Green Baggins

“Therefore, holy brethren, sharers of the heavenly calling, carefully consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession: Jesus, who is faithful to the One who appointed Him, as Moses also was faithful in His entire house.”

We have seen that Jesus is superior to the prophets (1:1-3), and He is superior to the angels (1:4-2:18). We might think that Paul has proven everything that he needs to prove. However, there is one even greater (according to Jewish thinking) than the angels. Paul needs to prove that Jesus is even greater than Moses. Here is what an ancient Jewish rabbi said about Moses: “God calls Moses faithful in all His house, and thereby He ranked him higher than the ministering angels themselves.” So, if Jesus is even greater than Moses, then there is no one greater than Jesus. That is what Paul is now going to prove in chapter 3.

Paul starts by saying that Christians are holy (set apart from the world). “Brethren” here includes women. Paul tells us that we are sharers in the heavenly calling. Jesus is in heaven. Therefore our minds should be on the things of heaven. The next two words “carefully consider” are full of instruction. I am convinced that one of our greatest problems in the Christian life is that we will not delve deeply into who Christ is. We are a very superficial people, oftentimes, thinking that we know everything about Jesus that we need to know. These two words “carefully consider” mean that we should contemplate with a long and searching gaze who Jesus is. When we do that, we will find out that He is the Apostle of God, and He is our High Priest.

The word “apostle” means a person who is sent by someone else. Jesus is sent by God to accomplish the will of the Father. This is the only time in the New Testament where Jesus is called an apostle. What was He sent to do? He was sent to be our High Priest. He is the One who offers up the sacrifice (which is also Himself!) to the Father, that we might not have to suffer wrath. And, He is even now in heaven interceding for us.

This Apostle and High Priest is faithful. Utterly faithful. He was faithful to the One who appointed Him Apostle and High Priest (who is the Father). In fact, He was even more faithful than Moses was. Moses was a faithful Mediator. He interceded for the people even when it was inconvenient, even when, if he hadn’t interceded, he could have had blessing from God. Jesus is the same for us. And Jesus is also greater than Moses because Moses was a created being, whereas Jesus is the God-man. Is He your High Priest?

Greek:

ὅθεν ὤφειλεν κατὰ πάντα τοῖς ἀδελφοῖς ὁμοιωθῆναι, ἵνα ἐλεήμων γένηται καὶ πιστὸς ἀρχιερεὺς τὰ πρὸς τὸν θεόν, εἰς τὸ ἱλάσκεσθαι τὰς ἁμαρτίας τοῦ λαοῦ: ἐν ᾧ γὰρ πέπονθεν αὐτὸς πειρασθείς, δύναται τοῖς πειραζομένοις βοηθῆσαι.

Translation: “Whence it behooved Him to be made like His brothers in all ways, so that He might be a merciful and faithful high priest in the things related to God (especially for propitiation with regard to the sins of the people). Since He has suffered, having been tempted, He is able to help those being tempted.”

Paul just finished telling us that it is not angels that Jesus helps, but rather the seed of Abraham, which is the covenant people of God. So, if Jesus is going to do that, then He needs to be made like us in every way. Of course, this does not mean that Jesus was sinful. He did not inherit our sinful nature. However, Jesus did take upon Himself the guilt of our sin. Our sin was reckoned to Christ, as if Christ had done it, even though He didn’t.

Some people might wonder just how much like us He is, if He never sinned. Can He really sympathize with our weaknesses if He has never sinned? The answer is yes. We have not resisted sin to the bitter end. Jesus has. Satan tried every trick in the book to get Jesus to sin. Jesus faced every single temptation known to mankind, and yet resisted successfully.

One big word in these verses is “propitiation.” The word means to appease someone. We have to be careful here. It is not as if God is some kind of homocidal maniac, and Jesus placated Him. After all, it was God the Father who sent Jesus into the world to bear the guilt of our sin (though only those who trust in Christ have this forgiveness). We were, however, children of wrath, as Paul says elsewhere. That wrath was diverted from us to Christ when Christ took our sins upon Himself on the tree. And so now Christ is our High Priest. He can sympathize with us, because He has suffered under temptation, and has taken the guilt of our sin away. Is Jesus your Great High Priest?

