G. The Steadfastness Of God'S Promise (6:13-20)
Text, Exposition, and Notes
HEBREWS 1
I. THE FINALITY OF CHRISTIANITY (1:1-2:18)
A. GOD'S FINAL REVELATION IN HIS SON (1:1-4)
1 In earlier times God spoke to our fathers by the prophets at various days and in many
2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by one who is his Son,2 the one whom he has appointed heir of all things, the one moreover through whom he made the universe.
3 This Son, the effulgence of God's glory and the very image of his being, who bears all things along3 by his enabling word,4 made puri fication for our sins and then sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.
4 He has become so much superior to the angels5 as6 the name which he has inherited is superior to theirs.
1-2a "God has This initial affirmation is basic to the whole argument of this epistle, as indeed it is basic to Christian faith. Had God remained silent, enshrouded in thick darkness, the plight of mankind would have been desperate indeed; but now he has spoken his revealing, redeeming, and life-giving word, and in his light we see light. Our author is not thinking of that general revelation of himself which God has given in creation, providence, and conscience-
but of that special revelation which he has given in two stages: first, to the fathers through the prophets, and finally in his Son. These two stages of divine revelation correspond to the Old and New Testaments respectively. Divine revelation is thus seen to be progressive-but the progression is not from the less true to the more true, from the less worthy to the more worthy, or from the less mature to the more mature. How could it be so when it is one and the same God who is revealed throughout? Human conceptions of God may change, but the evolution of the idea of God is quite a different thing from the progress of divine revelation. The progression is one from promise to fulfilment,8 as is made abundantly clear in the course of this epistle: the men and women of faith in Old Testament days did not in their lifetime experience the fulfilment of the divine promise in which they had trusted, "because, with us in mind, God had made a better plan, that only in company with us should they reach their perfection" (11:40, NEB). The earlier stage of the revelation was given in a variety of ways: God spoke in his mighty works of mercy and judgment, and made known through his servants the prophets the meaning and purpose of these works; they were admitted into his secret council and learned his plans in advance.9 He spoke in storm and thunder to Moses,10 in a still small voice to Elijah." To those who would not heed the gently flowing stream of Shiloah he spoke by means of the Euphratean flood.12 Priest and prophet, sage and singer were in their several ways his spokesmen; yet all the successive acts and varying modes of revelation in the ages before Christ came did not add up to the fulness of what God had to say. His word was not completely uttered until Christ came; but when Christ came, the word spoken in him was indeed God's final word. In him all the promises of God meet with the answering "Yes!" which seals their fulfilment to his people and evokes from them an answering "Amen!"13 The story of divine revelation is a story of progression up to Christ, but there is no progression beyond him. It is "in these last days" that God has spoken in him, and by this phrase our author means much more than "recently"; it is a literal rendering of the Hebrew phrase which is used in the Old Testament to denote the epoch when the words of the prophets will be fulfilled,14 and its use here means that the appearance of Christ "once for all at the consummation of the ages" (9:26) has inaugurated that time of fulfilment. God's previous spokesmen were his servants, but for the proclamation of his last word to mankind he has chosen his Son.
2b-3 Seven facts are stated about the Son of God which bring out his greatness and show why the revelation given in him is the highest which God can give.
(a) God has appointed him "heir of all things." These words no doubt echo the oracle of Ps. 2:8, addressed to one who is both the Lord's Anointed and acclaimed by God as his Son:
Our author applies the preceding words of this oracle to Christ in v. 5 below. But in his mind the inheritance of the Son of God is not limited to earth;15 it embraces the universe, and particularly the world to come.16 This is restated in fuller detail in 2:5-9, where Jesus, as the last Adam, has all things put under his feet.
(b) It was through him that God "made the universe." The Greek word here rendered "universe" is aiones, which primarily means "ages"; but its meaning cannot be restricted to "ages" either here or in 11:3, where it reappears in a similar context.17 The whole created universe of space and time is meant, and the affirmation that God brought this universe into being by the agency of his Son is in line with the statements of other New Testament writers that "all things were made through him; and without him was not anything made that was made" (John 1:3) and that "all things were created through him and for him" (Col. 1:16).18 In these and other statements to the same effect we may trace the language of a primitive Christian hymn or confession of faith in which Christ, as the Word or Wisdom of God, is acknowledged as the Father's agent in the work of creation.19 This conception of Christ is based (i) on such Old Testament passages as Prov. 8:22-31, where Divine Wisdom is personified and pictured as being the companion and assessor of the Almighty in the beginning, when he created heaven and earth,20 and (ii) on a very early Christian identification of Christ with Divine Wisdom incarnate-an identification arising perhaps from the fact that Christ on occasion actually spoke in the role of Divine Wisdom.21
(c) He is the "effulgence" or "reflection" of God's glory. This statement, like the last, is involved in the identification of Christ with the Wisdom of God. In the Alexandrian Book of Wisdom, a work with which our author may well have been acquainted, Wisdom is said to be:
The word "reflection" or "effulgence" (Gk. apaugasma) used both there and here denotes the radiance shining forth from the source of light;22 and Philo similarly uses it of the Logos in relation to God.23 But while our author's language is that of Philo and the Book of Wisdom, his meaning goes beyond theirs. For them the Logos or Wisdom is the personification of a divine attribute; for him the language is descriptive of a man who had lived and died in Palestine a few decades previously, but who nonetheless was the eternal Son and supreme revelation of God. Just as the radiance of the sun reaches this earth, so in Christ the glorious light of God shines into the hearts of men and women.
(d) He is the very image of the essence of God-the impress of his being. Just as the image and superscription on a coin exactly correspond to the device on the die, so the Son of God "bears the very stamp of his nature" The Greek word charakter, occurring here only in the New Testament, expresses this truth even more emphatically than eikon, which is used elsewhere to denote Christ as the "image" of God (2 Cor. 4:4; Col. 1:15).25 Just as the glory is really in the effulgence, so the being (Gk. hypostasis)26 of God is really in Christ, who is its impress, its exact representation and embodiment.27 What God essentially is, is made manifest in Christ. To see Christ is to see what the Father is like.
(e) He upholds all things "by his enabling This expression is probably an instance of the Hebraic adjectival genitive: "the word of his power" may mean "his mighty word" or "his enabling word."29 The creative utterance which called the universe into being30 requires as its complement that sustaining utterance by which it is maintained in being. So Paul can write to the Colossians of Christ as the one in whom all things were created and also as the one in whom "all things hold together" (Col. 1:17). He upholds the universe not like Atlas supporting a dead weight on his shoulders, but as one who carries all things forward on their appointed course.
The words "the effulgence of God's glory and the very image of his being, who bears all things along by his enabling word" may be quoted from a hymnic formula; this is suggested by the introductory relative pronoun ("who"), the succession of participles ("being ... bearing"), and the rhythmical structure.
(fl He has "made purification for our sins."31 Here we pass from the cosmic functions of the Son of God to his personal relationship with mankind, to his work as his people's high priest, which is elaborated throughout the epistle. The reference here, as appears from its fuller development later, is to the cleansing efficacy of "his one oblation of himself once offered."32 The wisdom which created the worlds and maintains them in their due order may well beget in us a sense of wondering awe; but the grace which has provided a remedy for the defilement of sin by a life freely offered up to God on our behalf calls forth a sense of personal indebtedness which the contemplation of divine activity on the cosmic scale could never evoke. The underlying emphasis here, however, is that by making purification for sins the Son of God has accomplished something incapable of achievement by anyone else. And this accomplishment has as its proper sequel the seventh in the present series of facts which bring out the unequaled greatness of the Son of God.
(g) He "sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high." "The Majesty on high" is a periphrasis for God.33 That Jesus is enthroned at the right hand of God is one of the earliest affirmations of Christian faith; it goes back to Jesus' own application to himself of the opening words of the divine oracle in Ps. 110: "Sit at my right hand."34 That no literal location is intended was as well understood by Christians in the apostolic age as it is by us: they knew that God has no physical right hand or material throne where the ascended Christ sits beside him; to them the language denoted the exaltation and supremacy of Christ as it does to us. Paul can express the same thought in different language by saying that Christ has "ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things" (Eph. 4:10), that "God has highly exalted him, and bestowed on him the name which is above every name" (Phil. 2:9). Ps. 110 provides the key text of this epistle, and the significance of Christ's being a seated high priest is explicitly set forth in the following chapters, especially in 10:11-14, where he is contrasted with the Aaronic priests who remained standing because their sacrificial service never came to an end. It may also be observed that the oracle of Ps. 110 is addressed to a prince of the house of David, and it was evidently a prerogative of the house of David to be seated in the divine presence, like David himself when he "went in, and sat before Yahweh" (2 Sam. 7:18).35
Thus the greatness of the Son of God receives sevenfold confirmation, and it appears, without being expressly emphasized, that he possesses in himself all the qualifications to be the mediator between God and the human race. He is the Prophet through whom God has spoken his final word; he is the Priest who has accomplished a perfect work of cleansing for his people's sins; he is the King who sits enthroned in the place of chief honor alongside the Majesty on high.
4 His exaltation to the right hand of God in itself marks him out as being superior to the angels36-a superiority which is further shown by the title which he bears. His name which is more excellent than theirs may be inferred from the context to be the title "Son."37 If he is said to have "inherited" the name of Son, this does not mean that the name was not his before his exaltation. It was clearly his in the days of his humiliation: "Son though he was, he learned obedience by what he suffered" (5:8). It was his, indeed, ages before his incarnation: this is the plain implication of the statement in 1:2 that God has spoken to us in "his Son.... through whom he made the universe." He inherits the title "Son," as he inherits all things (v. 2), by the Father's eternal appointment.
The comparative adjective "better" is used thirteen times in Hebrews38 to contrast Christ and his new order with what went before him. Here his superiority to angels is asserted, and elaborated by the following chain of Old Testament quotations, for two specific reasons-to show (i) that the final message of God, communicated by the Son, is safeguarded by even more majestic sanctions than those which attended the law, communicated by angels (2:2f.), and (ii) that the new world over which the Son is to reign as Mediator far surpasses the old world in which various nations were assigned to angels for administration (2:5). It may be that there was also a general reason for emphasizing the Son's superiority to angels, if "all sorts of strange teaching" against which these Hebrews are warned (13:9) included a doctrine of angel-worship such as seems to have been introduced among the Colossian Christians;39 but this must remain uncertain.
B. CHRIST BETTER THAN ANGELS (1:5-14)
5 For to which of the angels did God ever say,
"You are my Son; today I have begotten
Or again,
6 And when, again, he brings the firstborn into the world, he says,
"And let all God's angels worship
7 With regard to the angels he says,
"He makes his angels winds, and his ministers a flame of fire";43
8 but to the Son:
"Your throne, 0 God, is for ever and ever;44 the scepter of righteousness is the scepter of your kingship.45
9 You have loved righteousness and hated - therefore your God has anointed you, 0 God, with the oil of exultation more than your
10 And,
"It is you, 0 Lord, who founded the earth in the beginning; the heavens are your handiwork.
11 They will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a cloak;
12 you will fold them up48 like a mantle, like a cloak,49 and they will be changed; but you are the same: your years will not
13 But to which of the angels has he ever said,
"Sit at my right hand, tilll make your enemies a footstool for your feet"?51
14 Are not all of them ministering spirits, sent to do service for those who are to inherit salvation?
In these ten verses our author adduces seven Old Testament passages to corroborate his argument that the Son of God is superior to the angels. His use of them introduces us to his distinctive principles of biblical exegesis, which receive further copious illustration throughout the epistle. The general New Testament use of the Old Testament is a highly important and interesting study,52 but the use of the Old Testament in the Epistle to the Hebrews, while it has its place within that more general study, exhibits a number of features of its own. Among these is the prominence given to the Psalter;53 more than once the writer interprets a passage from the other Old Testament books by way of exegesis of a passage from the Psalms.54 Of the seven quotations here, five are taken from the Psalter; of the other two, one is taken from the Former Prophets and one from the Torah.
5 (a) The first quotation is from Ps. 2:7. The words "You are my Son; today I have begotten you" were never addressed by God to any angel. The angels may be called collectively "the sons of God,"55 but no one of them is ever called the son of God in terms like these, which single out the person addressed and give him a status apart.56 The divine decree of Ps. 2:7b-9, which opens with these words, may, as has been suggested, "have preserved the text of a coronation liturgy used by the Davidic dynasty."57 At any rate, they are cited in the psalm by the Lord's Anointed as the ground of his confidence in the face of the plottings of his enemies. But, like much else that was said with regard to the Davidic dynasty in its early days, it was believed in later days that these words would be most fully realized in the Messiah of David's line who would rise up in the time of fulfilment.58 About the middle of the first century B.C., for example, they are quoted in the Psalms of Solomon with reference to the Davidic Messiah whose advent is ardently prayed for.59 An allusion to them, too, may be found in Gabriel's annunciation to Mary about her coming child: "He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High: and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David" (Luke 1:32). More important still is the fact that the heavenly voice which greeted Jesus at his baptism hailed him in the opening words of the decree of Ps. 2:7, "You are my Son" (Mark 1:11).60 Indeed, the "Western" text of Luke 3:22 represents the heavenly voice as addressing to Jesus the fuller wording from Ps. 2:7 which is quoted here by the author of Hebrews: "You are my Son; today I have begotten you." The words were evidently in widespread use as a testimonium in the apostolic age, as Acts 13:33 bears witness;61 and not only these words but the other parts of the psalm were given a messianic interpretation, as may be seen from the quotation and explanation of its first two verses in Acts 4:25-28.62
What did our author understand by the word "Today" in this quotation? In view of the emphasis laid throughout the epistle on the occasion of Christ's exaltation and enthronement, it is probable that he thought of this occasion as the day when he was vested with his royal dignity as Son of God.63 It is certainly to this occasion that our author refers the divine acclamation of Christ as high priest in Ps. 110:4,64 and the collocation of that acclamation with the present one in 5:5f.65 suggests strongly that both are associated with the same occasion. The eternity of Christ's divine Sonship is not brought into question by this view; the suggestion rather is that he who was the Son of God from everlasting entered into the full exercise of all the prerogatives implied by his Sonship when, after his suffering had proved the completeness of his obedience, he was raised to the Father's right hand.
Although David's immediate successor, Solomon, did build a temple for the God of Jacob, the event proved that the divine promises made to David regarding his son and heir were not exhausted in Solomon.67 The later prophets looked forward to a greater son of David in coming days in whom "the sure mercies of David" would be adequately realized. This son of David is the peaceful ruler of Mic. 5:2-4, the prince of the four names of Isa. 9:6f., the "leader and commander to the peoples" of Isa. 55:4, the one "whose right it is" of Ezek. 21:27, Zion's king of Zech. 9:9. On the eve of Christ's coming the Psalms of Solomon and the Qumran texts alike attest the eagerness with which the son of David was expected. In a document from Cave 4 at Qumran, 4QFlorilegium,68 a few biblical passages are brought together as describing the imminent restoration of David's house, including an abridged form of 2 Sam. 7:11-14, "The LORD declares to you that he will build you a house; and I will raise up your seed after you, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom for ever. I will be his father, and he shall be my son." This quotation is immediately followed by the comment: "He is the shoot of David, who is to arise with the Expounder of the Law ... in Zi[on in the 1]ast days."69 The "shoot70 of David" is, of course, the "righteous Branch" to be raised up for David in Jer. 23:5; 33:15-the Davidic Messiah. The fulfilment of the ancient promise made through Nathan is clearly celebrated in Gabriel's words of annunciation to Mary (Luke 1:32f.) and in Zechariah's thanksgiving (Luke 1:68f.):
The general testimony of the New Testament to the bringing near of God's salvation in "his Son, who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh" (Rom. 1:3), provides sufficient justification for our author's referring to Jesus the language of 2 Sam. 7:14.
6 (c) The third quotation ("And let all God's angels worship him") is preceded by words which, especially as rendered in the ERV/ARV ("when he again bringeth in the firstborn into the world"), have been thought to refer to the second advent of Christ. If "again" is taken closely with "brings in," the meaning certainly appears to be: "And when he brings the firstborn into the world a second time." For this interpretation Westcott argues strongly. But the word order is not as conclusive as he maintains.71 The RSV and the NEB have rightly reverted to the construction of the AV/KJV; a slight alteration would suffice to bring the ARV into line: "And when, again, he bringeth in the firstborn into the world." The adverb "again" marks this as a further quotation setting forth the preeminence of Christ.72 The two previous quotations have marked him out as the Son of God; this one marks him out as one who is worshiped by angels. He is called "the firstborn" because he exists before all creation and because all creation is his heritage. The title may be traced back to Ps. 89:27 (LXX 88:28), where God says of David (and in general of the Davidic king):
The quotation "And let all God's angels worship him" bears a general resemblance to Ps. 97:7 (LXX 96:7), "Worship him, all you gods" (more especially in the Septuagint, "Worship him, all his angels"). But it bears an even closer resemblance to words from the longer Septuagint form of Deut. 32:43, the concluding words of the Song of Moses:
75. This line is quoted by Paul in Rom. 15:10 as fulfilled in the extension of the gospel of Christ to the Gentiles.
Two questions arise with regard to the use of this quotation. Since in its original setting it is Yahweh, the God of Israel, whom all angels are to worship, why is their worship here said to be paid to the Son?76 And why is it paid to him when God brings him into the world?
