- So this is the Book of Hebrews. That's what we're going to be studying, the Book of Hebrews. The Glorious Jesus is the subtitle, because the Book of Hebrews absolutely absolutely presents Jesus as the glorious one. And of course this is the first lesson in this series. And we're going to do what's usually called a critical introduction. A lot of times I skip over this, and I get right to the text, but we're going to take at least one lesson to give a critical introduction, to give some background information, the why, where, when, what type thing, concerning this book. Well let's start with the idea that the first Christians, the first congregation, the first Scriptures used to prove Christ was the Messiah was of course the Hebrew Scriptures, and what we call the Old Testament. It took, if you think about it, if you do a timeline, it took about 10 years for the apostles to preach the Gospel to non-Jews. A decade went by. They were only preaching to the Jews. 10 years goes by before Peter is called. And by the way that's not because they were slackers or they refused. They were thinking they're preaching the Gospel to all the Jews in the world until Peter has this apparition in Acts Chapter 10, and he goes to see Cornelius. And Peter understands, "Oh you mean you want the Gospel preached "to everybody in the world "including the Gentiles." That took a decade. Now in the first 30 yeas of Christianity, you could be a Hebrew Christian and still practice your
Jewish faith and traditions because the two religions were seen as different forms of the same thing. Eventually however this
became more difficult for a variety of reasons. First of all, the Jewish religion became more openly hostile
towards Christianity. At first there was, well,
there's the sect here, there's these people,
this offshoot of Judaism, troublemakers and so on and so forth, but it was still part of the Jewish religion but eventually the Jews began to seriously harass the Christians. We know that simply by looking
at the life of Paul or Saul. First glimpse we get of Saul is he's holding the coats of the individuals that are killing Stephen, a Christian. Another reason is that the conservative Jewish
Christians of the time wanted to keep Christianity within the context and the control of the Jewish religion. Okay another reason why it was difficult at the beginning. The Judiazers, right, basically we're saying you had to become a Jew first before you became a Christian. The big argument over circumcision. It wasn't circumcising the Jews, it was circumcising the Gentiles. If a Gentile wanted to be a Christian, he had to be circumcised and keep all the Jewish laws
and so on and so forth. And then thirdly, a
Roman persecution began, and the Romans began making a distinction between the two religions. Originally the Romans
had seen Christianity as simply as sect of Judaism, and that was significant because in the Roman Empire at the time, Judaism was a legal religion. You were allowed to practice Judaism but not other religions. They didn't get permission. And so when the Romans began to see Christianity as a religion apart from Judaism, then the persecution, that's not the only reason, but at least it enabled them to say, "by law, you people are
breaking the law," and the persecution of Christianity began. And we see that of course Paul's imprisonment
and so on and so forth. 2 Timothy 4:6, we find out that Paul is looking towards being
executed by the Romans. So because of these pressures, many Jewish Christians were
faced with the decision to return to their old religion or to make a complete break in order to embrace Christianity fully. See what I'm saying? There's an overlap time there especially in the Book of Acts. There's an overlap time, and during that overlap time, up to 70 AD, you could be a Jew and
you could be a Christian at the same time, you can kind of get it both ways, but eventually you had to pick, alright. You couldn't, you know, you had to pick. So the Jewish Christians could no longer have it both ways as I said, and so the letter to the Hebrews was written to convince them that they had made the right
decision in the first place, and they should persevere
in the Christian faith. We read about that in Hebrew 6:1. So the title of this letter is To The Hebrews. That's the full title. It was not written as a
general epistle to all Jews. I mean it could be used this way but it was not originally
written this way. It was aimed at a specific group that the author was planning to visit. And we'll read about that in Hebrews 13 actually at the end. There's no definitive proof, but there are several theories as to who wrote this epistle because the author does not name himself. So it's an unknown writer. Like I say an individual who certainly
knew Paul's writings and wrote this letter
using Paul's writings as source material but
doesn't name himself. So there are some scholars that say well we don't know, we'll never know. Others say it could have been Barnabas. And there are good arguments for Barnabas being the author of the Hebrews. He was a Levite, Acts 4:36, and so he was familiar with Jewish ritual, Old Testament customs. He wrote Greek since he came from Cypress. He was not known however