Hebrews 2:10-13

Lewis and Clark were determined to find a passage to the Northwest. In order to do that, they had to find a way to cross the Rocky mountains. With determination, planning, and true grit, they crossed the Rocky mountains, and blazed a trail to the West.

The ark of the covenant contained the law of God. Two cherubim guarded the law, with their wings outstretched. They guarded the way to heaven. They continued the watch of the angel with the flaming sword in Genesis 3. This barrier to humanity was even more terrifying and impossible than crossing the Rocky mountains. What we need is a trailblazer. We can follow where someone else leads. Jesus is therefore our Pioneer. He has crossed the barrier into the Most Holy Place. Only He did not need to sacrifice for Himself, since He was perfect. He could therefore cross over into the heavens, opening the way for us.

The way He did this was to make us His siblings. The only way into the Most Holy Place is to be related to Jesus Christ by new birth. He accomplished this by being made perfect in suffering. Now, this does not mean that anything about Jesus the Person was perfected. It means that, as High Priest, he was perfected as to His office. He had fulfilled all righteousness.

And so, in being made perfect, Jesus sanctifies us, proving that we are indeed of one family. It is our kinship to Christ that is emphasized here above all else. Jesus is not ashamed to call us His brothers and sisters. Are we ashamed to acknowledge Him before the world?

Hebrews 2:8b-9 “In this putting everything in subjection to him, nothing was left that was not subjected. However, right now we do not see all things subjected to him. Rather, we see Jesus (who was for a little while made lower than angels) crowned with glory and honor on account of his suffering death, in order that, by the grace of God, He might taste death for everyone.”

After Paul quotes Psalm 8 and applies the Psalm to Christ, he talks about Christ’s reign over all things. Jesus Christ started to reign over all things when He was resurrected from the dead. All things are subjected to Him.

However, we do not see that right now, do we? We see many people who do not bow their knee to Jesus. We see many nations running pell-mell after idols of wealth and power. In fact, to say that Jesus reigns now seems like a very foolish thing to say! Paul realizes this and helps us by giving us a distinction: we can see with our physical eyes that not all things are subject to Jesus. However, we can see with our spiritual eyes that Jesus reigns in heaven. Paul is saying then, that our spiritual vision is more true to reality than our physical eyes, which often deceive us.

A second question that Paul addresses is whether Jesus is qualified to reign, given His humiliation on earth. Paul says that it was only for a little while, and that the exaltation of Christ completely wipes out the status of humiliation. He is now crowned as king.

Notice that Christ is crowned king because of His humiliation. Christ’s humiliation is His obedience even to the point of death, as Paul says in Philippians 2. God honored that obedience with resurrection. As one writer puts it, “The resurrection is God’s ‘Amen’ to Christ’s saying ‘It is finished.’”

Another point of interest: “tasting death” does not mean that Christ tasted death “just a little,” but rather that He tasted the full bitterness of the cup. The phrase does not belittle Christ’s experience of death, but rather heightens it.

One last point: “for everyone” does not mean everyone on the planet. Plainly, Christ’s death is a substitution. Since not everyone on the planet is saved, then the “everyone” is plainly limited. The following verses tell us who the “everyone” is: “many sons” in verse 10, and “His brothers” in verse 11. That is the “everyone” of verse 9. Jesus tasted death for all who believe, that we might not have to suffer a spiritual death, and might therefore have a bodily resurrection to which we can look forward, even as we experience spiritual resurrection when we come to faith in Christ.

This post consists of sermon notes on a sermon preached today by my former pastor, Rev. Patrick Morgan.

Hebrews 11:7 reads as follows: By faith Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, in reverent fear constructed an ark for the saving of his household. By this he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.

Notice in the context that faith is defined by verse 1: “the assurance of things hoped for, and the conviction of things unseen.” The faithful exhibit their lives as a testimony to unseen things. Abel did this by sacrificing by faith, trusting in The Sacrifice. Enoch walked with the God he could not see. Noah trusted that the Flood was coming, though he could not see it. Noah, Abel and Enoch all pleased God (that is, found grace in the eyes of the Lord).

Enoch contrasts with Noah somewhat, since Enoch was called out of this world to glorify God (by pre-figuring eternal life), whereas Noah was called to live out his life in the world.

Abel’s faith was persecuted, Enoch’s faith was death-defying, and Noah’s faith was reverent and full of godly fear. What role does a fearing faith play in our lives today?

