David A. deSilva
“The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Hebrews,” as the KJV names this book, is a misnomer in every respect. First, the author does not present this text as an epistle. The opening sentence does not reflect the standard letter-opening formula, but the beginning of a well-crafted oration. He labels his own text a “word of exhortation” (13:22), a term for a “sermon” in early Judaism (see Acts 13:15). Hebrews is best read as an example of early (and expert) Christian preaching. The author closes with the elements of an epistolary postscript (13:18–25), in keeping with the fact that he has, of necessity, had to commit his sermon to writing to be read aloud to the audience by a third party.
The sermon is anonymous. The mention of Timothy (Heb. 13:23) and Paul’s reputation as a letter-writer led early scribes to attribute the text to Paul. This is unlikely on several grounds. Paul vehemently insists that he came to faith in Christ without human mediation (Gal. 1:11–17; 1 Cor. 15:3–10), whereas this author came to faith through the preaching of other apostles (Heb. 2:3–4). Paul’s undisputed letters exhibit none of the attention to rhetorical ornamentation that one finds in Hebrews. Indeed, Paul avoids rhetorical polish in principle, lest persuasion come through the speaker rather than the Spirit (1 Cor. 2:1–5), a reluctance this author did not share. The author does seem to belong to the large circle of teachers that constitute the Pauline team (Heb. 13:23).
Debates in the early church concerning authorship (Apollos and Barnabas were also suggested) show that it was consistently regarded as Pauline, prior to Jerome’s and Augustine’s championing of Pauline authorship (in connection with their promoting its canonical status). Although it has become popular to suggest Priscilla as a candidate, the author’s use of a self-referential masculine participle in 11:32 argues against this. Arguments that this was intended to hide the author’s gender founder on the fact that addressees clearly know the author’s identity (13:19, 23) and on the Pauline churches’ openness to female leadership (see, e.g., Rom. 16:1–3; Col. 4:15).
The author mastered both the Jewish scriptural heritage and the art of rhetoric, giving the clearest signs of formal training, at least at the level of elementary rhetorical education, of any New Testament author (deSilva 2012, 3–19). He writes Greek like a native speaker and shows a broad familiarity with elements of Greek culture (like athletic practices, philosophy of education, and popular ethics). The text has some connection with Christianity in Italy (Heb. 13:24), though it is unclear whether the author sends greetings from Italy abroad (which seems more likely) or back home to fellow Italian Christians. Clement of Rome’s use of the sermon in 95–96 CE confirms some connection with Roman Christianity and also sets the latest possible date of composition. The author’s references to the Levitical sacrifices as ongoing (e.g., Heb. 10:2–3) most naturally suggest a date prior to 70 CE, when the temple was destroyed by the Roman armies.
The audience is not made up of “Hebrews,” at least as Acts 6:1–6 understands the term. The recipients speak Greek and know the Jewish Scriptures primarily in the Greek translation rather than Hebrew (the author makes several points that rely on details found only in the former). If the audience was part of the Pauline mission, the goal of which was to take the good news to non-Jews and to establish congregations in which Jewish and gentile believers worshiped together, it was likely of mixed ethnicity (Attridge, 10–13; deSilva 2000, 2–7; Eisenbaum, 8–9). The author’s extensive use of the Jewish Scriptures is no argument against this, as these were the authoritative oracles of God for both gentile and Jewish Christians.
The text provides three windows into the audience’s past: their initial conversion, in which a new experience of divine power cemented their commitment to a new group (2:1–4); their socialization into the worldview of the Christian group, in which they learned some of the foundational convictions on which the author will build throughout his sermon (6:1–3); and their experience of rejection by their neighbors, who used a variety of tactics to shame them into abandoning their new way of life and returning to a more acceptable one (10:32–34). While they had successfully resisted those pressures in the past, their current behavior suggests that the loss of status and honor had begun to make some disciples, at least, question whether God’s nonmaterializing promises were worth enduring continued alienation from the way of life and social networks of support they once enjoyed. Some individuals have already ceased to associate openly with the Christian group (10:25).
The author perceives that others may be in danger of doing the same (hence the recurring warnings in 2:1, 3; 3:12; 4:11; 6:4–6; 10:26–31; 12:15) and writes to stave off any such course of action. He seeks to confirm the hearers in their commitment to persevere in their Christian practice and to invest in one another’s perseverance as well, countering society’s negative pressures (3:6, 14; 4:11; 6:9–12; 10:23–25, 35–36, 39; 12:1, 3, 12–13; 13:12–14). He pursues several strategies to advance this agenda. He “normalizes” the experience of rejection and disgrace and turns endurance of the same into an opportunity for honor in God’s sight. He taps into the foundational social codes of reciprocity, presenting Jesus as a supremely generous mediator of God’s patronage and setting before the audience’s eyes the insuperable advantages of continuing to nurture this relationship through appropriate loyalty and gratitude (rather than incurring divine wrath through ingratitude). He uses the authoritative Scriptures and the basic convictions of the Christian community (for example, final judgment, the passing away of the present age, and the imminence of God’s kingdom) to locate the audience on the very threshold of encountering Jesus at his return and entering into God’s unshakable realm, thus promoting consideration of the “eternal” over the “temporal” by stressing the former’s imminence.
The sermon alternates between exposition and exhortation, the former consistently providing the warrant for the latter. Scholars formerly questioned whether chapter 13, with its relatively brief and practical instructions, was originally a part of the sermon, but Floyd Filson’s study effectively ended the debate in favor of the text’s unity.
Clement of Rome and Justin Martyr used and valued Hebrews, but the book was slow to gain recognition as a canonical authority in the West. It was more widely used and embraced among Eastern Christians. The question of apostolic authorship was important to some early church teachers, but not to others (like Origen, who could accept both the sermon’s authority and anonymity). Hebrews provided, nevertheless, an important resource for the development of Christology (e.g., the question of the relationship of Jesus to God as “Son” and the idea of the two natures of Christ) and for reflection on the meaning of Jesus’ death and the mechanics of atonement. Its acceptance into the canon of Paul’s letters finally facilitated its acceptance into the canon of the New Testament.
Contemporary readers question the appropriateness of the author’s interpretation of the Jewish Scriptures, taking these texts almost solely as a witness in some way to the person and work of Jesus, showing no interest in the text’s meaning in its own right. While this is integral to the sermon’s contribution to the formation of Christology, it also flies in the face of the practice of modern biblical criticism. Closely related to this is the theological problem of supersessionism—the replacement of the Mosaic covenant with the new covenant—that runs throughout the sermon. Other major issues revolve around the author’s apparent impositions of limitations on repentance and God’s mercy (no less a problem for ancient Christians than modern ones) and his sublimation of a brutal execution through the language of sacrifice and atonement. On the other hand, there is a growing appreciation for the anti-imperial rhetoric in Hebrews and its function as resistance literature (both sociopolitically and culturally).
Hebrews 1:1–14: The Ultimate Revelation in God’s Son
THE TEXT IN ITS ANCIENT CONTEXT
In an artfully crafted antithesis, the author opens by emphasizing the ultimacy, completeness, and finality of the word spoken by God in the Son, the word around which his hearers were shaped into a new community. This opening sentence sounds the “indicative” that underscores every “imperative” to keep giving this word its due weight and to continue to respond properly to this announcement (e.g., 2:1–4; 3:7–8, 14–15; 5:11; 12:25–29). The Son’s exalted status remains an important datum throughout the sermon, underscoring both the value of remaining connected with Jesus and the danger of dishonoring such a being. Locating the hearers “in the later part of these days” (1:2, my translation) heightens the importance of responding well. The imminence of the end, portending eternal deliverance for the Son’s loyal clients and eternal judgment for the Son’s enemies (1:13–14), intensifies the importance of the choices made in the present moment. The author’s use of Ps. 110:1 (1:3) foreshadows the author’s use of the Jewish Scriptures throughout: these texts are so completely a witness to the Son, Jesus, that they can be read to speak of events in his story prior to his birth and after his ascension (events for which there could be no human witnesses).
Hebrews 1:5–14 provides a sampling of how the author sees the “many pieces” (polymerōs, 1:1) of God’s prior words spoken through prophets (here including David, the traditional author of royal psalms such as Pss. 2; 45; and 110; see Heb. 1:5, 8, 13) coming together in the revelation of the Son. The true significance of those many “pieces” emerges as they are read as though spoken to, about, or even by the Son. The author’s focus on the Son’s superiority to angels has given rise to the mistaken view that the author addressed some heresy involving an inferior view of Christ or a strange fascination with angels. The rhetorical questions of 1:5, 14, however, presuppose agreement between the author and the recipients on these points. Angels were seen as mediators and messengers: as intercessors in the heavenly temple (T. Levi 3:4–8; Tob. 12:12, 15; Matt. 18:10; Rev. 8:3–4) and also as the couriers who brought the law to Israel (see Jub. 1:27–29; 2:1; Acts 7:38, 53; Gal. 3:19). The Son will be presented throughout the sermon as a superior mediator and superior messenger, thus more to be held on to and heeded than any previous ones (see the comparisons with Moses and with the Levitical priesthood). Here, the scriptural “proof” of Jesus’ superiority to angels (1:5–14) serves to establish the premise (1:4) on which the hortatory conclusion drawn in 2:1–3a will depend.
A second major point is the unchangeableness—the constancy—of the Son vis-à-vis the mutable angels and the temporary material creation (1:7–12). The latter introduces us to the author’s cosmology, which is of great importance to the whole of his sermon. The cosmos is divided into two principal parts: the visible, material earth and heavens (skies, stars, etc.) and the invisible realm beyond creation (“heaven itself,” 9:24). The first is transitory and will eventually be removed (1:10–12; 12:26–28). The second existed prior to creation and will last forever. Everything belonging to God’s realm, therefore, is of infinitely greater quality and value than anything in the material realm—hence, “better,” because “lasting” (thematic words in the sermon). This cosmology undergirds the author’s exhortations to act with a view to keeping hold of the invisible, eternal goods that God has promised, and not to sacrifice these for short-lived relief in the present age.
