A Study Of The Apostle Pauls Letter To The Hebrews

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AStudyOf TheApostlePauls LetterTo The
Hebrews
How can we neglect so greata salvation?
Hebrews 23
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Hebrews Christ Is Superior! Superior Person (11
413) Superior to Prophets (11-3) Superior t
o Angels (14218) Superior to Moses (31-19)
Superior to Joshua (41-13) Superior Priest (41
4728) Superior to Aaron (414612) Superior
to Melchizedek (613710) Superior to Levi (7
11-28)
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Hebrews Christ Is Superior! Superior Pact (Coven
ant) to Moses(811018) Superior Promises (8
1-13) Superior Sanctuary (91-15) Superior Sac
rifice (916-28) Superior Results (101-18) Sup
erior Principle (Faith) to Moses (10191325)
Superior Things (1019-39) Superior Actions (11
1-40) Superior Relationship (121-29) Superio
r Way of Life (131-25)
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God, who at vari-ous times and in various ways
spoke in time past to the fathers by the
prophets, hasin these last days spoken to us by
His Son
Hebrews 11-2a ?
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God, who at vari-ous times and in various ways
spoke in time past to the fathers by the
prophets, hasin these last days spoken to us by
His Son
We know this is God the Father because it says in
verse 2 that He has spoken by His Son.
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God, who at vari-ous times and in various ways
spoke in time past to the fathers by the
prophets, hasin these last days spoken to us by
His Son
This literally means in many parts i.e.,
revelation to us con-cerning our redemp-tion was
given a piece at a time, not all at once.
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God, who at vari-ous times and in various ways
spoke in time past to the fathers by the
prophets, hasin these last days spoken to us by
His Son
In Isa. 2813 Gods Word is spoken of as being
revealed pre-cept upon precept line upon line
here a little, there a little. All this indicates
that revelation to man was progressive a little
in the starlight age, a little more in the
moonlight age, then its fullness in the sunlight
age.
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God, who at vari-ous times and in various ways
spoke in time past to the fathers by the
prophets, hasin these last days spoken to us by
His Son
This means that re-velation came to us in many
different ways Ed Fudge said, Amos gave Gods
mes-sage by oracles direct statements from God,
Hosea by typical experi-ences in his own life,
Habakkuk by argument discussion, Malachi by
questions answers, Ezekiel by strange
symbolic acts, Haggai by sermons, and Zecha-riah
by signs.
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God, who at vari-ous times and in various ways
spoke in time past to the fathers by the
prophets, hasin these last days spoken to us by
His Son
During the time Paul wrote this, Jesus was
fulfilling and making clear all the types and
shadows which Peter said the prophets and angels
desired to under-stand (1 Pet. 110-12).
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God, who at vari-ous times and in various ways
spoke in time past to the fathers by the
prophets, hasin these last days spoken to us by
His Son
This is an interesting phrase. There are two
Greeks terms for old archaios, which means old
in point of time, and the one Paul used here,
palaios, which means old in point of use, worn
out, ready to be dis-placed by something new (cf.
Wuest). The point is this ? ?
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God, who at vari-ous times and in various ways
spoke in time past to the fathers by the
prophets, hasin these last days spoken to us by
His Son
God gave His revela-tion of redemption in two
stages 1. The Old Testa- ment Stage This
stage (which was in its last phase of
ful- fillment in Pauls time and which
included both the starlight and
moonlight ages) prepared man for
redemption.
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God, who at vari-ous times and in various ways
spoke in time past to the fathers by the
prophets, hasin these last days spoken to us by
His Son
2. The New Testa- ment Stage This stage
shows how the OT stage was being
fulfilled through Christ.
Today, while the OT revelation is com-pleted and
fulfilled, the NT revelation is final and
eternal (cf. Heb. 1320).
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God, who at vari-ous times and in various ways
spoke in time past to the fathers by the
prophets, hasin these last days spoken to us by
His Son
Although this may have reference to the fathers
of the moonlight age due to the next phrase, yet
(because God even called Abe a prophet, Gen.
207), I believe it can easily include the
patriarchs, lead-ers, elders, et. al. of both the
starlight and moonlight ages included in the OT.
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God, who at vari-ous times and in various ways
spoke in time past to the fathers by the
prophets, hasin these last days spoken to us by
His Son
This literally means in the prophets i.e., a
prophet was Gods medium of revela-tion, as Peter
wrote, Prophecy came by holy men of God as
they were moved by the Holy Spirit (2 Pet.