Fear was the motivation for his faith. Fear in this context is not some kind of craven cowardice, but rather the Isaiah 6 kind of fear. It is the opposite fear to worldly fear, of which we must beware.

Noah’s fear was in accord with God’s righteousness. In other words, we must follow God without regard for our personal preferences, but must rather follow God out of reverent fear.

Noah’s fear was distrusting of himself. He did what God commanded. He did not try to reason in a human way such that his course of action would come more in line with what he thought was reasonable. Rather, he distrusted himself. We need to be unwilling to do things our way. Let’s build our ark the way God says to build it, not adding extra stories or windows. If we try to do things our way (i.e., without reverent fear) we will fail.

Noah’s fear produced obedience. There is the analogy here of Jesus’ mother at Cana. She said, “Whatever He says, do it.” Obedience is not primarily about perfection in this life, though that is certainly the goal which we reach (by God’s grace) at death. Obedience is rather about precision. Noah’s obedience was not an accident. No one can obey God by accident. It comes through a knowledge of the Word.

Noah obeyed God despite opposition. The tremendously evil world at the time of Noah surely opposed Noah, though the text does not say that they laughed at him. Noah also obeyed God when things changed. The ark was safe. So when God told him to get out of the ark, it might have been tempting for him to say, “Well, the ark has kept us safe so far: why should I leave it?” But that is not what he does. Instead, he just obeys. For us, then, we should be willing to change our broken understandings, knowing that God and His Word do not change.

When we obey, we see God’s will being done in our lives. In Noah’s case, for instance, we see his family saved, Noah vindicated (and the world condemned), and Noah receiving the righteousness of Christ.

Hebrews 2:8b-9 “Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him. But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.” (ESV)

What we looked at last time was the quotation from Psalm 8 in verses 6-8 of Hebrews 2. We saw that these verses were being applied to Christ, who is the perfect Man. What Psalm 8 originally speaks of as applying to mankind Paul applies to Jesus Christ. We see this application to Christ even more clearly in verses 8b-9, quoted at the beginning. What mankind was supposed to do but failed to do, Christ has done. He has done it by suffering on the cross, such that God would highly exalt Him.

Paul plainly sees the Psalm as fulfilled in Jesus Christ. However, there is just one tiny problem: we don’t see everything in subjection to Jesus! We see evil in this world. We see rebellion and sin. How is it that Paul can say that Psalm 8 refers to Christ in the past? The answer to that question lies in verse 9, where we see (with the eyes of faith) that Jesus is indeed crowned with glory and honor now. All things have in principle been put in subjection to Jesus. Certainly, death itself has been defeated and put under Christ’s feet. However, there is also a sense in which this has not happened yet. Death has not yet been thrown into the lake of fire (Revelation 20:14). Death has already been defeated, then, but has not yet been finally destroyed.

Already…not yet. Welcome to the Christian life. We are already saved, if we believe and trust in Christ Jesus. We are not yet saved from sin completely and utterly. We are already justified, if we trust in Jesus Christ. We have not yet been declared to the whole world that we are justified. We are currently passing from one glory into another. We already have a glory of sorts. But we have not yet been fully glorified. This “already…not yet” tension is what Paul describes in Romans 7 and helps us to understand why Paul, as a Christian, still struggles with sin. Understanding this tension can help us to avoid despair, on the one hand. God allows us to struggle with the “not yet” so that we will depend on Him more fully. But God also gives us the “already” so that He can give us the strength to fight against sin and temptation. We are already more than conquerors: we are kings. But not everything is in subjection to us yet, either.

“Now it was not to angels that God subjected the world to come, of which we are speaking. I has been testified somewhere, ‘What is man, that you are mindful of him, or the son of man, that you care for him? You made him for a little while lower than the angels; you have crowned him with glory and honor, putting everything in subjection under his feet.’”

Paul now comes to talk about possible objections that Jews might have to Christ being the Messiah. Jews believed that angels were superior to humanity. Therefore, Jesus’ claim to be God would seem rather silly to a Jew who saw, as plain as day, that Jesus was a man. If angels are superior to humanity, and Jesus was a man, then clearly angels are superior to Jesus Christ, according to their way of thinking.