for his scholarity, he was kind of a man of action, and this epistle according
to Greek scholars has a very high quality of language, very high level of writing. Others think perhaps Apollos may have been the writer. He was a Greek scholar from Alexandria. He was an orator, he was
well-versed in the Old Testament, also well-versed in Paul's writings. He was well-known in the church, respected by the other apostles. I guess the case against him is again he doesn't name himself, and also there are no other writings that exist from his hand. So this is kind of a
major piece of work here without any other writings
accredited to him. And then of course popular theory, Paul, the apostle himself, wrote it. He was familiar obviously with the Old Testament, with the Gospel. He may have first written it as a sermon. There are a lot of references that suggest that this was originally
an oral presentation. It wasn't originally designed
to be a written letter, but it was an oral presentation
that then was written down. All early church fathers concluded that it was written by Paul actually. Clement 150 to 215, Origin 185 to 254, Jerome 347 to 420. These are some of the early church fathers who claimed that Paul was the author. So the best guess or
the best theory is that it was originally written
by Paul as a sermon, and then later translated
into Greek by Luke during or after Paul's
death in Rome in 67 AD. Now what we know for
sure is that the writer knew his readers and their circumstances. The author also knew Timothy. He was well-versed in the Old Testament, also in temple ritual. He fully grasped the
knowledge of who Christ was, and he was an excellent
writer, we know about that. But his origin said after his study of the question of who wrote this, in the second century he said, but who wrote the epistle and I quote, "Only God knows certainly." So I'm giving you the theories. You pick one. We don't know for sure. But those are theories that are out there. When was it written? An interesting idea. 96 AD, Clement who was a bishop of Rome quotes from Hebrews. So it's definitely before 96 AD because in 96 AD we have a church leader quoting from Hebrews. So we know it wasn't written after 96 AD. In 70 AD we know that
the city of Jerusalem and the temple were
destroyed by a Roman army. And since Hebrews deals with
temple ritual at length, the fact that this event is not mentioned at all in the epistle strongly suggests that it
was written before 70 AD. And also when the writer of Hebrews is talking about the work of the priests, he talks about it in the present tense. And so this suggests, boy, if a cataclysmic thing like the destruction of the temple and the destruction of
Jerusalem and its people and all that had happened, surely somebody who's
writing about the temple, if he's writing after 70 AD would have some mention of it somehow, but there's nothing there. So scholars believe it's before 70 AD. 33 to 60 AD, in Hebrews two,
three, and four, and 13:7, the writer speaks of
leaders in the church, and those who have given leadership examples and passed on, passed on through death. These references suggest that at least a generation, maybe even two
generations have taken place since the initial establishment
of the church in Jerusalem. So it's got to be later than 33, right? And he's suggesting that there's a fully formed leadership in the church. And so that didn't
happen at the beginning. There were no elders, only apostles at the beginning. The church evolved and developed and began to have a structure of elders and deacons. And so his references to elders that have died and gone on means that, okay, he must be writing at least a generation or two after 33. So most scholars put the writing of this
between 63 and 69 AD because the temple is still
standing and functioning, and there has been time
for a few generations of Christian leaders that have
been developed in the church. So there's a little background about who wrote it, why, and so on and so forth, or rather when it was written. The purpose and the approach of Hebrews. The purpose is encouragement. Encouragement. In Hebrews 13:22 he says, "But I urge you, brethren, "bear with this word of exhortation, "for I have written to you briefly," I'm writing to encourage you. So the purpose is encouragement. But encouragement for what? Well to encourage Jewish Christians who were wavering in their faith and contemplating a return to Judaism, an encouragement to
remain faithful to Christ. They were discouraged by persecution, they were discouraged
because they had to choose. I mean imagine you grow up as a Jew, it's not just a religion, it's your whole way of life. You have to choose between that and then this other religion that's being persecuted. So a difficult choice. Also some of the people he's writing to had begun to neglect the assembly. He writes about that. And now of course that's always the first sign of spiritual illness, people stop coming to worship the Lord. Many of them had returned to Judaism, he mentions that in Hebrews six. And it was also becoming
