Hebrews

Looking unto Jesus

If this series has had a guidebook, it is Hebrews. For fifty-six posts we have traced how the tabernacle, the priesthood, the sacrifices, the feasts, and the heroes of the Old Testament point forward to Christ. Hebrews is the New Testament book that does that work out loud, chapter by chapter. It explains Melchizedek, the Day of Atonement, the veil, the blood, the covenant, and the rest that remains for the people of God, and says of every one: Jesus is better.

The word “better” runs all through it: a better hope, a better covenant, better promises, better sacrifices, a better country, a better resurrection. The first readers were Jewish believers under pressure, tempted to drift back to the old system that the world around them still respected. The writer’s answer is not to scold them, but to show them Christ so clearly that going back would be unthinkable. “Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith” (12:2).

---

Authorship & Setting

Nobody knows for certain who wrote Hebrews. The King James Version titles it “The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Hebrews,” and many in the early church attributed it to Paul. Others suggested Barnabas, Luke, Apollos, or Priscilla. The style is quite different from Paul’s letters, and the writer says he heard the gospel from those who heard the Lord (2:3), which Paul never says of himself. Around AD 230, Origen summed it up well: who wrote it, in truth, only God knows. The church received it as Scripture regardless, because its message bore the marks of God’s word.

The writer knew Timothy (13:23) and sends greetings from “They of Italy” (13:24). The readers had already suffered for their faith, enduring public shame and “the spoiling of your goods”(10:34), though they had “not yet resisted unto blood”(12:4). The letter speaks of the temple sacrifices as still being offered (10:1–3, 11), and never mentions the destruction of the temple in AD 70, which would have been a powerful proof of its argument. So most date it before AD 70, probably in the 60s.

The writer calls it “the word of exhortation” (13:22), and it reads like a sermon written down. Teaching about Christ alternates with warnings and encouragements. Several of those warnings, especially 6:4–6 and 10:26–31, have been understood differently by faithful believers through the centuries, and both sides take them seriously as calls to keep holding on.

Key Figures

• Jesus — the Son through whom God has spoken, the great High Priest, the Mediator of a better covenant, and the author and finisher of our faith.
• The angels — glorious beings, yet lower than the Son. “Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?” (1:14).
• Moses — faithful in all God’s house as a servant, while Christ is faithful as a Son over it (3:5–6).
• Joshua — who led Israel into Canaan, but could not give them the final rest. In 4:8 the KJV calls him “Jesus,” the Greek form of the same name.
• Aaron — the first high priest, called by God, offering daily sacrifices that could never take away sin.
• Melchizedek — the mysterious priest-king of Salem who blessed Abraham, and a type of Christ’s eternal priesthood (7:1–17).
• The cloud of witnesses — Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Moses, Rahab, and many more, who lived and died by faith (11:1–40).

Greek Word Study

κρείττων · kreittōn

“Better,” superior, stronger. It is the key word of Hebrews. Christ is better than the angels (1:4), brings a better hope (7:19), mediates a better covenant on better promises (8:6), and offered better sacrifices (9:23). The old was not bad. It was a shadow. The better has come.

ἀρχηγός · archēgos

“Captain” (2:10), “author” (12:2): a pioneer, a trailblazer, one who goes first and opens the way for others to follow. Christ is the captain of our salvation who was made perfect through suffering, and the author of our faith who ran the race first and finished it.

ἐφάπαξ · ephapax

“Once for all.” The priests offered sacrifices every day and every year. Christ “needeth not daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice… for this he did once, when he offered up himself” (7:27). “We are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all” (10:10). Nothing can be added to what He finished.

ὑπόστασις · hypostasis

“Substance,” literally that which stands under, the underlying reality. Christ is “the express image of his person” (1:3), the exact imprint of God’s very hypostasis. And “faith is the substance of things hoped for” (11:1). Faith is not wishful thinking. It gives present reality to what God has promised. The word was also used for a title deed.

Eight-Movement Outline

MOVEMENT ONE

God Hath Spoken by His Son (1:1–2:4)

“God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son”(1:1–2). The Son is “the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high” (1:3). Seven quotations from the Old Testament prove He is greater than the angels. They worship Him. They serve the heirs of salvation. So the first warning follows: “How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation” (2:3)?

MOVEMENT TWO

Made Like His Brethren (2:5–18)

Psalm 8 says all things were put under man, but we do not yet see that. “But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour”(2:9). He is the captain of our salvation, made perfect through sufferings, and “he is not ashamed to call them brethren” (2:11). He took flesh and blood so “that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage”(2:14–15). He became a merciful and faithful high priest. “For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted” (2:18).

MOVEMENT THREE

Greater Than Moses; Enter His Rest (3:1–4:13)

Moses was faithful in God’s house as a servant. Christ is faithful as a Son over it. Then the writer quotes Psalm 95: “To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts” (3:7–8). The generation that came out of Egypt never entered Canaan, because of unbelief. Joshua led their children in, but even that was not the final rest. “There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God” (4:9), and we enter it by faith. “For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword” (4:12). Nothing is hidden from it.

MOVEMENT FOUR

A Great High Priest (4:14–5:10)

“For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need” (4:15–16). Every high priest must be called by God, as Aaron was. Christ was called too, “a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec” (5:6). In Gethsemane He prayed with strong crying and tears. “Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered” (5:8).