Christ’s exaltation to God’s right hand carries both promise and menace (1:13–14). The author strategically frames the hearers’ consideration of their presenting challenges with the “larger” challenge: How should they respond to this Son so as to remain in his favor rather than return to the ranks of his enemies (2:1–4)?
THE TEXT IN THE INTERPRETIVE TRADITION
The author ascribed attributes of Wisdom known from Proverbs 8 and Wisdom of Solomon 7–9 (see especially 7:22, 26–27; 8:1; 9:9) to the preincarnate Son, who gives Wisdom a new face. Hebrews 1:1–14 thus became an important resource for early Christian reflection on the relationship of Jesus to God. The analogy of the relationship of “radiance” to “glory” figured prominently in discussions of the Son’s sharing in the essence of the Father (Origen, Athanasius, against Arius) and his coexisting with God for eternity: to declare that there was a time when the “radiance” was not would imply that there was a time when the “glory” was not (Gregory of Nyssa).
The comparison of the Son with the angels fed early Christian fascination with the latter. Early theologians were also concerned with how each of these statements applied to each of the two natures of Christ: the divine nature was unchanging and unending in every way; the human nature could experience exaltation to God’s right hand (Theodoret of Cyr). These readers accepted without question the Christ-centered interpretation applied to the Hebrew scriptural texts recited by the author, a mode of interpretation they embraced completely (patristic commentary on Hebrews has been conveniently compiled in Heen and Kray 2005).
THE TEXT IN CONTEMPORARY DISCUSSION
Questions abound about the integrity of biblical interpretation in the early church such as Hebrews exhibits. The author does not ground his interpretations in a consideration of the “original meaning” of many of the texts he uses and has therefore been accused of co-opting them for his own group-forming and ideology-sustaining agenda. It is worth noting, however, that his reading also reflects an implicit criticism of his own tradition. For example, his reading transcends the nationalism and the legitimation of a particular system of domination (the Davidic monarchy) inherent in the context of the royal psalms’ composition.
The author’s cosmology also raises questions. Is it, as many since Bultmann would aver, a relic of a more primitive stage in human thinking? Or does it represent, conversely, a persistent and needful challenge to contemporary philosophical materialism, as well as its practical manifestations in contemporary priorities and practices?
There are strong trends in contemporary scholarship that resist making Jesus more than human. This author’s assertions about the “Son” and his place at God’s right hand could again seem to reflect a more mythologically driven understanding of the man Jesus. The author will go on to speak about Jesus’ complete humanness with the same energy as he speaks of Jesus’ proximity to the divine. The fundamental connection between reflecting God’s image and being truly human (Gen. 1:26–27; Heb. 1:3) may lead Christians to reexamine the author’s language from the point of view that Jesus is the Human One (the “son of man”) par excellence, the one in whom the image of God is seen fully and without distortion. Jesus reminds his followers of what it means to be human and to show God’s image in one’s being and doing, as well as revealing something important about the character and commitments of God. Readers may also appreciate the politically subversive overtones of speaking of Jesus as “Son of God” in an environment in which the emperor Tiberius, for example, was named “son of the deified Augustus.” The author again is seen to address and oppose the sort of mythic language that legitimated domination systems in favor of an alternative vision of how the divine reaches into and nurtures human community.
Hebrews 2:1–18: God’s Son and the Many Sons and Daughters
THE TEXT IN ITS ANCIENT CONTEXT
Hebrews 2:1–4 presents the argumentative point toward which Heb. 1:1–4 and 1:5–14 have been leading. God has spoken a definitive word in the Son (1:1–4); the Son’s honor is greater than that of the angels (1:5–14); therefore, since God expected the earlier message articulated through angels (the Torah) to be obeyed and enforced this with the death penalty, the hearers would do well to respond to the Word they heard from the Son with even greater diligence and commitment (2:1–4). The author strategically presents as “drifting away” the course of action that the Christians’ neighbors would have urged as “getting back on course,” namely, dissociation from the Christian gospel and the group that promoted it. This is the first of several such calls to keep responding to the gospel in a manner befitting the supreme dignity of the Son who enacted and announced it (see also 4:1–11; 6:4–8; 10:26–31; 12:25–29). The author’s specific recommendations concerning how to keep responding appropriately center mostly on ongoing investment in the lives of one’s fellow disciples and ongoing witness—through both speech and action—to the value of Jesus’ friendship and God’s promises.
The author recalls the hearers’ experience of the presence of the supernatural as a divine confirmation of the truth of the gospel, reminding them how their new way of life brought them in line and in contact with God. The description resembles Paul’s own reminiscences about his congregations’ experiences of conversion (see 1 Cor. 2:1–5; Gal. 3:1–5). Religious experience was an important element in the hearers’ process of converting to this new faith.
The discussion returns to the person of the Son, this time focusing on his complete sharing in human nature and experience (2:5–18). The author recites Ps. 8:4–6, called to mind perhaps by the shared interest between this text and Ps. 110:1 in the subjection of “enemies” or “all things” under someone’s “feet.” While the divine realm (designated by the author as the oikoumenē at 1:6; 2:5, informed perhaps by the opposition of the shakable “earth,” gē, to the unshakable oikoumenē in, e.g., Ps. 96:9–10) has been subjected to the Son, not all things have yet been brought under his dominion. But the story is unfolding as God indicated: the disciples have witnessed Jesus’ humiliation in his incarnation and death and his exaltation, so the remainder must just be a matter of time. The author may show awareness of the fact that the psalm was originally a text about humanity in general. What we “see” in Jesus is the foretaste of what we will yet see when the many sons and daughters share in the glory and honor that the Son now enjoys (2:10).
The author interjects that suffering death on behalf of others, as a manifestation of God’s favor (2:9), was the precondition to exaltation. Such costly beneficence supports the author’s call for costly gratitude on the hearers’ part (see, e.g., 13:12–14). Moreover, the course of Jesus’ life through suffering to glory was the result of God’s forethought for the hearers in the struggles that God knew they would have to endure on their journey to lay hold of God’s promises. It was “fitting” for God to “perfect” the pioneer—that is, to bring him to the appointed goal of his own journey—through sufferings because God knew that the many sons and daughters would have to journey through sufferings themselves (see, e.g., 10:32–34). Thus God charted out Jesus’ path specifically so that he would become fully sympathetic with his followers, and thus be fully committed to helping them in their own struggles to respond faithfully to God, as Jesus had (2:16–18). Speaking of the hearers’ experience of rejection as “trials” or “tests” is also strategic: their neighbors’ hostility becomes an opportunity to prove themselves, and yielding to such hostility means failing the test (2:18).
Jesus’ solidarity with his followers is also exhibited using a string of Scripture citations (2:11–13; see Ps. 22:23; Isa. 8:17–18), where, once again, the author finds the ancient texts’ meaning by referring them to—or even placing them on the lips of—Jesus himself. The fact that such an exalted figure (1:1–14) would associate himself so closely and confidently with the marginalized disciples should bolster their own self-respect and repair their esteem.
THE TEXT IN THE INTERPRETIVE TRADITION
Discussing the nature of the “salvation” or “deliverance” provided through the Son (2:1–4), early theologians focused their readers’ expectations not on deliverance from temporal ills or enjoyment of earthly rewards, but rather on deliverance from the power of death and the devil over human beings in this life and the next (John Chrysostom). They were also sensitive to the warning given in this passage, reading it as a stern admonition to be watchful over one’s own heart and life, so as not to throw away Jesus’ deliverance (Origen, John Chrysostom).
These theologians were also interested in the text’s focus on the two natures of Christ who, as God, was always superior to the angels but, as a human being, lived for a short while below them in the order of being (Theodoret of Cyr, Theodore of Mopsuestia)—and that genuinely as a human being, against docetist claims to the contrary (Cyril of Alexandria). The fact that not everything was yet subjected to Christ explained the ongoing suffering of his followers: both Christ’s own experience of suffering and the promise of his eventual triumph over all things provided encouragement to the many sons and daughters (John Chrysostom).
THE TEXT IN CONTEMPORARY DISCUSSION
Contemporary readers might find themselves alienated from the author’s assumption of a future visitation of divine judgment, from which “deliverance” is needed (2:1–3a). On the other hand, many people still believe in some kind of accountability beyond death and hope for “deliverance” resulting in a better postmortem existence (2:10). A belief in divine judgment is often an important ideological prop for continued resistance to cultural and religious imperialism, such as the Christian group experienced at the hands of the dominant Roman culture and the better-empowered Jewish culture.
In an era in which theological violence (inscribed, for example, in satisfaction or substitutionary theories of atonement) has become more highly problematic than in centuries past, the author’s interpretation of the cross as Jesus’ confronting and destroying the power of death to distort and constrain human life (2:14–15; this was also of interest to early theologians) can provide a constructive alternate model. The fear of death remains a basic datum of the human psyche (Becker, 11–24). It threatens to distort life by driving people to finding ways to “make their mark,” to prioritizing their own enjoyment of this brief span over the concerns of others, to avoiding confrontations with the powers that be on behalf of the oppressed, and to more obvious neuroses. The promise of “deliverance” from its power is a great desideratum.
The passage challenges the modern Western allergy to suffering, whether one’s own or another person’s, making suffering the focal point of God’s interest, Jesus’ experience, and the experience of humanity, as well as the locus for encountering Jesus’ help. The robust theology of the incarnation promoted by the author of Hebrews challenges Western Christians (in particular) not to embrace their culture’s avoidance of suffering, but to look more bravely at the plight of the suffering and allow that vision to transform their priorities and practices. On the other hand, many in the Western and in the majority world cannot escape suffering, marginalization, and deprivation. The author of Hebrews holds out a vision in which the God of the universe took a particular interest in them and others like them, conforming the experience of the Son of God to their experience, indeed making people in their plight the chief focal point of the divine redemptive intervention. While this perspective never legitimates the infliction of deprivation or suffering, it lends an empowering dignity to the experience of the same that may assist both endurance and resistance.