clear that the Jewish nation was not going to embrace Christianity. See early Christians thought, we just have to stay at it, we just have to give the message, we just keep on calling
out to our Jewish brethren, and eventually they'll get it. What is it that they don't get? Jesus was a Jew, he fulfilled the prophecies, we got the miracles, we
got the resurrection. Eventually they'll come over, but two, three, four decades later they still haven't come over. They began thinking to themselves, okay, this is a lost cause. And I would say that if you were a Jew or Jewish Christian, the thought that Gentiles were going to become the majority in the church, right, I mean we have that happened in our congregation,
in every congregation. We have a congregation of a
certain culture, let's just say. And then all of sudden, another culture begins
to move into the area, whatever that is. And you see eventually one
culture displaced by another. That's what they were afraid of. They shouldn't be,
we're all one in Christ. But remember this was new to them. And of course Jewish Christians
were going to be isolated. They didn't fit in with the Gentiles, and they were rejected
by their Jewish family. Talk about isolation. And remember now, the Jews, they had the temple, they had the priests with the beautiful
garments and the jewels, and the palm and the
ceremony and the history and the prestige and the high priests, and all the characters, David and Solomon. They had all of that. And what did the Christians have? Well they were meeting in the upper room or they were meeting in catacombs, or they were meeting in basements, they were meeting in houses, they had no money, no power,
no prestige, no influence, and their Lord, according
to what people saw, had been executed as a criminal. So it's like when they were going, oh wait a minute, which
way should I go here? Especially on the high holy days, especially when there were the feasts, right? So they had to choose. So the writer, so how do
you talk to these people? So the writer compares the two religions, and he challenges his readers to choose once and for all which religion is superior. In the epistle he compares Jesus to various important features
of the Jewish religion. He compares Jesus to the prophets, to the angels, to Moses,
to Joshua, to Aaron who represents the Jewish
religion and Jewish worship, and once he gets to the
comparison of Christ and Aaron, he leaves off the
comparison between persons, and then he begins to compare the effectiveness of the ironic priesthood versus the effectiveness of
the priesthood of Christ. And this is because the
ministry of the priesthood, this was the heart and soul
of the Jewish religion. The point being that the
work of Jesus as high priest was superior to the work of Aaron and his descendants as high priest, therefore Christianity
was superior to Judaism. When people say to you, oh it's not polite to compare religions, and you shouldn't say a bad
thing about another religion, well you know what, the
whole Book of Hebrews is comparing religions and showing the superiority of one religion over the other. So once he finishes his series
of comparisons and argument, the author lists a number of heroes who were persecuted and
suffered for their faith, but they persevered. And he does this as an encouragement to his readers to do the same thing. And he finishes the epistle
with practical teaching about how to live
faithfully from day-to-day as a Christian and as
a member of the church, and then he finishes with
readings and exhortations. So I'm just giving you
a real quick overview of what's going on here. Now Hebrews is divided, it's the easy book to divide, it's divided into two parts. Part one, The Glory of Christ, Chapter one verse one,
to Chapter 10 verse 18. See the Jewish people
were used to the concept that God revealed himself
through various ways and people and angels and religious rites, temple worship, sacrificial
systems, so on and so forth, and God glorified himself and
his people through these ways. And this interaction
with his people for which they took confidence
in and gave praise for, they were all about it. So in the first part of Hebrews, the writer demonstrates that no matter how glorious these things were, the revelation or the uncovering that we receive of God through Jesus is far superior. In other words if you think you knew God through the prophets and through the sacrificial system and through the law, if you think you knew
God through those things, those things are nothing compared to how you will know God through Jesus Christ. Okay. So in the first 10 chapters, the writer demonstrates
how Jesus is more glorious than the prophets, the angels,
Moses, so on and so forth, and thus superior and
worthy to be followed and worthy to be obeyed. So that's the first half. The next part, there's two parts, the Glory of the Church, Chapter 10:19 to Chapter 13:25. So once he's established
the supremacy of Christ by demonstrating his greater glory, the author encourages the church to glorify its head, Jesus, by faithfulness to Him
and holiness in Him. And then the conclusion left unsaid is that if Jesus is more
glorious than the Jewish religion including its prophets and
