Book of Hebrews - Bible Survey

Hebrews gives a wonderful vision of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is revealed as the Son of God, and Son of Man; as the heir of all things; higher than the angels. We can trace His path of humiliation to death and what has been accomplished by the death on the cross. All the blessings put on the side of the believer are made known in Hebrews. But above all the great message is the Priesthood of Christ. This is the great center of this sublime Epistle. It is an Epistle of contrasts. There is the contrast between the Lord Jesus Christ and the angels; between Him and Moses, between Him and Aaron, between the Priesthood of Melchisedec and that of Aaron; between the offerings of the old covenant and the one great offering of Christ. This was the supreme need of these Jewish-Christians, to know Christ in all His fullness and glory. This knowledge would make them perfect, steadfast and fill them with comfort. And this is still our need. May the Lord bless us in meditating on this wonderful document.

Look also at the epistle to the Hebrews. A very different state is here seen. They were in such a low condition as to be in danger of giving up Christianity and returning to the Jews' religion. And how were they met? By the ministry of Christ; and remarkably so out of their own Scriptures - the books of Moses, Psalms, and prophets. The Son in His deity, as well as true humanity, was most blessedly brought before them in the first two chapters. He is seen to be greater than angels, worthy of more glory than Moses and Aaron, Joshua, David, and even Abraham, so that all retire when the glory of His person is introduced, like the brightest stars cease to shine before the rising of the sun. The eternal Son - the heir of all things - who made all things, upholds all things, and is to have all things put under His feet, is here brought out. He is looked at before time, in time, and after time shall have passed away. His incarnation, life of sufferings and temptation, death, resurrection, glorification, and reign, when everything will be put under His feet, all pass before us. We see Him as the Purger of sins, the Captain of our salvation, the Destroyer of the devil, the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, the Son over His own house, the Forerunner who is for us entered, an unchangeable Priest after the order of Melchisedec, the Leader and Completer of faith, the Mediator of the new covenant, and the Great Shepherd of the sheep, who was brought again from the dead through the blood of the everlasting covenant; and we are assured that "yet a little while, and He that shall come will come, and will not tarry."

We cannot fail to notice in what a variety of aspects the Lord Jesus is brought before the readers of this epistle, which no doubt is intended to teach us that we need the full revelation which God has given us of His own Son, and not merely to know Him as the Purger of our sins. Why the glory of His person is so clearly and richly unfolded in the beginning is because the prominent point in this epistle is the perfection of the one sacrifice and unchangeable priesthood of Christ, as contrasted with the oft-repeated sacrifices and many priests of a former dispensation, which was a time of types and shadows of the substantial realities in Christ. When one grasps the truth of the infinite perfections and glory of His person, it then becomes clear that an everlasting value is stamped on His work and offices. Thus the Hebrew believers were entitled to know that their sins were purged, and that God would remember them no more; that by that one offering they were purged worshippers, should have no more conscience of sins, and were perfected for ever. They had, as to God, liberty to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus; and as regards men, their place was with Christ outside the camp of formal religiousness, bearing His reproach, and, before the Lord comes, to be running the race of faith with patience, and looking to Him, at God's right hand, for all the sustainment and encouragement they need. Can we conceive anything more calculated to deliver souls from Judaism, and to set them right with God than this full and clear ministry of Christ? Well might the writer end his letter by enjoining them "to offer by Him (Christ) the sacrifice of praise to God continually," and not to forget "to do good, and to communicate;" "for with such sacrifices God is well pleased."

From Hebrews 4:14 the subject of the priesthood is treated, leading to the value of the sacrifice of Christ, but introducing also the two covenants in passing, and insisting on the change of the law necessarily consequent upon the change of priesthood. Then comes the value of the sacrifice very fully in contrast with the figures that accompanied the old; and on which, and on the blood which was shed in them, the covenant itself was founded. This instruction on the priesthood continues to the end of Hebrews 10: 18. The exhortations founded thereon introduce the principle of the endurance of faith, which leads to Hebrews 11, in which the cloud of witnesses is reviewed, crowning them with the example of Christ Himself, who completed the whole career of faith in spite of every obstacle, and who shows us where this painful but glorious path terminates (Heb. 12:2).