Hebrews 3:1–19: The Dangers of Responding with Distrust
THE TEXT IN ITS ANCIENT CONTEXT
First Samuel 2:35 spoke of God’s raising up “a faithful priest” and “a faithful house,” which may account for the author’s transition from the former (2:18) to the latter (3:1–6). The author compares Jesus favorably now with Moses: while the latter was faithful in God’s house (see Num. 12:7) as a servant (like the angels, 1:7, 14), the former was faithful over God’s house as a Son. Both possess the positive virtue of reliability, but Jesus’ proximity to God remains closer and his status greater (Attridge, 105). Moses, like the angels, was regarded as a mediator figure (see Exod. 32:7–14, 30–34; T. Mos. 11.17; Pseudo-Philo, L.A.B. 19.11). The hearers have in Jesus the best-placed mediator of God’s favor and promises possible, and should for no reason relinquish that relationship. Their continuing place in God’s household depends on it (3:6).
Repeating the pattern of 1:1–2:4, this comparison leads to an exhortation to heed the word spoken by the Son, comparing the audience’s situation with that of Moses’ generation (3:7–19). The author uses Ps. 95:7–11, with its summons to listen for and heed the divine voice, as a principal scriptural resource. While the original Hebrew recalls three separate incidents of failure to respond well to God’s voice (at Massah, Meribah, and Kadesh-barnea), the Greek version focuses only on the episode in Numbers 14, which is essential background for this chapter. With the exceptions of Caleb and Joshua, the exodus generation gave more weight to the hostility and power of the Canaanites than to the promise and power of God, with the result that they disobeyed God’s command to take Canaan and were condemned to wander in the desert till they dropped dead (3:8–11, 15–19). The author places his audience in an analogous situation, standing on the very threshold of the greater promised land of the divine realm. Hostile people stand in their way (see, e.g., 10:32–34), but God has given God’s assurance of victory and possession. They should, therefore, learn from the exodus generation’s example (3:19; 4:11) to persevere in moving forward in trust and obedience to God’s call, rather than turn aside (3:12).
THE TEXT IN THE INTERPRETIVE TRADITION
Calling Jesus an “apostle” (Heb. 3:1), when many people were called “apostles,” seemed not to suit Jesus’ unique dignity. Justin Martyr and Theodoret of Cyr read this in terms of the incarnation and Jesus’ unique sense of having been “sent” by the Father in the Fourth Gospel. Patristic commentators also recognized that the comparison with Moses stems from the genuine esteem in which the author and audience held Moses (Theodoret of Cyr, John Chrysostom).
While acknowledging the warning inherent in 3:7–19, particularly to the first hearers who found themselves in a situation like that of the wilderness generation (Theodore of Mopsuestia), early commentators also found the emphasis on “Today” to be a source of ongoing encouragement to those who stood in need of repentance. As long as this age lasted, there was hope for the sinner’s recovery (John Chrysostom).
THE TEXT IN CONTEMPORARY DISCUSSION
The author’s reading and application of the example of the exodus generation conforms quite closely with modern standards of exegesis, maintaining the distance between the original situation and the situation of application, deriving principles more by analogy than direct application to the new situation. Many modern Christians may have difficulty, however, with the suggestion that belonging to God’s household or of remaining Christ’s partners is conditional (3:6, 14), because of the theological domination of certain post-Reformation interpretations of Pauline texts that negate the contributions of human effort or actions to salvation. Hebrews challenges these interpretations, and could helpfully even raise questions about their correctness in regard to Paul himself.
The text challenges contemporary presuppositions in other important respects. The author presupposes a degree of intimacy and interaction that runs counter to ecclesiastical practices nurtured in a context of Western individualism and of Western conceptualizations of the lines between private and public, insiders and outsiders. The community as a whole is charged with looking out for signs that individuals might be wavering in their commitment and acting to shore up that commitment (3:12–13; see also 4:1; 5:12; 10:24–25; 12:15), as well as investing themselves fully to relieve the pressures that weigh on other members (6:9–10; 13:1–3, 15–16), creating a strong alternative social body (Filson, 69; deSilva 2012, 139–49). Each member of the community bears some responsibility for the perseverance or nonperseverance of the other members. The author does not address his audience as “brothers and sisters” (3:1, 12) because of superficial religious convention, but because he truly expects them to take on the same obligations toward one another (as members of God’s household) as they would undertake for their natural family.
This passage is based on a segment of a deeply problematic narrative within the Hebrew Bible, namely, the conquest of the land of Canaan and the genocide that essentially accompanied this conquest. This is a narrative that has repeated itself in the New World in regard to its indigenous peoples as well as within other episodes of colonial conquest throughout the globe. While the author of Hebrews does not explicitly critique this aspect of his own heritage, he offers a delegitimating perspective on the narrative as a call to conquest in the geopolitical sphere of this world. In his understanding, the conquest of Canaan did not accomplish God’s purposes for God’s people, for Joshua did not, in fact, lead Israel into “God’s rest.” Similarly, he leaves no room for such a crusade in the visible, material world, for God’s people “are seeking a better, that is a heavenly,” homeland (11:16). The divine narrative and call is, in his view, not one that invites us into conflict and the quest for the domination of territory. The history of Western and other colonization, however, has shown the author’s reinterpretation not to be influential.
Hebrews 4:1–13: Entering God’s “Rest”
THE TEXT IN ITS ANCIENT CONTEXT
“Entering God’s rest” is thematic throughout 3:7–19 (see 3:11, 18–19) and becomes even more prominent in 4:1–11 (4:1, 3 [2×], 5, 6 [2×], 10, 11). This drums into the hearers’ ears the importance of succeeding in “entering God’s rest,” drowning out, for the moment at least, other potential agenda items. The author crafts an argument based on Scripture passages related to God’s “rest” to establish exactly what this destiny entails. Based on the fact that “David” speaks of a promise to enter God’s rest centuries after Joshua led the children of the exodus generation into Canaan (Ps. 95:11; Heb. 4:7–8), the author concludes that the destined “rest” had nothing to do with entry into Canaan. This “rest,” furthermore, must exist outside of creation—it was the place where God “rested” after creation, the place where God’s full presence dwells eternally (Gen. 2:2; Heb. 4:3–5). Entering God’s rest, therefore, speaks of the same reality as the many other images the author uses to speak of the divine realm beyond the visible creation (“glory,” 2:10; “the inner side of the curtain,” 6:20; “the better, heavenly homeland,” 11:16; the “unshakable kingdom,” 12:28; the “city that is to come,” 13:14). Other texts also conceived of the coming age as an eschatological “sabbatical” (4:9; see Barn. 15.3–6; L.A.E. 51.2–3). Hebrews 4:10 is an ambiguous verse, but it might be read as an oblique reference to Jesus (Vanhoye, 99–100), who has indeed already entered into God’s rest, that is, into “heaven itself,” at his ascension (9:12, 24–25) as the forerunner for the hearers (2:10; 6:19–20; 12:2–3).
The author places the hearers at the threshold of this “rest”: they “are entering” (3:3a), but still must “make every effort to enter” (4:11; see also 10:19–22, 35–36). The thing to fear is failing to enter, falling into the exodus generation’s pattern on the threshold of their own inheritance (4:1, 11). This is a strong ideological move, as some members of the congregation clearly “fear” other losses, which has already led some to defect (10:25). If they accept the author’s framing of their position in terms of Numbers 14, they will be more likely to persevere in their commitment to the group and to the cost of continued identification with Jesus in the midst of an unsupportive society.
The passage concludes with a strong warning. Hebrews 4:12 is often quoted as a triumphant testimony to the power of Scripture, but 4:12 and 4:13 together really paint a fearsome image. They compare God’s Word, in its power to cut through our psychological defenses and rationalizations, to a two-edged sword—a familiar accoutrement of the omnipresent Roman soldiers that could slice through any part of a human body and send the “soul” to Hades and the “spirit/breath” back to God (4:12). They further compare the hearers to naked victims, whose throats are exposed (Gk. tetrachēlismena) to the executioner’s blade, awaiting the word from the Judge (4:13). The author’s use of wordplay is once again masterful, as he poses the implicit question: What kind of “account” (logos, 4:13) will the hearers be able to give in regard to their response to the Word (logos, 4:12) announced in the Son?
THE TEXT IN THE INTERPRETIVE TRADITION
Patristic- and Reformation-era commentators emphasized the different kinds of “rest” envisioned in Scripture, with the people of faith looking ahead to the perfect tranquility of God’s eternal kingdom rather than any earthly kingdom that would always be subject to war and unrest. They were also keenly interested in what 4:12–13 had to say about the power of the Word, usually understood as the Scriptures (with Augustine even relating the double-edged quality to the two testaments), and about the human desire to hide oneself from God’s all-searching Word (Ambrose). John Chrysostom and Martin Luther viewed 4:12–13 as a warning concerning the judgment of the ungodly.
THE TEXT IN CONTEMPORARY DISCUSSION
More objections could be raised concerning the author’s exegesis in 4:1–11 than 3:7–19, most notably the fallacy of claiming that Ps. 95:11 actually speaks of a “rest” other than the one denied the exodus generation at Kadesh-barnea. The psalmist himself uses the Numbers 14 incident to illustrate a poor response to God’s word, urging worshipers to be more attentive to God’s voice than were their ancestors, and the oath (Ps. 95:11) is just part of that example. Nevertheless, by the canons of first-century biblical interpretation (notably the application of the rule of gezera shawa, the use of one verse, like Gen. 2:2, to interpret a second verse, like Ps. 95:11, linked by a common lexical element, like “rest”), the author’s argument has integrity. He is also ultimately pointing to a conceptual reality (God’s realm) that is amply attested elsewhere, so that his exegesis aligns with his contemporaries’ cosmology.
A more pressing question concerns the author’s appeals to fear here and elsewhere throughout his sermon. Many contemporary people of faith would not regard fear to be an adequate—or a spiritually mature—motivator of religious commitment. They would critique a theology that incorporated notions of God as a more powerful being willing to exercise that power in violent, punitive ways intending harm—the potential that is prerequisite to “fear.” The text might challenge these readers in return, however, asking whether the modern discomfort with “fear” reflects their failure to apprehend the power and holiness of the divine and, thus, the demands placed on their response, if that response is to be appropriate.
