We’ve now been through the first four chapters of Hebrews. Chapter 1 used the Scriptures to demonstrate Christ’s supremacy over angels. Chapter 2 introduced the idea of Christ as mediator between man and God. Chapter 3 allegorized from Psalm 95 to the author’s own audience of Jewish Christians, pointing out that the same dangers faced both. In last week’s article focusing on Hebrews 4, we left off in a somewhat dismal and terrifying place—Israel’s rebellion forming an ominous warning for Christians today, lest we “fall by the same sort of disobedience” (He 4.11) and consequently be denied entry into God’s eternal, promised rest (cf. v1). But it was not the author’s goal to leave us terrified—at least, not at this juncture. Yes, he issued the warning, but he followed it by returning to the observation that Jesus lives to mediate between God and his rebellious people.

Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

(Hebrews 4.14-16)

The author returns now to the point he teased around the end of chapter 2—Jesus is our high priest. He has plenty more to say about this, but before he dissects the idea and its implications, he goes to the practical endpoint—he is our mediator, and a far more effective one than any other high priest! As a result, we can approach God’s throne with “confidence.” The Greek word behind this is παρρησία-parrēsia, which conveys boldness and frankness of speech. The idea is that we don’t need to be afraid of offending God with our weaknesses and unsavory characteristics, because our mediator, while not sharing our faults, has matched, and even exceeded our human experience of suffering and weakness. As a result, he can effectively petition his Father on our behalf, and help us to find mercy and grace when we need it.

The author continues, laying out the duties of a priest, which both Jesus and the Levites carried out for God’s people.

For every high priest chosen from among men is appointed to act on behalf of men in relation to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. He can deal gently with the ignorant and wayward, since he himself is beset with weakness. Because of this he is obligated to offer sacrifice for his own sins just as he does for those of the people. And no one takes this honor for himself, but only when called by God, just as Aaron was.

(Hebrews 5.1-4)

Living in a society with a priesthood and sacrifices, the audience may very well take them for granted, and fail to fully recognize the basis for the priestly role. The whole point is to mediate between man and God, because each man has obligations toward God, which he can’t fulfill on his own behalf. The sinful man, for example, has a duty to seek forgiveness and reconciliation with God, whose laws he has transgressed. But he lacks the standing to appear before God and make that request, on account of the very sin for which he needs to atone! There are other factors, too; but this one demonstrates man’s impossible position before God.

Aaron and his descendants were guilty of their own sins, and so couldn’t fully mediate between the righteous God and the wicked sinner. But Jesus both understands the sinner’s weakness, and has conquered those same weaknesses, remaining holy! This makes him the perfect choice for priesthood. This seemed like a new idea. No other New Testament book labels Jesus this way! And yet the author of Hebrews isn’t inventing it of his own accord; it was revealed by the Holy Spirit. In fact, it was revealed a thousand years before Christ was born.

The Lord has sworn

        and will not change his mind,

“You are a priest forever

        after the order of Melchizedek.”

(Psalm 110.4)

The author of Hebrews recognized this (cf. 5.6), but he seems to have been the only one to take note, up to that time. In sorting out the implications of Jesus’ priestly office, he does not disappoint!

In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence. Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him, being designated by God a high priest after the order of Melchizedek.

(Hebrews 5.7-10)

He fulfilled several priestly duties, but the ones most important to us culminate in our eternal reconciliation to God—“salvation,” for those who throw themselves on his mercy, accept his mediation, and submit will and body to his instructions.

Perhaps you can tell that the author is not done with this point; in fact, his next few words are, “About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing” (v11). This will introduce a digression that spans the remainder of chapter 5 and all of chapter 6, before he deftly segues back to the topic by means of the same old quotation, reminding us of Jesus’ priestly order. But for now, just consider that Jesus—God’s own Son—took on human form and learned what it’s like to will something different from his heavenly Father, and yet obey him anyway. How much more do we owe the Father our obedience, who have nothing to offer him, no rights before him, and only a record of rebellion tied to our names?

