The Book of Hebrews

Hebrews is structured as a sustained comparison: Jesus is greater than every mediating figure and institution of the old covenant:

(1) Greater than angels (1:1-2:18): the Son is heir of all things, through whom the worlds were created (1:2), who is "the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature" (1:3). Seven Old Testament quotations establish that the Son holds a status the angels do not: "To which of the angels did God ever say, 'You are my Son, today I have begotten you'?" (1:5). The angels are "ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation" (1:14), the Son inherits, the angels serve.

(2) Greater than Moses (3:1-6): "For Jesus has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses, as much more glory as the builder of a house has more honor than the house itself" (3:3). Moses was faithful in YHWH's house "as a servant"; Christ is faithful over YHWH's house "as a son." The servant/son distinction is the key.

(3) Greater than Joshua (4:1-13): Joshua led Israel into the land of Canaan, but that rest was not the sabbath-rest that remained (4:8-9, "for if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on... So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God").

(4) Greater than Aaron (4:14-10:18): the most extended comparison. Christ is the High Priest in the order of Melchizedek (greater than Levi, see the Sanctum page on The Priesthood), who offered himself as the once-for-all sacrifice, entered the true heavenly sanctuary (not the earthly copy), and secured an eternal redemption. The Levitical priesthood needed to repeat its sacrifices; Christ's single offering "perfected for all time those who are being sanctified" (10:14).

Hebrews contains five "warning passages", severe exhortations addressed to the community that call for sustained attention and warn against drifting, unbelief, and apostasy:

(1) Hebrews 2:1-4, "Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it." The danger of drifting, inattention rather than dramatic rebellion.

(2) Hebrews 3:7-4:13, the wilderness generation as a warning. They heard the word and hardened their hearts; they fell in the wilderness and did not enter YHWH's rest. "Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God" (3:12). The exhortation to mutual accountability: "exhort one another every day, as long as it is called 'today,' that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin" (3:13).

(3) Hebrews 5:11-6:12, the most severe warning in the letter: "For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt" (6:4-6). The exact scope of this warning (who are "those" who fall away? can true believers fall away? or is this describing apostasy that was never genuine faith?) is the most debated exegetical question in Hebrews.

(4) Hebrews 10:26-31, "For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment... It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God." The warning is against deliberate, ongoing rejection of the new covenant.

(5) Hebrews 12:25-29, "See that you do not refuse him who is speaking... Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire." The Sinai theophany was terrifying; how much more fearful to refuse the new covenant voice.

Hebrews 11 is the Bible's most sustained definition and illustration of faith. The working definition (11:1): "Now faith is the assurance (hypostasis, ὑπόστασις, substance, foundation, firm ground; the same word used for the "person" of the Trinity in patristic theology) of things hoped for, the conviction (elenchos, evidence, proof) of things not seen." Faith is not the absence of evidence but the substance that makes the future present and the invisible visible.

The chapter then gives the Old Testament's gallery of faith, each introduced by "by faith..."

-- Abel offered a better sacrifice (11:4)

-- Enoch was taken up without dying (11:5)

-- Noah built the ark (11:7)

-- Abraham went out not knowing where he was going (11:8) and "was looking forward to the city with foundations" (11:10)

-- Sarah received power to conceive (11:11)

-- Abraham offered Isaac (11:17-19, "he considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back")

-- The patriarchs, Moses, Rahab, Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, the prophets

The turn (11:13-16): "These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth." They were looking for a country of their own, not the country they came from but "a better country, that is, a heavenly one."

The incompleteness (11:39-40): "And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect." The whole gallery awaited what we have received, making chapter 12's exhortation to run with endurance all the more charged.

The Sanctum reads Hebrews as the letter that makes explicit what the entire Old Testament covenant system was pointing toward: a better covenant, a better priest, a better sacrifice, a better sanctuary, a better country. The author's pastoral concern is not abstract theology but the endurance of a community under pressure: stay in the race, look to Jesus, don't drift, don't harden your heart, you are surrounded by a cloud of witnesses who ran and finished and are watching. The pioneer and perfecter of faith is not merely the first to run; he ran the hardest course, "who for the joy set before him endured the cross", and is now seated at the right hand of the throne.