Chapter 2 ended the contrast between Jesus and the angels, and the conclusion offered explanations for Jesus becoming human. Chapter 3 picks up there, exhorting us to focus on Him, especially in light of His supremacy over Moses. The author’s Jewish audience may have been recently tempted to worship or rely heavily on angels, but their reverence for Moses was rooted much deeper, extending much farther back in Jewish history. So let’s take a look at the author’s explanation as to how Jesus is greater than Moses.
1) V1-6 – 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.
Since Jesus became human, just as we are, and since He was tempted, just as we are, and since He resisted sin where we failed to do so, He is able to help us in our times of temptation. “Therefore,” says the author of Hebrews, calling his audience “holy brothers, who share in the heavenly calling,” we must focus on Jesus. We must fix our thoughts on Him; later we will be told to fix our eyes on Him (Hebrews 12:1-2). He is “the apostle and high priest whom we confess.” In other words, we are acknowledging that He is the “sent One” of God; He is Messiah, the Christ, and, as our high priest, He is the only Mediator between us and God. It’s like Princess Laia, saying over and over again through the R2D2 recording, “Help me, Obi Wan Kenobi! You’re my only hope!” We need to have that kind of focus on Jesus. V2 explains why: “He was faithful to the One who appointed Him.” Jesus is faithful; He won’t fail. When we stayed fixed on Him, in thought and mind and eye and heart, we’re safe in Him.
Also in v2, the author, who has just acknowledged the perfect faithfulness of Jesus, says also that Moses was faithful in the same sort of way. Howard Fineman, a reasonably respected journalist recently wrote an article about the Louisville versus Kentucky basketball rivalry, since both teams made it to the 2012 Final Four and played each other in the semi-finals. In the article he compared the rivalry to a list of combatants: the Greeks vs. the Persians, Voldemort vs. Harry Potter, Grant vs. Lee, Reagan vs. the Evil Empire, and, surprisingly, Jesus vs. Moses. It was this final analogy that would not be understood by most of his audience. Jesus and Moses are not archrivals; they shouldn’t be competing with each other in any way, much less in the way of the others given in Fineman’s list. You could examine more closely these other rivalries and notice that two of them entail a sort of civil war (Grant and Lee literally, and Voldemort had part of himself in Harry). Others involve war between nations, either realized or “cold” (Greeks and Persians on the one hand, and Reagan versus the Evil Empire on the other). But there was none of that between Jesus and Moses, for they were not contemporaries on earth. Their ideologies could be seen to have caused war, and civil war at that (Jewish Jews vs. Christian Jews), in the first century AD, and my guess is that that is what Fineman had in mind, if he was thinking about it at all.
For the first century Jewish audience, they may have so esteemed Moses that he was crowding Jesus on the pedestal of their worship. Therefore, in v3, the Hebrews author says, “Jesus has been found worthy of greater honor than Moses, just as the builder of a house has greater honor than the house itself.” In other words, if Moses and his ministry – even the Old Covenant and its Law, which will be discussed later – are like a really nice, grand house or estate, then Jesus and His ministry – along with the New Covenant and its Grace – are the builder of the house and thereby deserve more honor. The author says, “God is the builder of everything” (v4), and he’s speaking of Jesus.
He doesn’t want to offend his audience though, so whereas it can be deemed that he refute the idea of worshipping angels as ridiculous – they’re just messengers serving God’s people – he acknowledges that Moses is due a certain level of honor for his faithful service, “testifying to what would be said in the future” (v5). But Jesus is still greater, because He is Lord of all, sovereign over everything, including Moses and his ministry. In fact, the house over which Jesus reigns not only includes us, but actually is us – “if,” says the author, “we hold on to our courage and the hope of which we boast” (v6). I can’t help but think of many Catholics, who pray to the various saints who are said to be over this or that. And I can’t help but think this illustrious instruction in Hebrews is clearly applicable for them. There are many saints who are worthy of honor for their lives of service to God, especially in one area or another. But Jesus is over all of them, so why not pray to Him? He is Lord of each saint, including us! So let’s say with Paul, “May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Galatians 6:14). Not even Moses has died for me. My hope, my courage, and my boast are in the Lord Jesus, and in no other name.
2) V7-14 – 7So, as the Holy Spirit says: “Today, if you hear His voice, 8do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion, during the time of testing in the desert, 9where your fathers tested and tried Me and for forty years saw what I did. 10That is why I was angry with that generation, and I said, ‘Their hearts are always going astray, and they have not known My ways.’ 11So I declared on oath in My anger, ‘They shall never enter My rest’” [Psalm 95:7-11]. 12See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. 13But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. 14We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first.