rituals, so on and so forth, then his church shares in that glory and is therefore superior also. And his message is do not abandon the greater for the lesser, don't do that. Okay so let's do a little
bit of text tonight. Jesus, Greater than the Prophets. Let's begin Chapter one verse one. So "God, after He spoke long ago "to the fathers and the prophets "in many ways "and portions and," excuse me, "fathers in the prophets "in many portions and in
many ways," Hebrews 1:1. So God spoke. God spoke. He was speaking. It was personal, it was conscious, it was communication. The fathers were the various people, the leaders, the kings, to whom God addressed himself in the history of the Jews. That's who the fathers were. Then he says in the prophets, in other words God was
speaking when they spoke. They were the greatest
single source of revelation, the prophets were. That's what the Hebrew writer is saying. I mean the prophets
equal the Old Testament. They are the ones that did the revealing. And then he says in
many ways and portions. In other words He spoke through
them but in different ways, sometimes through dreams
or visions, writings, sometimes the warnings were immediate, sometimes the warnings were for something that would happen far down the road. Keep going. In verse two he says, "In these last days," again Hebrews 1:2, "In these last days," last days refers to the last phase of human history according
to biblical chronology. So there are three phases. Number one, there is
the Ante-Deluvian phase. That is from the creation to the flood, Genesis 1:1 to Genesis 8:22. That's the Ante-Deluvian,
before the flood. The second era is Post-Deluvian, meaning after the flood. That's from the rainbow until the ascension of Christ, Genesis 9:1 to Acts Chapter One verse 26. It begins and ends with men's eyes looking towards the sky in hope. They looked towards the sky
and see the rainbow in hope. And that period, that Post-Deluvian period ends with the apostles
looking up to the sky, seeing Jesus ascend in hope. And then the third period is are the Last Days. The Last Days, Pentecost until the
Second Coming of Christ, Acts Chapter Two all the
way to Revelation 22. The time that the church
has been given the task to prepare the world for
the return of Christ. We are in the Last Days. Okay I saw a newspaper ad, where was it, I think it was in the local
paper, the Choctaw paper. And they were having a big
meeting, a big religious meeting, and one of the "prophets"
of a church here in town was having a big meeting and he was going to explain the Last Days, and make references to some of the political events taking place, and some of the wars that are going on. He was going to pinpoint. I mean preachers have
been doing that for like as long as I can remember. There's always somebody
coming along telling us oh where at the end now. Yeah we don't know. But we are in the Last Days. And what are we supposed to be doing? We're preparing the world for the second coming of Christ should he come in our generation. He could and that's what our task is. So in this last time the writer says, "God has spoken through His Son, "not the prophets or
in other various ways. "This is the communication method "from God in the last time." So we're in the last times, right? From Pentecost to the Second Coming. So from Pentecost til
the time Jesus returns, how does God communicate with us? Through Jesus, through His word. "So the revelation that
He makes through His Son "in these last times is
greater," the author says, "than anything that had ever
come from the prophets." Yes, He spoke to the prophets in diverse ways and manners, and yes, they provided a portion of revelation of God and His will, but in these last times, God is revealing Himself through Jesus, and the revelation is much broader and much deeper and much clearer. So the revelation that He makes through His Son in these last times, as I say, is greater than anything that had ever come from the prophets. So now the writer isn't saying that God didn't speak through the prophets, He did, but Jesus was the person that
they were speaking about. The writer goes on to list
three things about the Son that demonstrates His
superiority over the prophets. First of all, He is preeminent in history. Verse two, it says, "In these last days "He has spoken to us in His Son "whom He appointed heir of all things "through whom also He made the world." So an heir is the one
who inherits something left to him by somebody else. Usually the thing left has been gathered or built by one person and then left to another
person to inherit. So the writer here notes
that Jesus is the inheritor of all things because through
Him all things were created. Now that's not a new idea
in the New Testament. Matthew talks about this in Matthew 28, "all authority in heaven on earth "has been given unto Me." In John 1:3, 1 Corinthians, 8
Colossians 1, Revelation 1:8, where Jesus said, "I am the
alpha and I am the omega. "I'm the beginning and the end." So what the writer is
saying here about Jesus is that He has a
preeminent place in history because, listen up, because He is both at the beginning of history as the agent of creation, and He is at the end of history as the inheritor of everything. So He is the rightful