MOVEMENT FIVE

Go On to Perfection (5:11–6:20)

The writer has much to say about Melchizedek, but the readers had become dull of hearing. They should have been teachers by now, but still needed milk instead of solid food. “Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection” (6:1). He warns of the danger of falling away after tasting the heavenly gift (6:4–6), then encourages them: “For God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love” (6:10). God swore an oath to Abraham, giving us a hope “as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast, and which entereth into that within the veil; Whither the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus” (6:19–20).

MOVEMENT SIX

Melchizedek and the Better Covenant (7:1–8:13)

Melchizedek was king of Salem, priest of the most high God, who met Abraham and blessed him, and received a tenth from him. His name means king of righteousness, and Salem means peace. Scripture records no genealogy, birth, or death for him, “but made like unto the Son of God; abideth a priest continually” (7:3). The Levitical priests died one after another. Christ “is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them” (7:25). He is the Mediator of “a better covenant, which was established upon better promises” (8:6), the new covenant Jeremiah promised: “I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts… and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more” (8:10, 12).

MOVEMENT SEVEN

Once for All: The Blood and the Veil (9:1–10:39)

The writer walks through the tabernacle: the lampstand, the table, the veil, the golden censer, the ark. Once a year the high priest went in with blood. But Christ, “by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us” (9:12). “How much more shall the blood of Christ… purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?” (9:14). “And without shedding of blood is no remission” (9:22). “It is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins” (10:4). But “this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God”(10:12). So we have boldness to enter “by a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh” (10:20). Draw near. Hold fast. “Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together” (10:25). “Cast not away therefore your confidence” (10:35).

MOVEMENT EIGHT

The Cloud of Witnesses and the Unshakable Kingdom (11:1–13:25)

“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (11:1). “But without faith it is impossible to please him” (11:6). The roll call runs from Abel to the prophets, people “of whom the world was not worthy” (11:38). “Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame”(12:1–2). “For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth”(12:6). We have not come to Sinai’s fire and darkness, but to Mount Zion, “to an innumerable company of angels” and to Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant (12:22–24). We receive “a kingdom which cannot be moved”(12:28). Practical counsel closes the letter: “Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares” (13:2). “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee” (13:5). “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever” (13:8).

Christ Typology

Melchizedek. In Genesis 14, a king of Salem appears out of nowhere, brings bread and wine to Abraham, blesses him, and receives a tithe, then disappears from the story. A thousand years later, David writes of his Lord: “Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek” (Psalm 110:4). Hebrews explains: Christ is a priest not by descent from Levi, but by the power of an endless life. He is King of righteousness and King of peace, Priest and King in one Person, and He serves forever.

The Pattern on the Mount. God told Moses, “See… that thou make all things according to the pattern shewed to thee in the mount” (8:5, quoting Exodus 25:40). The earthly tabernacle was “the example and shadow of heavenly things.” Every board, curtain, and vessel was a copy of something real in heaven. Christ did not enter the copy. He entered heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us (9:24).

The Day of Atonement. Once a year, the high priest passed through the veil with the blood of a goat for the people’s sins and a bull for his own. Hebrews shows the contrast point by point: once a year versus once for all, the blood of animals versus His own blood, a priest who needed atonement himself versus a sinless one, a veil that stayed shut versus a veil torn open. When Christ died, the way into the holiest was opened, and the veil turned out to be His flesh.

The Rest of Joshua. Joshua led Israel into Canaan, and the land had rest. But Hebrews points out that David, centuries later, still spoke of “to day” and a rest to enter, so Joshua’s rest was not the final one. Joshua and Jesus share the same name, meaning “the LORD saves.” What the first Joshua could only picture, the greater Joshua gives: rest from our own works, and the eternal rest of God.

Outside the Camp. The bodies of the animals whose blood was carried into the holy place were burned outside the camp (Leviticus 16:27). “Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate” (13:12). He was rejected by the religious establishment and crucified outside Jerusalem’s walls. “Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach” (13:13).

Blood That Speaks Better. Abel’s blood cried out from the ground for justice against his brother (Genesis 4:10). We have come “to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel” (12:24). Abel’s blood cried for vengeance. Christ’s blood cries for mercy, and it is heard.

Personal Application

Don’t drift. Hebrews warns about neglect more than about open rebellion. Most people who leave Christ do not storm out. They drift slowly, like a boat whose anchor line has slipped. Keep looking at Jesus. The cure for drifting is not trying harder but seeing Him more clearly.

Come boldly. You have a High Priest who has been tempted in every way you have, and who did not sin. He is not distant or impatient with you. The throne you approach is a throne of grace. Come for mercy when you have failed, and for grace before you fail.

Your hope is anchored behind the veil. A ship’s anchor holds because it is fastened to something outside the ship. Your hope is fastened to Christ, who has already gone into the presence of God for you. When everything around you is shaking, the anchor holds.

Don’t run alone. Hebrews was written to believers under pressure, and one of its practical commands was not to give up gathering with other believers, so they could encourage one another. Faith was never meant to be a solo race. Find believers who will stir you up to love and good works, and do the same for them.

Lay aside the weight. Runners don’t race in heavy coats. Some things that slow us down are sins. Some are just weights, things not wrong in themselves but not helping us run. Look at what is hanging on you, set it down, and fix your eyes on Jesus, who endured the cross for the joy set before Him. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

TO GOD BE ALL THE GLORY · MARANATHA

T