120-21).
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God, who at vari-ous times and in various ways
spoke in time past to the fathers by the
prophets, hasin these last days spoken to us by
His Son
This phrase is very important It comes from a
phrase which literally means in the last of these
days. In fact, the original word for last means
the outermost, the extreme, last in time. Its
harder to get any closer to the end than that,
unless one says with John, it is the last hour(1
John 218).
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God, who at vari-ous times and in various ways
spoke in time past to the fathers by the
prophets, hasin these last days spoken to us by
His Son
Just as was the cus-tom of the Jews to place the
history of the world into two great periodsthe
time before Messiah and the time after Messiah,
so Paul placed it in two peri-ods here. Notice ?
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God, who at vari-ous times and in various ways
spoke in time past to the fathers by the
prophets, hasin these last days spoken to us by
His Son
These days (12) and the present time (99) refer
to the time Paul was living in, and the world to
come (25), the age to come (65), the time of
reformation (910), and the city to come (1314)
re-ferred to the time of the coming of the
kingdom in its full-nessAD 70.
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God, who at vari-ous times and in various ways
spoke in time past to the fathers by the
prophets, hasin these last days spoken to us by
His Son
So God spoke to us through His Son, as Daniel put
it, at the time of the end of the first period
and later (926) Paul even said that Jesus
sac-rificed Himself at the end of the ages.
Ear-lier he had told the Corinthians that they
were those on whom the ends of the ages have come
(11011).
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God, who at vari-ous times and in various ways
spoke in time past to the fathers by the
prophets, hasin these last days spoken to us by
His Son
Just one little note here Notice the con-trast
between God speaking to the fath-ers and God
speak-ing to us i.e., its much more personal
nowinstead of talk- just to certain lead-ers, He
speaks to all of us.
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God, who at vari-ous times and in various ways
spoke in time past to the fathers by the
prophets, hasin these last days spoken to us by
His Son
This is literally in a son. Whats the
sig-nificance? The con-trast Paul meant for his
readers to see is much more apparent i.e., at
the end of that age, God fully and finally spoke
in a son His Son, instead of in mere prophets.
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God, who at vari-ous times and in various ways
spoke in time past to the fathers by the
prophets, hasin these last days spoken to us by
His Son
Previous revelations were in prophecies, types,
and shadows but an impersonal revelation of a
per-son is always an im-perfect one. So God sent
a son, because only a personal re-velation of a
person can be a perfect re-velation. The
auth-ority of ones son should be the most
respected of all (cf. Mark 121-2). So ?
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whom (Jesus) He (the Father) has appointed heir
of all things, through whom also He made the
worlds
Hebrews 12b ?
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whom (Jesus) He (the Father) has appointed heir
of all things, through whom also He made the
worlds
For Jesus to be heir, there were two
con-ditions 1. He must be Gods Son Psa.
27-8 read, You are My Son, today I
have begotten You. I will give You the
nations for Your inheritance and
possession.
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whom (Jesus) He (the Father) has appointed heir
of all things, through whom also He made the
worlds
2. There must be something to in- herit
Like Psa. 2, the parable in Luke 1912-27
speak of Christ as receiv- ing a kingdom
(ful- filling numerous pro- phecies,
of course).
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whom (Jesus) He (the Father) has appointed heir
of all things, through whom also He made the
worlds
Being the primary heir, Jesus is Lord of all or
(as here) all things (cf. Gal. 41 Acts 1036
where Peter used this phrase to re-fer to Jesus
as being Lord of the Gentiles as well as the
Jewsall na-tions as Psalm 2 says cf. Rev. 154,
2124, 21 26, 222). So
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whom (Jesus) He (the Father) has appointed heir
of all things, through whom also He made the
worlds
What did Paul mean by this phrase? I be-lieve
that he not only meant all peoples, but also all
things related to the pro-mised kingdomHis being
crowned pro-phet, priest, king, for examples.
See, Jesus inheriting the physical universe was
never the point.
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whom (Jesus) He (the Father) has appointed heir
of all things, through whom also He made the
worlds
Since the Greek term for made here can mean two
things, it must be interpreted by the context it
can mean either created or (as later in 113)
ar-ranged. So lets dis-cuss the original terms
for world and worlds ? ? ?
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whom (Jesus) He (the Father) has appointed heir
of all things, through whom also He made the
worlds
The word for world in 105 is, primarily, the
Greek term for planet (kosmos, cf. 117) the
word for world in 16 is the Greek term for
peo-ple (oikoumene) the word for worlds here
is the Greek term for ages (aion).