owner in place of Satan who tried to displace
Him by seducing mankind. So how is Jesus preeminent in history? Well He is there at the beginning because through Him the world was created, and He's there at the end when all of it is wrapped up and goes back to a unified Godhead, with men now included in the Godhead. So the prophets, they reminded the Jews of their past, and they spoke of the future, but Jesus is greater than
they because He is both at the beginning and the end of time. The prophets only lived in between the beginning and the end of time. So that's one thing, His
preeminence in history. Remember I said three things that demonstrate His superiority. One, His preeminence in history. Two, oops, sorry. Two, His person. Verse 3a. Hang on, let's see, verse 3a, it says, "And He is the radiance "of His glory "and the exact
representation of His nature, "and upholds all things
by the word of His power." So in discussing the personhood of Jesus, the author says three
things about Him which no one could ever say
about any of the prophets. One, He's the radiance of His glory. Radiance equals a bright light. Glory is source or essence of God. So Jesus is light from the source, not reflected light like the moon, He's like the sun, He gives off light, He's the source of light. So we know in the Old Testament, Moses, when he went up on
the mountain to be with God, when he came down, his
face was shining, why? Because the radiance of
God reflected off of him. Well Jesus's radiance in
relationship to God is what flames ore to a fire, what sunlight is to the sun. We see this radiance in practical ways in His teaching and
miracles and His pure life. We see it in supernatural ways, the transfiguration, His clothes became bright. We see it in the transfiguration. We see it in the ascension. So the prophets saw and
spoke of this radiance but Jesus was the radiance. Without Jesus, the world
is in complete darkness when it comes to God and salvation. What does he say? "I am the light of the world." No prophet ever said I am
the light of the world. And then secondly He's the exact representation of God's nature. Now some translations say, "He is the imprint of God's nature," or, "the stamp of God's nature." The idea here is that
Jesus isn't a copy of God, it's that He shares the nature of God. For example, men and dogs both breathe. They have eyes, both men and dogs reproduce, but they don't have the same nature. They are alike in many ways but they don't share the
same human nature, right? Well Jesus isn't just like God, He's not a caricature of God, He shares the same nature. We could say for example, men and women, they're different persons, but they share the same
nature, a human nature. So when we see Jesus, we
see the nature of God, love, justice, intelligence, will, power. And so the prophets, they did supernatural things by the power of God, but all of them possess a human nature. Jesus, on the other hand,
did supernatural things because He possessed both a
human and a divine nature. Again I'm just reiterating the
argument over and over again that the Hebrew writer
makes in the first chapter, Jesus, Greater than the Prophets. And in this sense, a greater nature than the
prophets, a divine nature. And then thirdly, "He
upholds all things," it says, "by the word of His power." In other words, uphold here doesn't mean holding like Atlas, you have pictures of
Atlas, and he's like this, he's holding the world
on his shoulders, right? Okay not like that. That's not the image here that the writer is talking about, that He uploads all things. It means that His power
holds everything together so that nothing is allowed
to destroy totally the world. That's why I'm not really worried about men destroying the world. Man pollutes the world, yes. Man exploits the world, yes. But it is not in the power
of man to destroy the world, even if he wanted to, even if he tried to. That power is exclusively belonging to God. It also means that He
guides the world to its end according to His purpose. And He cannot be overtaken in His purpose. So all of this is done how? Well it's done by the word of His power. In other words the way
that He expresses His will is through His word. For example, in the beginning,
the will of God said let there be light and light appeared. No fuss, no strain. This was Christ's role in creation. He was the word. He was the agent through
which the mind of God brought into existence
the physical universe, right? That's why it's so amazing when John says, and the word that agent that brings into being the
reality that we live in, that word became flesh. So when in the boat, and the Lord is in the
boat during the storm, He calmed the sea, how? A word, be still, a word. To the crippled man in the temple, He offered forgiveness with just His word, and then to prove that He
had the power to do this, He healed him, how? With His word. No jumping up and down like you see the faith healers on TV. So let's make sure we
stick to our point here. The prophets, they did many great things, but the words that they say spoke, they weren't their words, they were His words. And the things that they did, they were done through His will. So Jesus was greater than
