Weaver1has's Blog

I wrote a basic commentary a few years ago and my basic tools at the time were Philip Hughes commentary and Donald Guthries commentary from the Tyndale series.   I usually did this at the Weekends prayerfully.  Since then, I have been in charge of religious studies, Humanities and lower Maths.  I left the teaching world and did a basic carpentry degree at a college.  It feels good to offer wholesome biblical teaching to anyone who wants it.  Whatever you background, religious or non-religious I feel there is something for you.  What does the book of Hebrews mean to me?   At university King’s College London, I studied 1 Corinthians; 1 Peter; Galatians; Johns Gospel (unofficially).   I wanted to tread some new ground in the New Testament.  The Book of Hebrews was so different.  This book is a very early book, and it was written before the destruction of the Temple in AD 70.  A history teacher at a school I taught at said that historians use it for that time period as a primary text.  Although the book of Hebrews entered the cannon of Scripture under the name of Paul, the evidence I feel points to Apollos.  This book is a fantastic book to read but we need to do the spadework to really understand it.    As I share my early writings, I am at the same time revising some of my earlier work.   I will keep referring to the writer as Apollos because for two reasons.  I think there is enough evidence to make Apollos a strong contender from internal evidence in the New Testament.  Paul certainly did not write it; an example of this is how the book of Hebrews quotes scriptures ‘never in the style of St Paul’.   I hope in the future there are new discoveries on papyri archaeology that might shed more light on this.

Jesus is greater than Moses.

We have seen that Jesus is seen as the Son of God.  The writer has proven through scripture that Jesus is greater than the angels.  Jesus came from heaven and returned to heaven and will come back again one day to take his Church (bride).  Moses a very important person along with Elijah one night came to visit Jesus and some of the Apostles saw this.  I will quote this story because I think it sheds light on how Chrsitians from the 1^st and second centuries viewed Moses and Elijah

“The Transfiguration

17 Six days later, Jesus *took with Him Peter and [a]James, and his brother John, and *led them up on a high mountain by themselves. 2 And He was transfigured before them; and His face shone like the sun, and His garments became as white as light. 3 And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, talking with Him. 4 Peter responded and said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good that we are here. If You want, I will make three [b]tabernacles here: one for You, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” 5 While he was still speaking, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and behold, a voice from the cloud said, “This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to Him!” 6 When the disciples heard this, they fell [c]face down to the ground and were terrified. 7 And Jesus came to them and touched them and said, “Get up, and do not be afraid.” 8 And raising their eyes, they saw no one except Jesus Himself alone.” (From Bible gateway https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2017:1-8&version=NASB  )

As you can see: Here Jesus is referred to as the Son of God.  Note Moses and Elijah were witnesses but Jesus was seen in his divine glory.  Some of the Apostles witnessed this event.  When we think about this chapter, certainly Apollos would have known about this story.  In fact, I feel that Apollos is going to explain the real significance of Jesus glory and in relation to Moses.  Something that at the time, the Apostles themselves, didn’t wholly grasp (understand) themselves.

Jesus Our High Priest

1 Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the Apostle and High Priest of our confession; 2 He was faithful to Him who appointed Him, as Moses also was in all His house. 3 For He has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses, by just so much as the builder of the house has more honor than the house. 4 For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God. 5 Now Moses was faithful in all His house as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken later; 6 but Christ was faithful as a Son over His house—whose house we are, if we hold fast our confidence and the boast of our hope firm until the end. Hebrews 3:1-6

life and teachings of Christ, Chapter 3.

This chapter begins with a, therefore. This is important in light of everything that the writer has already said about Jesus in relation to the Father.  Jesus is referred to as ‘the Apostle’. The word literally means ‘sent forth’.  In other words, Jesus was sent directly from God.  God did not give Jesus a message ‘indirectly’ through an angel or other agency.  This point will become clearer as we work through the Moses material and Jesus’ position as greater than the angels.  So, then Jesus is not a high priest but he is The High Priest. Donald Guthrie made an important point here as well.  This is the only reference to Jesus as Apostle.   From that point of view Jesus was sent from the Father and then he appointed the twelve inferior weak apostles.  Although weak as ambassadors of Christ, the world would never be the same again.