There is a rabbinic tradition to the effect that when Adam (who in one sense was God's "firstborn") was created (or "introduced into the world"), God invited the angels to worship him, but at Satan's instigation they refused. According to The Life of Adam and Eve (13f.), "God the Lord spoke: `Here is Adam. I have made him in our image and likeness.' And Michael went out and called all the angels, saying: `Worship the image of God as the Lord God has commanded.' And Michael himself worshipped first." 77 Here, however, it is not the first Adam but the last who is the object of angelic homage; our author was possibly acquainted with an interpretation of the words he quotes which represented the angels as called upon to pay allegiance to the heavenly Son of Man at the time of his public manifestation. However that may be, he would have cordially agreed with the statement of John 5:23, where the Father's purpose in committing judgment to the Son is said to be "that all may honor the Son, even as they honor the Father."
The moment intended by the conjunction "when" is probably neither the incarnation nor the second advent of Christ: it is not so much a question of his _link_ being brought into the world as of his being introduced to it as the Son of God, and we may think rather of his exaltation and enthronement as sovereign over the inhabited universe, the oikoumene,78 including the realm of angels, who accordingly are summoned to acknowledge their Lord. For (as is pointed out in 2:5) in the new age which his enthronement has inaugurated, it is to him, and not to angels, that the oikoumene is made subject.
7 (d) The fourth quotation, from Ps. 104 (LXX 103):4, relates to the place of angels in the divine administration of the universe, in order to show that, high as that place may be, it is far inferior to the position of supremacy given to the Son. The quotation here conforms to the Septuagint,79 and expresses an emphasis slightly different from the probable intention of the Hebrew text:
That is to say, in the Hebrew text the natural elements fulfil the commissions of God: the winds speed forth on his errands and fire renders him service.80 Here, however, the meaning is different. It may be that the angels are portrayed as executing the divine commands with the swiftness of wind and the strength of fire. There is a parallel to this interpretation in the Latin version of 4 Ezra (2 Esdras) 8:21f., where Ezra addresses God as one "before whom the hosts of angels stand trembling, they whose service takes the form of wind and fire." But another interpretation is indicated by the Syriac and other eastern versions of this passage in 4 Ezra, according to which God is the one "before whom the hosts of angels stand trembling and at whose command they are changed to wind and fire."
If this is the way in which our author understands Ps. 104:4, then he is contrasting the evanescence of angels with the eternity of the Son, which is stressed in the two quotations which follow.
8-9 (e) The fifth quotation, from Ps. 45:6f. (LXX 44:7f.), is set in contrast to the fourth.82 The forty-fifth psalm celebrates a royal wedding; the poet addresses first the bridegroom and then the bride. The words here quoted form part of his address to the bridegroom. We cannot be sure whether the bridegroom was a king of the northern83 or of the southern kingdom, but on balance it seems more probable that he was a prince of the house of David.84 That he should be addressed as God "has seemed too daring to many commentators who seek to evade it or explain it away."85 The marginal alternative "Thy throne is God"86 is quite unconvincing, and whatever may be said in support of the RSV rendering of Ps. 45:6, "Your divine throne endures for ever and ever,"87 still more can be said in sup port of the Septuagint rendering reproduced by our author here. Indeed, our author may well have understood "God" in the vocative twice over in this quotation; the last clause could easily be construed "Therefore, 0 God, thy God has anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows." 88 This is not the only place in the Old Testament where a king, especially of the Davidic line, is addressed in language which could only be described as the characteristic hyperbole of oriental court style if interpreted solely of the individual so addressed. But to Hebrew poets and prophets a prince of the house of David was the vicegerent of Israel's God; he belonged to a dynasty to which God had made special promises bound up with the accomplishment of his purpose in the world. Besides, what was only partially true of any of the historic rulers of David's line, or even of David himself, would be realized in its fulness when that son of David appeared in whom all the promises and ideals associated with that dynasty would be embodied. And now at length the Messiah had appeared. In a fuller sense than was possible for David or any of his successors in ancient days, this Messiah can be addressed not merely as God's Son (v. 5) but actually as God,89 for he is both the Messiah of David's line and also the effulgence of God's glory and the very image of his being.
All things created, even the angels, are subject to time and tide, change and decay, but the throne of God's Son endures forever; his is the kingdom that is to know no end. His, too, is the only kingdom characterized by perfect righteousness. The righteousness and justice which are the foundation of God's throne90 are equally the foundation of Messiah's throne:9' "righteousness shall be the girdle of his waist, and faithfulness the girdle of his loins" (Isa. 11:5).92 That is to say, the Messiah is personally devoted to those principles of equity and uprightness which it is his royal prerogative to maintain. His anointing with "the oil of exultation" refers not so much to his official inauguration as Messiah93-when "God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power" (Acts 10:38)94-as to the joy with which God has blessed him in acknowledgment of his vindication of divine justice, "the joy that was set before him" mentioned in 12:3.95
10-12 (fl The sixth quotation is taken from Ps. 102:25-27 (LXX 101:26-28). The psalm, which begins "Hear my prayer, 0 Yahweh," is truly described in its superscription as "a prayer of one afflicted, when he is faint, and pours out his complaint before Yahweh." Both he and Zion, his city, have experienced the judgment of God, but he makes confident supplication for mercy and restoration for himself and Zion, that men and women may assemble there once more to give praise to God. He is oppressed by a sense of the brevity of his personal span of life, with which he contrasts the eternal being of God. In comparison with his own short life, heaven and earth are long-lived; yet heaven and earth must pass away. They had their beginning when God created them, and they will grow old and disappear one day; but the God who created them existed before they did, and he will survive their disappearance. As one man in his lifetime outlives many successive suits of clothes, so God has seen and will yet see many successive material universes, but he himself is eternal and unchanging.
The words in which the psalmist addresses God, however, are here applied to the Son, as clearly as the words of Ps. 45:6f. were applied to him in vv. 8 and 9. What justification can be pleaded for our author's applying them thus? First, as he has already said in v. 2, it was through the Son that the universe was made. The angels were but worshiping spectators when the earth was founded,97 but the Son was the Father's agent in the work. He therefore can be understood as the one who is addressed in the words:
Moreover, in the Septuagint text the person to whom these words are spoken is addressed explicitly as "Lord"98 ("Thou, Lord, in the beginning didst lay the foundation of the earth"); and it is God who addresses him thus. Whereas in the Hebrew text the suppliant is the speaker from the beginning to the end of the psalm, in the Greek text his prayer comes to an end with v. 22;99 and the next words read as follows:
101. The LXX has treated Heb. 'omar 'elf ("I say, `My God"') as 'emor 'elai ("say to me"); again, the difference is purely one of vocalization.
This is God's answer to the suppliant; he bids him acknowledge the shortness of God's set time (for the restoration of Jerusalem, as in v. 13) and not summon him to act when that set time has only half expired, while he assures him that he and his servants' children will be preserved forever.102 But to whom (a Christian reader of the Septuagint might well ask) could God speak in words _link_ like these? And whom would God himself address as "Lord," as the maker of earth and heaven?103 Our author knows of one person only to whom such terms could be appropriate, and that is the Son of God.
That our author understood this quotation from Ps. 102 as an utterance of God seems plain from the way in which it is linked by the simple conjunction "and" to the preceding quotation from Ps. 45. Both quotations fall under the same rubric: "But to104 the Son [God says]." If in the preceding quotation the Son is addressed by God as "God," in this one he is addressed by God as "Lord." And we need not doubt that to our author the title "Lord" conveys the highest sense of all, "the name which is above every name." No wonder that the Son has ascribed to him a dignity which surpasses all the names angels bear. Nor is our author the only New Testament writer to ascribe to Christ the highest of divine names, or to apply to him Old Testament scriptures which in their primary context refer to Yahweh.105
13 (g) The seventh quotation, which clinches the argument, consists of the opening words of Ps. 110 (LXX 109), "Yahweh's oracle to my The language of the oracle, "Sit at my right hand," has already been reflected in the wording of v. 3, where the Son of God is said to have "sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high"; now it is expressly quoted. Like the first of these seven quotations ("You are my Son; today I have begotten you"), it refers to the king's enthronement, and carries with it the promise of victory over all his enemies. Whether Ps. 110 was composed against the background of some particular event in the history of the Hebrew monarchy,107 such as Solomon's installation as king, or had its place in the national cult,108 the New Testament uniformly interprets it as messianic, and applies it to Jesus. When Jesus asked how the scribes of his day could say that the Messiah was David's son, whereas the opening words of Ps. 110 acclaimed him as David's Lord, the messianic interpretation of the psalm was evidently common ground to him and them.109 Its general messianic interpretation forms the background to its use in the apostolic preaching: the words "Sit at my right hand," which by common consent were addressed to the Messiah, must be regarded as addressed to Jesus, the apostles claimed, since his death and resurrection had shown that he was the Indeed, Jesus himself at his trial claimed to be the one addressed in these words when he told his judges that they would from then on see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of the This claim, condemned as blasphemy by the Sanhedrin, was held by the apostles to have been vindicated by the subsequent act of God; and the heavenly session of Christ has, from the earliest days of the church's existence, been maintained in Christian confession.112 It remained for the writer to the Hebrews, however, to bring out further implications of the ascription of this psalm to Jesus, by taking along with the divine utterance of v. 1 ("Sit at my right hand ...") the further divine utterance of v. 4 ("You are a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek").113
14 The most exalted angels are those whose privilege it is to "stand in the presence of God" like Gabriel (Luke 1:19),114 but none of them has ever been invited to sit before him, still less to sit in the place of unique honor at his right hand. Their standing posture betokens their promptness to execute his commands, or simply to abide his pleasure.
All of them, the highest angels as well as the lowest, are but servants of God, "ministering spirits" (a phrase which echoes the language of Ps. 104:4 as quoted above in v. 7),116 and not to be compared with the Son. More remarkable still, their service is performed for the benefit of a favored class of human beings, the heirs of salvation. That these should be the beneficiaries of angelic ministry may well be due to their close association with the Son of God, by whom they are being brought to glory (2:10).117 These angels are clearly different beings from the hostile world-rulers and elemental spirits mentioned in Paul's epistles, whose influence has been broken over the lives of those who have died with Christ.118
The salvation here spoken of lies in the future; it is yet to be inherited, even if its blessings can already be enjoyed in anticipation. That is to say, it is that eschatological salvation which, in Paul's words, is "nearer to us now than when we first believed" (Rom. 13:11) or, in Peter's words, is "ready to be revealed in the last time" (1 Pet. 1:5).119 Our author does not need to explain to his readers what he means by this salvation; the term and its meaning are familiar to them already. What they do need to understand is the fearful danger to which they will be exposed if they treat this salvation lightly.
The Son of God's ascendancy over angels has thus been asserted and confirmed by the testimony of Old Testament scripture. Some of the Old Testament passages adduced, and especially the first and the last (Pss. 2:7; 110:1), were already well established in the church as messianic testimonies, and were acknowledged as having met their fulfilment in Jesus. In them Jesus was addressed by God in terms that surpassed the honors enjoyed by the mightiest of archangels, who indeed are called upon to pay him homage in recognition of his sovereignty over them. And the authority of the gospel which the readers of this epistle had embraced was the authority of Jesus, the Son of God, supremely exalted by his Father. As God had no greater messenger than his Son, he had no further message beyond the gospel.
HEBREWS 2
C. FIRST ADMONITION: THE GOSPEL AND THE LAW (2:1-4)
we must pay the more careful attention to what we have heard, so as not to drift away from it.
2 For, if the word spoken through angels was securely established, and every transgression and disobedient act received its just requital,
escape will there be for us if we neglect a salvation so great? This salvation was first announced through the Lord; it was delivered to us with assurance by those who heard him,
4 while God at the same time confirmed the message with signs and wonders and a variety of mighty works and with gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.
1 The main reason why the Son's superiority to angels has been so emphasized now begins to appear. The older revelation, the law of Sinai, was communicated by angelic intermediaries, but God's final revelation was given in his Son and therefore demands correspondingly serious attention. The truth and teaching of the gospel must not be held lightly; they are of supreme moment, they are matters of life and death, and must be cherished and obeyed at all costs. The danger of drifting away from them, and so losing them, cannot be treated too gravely. ERV/ARV "lest haply we drift away from them" contemplates Christians as in peril of being carried downstream past a fixed landing place and so failing to gain its security. AV/KJV "lest at any time we should let them slip" reflects another use of the same verb, of allowing a ring to slip off the finger and so losing it.' Whatever be the precise metaphorical force of the verb here, our author is warning Christian readers, who have heard and accepted the gospel, that if they yield to the temptation to abandon their profession their plight is hopeless.
2 The sanctions which attended the law given at Sinai were severe and inescapable. Every commandment had the appropriate penalty prescribed for its infringement, and for those who deliberately and of set policy defied or disregarded the law of God there was no reprieve-for such behavior the death sentence was fixed in advance.2 Yet the law was not imparted by such august mediation as the gospel; the law was "the word spoken through angels."
The angelic mediation of the law is not recorded in the Old Testament. The nearest thing to it is the description of the Sinai theophany at the beginning of the Blessing of Moses (Deut. 33:2):
In the Septuagint this last clause is rendered: "At his right hand were angels with him." This associates the angels more closely with the law-giving, but does not make them mediators. Their mediatorship finds clearer expression in the intertestamental and early Christian age, and is mentioned as a matter of general knowledge in two other places in the New Testament. In Gal. 3:19 the fact that the law "was ordained by angels through an intermediary" is adduced by Paul to prove its inferiority to God's unmediated promise to Abraham; and in Acts 7:53 Stephen charges the Jewish nation with having repudiated the law from earliest days, even though they received it "as delivered by angels."3 For our author the mediation of the law by angels is not bound up (as it was for Paul) with the tension between angels and their world order on the one hand and Christ and his salvation on the other. In this epistle, moreover, the law is not a principle set in opposition to the grace manifested in Christ's saving work, but rather an anticipatory sketch of that saving work. Here we find a concern with the sacrificial cultus rather than with the "tradition of the elders," with the ritual law as a means of access to God rather than with the moral law as a way of life.
The great salvation of which the gospel speaks was, to begin with, "announced through the Lord." It had, of course, been proclaimed in advance by the prophets; but not until the coming of Christ, when promise gave place to fulfilment, could it be effectively brought near. The note of fulfilment was heard when Jesus came into Galilee after John the Baptist's imprisonment, "preaching the gospel of God, and saying, `The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel"' (Mark 1:14f.), and when, as in the synagogue at Nazareth, he read the words of Isa. 61: if. which announce "good tidings to the poor" and "release to the captives," and proclaim "the acceptable year of the Lord," and followed them with the declaration: "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing" (Luke 4:1821).5 Neither our author nor his readers had heard the liberating message direct from the lips of the Lord, but depended on the sure testimony of those who had listened to him. Our author, unlike Paul, does not claim any direct revelation from Christ for himself or assert his independence of the apostles; in this respect he puts himself on the same level as his fellow-Christians who heard the gospel from those "who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word" (Luke 1:2).
4 The witness of their informants, however, was confirmed by the signs and wonders and mighty works which attended their proclamation of the message; these were tokens granted by God to attest the truth of what was proclaimed. The testimony of the New Testament writings to the regularity with which these phenomena accompanied the preaching and receiving of the gospel in the early apostolic age is impressive in its range. The "mighty works and wonders and signs"6 which marked the ministry of Jesus (Acts 2:22) continued to mark the ministry of the apostles from Pentecost onward (Acts 2:43). They were associated particularly with the bestowal of the Spirit, as indeed they are here: God's "distributions of the Holy Spirit' 17 to believers in accordance with his sovereign pleasures formed the most conclusive demonstration and seal of the truth of the gospel. When Paul tries to recall the Galatian Christians to the simplicity of Christ, he reminds them that it was the message of faith and not the imposition of legal requirements that was confirmed among them in the beginning by God's supplying the Spirit to them and performing mighty works in their midst (Gal. 3:5). Similarly the recipients of Peter's first epistle are reminded how the gospel was first preached to them in the power of "the Holy Spirit sent from heaven" (1 Pet. 1:12).9 The New Testament writers (including our author at this point) would not have appealed to the evidence of these miraculous manifestations if there was any possibility that their readers would reply that they had never seen or heard of such things. 10 They were matters of common knowledge and widespread Christian experience, and the reference to them here is calculated to restore the readers' faith in the gospel as God's authoritative message.
D. THE HUMILIATION AND GLORY OF THE SON OF MAN (2:5-9)
5 It was not to angels that God subjected the coming world, of which we are speaking.
6 But someone has borne witness somewhere to this
7 You have made him a little lower than the angels, you have crowned him with glory and honor, 13
8 you have subjected all things beneath his feet. "
9 But we see him who was made a little lower than angels in order to suffer death-that is, we see Jesus-crowned with glory and honor, in order that [by God's grace]'5 he should taste death for all.