the prophets because, first, He was before them and after them, second, His personhood reflected God's image and will and power, and finally His position was greater than their position. So let's talk about His position, right? In Hebrews 1:3, it says, "When He had made purification of sins, "He sat down at the right hand "of the Majesty on high." So the author describes two positions that Jesus took that no prophet ever took. First of all, the lowest position. He took the lowest position. Sacrificed for sin, that
was the lowest position. Jesus could have expressed His preeminence and personhood without leaving heaven, but He did so in order
to deal with man's sins. In Philippians 2:6 to where am I? Philippians 2:6-8, I said if we'd have
time, I would read that. It says, "Who although He
existed in the form of God," speaking of Jesus, "did not regard equality with God "a thing to be grasped, "but emptied Himself, "taking the form of a bond-servant, "and being made in the likeness of men, "being found in appearance as a man. "He humbled Himself by becoming obedient "to the point of death,
even death on a cross." And so when we're talking
about His position, we, first of all, talk about Him taking the very lowest position, the one of slave, the one who would be crucified. Now this reference to
purification from sin is explained further on as the author goes into more detail about the manner and the reasons why all
of this had to be done. But for now he simply
mentions that Jesus did this. So as far as His position is concerned, He began by taking the lowest position. And then He also occupies
the highest position at the right hand of God, authority. Philippians 2:8 explains
that Jesus returned to reclaim the position of authority He occupied before His
humiliation on the cross. Now it's interesting to
note that Jesus is the first and the last in a
horizontal timeframe, right? And He occupies the top
and the bottom roles in a vertical position, right? He's first. He's last. He's on the bottom. He's also on the top. Some people say why do you
have a cross back there? Because it's so significant of
the Christian religion, every aspect of it. And so in comparison to the prophets, well the prophets, they
offered sacrifice for sin, but they never offered
themselves as sacrifice. And none of the prophets had authority, save what authority
they received from God. Most of them actually tried to run away. Jesus, however, gives authority from His position of power at the right hand of God. Okay so I'm going to stop,
just those first three verses. So the author begins his
letter by exulting Jesus, and he says that He is greater
than the prophets because He is the first and last in history. The prophets, they lived in
between the first and last. He is divine in nature, the prophets are only human in nature. He is supreme in authority, and the prophets have no authority. No prophet could or ever did claim any of these things. So there's really only one
kind of main lesson here, and I'll try in the Book of Hebrews to kind of pull out some lessons, just practical lessons for us, but there's really only
one lesson or application based on our study of just
the first three verses, and that is listen to Jesus, listen to Him. At the transfiguration, the voice in the cloud, what it did say? "This is my beloved Son "with whom I am well pleased, "listen to Him." Listen to Him. He is greater than the prophets of Israel, and they were greater
than any of the prophets of their day or our day, because what they said
about Him came true. Jesus by His position
historically, first and last, and spiritually, lowest and highest, has the right and the authority to speak as and for God. So when our faith is weak, and when we are searching for answers, when we're troubled or discouraged, what we need is not, I need more time alone, I need more alone time, I need a vacation, I need a break from the church. What my wife tells me when I am getting a little too difficult, she says to me, "You need more of Jesus." That's the code word that you need to get your book and go into
your corner and read, or go to your bedroom and pray. But what you need is you
need more of the Lord because what's happening is you've got a Jesus deficiency going on, and that's showing itself in discouragement and anger and, you know what I'm saying, you're not your spiritual self, you're not the person you're
meant to be in Christ. But the only remedy to
that is not ice cream. I've tried that route, it's very good, but it doesn't solve
the spiritual problem. The intake we need is,
we need more of Him, more of the Lord. And so to a church on
the brinks of collapse, the author begins his letter
without even an introduction, but he gives them first and foremost the life-sustaining
words about Jesus Christ. And I think we ought to remember this when we're in the same type of position. Okay so that's our
introductory lesson to Hebrews. I hope you're getting something out of it. I guarantee you, you will
get a lot out of this study. We're going to go deep and we're
going to do it line by line. Sorry, you're dismissed, thank you.