Jeremy Nettles

We’ve recently considered the first three chapters of Hebrews. The first chapter asserted that Christ is better than angels; the second made the somewhat obvious observation that he’s better than we are, too—but also that his similarity to us makes him the ideal mediator between us and God. In the third chapter the author began by extending the comparison to Moses, but his method of doing so seemed to take a rapid left turn, into a detailed exegesis of the final section of Psalm 95, making an allegory between the rebellious Israelites, and the Jewish Christians of the author’s own time, who were in danger of repeating their ancestors’ mistake—rebellion growing out of “an evil, unbelieving heart” (He 3.12). As the previous installment predicted, chapter 4 will go even further in applying the ancient Psalm to today’s Christians.

Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it.

(Hebrews 4.1)

Already by this point, the author’s original audience would have been cocking their heads and raising eyebrows. A nice rhetorical tidbit that makes little impression on today’s listeners introduces this chapter. Steeped as we are in two thousand years of Christian thought and tradition, we consider heaven and hell to be basic knowledge, needing little or no explanation. Not so, for the first generations of Christians, for whom “eternal judgment” was an “elementary doctrine” (6.1-2), but whose notion of how exactly that judgment will be carried out, was less clearly defined. So for the author to assert that this promise of “rest” directly applied to his audience of Christians would be a significant leap, one requiring explanation. The author feels this obligation, and so he clarifies:

For good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened. For we who have believed enter that rest, as he has said,

“As I swore in my wrath,

                        ‘They shall not enter my rest,’”

although his works were finished from the foundation of the world. For he has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way: “And God rested on the seventh day from all his works.” And again in this passage he said,

        “They shall not enter my rest.”

(Hebrews 4.2-5)

First, he draws the comparison between ancient Israel and God’s people of the author’s own day. Both received a sort of gospel (“good news,” v2), their response to which led either to “benefit” or to “wrath,” depending on whether the hearers believed and complied—the main point of the previous chapter. Then, he makes two subtle points by repeating the Psalm’s final line.

The first point is that the “rest” denied to the audience’s forefathers was not really the promised land, although that was the earthly focus at the time (cf. Jos 22.4 et al.). Rather, it was God’s rest, which most naturally refers to the first Sabbath, following six days of creation in the opening chapters of Genesis. That is truly a rest worth entering!

The second point is even more subtle. In recounting their forefathers’ rebellion and punishment, we might have expected the much later psalmist to say on God’s behalf, “they did not enter my rest.” Yet both the future tense “shall,” and the psalmist’s use of a long-dead generation’s penalty to admonish his own, later audience, indicate that the door to this “rest” has not been closed off! Our author develops this point in the next section as well:

Since therefore it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience, again he appoints a certain day, “Today,” saying through David so long afterward, in the words already quoted,

“Today, if you hear his voice,

                        do not harden your hearts.”

For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on. So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.

(Hebrews 4.6-10)

Although none of this seems particularly controversial to Christians today, the author of Hebrews did not consider these points to be widely accepted among his initial audience. His argument seems a bit repetitive and overly thorough to us, but that’s because he was introducing a new concept at the time—not that an eternal reward or penalty awaits each of us, which was already accepted, as we discussed above; but rather that Psalm 95 testifies about that reward, and that its warning applies equally in our time, as in David’s. This is why he follows this lengthy exegesis with a statement about God’s word that we typically extract from its context:

For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

(Hebrews 4.12-13)

In speaking of “the word of God,” partly he’s referring to the “message” of v2, which “did not benefit” Israel’s rebellious forefathers; but mostly he wants Christians to recognize that the Old Testament Scriptures are just as much alive and effective now, as in the days of Moses and David! We must heed them. In the case of Psalm 95, that means guarding against hardened and erring hearts, which will soon overflow into rebellion, inviting wrath. Fleeing this bad example,

Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.

(Hebrews 4.11)

Jeremy Nettles

Centuries after God’s forceful intervention allowed Israel to finally kick its idolatry habit, they had a new problem. Long past were the days of David and Solomon, who ruled not only Israel’s inherited lands, but most of their neighbors as well. Now they were oppressed by Rome, and even their supposedly native king Herod was really descended from Edomites. God had made promises to send David back to them and rekindle the old glory, but hope was wearing thin, and the old, bloated institutions seemed to be losing their relevance in the modern world. One day in the midst of this frustration, a nobody priest finally got his turn to perform the ritual incense offering during yet another hour of prayer, when an angel appeared to him in the temple’s holy place, terrifying the old man.

