Month: November 2009

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters. I thank everyone again for their prayers and I ask that you keep them up please. Things seem to be on an emotional roller coaster here. I don’t want to give too many details, but I’m just waiting for things to get back to a joyous way I remember. Anyhow, let’s get back to the text. Tonight, we’re going to start Hebrews 3. We’re going to be looking at verses 1-6.

¹Therefore, holy brothers, who share in the heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus, the apostle and high priest whom we confess. ²He was faithful to the one who appointed him, just as Moses was faithful in all God’s house. ³Jesus has been found worthy of greater honor than Moses, just as the builder of a house has greater honor than the house itself. ⁴For every house is built by someone, but God is the builder of everything.⁵Moses was faithful as a servant in all God’s house, testifying to what would be said in the future. ⁶But Christ is faithful as a son over God’s house. And we are his house, if we hold on to our courage and the hope of which we boast.

I said at the beginning that in the church the writer of the Hebrews was addressing, they had a system of mediators set up who interceded for them with God. Angels were one such group of mediators. Another one was Moses. The writer moves on to tackle this one.

Jesus is here seen as the high priest and apostle. This is the only time he’s called an apostle, which means a sent one. Jesus was sent by God. High priest will be a theme played throughout this book and it will be one addressed further later on.

Now a comparison is made to Moses. Jesus was found faithful to YHWH just as Moses was. However, Jesus is worthy of even greater honor than Moses. The writer makes the comparison to the builder of the house being greater than the house that is built.

If there is a house, it is built by someone. God, however, is the builder of everything so what about Moses? It is obvious that God is greater than the house that is built since a builder is greater than the house as the Hebrews writer has said. (The writers of the New Testament were quite logical in their argumentation.)

Moses was faithful in all of God’s house. In other words, Moses was a servant of YHWH, but his position was just limited to being within the house. However, it is at this point that we find the distinction between him and Christ.

Christ is the one who is not a servant in the house, but he is rather over the house, which could be referring to him as builder of the house as well. The writer then tells us that we are members of that house which also would include Moses. The point in the comparison is that Jesus is not just a servant of the house. He is not even a member of the house. He is put in charge of the house and so is therefore greater than the servants in the house, including Moses.

Conclusion then: Do not reject the mediator of Jesus for that of Moses. Jesus is far greater.

 

Hello everyone. Welcome back to Deeper Waters. We are going through our Trinitarian commentary on the Bible now and in the New Testament and more specifically, in the epistle to the Hebrews. I also thank you all for your continued prayers as I am working on learning more in an area that I need to learn more in. Keep them up please. Going to the text however, we’ll be looking at chapter 2, verses 14-18.

¹⁴Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil— ¹⁵and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. ¹⁶For surely it is not angels he helps, but Abraham’s descendants. ¹⁷For this reason he had to be made like his brothers in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. ¹⁸Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.

In the work of salvation, those who Christ came to save have flesh and blood. In order to save them then, he became like them. Note that he became like them in that he was fully human but he was also without sin. It is not essential to being human that we be sinners. We just all happen to be. Jesus is the one who lived a truly human life in that he acted the way a human is supposed to act. The rest of us act less than human.

He came to save those who were held in slavery by their fear of death. Death has always been scary as its been the unknown. It is because of Christ that we can say that it is no longer the unknown but rather the known. Now we do not know it yet in the way of personal experience, but we do know it in the way of having information from one who has been there, which would be Christ of course.

Christ does not help angels but Abraham’s descendants, indicating that angels are beyond salvation. That’s because angels do not share a common essence. Humans do. Each angel is its own species essentially. Michael exhausts all that it means to be the archangel Michael. For Christ to save angels, he would have to become each angel. For us, he can partake in a common essence as we can be differentiated by matter.

It is because of this that he is able to be a high priest for us. He took on the temptations that we face every day and yet, he overcame them. Now this doesn’t mean that he faced every temptation, but rather that he faced every kind of temptation that there is. He overcame and because he did such, he is able to help us when we are being tempted. He is also able to make atonement for us for he alone is the pure and spotless one.

And that should be a comfort to all of us.

 

Hello everyone. I hope everyone enjoyed going through old blogs while I was away and I do see that several of you appreciated my tribute to the Curtmudgeon. We all miss him and we’ll see him again someday, but I am sure if there’s one thing he’d want, it’d be for me to keep going on my blog and teach the Trinity. He was always caring for others after all. I thank you all for your prayers as well as I’m having to overcome a lot of self-doubt and fear and anxiety and other such things. I ask for your continued prayers as I overcome this greatest hurdle in my life. For now, let’s get to the Trinitarian text for tonight, Hebrews 2:10-13.

¹⁰In bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering. ¹¹Both the one who makes men holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers. ¹²He says,
“I will declare your name to my brothers;
in the presence of the congregation I will sing your praises.” ¹³And again,
“I will put my trust in him.” And again he says,
“Here am I, and the children God has given me.”

Perfect through suffering? It’s a thought we don’t like to think about. When you are going through suffering, it isn’t always comforting to know that this will be used for good. Many of us would say “Forget the future good and just end my pain now!”

But how is Jesus made perfect? Jesus is made perfect not in an ontological sense but in the sense that he is entirely human and undergoes the gamut of human suffering. He is the one who truly lives a human life and he lived one of intense suffering. The very Son of God in Isaiah 53 after all is described as a man of sorrows.

We are also of the same family as we are called the brothers of Christ. Now this is not in the sense of brothers by nature but brothers by adoption. He is holy and we are made holy. He is holy by his nature as the Son of God and we are made holy by participating in his holiness.

Jesus is seen as the missionary here as it were coming to his brothers and saying that he will declare God’s name to them. Jesus was the only one who could truly do this because he is the only one who truly knows the name of God.

The next two verses go together. They are from Isaiah 8 calling the people of Israel to remember that their God is the one they are to regard as holy. Holiness as we will see is a constant theme throughout the book of Hebrews as it should be a theme throughout the life of the Christian. It is by putting our trust in YHWH that we are made holy and then are made children of God that come before him through Christ.

We shall continue with more in Hebrews tomorrow.