Verse 1b ‘of our confession:  Obviously the Pharisees, Saducees, Scribes who did not accept Jesus as the Christ would disagree with the Apollos’ point of view.  Yet Apollos is using the first-person plural pronoun ‘our’… He is writing as one having the same point of view as the audience.  Yet in a sense the writer is not writing outside of the fold of Judaism otherwise his interpretation of Moses in relation to Jesus would not make sense.

In verses 2-6 we see a qualitative difference between Christ and Moses. Moses was a servant over the house of God, but Jesus is the Son of God as found in Psalm 2. 7.  A servant does not own a house and in that sense, he is always a guest… They were both faithful to God in their own way etc.  

Digging into the background of what Messiah really is: Let us just stop right here and consider what sonship is.  If we start at chapter 1 and work our way through, we will see how great Jesus our saviour is. The Messianic Psalm 2 that has already been quoted chapter 1 verse 5 straight from Psalm 2.  

The Reign of the LORD’S Anointed.

“1 Why are the nations in an uproar

And the peoples devising a vain thing?

2 The kings of the earth take their stand

And the rulers take counsel together

Against the LORD and against His Anointed, saying,

3 “Let us tear their fetters apart

And cast away their cords from us!”

4 He who sits in the heavens laughs,

The Lord scoffs at them.

5 Then He will speak to them in His anger

And terrify them in His fury, saying,

6 “But as for Me, I have installed My King

Upon Zion, My holy mountain.”

7 “I will surely tell of the decree of the LORD:

He said to Me, ‘You are My Son,

Today I have begotten You.

8 ‘Ask of Me, and I will surely give the nations as Your inheritance,

And the very ends of the earth as Your possession.

9 ‘You shall break them with a rod of iron,

You shall shatter them like earthenware.’”

10 Now therefore, O kings, show discernment;

Take warning, O judges of the earth.

11 Worship the LORD with reverence

And rejoice with trembling.

12 Do homage to the Son, that He not become angry, and you perish in the way,

For His wrath may soon be kindled.

How blessed are all who take refuge in Him!” Psalms 2 NASB

Sonship and Kingship are very powerful motifs from the Old Testament.  All Apollos is doing is showing to his readers what it means to be the Messiah.   Messiah, God’s anointed is above the mundane nations doing their things.  The Messiah is God’s chosen King. Jesus is the second person of the Trinity, and the full force of the Trinity is with him. In his divinity he is the second person of the Trinity. 

Obviously for Apollos to write in this strong way and having to prove that Jesus is above Moses possibly means that some of the readers may have been close to idolatry (The worship of Moses, putting him on a pedestal figuratively speaking).  I am here trying to mirror read the text.

Verse 3

There are contrasts going on in verse 3: For He has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses, by just so much as the builder of the house has more honor than the house. NASB

In the Greek then in this sentence the ‘He’ referring to Jesus is in the nominative and Moses is in the accusative.   Jesus is given the glory and Moses is a special servant, but he is still only a servant.  As Christians we ought to respect Moses and his teachings as he was a prophet and, in that sense, pointed us to Christ.  This is obvious from the Transfiguration that we looked at earlier.

So, the writer up to verse 4 has said that Jesus is greater than Moses…  In this verse the writer says God is the builder of everything in the universe.

In verse 5 the writer makes the important point that Moses was looking forward to the promise.

If I was going to paraphrase verse 6 I would say that whilst Moses looked forward to the promise ‘Jesus is the promise’ that Moses was looking forward to.  What a blessing for us to see Moses at the transfiguration with our Lord. 

In light of verse 6b where a great promise was given to Moses, ‘we’ as the readers are also asked to keep faith to the end of time.  The writer having spoken about Moses in relation to Christ and shown from the scriptures that Moses spoke about the Christ…  He then turns to an event from the life of Moses and is about to challenge the readers faith so that they will stop doubting.

Reflection

Apollos has proven that Jesus is greater than Moses.  As Christians we did not have a problem with this but before AD 70 believers did not have computers that they could go to check the facts.  Let us not be too judgmental of these early believers.  As Christians let us show respect to Moses and all the early Holy Ones that God spoke through.  We should also be thankful to the Jewish community who preserved these Scriptures as they are our Scriptures too.  I speak in this way because every human being has been created in the image of God.  We are all special in God’s sight.  Let us also love our Palestinian friends.  I hope and pray that in the future peace will come to everyone in the middle east.  Guns will be made into farming implements and the golden rule will reign amongst all human beings of whatever nationality or religion.

This entry was posted on May 29, 2021 at 10:54 pm and is filed under Hebrews course. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.