Paul means to respond to this objection by “taking the wind out of their sails.” He wishes to prove that humanity is actually more privileged than angels, since it is to humanity that the future world will be subjected. He goes to Psalm 8 to prove this statement. Psalm 8, however, doesn’t seem to be about Jesus. Why does Paul quote it in reference to Jesus? Is he misinterpreting Psalm 8? No, he is not misquoting. The reason that Paul is not misquoting Psalm 8 is that Jesus represents humanity. Jesus is the Man, par excellence. So the Psalm, in talking about humanity, is also talking about Jesus as He is the representative of humanity.

One very interesting detail that should be pointed out is that the original Hebrew text of Psalm 8 reads as follows: “You made him a little lower than the angels,” whereas Paul here quotes it as saying “You made him for a little while lower than the angels.” Paul quotes the Greek translation of Psalm 8. The Greek translation could mean either. However, in this case, Paul is clearly referring to the time of Christ’s humiliation on earth. Therefore, he quotes it as saying “for a little while.” Again, this is not misquotation. Rather, it is a selective quotation intended to make a theological point: Jesus was for a while lower than the angels, but has since been exalted far beyond the angels.” That answers the Jews’ objections rather nicely.

Do we see Jesus as a mere man? Does Christ’s life on earth bother us? Does that make Him in any way less than God? These questions are answered for us here.

Here is my evening sermon for today. I didn’t have time to read for my Matthew series. So I wrote a sermon on a passage for which I had already done my reading (I had a funeral and two days of jury duty this week, so time was thin).

Hebrews 1:1-4

When the preacher’s car broke down on a country road, he walked to a nearby roadhouse to use the phone. After calling for a tow truck, he spotted his old friend, Frank, drunk and shabbily dressed at the bar. “What happened to you, Frank?” asked the good reverend. “You used to be rich.” Frank told a sad tale of bad investments that had led to his downfall. “Go home,” the preacher said. “Open your Bible at random, stick your finger on the page and there will be God’s answer.” Some time later, the preacher bumped into Frank, who was wearing a Gucci suit, sporting a Rolex watch and had just stepped our of a Mercedes. “Frank.” said the preacher, “I am glad to see things really turned around for you.” “Yes, preacher, and I owe it all to you,” said Frank. “I opened my Bible, put my finger down on the page and there was the answer — Chapter 11.”

The question for us is this: how has God spoken to us? Does He speak to us in some haphazard manner as the preacher told Frank to do? Does God speak to us in dreams or visions? Does God speak to us by prophets? Or does God speak to us in Jesus Christ? That is what our passage is about today.

The passage here means to set up a series of contrasts. The first contrast is one of timing. The text says “In the past,” and then in the beginning of verse 2 it says “in these last days.” The answer to how God has spoken to us depends greatly on what time it is. If you were living in OT times, then you would have had a great many different ways of receiving God’s revelation. There were dreams, and visions, prophets who acted out God’s message in drama, and other ways. But in the NT times, the “last days,” there is only way of revelation, and that is Jesus Christ.

Notice that the phrase “these last days” refers to the here and now. It is not the case that the last days refers mostly to the few days immediately before Christ comes back. Normally, we talk about those last days using the word “eschatology.” That comes from the Greek word “eschatos,” which means “last.” But that very word “eschatos” is used here to describe the days in which we now live. Here and now is what is called “these last days.” So the study of the last things, normally called “eschatology” should also include the study of the days in which we now live. We are living in the last days. Christ could come back at any time. We are always to regard the time in which we now live as the last days. That was true for the writer of Hebrews, writing two thousand years ago! So that is the first contrast: the contrast of time.

The second contrast is the recipients of God’s revelation. In the old days, God spoke to our forefathers. But in these last days, God has spoken to us. Isn’t it marvelous that we live in the time period of the New Testament? We have so much more than the people of the OT time period had. They had Moses and the prophets. That was sufficient for salvation in those days. But now we have so much more clarity. Not only do we have the NT, which explicitly tells us about Christ, but also the NT helps us understand our OT better. Now we can reread the OT and see that Christ was there all along. Isn’t it great to be part of the NT family of God? How often have you thanked God that you live on this side of the cross of Christ? How often have you thanked God for this now completed book? Thanking God for the Bible, of course, is not enough. One must read it, too. By reading, I mean more than just reading, I mean studying it. Ask questions of this Book. It will answer, I assure you. God may use a tool, such as a dictionary or a commentary in order to answer your question. But if you keep on asking God what He is saying, He will answer. It is not presumption to ask questions of Scripture. After all, many people ask God questions in the Bible. God does not shoo them away as if they were impious. No, He answers them. He may not answer them in the way that they expect. But it is not a sin to ask questions, even hard questions.