5 A further reason for emphasizing the superiority of Christ to the angels now appears. To angelic beings the present world has been entrusted for administration, but not so the world to come. The biblical evidence for the angelic government of the world is early: it goes back to the Song of Moses in Deut. 32. The Septuagint reading of Deut. 32:8 (which has claims to represent the original text) runs thus:
(The following verse goes on to say that Yahweh has reserved Israel as his own heritage.) This reading implies that the administration of the various nations has been parceled out among a corresponding number of angelic powers. At a later time this implication becomes explicit: in Daniel, for example, we meet the angelic "prince of Persia" and "prince of Greece" (Dan. 10:20), while Michael is "the great prince" who champions the people of Israel (Dan. 10:21; 12:1). In a number of places some at least of these angelic governors are portrayed as hostile principalities and powers-the "worldrulers of this darkness" of Eph. 6:12.17 In Hebrews nothing is said about their possible hostility; all that matters in the argument of this epistle is that they are angels. "The world to come, which is our theme" (NEB) is the new worldorder inaugurated by the enthronement of Christ at the right hand of God,18 the world-order over which he reigns from that place of exaltation, the world of reality which replaces the preceding world of shadows.19 It has been inaugurated by Christ's enthronement, although it is not yet present in its fulness; its consummation awaits the time when Christ will appear to bring his people into the final blessings of the salvation which he has procured for them;20 but here and now they are experiencing "the mighty works of the coming age" (6:5), some of which have just been referred to in v. 4. If then this world to come has not been entrusted to angels for its administration, to whom has it been placed in subjection? To the Son of God, whom his Father has "appointed heir of all things" (1:2). It is not in the role of the Son of God that he now appears, however, but as the Son of Man, in accordance with the words which our author quotes from the eighth psalm.
6-8a The writer to the Hebrews is not careful to name the particular author of any scripture which he may quote. All the Old Testament is to him a divine oracle, the voice of the Holy Spirit; but as for the human author, the vaguest allusion will suffice: "someone has borne witness somewhere." With these words he introduces Ps. 8:4-6 according to the Septuagint, with the omission of one clause.21 The one significant difference between the Septuagint and Hebrew texts comes in the first line of Ps. 8:5; whereas the Hebrew is most naturally translated "thou hast made him but little lower than God" (ERV/ARV), the Septuagint says "thou madest him a little [or for a little while22] lower than the angels."23
The psalmist is overcome with wonder as he thinks of the glory and honor which God has bestowed on mankind, in making them but little lower than himself and giving them dominion over all the lesser creation.24 The language of the psalm is plainly based on the words of the Creator in Gen. 1:26: "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over every living thing that moves on the earth."25 Our author, however, applies these words not to the first Adam but to Christ as the last Adam, the head of the new creation and ruler of the world to come. Here is probably a tacit identification of "the son of man" in Ps. 8:4 with the "one like a son of man" in Dan. 7:13, who receives from the Ancient of Days "an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away." It is true that in the psalm "the son of man" stands in a relation of synonymous parallelism with "man" in the preceding line; but then it is equally true that "one like a son of man" in Dan. 7:13 simply means "one like a human being."26 The fact remains that, ever since Jesus spoke of himself as the Son of Man, this expression has had for Christians a connotation beyond its etymological force, and it had this connotation for the writer to the Hebrews.27
The conception of Christ as the last Adam is certainly no innovation on our author's part, and it may not even be original with Paul28-especially if we can recognize in Phil. 2:6-11 a pre-Pauline hymn in which the faithfulness of the second man is contrasted with the fall of the first man.29 God's man as the fulfiller of God's purpose meets us in the Old Testament;30 he is "the man of thy right hand.... the son of man whom thou madest strong for thyself' for whose triumph another psalmist prays to God (Ps. 80:17). When one person fails in the accomplishment of the divine purpose (as, in some degree, all did in Old Testament times), God raises up another to take his place. But who could take the place of Adam? Only one who was capable of undoing the effects of Adam's fall and thus ushering in a new world-order. It is unnecessary to look for the origins of this conception in the idea of a Heavenly Man belonging, perhaps, to the Zoroastrian realm of thought.31 The New Testament portrayal of Christ as the last Adam can be accounted for adequately on the basis of the Old Testament, interpreted in the light of the character and achievement of Christ. By his character and achievement he is immediately recognizable by his people as
The quotation from Ps. 8 is linked with what has gone before in that the clause with which the quotation ends-"Thou halt subjected all things beneath his feet"-echoes the earlier quotation from Ps. 110:1, "Till I make your enemies a footstool for your feet."33 Not his enemies only, but the whole creation, will ultimately be brought into manifest subjection to him.
It is as the true representative of humanity that Christ is viewed as fulfilling the language of the psalm, and as fulfilling therewith the declared purpose of the Creator when he brought the human race into being. As mankind's true representative, accordingly, he must share in the conditions inseparable from the human condition; only so could he blaze the trail of salvation for mankind and act effectively as his people's high priest in the presence of God. This means that he is not only the one in whom the sovereignty destined for humanity is realized, but also the one who, because of human sin, must realize that sovereignty by way of suffering and death. Therefore he who has already been introduced as "so much better than the angels" had to be "made a little lower than the angels," as the psalmist said. Why this should be our author proceeds to show.
8b The psalmist's words, "Thou hast subjected all things beneath his feet," had reference to things on earth as far as Adam was concerned; but the dominion of Christ knows no such limitation. "For in subjecting all things to him, he left nothing that is not subject" (NEB). Our author does not add, as Paul did, "it is evident that he is excepted who put all things under him" (1 Cor. 15:27); but this exception is, of course, implied. (A very early copyist or reader perhaps added a marginal note here to make explicit what our author left implicit.)34 As things are, however, the subjection of the created world to mankind, declared by the psalmist to be God's ordinance, is not yet fully realized, and even the Man of God's right hand does not yet command the willing allegiance of all.35 But the sovereignty which human beings have proved unable to exercise thus far is already wielded on their behalf by the true Son of Man; his suffering and triumph constitute the pledge of his eternal kingdom.
Moreover, it is precisely because of his humiliation, suffering, and death that he has been invested with heavenly glory. This interpretation of our author's argument at this point brings it into line with Paul's "Therefore God has highly exalted him" in Phil. 2:9. But very many commentators on Hebrews have found themselves obliged by the construction here to think of the crowning with glory and honor as something preceding the suffering of death, as a solemn preparation for it.37 The transfiguration of Christ has been thought of as the occasion referred to;38 it was then that "he received glory and honor from God the Father" (2 Pet. 1:17), and it was immediately thereafter that he set out upon the last journey to Jerusalem.39 "The crowning," says Alexander Nairne, "marks the victim, or the hero going gallantly to his contest, not the victorious king."40 Yet it is difficult to fit this interpretation into the context of the general argument of this epistle, in which the glory is consistently presented as the sequel to the passion.41 The phrase "because of the suffering of death" more naturally suggests that the crowning followed the suffering as its divinely appointed end than that the crowning took place with a view to the suffering of death.42 As for the clause "that ... he should taste death for all," it does indeed express purpose-not, however, the purpose of the crowning by itself, but rather the purpose of the whole sequence of preceding events, the humiliation, passion, and glory combined.43 Because the Son of Man suffered, because his suffering has been crowned by his exaltation, therefore his death avails for all.44 Chrysostom's comment on Christ's tasting death for everyone has been frequently quoted: "As a physician, though not needing to taste the food prepared for the sick man, yet in his care for him tastes first himself, that he may persuade the sick man with confidence to venture on the food; so, since all men were afraid of death, in persuading them to take courage against death, he tasted it also himself though he had no need so to do."45 But the point of our author's argument is that Christ did have need so to do, if the purpose of his incarnation was to be accomplished; Chrysostom has been over-influenced by the verb "taste."46 Calvin's comment is more penetrating than Chrysostom's: "By saying `for every one,' he means not only that Christ might be an example to others, as Chrysostom says, when he adduces the example of a physician taking the first taste of a bitter draught, that the patient may consent to drink it; he means rather that Christ died for us, and that by taking on Himself what was due to us, He redeemed us from the curse of death."47
Whatever may be said of the textual warrant for the phrase "by God's grace,"48 it is entirely appropriate in the context and makes for a smooth transition to the words which follow.
E. THE SON OF MAN THE SAVIOR AND HIGH PRIEST OF HIS PEOPLE (2:10-18)
10 It was indeed fitting for the one for whom all things exist and through whom all things exist, in leading49 many sons to glory, to perfect through sufferings the pioneer50 of their salvation.
11 For the sanctifier and those who are sanctified all come from one stock. That is why he is not ashamed to call them "brothers, "
12 when he says,
"I will declare your name to my brothers; in the midst of the congregation I will sing your praise ";51
13 and again,
"I will place my trust in him 11;52
and again,
"Here am I -I and the children that God has given me. "53
14 Since then the children are sharers in flesh and blood,54 he himself likewise partook55 of the same, so that through death he might bring to nought the one who held the power of death-namely, the devil-
15 and deliver those who for fear of death were liable to lifelong bondage.
16 It is not, you see, of angels but of the offspring of Abraham that he takes hold.56
18 For since he himself endured trial and suffering, he is able to help those enduring trial.
10 The one "for whom and by whom all things exist" (RSV)58 must here be God the Father, of whose perfecting work the Son is object. There are many who are ready to tell us confidently what would and what would not be worthy of God; but in fact the only way to discover what is a worthy thing for God to do is to consider what God has actually done. The person who says, "I could not have a high opinion of a God who would (or would not) do this or that," is not adding anything to our knowledge of God; he is simply telling us something about himself. We may be sure that all that God does is worthy of himself, but here our author singles out one of God's actions and tells us that it was a fitting thing for him to do.59 And what was that? It was his making Jesus, through his sufferings, perfectly qualified to be the Savior of his people. It is in the passion of our Lord that we see the very heart of God laid bare; nowhere is God more fully or more worthily revealed as God than when we see him "in Christ reconciling the world to himself' (2 Cor. 5:19).
For the great salvation which the gospel proclaims was not only "first announced through the Lord," as we have been told above, but was procured for us by him through his passion. He is the Pathfinder, the Pioneer of our salvation; this is the meaning of the word archegos, rendered "author" here in the ERV/ARV and "captain" in the AV/KJV.60 He is the Savior who blazed the trail of salvation along which alone God's "many sons" could be brought to glory. Man, created by God for his glory, was prevented by sin from attaining that glory until the Son of Man came and opened up by his death a new way by which humanity might reach the goal for which it was made. As his people's representative and forerunner he has now entered into the presence of God to secure their entry there.
But what is meant by his being made "perfect" through his sufferings? If the Son of God is the effulgence of his Father's glory and the very impress of his being, how can he be thought of as falling short of perfection? The answer is this: the perfect Son of God has become his people's perfect Savior, opening up their way to God; and in order to become that, he must endure suffering and death. The pathway of perfection which his people must tread must first be trodden by the Pathfinder;61 only so could he be their adequate representative and high priest in the presence of God. There is much in this epistle about the attainment of perfection62 in the sense of unimpeded access to God and unbroken communion with him, but in this as in other things it is Christ who leads the way.
In order to be a perfect high priest, a person must sympathize with those on whose behalf he acts, and he cannot sympathize with them unless he can enter into their experiences and share them for himself. Jesus did just this. Moreover, in order to be a perfect high priest, a person must learn the lesson of obedience to God; if he failed in this, he would really need a priest for himself, to enter into God's presence for him with the assurance of being admitted there. Of Jesus' obedience there could be no question.63 But a high priest had one specially solemn service to perform; he had to present an atonement to God on his people's behalf. And an atonement efficacious in itself could be presented only by a high priest whose sympathetic self-identification with his people was unreserved, and at the same time by a high priest whose obedience to God was unmarred by any reluctance-not to say refusal-to obey. There is only one who fulfils these conditions perfectly-the one whose obedience and death fitted him completely to be his people's representative. He suffered not only with them but for them; his suffering was both voluntary and vicarious. He who suffered was the Son of God, and the "many" for whom he suffered are thus led to glory as sons of God in their turn.
11 "For a consecrating priest and those whom he consecrates are all of one stock" (NEB). That is a general truth, and in this supreme instance it is exemplified by the fact that not only do he who consecrates and those who are consecrated share a common humanity but also he is the Son of God and they are sons and daughters of God.64 It is by his sacrifice of himself in obedience to God's will that they are sanctified, as appears more fully later in the epistle-"sanctified once for all through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ" (10:10).65 By his death they are consecrated to God for his worship and service and set apart for God as his holy people, destined to enter into his glory. For sanctification is glory begun, and glory is sanctification completed. And since those who are sanctified to God through his death are sons and daughters of God, the Son of God is not ashamed to acknowledge them as his brothers and sisters-not only as those whose nature he took upon himself, but those whose trials he endured, for whose sins he made atonement, that they might follow him to glory on the path of salvation which he himself cut.
(a) The first quotation (Ps. 22:22 [LXX 21:23]) is taken from a psalm in which no Christian of the first century would have failed to recognize Christ as the speaker. It is the psalm whose opening words Jesus took upon his lips as the expression of his own experience in the hour of dereliction on the cross: "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"67 Practically the whole of the lament to which the first part of the psalm is devoted was used in the church from very early times as a testimonium of the crucifixion of Christ; not only is it expressly quoted, but its language has been worked into the very fabric of the New Testament passion narratives, especially in the First and Fourth Gospels.68 It is most natural, then, that when the psalmist's lament gives way to the public thanksgiving of which the second part of the psalm consists, the same speaker should be recognized, and the once crucified, now exalted Christ should be heard saying: "I will declare your name to my brothers; in the midst of the congregation I will sing your praise."69 Following the Septuagint, our author uses the word ekklesia for "congregation" (the Hebrew of Ps. 22:22 has gahan. The employment of this word in synonymous parallelism with "brothers" in a Christian context indicates that those whom the Son of God is pleased to call his brothers are the members of his church. By virtue of his suffering he has now become "the representative Head of a new mankind."70
(b) If it is easy to see the relevance of the quotation of Ps. 22:22 here, it is less easy to see the relevance of the quotation which follows it. "I will place my trust in him" is taken from the Septuagint of Isa. 8:17b. This is a good example of C. H. Dodd's thesis that the principal Old Testament quotations in the New Testament are not isolated proof-texts, but carry their contexts with them by implication.71 In the context of this quotation, Isaiah, find ing that his oracles of salvation and judgment meet with no response from either king or people, seals them up and hands them over to his disciples for safekeeping, in order that, when their fulfilment comes, it may be made apparent that what he had spoken was the true word of God. Meanwhile, he says, "I will wait for Yahweh, who is hiding his face from the house of Jacob, and I will hope in him." God's hiding of his face from the house of Jacob provides the link with Ps. 22, where his face is hidden from the righteous sufferer who (in the Christian interpretation) is the representative of the whole house of Jacob, enduring the dereliction which was due to them. If Isaiah, one of the prophets through whom God of old time spoke to the fathers, was rejected by those to whom he came, so was the Son in whom God more recently spoke his final word; if Isaiah nonetheless maintained his trust in God and waited for vindication from him, so did the Son of God. "Commit yourself to Yahweh," the righteous sufferer is exhorted in mockery in Ps. 22;72 but when the suffering is past he gratefully bears witness to the faithfulness of the God in whom he trusted:
This recurring pattern of men and women's trust in God in days of darkness and their glad acknowledgment of God's faithfulness when he acts for their vindication is found in the lives of many biblical characters; but there is something quite outstanding in the case of Isaiah. For it is with him that we begin to see the historical emergence of the righteous remnant, the faithful Israel within the empirical Israel, the group in whose survival the hope of the future was assured, one might almost say the ekklesia of the Messiah. Certainly, in Isaiah's prophetic ministry there is a close association between the coming King and the remnant-or, to use the language of Hebrews, be tween the Son and his brothers. Moreover, there is reason to believe tha. Isaiah himself took steps to give a conscious corporate existence to the embryonic remnant of his own day, partly in the circle of his disciples of whom he speaks in Isa. 8:16 and partly in his own family.
(c) Isaiah's family is referred to directly in the third quotation, which comes from Isa. 8:18a, and in the Old Testament text follows immediately upon the second quotation. One may wonder, then, why the two quotations are separated by "And again," but the reason no doubt is that two separate points are being made. In the Septuagint the words quoted from Isa. 8:18a form a separate sentence, as they do here: "Here am I, and the children God has given me" (RSV). But in the Hebrew text they form the first part of a longer sentence: "Behold, I and the children whom Yahweh has given me are signs and portents in Israel from Yahweh of hosts, who dwells on Mount Zion."74 The people might pay no heed to Isaiah's oracles, but so long as Isaiah himself went about in Jerusalem, he was an abiding witness to the message of God which had been conveyed through him. Not only so, but his own significant name ("Yahweh is salvation") and the equally significant names of his two sons-Shear-jashub ("Remnant will return") and Maher-shalalhash-baz ("Hasten booty, speed spoil")75-reminded the people of the dominant themes of his message. Indeed, his sons' names were the expression of his own obedient trust in God, his confidence that what God had said would surely come to pass.
