the righteous character of their lives, they are apparently now numbered among the “spirits of righteous people made perfect” (12:23) and thus serve as examples of those who have persevered to the end.

Amid all the uncertainties of life in this world, the character and word of Jesus Christ stand firm (13:8; see also 1:12; 7:24–25; 10:23). He who sustained the faith of the saints of old (11:26) and of their former leaders just mentioned will not forsake them.

13:9. The author returns one last time to the great interest of this letter: to warn the readers of the fatal error of pursuing a compromise with Judaism. Since salvation is by grace through faith in Christ, putting confidence once again in the saving virtue of ceremonial regulations regarding food and drink would amount to a repudiation of the gospel (9:9–10; cf. 1 Co 8:8). The argument is in principle very similar to Paul’s protestation against the inroads of ritualistic legalism in the churches of Galatia and Colossae (Gl 4:8–11; Col 2:13–23).

13:10–11. The reference here is again to the Day of Atonement (13:11), which included the sin offering, the flesh of which the priests were not permitted to eat (13:10; cf. Lv 4:11–12; 16:15–27). The author has already demonstrated that this ritual typified the sacrifice of Christ (Heb 9:6–12, 23–28). The sacrifice or sin offering of Christ is an altar from which the believer is welcome always to partake (cf. Jn 6:53–56; 1 Co 5:7–8; 10:16). The church’s invisible altar therefore is the reality of which the ceremonies of Judaism are but pale imitations (Heb 8:1–5), and the church’s food is the eternal and spiritual benefits of the Son of God’s once-for-all sacrifice of himself for sin, for which beef or lamb, however impressively and ceremonially prepared, is no substitute.

13:12–13. The author notes a further parallel: the carcasses of the sin offerings were burned outside the camp (13:11), while Jesus was crucified outside the city of Jerusalem (13:12). The significance of the latter fact seems chiefly to lie in its suggestion that Judaism as a whole had rejected Jesus. As once before in Israel’s history, when God left the camp after Israel’s sin with the golden calf and took up station outside the camp (Ex 33:7–11), Christ’s sacrifice of himself outside the gate represented divine judgment on the people’s unbelief. To make peace with the Judaism that rejected Christ would be to make common cause with God’s enemies, whom he has demonstrated to be objects of his wrath. No doubt such a separation will be intensely painful for these believers, but loyalty to Christ demands it.

13:14–16. The prospect of the eternal city should lessen the sting of the severing of earthly associations (13:14). In any case, such a pilgrimage from the comfortable scenes of the past to the heavenly country would be living up to their spiritual heritage as the descendants of Abraham and Moses (11:8–10, 25–27).

The readers may no longer have animal sacrifices to offer to God, but there are yet more acceptable sacrifices than these: praise and good works (13:15–16). The superiority of such sacrifices of the heart was a truism of the OT (1 Sm 15:22; Pss 50:13–14; 51:17; Hs 14:2) reiterated in the NT (Rm 12:1; Php 4:18; 1 Pt 2:10).

13:17. It is likely that this group of Jewish Christians had been, by reason of their drift back toward Judaism, estranged from the larger Christian community. Perhaps en masse they had begun to separate themselves (10:25) and in other ways make life difficult for the elders. In any case, the author expresses confidence that the present leadership would, if able to exercise its authority, steer the readers in the right direction. This sacred authority of church leaders should be prevented from degenerating into an authoritarianism by the genuine interest in the well-being of the people of God required of elders and by the prospect of accounting for their ministry at the judgment seat of Christ (cf. Jms 3:1). The spiritual prosperity of the church and the honor of Christ are best served when elders fulfill their stewardship in love and truth and when the saints submit to them as to the Lord.

13:18–19. Like Paul, the author writes a stern and likely painful admonition with a clear conscience and with the humble recognition of one who needs God’s grace and help (13:18; cf. 2 Co 1:10–14). No doubt the author wishes to assess the situation in person and to deal with it in a more thorough fashion than can be accomplished in a written sermon, brief as it is (13:22). Evidently the author has had a close association with these believers previously, has been separated from them for some time, and has been prevented for some reason from returning to them (13:19).

4. BENEDICTION AND GREETINGS (13:20–25)

The beautiful benediction of 13:20–21 forms an exquisite conclusion to the entire work, especially in its concentration on the centrality of Christ in God’s grand program of restoring sinners to himself and to a life pleasing to him.

The personal notes in 13:22–24 do little more than tantalize. Nothing else is known of Timothy’s imprisonment, and further references are hopelessly speculative. “Those who are from Italy” is ambiguous and could suggest that the author is writing either from Italy or from some other place to a community of believers in Italy and naturally includes the greetings of expatriate Italian believers.

The salutation (13:25) is profound in its simplicity (cf. Ti 3:15) and expresses both the author’s desire for and confident expectation of the Lord’s restoring the readers to their once sturdy faith in Christ Jesus.

Hebrews reminds us that the Christian life is like a long-distance race with plenty of obstacles along the way. As Jesus himself says, “A servant is not greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you” (Jn 15:20).