But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard…”

(Luke 1.13)

Months later, a young woman of a hated town in a hated region was looking forward to her marriage with a local carpenter. She was of the royal lineage, but it didn’t seem to be doing her much good. Her name was the same as seemingly every other young Jewish woman, and her fiancé, a simple carpenter, couldn’t be expected to raise her station in life much. She was a nobody from nowhere, utterly unimportant, until the same angel who’d spoken to Zechariah also confronted her, troubling her greatly (Lk 1.29). But he

said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.”

(Luke 1.30)

A few months later again, the carpenter discovered a problem—his fiancée was pregnant. He knew he couldn’t possibly be the child’s father, so he faced a dilemma. He genuinely cared for Mary. Discovering that she’d been unfaithful to him had not erased his love for her, but this was someone else’s child! The carpenter was another no one from nowhere, deeply conscious of his own royal lineage, but rather than becoming bitter over his family’s decline, he was a just and conscientious man. He’d been dealt a major blow when Mary could no longer hide her baby bump from him, but he decided to spare her as much shame as possible and initiate a quiet divorce. Then

an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife…”

(Matthew 1.20)

Thirty-some years later, some women got up early the day after Sabbath and went to visit a tomb occupied by the remains of a man recently executed. He was the child born of Mary and raised by Joseph. He had grown up, taken over the family business, then left it for a short career of public preaching, whose business model seemed to include accepting occasional donations, and then giving away far more than he ever received, in effort, time, and care as well as money. Against all odds he’d actually made quite a stir with the common people, and eventually had been recognized by the Jewish authorities as a threat to their status—so they killed him. A few women, more nobodies who’d been deeply affected by his teaching, wanted to show one last kindness to his memory—the completion of the burial rites that had been interrupted by the Sabbath. Instead of the body they sought, they found an angel with a terrifying appearance, but who

said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here, for he has risen…”

(Matthew 28.5-6)

Almost thirty more years had passed, when a political prisoner stood on a doomed ship surrounded by despairing men exhausted from several days vainly attempting to ride out a horrible storm on the Mediterranean Sea. His life hadn’t started out this way. He’d been the golden boy, smart as a whip, a rule-follower, a hard worker, with all the self-assurance of a well-maned lion. Due to his age he hadn’t yet risen to a real leadership post in Jerusalem, but he was clearly on his way. An unsentimental go-getter, he’d done every task given to him with zeal, and asked for more. Then, following a strange incident while traveling through the desert one day, it all changed. He traded honor for anonymity, going home to Tarsus, becoming a nobody. When he finally crawled back out of his hole, he was subjected to outright scorn. Former friends turned against him, even conspiring to kill him. He’d been arrested on trumped-up charges, imprisoned without a real trial for years, and now, finally on his way to force a verdict, even the common sailors and soldiers had ignored his warning and foolishly sailed off into this mess, leaving no hope for survival. But an angel appeared to the man,

and he said, “Do not be afraid, Paul; you must stand before Caesar…”

(Acts 27.24)

§

It’s not that fear is never appropriate. It’s not even that God doesn’t want us to fear him—his word tells us directly, “Fear God” (1Pe 2.17). But while he wants us to regard him, respect him, and acknowledge his power to reward and punish, he doesn’t want fear to be the sum of our relationship. The better we know him, the better we see that his will is for our good, and that his goal is to empower us, not frighten us, “for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control” (2Ti 1.7). When we surrender to God, we find his fearsomeness a comfort. Because of it, we have no reason to fear the dangers of this world. In fact, if we’re on God’s side, our enemies should be afraid of us!

The Lord is my light and my salvation;

        whom shall I fear?

The Lord is the stronghold of my life;

        of whom shall I be afraid?

(Psalm 27.1)

Jeremy Nettles

We’ve considered the first two chapters of Hebrews over the last two months. The first chapter focused on Christ’s superiority to angels and other messengers. Chapter 2 extended the comparison to us, illuminating not only Jesus’ superiority over us, but his similarity to us, at the same time. This was a valuable insight all its own, but the author was driving at the next point—that Jesus, because he relates perfectly both to man and to God, is the perfect mediator between us.

Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.

(Hebrews 2.17)

Of course, this unknown author is a bit of a tease—although this observation seems plain to us now, it is made in no other book of the New Testament! In the next chapter, he begins by restating the priesthood of Jesus.

Therefore, holy brothers, you who share in a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession, who was faithful to him who appointed him, just as Moses also was faithful in all God’s house.

(Hebrews 3.1-2)

That’s right, he just leaves it there, ignoring that his audience wants to hear more about Jesus’ priesthood, which is surely a new concept for them despite making a great deal of sense! He’ll get back to it after a while, and develop the point over several chapters, but for now, he just moves on to talking about Moses! His point is, first, that Jesus repeats Moses’ faithfulness, and he’s still following the same pattern he established chapters 1 and 2, where he quoted Old Testament passages to establish each point. He doesn’t mention that he’s doing so here, but he’s clearly paraphrasing the Scripture—

“Not so with my servant Moses. He is faithful in all my house.”

(Numbers 12.7)

Yet, as Jesus outshone angels despite his similarities to them, he also surpassed Moses.

For Jesus has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses—as much more glory as the builder of a house has more honor than the house itself. (For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.) Now Moses was faithful in all God’s house as a servant, to testify to the things that were to be spoken later, but Christ is faithful over God’s house as a son. And we are his house, if indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope.

(Hebrews 3.3-6)

For a Jewish audience, it was a bold move to declare anyone greater than Moses—that was one of the charges that led to Stephen’s murder, after all (Ac 6.11)! It should have been perfectly acceptable to Jewish Christians, of course—but the purpose of this book is to dissuade them from taking their hearts back from Jesus, to go after Moses again.

The author’s next point in pursuit of that goal, is to draw his audience’s attention to the need for perseverance, and the alarming possibility of losing their promised reward. He does this by—again—quoting from the Old Testament, this time Psalm 95.

Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says,

“Today, if you hear his voice,

do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion,

        on the day of testing in the wilderness,

where your fathers put me to the test

        and saw my works for forty years.

Therefore I was provoked with that generation,

and said, ‘They always go astray in their heart;

        they have not known my ways.’

As I swore in my wrath,

        ‘They shall not enter my rest.’”

(Hebrews 3.7-11)

He’ll really drop the hammer on them in the next chapter, telling them that this psalm was written for them, not just their ancestors; but for now he contents himself to pretend he’s merely creating an allegory between the ancient psalm, and their present needs.

Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

(Hebrews 3.12-13)

His audience knows the old stories. They were raised on them! Their fathers rebelled against God time and time again. David was raised on them, too, and he used their bad example as a warning to God’s people in his own time, that “today” they should guard their hearts against rebellious attitudes toward God. Following David’s example, the author extends the warning to his brothers and sisters, who had more to lose than David could have understood.

For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end. As it is said,

        “Today, if you hear his voice,

        do not harden your hearts as in the

                        rebellion.”

(Hebrews 3.14-15)

What’s the connection between observation and quotation? He means that David’s later admonition for Israel not to follow the bad example of their forefathers, implies that they faced a similar danger of being judged unfaithful and shut out. Their fathers lost their inheritance when they hardened their hearts against God, and Christians “today” are subject to the same risk. They know to avoid open rebellion, but rebellion begins as a hardening of the heart. That’s this chapter’s final point, relying on the ambiguity of the Greek verb πείθομαι-peithomai. In its negative form (ἀπειθέω) it usually implies action—disobedience. But the root means to be convinced, or persuaded, tying outward action to inward motivation—an unpersuaded, unbelieving, hardened heart.

And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient? So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.

(Hebrews 3.18-19)

Jeremy Nettles

In William Shakespeare’s play King Lear, the title character decides in his old age to divide his kingdom between his three daughters, in proportion to their love for him. The older two lavish praise on their father and wax poetic about their devotion, but Cordelia, the youngest, simply says, “I love your majesty / According to my bond; nor more nor less” (I.1.101-102). The older two were flattering their dotard father in order to secure a better inheritance, but Lear is too foolish to see it, and gives half his kingdom to each, while disinheriting and banishing Cordelia.