14 Who are those "children" whom God has given to Christ? Men and women, creatures of flesh and blood. But if his solidarity with them is to be real, he also must be a true human being, a genuine partaker of flesh and blood. Moreover, he must partake of flesh and blood "in like manner" with them-that is to say, by the gateway of birth. No docetic or Apollinarian Christ will satisfy their need of a Savior or God's determination to supply that need. And if they, entering this earthly life by birth, leave it in due course by death, it was divinely fitting that he too should die. Indeed, this is stated here as the purpose of his incarnation-that he should die, and in the very act of dying draw the sting of death.
It calls for an exceptional effort of mind on our part to appreciate how paradoxical was the attitude of those early Christians to the death of Christ. If ever death had appeared to be triumphant, it was when Jesus of Nazareth, disowned by the leaders of his nation, abandoned by his disciples, executed by the might of imperial Rome, breathed his last on the cross. Why, some had actually recognized in his cry of pain and desolation the complaint that even God had forsaken him. His faithful followers had confidently expected him to be the destined liberator of Israel; but he had died-not, like Judas of Galilee or Judas Maccabaeus, in the forefront of the struggle against the Gentile oppressors of Israel, but in evident weakness and disgrace-and their hopes died with him. If ever a cause was lost, it was his; if ever the powers of evil were victorious, it was then. And yet-within a generation his followers were exultingly proclaiming the crucified Jesus to be the conqueror of death and asserting, like our author here, that by dying he had reduced the erstwhile lord of death to impotence. The keys of death and Hades were henceforth held firmly in Jesus' powerful hand, for he, in the language of his own parable, had invaded the strong man's fortress, disarmed him, bound him fast, and robbed him of his spoil (Luke 11:21f.). This is the unanimous witness of the New Testament writers; this was the assurance which nerved martyrs to face death boldly in his name. This sudden change from disillusionment to triumph can only be explained by the account which the apostles gave-that their Master rose from the dead and imparted to them the power of his risen life.
The prince or angel of death is here identified with the devil-that is, Satan. It is not easy to parallel this outright identification,77 but it is not inconsonant with the general teaching of the New Testament. "The reason the Son of God appeared," says another New Testament writer, "was to destroy the works of the devil" (1 John 3:8),78 and while the particular work of the devil most prominent in that context is sin, the association between sin and death is close enough for the destruction of death to be included in the purpose of the Son of God's appearance.79 Our author in all probability belonged to the circle from which the book of Wisdom came at an earlier date, and shared the sentiments on this subject which find expression there:
These quotations do not amount to a statement that the devil "had the power of death," but they come very near to it.80 Jesus broke the devil's grip on his people when in death he became the death of death, when (in S. W. Gandy's words)-
15 Only by becoming a human being could the Son of God conquer death, which mankind without him could never have done; until his conquest of death, death seemed to have the last word. The resurrection faith was cherished before he came, but his resurrection "brought life and immortality to light"81 and gave that faith a firmer basis. His resurrection is not expressly mentioned here (or anywhere else in the epistle, for that matter, outside the doxology of 13:20f.), but it is implied nonetheless. If death had had the last word with him too, how would anyone have supposed that through death he had disabled the prince of death? The fear of death is a most potent fear. Through fear of death many will consent to do things that nothing else could compel them to do. Some braver souls, it is true, will accept death sooner than dishonor; but for the majority the fear of death can be a tyrannous instrument of coercion. And death is indeed the king of terrors to those who recognize in it the penalty of sin. But by the death of their Sanctifier, Christ's brothers and sisters are sanctified; his death has transformed the meaning of death for them. To them his death means not judgment, but blessing; not bondage, but liberation. And their own death, when it comes, takes its character from his death. If, then, death itself cannot separate the people of Christ from God's love which has been revealed in him, it can no longer be held over their heads by the devil or any other malign power as a means of intimidation.
No one, moreover, can become a human being without thereby becoming a member of some particular human group or family. So when the Son of God took our nature upon himself, he became "the son of Abraham" (Matt. 1:1). In doing that, however, he became the helper and liberator of all the children of Abraham, and here quite certainly we are not to confine the scope of "the offspring of Abraham" to his natural descendants; we are rather to understand the whole family of faith.83 Our author was in hearty agreement with Paul: "it is people of faith who are the children of Abraham" (Gal. 3:7). They are, in other words, the "many sons" whom God is bringing to glory through his first-begotten Son (v. 10).84
17 Having thus emphasized our Lord's solidarity with his brethren, our author now introduces that particular aspect of his solidarity with them which he is especially concerned to expound-his high-priestly ministry on their behalf. Any priest must be one with those whom he represents before God, and this is equally so with Christ as his people's high priest.85 In order to serve them in this capacity, he was obliged to become completely like his brothers and sisters-apart from sin, of course, as is pointed out below (4:15). He suffered with them and for them, and through his sufferings was made perfect-qualified in every way to be their high priest. He is merciful be cause through his own sufferings and trials he can sympathize with theirs; he is faithful because he endured to the end without faltering.86 It is difficult to decide whether his faithfulness here is his steadfast loyalty to God (as in 3:2) or his utter trustworthiness as far as his people are concerned. Since in fact both aspects are essential in a perfect high priest, and are true of Christ, it may not be necessary to decide too narrowly between them.
His high priesthood is exercised "in matters for which they are responsible to God." 87 And most crucial among these matters is the matter of sin. How can sinners approach the holiness of God, either personally or through a representative? They can come to him with confidence only if their sin has been removed. And this above all else makes Jesus so incomparable a high priest and representative of his people; not only is he sinless himself, and therefore entitled to enter the presence of God on his own account, but he has dealt effectively with his people's sins, and can therefore enter the presence of God on their account too. The purpose of his incarnation was that through his death he might "make atonement for the people's sins"-do in effective reality what the sacrificial ritual of Old Testament times could do only in a token form. A high priest who has actually, and not merely in symbolism, removed his people's sins, and therewith the barrier which their sins erected between themselves and God, is a high priest worth having.88
18 He endured keen trials and temptations himself, not only the trials incidental to our human lot, but those subtle temptations which attended his messianic calling. Time and again the temptation came to him from many directions to choose some less costly way of fulfilling that calling than the way of suffering and death,89 but he resisted it to the end and set his face steadfastly to accomplish the purpose for which he had come into the world. Now his people were not only enduring those trials which are common to mankind, but were being tempted in their turn to be disloyal to God and give up their Christian profession.90 What a source of strength it was to them to be assured that in the presence of God they had as their champion and intercessor one who had known similar and even sorer temptations, and had withstood them victoriously!91
HEBREWS 3
II. THE TRUE HOME OF THE PEOPLE OF GOD (3:1-4:13)
A. JESUS GREATER THAN MOSES (3:1-6)
you who are members of a holy brotherhood, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider the apostle and high priest whom we confess-consider Jesus.
2 He is faithful to the one who appointed him, just as Moses was faithful in all God's house. I
3 Jesus, in fact, has been deemed worthy of greater glory than Moses, inasmuch as the builder of the house has greater honor than the house.
4 For every house is built by someone, but the one who built all things is God.
5 Moses indeed was faithful in all God's house as a servant,2 serving by way of testimony to the things which are about to be spoken of,
6 but Christ is faithful as a son over his house. Now it is we who are Christ's house,3 if we maintain our confidence and the hope in which we boast.4
1 To Jesus, then, the attention of the readers is directed. The terms in which they are addressed-"brothers in the family of God, who share a heavenly calling" (NEB)-are calculated to remind them of the dignity with which God has invested them, a dignity which it would be insulting to God for them to treat lightly. Two common New Testament designations of Christians are joined together in the phrase "holy brothers,"5 while the insistence on the heavenly character of their calling6 marks them out as citizens of a realm not circumscribed by the conditions of earthly life. They are set apart by God for himself, made members of his family, and called to share in his eternal rest. The practical implications of all this become clear as the present phase of our author's argument proceeds.
When Jesus is designated as "the apostle and high priest of our confession,"7 he is marked out as being both God's representative among human beings and their representative in the presence of God. The Old Testament writings tell the story of God's self-revelation to human beings and their response to that revelation; in both respects these writings find their fulfilment in Jesus. For he is not only, as has been emphasized already, the one in whom God has revealed himself finally and completely, but also the perfect embodiment of humanity's obedient response to God.
2 In both respects Jesus has proved himself faithful-a faithful high priest (cf. 2:17) and a faithful envoy. The faithfulness of an envoy consists in his loyal discharging of the commission with which he has been entrusted; and such faithfulness was manifested preeminently in the Sent One of God, who glorified his Father on earth by finishing the work which he had given him to do (cf. John 17:4).
The combining of the two roles of divine envoy and priest in one person is not common in the Old Testament; it appears only in a few outstanding characters, among whom Moses occupies a special place. That Moses was an apostle of God to his people does not call for demonstration; it is equally true that he was his people's most effective intercessor with God.8 It was his brother Aaron, and not he, who was high priest of Israel as far as title and investiture were concerned; but it was Moses, and not Aaron, who was Israel's true advocate with God. After the idolatrous festival in honor of the golden calf, in which Aaron himself was implicated, it was Moses whose prevailing plea procured pardon for his guilty people (Ex. 32:11-14, 31f.), as it did on a later occasion when the unfavorable report of the spies caused a rebellion in the camp and a resolution to return to Egypt (Num. 14:13-19). When Moses' unique position as the spokesman of God was challenged even by members of his own family, his faithfulness was vindicated by God. Other spokesmen of God might receive communications from him by vision or dream, but Moses enjoyed more direct revelation than they: "Not so with my servant Moses; he is entrusted with all my house: with him I speak mouth to mouth, clearly, and not in dark speech; and he beholds the form of Yahweh" (Num. 12:7f.).9 Moses was acknowledged by God as chief steward10 over his household," and if "it is required in stewards, that one be found faithful" (1 Cor. 4:2), Moses certainly met this requirement. The "house" of Num. 12:7 in which Moses served so faithfully is not the tent of meeting but the people of Israel, the family of God.12
3-4 Yet, great as Moses was, his status was inferior to Christ's. The implication for the recipients of this epistle is plain: the old economy, inaugurated by Moses, is inferior to the new order introduced by Christ. Moses was a household servant13 exalted by virtue of his outstanding faithfulness to the post of chief administrator of God's household; but Christ, the Son of God, through whom the universe was made and to whom it has been given by his Father as his heritage, is founder and inheritor of the household. In this regard the Son is one with the Father: God the Father, the Maker of all things,14 is inevitably the founder of his own household, and it was through his Son that he brought into being all things in general and his own household in particular.
5-6a Moses' relation to God's household, then, was that of a servant; Christ's relation to it is that of the Son and heir. Moses administered the household as one who was himself part of the household; Christ rules over the household'' as the Son whom his Father, the owner of the household, has appointed to exercise this rule. The Son's authority is greater than the servant's: Moses was not the author of the old economy as Christ is the author of the new. Yet God issued a solemn warning to any who might venture "to speak against my servant Moses" (Num. 12:8); more solemn still is the implicit warning against denying or ignoring the claims of Christ and the gospel. The claims of Christ and the gospel, indeed, are foreshadowed in the ministry which was committed to Moses: Moses' ministry was designed as "by way of testimony to the things which are about to be spoken of 116-or, in the language used later in this epistle, it was designed as "a shadow of the good things to come" (10:1), the good things which now have indeed come in Christ. In some sections of Jewish Christianity Christ's role was envisaged as primarily that of a second Moses; here he is presented as being much more than that.17
6b If the household of God in which Moses served him so loyally was the people of Israel, what is the household of God today, over which the Son of God bears rule? That household comprises all believers:18 "we are that household of his, if only we are fearless and keep our hope high" (NEB). The conditional sentences of this epistle are worthy of special attention.19 Nowhere in the New Testament more than here do we find such repeated insistence on the fact that continuance in the Christian life is the test of reality. The doctrine of the final perseverance of the saints has as its corollary the salutary teaching that the saints are the people who persevere to the end. In the parable of the sower the seed sown on rocky ground made a fair showing at first, but could not withstand the heat of the sun "because it had no root"; and in the interpretation of the parable this is said to refer to people "who, when they have heard the word, immediately receive it with joy; and they have no root in themselves, but endure for a while; then, when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately they fall away" (Mark 4:5f., 16f.). This is precisely what our author fears may happen with his readers; hence his constant emphasis on the necessity of their maintaining fearless confession20 and joyful hope.21 Christians live by faith and not by sight; but while their hope is in things unseen, it is something to exult in, not to be ashamed of. The waning of the first expectant enthusiasm of these "Hebrews,"22 the apparent postponement of their hope, and various kinds of pressure brought to bear upon them, all combined to threaten the steadfastness of their faith. Hence our author, in deep concern, urges upon them that they have everything to gain by standing fast, and everything to lose by slipping back. He reinforces his warning by appealing to a familiar Old Testament precedent.
B. SECOND ADMONITION: THE REJECTION OF JESUS MORE SERIOUS THAN THE REJECTION OF MOSES (3:7-19)
7 Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, 23
8 Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, in the day of testing in the desert,
9 where your forefathers tried me25 and put me to the test,26 and saw my works for forty years.27
26. Gk. iv boxtµaaia ("by way of proving"). The LXX has Mboxilmoav, which is the reading probably represented in Heb. 3:9 by the Latin and Peshitta (Syriac) versions. K L and the bulk of later MSS have eboxiµaodv µe in 3:9.
27. In the MT and the LXX "forty years" belongs to the following clause ("Forty years long was I grieved with that generation"); but our author clearly attaches it to the words which precede by inserting SLo ("Wherefore") before agoa6x0Laa ("I was displeased"). But see v. 17 with exposition and note (p. 102, n. 73).
10 Therefore I was vexed with this28 generation, and said,
11 As I swore in my wrath, `They shall not enter29 into my rest!' 1130
30. Ps. 95 (LXX 94):7b-11, quoted according to the LXX apart from variations mentioned in nn. 26, 27, and 28 above.
12 See to it, brothers, that there is not in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, deserting the living God;
13 but encourage one another day by day, so long as it is called "Today, " lest any of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.
14 For we have become partners of Christ, if we maintain the beginning of our steadfastness firm to the end.
16 who, I ask, rebelled against him when they heard him? Was it not all those who came out of Egypt under Moses' leadership?
17 And with whom was he vexed for forty years?32 Was it not with those who sinned, those whose corpses fell in the desert?33
18 And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, if not to those who disobeyed
19 We see, then, that it was because of unbelief that they were unable to enter.
7-11 The New Testament bears witness, in a number of places, to a primitive and widespread Christian interpretation of the redemptive work of Christ in terms of a new Exodus.35 In some of its features this interpretation may have originated during the Galilaean ministry of Jesus;36 but after his resurrection it comes to present a reasonably fixed form. The death of Christ is itself called an "exodus";37 he is the true passover, sacrificed for his people,38 "a lamb without blemish and without spot."39 They, like Israel in early days, are "the church in the wilderness";40 their baptism into Christ is the antitype of Israel's passage through the Red Sea;41 their sacramental feeding on him by faith is the antitype of Israel's nourishment with manna and the water from the rock.42 Christ, the living Rock, is their guide through the wilderness;43 the heavenly rest which lies before them is the counterpart to the earthly Canaan which was the goal of the Israelites 44 The moral implications of this typology are pressed upon Christian readers by more than one New Testament writer: Paul tells the Corinthians that the record of Israel's rebellion and punishment in the wilderness has been preserved "for our instruction," lest we should imitate their disobedience and be overtaken by comparable judgment;45 Jude similarly draws practical lessons for his fellow-believers from the fact that "Jesus, having saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe."46
This typology was familiar to our author, and quite probably to his readers as well; he uses it, therefore, to warn them against giving up their faith and hope. After his fashion, he bases his argument on a passage from the Psalter, which he expounds in the light of the historical record.
Ps. 95 falls into two parts: the first (vv. 1-7a) consists of a call to worship God, while the second (vv. 7b-1 1), reproduced by our author here, is a warning against disobeying him, reinforced by a reminder of what happened to Israel in the wilderness for disobedience. The liturgical use of the psalm at this day by Jews (for whom it is one of the special psalms appointed for the inauguration of the sabbath47) and Christians (for whom it has been from very early times an integral part of the service of morning prayer48) no doubt perpetuates earlier practice, in which it was sung as part of the temple service for the sabbath day.49 The two parts should not be dissociated from each other:50 it is a good thing to worship God, but acts and words of worship are acceptable only if they proceed from sincere and obedient hearts.
"If only you would listen to his voice today!" says the psalmist, and then he introduces God himself as addressing his people: "Do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah. . . ." "The rebellion" (so the Septuagint,51 followed by our author) is the equivalent of "Meribah" in the Hebrew text, as "the testing"52 is the equivalent of "Massah." When the Israelites threatened revolt against Moses at Rephidim, because there was no water there, he asked them: "Why do you rebe153 against me? why do you put Yahweh to the test?"54 (Ex. 17:2)-and called the place Massah ("testing") and Meribah ("rebellion") because of their behavior (Ex. 17:7). But it was not on that occasion only, but repeatedly throughout the forty years of wandering, that they "tested" God, in the sense of trying to see how long his patience would hold out in face of their stubbornness of heart.