So
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whom (Jesus) He (the Father) has appointed heir
of all things, through whom also He made the
worlds
Depending on its contextual use, it goes from
planet, to an age/ages of the planet, to the
people of an age/ages of the planet. Thus
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whom (Jesus) He (the Father) has appointed heir
of all things, through whom also He made the
worlds
The Greek term for worlds here isnt the word
used to include our planet its the term for
ages be-sides ages being the correct
translation, there are other rea-sons to render
it as such ? ? ?
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whom (Jesus) He (the Father) has appointed heir
of all things, through whom also He made the
worlds
The word is plural not only does worlds make
this a very un- natural statement, butunless
Hebrews is the only placethe Bible never speaks
of God creating the worlds plural but, as
well soon see, this book DOES con-cern two
covenant ages/worlds. Also
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whom (Jesus) He (the Father) has appointed heir
of all things, through whom also He made the
worlds
Since Paul used the Greek term for the physical
creation in 105 when he wrote of Jesus coming
into the world, he obvi-ously knew the
dif-ference. In fact
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whom (Jesus) He (the Father) has appointed heir
of all things, through whom also He made the
worlds
There seems to be a clear distinction be-tween
these terms in one verse926 He then would have
had to suffer often since the foundation of the
kosmos but now, at the end of the aion, He has
ap-peared to put away sin. Even here
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whom (Jesus) He (the Father) has appointed heir
of all things, through whom also He made the
worlds
In 926, when Paul wanted to refer to the
literal, physical creation and its be-ginning, he
used the term kosmos not aion as in 12.
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whom (Jesus) He (the Father) has appointed heir
of all things, through whom also He made the
worlds
A synonym for ages here would be the word times
as in Eph. 110 where we read of God gathering
to-gether all things in Christ in the fullness of
the times. So
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whom (Jesus) He (the Father) has appointed heir
of all things, through whom also He made the
worlds
The term for made here would mean arranged or
ordered, not created i.e. God arranged/ordered
the ages.
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who (Jesus), being the bright-ness of His (the
Fathers) glory and the express image of His
person
Hebrews 13a ?
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who (Jesus), being the bright-ness of His (the
Fathers) glory and the express image of His
person
This is a prime exam-ple of the utter
im-possibility to accur-ately/fully describe God
in human terms this is why Yahweh chose to
inspire men to utilize such an enormous amount of
symbolic language in the Bible to de-scribe Him
as well as blessings like the kingdom from Him.
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who (Jesus), being the bright-ness of His (the
Fathers) glory and the express image of His
person
This basically means that the Son is the light
itself which ra- diates from its source God and
the next phrase simply ela-borates on this.
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who (Jesus), being the bright-ness of His (the
Fathers) glory and the express image of His
person
This basically means that the Son is the exact
replica of Gods reality (nature).
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who (Jesus), being the bright-ness of His (the
Fathers) glory and the express image of His
person
Interestingly, the Greek term for ex-press image
is the word charakter, a term which in anci-ent
times referred to the image that an engraving or
stamp-ing tool left behind i.e., as we use the
word today, its that by which a person is
recognized.
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who (Jesus), being the bright-ness of His (the
Fathers) glory and the express image of His
person
John 114 reads, The Word became flesh and we
beheld the glory of the only begotten of the
Fath-er and in John 147 9 Jesus said, If you
had known Me, you would have known My Father
also. He who has seen Me has seen the Father.
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and upholding all things bythe word of His
power
Hebrews 13b ?
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and upholding all things bythe word of His
power
Because this word is actually too passive to
accurately com-municate Pauls meaning, the
origi-nal term would be better translated as
maintaining i.e., Paul was speaking of how Jesus
was ac-tively upholding all things by fulfilling
them.
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and upholding all things bythe word of His
power
If we keep our in-terpretation in strict context,
this has reference to every-thing concerning
mans redemption down through the ages so lets
review the context ? ?
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In verse 2 it spoke of the Sons inheri-tance of
all things, all things relative to His becoming
Prophet, Priest, and King over His own kingdom or
house (cf. 36). Also, in direct connection to
that, in verse 2 it spoke of His arranging and
ordering the ages (cf. 113) to bring about our
redemption in the kingdom He was to establish and
rule over as the rightful Heir. (Arranging /or
ordering the physical universe has nothing to do
with our redemption.) Continuing on ? ?