This being Shakespeare, the truth comes out and just about everyone dies by the play’s end; but not before Lear faces his folly. His older daughters refuse to show him even basic hospitality, whereupon Lear rushes into the wilderness and wanders through a raging storm, airing his frustration to the weather, as much as to his companions. Eventually, he begins a fresh rant, then stops short:

Pour on; I will endure;—

In such a night as this! O Regan, Goneril!—

Your old kind father, whose frank heart gave all,—

O, that way madness lies; let me shun that;

No more of that.

(King Lear, III.4.21-25)

Shakespeare’s genius is not in the mechanics of his writing; rather, it’s how they beautifully express his vision of the world. Here, he’s captured the all-too-common plight of the person who accepts a lie, does great sin in his deluded state, then struggles to reconcile himself to the plainly visible truth, for fear of the inner pain involved in admitting his error.

That’s madness in itself, isn’t it? Lear tortures himself and imperils his own life, in an effort to avoid accepting some shame. He’s already humiliated in everyone else’s eyes, so he doesn’t stand to lose status by turning around—in fact, he’d gain some! But people often do as Lear does. We entrench ourselves so deeply in the lie, that we stop caring about other people’s opinion of us, and focus on our own! That is to say, we jealously guard our stubborn, foolish, insane sense of pride.

The fictional King Lear’s failed attempt to avert madness is mirrored in real people, in real situations. Pontius Pilate didn’t want to sentence an innocent man to death. When the Jewish authorities brought Jesus to him, he “said to them, ‘Take him yourselves and judge him by your own law’” (Jn 18.31); they refused. He questioned Jesus and found “no guilt” in him (Lk 23.4), but they persisted. He tried to dump the problem off on Herod (v7), but Herod sent him back. He tried to satisfy the mob by flogging Jesus (Jn 19.1-5); but it wasn’t enough. Still he “sought to release” Jesus (v12), but the authorities tacitly threatened to denounce him as a traitor, “If you release this man, you are not Caesar’s friend.” (v12). Pilate finally “took water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, ‘I am innocent of this man’s blood’” (Mt 27.24), then “delivered him to be crucified” (v26).

Isn’t that ridiculous? Pilate was given the power of life and death by the Roman State, and by God. He was to be “God’s servant,” for the good of the governed, wielding “the sword” in order to dispense “God’s wrath on the wrongdoer” (Ro 13.4). But he abdicated his responsibility and attempted to soothe his own conscience by the hollow of gesture of washing his hands before handing down the most unjust verdict in history. But although everyone could see what he was doing, like King Lear he avoided honest introspection, thinking, “that way madness lies.”

It’s not limited to the sins of unbelievers, though. Paul (somewhat confusingly) illustrates the Christian’s ongoing struggle:

For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.

(Romans 7.15-19)

We can admit we’re broken and persist in the struggle, knowing that we have “an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous” (1Jn 2.1); or we could remain self-righteous, while also wallowing in our desire to sin, refusing to acknowledge it and let Jesus help us, doing what is mad, for fear of madness.

It doesn’t even stop at overtly transgressive sins. There has always been a segment of the church that devotes itself to “speculations rather than the stewardship from God that is by faith” (1Ti 1.4). It starts with a view toward piety—that is, a manner of life in keeping with God’s commandments. But we all have to interpret those commandments, and while the center is always clear—“Flee from sexual immorality” (1Co 6.18), for example—on the margins, questions remain about precisely what is sexual immorality, and these require the use of our judgment. It’s good to be careful, but attempts to stay well clear of the line grow from custom, to conviction, to a mandate for all. Before you know it, someone is preaching, “It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman” (7.1), which is not exactly false, but is also far from the whole story! Thus, someone concerned with obeying God ends up putting forth traditions and interpretations as God’s holy word.

This is why Paul counseled Timothy,

charge them before God not to quarrel about words, which does no good, but only ruins the hearers.

(2 Timothy 2.14)

Be careful not to think yourself immune to these follies, for that way, truly, madness lies.

Jeremy Nettles