Of these other occasions the one which is uppermost in the psalmist's mind is that recorded in Num.14:20ff. When the majority of the spies brought back to Kadesh-barnea an unfavorable report of the land of Canaan, the people revolted against the leadership of Moses and Aaron, and were on the point of choosing a new leader who would take them back to Egypt. In response to Moses' intercession on their behalf, God refrained from wiping the whole nation out by plague, but, said he, "None of the men that have seen my glory, and my signs, which I wrought in Egypt and in the wilderness, yet have put me to the test these ten times, and have not hearkened to my voice, shall see the land which I swore to give to their fathers, neither shall any of them that despised me see it" (Num. 14:22f.).55 Therefore, instead of invading the promised land at once and taking possession of it, the people remained in the neighborhood of Kadesh-barnea thirty-eight years, "until the entire generation, that is, the men of war, had perished from the camp, as Yahweh had sworn to them" (Deut. 2:14). Of those who were already full-grown men when they came out of Egypt, none except Caleb and Joshua survived to enter Canaan, the "rest" or home which God had prepared for them.56
A later generation of Israelites was warned by the psalmist not to follow the bad example of their ancestors' refusal to listen to God, lest disaster should overtake them in turn; and now a still later generation has the same warning impressed upon it by the writer to the Hebrews. Although the writer does not say so in so many words, it may well be that he saw a special significance in the "forty years" of Ps. 95:10. We have evidence of a belief that God's dealings with Israel, which began with a probationary period of forty years, would be rounded off at the end-time by a probationary period of like duration;57 and (if this epistle was written shortly before A.D. 70) it was nearly forty years now since Jesus had accomplished his "exodus" at Jerusalem. Hence the urgency of the present appeal to the readers to take heed "so long as it is called `Today"' (v. 13).58
12 The judgment of the wilderness days befell the Israelite who rejected Moses. But just as Christ is greater in glory than Moses (v. 3), so the loss incurred in rejecting Christ is greater even than that incurred in rejecting Moses. The rebels in Moses' day missed the promised blessing of entry into an earthly Canaan, but latter-day rebellion would forfeit the greater blessings of the new age.59 It was "an evil heart of unbelief"60 that prevented the generation which witnessed the Exodus from enjoying the "rest" they had hoped to attain in Canaan; our author urges his readers to take heed lest such a heart be found in any of them. "Falling away from the living God" (ERV/ARV; cf. RSV) is a more positive activity than the English words themselves might suggest; it denotes rebellion against him.61 When the Israelites at Kadesh-barnea repudiated the leadership of Moses and Aaron, they revolted in effect against God, who had appointed these two men to be their leaders. And for Christians to repudiate the apostle and high priest of their confession, similarly appointed by God, would be if possible an even more outrageous revolt against the living God. It has indeed been questioned whether a relapse from Christianity into Judaism could be described in such words; do they not denote a complete abandonment of faith in God in any form, whereas in Judaism the living God was acknowledged and worshiped? But a relapse from Christianity into Judaism would be comparable to the action of the Israelites when they "turned back in their hearts to Egypt";62 it would not be a mere return to a position previously occupied, but a gesture of outright apostasy, a complete break with God. For those who had never been illuminated by God's final revelation of himself in Christ, Judaism provided a means of access to God-shadowy and imperfect as it might be.63 But for those who had received the illumination of the gospel to renounce it in favor of the old order which the gospel had superseded would be a form of the irretrievable sin-the sin against light.64
13 Let them be vigilant therefore, and encourage one another with might and main to be steadfast in their faith, during the present time of probation. While this time lasts, each succeeding day is a fresh "Today" in which they may heed the psalmist's warning to hear the voice of God and render him heart-obedience. The exhortation to mutual encouragement was wise: in isolation from fellow-believers each individual among them was more liable to succumb to the subtle temptations which pressed in from so many sides, but if they came together regularly for mutual encouragement the devotion of all would be kept warm and their common hope would be in less danger of flickering and dying.65 In isolation each was prone to be impressed by the specious arguments which underlined the worldly wisdom of a certain measure of compromise of their Christian faith and witness; in the healthy atmosphere of the Christian fellowship these arguments would be the more readily appraised at their true worth, and recognized as being so many manifestations of "the deceitfulness of sin."66 Where the right path lies clear before the eyes, a disinclination to follow it can be reinforced in the mind by many beguiling lines of rationalization; but to surrender to them results in a hardening of the heart, a reduced sensitivity of conscience, which makes it more difficult to recognize the right path on a subsequent occasion. But in a fellowship which exercised a watchful and unremitting care for its members the temptation to prefer the easy course to the right one would be greatly weakened, and the united resolution to stand firm would be correspondingly strengthened.
14 Again the paramount necessity of perseverance is stressed: only if they kept their original confidence67 firm to the end could they be truly called partners of Christ. The word rendered "partners" (RSV "we share in Christ") is the word used at the end of the quotation from Ps. 45:6f. in Heb. 1:8f.-"God ... has anointed you with the oil of exultation more than your companions."68 The meaning of the phrase "partners of Christ" is probably not that of participation in him (as in the Pauline expression "in Christ"), but rather that of participation with him in his heavenly kingdom-the unshakable kingdom of 12:28.69 To begin well is good, but it is not enough; it is only those who stay the course and finish the race that have any hope of gaining the prize.70 The Israelites made a good beginning when they crossed the Sea of Reeds and praised God for their deliverance; but the good beginning was not matched by their later behavior.
15-18 When the scripture already quoted says, "Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion," to whom is God speaking? Who were the people who turned a deaf ear to his voice and so provoked7l him to anger? It was those72 who came out of Egypt under the leadership of Moses, those who had experienced God's redeeming power. When the writer asks, "And with whom was he vexed for forty years?"73 to which generation does he refer? To that generation which witnessed his mighty works, and nevertheless rebelled against him-that "evil congregation" against which sentence was passed: "As I live, says Yahweh, what you have said in my hearing I will do to you: your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness" (Num. 14:27). And who were the people to whom he swore in his wrath that "they would not enter his rest"? Those who, having covenanted to obey him, proved repeatedly disobedient, and showed themselves to be "a perverse generation, children in whom is no faithfulness" (Deut. 32:20).
19 It was unbelief,74 faithlessness, then, that kept them out of the promised land. They had enjoyed God's delivering mercy in the Exodus, and had heard him speak when he gave the law at Sinai; but those initial experiences did not keep them from dying in the wilderness, or guarantee their safe arrival in Canaan. The moral must have been plain enough to the recipients of the epistle. For they too had experienced the redeeming power of God; they too had the promise of the homeland of the faithful to look forward to; but one thing could prevent them from realizing that promise, just as it had prevented the mass of the Israelites who left Egypt from entering Canaanand that one thing was unbelief.
HEBREWS 4
C. THE TRUE REST OF GOD MAY BE FORFEITED (4:1-10)
us therefore fear lest, when the promise of entering his rest has been left open,1 any of you should turn out2 to have fallen short of it.
2 For in truth we have heard the good news as they did, but the message which they heard3 did them no good since it was not combined with faith on the part of the hearers.4
3 It is we who have believed that enters into that rest, 6 as God has said,
and yet God's works have been finished since the world's foundation.8
4 For this is what Scripture has said somewhere regarding the seventh day:
"On the seventh day. God rested from all his works. "9
5 And again in this passage it says,
"They shall not enter my rest!"
8 Now if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day after this.
9 So then, a sabbath rest13 remains open for the people of God.
10 For one who has entered God's rest has rested in turn from his own works, as God did from his.
1 The promise of entering the "rest" of God remains open. The meaning of that "rest" was not exhausted by the earthly Canaan which was entered by the Israelites of the generation which had grown up to manhood in the wilderness; the spiritual counterpart of the earthly Canaan is the goal of the people of God today. Our author therefore urges his readers again to press on and attain that goal. It will not be reached automatically; they will do well to fear14 the possibility of missing it,15 just as the generation of Israelites which died in the wilderness missed the earthly Canaan, although that was the goal which they had before them when they set out from Egypt.
2 The parallel between those Israelites and the people of God in the new age is impressive enough for the disaster which befell the former to serve as a warning to the latter. The Israelites of those earlier days had good news proclaimed to them, just as the readers of this epistle had good news proclaimed to them16 (cf. 2:3f.). But the hearing of the good news brought no lasting benefit to those earlier Israelites; it did not ensure their attainment of the goal for which they set out. Why? Because they did not appropriate the good news by faith when they heard it. The good news which was proclaimed to them, summarized in such Old Testament passages as Ex. 19:3-6; 23:2033, told them how the God of their fathers, who had delivered them from Egypt, would bring them safely to the promised land and give them possession of it, and would make them "a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation" to himself, if only they would obey his voice and keep his covenant.17 The reason why this message did not do them as much good as it was designed to do was that, in spite of their serious undertaking, they did not obey his voice or keep his covenant: "they brought no admixture of faith to the hearing of it" (NEB). The practical implication is clear: it is not the hearing of the gospel by itself that brings final salvation, but its appropriation by faith; and if that faith is a genuine faith, it will be a persistent faith.
3-5 It is for those who have accepted the saving message by faith, then, that entry into the "rest" of God is intended-that rest which, in Ps. 95:11, he refers to as "my rest." But in what sense does God speak of "my rest"? Does it simply mean "the rest which I bestow" or does it also mean "the rest which I myself enjoy"? It means the latter: the "rest" which God promises to his people is a share in that rest which he himself enjoys. Here, then, our author proceeds to bring out the underlying meaning of the reference to God's "rest" in Ps. 95:11 by relating it to Gen. 2:2f., where God is said to have "rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had done" in the course of the preceding six days. The Septuagint uses the same Greek word for God's "resting" or "desisting" on the sabbath day from his creative work (Gen. 2:2f.; Ex. 20:11) as for the "rest" of God in Ps. 95:11 (in the former case, the verb katapauo; in the latter, the substantive katapausis), although the Hebrew words are different (in the former case, the verb sabot, explaining the sense of sabbatt "sabbath"; in the latter, the substantive menuhah).
It was not because the "rest" of God was not yet available that the wilderness generation of Israelites failed to enter into it; it had been available ever since creation's work was ended. When we read that God "rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had done" (Gen. 2:2), we are to understand that he began to rest then; the fact that he is never said to have completed his rest and resumed his work of creation implies that his rest continues still, and may be shared by those who respond to his overtures with faith and obedience. This interpretation which views the divine sabbath as beginning from the moment when creation's work came to an end and going on to the present time is paralleled in Philo18 and is implied by our Lord's words in John 5:17, "My Father is working still, and I am working."19 It differs from another interpretation which was widespread in the early church, according to which the seventh day of Gen. 2:2f. is a type of the seventh age of righteousness which is to follow six ages of sin's domination.20 The iden tification of the rest of God in the Epistle to the Hebrews with a coming millennium on earth has, indeed, been ably defended;21 but it involves the importation into the epistle of a concept which in fact is alien to it.
The vagueness of the terms with which the quotation from Gen. 2:2 is introduced is characteristic of our author: "he/it has said somewhere22 with regard to the seventh day." The subject of the verb "has said" is not made explicit: "he" would be God, the subject of the preceding "has said" in v. 3, while "it" would refer to "Scripture" (cf. NEB: "does not Scripture somewhere speak thus of the seventh day... ?"). The fact that Gen. 2:2 is part of the creation narrative, and not reported as an utterance of God, might suggest that "Scripture," not "God," is the subject of "has said"; but this cannot be regarded as a conclusive argument. The repetition of the warning words of Ps. 95:11b after the Genesis quotation emphasizes the identification of the one rest with the other: God's rest has remained open to his people since the work of creation was finished, but it will be forfeited by disobedience.
6-7 It was disobedience, as we have seen, that kept the generation of the Exodus out of God's promised rest, in spite of the good news which was announced to them. But that same promised rest was still open for the people of God centuries after the wilderness period, for the writer of Ps. 95 urges his contemporaries to listen to the voice of God "today," instead of hardening their hearts in obstinacy like their ancestors and being debarred from entering into the rest of God as they had been. Ps. 95 is anonymous in the Masoretic text, but the Septuagint assigns it to David.23 Our author's phrase "in David" (v. 7)24 may mean simply "in the Psalter"; whether he thought of David as the composer of this particular psalm or not is immaterial to his argument, which is that the wording of the psalm implies that entry into the "rest" of God is still available "so long a time"25 after the age of the Exodus and wilderness wanderings. Whether the psalm is the composition of David or not, the point of paramount importance is that it was God who spoke "in David" (cf. 3:7) and his word remains effectively vital long after it was uttered, addressing the heart and conscience of hearers in the Christian era with the same convicting relevance as characterized it when first it was spoken. By dint of repetition our author endeavors to bring home to his readers the fact that the divine warning is as applicable to them as it was in the days of Moses or David. If they treat the saving message lightly, if they "tempt" God by trying to see how far they can presume upon his patience, they in their turn will forfeit his "rest." Therefore to them, as to the psalmist's contemporaries, the urgent appeal goes forth:
We must, of course, use the personal name "Joshua" here instead of "Jesus" which appears in the AV/KJV (the revisers of 1611 would have done better to follow the precedent of Tyndale, Coverdale, and Whittingham, all of whom had used "Joshua").27 Yet it must be recognized that the reader of the Greek Bible had (and still has) an advantage over the reader of the English Bible because to him "Joshua" and "Jesus" are not two names but one; he could distinguish between our Lord and his most illustrious namesake of Old Testament days, and at the same time appreciate some of the implications of the fact that they are namesakes. The parallel between the Old Testament "Jesus," who led his followers into the earthly Canaan, and Jesus the Son of God, who leads the heirs of the new covenant into their heavenly inheritance, is a prominent theme of early Christian typology,28 and could scarcely have been absent from our author's mind. Yet he does not dwell on it here; he is more concerned to point the contrast between the temporal "rest" which Israel entered under Joshua and the true rest which is still reserved for the people of God.
9-10 This rest which is reserved for the people of God is properly called a "sabbath rest"-a sabbatismos or "sabbath keeping"29-because it is their participation in God's own rest. When God completed his work of creation, he "rested"; so his people, having completed their service on earth, will enter into his rest.30 Verse 10, with its initial conjunction "for," explains the description of the believers' coming rest as a "sabbath keeping" in v. 9. Some ambiguity is occasioned by the threefold "his" in v. 10 of the ERV/ARV, where the Greek wording is rendered rather literally;31 the meaning is brought out clearly in the NEB rendering: "Therefore, a sabbath rest still awaits the people of God; for anyone who enters God's rest, rests from his own work as God did from his."32 In other words, he has completed his appointed work in accordance with God's will.
What then is this sabbath rest which awaits them? It is evidently an experience which they do not enjoy in their present mortal life, although it belongs to them as a heritage, and by faith they may live in the good of it here and now.33 How they may do so is illustrated with a wealth of biographical detail in ch. 11. And in that chapter we have further references to the eternal homeland which is the heritage of believers, the saints' everlasting rest-the "better country, that is, a heavenly one" which they desire, the "city" which God has prepared for them, the well-founded city of which he is both architect and builder (11:10, 16). Of this city of God men and women of faith are citizens already, although the full exercise of their civic privileges in it is reserved for the future. Do they, then, receive these privileges and enter into the rest of God at death or at resurrection? Our author gives us no explicit answer to this question. So far as believers of Old Testament days are concerned, however, it appears that they did not attain their heavenly homeland immediately at death. When we are told that "they did not enter upon the promised inheritance, because, with us in mind, God had made a better plan, that only in company with us should they reach their perfection" (11:39f., NEB),34 the meaning must be that they had to wait until the time of fulfilment was introduced by Christ before they could realize completely those promised blessings whose prospect enabled them to live as they did. It may be, then, that in resurrection they, "in company with us," are to attain this perfection and enter into God's rest; but in the absence of an express statement to this effect (there is but little reference to resurrection throughout this epistle), we cannot be certain that this was our author's understanding of the matter. It is, indeed, perfectly conceivable that in his view the Old Testament believers entered into the rest of God as soon as Christ had accomplished his redemptive work, while believers of the New Testament age enter it at death. One way or the other, this blissful rest in unbroken fellowship with God is the goal to which his people are urged to press forward; this is the final perfection which has been prepared for them by the sacrifice of their heavenly high priest. "It is for you," our author might well have told them (in the words of a younger contemporary of his),35 "that paradise is opened, the tree of life is planted, the age to come is prepared, plenty is provided, a city is built, rest is appointed, goodness is established and wisdom perfected beforehand" (4 Ezra 8:52).
D. EXHORTATION TO ATTAIN GOD'S REST (4:11-13)
12 For the word of God is living and active.37 It is sharper than any twoedged sword: as it pierces, it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it discerns the thoughts and purposes38 of the heart.
13 No created being is hidden from it: all things lie bare and exposed in the sight of him to whom our account must be rendered.
