Hebrews: the high priest of a better covenant

About the book

This unit covers the General Letters and Revelation. Paul's letters, mostly to one church or person, are named after those who received them. James, 1 and 2 Peter, 1, 2 and 3 John and Jude are named after their writers instead, and most were written for believers in many places. The church has long called them the ‘catholic’, or universal, letters, in English usually the General Letters. Greek manuscripts mostly set Hebrews among Paul's letters; the map under the Jesus tab, like many charts, makes it the first General Letter.

The title ‘To the Hebrews’ is as old as our earliest manuscripts. The letter names neither its writer nor its readers, and calls itself "my word of exhortation" (Hebrews 13:22). The churches of the East, Alexandria among them, read it early as Paul's: its teaching is like his, and it speaks of "our brother Timothy" (Hebrews 13:23). The West, long hesitant, mostly followed from the late fourth century. Tertullian named Barnabas, others Luke, and Luther later Apollos. In the third century Origen judged that the thoughts were the apostle's but the wording that of someone who remembered his teaching, and concluded that only God knows who wrote it Eusebius, Church History 6.25. The writer says the message of salvation "was confirmed to us by those who heard Him" (Hebrews 2:3), which many find hard to square with Paul, who received his gospel from no man (Galatians 1:12). Many scholars today say the author is unknown; the church, not knowing his name, has received his letter as God's word.

Hebrews speaks of the same sacrifices "offered year after year" (Hebrews 10:1) as though they still went on, and says nothing of the temple's fall in AD 70. So many scholars date it before 70, and the map sets it in the era of the church (c. AD 30–90). Its readers seem to have been Jewish believers. Once they had borne insult and the loss of their property with joy (Hebrews 10:32-34); now, worn down, they were tempted to drift back to the old ways of temple and law. Greetings from "those from Italy" (Hebrews 13:24) lead many to link the letter with Rome.

How it unfolds

Hebrews reads like a sermon: each stretch of teaching leads to a ‘therefore’ of appeal or warning.

Key passages

The letter opens:

On many past occasions and in many different ways, God spoke to our fathers through the prophets. But in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son … The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of His nature

Hebrews 1:1-3

The Son is "far superior to the angels" (Hebrews 1:4) and "worthy of greater glory than Moses" (Hebrews 3:3). And he is our high priest:

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who was tempted in every way that we are, yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

Hebrews 4:15-16

Christ "entered the Most Holy Place once for all by His own blood, thus securing eternal redemption" (Hebrews 9:12), and he mediates the new covenant that Jeremiah promised (Hebrews 8:8). Chapter 11 begins, "Now faith is the assurance of what we hope for and the certainty of what we do not see" (Hebrews 11:1), and calls up those who lived by promises seen from afar. Chapter 12 makes them a cloud of witnesses and says, "Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith" (Hebrews 12:2).

The letter also warns sternly. It is impossible for those who have shared in the Holy Spirit "and then have fallen away — to be restored to repentance" (Hebrews 6:6); for those who deliberately go on sinning, "no further sacrifice for sins remains" (Hebrews 10:26). Many in the Reformed tradition read these warnings as a means by which God keeps his own to the end, or as words about those who tasted grace without being made new Matthew Henry; the Wesleyan tradition of the Methodist and holiness churches reads them as a real danger that a true believer may fall away Wesley. Both take them seriously (Holiness and perseverance, in the doctrine course).

The book and Christ

Hebrews opens up the Old Testament's priests and sacrifices to show Christ. Its key is that "the law is only a shadow of the good things to come" (Hebrews 10:1). The tabernacle and its offerings were shadows of what Christ would do, above all the Day of Atonement, when the high priest went into the inner room alone, "only once a year, and never without blood" (Hebrews 9:7). The lesson on Leviticus looks at them closely.

Melchizedek, the king of Salem met briefly in Genesis (Genesis 14:18), and the oath of Psalm 110 to David's Lord, "You are a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek" (Psalm 110:4), point in this book to Jesus. The Levitical priests died and were succeeded; this high priest offered himself once for all and "always lives to intercede" (Hebrews 7:25). Prophet, priest and king, in the doctrine course, teaches the three offices of Christ.

Reading it

Two chapters a day takes about a week; begin with Hebrews 1. Read chapters 7–10 beside Leviticus 16 and Psalm 110. Take chapter 11 slowly, looking up its people in the Old Testament. Then go on to James.

Practice