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and upholding all things bythe word of His
power
In the phrase about Jesus being Gods image, Paul
spoke of how Jesus (obviously when He was human)
was the exact repli-ca of God. And why did He
come? To re-deem us. And lastly, in the followi
ng phrase of verse 3 ? ? ?
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and upholding all things bythe word of His
power
Paul spoke of our sins as cleansed by Jesus who
sat down at Gods right hand as our Priest
King. So how could the all things here allude
to the universe?
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and upholding all things bythe word of His
power
The Point Not only did God the Son ar-range and
order the ages (v. 2), but He also (especially at
the time of Hebrews) was upholding every-thing by
keeping His promises fulfilling all the
prophecies given throughout those ages,
conse-quently allowing Him to inherit all things.
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and upholding all things bythe word of His
power
The original term for word here is not lo-gos
but rhema (as in 113) which refers to a
command. This means that every-thing in
redemptive history was being sustained or
fulfilled by the authority of Gods Son
accord-ing to His plan. So
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and upholding all things bythe word of His
power
The same powerful Word that made the prophecies
and pro-mises was making good on all of them by
vindicating the church through or in Jerusalems
fall These are the days of vengeance when all
things which are written will be ful-filled
(Luke 2122).
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when He had by Himself purged our sins (cf.
1012) sat down at the right hand of the Majesty
on high.
Hebrews 13c ?
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when He had by Himself purged our sins (cf.
1012) sat down at the right hand of the Majesty
on high.
This means through or by means of Him-self, i.e.
His body.
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when He had by Himself purged our sins (cf.
1012) sat down at the right hand of the Majesty
on high.
This literally means that He purified us of (not
from) our sins.
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when He had by Himself purged our sins (cf.
1012) sat down at the right hand of the Majesty
on high.
To sit at the right hand of a ruler de-noted the
place of highest honor and authority (cf. Mat.
20 20-23).
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when He had by Himself purged our sins (cf.
1012) sat down at the right hand of the Majesty
on high.
This could literally be rendered the Majestic
One, an ob-vious reference to God the Father.
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when He had by Himself purged our sins (cf.
1012) sat down at the right hand of the Majesty
on high.
While 81 speaks of Jesus as He who is seated at
the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in
the heavens, 924 speaks of Him as being seat- ed
in Heaven itself. On High Heaven, while heavens
is a generic term which must be determined by
context.
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when He had by Himself purged our sins (cf.
1012) sat down at the right hand of the Majesty
on high.
This fact is significant for a couple reasons
This is a reference to Jesus taking over the
office of High Priest and instead of never
having the right to sit down as the Leviti-cal
priests in their tabernacle work, Je-sus did
does have the right to sit down (cf. Acts 756).
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Paul later wrote, Christ has not enter-ed the
holy places made with hands but into Heaven
itself, now to ap-pear in the presence of God for
us not that He should offer Himself often, as
the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every
year with the blood of anotherHe then would have
had to suffer often but now, once at the end of
the ages, He has appeared to put away sin by the
sacrifice of Him-self (Heb. 924-26).
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when He had by Himself purged our sins (cf.
1012) sat down at the right hand of the Majesty
on high.
Jesus sitting down at this point denoted that
such is where He would be while directing His
cam-paign against sin (what Revelation is all
about, cf. 1717), until all enemies would be put
under His feet.
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when He had by Himself purged our sins (cf.
1012) sat down at the right hand of the Majesty
on high.
In Hebrews 28 Paul wrote about all things being
subjected un-der Jesus feet and how that (at the
time of Hebrews) such had not yet occurred.
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So lets paraphrase Hebrews 11-3God the
Father, who in many parts and in different ways
previously spoke to the fathers through mere
prophets, has in the last of these Old Covenant
days, spoken to us by His Son, whom He has
appointed heir of all things promised and
prophesied, through whom He arranged and ordered
the ages, who being the very light of Gods glory
and the exact replica of who He is, and
maintaining all things by His powerful word, when
He had by Himself cleansed our sins, sat down at
Gods right hand on His throne in Heaven.
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Jesus is superior to the prophets for 7
reasons 1. Hes Gods final spokesmanProphet.
2. Hes heir of all things related to the king-
dom of promise. 3. Hes the One through/for
whom the ages were arranged and ordered.
4. Hes the One through whom everything was
fulfilled. 5. Hes Gods light and exact represen
tation. 6. Hes the One who cleansed our sins
Priest. And 7. Hes the One at Gods right ha
ndKing.