THE TEXT IN ITS ANCIENT CONTEXT
Arousing particular emotions in an audience was an integral part of the ancient art of persuasion (see, e.g., Aristotle, Rhet. 2.1–11). While the author crafted images designed to arouse fear in 4:12–13, he turns immediately in 4:14–16 to craft an appeal designed to instill confidence in the hearers. This pattern recurs throughout the sermon (6:4–8 // 6:9–12; 10:26–31 // 10:32–36), with the author associating cause for fear with drifting away from commitment to the group and its confession, and cause for confidence with perseverance in commitment to Christ and one another.
While the audience endured significant losses as a result of their conversion (10:32–34), the author dwells extensively on what they also now “have” as a result—here the help of Jesus, God’s Son, to keep them connected with God and God’s favor. The author urges the hearers to deal with the pressures they face not by acquiescing (and thus withdrawing from the group), but by going confidently before God in prayer (and thus drawing closer to the center of the group), seeking God’s resources and support to meet any and every challenge to perseverance (4:16).
The concept of a mediator or “broker” whose main gift was providing a connection with a better-placed patron was well known in the Hellenistic-Roman world. Priests were de facto brokers of divine patronage (5:1). Like other priests (ideally), Jesus was sympathetic toward his clients’ weaknesses, having experienced the same trials and tests himself (2:14, 17–18; 4:15). Unlike other priests, however, Jesus was not overcome by any of those tests, such that he himself affronted God by transgression and had first to make peace between himself and God before he could secure God’s favors for others (4:15; 5:2–3; 7:27). While the author will affirm Jesus’ complete identification with the readers in their shared humanity (2:14–18), he also will not allow them to forget his distance from them (both in terms of proximity to God and sinlessness)—a distance that proves, in the end, to be to their ultimate advantage.
The Scriptures provide “proof” of Jesus’ legitimate appointment to serve as such a mediator: the author finds this proof in Ps. 110:4, a little further on in the same psalm that spoke of the Son’s exaltation (Ps. 110:1; see Heb. 1:13; 8:1; 10:12; 12:2). Again, he discovers the significance of the ancient text by hearing it as if spoken to Jesus. The significance of this appointment to serve “in the order of Melchizedek” (5:6, 10) will occupy Heb. 7:1–28.
Readers tend to identify the portrait of Jesus in 5:7–9 with the account of Jesus’ agony in Gethsemane (Mark 14:32–42 and parallels), even though the author otherwise shows no signs of familiarity with the Synoptic tradition. The author’s portrait also closely aligns with depictions of righteous petitioners and intercessors in other Jewish texts (e.g., 2 Macc. 11:6; 3 Macc. 1:16; 5:7, 25; Attridge, 151). Jesus emerges here more as a model of offering pious, committed prayer. It is unclear whether the phrase “although he was a Son” qualifies what precedes or follows (a question raised as early as the ninth century by Photius of Constantinople). The majority of translations favor reading this in connection with Jesus learning through suffering, as if this should not be expected for a “Son.” However, in 12:5–11, the author will argue precisely that legitimate sons and daughters should expect to experience formative discipline. It may thus be preferable to read the concessive clause (“although he was a Son”) as qualifying what precedes: it was Jesus’ piety that led to his being heard by God, and thus an example of what any pious follower could hope for; it was not a case of preferential treatment.
The language of “perfection” and “being perfected” pervades this sermon. This word group appears generally to speak of a person or thing having arrived at its final state or goal (such that it describes the child who has reached adulthood, or an ordinary person when the rite of consecration to priesthood is complete). Here, Jesus’ perfection relates to his having entered God’s realm after the completion of his course, from which vantage point he is able to exercise his mediation (deSilva 2000, 194–204).
THE TEXT IN THE INTERPRETIVE TRADITION
Early commentators tended to read this text (particularly 5:7–9) through the lens of Christ’s two natures, stressing how it applied to the human nature but not to the divine, which was not subject to suffering (Theodoret of Cyr, John Chrysostom). At the same time, they highly valued what this passage has to say about Jesus’ subjection to every manner of trial and temptation that might afflict his followers, making him sympathetic to the plight of the human beings who seek refuge in him now and in the judgment (Theodoret of Cyr), and also about Jesus’ sinlessness, making him an empowering example and a suitably blameless offering (Leo the Great).
THE TEXT IN CONTEMPORARY DISCUSSION
It is important to remember, when reading material that seems at the surface to be so otherworldly and theological, that the author of Hebrews writes, essentially, to equip members of a voluntary counterculture to maintain the will to resist cultural, religious, and other forms of domination and repression. Holding on to their “confession” (4:14) is an act of resistance against the dominant culture’s religious practices, against their more empowered neighbors’ attempts to enforce conformity to the same, and against the prevailing mythos that legitimates power relations within the Roman Empire. It is, similarly, an act of resistance against a tolerated subculture’s (Judaism’s) attempts to enforce conformity among Jewish converts to the Christian movement. Keeping the original setting and challenges of the sermon firmly in our minds helps us remain attentive to how the author uses theological and traditional resources in settings where resistance is costly but necessary, if one’s integrity is to remain intact.
The summons to prayer (4:14–16) and the portrait of Jesus’ engaging in prayer to equip him to run his course (rather than to allow him to avoid unpleasantness) also challenges the expectations of many modern people of faith, for whom prayer and God represent ways out of suffering rather than ways to persevere through suffering. The experience of suffering is, for the author of Hebrews, neither the result of failed or unanswered prayer, nor a cause to question God’s goodness or existence. Rather, Jesus’ example suggests that suffering—here, particularly suffering endured as a result of responding faithfully to God’s call—becomes an opportunity for deepening obedience and for discovering God’s ability to provide the resources required to persevere in faithfulness so as to experience not deliverance from death, but deliverance on the other side of death.
THE TEXT IN ITS ANCIENT CONTEXT
The author pauses in his exploration of Jesus as “high priest in the order of Melchizedek” (5:10) to attend to his hearers’ disposition. He wants to ensure that they will listen attentively and commit to invest themselves fully in their response to Jesus’ investment in them. He chides them for not having yet taken up the responsibility for keeping one another steadfast in their commitment (“becoming teachers”), acting instead like children waiting for him to come alongside and administer the needed instruction and discipline. “Milk” and “meat” (or “solid food”) were common metaphors for the stages of instruction through which a person passed in any educational process. In keeping with Greco-Roman philosophical discourse, the author uses these metaphors to shame the hearers into taking responsibility for living up to their potential and to what they already knew to be true (cf. Epictetus, Diatr. 2.16.39; Ench. 51.1).
The author urges the hearers to invest themselves in persevering together toward the final goal (the “perfection” or “completion,” 6:1) of the pilgrimage that began with their conversion and instruction in the fundamental tenets of the Christian worldview (6:1–2). The metaphor of growing into maturity (becoming teleios) in 5:11–14 is morphed into the metaphor of moving forward to the end of a journey (teleiōtes). This exhortation is supported with an argument from the contrary: failure to move forward amounts to desertion of one’s benefactor and a trampling on his gifts (6:4–6). Repentance here refers not to the act of contrition (see on 12:15–16), but to restoration—in effect, “starting over” with God from step one (cf. the place of “repentance” in 6:1). The audience will likely accept the claim that restoration to favor is “impossible” based on their cultural knowledge of the expectations of patron-client relationships (the social context of “grace” relationships; deSilva 2000; 2012): “those who insult their benefactors will by nobody be esteemed to deserve a favor” (Dio Chrysostom, Or. 31.65).
The author further supports this warning with an argument from analogy taken from agricultural practice. Sowing, reaping, and quality of soil were frequently used metaphors in ancient discussions of giving benefits and responding to a benefactor’s kindness (see Seneca, Ben. 1.1.2; 2.11.4–5; 4.8.2; 4.33.1–2; Pseudo-Phocylides, Sentences 152). The gifts that God has lavished on the congregation (6:4–5) ought to produce a suitable return that will please the divine Patron who has “cultivated” this relationship with them. If the hearers return insult for grace by choosing friendship with the non-Christian society over a friendship with God in which God has invested so much, they should expect fiery retribution (6:8; 10:26–31).
Up to this point, however, the hearers have largely responded well. The author recalls their investment of themselves and their resources in one another, helping one another persevere in the face of hostile neighbors. Because they have responded nobly to God’s favor, God, being just, will continue to favor them (6:9–10). The warning of 6:4–8 serves, in the end, to sustain the hearers’ “long obedience in the same direction” (Nietzsche), their responsiveness to God’s call (6:11–12).
Abraham naturally comes to mind as an example of “those who inherited the promises through trust and perseverance” (6:12; see Jub. 17:17–18; 19:3, 8). Oaths are a common feature in courtrooms and other contexts where added assurances of truthfulness are called for (see Aristotle, Rhet. 1.15.27–32). While human beings might indeed take such oaths deceptively, they tended nevertheless to carry considerable weight (6:16; see Philo, Dreams 1.12). God gave such an assurance to Abraham (Gen. 22:17), but the author avers that God gave such an oath to the hearers as well. This promise and oath are both found in Ps. 110:4 and depend on reading this verse as addressing Jesus (like Ps. 110:1). Describing the hearers as people who have “fled” subtly reminds them of the greater dangers that they have escaped (viz., “eternal judgment,” 6:2) by joining the Christian movement, and thus of the advantage of persevering. Jesus is consistently described as going where the hearers would one day enter, and thus their connection with Jesus remains an assurance of their own entrance into the divine realm (see 2:9–10; 12:2).
This brings the author back to the place from which he will resume his exploration of Jesus’ priesthood (cf. 5:10 with 6:20).
THE TEXT IN THE INTERPRETIVE TRADITION
Interpreters have long struggled with the author’s claims about the impossibility of restoration to favor through repentance after some grievous—but unspecified—sin. Tertullian (Pud. 20) and the Novatians (see Epiphanius, Pan. 59.1.1–3.5) argued that the passage barred those who, after having been baptized, committed serious sins (like apostasy and adultery) from restoration. Those who favored restoration of the penitent argued, in turn, against the authority of Hebrews on the basis of its non-Pauline authorship (e.g., Gaius the Elder; see Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 6.20.3).