11 In view of all the glory which is accessible to faith, in view of the disaster which follows upon unbelief, our author urges his readers once more to make it their earnest endeavor39 to attain the eternal home of the people of God, and not miss it through disobedience like that of the Israelites in the wilderness. Zeal and perseverance are called for; no one can
12 For God's word-that word which fell on disobedient ears in the wilderness and which has been sounded out again in these days of fulfilment-is not like the word of man; it is living, effective, and self-fulfilling; it diagnoses the condition of the human heart, saying "Thou ailest here, and here"; it brings blessing to those who receive it in faith and pronounces judgment on those who disregard it.
All that our author says here about the word (logos) of God is in line with the Old Testament witness. There are verbal links with Philo, who can, for example, speak of the Logos as the "cutter"42; but Moffatt rightly says that "our author is using Philonic language rather than Philonic ideas." With the "living" word we may compare Stephen's reference to the "living oracles" received by Moses at Sinai (Acts 7:38), and Peter's description of "the word of God, which lives and abides" (1 Pet. 1:23). The word is "active" in the sense that it speeds to fulfil the purpose for which it has been uttered: this self-fulfilling character which it possesses is well summed up in Isa. 55:11 where the God of Israel says of "my word ... that goes forth from my mouth": "it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and prosper in the thing for which I sent it."43
If the word of God is personified here, the personification is slightslighter, for instance, than in Wisdom 18:15f., where the Logos is not simply compared to a sharp sword, but is portrayed as the personal wielder of the sword:
The "word of God" in this Hebrews passage is parallel not so much to "thy all-powerful word"45 as to "thy authentic command"46 in the Wisdom passage, for it is God's "authentic command" that is described as a sharp sword.47
Here, however, the divine word is not merely described as a sharp sword, but as sharper than the sharpest sword. The expression "a two-edged sword"48 occurs a few times in the Old Testament,49 but there is no particular reference here to any one of its Old Testament occurrences, nor yet (in all probability) to other Old Testament passages which have been suggested as being in our author's mind here, such as the dividing of the carcasses in Gen. 15:1050 or the circumcising of the Israelites with flint knives in Josh. 5:2ff.51 The words which follow-"as it pierces, it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow"-are to be understood as a "rhetorical accumulation of terms to express the whole mental nature of man on all its sides"; so A. B. Davidson, who further points out that since "the idea of dividing the soul and spirit suggests the division of a body into its members, hence joints and marrow are attributed to them, expressing the subtle articulations of the spiritual being and the innermost nature and substance of it."52 It would indeed be precarious to draw any conclusions from these words about our author's psychology, nor is it necessary to understand them in the sense of the Pauline distinction between soul and spirit.53 That the word of God probes the inmost recesses of our spiritual being and brings the subconscious motives to light is what is meant; we may compare Paul's language about the coming day when the Lord "will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and make manifest the counsels of the hearts" (1 Cor. 4:5). It is not surprising, accordingly, that a judicial function is here attributed to the word of God.54 It is "discriminative of the heart's thoughts and intents"; this is the rendering of E. K. Simpson, who, in a survey of the use of the adjective kritikos (ARV "quick to discern" )55 by Aristotle and others, says: "In all these examples it is a sifting process that is at work; and what winnowing-fan can vie with the gales of the Spirit blowing through the Word?" With the function here ascribed to the word of God we may compare the epithet "heart-knowing" applied to God himself in Acts 1:24; 15:8.56
13 We may conceal our inner being from our neighbors, and we can even deceive ourselves; but nothing escapes the scrutiny of God; before him everything lies exposed and powerless.57 And it is to him, not to our fellowmen or to our own conscience, that our final account58 must be rendered. Stripped of all disguise and protection, we are utterly at the mercy of God, the Judge of all. Therefore, "let us make every effort... !"
With these words, the second admonition of the epistle is concluded.
A. CHRIST'S HIGH PRIESTHOOD AN ENCOURAGEMENT TO HIS PEOPLE (4:14-16)
14 Since, then,59 we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us maintain our confession.
15 Our high priest is not one who cannot sympathize with our frailties; he has endured trial in all respects like ourselves, while remaining free from sin.
16 So let us approach the throne of grace with confidence, in order to receive mercy and find60 grace for timely help.
14 With admonition is coupled positive encouragement. Jesus has already been presented to the readers as "a merciful and faithful high priest" (2:17), and they are now shown how he is the one from whom they can receive all the strength they need to maintain their confession and resist the temptation to let go and fall back. "Jesus, the Son of God" is not disqualified by his divine origin from sharing in his people's troubles and sympathizing with their weakness. He himself endured every trial that they are likely to undergo, but remained steadfast throughout, and has now "passed through the heavens" to the very throne of God. In him, then, his people have a powerful incentive to perseverance in faith and obedience.
"The heavens" through which Jesus passed are the heavenly regions in general; we need not try to enumerate the successive "heavens" involved and determine whether he is envisaged as passing through three or seven of them.61 The plural "heavens," as regularly in the New Testament and Septuagint, reflects the Hebrew word used in the Old Testament, which is always plural. What is emphasized here is his transcendence; he is "exalted high above the heavens," as we are told later in the epistle (7:26), or, as it is put in Eph. 4:10, he "ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things."62 It is because he has been so highly exalted that he is such a "great" high priest;63 there is already the implied contrast here (which is brought out in explicit detail later) between him and the earthly high priests of Aaron's line, whose highest privilege was to pass once a year through the inner veil into the holy of holies in a material and temporary sanctuary, there to appear for a few moments before God on behalf of their people. With him as their permanent helper, the people of Christ might well hold fast the "confession"64 in which he played a central part.
15 His transcendence, however, has made no difference to his humanity. Our author has already stated that, in order to "become a merciful and faithful high priest," the Son of God had to be "made like his brothers in all respects," and that "he is able to help those enduring trial" because "hc; himself endured trial and suffering" (2:17f.). So here he repeats that Chris tians have in heaven a high priest with an unequaled capacity for sympathizing with them in all the dangers and sorrows and trials which come their way in life, because he himself, by virtue of his likeness to them,65 was exposed to all these experiences. Yet he endured triumphantly every form of testing that mankind could endure, without any weakening of his faith in God or any relaxation of his obedience to him. Such endurance involves more, not less, than ordinary human suffering: "sympathy with the sinner in his trial does not depend on the experience of sin but on the experience of the strength of the temptation to sin which only the sinless can know in its full intensity. He who falls yields before the last strain."66 The phrase "free from sin"67 does not mean that our Lord experienced every kind of human temptation except temptation to sin; like the Israelites in Moses' day, he too had his day of trial in the wilderness, and any compromise with the tempter's suggestions, any inclination to put God to the test, would have been as certainly sin as his refusal to countenance these suggestions or abate one iota of his confidence in his Father meant spiritual victory-victory for himself and also for his people.68
16 Therefore, says our author, let us come with full confidence69 to the throne of grace. This throne of grace is the throne of God, where Jesus, as his people's high priest, sits exalted at the Father's right hand. It is the antitype, in our author's mind, to the "mercy-seat" in the earthly sanctuary, of which he speaks below in 9:5; in Tyndale's New Testament and the Great Bible (1539) the same rendering, "the seat of grace" (following Luther's Gnadenstuhn, is used both there and here. It was at the earthly mercy-seat that the work of atonement was completed in token on the Day of Atonement and the grace of God extended to his people; the presence of the Christians' high priest on the heavenly throne of grace bespeaks a work of atonement completed not in token but in fact, and the constant availability of divine aid in all their need. Thanks to him, the throne of God is a mercy-seat to which they have free access and from which they may receive all the grace and power required "for timely help"70 in the hour of trial and crisis.71
HEBREWS 5
B. QUALIFICATIONS FOR HIGH PRIESTHOOD (5:1-4)
high priest, being taken from human stock, is appointed' on behalf of human beings where their responsibility to God is concerned, to offer gifts and sacrifices2 for sins.3
must be able to deal considerately with the ignorant and erring, since he himself is also beset by frailty,
of which he must bring a sin offering4 for himself as well as for the people.
one takes this honor on himself-only one who is called by God, as Aaron was.
Our author makes two points about the general qualifications which any high priest must satisfy, before he goes on to speak more particularly of Christ's qualifications to be his people's high priest. A high priest must be (a) able to sympathize with those whom he represents, and (b) divinely appointed to his office. How these two conditions apply to the Aaronic high priesthood is briefly set out.
1 (a) A high priest represents men and women "where their responsibility to God is concerned";5 it is necessary therefore that he should be a human being himself. Aaron and his successors, who represented the nation of Israel in the presence of God, were Israelites themselves, conversant with the conditions under which their people lived, exposed to the same pressures and trials.
The high priest's duties are here said to be the presenting of his people's gifts and sin offerings to God.6 "Gifts" is the more comprehensive term; it would normally include "sacrifices" but not be coextensive with them. But "gifts and sacrifices" appears to be used by our author as a general expression in the sense of "offerings"; here the particular class of offerings intended is indicated by the added words "for sins." 7 And it emerges clearly in the course of his later argument that the particular sin offerings which he has in mind are those presented annually on the Day of Atonement; that was the occasion above all others on which the high priest in person was required to discharge the sacrificial functions.8
2 In order to fulfil these duties worthily, a high priest needs not only to pay heed to the precise performance of the several ritual details, but also to have inward feelings which are in keeping with his sacred work. This is something which commands our instant approval. No one can read the history of the Second Temple without being conscious of the preposterous situation which made a man like Alexander Jannaeus9 his subjects' representative before God in the most solemn moments of national worship. Even if his ritual acts had been more punctiliously correct than many of the worshipers thought them to be, 10 the character of the man made him hopelessly unsuitable for the high priesthood. No man in Israel was less disposed to "deal considerately with the ignorant and erring"-or with anyone else. And indeed, from the fall of the house of Zadoktl to the destruction of the temple 240 years later there were few high priests in Israel who manifested the per sonal qualities so indispensable for their sacred office. Our author, however, in all that he has to say about Israel's priesthood and sacrificial worship has the literary data of the Pentateuch in mind and not the facts of more recent history.
The Greek verb translated "deal considerately" denotes in general "the golden mean between indifference and mawkish sentimentality";12 here it indicates more particularly forbearance and magnanimity on the part of people who are subject to great provocation and who could, if they wished, give way to unmoderated anger and meet the provocation with the utmost severity. A high priest could not make fitting expiation for sins which filled him, at that very time, with feelings of indignation and exasperation against those who were guilty of them. Aaron is credited with exemplary forbearance in face of the repeated provocation and envy of those on whose behalf he served as high priest13-although in this respect, as in most others, he falls behind his brother Moses.14
The objects of his gentle forbearance are those who are ignorant and going astray-probably we should understand a hendiadys here and take the phrase to mean "those who go astray through ignorance."15 It was for such people-for those who succumbed to the moral infirmities which are common to mankind-that sin offerings were prescribed in the law: "and the priest shall make atonement before Yahweh for the person who commits an error, when he sins unwittingly, to make atonement for him; and he shall be forgiven" (Num. 15:28).16 No such provision was made for the deliberate and defiant lawbreaker.17
3 No wonder, then, that the high priest had to present a sin offering for himself as well as for his people. This is specifically provided for in the directions for the Day of Atonement. Only after Aaron had presented a bullock as a sin offering to make atonement for himself and his family, in accordance with the prescription of Lev. 16:6, could he proceed with the atoning ritual on the people's behalf. As our author points out later in the epistle (7:27), this is one of the features which distinguish the Christians' high priest from those of the Aaronic succession: Jesus, being "holy, free from guile and defilement," had no need to offer a preliminary sacrifice for himself. It is by enduring the common weaknesses and temptations of the human lot, not by yielding to them, that he has established his power not only to sympathize with his people but to bring them help, deliverance, and victory.
4 (b) If one qualification in a high priest is his ability to sympathize, another is his being called by God to this honorable service. No person can of his own accord set himself up as high priest, nor can he hold office validly by the gift of any earthly authority. (Had our author been minded to review the history of the Jewish high priesthood during the last two centuries or so of its existence, he could have illustrated this last point very effectively!)19 Aaron, the first of Israel's high priests, occupied his office by divine appointment (Ex. 28:lff.; Lev. 8:lff.; Num. 16:5; 17:5; 18:lff.; Ps. 105:26), and so did his heirs and successors (Num. 20:23ff.; 25:10ff.). And others who were not of Aaronic descent, but in a time of emergency exercised an intercessory and sacrificial ministry like that of the Aaronic priests, did so by a direct and special call from God, as did Samuel (1 Sam. 7:3-17).20 If our author is to sustain his thesis that Jesus is his people's great high priest, he must produce comparable evidence of a divine call in his case.
C. CHRIST'S QUALIFICATIONS FOR HIGH PRIESTHOOD (5:5-10)
5 In the same way Christ also did not exalt himself to the dignity of high priesthood; he was exalted to it by the one who said to him,
6 as he says also in another place,
7 In the days of his flesh Christ offered up entreaties and supplications,23 with loud cries and tears, to the one who was able to save him from death, and was heard because of his humble devotion.
8 Son though he was,24 he learned obedience by what he suffered;
9 and having thus been made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all those who obey him,
10 acclaimed by God as high priest after the order of Melchizedek.
The same two qualifications as are requisite in any high priest are present in Christ; in his case, however, our author presents them in the reverse order: (a) his divine appointment and (b) his ability to sympathize with his people.
6 The opening words of Ps. 110, as we have seen already in our study of their quotation in Heb. 1:13, form one of the earliest Christian testimonia to the Messiahship of Jesus. But our author takes up v. 4 of that psalm and applies it to Jesus in a way which, so far as we can tell, was unprecedented in the early church. In some strands of Jewish expectation, a distinction was made between the lay Messiah (the "Messiah of Israel" or prince of the house of David) and the priestly Messiah (the "Messiah of Aaron").26 It has indeed been argued that the people to whom this epistle was addressed were related to those groups which held a twofold messianic hope of this kind.27 But here they are assured that Jesus, who was acclaimed by God as the Davidic Messiah in Ps. 2:7, was also acclaimed by God as high priest in Ps. 110:4. Chris tians acknowledge not two Messiahs, but one, and that one is both king and priest.28 But if the Messiah of David's line is high priest as well as king, he cannot be a "Messiah of Aaron"; Aaron belonged to the tribe of Levi, whereas David and his house belonged to the tribe of Judah, "a tribe of which Moses said nothing in connection with priests" (Heb. 7:14). No appeal can be made to those scriptures which establish the Levitical and Aaronic priesthood to support the claim that Jesus the son of David exercises a high-priestly ministry on his people's behalf.29 But there is no need to appeal to those scriptures, for here is another scripture which speaks of another priestly order, and designates the Davidic king as priest of this order.
Melchizedek makes his appearance in Gen. 14:18 as king of Salem (traditionally, and in all probability rightly, identified with Jerusalem30) and priest of God Most High ('El Ely6n).31 When, centuries later, Jerusalem fell into David's hands and became his capital city (2 Sam. 5:6ff.), he and his heirs became successors to Melchizedek's kingship, and probably also (in a titular capacity at least) to the priesthood of God Most High.32 But in the Hebrew monarchy "fundamentally, the union of religious and civil leadership seen in the `divine kingship' of the fertile crescent was dissolved."33 The chief priest hood in the Jerusalem temple was exercised throughout the period of the monarchy, and for long afterward, by the family of Zadok-a family quite distinct from the Davidic line, and one that laid no claim to the succession of "the order of Melchizedek."34 Under the Hasmonaeans, from Jonathan Maccabaeus onward, the chief priesthood and the chief civil power in Israel were combined in one person; but even if some justification for this unwonted combination was sought in the tradition of Melchizedek's royal priesthood,35 the justification was empty, for the Hasmonaeans had nothing to do with Melchizedek. Indeed, the most pious groups in Israel strongly disapproved of the Hasmonaeans' assumption of the high priesthood,36 and some of them-in particular, the community of Qumran-refused to recognize their usurpation of the sacred office, preferring to cherish the hope of a day when the legitimate line of Zadok would again be invested with the high-priestly dignity in a purified temple in a new Jerusalem.37 But even so, this hope did not envisage the union of priesthood and kingship; it maintained a distinction, as has just been said, between the anointed priest and the anointed king of the new age.38 For aught we know to the contrary, the writer to the Hebrews was the first to identify these two eschatological personages in such a way as to provide the fulfilment of the divine oracle in Ps. 110:4.39 The promised prince of the house of David is, by the same divine right, perpetual priest of Melchizedek's order. The implications of this are unfolded in detail in Heb. 7; but for the present our author, having established Jesus' qualification to be his people's high priest in terms of his divine appointment, turns to speak of a second qualification.
7 (b) His second qualification is his ability to sympathize with those whose cause he maintains. We have already been assured that Jesus is faithful and merciful as his people's high priest because he was made like his brothers in every respect-that he sympathizes with his people's weaknesses because he was exposed to all the tests and trials which they have to endure.40 Now these statements are elaborated. These tests and trials befell him "in the days of his flesh"41-an expression which emphasizes the conditions of human weakness of which he partook during his earthly life and which does not imply that his human condition came to an end with his exaltation to the right hand of God. If the expression did have this meaning, it would seriously weaken our author's argument that Christians have right now a high priest who feels for them and with them in all their temptations and sorrows.