We say that the Bible is clear. That means that what is necessary to know about salvation is clear. You don’t have to have a degree in theology in order to understand what Scripture says about salvation. That much is clear. You just need to read it for yourself to find out that fact. However, not everything in Scripture is clear. There are many things that are difficult to understand. No one has ever understood everything that there is to know about Scripture. Scripture has infinite depths of riches for us to mine. One could spend a thousand lifetimes in pursuit of knowledge of Scripture, and never come to the end of it. But that should encourage us to study it more, not less. There are many people out there who think that since they have read it once, they don’t have to read it again. Those are very foolish people. The Bible is never done with us as Christians. It is God who speaks to us. We will never know all there is to know, but we are encouraged to try. We should be students, and we should revel in it! That is the greatest benefit of living in the NT era: we have the entire Word of God, all in one place, and in our own language. There are still many people out there who do not have this book in their language. That number of people is becoming less and less. The Bible exists in many more than a thousand languages today. That is well past the half-way point. However, there are still many people who cannot read it. We who are thankful for having the Bible in our language should make sure that we are helping people to get it in their language. To restate the second contrast here then, the forefathers, as opposed to us.

The third contrast is the means of revelation. In the old days, God revealed Himself through various means. There were dreams, prophecies, visions, acts, dramas, interpretation of dreams, and others. But in these last days, there is only one way of knowing about God: that is through Jesus Christ. In the old days, there were prophets. Now there is one Prophet. Deuteronomy 18 says this: “The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers- it is to him you shall listen- ¹⁶ just as you desired of the LORD your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly, when you said, ‘Let me not hear again the voice of the LORD my God or see this great fire any more, lest I die.’ ¹⁷ And the LORD said to me, ‘They are right in what they have spoken. ¹⁸ I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. ¹⁹ And whoever will not listen to my words that he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him. ²⁰ But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name that I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that same prophet shall die.’ ²¹ And if you say in your heart, ‘How may we know the word that the LORD has not spoken?’- ²² when a prophet speaks in the name of the LORD, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the LORD has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You need not be afraid of him.” Whatever comes true. Everything in the Bible has either come true, or will come true. You can know then that this is the Word of God. The OT tells us about Jesus Christ, and then came Jesus Christ! Psalm 22 even tells us how Jesus was to die, and that is exactly how He died. In Matthew, there have been already many times that we have seen how Matthew points to the OT Scriptures to say, “This was to fulfill what was spoken through the Scriptures.” The Word comes true, and therefore we should believe it. It comes true especially since Jesus, the great Prophet, told us about it. He is the Prophet to Whom we should listen. That is the third contrast: the contrast between the means used in the old days, and Jesus, the One to Whom they all pointed.

So, in sum, we have seen that there are three contrasts: between the old days and these last days; between the forefathers and us; and between the various means used in the old days and Jesus Christ.

What ultimate difference does this make? Well, some of the practical implications have been spelled out already in terms of Bible study and Bible translation. But the most important thing is still to be said: we must believe in what Jesus tells us. That is simple, but it is far-reaching. If God were to take human shape and appear on your doorstep, what would be your reaction? Would you leave Him on your doorstep, or would you invite Him into your house? Let’s put it another way. Suppose the President of the United States wanted to come to your house. What would be your reaction? Would you leave the house in a mess? Would you cook TV dinners? No, you wouldn’t. Instead, you would carefully clean your house, and everything else you possess. You would put on your very best behavior, and you would cook a feast of your very best dishes. But how do we treat God’s Word? We leave it out of our lives! It has very little influence on how we make our decisions every day. It has very little influence on our big decisions either. Instead, we see it as a sort of insurance policy to guard us in case of death or bereavement. Of course, it is a wonderful help in such times. But the meat of what the Word is telling us has to do with our everyday lives. It has to do with how we treat God and how we treat our neighbor. It has to do with our inward life and our outward life. It has to do with our checkbook and with our spiritual life. It has everything to say about marriage and child-rearing. It tells us about wisdom with words and wisdom in our thoughts. There is no area of life about which this Book is silent. Are you listening?