Another stream of interpretation focused on reading this passage primarily as a warning intended to spur Christians on in their commitment to discipleship, calling them to take the consequences of willful persistence in sin seriously enough to avoid such paths and to match God’s gifts with earnest striving to make progress in the new life (see Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 2.13; 4.20; Origen, Hom. Jer. 13.2; Erasmus, Paraphrase, 227–28). Ambrose (Paen. 2.2) and John Chrysostom (Hom. Heb. 9.5–10.1) solved the problem by reading the passage not as a prohibition against readmitting the penitent, but merely against rebaptism, essentially turning the passage into an exhortation to repent speedily, lest one alienate God further and further (so also Luther and Calvin). Whether a person’s repentance was effective would be evident in his or her amendment of life.
Luther used the language of Heb. 6:4–6 to denounce the view that the Mass was a repetition of Christ’s sacrifice, since this would amount to crucifying Jesus anew (Misuse of the Mass, LW 36:147), and the quest to establish one’s own righteousness apart from Christ, which meant trampling Christ underfoot (cf. Heb. 10:29; LW 52:282), though he did not deny that such people could repent of such practices.
THE TEXT IN CONTEMPORARY DISCUSSION
Contemporary Christian readings of Heb. 6:4–8 often continue the historical patterns of interpretation, forcing it to speak in conformity with particular theological positions. For example, the passage’s meaning and challenge are frequently limited by an interpreter’s adherence to the doctrine of “eternal security,” the idea that once a person has trusted in Jesus and been “saved,” that person cannot then fall away (Gleason; Oberholtzer). Such approaches fail to do justice to the fact that the author of Hebrew conceives of “salvation” or “deliverance” as something still ahead of himself and his audience (1:14; 9:28), thus not something already possessed so as to be “lost.” Alternatively, the passage can be applied at face value where the “unpardonable sin” has been committed, usually identified as a decisive moment of apostasy (Lane 1991a:142).
Other Christian scholars are reluctant to apply the passage beyond situations analogous to the situation specifically addressed by the author and outside his own rhetorical purpose, which was to motivate perseverance in commitment to the Christian faith, practice, and community, even when such commitment carried an unwelcome price tag. Thus the passage has force as an exhortation to believers, but not as case law to be applied to those who have “fallen away,” to whom the author might indeed have addressed himself differently. The author thus does not make an absolute statement about the limits of God’s beneficence, but about the parameters within which recipients of God’s costly gifts must act and the considerations they should keep before them as they weigh any courses of action (deSilva 2000). The author of Hebrews is thus understood to preach “costly grace,” the necessity of responding nobly and justly, whatever the cost, to a God who has given so much (Bonhoeffer). If the author’s real intent was to suggest that it would be unthinkable for persons who have received such great gifts from God to respond in any way that showed a lack of valuing the gifts and dishonored the giver, readers might take issue with the way he has couched this argument in terms of what God might or might not forgive.
Hebrews 7:1–28: The “Better” High Priestly Mediator
THE TEXT IN ITS ANCIENT CONTEXT
This passage begins the “long and complicated message” about Jesus’ high priesthood, which extends through 10:18. The author opens by considering the founder of the priestly “order of Melchizedek” named by Ps. 110:4. Every detail of (or silence concerning!) Melchizedek’s story (see Gen. 14:17–20) is interpreted in such a way as makes this shadowy figure a prototype for Jesus, legitimating Jesus’ unconventional appointment to priestly office. “Peace” and “righteousness” were attributes of the Messiah’s government (e.g., Isa. 9:6–7; 11:1–9; 4 Ezra 13:37–39; T. Levi 18.2–4). The silence concerning Melchizedek’s genealogy established the possibility of a priesthood based not on pedigree (descent from Levi, 7:13–14), but on some other quality—here, the quality of a life without beginning or ending (7:3, 15–17, 23–25). The author finds this intimated in the phrase “a priest forever” (Ps. 110:4; Heb. 7:16–17)—not just made a priest permanently (i.e., for life), but a priest eternally (“forever”).
Melchizedek’s priestly line is not just different, however, but superior, as demonstrated from Abraham’s giving the tribute of a tithe to Melchizedek. Because an ancestor was thought of as holding within himself his entire line, the author can assert that Levi and his priestly descendants paid the tithe to Melchizedek (and his successor, Jesus), acknowledging the latter’s superiority (7:4–10). Jesus’ priestly mediation, moreover, is supported by God’s oath (“the Lord has sworn and will not change his mind,” Ps. 110:4), giving the new covenant, of which Jesus is the guarantor, a more certain foundation than the old (Heb. 7:20–22; see 6:13–20).
The author employs another argument from chronology (Spicq, 1:365): the fact that God spoke through David about appointing a new priest (Ps. 110:4) demonstrates that the earlier priesthood and the covenant that regulated it—and that it, in turn, sustained—had been superseded (7:11–12, 18–19). Why would God set aside the former covenant? The Levitical priesthood and its covenant were not able to “perfect” the worshipers, meaning, to fit them to enter into God’s presence. Indeed, these worshipers were not fitted even to enter the inner chambers of the copy of God’s realm, the tabernacle and temple, let alone “heaven itself,” by the Levitical mediators (7:11, 19; 9:1–10). The author presupposes here that God’s ultimate goal for God’s people was not a static situation in which the majority were kept at a safe distance from God’s holy dwelling but a dynamic process by which they would be brought into God’s dwelling forever, such that God would indeed “dwell in their midst” (see Ezek. 37:27; Zech. 2:11; 2 Cor. 6:16b; Rev. 21:3–4, 22; 22:3b–4).
THE TEXT IN THE INTERPRETIVE TRADITION
Melchizedek drew the attention of patristic commentators who were predisposed to such typological forays into the Hebrew Bible. Some early voices regarded Melchizedek as a divine being, but Epiphanius employed this passage to refute their position. These commentators also embraced the arguments concerning the insufficiency of the provisions of the Mosaic covenant for accomplishing God’s purposes for human beings, seeing in the advent, ministry, and death of Jesus the perfection of those imperfect types that came before (Theodoret of Cyr, John Chrysostom). Discussions of Jesus’ death as a sacrifice naturally occasion discussions of the Eucharist, which is seen as a remembrance and not a reenactment of Jesus’ unique and all-sufficient priestly act (Theodoret of Cyr, Bede).
THE TEXT IN CONTEMPORARY DISCUSSION
Particularly in a world where people make competing claims concerning how best to relate to God (or the gods), how do Christians know that they can trust what the church says about Jesus and the consequences of his mediation between human beings and God? How do Christians know that God looks on Jesus and his mediation the way the church says God does? The author and his congregation certainly lived in such a world, and the author’s attempts to construct tightly reasoned arguments from Scripture in this chapter reflect his interest in answering these questions for his audience. Whether or not his particular arguments (or the data on which they are based, like Jesus’ ascension) “work” for contemporary Christians, the question remains.
Some Christians readers have decided that they cannot trust the claims made about Jesus in Hebrews—that he was, at best, a remarkable teacher with a compelling vision for human community that still merits our attention, even commitment. His death revealed his own commitment to that vision and perpetually reminds his followers of the potential cost of pursuing that vision, but does not directly impinge on one’s relationship with God. For such Christians, the author of Hebrews’ arguments will not carry weight. In the end, however, such arguments were not the starting point even for the author and his audience themselves. Rather, their starting point was the experience of God opened up for people in Jesus’ name (2:3–4; 6:4–5; 10:22; cf. Gal. 3:1–5; 4:6–7). Again, this raises the issue for people of all faith traditions of the importance of valuing religious experience over arguments concerning religious truth in an increasingly naturalistic environment.
Hebrews 8:1–13: The “Better” Covenant
THE TEXT IN ITS ANCIENT CONTEXT
Hebrews 8:1–13 advances the discussion in two respects. First, it establishes the existence of a divinely made, heavenly tabernacle and the superiority of the same to the terrestrial, material, human-made copy, based on a widely held exegesis of Exod. 25:40 (see also Wis. 9:8; Acts 7:44; 2 Bar. 4:1–7). Jesus’ ascension is interpreted as his relocation to officiate in this greater sanctuary (Heb. 8:1–5; 9:24), where God is fully present. Second, it identifies an authoritative text in which God, speaking in God’s own voice, invalidates the former covenant with its arrangements in favor of a “new” covenant (Jer. 31:31–34; Heb. 8:7–13). The essential element of this new covenant is God’s promise decisively to remove the worshipers’ sins even from God’s own memory, thus enabling them to approach God’s holy presence without fear of being consumed on account of their defilements. The author will return to this in 10:17 after showing how Jesus is the agent through whom this decisive purification takes place.
THE TEXT IN THE INTERPRETIVE TRADITION
Patristic theologians read the author’s interpretation of Jeremiah 31:31–34 as an authoritative declaration concerning the invalidation of the Mosaic covenant on account of its perceived limitations. This, in turn, reinforced their prejudices against Judaism in general and its sacrificial cult in particular (Bede). Nevertheless, these authors also regarded the author of Hebrews to validate the importance of the old covenant as “type” and prophetic prefiguring of what would be accomplished in Jesus, thus affirming the connection between the covenants (Theodoret of Cyr).
THE TEXT IN CONTEMPORARY DISCUSSION
Hebrews 8 acutely raises the problem of supersessionism (the idea that Christianity has replaced Judaism in God’s dealings with humanity, not merely grown up alongside it), particularly in a post-Holocaust environment (as in any setting in which the church is empowered and the synagogue more marginal and disempowered). This is exacerbated by the author’s use of Septuagint Jeremiah, which renders the Hebrew “although I was their husband” (a clause attesting to intimate involvement and concern) as “I ceased to be concerned about them,” which contrasts with other voices expressing their own and God’s ongoing concern for Israel (e.g., Paul’s heartfelt wrestling with the question in Romans 9–11).