It would be a matter of great interest to discover something about the form in which our author knew the gospel story. He certainly does not dismiss the details of our Lord's earthly life or his inward experiences up to and including his passion as possessing no relevance for the "post-Easter" faith of the church.42 On the contrary, he draws from those details and experiences lessons of great practical import for his readers' Christian life. He probably knew of a number of incidents in the life of Jesus when he "offered up43 entreaties and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to the one who was able to save him from death"; but for us, restricted as we are to the Gospel narratives, "Gethsemane seems to offer the most telling illustration"44 of these words. Mark tells us how "horror and dismay came over him" there, and he said to the three disciples who accompanied him: "`My heart is ready to break with grief; stop here, and stay awake.' Then he went forward a little, threw himself on the ground, and prayed that, if it were possible, this hour might pass him by. `Abba, Father,' he said, `all things are possible to thee; take this cup away from me. Yet not what I will, but what thou wilt"' (Mark 14:33b-36, NEB).
Some curious interpretations of the Gethsemane agony and prayer have been offered, with the well-meant intention of doing justice to our author's words. It has been suggested that what our Lord prayed for in Gethsemane was that he might be saved from dying there and then, either through physical exhaustion or by satanic assault.45 But the reader of the Gospel accounts knows already what our Lord means by "this cup"; it cannot be anything other than "the cup which I drink" which he warned James and John that they also would have to drink if they desired to share his glory (Mark 10:38f.). For him, indeed, the cup was more bitter than for them, or for any of his other followers who have drunk it since; they have known that he shared it with them, but he drank it alone.46 Our author's words here are further illustrated by the Johannine counterparts to the Gethsemane narrative of the Synoptic records. According to John, a day or two before his arrest in the garden Jesus said: "Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour.47 No, for this purpose I have come to this hour. Father, glorify thy name." The response came immediately from heaven: "I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again" (John 12:27f.).48 Later in the same Gospel, Jesus at the moment of his arrest rebukes Peter's impetuous attempt to defend him: "Put your sword into its sheath: shall I not drink the cup which the Father has given me?" (John 18:11). The Father's name was glorified by the Son's willing acceptance of the cup of suffering from his hand. "The point to be emphasised is, not so much that the prayer of Jesus was heard, as that it needed to be heard: that He needed heavenly aid to drink the appointed cup."49
A difficulty has sometimes been felt in referring our author's words here to Jesus' Gethsemane experience, since he was not delivered from death50-the cup was not removed from him. Attempts to relieve the difficulty by insisting that the prepositional phrase here is not "from death" but "out of death"51 do not touch the heart of the matter. But while Gethsemane provides "the most telling illustration" of our author's words, they have a more general reference to the whole course of our Lord's humiliation and passion. More than that: they have been influenced by the language of the twenty-second psalm, a psalm whose currency as a primitive Christian testimonium we have already noted.52 "Loud cries and tears" might well describe the supplication and complaint of the first part of the psalm, while the statement that Christ was "heard53 because of his humble devotion" echoes Ps. 22:24: "when he cried to him, he heard."54 In the detailed Christological in terpretation of the psalm, these words were understood as a reference to the resurrection of Christ;55 our author may well have understood them thus, but he does not go into this question, which would have taken him beyond his present intention. His present intention is to insist that Jesus has been qualified for his high-priestly service by his agony and tears, his supplication and suffering, throughout which his trust in God never failed.56
That he was "heard for his godly fear" (RSV)57 is the best interpretation of a phrase which has been understood in a variety of ways;58 other interpretations are that he was "heard (and delivered) from the fear (of death)"59 or that he was "heard by (the Object of) his godly fear."60 The general New Testament usage of the word here rendered "godly fear" and of its cognates (and not least the usage in this epistle itself)61 makes it improbable that fear of death is in view here; what is in view is rather our Lord's devotion and submission to the will of God. The fact that the cup was not removed qualifies him all the more to sympathize with his people; when they are faced with the mystery and trial of unanswered prayer they know that their high priest was tested in the same way and did not seek a way of escape by supernatural means of a kind that they do not have at their disposal.62 At no point can the objection be voiced that because he was the Son of God it was different, or easier, for him.63 He who would not have recourse to miraculous means to relieve his hunger in the wilderness refused to summon angelic forces to rescue him from his enemies.64 He recognized the path of the Father's will, and followed it to the end; herein lay his "godly fear"-his "humble submission," as the NEB renders it.
8 "Though he was a Son," the rendering of the ERV/ARV (following the AV/KJV and followed by the RSV), fails to bring out the force of the clause. The absence of the definite article before the substantive "Son" in the Greek text here65 should not be expressed by the indefinite article in English. It is the most natural thing in the world for a son to learn obedience by suffering; indeed, our author makes this very point in 12:5ff. But it is not any ordinary son that he is speaking about here, but the Son of God: "Son though he was"66-that is to say, Son of God though he was-even he was granted no exemption from the common law that learning comes by suffering.67 The construction of the clauses and participial phrases in the ERV/ARV of vv. 7 and 8 suggests that the clause "though he was a Son" goes more closely with what precedes than with what follows. This would be in keeping with classical purity, so far as the laws governing concessive clauses of this type are concerned;68 but in Hellenistic Greek there is ample precedent for placing such a clause before the principal clause to which it belongs,69 and this certainly gives better rhythm and sense here.
In what sense, then, did the Son of God learn obedience "by what he suffered"? We know the sense in which the words are true of us; we learn to be obedient because of the unpleasant consequences which follow disobedience. It was not so with him. As we are told later (10:7), he announced his dedication to the doing of God's will at his coming into the world. He set out from the start on the path of obedience to God, and learned by the sufferings which came his way in consequence just what obedience to God involved in practice in the conditions of human life on earth. Perhaps the obedient Servant of the Lord in Isa. 50:4-9 was in our author's mind. The Servant's eagerness to pay heed to the voice of God exposes him to ridicule and ill-treatment, but he accepts this as something inseparable from his obedience: "The Lord Yahweh has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious, I turned not backward. I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard; I hid not my face from shame and spitting" (Isa. 50:5f.). So the sufferings which Jesus endured were the necessary price of his obedience-more than that, they were part and parcel of his obedience, the very means by which he fulfilled the will of God. At the threshold of his public ministry, he silenced the Baptist's objections to baptizing him with the words "thus it is fitting for us to fulfil all righteousness"-or, as the NEB puts it, "we do well to conform in this way with all that God requires" (Matt. 3:15). Unlike those others who were baptized by John in the Jordan, confessing their sins, it was with no consciousness of sin that he accepted baptism, but with the resolution to place himself unreservedly at God's disposal for the accomplishment of his saving purpose-and if, in doing so, he associated himself publicly with sinners, that was something which he was going to do throughout his ministry, until he was "numbered with the transgressors" on the cross. It is not by accident that he spoke of his impending passion not only as the cup which he was going to drink but also as the baptism with which he was going to be baptized (Mark 10:38f.; Luke 12:50); the career of public obedience which was inaugurated in the earlier baptism was crowned by the second baptism-the fulfilment of "all righteousness" by the utmost endurance of trial and suffering as the first baptism had been by anticipation.
The Christians for whom this letter was intended found that the main tenance of their faith and loyalty exposed them to trial and suffering which they could escape by renouncing their confession-or possibly even by drawing less public attention to it. But the question for them to face was: were they to fall back and lose everything or press on to perfection? Our author urges them to press on, in spite of all the suffering it may involve, and he sets before them the example of Jesus, who set his face "like a flint," refusing to turn back, and was thus made "perfect through sufferings." His example and his present aid might well encourage them too to persevere; no hardship could befall them in which he did not sympathize with them.
9-10 As we have already been told in 2:10, it was through sufferings that he was made perfect-fully qualified to be the Savior and High Priest of his people. To suffer death for God's sake is itself described as the attainment of perfection,7° and the death of Christ is of course bound up with his being "made perfect" in the present context; but the essence of the perfection which our author has in mind consists in the twofold fact that by his suffering and death Christ (a) became to all who obey him "the source of eternal salvation" and (b) was "acclaimed by God as high priest after the order of Melchizedek." One can clearly recognize the motif of humiliation and suffering followed by exaltation in glory which pervades the primitive kerygma.
The expression translated "the source [or `cause,' or `author'] of salvation"71 is found in classical Greek;72 Philo also uses it-with regard to Noah, for example, and to the brazen serpent of wilderness days.73 Here it has practically the same meaning as "the pioneer of their salvation" in 2:10. The salvation which Jesus has procured is an "eternal" one. The phrase "eternal salvation" appears in the Old Testament: "Israel is saved by Yahweh with everlasting salvation" (Isa. 45:17). Here, however, the Christian salvation is eternal, like the "eternal redemption" of 9:12, the "eternal inheritance" of 9:15, and the "eternal covenant" of 13:20, because it is based on the sacrifice of Christ, once for all accomplished, never to be repeated, and permanently valid. The salvation which Jesus has procured, moreover, is granted "to all those who obey him." There is something appropriate in the fact that the salvation which was procured by the obedience of the Redeemer should be made available to the obedience of the redeemed. Once again the readers are encouraged to persevere in their loyalty to Christ, in whom alone eternal salvation is to be found-in whom also they have a high priest designated for them by God himself, "after the order of Melchizedek." Our author reverts to Melchizedek at the end of this section of his argument because he intends to go on now and elaborate the significance of his high-priestly order.
D. THIRD ADMONITION: SPIRITUAL IMMATURITY (5:11-14)
11 Concerning this Melchizedek there is much that we have to say,74 much that is hard to interpret, since you have become sluggish in your hearing.
12 Indeed, when you ought to be teachers because of the passage of time, you need to have someone teach you75 the preliminary ABC of the oracles of God all over again. You have come to require milk instead of solid food.
14 Solid food, on the other hand, is for those who are mature, those who through practice have had their senses trained to distinguish between good and evil.
11 With the repeated reference to Ps. 110:4 in v. 10, the logical sequence of our author's argument would have led him on to expound the significance of Christ's being a priest "after the order of Melchizedek." This he does in Heb. 7:1ff., but first he turns aside (as he has done before77) to address some words of practical admonition to his readers' spiritual condition. Mel chizedek's person and office are subjects of deep import,78 he says, but his readers may not be in a position to grasp what he has to say in this regard because their minds are so sluggish.79
12 You have been Christians for such a long time now, he goes on, that you ought to be able to teach others;80 but as it is, you yourselves need to be taught-not only do you need to learn mysteries of deep import like the priestly order of Melchizedek, but the very ABC81 of divine revelation. In view of the time that has elapsed since your conversion to Christianity, you ought to be taking solid food, like grown-up men and women; in fact, however, you are still unable to digest anything stronger than milk, the food of infants.
The contrast between milk and solid food in this spiritual sense appears to have been commonplace in the early church, as it was in Greek moral philosophy 82 Paul makes it in 1 Cor. 3:lff., where he tells the Corinthian Christians that, for all their claim to be "spiritual," they cannot be treated as such, since their fostering of party spirit in the church shows them to be still "carnal." They must therefore be treated as spiritual infants, and fed on the "milk" of elementary Christian ethics. There is indeed further wisdom to be imparted to those who have attained spiritual maturity-the "hidden wisdom in a mystery" decreed by God before all ages for his people's glory (1 Cor. 2:7)-but the Corinthians will not be able to assimilate this "meat" until they have grown up more, not in knowledge but in charity. (Was our author influenced here by that passage in 1 Corinthians? It would be interesting if he was, in view of Apollos's association with Corinth and Paul's mention of him in that same context.) The "milk" figure is used, without the contrast between it and strong meat, in 1 Pet. 2:2, where Peter exhorts his readers to acquire an appetite for pure spiritual milk, "so that you may thrive upon it to your souls' health" (NEB). But Peter is addressing "newborn babes," that is to say, people who have only recently been converted to Christianity.
13-14 The immaturity of the people addressed by our author, which caused him to doubt whether they were able to appreciate his teaching about the Melchizedek priesthood of Christ, was due to a disinclination to press on in the Christian way. Their sluggishness showed itself in a disposition to settle down at the point which they had reached, since to go farther would have meant too complete a severing of old ties. To such people the exposition of the high-priestly service of Christ, with the corollary that the old order of priesthood and sacrifice had been abolished once for all, might well have been unacceptable; the intellect is not over-ready to entertain an idea that the heart finds unpalatable.
The "milk" corresponds to the ABC of the divine oracles; some of the "first principles"83 of which the ABC consists are mentioned in 6: if. Those who have not proceeded beyond this stage are still infants, "unskilled in the word of righteousness"-or, as it may be rendered, "a principle of righteousness."84 It is ethically mature people, those "who through practice have had their senses trained to distinguish between good and evil," who have built up in the course of experience a principle or standard of righteousness by which they can pass discriminating judgment on moral situations as they arise. The general idea is widespread among contemporary writers on ethics, although our author uses it for a purpose of his own.
HEBREWS 6
E. NO SECOND BEGINNING POSSIBLE (6:1-8)
1 Therefore let us leave the preliminary stage of Christ's messages and press one to perfection. Let us not lay the foundation all over againthe foundation of repentance from dead works and faith in God,
2 which consists in teaching about ablutions,3 about laying on of hands, resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment.
3 This then is what we shall do,4 God permitting.
4 For it is impossible to renew again to repentance those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift and partaken of the Holy Spirit,
5 who have experienced the goodness of God's words and the mighty works of the coming age,6
6 if then they have fallen away. It is impossible, I say, because on their own account they are crucifying7 the Son of God and exposing him to public shame.
7 The ground which drinks up the rain which frequently falls on it, and produces plants serviceable for those on whose account it is cultivated, has a share in God's blessing;
8 but that which brings forth thorns and thistles is worthless; it is on the point of being cursed, and will at last be burned.
1 The opening words of this section are surprising. Our author has just told his readers that they are not really able to assimilate the solid food which he would like to give them-the teaching about the priestly order of Melchizedek-because they are immature. We might have expected him to say, as Paul says to the Corinthians8 in a similar situation: "Therefore I must continue to feed you with milk." But he does not say this; he says: "let us press on." He judged that no good purpose would be served by going over the first principles again. That being so, we might have expected him to say: "You are not ready for solid food yet, you still need milk; nevertheless I am going to press on with the provision of solid food." But he does not say "nevertheless"; he says "therefore." "Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrines of Christ and press forward to maturity." Why "therefore"? Probably because their particular condition of immaturity is such that only an appreciation of what is involved in Christ's high priesthood will cure it. Their minds need to be, stretched, and this will stretch them as nothing else can. They have remained immature too long; therefore he will give them something calculated to take them out of their immaturity.9
"So," he says, "let us stop discussing the rudiments; do not let us start laying our foundations all over again." The rudiments ("the elementary doctrines of Christ," RSV) and the foundation are the same thing described in two different figures. Before he goes on, however, he lists some of the rudiments, quoting perhaps from a catechesis familiar to himself and his readers.'° Six matters are listed, which fall naturally into three pairs: (a) "repentance from dead works" goes closely with (b) "faith in God"; (c) "instruction about ablutions" (RSV) goes with (d) "laying on of hands"; while there is a patent association between (e) "resurrection of the dead" and (J) "eternal judgment." But the connection between these six subjects is more complicated than that. On the most probable reading of the text, "teaching" in v. 2 appears to be in apposition to "foundation" in v. 1;11 this suggests that the laying of a "foundation of repentance ... and faith" consists in instruction about (i) ablutions, (ii) laying on of hands, (iii) resurrection, and (iv) judgment.12
(a) Repentance from dead works. "Dead works" are works which must be repented of; in 9:14 they are works from which the conscience needs to be cleansed. Therefore they are probably not the works of the law, not even the sacrificial ceremonies prescribed by the cultic law,14 although our author does regard these as obsolete and moribund. They are works which issue in death because they are evil; they belong to the way of death and not the way of life. One could well believe that the catechesis on which the readers of this epistle had been trained included a version of the "Two Ways" teaching incorporated in the Didache and the Epistle of Barnabas, but certainly earlier in date than either of these documents.15 The Didache begins its account of the way of death (which, it says, is "evil and fraught with a curse") with a catalog of the sins which belong to it: "murders, adulteries, lusts, fornications, thefts, idolatries, magic arts, sorceries, robberies, false depositions, hypocrisies, a double heart, fraud, arrogance, malice, obstinacy, covetousness, filthy language, envy, audacity, haughtiness, boastfulness ...."16 It was with regard to precisely such vices that Paul told the Roman Christians that "the end of those things is death" (Rom. 6:21); very appropriately, therefore, might they be called dead works. Repentance from such things was insisted upon in the Old Testament, and in all the strains of Jewish thought and life which were derived from the Old Testament. The sectaries of Qumran, for example, described themselves as "the repentant of Israel";17 and they were by no means the only Jews to think and speak in such terms. The keynote of John the Baptist's preaching was a call to repentance (cf. Mark 1:4; Matt. 3:2, 8 par. Luke 3:8); and when Jesus began to proclaim the kingdom of God in Galilee, he called upon his hearers to "repent, and believe in the gospel" (Mark 1:15). So too the Lukan Paul could remind the elders of the Ephesian church how he had spent over two years in their city "testifying both to Jews and to Greeks of repentance to God and of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ" (Acts 20:21).18
(b) Faith in God. The last two quotations illustrate the close association between repentance and faith. The foundation of faith in God was, of course, well and truly laid in the Old Testament. Throughout the volume faith is marked out as essential to true religion, from the statement that Abraham "believed Yahweh, and he reckoned it to him as righteousness" (Gen. 15:6) to Habakkuk's testimony that "the righteous shall live by his faith" (Hab. 2:4).19 The readers of this epistle had already been reminded that it was unbelief that kept the generation of the Exodus from entering the promised land, and they were urged to apply this lesson to their own situation. Faith in God must include faith in his messengers, and in the gospel faith in God included-or indeed became tantamount to-faith in Christ. These "Hebrews" had certainly been taught the way of faith in Christ, but this way had been prepared for them in advance by the Old Testament insistence on faith in God: "if you will not believe, surely you shall not be established" (Isa. 7:9).