This was the apostle's great ministry of the church, and thus he was enabled by the Holy Spirit to fill up the word of God, even that blank which was left for the revelation of the mystery that had been hid from all ages and generations. Here it is circumscribed, no doubt, as was necessary because of the infantine state of the believing Jews, who little suspected that their adhesion to the old things, and mingling them with the new, hindered progress more than aught else could. Hence the aim of the Epistle is to show the substance, force, and perfection of all the ancient forms in the truth of Christ's person and office, work and position, thus raising the Jews who believed to heaven in faith, affection, worship, service, and hope, and making it easy and even happy for them to see the old covenant passing away, the Aaronic priesthood giving place to a better, and earthly sacrifices of no account, yea of exceeding peril if they became rivals of that finished work by which the faithful have been and are sanctified, and perfected in perpetuity, as surely as Christ sat down in perpetuity at God's right hand.

The author of this epistle (Paul, I doubt not, but this is of little importance) employed other motives than that of the approaching judgment to induce the believing Jews to abandon their Judaic relationships. It is this last step however which he engages them to take; and the judgment was at hand. Until now they had linked Christianity with Judaism; there had been thousands of Christians who were very zealous for the law. But God was about to destroy that system altogether — already in fact judged by the Jews' rejection of Christ, and by their resistance to the testimony of the Holy Ghost. Our epistle engages believers to come forth entirely from that system and to bear the Lord's reproach, setting before them a new foundation for their relationship with God in a High Priest who is in the heavens. At the same time it links all that it says with the testimony of God by the prophets through the intermedium of Christ, the Son of God, speaking during His life on earth, though now speaking from heaven.

These Hebrews were believing Jews of the nation of Israel. The whole assembly at the beginning of Christianity consisted solely of Jews, starting at Jerusalem, widening out to Judea, then Samaria, and only when it spread to Antioch in Acts 11, Gentiles were added to the assembly (if we exclude individuals like Cornelius and the Ethiopian eunuch). In the beginning they were all Jews, and they had many persecutions to endure, which they could not understand. Before believing in Messiah, the Lord Jesus, they were of the people of God, Israel, though in a very weak condition, but by believing their persecutions only increased. Before they were only under the suppression of the Romans, but now they were persecuted also by their fellow countrymen. Some of these believers started to waver, to doubt, and some even thought of turning back to Judaism. This is the background of the epistle.

It is evident that the epistle is addressed to converted Jews who were passing through a period of trial and persecution. They would be thoroughly conversant with the Jewish religion; and all the prominent personages, places and practices pertaining to the earthly system would be well known to them; and the fact that the system was instituted by God Himself would undoubtedly ensure its veneration by them. But the whole system had been set aside by God, for it had not been able to procure blessing for men; and in it God had been dishonoured by the wickedness of Israel.

On two occasions the Epistle to the Hebrews refers to the new covenant as 'a better covenant': here and in chapter 8, verse 6. This word 'better' (used no less than 13 times in Hebrews) is characteristic for this letter designed to persuade Christians of Jewish background that there was no point in cleaving to, or returning to, the old system of Jewish rites and worship. As Christians they had received something far better, not shadows but reality.

Heb. 7 proves how immeasurably and in all respects the priesthood of Jesus, the Son of God, surpasses that of Aaron bound up as it was with the law which made nothing perfect. The ancient oracles which fully prepare for it intimate also a new and better covenant (Heb. 8), before which the first grows old and ready to vanish away, instead of possessing that immutability with which rabbinical pride and imagination clothed it. And this leads to the great truth of sacrifice according to God's mind and will (Heb. 9, 10), which has found alone its adequate force in the blood of Christ, Who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself spotless to God. Therefore its unity is insisted on, as its completeness is attested by His sitting in perpetuity on God's right hand, the work finished, and those that are sanctified perfected, not merely for ever but in perpetuity or without break also, by that one offering. Here too the warning of abandoning for sin such a sacrifice is solemnly rendered, while it is allowed that we have need of patience in faith, till Jesus come.

But all this hinges on the dignity of the Son. He is greater than angels (chaps. 1 and 2), than Moses (Heb. 3), than Joshua (Heb. 4), than Aaron (Heb. 5), than Abraham, or the Melchisedec who blessed Abraham, or the Levitical priests who were in Abraham's loins when the less was blessed of the greater (Heb. 7).