Even while asserting a radical discontinuity between an old and a new covenant and priesthood, the author nevertheless grounds the new fully in, and legitimates it fully on, the old. Continuity with the earlier revelations of the God of Israel remains essential to his enterprise. In this regard, he challenges post-Holocaust Christians to continue to search out this continuity in their own attempts to extend their understanding of God’s work in an ever-changing world.
THE TEXT IN ITS ANCIENT CONTEXT
The author focuses now on the ritual that both inaugurates the new covenant and effects the decisive cleansing of sin’s defilement from the worshipers’ consciences and God’s presence. While the author evokes pictures of a sequence of ritual acts ostensibly played out in the heavenly sanctuary, these pictures are meant collectively to interpret the significance for the divine-human relationship of this-worldly events: the crucifixion of Jesus and its aftermath.
The primary templates (“types”) for framing the discussion are the Day of Atonement ritual (Leviticus 16, an essential chapter for understanding this section) and, less prominently, the covenant inauguration ritual (Exod. 24:1–8; see Heb. 9:15–22). The former involves ritual acts “outside the camp” (the sending of the scapegoat to die in the desert and the burning of the bodies of the sacrificial animals; Lev. 16:20–22, 27) and a ritual act involving the taking of blood into the holy of holies (Lev. 16:15–19). These acts now provide the meaning behind Jesus’ crucifixion “outside the city” (Heb. 9:14; 13:12) and ascension into the heavenly holy of holies (Heb. 9:11–14, 23–26): the worshipers’ consciences on earth are cleansed, and the defilement of the heavenly place of intercession by the worshipers’ sins is removed, thus wiped clean as far as God is concerned (Nelson, 76–78, 148–52).
The author offers, as further evidence for the inefficacy of the sacrifices performed in the earthly tabernacle, their annual repetition (10:1–3). The layout of the earthly tabernacle/temple and the ongoing limitations of access to the inner sanctum signify the failure of the Levitical sacrifices to bring God and human beings as closely together as God intended (9:6–7), proof once again of the need for new cultic arrangements. He attributes this ineffectiveness, in part, to the reliance on the blood of animals as the medium for reconciliation and purification, drawing on popular philosophy (Thompson, 103–15) and the Jewish prophetic critiques of animal sacrifices as inadequate for any spiritual or ethical purpose (9:13; 10:4; cf. Isa. 1:11–13, 16–17; Hosea 6:6). He finds scriptural support for his claims (which contradict such key texts as Lev. 16:30; 17:11) in the Greek version of Ps. 40:6–8, read as if spoken by Jesus himself. The Hebrew original speaks of God’s preferring obedience to Torah to the sin offerings that followed disobedience. While the Greek translator probably had the same intent, the author of Hebrews finds in the Greek version now a warrant for “a body”—the human body that the Son took on in his incarnation—as the sacrifice that God appointed to be offered in place of the ineffective animal sacrifices (10:5–10).
That Jesus’ priestly work was decisively accomplished after his unique offering of himself is demonstrated through an inference drawn from the thematic Ps. 110:1. Priests performed their duties while standing (Deut. 10:8; 18:7); the fact that Jesus, the priest in Melchizedek’s line, was invited by God to “sit” (Heb. 10:11–14) signals the successful accomplishment of reconciliation, the decisive removal of sins promised as part of the “new covenant” (10:15–18). As the final act of the Levitical high priest on the Day of Atonement was to return from the holy of holies to declare forgiveness to the people, so the author speaks once more of Jesus’ forthcoming return from “heaven itself” to bring final deliverance to his followers (and subjection to his enemies; 9:28; 10:13).
THE TEXT IN THE INTERPRETIVE TRADITION
The author of Hebrews restrained himself in regard to the symbolic significance of each item in the sanctuary, but the same was not true of early Christian commentators, who interpreted the layout of the tabernacle and its accoutrements allegorically as representations of elements of the cosmos or of the human psyche (Origen, John Cassian, Bede, Luther). Again, Jesus’ one-time sacrifice is related to the regular remembrance of the same in the Eucharist (John Chrysostom, Luther). This lengthy passage also served to reinforce early Christian discourse concerning the relationship of the Mosaic covenant and Hebrew Scriptures to the new covenant as type of fulfillment or shadow to the reality casting the shadow (Origen, John Chrysostom, Symeon the New Theologian, Bede). These commentators continue to embrace the author’s Christocentric lens as the appropriate resource for interpreting particular Old Testament texts like Psalm 40 (John Chrysostom).
THE TEXT IN CONTEMPORARY DISCUSSION
The author of Hebrews provides the earliest thoroughgoing interpretation of the significance of Jesus’ death and ascension for humanity’s relationship with the divine. Contemporary theologians have been moving away from thinking about Jesus’ reconciliation of humankind with God in terms of sacrificial metaphors (with their emphasis on the spilled blood and the death of a victim). This is motivated not just by a growing distaste with images involving the actual slaughter of a victim, but also by a desire not to sanction an act of political injustice and oppression (the brutal execution of a dissenting voice) with a theological overlay and not to continue to attribute to God the desire for blood and death.
We should not lose sight, however, of the fact that the author of Hebrews was using this language figuratively as a means of helping his hearers appropriate for themselves the significance of Jesus’ death for their relationship with God. He could not have imagined Jesus carrying physical blood into “heaven itself”: the blood is a metonym for Jesus’ absolute obedience and commitment to God, undeterred by the prospect of a bloody death. Jews reflected on the deaths of the martyrs for Torah in similar terms, positing that such extreme commitment to the covenant acted as the equivalent of an effecting atonement offering on behalf of the nation: but again it was their obedience, not their blood, that satisfied the alienated Deity and restored God’s favor toward the nation (2 Macc. 7:37–38; 8:5; 4 Macc. 6:29–31; 17:21–22; see deSilva 1998, 137–41). Jesus’ death can be similarly understood as an offering of representative obedience that restores God’s favor—as well as redirects humanity’s hearts back to God and pursuing what pleases God out of a desire to maintain this restored relationship.
Hebrews 10:19–39: Summons to Persevere in Faithful Response
THE TEXT IN ITS ANCIENT CONTEXT
The author concludes his sermon with a climactic exhortation to persevere in the course of action that shows proper gratitude and loyalty toward God (10:19–13:25). The “long and complicated word” about Jesus’ high-priestly mediation (7:1–10:18) provides the basis for an exhortation to hold on to the advantages this mediation has gained, which includes nothing less than the “boldness” to enter God’s very presence when “the Day” of Christ’s visitation and the eschatological removal of the visible, material creation arrives (10:25; see 9:28; 12:26–28).
This course of action involves group-sustaining practices. “Drawing near” to their destiny (10:22; the opposite of “shrinking back,” 10:37–39) means continuing to meet together and engage in community- and identity-maintaining activities such as public witness to their hope and mutual encouragement and care (10:23–25). English translations since the KJV often err in regard to 10:24. The Greek does not speak of considering how to provoke other disciples to do good and to show love (CEB; NIV; NLT; NRSV); rather, the author urges his hearers to consider their fellow believers with the result that they themselves will be motivated by what they see to show love and do good (NJB; Lane 1991b, 273; Ellingworth, 526). The author would have the hearers feel confidence in regard to continuing in this path.
If some are disposed to throw it all away because they have a greater concern for what they have lost in this transitory world (10:25a), what are the implications of doing so? The author answers this in 10:26–31 (strongly reminiscent of 6:4–6). By describing the alternative course of action as “sinning willfully” (10:26; see Num. 15:22–31), the author reminds the audience that there is always a choice to be made between bearing up under their neighbors’ disapproval and hostility and giving in, thus betraying their commitments to God and one another. He employs another “lesser-to-greater” argument to propose that the fate of those who break faith with the Son will be worse than the fate of those who broke faith with the Mosaic covenant (10:28–29; cf. 2:1–4), that is, a fate worse than death (reciting Deut. 17:6). Preferring their neighbors’ friendship to the continuing friendship of God means trampling God’s Son (who awaits all things to be subjected under his feet, Heb. 1:13; 10:13) and meeting favor with insult (10:29). The stark impropriety of such images is calculated to shock the audience into seeing defection as an absurd, and ultimately more dangerous, choice with much more frightful consequences than persevering in faith (10:27, 30–31).
The author returns to topics that will arouse confidence in place of fear in 10:32–36. Like a general pointing out his troops’ former victories, the author recalls the audience’s former investment in and commitment to their cause (10:32–34) as the best model for them to imitate in the future (10:35–36). Their former courage in the face of their neighbor’s repressive pressure exhibited parrhēsia—the boldness to declare one’s convictions and commitments in the face of power and violence, an ancient political value. The author urges them, after giving such testimony to the value of Jesus, his gifts, and his promises, not to be cowed into silence now. Maintaining “boldness” in the face of society’s hostility is intimately connected with retaining their “boldness” to enter God’s presence at last (10:19, 35).
THE TEXT IN THE INTERPRETIVE TRADITION
Hebrews 10:26–31 posed many of the same problems and concerns as 6:4–8, and thus received similar attention. Most read the passage as a call to repentance (Oecumenius) and as a call to take seriously the need to turn from sin rather than continue to indulge it (Theodore of Mopsuestia). The ongoing possibility of repentance, however, was not to become an excuse for a continuous cycle of sin and repentance, which was no better than apostasy with a conscience (Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 2.13.56–57).
John Chrysostom recognized the rhetorical force of speaking of events meant by the Christians’ neighbors to shame them into conforming once again with their former lives as a “contest” (10:32). Victims become contestants, and resisting pressures to conform becomes the path to an honorable victory in God’s sight.
THE TEXT IN CONTEMPORARY DISCUSSION
The theological problems concerning the place of fear in mature discipleship and the positing of unpardonable sins (10:26–31) were already discussed in regard to 4:12–13; 6:4–8. The author’s use of Scripture again raises issues for the modern reader. At 10:37–38, the author combines a phrase from Isa. 26:20 with Hab. 2:3–4 in order to stress the imminence of God’s visitation, and further rearranges the phrases of the Habakkuk passage in order to craft an antithesis between persevering in faith and shrinking back in fear. Eusebius, who recognized these changes, affirmed this as an appropriate correction of that which was obscure in the older text. Modern readers might be more willing to question how far one can go to shape a text to address the need of a situation before one has done violence to it and undermined the integrity of one’s argument.