Since Jesus is greater than Moses, and since He is our only hope for salvation, we must not harden our hearts toward Him when the Holy Spirit calls. The author quotes a lengthy section of Psalm 95, which is a call to worship our great God with joyful thanksgiving, for He is a great King, the Rock of our salvation, our creator, sustainer, and shepherd. It’s also a warning not to foolishly despise the Lord, which is exactly what v12 instructs: “See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God.” Many will take this passage – and the others like it in Hebrews, which are all warnings to remain steadfast in the faith – and conclude that a believer can lose his salvation. It’s the argument against eternal security, which is the “once saved, always saved” idea. Let’s consider that.
Proponents of eternal security deny that a person who has been justified, who has had his sins forgiven and his sin debt paid by Christ, can never fall away from salvation. The reason is simple: Christ bought that person with His blood, and He cannot lose anything that God the Father has given Him. Because salvation is by grace through faith, the person who has received the gift of saving faith (by grace) will never lose it, though they may wax or wane in that faith over the course of their life. That person will steadily progress in sanctification, though no one has the same path as another, until glorification, which comes at death/the return of Jesus. On the other hand, opponents of eternal security claim that passages like this one reveal that believers can fall away from their faith, fall away from grace, and thereby fall away from salvation. Since believers are warned not to turn away from God, it must be possible to turn away from God. Usually, in this scenario, faith is seen not as a gift of God but as a human contribution to the equation of salvation, and since a person does the believing, that same person can stop believing too.
Usually in Scripture, when a warning is issued, it is a real warning. The purpose is to emphasize the human responsibility in perseverance. And usually, there is a reminder somewhere in the context of the warning passage that God is working by His Holy Spirit to preserve His elect in their saving faith in Christ. And that is true of this passage. We have noted the Old Testament quote in v7-11, and the elaboration of the warning in v12, which is a negative command (“Don’t turn away from God with a sinful, unbelieving heart”). But v13 serves as the positive command associated with the warning: “Encourage one another” constantly, or daily, in order to keep free from “sin’s deceitfulness.” Finally, v14 provides the context we need to completely understand the warning. If we persevere in our faith in Christ, then we are – and always were – true believers, those who “share in Christ.” By implication then, we can say, “If we don’t persevere in faith, then we never really were true believers.” We never had a share in Christ to lose. In the end, instead of supporting a denial of the doctrine of eternal security, this warning passage – and the others like it in Hebrews and elsewhere – confirm the truth of eternal security.
3) V15-19 – 15As has just been said: “Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion” [Psalm 95:7-8]. 16Who were they who heard and rebelled? Were they not all those Moses led out of Egypt? 17And with whom was He angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the desert? 18And to whom did God swear that they would never enter His rest if not to those who disobeyed [or disbelieved]? 19So we see that they were not able to enter, because of their unbelief.
The final passage of Hebrews 3 elaborates further on the Old Testament passage quoted above, examining the reality of those who hardened their hearts in unbelief in the wilderness. The author wants to be sure that his Jewish audience realizes that Jewish people were really unbelievers. It was an easy tendency in the first century (and today, for that matter) for Jews to think that they were in God’s favor simply because they were Jews. Again, I’m reminded of Catholics today. There are many people who so identify with Catholicism that they think merely being labeled a Catholic is enough for God’s favor to befall them in the end. And I’m sure that goes for many Protestant Christians as well.
Jesus takes up this heart and mind issue with the Jewish people in John 8:31-47. Prior to v31 in that passage, Jesus was speaking with the religious leaders, but in v31, we find Him speaking “to the Jews who had believed Him.” Throughout Jesus’ ministry, He constantly gathered and lost followers. People would go away when He taught something they couldn’t accept (John 6). Here, Jesus has garnered a group of “believers,” at least by label. But in the end, He reveals that their trust is in their label. They say, “We are not illegitimate children… The only Father we have is God Himself” (v41). They relied on their Jewish identity for value. But Jesus said they were children of the devil (v44), and explained that they could not believe in Him because they did not belong to God (v47). They thought they were safe; and they were proud because of it. But they didn’t realize that were “wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked” (Revelation 3:17).
The Hebrew author wants every believer to guard against that mentality. Don’t think you’re safe from God’s wrath just because you are labeled “Christian.” It’s not about a label; it’s not even about a profession; it’s all about a possession. Do you possess Christ? Does He possess you? All of you? If you believe the gospel today, if you hope in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins, if you trust Jesus to bring you into heaven when you die, then it’s because you belong to God. If you don’t, then it’s because you don’t belong to God. That’s the warning. But there’s a way out: “Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts” (v15; Psalm 95:7). Ask with the Philippian jailer in Acts 16:30, “What must I do to be saved?” The response is easy: “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved” (Acts 16:31). Romans 10:9-10 says, “If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.”
Footnotes
- 3:11 Psalm 95:7-11
- 3:15 Psalm 95:7,8
- 3:18 Or disbelieved
Bible text from Gospelcom.net. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society.