The author’s selective introduction of Isa. 26:20 into this recitation also raises the issue of the early Christian belief in the imminent return of Jesus to dispense judgment and rewards. While Christians may still affirm that “he will come again to be our judge” (Nicene Creed), they may justifiably ask—after two millennia passing without the Day, which may still be “drawing nearer,” actually arriving—what “in just a very little while” was supposed to mean and whether the author ought rather to have prepared his congregation for resistance over the long haul. This question remains relevant to Christian leaders’ seeking to encourage congregations in repressive environments throughout the world.
These potential limitations, however, do not negate the force of the author’s challenge to contemporary Christians to exercise “boldness” in regard to their witness in the face of modern systems of domination built on values and goals different from, and in many instances antithetical to, the values and goals for human community attested in the Scriptures. To the extent that people of any faith tradition are bound to temporal goods and enjoyments, are geared toward seeking acceptance by their neighbors, and fear hostile confrontation, they will be cowed into not bearing witness—both in speech and in living practice—to those latter values and goals. The author would consider this a gross failure in Christians’ obligation to their divine Patron.
THE TEXT IN ITS ANCIENT CONTEXT
Hebrews is probably best known for its portrait of “faith” in action, the encomium (a laudatory, celebratory speech) on the “heroes of faith” and how they responded to God’s word and promise in the midst of challenging circumstances. The author shapes these examples to address the specific challenges facing the addressees (deSilva 1995, 165–208; Eisenbaum, 178–83), providing them with a model (see 6:11–12) of how to respond advantageously in light of Christ’s imminent visitation (10:37–39).
One recurring theme is that people of faith respond to the challenges and circumstances of the moment with a view to God’s future intervention and to the invisible realities beyond this world (11:1). Noah orients his whole activity around meeting a disaster yet to come (11:7); Abraham moves throughout his life with his eyes fixed on the promise of receiving a homeland in the future (11:8–22); Joseph gives instructions about his burial on the basis of God’s future acts on behalf of the Hebrews (11:22); Moses chose his allegiances with a view to God’s future acts of liberation and the future reward (11:23–27), and so forth. People of faith take their bearing in this life from the invisible Cause of the visible world (11:3), as did Moses (11:27). Looking to the future acts of God and to the invisible realm are vitally important components of the author’s program for his audience, who must conduct themselves now in such a way as to encounter future crises successfully (1:13; 2:3; 10:30–31, 37–39) and to maintain their grasp of goods as yet not seen (3:6, 14; 6:12; 10:34–35; 11:16; 12:28; 13:14).
A second recurring theme is that the person of faith accepts temporal loss and deprivation for the sake of eternal (“abiding,” “lasting”) gain (deSilva 2012, 64–83). Such acceptance gives the person of faith freedom to pursue this greater hope and calling. The author particularly crafts certain examples in such a way as to resonate as strongly as possible with the addressees’ plight in their setting. Abraham leaves behind his place in his homeland, accepting the lower status of sojourner and alien in Canaan, mirroring the audience’s loss of status within their native cities (11:9, 13). The patriarchs’ rejection of being “at home” in their native land becomes a source of witness to the “better, heavenly homeland” that they seek (11:14–16). Moses relinquished his status in Pharaoh’s household, choosing to identify with God’s marginalized people and the reproach that befalls God’s people and God’s “Anointed” in this world (11:24–26; cf. 10:32–34; 13:3, 13). Prophets and martyrs (see Liv. Pro.; 2 Maccabees 6–7; 4 Maccabees 5–17) accepted being driven into the margins of society and even being subjected to the degradation of torture and death for the sake of loyalty to God and the “better resurrection” God would bestow on God’s faithful clients (10:32–34; 11:35–38; 13:3).
Jesus crowns the list of examples as the “perfecter of faith” (not, as in many translations, the “perfecter of our faith”), such that one needs to read the exhortation of 12:1–3 in connection with 11:1–40. Jesus showed faith to the utmost degree by “enduring a cross, despising shame.” The path of responding obediently to God and attaining the reward God set before him involved embracing the most abject humiliation (including the “verbal abuse” with which so many of the addressees could relate, 12:3) and suffering, showing that faith looks not to human approval but only to God’s approval and, in so doing, attains eternal honor and place. The addressees’ past behavior also falls into this commendable pattern (10:32–34), and the author shapes his exhortations simply to urge them to continue to exhibit that kind of commitment to God and to one another, deliberating with a view to holding on to God’s promises, not temporal goods.
THE TEXT IN THE INTERPRETIVE TRADITION
Patristic authors give ample attention to these heroes of faith as moral examples of a foundational virtue in Christian culture, with the example of Jesus crowning the series. In dying for our sake, Jesus obligates us all the more to endure for his sake and to be willing to despise temporal honor in order to attain the lasting honor in God’s sight (John Chrysostom). These authors also tend to interpret these figures as “types” prefiguring Jesus in some way, reading chapter 11 as if the author himself were continuing to appeal to Hebrew scriptural narratives typologically, as he had in regard to Moses, Joshua, and the Levitical cult and its staff. Their own penchant for a typological reading of the Hebrew Bible takes over, as it were. This is especially true in regard to Abraham’s near-sacrifice of Isaac (Athanasius, Theodoret of Cyr, Augustine), Moses and the Passover (Theodoret of Cyr, John Chrysostom), and Rahab’s scarlet thread (Justin Martyr, John Chrysostom). This same connection between the heroes of faith and Christ, however, assures their enjoyment of the same rewards as Christian disciples, all of whom look ahead together to Christ’s second coming for the rewards of their perseverance in faith (Origen, John Chrysostom).
THE TEXT IN CONTEMPORARY DISCUSSION
The author’s descriptions of faith in action, like his description of the challenges faced by his audience throughout their existence as a faith community, may seem remote to contemporary Western Christians and to people of other faith traditions where theirs is the majority religion. However, these descriptions are quite immediately relevant to many who profess allegiance to Jesus in openly repressive societies or societies where Christians constitute a disempowered minority culture. Some Western Christians have read this text as a challenge to think and look beyond their borders and to include Christians in hostile contexts in their plans for relief and political activism.
The passage also serves as a check on the practice of making Christian faith a means to the end of the enjoyment of temporal gain, seen most egregiously in the “prosperity gospel.” The promotion of Christianity as a means of tapping into God’s endless supply for the sake of the material enrichment of one’s life and its associated enjoyments not only is only rampant in popular culture in the United States but has been exported throughout the world and been embraced as particularly appealing in situations of significant poverty. Nothing could be more antithetical to the author’s vision of faith-in-action or the attitudes toward the temporal and its rewards that he seeks to inculcate. This chapter challenges any interpretation of Christianity that makes of it a means to attain consumerist or materialist ends.
The author’s choice of subjects to include in his parade of praiseworthy and exemplary persons also critiques popular fascination with the lives of celebrities, whose basic claim to hold people’s attention is wealth, glamour, and notoriety. Where such people hold a prominent place in a person’s focus, that person’s sense of what is desirable and what is valuable will be shaped accordingly. The “heroes of faith,” however, include both those who were “success stories” by temporal standards as well as abject failures who died in disgrace, and, more often than not, people who were characterized more by “downward mobility” than the reverse. Freedom from attachment or attraction to the rewards over which the domination systems of this world have control is essential to the exercise of the parrhēsia, the prophetic witness to alternative values and practices that the author so values in the Christian movement.
Hebrews 12:4–29: Challenge to Endure and Show Gratitude
THE TEXT IN ITS ANCIENT CONTEXT
While separating 12:1–3 from 11:1–40 is problematic insofar as Jesus is the climactic example of faith-in-action, separating 12:1–3 from what follows is also problematic in that it is the transition back to direct exhortation. Indeed, 12:1–4 works in tandem with 12:5–11, as the author uses two powerful images to reinterpret the unpleasant experience of the Christians’ neighbors’ rejection and abuse in a manner that empowers and encourages continued resistance rather than abdication. Hebrews 12:1–3 used the image of the footrace, with the stadium filled with the heroes of faith who now watch how the audience will perform in the event they have successfully completed. Hebrews 12:4 shifts this to the image of the wrestling match, where the addressees are matched against “sin,” the impulse to choose the temporary rewards of friendship with society over friendship with God. Both images implicitly shame the hearers into perseverance, the first by convening a court of reputation before whom failure would be truly disgraceful, the second by suggesting that the hearers have not yet begun to endure for Jesus what he endured for them (12:2), so how could they be so cowardly and faithless as to contemplate abandoning their obligations to their benefactor (Petersen 1982, 174)?
Hebrews 12:5–11 shifts further to the image of parental discipline (paideia, 12:5, 7–8, 11): what their neighbors inflict with a view to shaming them is interpreted as something God uses to shape them, contributing to their positive formation as committed, courageous, virtuous citizens of their heavenly country (12:10–11; see Croy). The negative experience, moreover, becomes a proof of their adoption by God as God’s legitimate sons and daughters (12:7–8; cf. 5:7–8). While the author uses a quotation from Proverbs (3:11–12) to launch this exhortation, nearly every line is paralleled in Seneca’s De providentia. Moreover, he concludes this paragraph with an expanded paraphrase of a popular classical maxim attributed to Isocrates—“the roots of education [paideia] are bitter, but its fruits are sweet”—showing the author to be drawing on well-established topics to reinterpret hardship and empower continued endurance of repressive measures.
Esau’s example (12:16–17), like that of the exodus generation (3:7–4:11), reinforces the danger of choosing poorly between temporary relief and long-term goods—thus, in the audience’s situation, between securing escape from their neighbors’ disapproval (and its negative effects on their lives and psyches) and holding securely onto God’s friendship and promises through perseverance (see also 2:1–4; 6:4–8; 10:26–31). Esau’s story has been reshaped somewhat to conform more closely to the author’s purposes in using it (cf. Gen. 25:29–34; 27:30–40; deSilva 2000, 461–63).
The author has been strategically arousing both fear and confidence throughout the sermon; his work climaxes with a pair of images that continue the alternation. Using many scriptural allusions to the event, he paints a picture of the encounter with God at Sinai that is dark, fearsome, and dangerous (12:18–21). This is the encounter with God that the hearers do not have to endure because of the Son’s mediation, which opens up for them a festive and confident approach to God at the heavenly Zion (12:22–24).
Recalling the Sinai event leads the author to another warning, using another “lesser-to-greater” argument to suggest that greater danger awaits those who reject the message spoke in the Son (and, even more specifically, the Son’s death, 12:24) than befell those who cast off the Sinai covenant (12:25; cf. 2:1–4). Similarly, the earthquake that traditionally accompanied God’s appearance at Sinai (Judg. 5:4–5; Ps. 68:7–8) leads the author to consider the future, decisive shaking and removal of the entire material creation (12:26–27, reciting and interpreting Hag. 2:6), revealing the way into the (already extant) unshakable kingdom, the divine realm, which God wishes to share with the faithful (12:28). The author’s cosmology and eschatology continue to suggest the lesser value of all that pertains to this present, visible world (as opposed to “the coming world,” 2:5)—an estimation that is essential to his advice concerning what course of action is ultimately advantageous.
In light of God’s plan to confer such a benefit on the audience, the only appropriate response is to “show gratitude” (12:28; deSilva 2000, 473–77). Gratitude toward a more powerful patron generally took on the forms of witness (increasing the patron’s reputation by praising his or her generosity), loyalty (when faced with a choice between standing by and deserting one’s patron), and service (that is, doing whatever the patron might ask). This well encapsulates the response the author hopes his audience will continue to make in regard to God and God’s Son in their present circumstances.
THE TEXT IN THE INTERPRETIVE TRADITION
Patristic readers appreciated the author’s discussion of trials and hardships as the exercise regimen and diet for God’s athletes being trained in virtue (Basil). Basil thought the passage to apply to such experiences as illness, and not merely social opposition for the sake of one’s commitment to Jesus. John Chrysostom recognized the pastoral value of this passage, since the typical human reaction to suffering or ill-fortune is to read it as a sign of divine displeasure or abandonment. On the contrary, encountering trials may still be an opportunity to experience God’s love.
Early church commentators also focused on the virtue of peace extolled in 12:14, agreeing with the author that communal harmony was indeed prerequisite to enjoying the divine presence (Augustine, Gregory the Great). They understood the “all” here to denote fellow believers, since “peace” would only be made with unbelievers by defecting from the group. Once again, these authors tended to interpret the author’s warnings in such a way as promoted the perpetual availability of repentance during this life (Theodoret of Cyr, Theodore of Mopsuestia); for example, suggesting reasons why Esau’s repentance was rejected and describing, on that basis, what kind of repentance ought to be nurtured.
The contrast between the approach to God at Sinai and at the future, heavenly Zion in 12:18–24 fed Christian criticisms of the old covenant (for example, John Chrysostom interpreted the “darkness,” “gloom,” and “tempest” as indications of “the obscurity of the Old Testament and the shadowy and veiled character of the Law”) and celebrations of the more positive community of angels and righteous disciples formed around the new covenant, brought together like “living stones” in the new kingdom of God (Ambrose).
THE TEXT IN CONTEMPORARY DISCUSSION
This passage has raised disturbing questions about God’s relationship to experiences of suffering. It is important to note what the text does not say. The author does not say that God inflicts suffering in response to something the addressees have done wrong (Croy, 196–214). He distances himself, in fact, from Prov. 3:11–12 on this point. God may use suffering as a crucible for character, but the suffering is still born of the “hostility of sinners” (12:3). The author also does not say that human beings are divinely sanctioned to inflict punishment on those whom they “love” in order to correct them (as some spousal-abusers will claim). In its original context, the passage speaks only of the deprivations and hardship endured from human beings who regard the Christians as deviants on account of their religious commitments. Applying the passage to suffering beyond this is risky business (Croy, 222). Within these limits, Heb. 12:5–11 still speaks a word of encouragement to many Christians across the globe, whose experience may match or outdo that of the original audience in many respects (10:32–34), empowering resistance and, therefore, the freedom and integrity of each believer in a repressive environment.
The example of Esau challenges contemporary allegiances to the values and practices of gratification, consumption, and materialism. The author would ask many Christians how often their choices reflect a hunger and love for God or a desire to serve as God’s instruments in this world and how often, to the contrary, their choices reflect their obsession with this world’s trivial entertainments, pursuits, and rewards. He would call such Christians to examine the folly of being rich in the moment, but bankrupt in eternity.
The portrayal of the Sinai theophany in 12:18–21 is fair enough, but it is not an adequate representation of the experience of God known by persons who approached God through the Torah prior to, or apart from, Jesus. One thinks of the rapture of the psalmists, for whom the presence of God is peace, safety, and refreshment, for whom the law is light and joy. One thinks also of the representatives of the Jewish wisdom tradition like the authors of Proverbs, Wisdom of Solomon, and Ben Sira, for whom God and God’s instruction are ever-present guides to walk in secure and stable paths. The author’s contrast between the approach to God at Sinai and the approach to God through the new covenant aligns too readily with the ongoing Christian assumption that the “God of the Old Testament” (a fearsome and vindictive deity) is somehow different from the “God of the New Testament” (a deity of love and acceptance), which is a gross caricature of the image of God in both.
One of the author’s foundational assumptions, shared with his host society, is that costly gifts call forth costly response. This dynamic of favor and gratitude, of gift and response, potentially reconnects grace and Christian discipleship, the experience of God’s favor, and the investment of one’s whole self in responding. It challenges the contemporary Christian commodification of God’s gift (or of “salvation”) as something enjoyed independently of an ongoing, dynamic response to the Giver in the way of testimony, loyalty, and obedient service.
Hebrews 13:1–25: Specific Exhortations for Making a Grateful Response
THE TEXT IN ITS ANCIENT CONTEXT
The author concludes his sermon with practical instructions on how to “show gratitude” and live “in a manner well-pleasing to God” (12:28; cf. 13:16, 21). These focus chiefly on group-sustaining practices (13:1–6, 15–17). The willingness of Christians to open up their homes to the group for worship and study or to traveling teachers and missionaries was essential to the Christian movement (13:2). Reaching out to support those members who were most targeted by their neighbors for “corrective discipline” was similarly essential to sustaining commitment (13:3). The most intimate human relationships needed to be safeguarded against erosive behavior (13:4). Attachment to temporal goods—when deprivation of such goods is a major tool for pressuring deviants into conformity—is also assiduously to be avoided (13:5–6; see 10:32–34). High regard to leadership, both those who currently exercise their office (13:17) and those who have passed (13:7), gives a strong internal focus for the group. In every way, the author seeks to stimulate a strong sense of mutual commitment and investment—the kind that would normally be reserved for one’s natural brothers and sisters—within the group, such that they will put themselves out to meet one another’s need and, thus, sustain one another’s commitment (13:1, 3, 16).
The declaration “Jesus Christ is yesterday and today the same—and forever” (13:8) activates a topic familiar from discussions of trust (see, notably, Dio Chrysostom, Or. 74.4, 21–22). This is less an ontological statement than an ethical one: the hearers can count on Jesus to be constant and reliable in their relationship. What he was for them in the past, he will yet be for them in the future. This was the basis for their departed leaders’ faith (13:7) and can be for theirs as well. The author contrasts this basis for trust one final time with elements of the Levitical system of mediation (13:9–11; see Lev. 16:27), recalling in a summary way the surer mediation the hearers have in Jesus, and therefore the firmer foundation for continued trust.
The author returns to the theme of making an appropriate return to God and to Jesus for their costly favor. Since Jesus suffered “outside the camp” for the hearers, the author urges them similarly to “go out of the camp”—that is, willingly to leave behind their place in their society—to meet him in the margins of society, being willing to bear temporary disgrace for their association with him (13:12–13). Such loyalty is a component of a grateful response. But the way “out” of the camp is also the way “in” to the unshakable realm of God, into which they are being welcomed (13:14). They are also urged to continue to bear witness to the value of Jesus’ mediation and God’s promises (13:15) and to invest in one another’s perseverance (13:16). These acts of bringing honor to the Patron and offering service are also recognized elements of gratitude toward superiors. They are painted in cultic terms: such enactments of gratitude, and not animal sacrifices, are now the language of and means of expressing their ongoing relationship with God (see also 6:9–10).
The sermon ends with the typical elements of a letter’s closing (13:18–25; cf. 1 Thess. 5:23–28; 1 Pet. 5:10–14).
THE TEXT IN THE INTERPRETIVE TRADITION
John Chrysostom appreciated the practical guidance for disciples, particularly as regards the proper accumulation and use of property (promoting keeping oneself from superfluities and prioritizing charity). Hebrews 13:8 became a frequent text invoked in conversations about Christology, especially the divine nature of Christ that undergoes no change in the incarnation, passion, death, and ascension.
THE TEXT IN CONTEMPORARY DISCUSSION
Hebrews 13 brings together many of the themes encountered throughout the sermon, and hence raises once again many of the issues already discussed—the state of Christians in restricted nations and the obligations of Christians in free (and often prosperous) nations toward them; the author’s challenge to contemporary boundary lines between “family” and “outsiders,” private and public; the notion of “grace” as a relationship of ongoing mutual exchange and obligation rather than a commodity simply to be received.
The text challenges the fundamental logic of Western economic practice, which is to amass capital and, in a sense, “build bigger barns” for the future in the form of investment portfolios and retirement accounts. The author of Hebrews would not take issue with this, were it not for the fact that many lack the daily necessities of life this day and are not being relieved. Allowing Heb. 13:5–6 to take deeper root in Western Christian practice would enable more “capital” to be directed toward meeting such needs (13:2–3, 16).
This closing chapter also challenges the tendency of Christian people in the West to prioritize insulating themselves against suffering or hardship, avoiding negative circumstances as if they were an absolute evil. Where do “Christ followers” in West not go, not dare to follow Christ and his call, out of this deep-rooted unwillingness to lose face or temporal advantages, or to fail to attain what our socialization has taught us to value?
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