2 (c) Teaching about ablutions. This has commonly been regarded as a reference to Christian baptism, but it is doubtful whether Christian baptism is directly in view here at all. Apart from the fact that the word translated "ablutions" is in the plural (baptismoi), it may be significant that our author does not use baptisma, the Greek noun regularly employed in the New Testament to denote Christian baptism (and the baptism of John), but baptismos, which in its two other indubitable New Testament occurrences refers to Jewish ceremonial washings.20 "Instruction about ablutions" (RSV) or "instruction about cleansing rites" (NEB) expresses the sense more adequately than "the teaching of baptisms" (ERV/ARV). There is no lack of instruction about ablutions in the Old Testament, and this provided a further foundation on which the Christian truths could be erected. Later in the epistle (9:13) the ritual of the red heifer in Num. 19, one of the most important of the ceremonial purifications prescribed in the Old Testament, is treated as a counterpart in the temporal order to the cleansing efficacy of the sacrifice of Christ in the spiritual order. The prophet Ezekiel in earlier days had used the terminology of the old ceremonial ablutions to describe God's inward cleansing of his people in the age of restoration: "I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you" (Ezek. 36:25). In language like this the baptist groups which flourished in Judaism at the beginning of the Christian era found scriptural authority for their ceremonial washings, which went beyond what the letter of the law required.21 Formerly our knowledge about these groups was derived from ancient writings which described them from the outside; but the discovery and decipherment of the Qumran texts have introduced us to one such group from the inside. The members of the Qumran community practiced ceremonial ablution in terms of Num. 19 and Ezek. 36; but they did not regard such ablution as a means of removing iniquity from the heart. Only by submission to the commandments of God, they believed, could one be inwardly purified, and not until then would ceremonial washings have any value.22 There is evidence that such baptist groups of Jews were found in the lands of the Dispersion as well as in their homeland; the Jewish community in Rome, in particular, probably preserved some characteristic features of this nonconformist Judaism-features which were carried over into Roman Christianity, if the HippolyteanApostolic Tradition may be trusted. According to Hippolytus, for example, baptism, as the central act of Christian initiation, took place on Easter Day, but on the preceding Thursday the candidate was required to have a ritual bath for the removal of impurity.23 This prebaptismal bath has no warrant in the New Testament, but it may well have been a legacy from Roman Judaism.24 If this epistle was sent to a group of believing Jews in Rome, the reference to "teaching about ablutions" may have had a more direct significance than meets the eye of the twentieth-century reader.25
(d) Laying on of hands. The imposition of hands (Heb. semIkdh) was an early Christian practice,26 associated especially with the impartation of the Holy Spirit,27 and that is most probably its significance here.28 But it too was inherited from the Old Testament, where it is used especially in com missioning someone for public office,29 or as part of the sacrificial ritual.30 In later Judaism the term appears regularly in the sense of ordination (of rabbis).31
(e) Resurrection of the dead. The resurrection of Jesus gave special importance to this doctrine in the church, but the doctrine as such was no innovation in New Testament times. It was held, as we know, by the Pharisees,32 who found in it the guarantee that Israel's ancestral hope would be realized in perpetuity; it was taught expressly in the Old Testament (cf. Isa. 26:19; Dan. 12:2), and, as Jesus pointed out, it was taught implicitly at an earlier stage, when God, who is the God of the living, not of the dead, proclaimed himself to be the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Ex. 3:6; cf. Mark 12:26f.).
(f) Eternal judgment. The Jewish belief in resurrection was closely associated with the expectation of judgment to come. That the God of Israel is Judge of all the earth in general and of his people in particular is an essential part of the Old Testament revelation (Gen. 18:25; Isa. 33:22); his recurring in history will be summed up in the eschatological judgment of Dan. 7:9-14.33 In Christian belief the "one like a son of man" through whom the eschatological judgment is carried out is identified with Jesus (Matt. 25:31ff.; John 5:22, 27; Acts 17:31, etc.).
3 It was on a foundation already laid in the Old Testament, then, and one on which their way of life was already based, that these people had received the gospel. All these things were now given a fresh and fuller significance because of the coming of Christ into the world. But the "Hebrews" were exposed to a subtle danger which could not be experienced by converts from paganism. If a convert from paganism gave up Christianity and reverted to paganism, there was a clean break between the faith which he renounced and the paganism to which he returned. But it was possible for the recipients of this letter, yielding gradually to pressures from various quarters, to give up more and more those features of faith and practice which were distinctive of Christianity, and yet to feel that they had not abandoned the basic principles of repentance and faith, the realities denoted by religious ablutions and the laying on of hands, the expectation of resurrection and the judgment of the age to come. For the writer to go on insisting on these things, therefore, would not really help them; it would be better to press on to those teachings which belonged to spiritual maturity, in the hope that the maturity would come with the teachings. "This, then, we will do, God permitting"34-that is to say, not merely will our author go on to give his mature teaching about the Melchizedek priesthood, but he and his readers together will advance to full growth in Christ, please God.
4-6 The reason why there is no point in laying the foundation over again is now stated: apostasy is irremediable. Once more our author emphasizes that continuance is the test of reality. In these verses he is not questioning the perseverance of the saints; we might say that rather he is insisting that those who persevere are the true saints. But in fact he is stating a practical truth that has verified itself repeatedly in the experience of the church. Those who have shared the covenant privileges of the people of God, and then deliberately renounce them, are the most difficult persons of all to reclaim for the faith. It is indeed impossible to reclaim them, says our author. We know, of course, that nothing of this sort is ultimately impossible for the grace of God, but as a matter of human experience the reclamation of such people is, practically speaking, impossible.35 People are frequently immunized against a disease by being inoculated with a mild form of it, or with a related but milder disease. And in the spiritual realm experience suggests that it is possible to be "immunized" against Christianity by being inoculated with something which, for the time being, looks so like the real thing that it is generally mistaken for it. This is not a question of those who are attached in a formal way to the profession of true religion without ever having experienced its power; it is blessedly possible for such people to have an experience of God's grace which changes what was once a matter of formal attachment into a matter of inward reality. It is a question of people who see clearly where the truth lies, and perhaps for a period conform to it, but then, for one reason or another, renounce it.36
In our Lord's parable of the sower, no difference might have been seen for a time between what had sprouted on rocky ground and what was growing on good ground. It was only when a time of testing came that the difference became evident.37 It was a time of testing now for the recipients of the epistle, and our author is anxious that they should respond triumphantly to the test and prove that in their case the seed had fallen into good ground.
(a) They had been enlightened. It is tempting to understand the verb here in the sense of baptism-a sense which it bore among Christians in Rome in the middle of the second century.39 The use of "enlightenment" in the sense of baptism need not be a borrowing from the language of the mysteries; it is quite in line with New Testament teaching.40 At any rate, the enlightenment here is something which has taken place once for all-like baptism itself, which is unrepeatable for the simple reason that its repetition would contradict its whole significance.41 The light of the gospel has broken in upon these people's darkness, and life can never be the same again; to give up the gospel would be to sin against the light, the one sin which by its very nature is incurable.
(b) They had tasted the heavenly gift. As enlightenment suggests baptism, so the tasting42 of the heavenly gift may suggest the Eucharist; certainly the people in question have partaken of communion in addition to being baptized.43 And certainly it is possible for people who have experienced both the gospel sacraments to commit apostasy nonetheless. But the "heavenly gift" need not be restricted to the Eucharist; it may indicate the whole sum of spiritual blessings which are sacramentally sealed and signified in the Eucharist.44
(c) They had become partakers of the Holy Spirit. It is precarious to argue that the personal Holy Spirit is not intended here, but rather his gifts or operations, on the sole ground that the definite article is lacking in the Greek. The presence or absence of the article is not in itself sufficient to decide whether the Giver or his gifts are in question. Whether it is possible for one who has been in any real sense a partaker of the Holy Spirit45 to commit apostasy has been questioned, but our author has no doubt that it is possible in this way to "outrage the Spirit of grace" (10:29). The people whom he has in mind had not only been baptized and received the Eucharist, but had experienced the laying on of hands. Early apostolic history has a record of one outstanding character who believed when he heard the gospel, was baptized, attached himself to the evangelist whose preaching had convinced him, and presumably received the Spirit when apostolic hands were laid upon himyet Simon Magus was pronounced by Peter to be still "in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity" (Acts 8:9ff., 18ff.), and showed himself in the following decades to be the most determined opponent of apostolic Christianity.46 If we ask in what sense a man like that could have partaken of the Holy Spirit, the words which follow here may point the way to an answer.
(d) They had experienced the goodness of God's word47 and the powers of the age to come. Simon Magus realized how good the word of God was when he heard it from Philip's lips, and he was amazed at the signs and great "powers"48 which accompanied the reception of the gospel, proclaimed by a man who was "full of the Spirit" (Acts 6:3). Those "powers" or mighty works were "signs" that the age to come had broken in already on the present age; Jesus' words about the mighty works of his ministry remained true of the mighty works performed in his name in the apostolic age: "if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you" (Matt. 12:28).49 But Jesus also spoke of a day when many would say to him, "Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works50 in your name?"-only to be told, "I never knew you; depart from me, you evildoers" (Matt. 7:22f.). The Scriptures contain encouragement enough and to spare for the feeblest believer, but are full of solemn warnings to those who think they stand to beware lest they fall. A credible profession of faith must be accepted as genuine, but ultimately it is only the Lord who knows those who are his.
For it is possible for people who can be described in the language of vv. 4 and 5 to "fall away" irretrievably, This warning has been boih unduly min imized and unduly exaggerated. It has been unduly minimized as when K. S Wuest assures us that "having fallen away"51 is "a conditional participle he,_ presenting a hypothetical case, a straw man" and that the sin in question "cannot be committed today since no temple and no sacrifices are in existence, and no transition period obtains."52 It does not require temple and sacrifices, or a transitional period of the kind allegedly implied in this epistle, for men and women who have taken Christ's name upon themselves to commit apostasy; and biblical writers (the writer to the Hebrews being no exception) are not given to the setting up of men of straw. The warning of this passage was a real warning against a real danger, a danger which is still present so long as "an evil heart of unbelief' can result in "deserting the living God" (3:12).
On the other hand, our author's meaning can be exaggerated to the point of distortion when he is understood to say that for sins committed after baptism there can be no repentance. "The author of Hebrews," wrote F. C. Burkitt, "will allow no forgiveness for Christian sinners."53 In this he was following the rigorist interpretation of Tertullian,54 who quotes the opening verses of Heb. 6 to prove that there can be no pardon or restoration to communion for postbaptismal sin. Tertullian had one particular kind of sin in mind, and one which actually does not enter into our author's argument here: according to Tertullian, the writer of this warning passage (identified by him with Barnabas), "who learnt this from apostles, and taught it with apostles, never knew of any second repentance promised by apostles to the adulterer and fornicator."55
But the writer to the Hebrews himself distinguishes (as did the Old Testament law) between inadvertent sin and wilful sin,56 and the context here shows plainly that the wilful sin which he has in mind is deliberate apostasy. People who commit this sin, he says, cannot be brought back to repentance; by renouncing Christ they put themselves in the position of those who, deliberately refusing his claim to be the Son of God, had him crucified and exposed to public shame.57 Those who repudiate the salvation procured by Christ will find none anywhere else.
The margin of the ERV/ARV suggests an alternative rendering which may appear to moderate the gravity of our author's words: "it is impossible to renew them again unto repentance, the while they crucify to themselves the Son of God...." By suggesting that these people cannot be brought back to repentance so long as they repudiate Christ, this rendering might be thought to imply that when they cease to repudiate him repentance will be possible. But this is certainly not what is meant. To say that they cannot be brought to repentance so long as they persist in their renunciation of Christ would be a truism hardly worth putting into words. The participle "crucifying" is much more appropriately taken as causal than as temporal in force; it indicates why it is impossible for such people to repent and make a new beginning. God has pledged himself to pardon all who truly repent, but Scripture and experience alike suggest that it is possible for human beings to arrive at a state of heart and life where they can no longer repent.
7-8 Such people are compared to land which, in spite of all the care expended in its cultivation, refuses to produce a good crop. The figure here is to much the same effect as Isaiah's vineyard song (Isa. 5:1-7). That vineyard received all the attention that any vineyard could have received, but when the time came for it to produce grapes, it produced nothing but wild grapes.58 It was clearly reprobate59 land, which would never respond to cul tivation; it must simply be allowed thenceforth to lie untended and become derelict. So our author compares those believers who persevere in faith to fertile land which produces fruit, while those in whose lives the fruits of righteousness do not appear are compared to land which will never produce anything but thorns and thistles,60 to be kept down by burning, "for our God is a consuming fire" (12:29).
F. ENCOURAGEMENT TO PERSEVERE (6:9-12)
is not unrighteous: he will not forget your work and the love62 which you display for his name, serving his holy people as you have done and continue to do.
12 so that you may not grow sluggish but imitate those who through faith and steadfastness inherit the promises.
9 Our author makes haste to reassure his readers, after his words of solemn warning: he does not believe that there are apostates, or even potential apostates, among them. He was encouraged to believe and hope the best of them because the fruits of righteousness had beyond all question manifested themselves in their lives. Those fruits, being the natural concomitants of salvation, bore witness that the people in whom they appeared were genuine heirs of salvation. His desire to reassure them, his concern that what he has just said should not discourage them, may have prompted his affectionate language here: this is the only place in the epistle where he calls them "beloved"-his "dear friends."
10 The fruits of righteousness which have shown themselves in their lives are the acts of service performed for their fellow-Christians. There is no good reason for restricting God's "holy people" ("saints") here to those in Jerusalem because of the similar language in Rom. 15:25; 1 Cor. 16:1; 2 Cor. 9:1-in those passages it is the context that shows that Jerusalem believers are intended. The "holy people" are as general here as are the "holy brothers" of Heb. 3:1. As for the acts of service referred to here, further details of the circumstances in which they were rendered are given later, in 10:3234. If the recipients of the letter were resident in Rome, then the behavior for which our author commends them was a precedent for the reputation for Christian charity which the Roman church enjoyed in later times. We may think of Ignatius's description of that church as "having the presidency of love";64 or the words of Dionysius, bishop of Corinth, in his letter to Soter, bishop of Rome (c. A.D. 170): "This has been your custom from the beginning, to do good in manifold ways to all the brothers, and to send contributions to the many churches in every city, in some places relieving the poverty of the needy, and ministering to the brothers in the mines."65 The point here, however, is that deeds of kindness done to the people of God are reckoned by God as done to himself, and will surely receive their reward from him.
11-12 But let them go on as they have begun. Our author's insistence on the grace of continuance appears again as he assures them of his affectionate longing66 that they should go on exhibiting the same zeal as marked them in the beginning, until the final and full realization of their hope. "Don't become sluggish,"67 he urges them; "follow the example of those who have gone before, those who are now entering into the enjoyment of things which God promised them long ago, because they believed his word and persevered in hope." This exhortation to imitate the faith of the men and women of old anticipates the argument of ch. 11; that the reference is to God's people in Old Testament times is clear from the words that follow.
G. THE STEADFASTNESS OF GOD'S PROMISE (6:13-20)
13 Such a person was Abraham. When God gave him a promise, he swore by himself, since he had no one greater to swear by:
14 "Truly, " he said, "I will bless you greatly and multiply you greatly. "68
15 And thus, having shown steadfastness, he obtained the promise.
16 Human beings swear by what is greater than themselves, and an oath puts an end to all dispute for purposes of validation.
18 His purpose was that by means two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God71 to lie, we who have fled for refuge to take hold of the hope set before us might have strong encouragement.
19 We have72 this hope as an anchor of the soul, secure and stable, entering into the inner side of the sanctuary curtain,
20 where Jesus73 has entered on our behalf as forerunner Jesus, who has become our high priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.
13-15 The example of Abraham, as father of all who have faith in God, was invoked in many strands of primitive Christianity. Even before the Christian message began to be proclaimed, John the Baptist pointed out that something more than biological descent from Abraham was necessary for acceptance with God; God did indeed desire "children of Abraham," but if need be he could bring them into being by his own creative act (Matt. 3:9 par. Luke 3:8). Paul justifies his claim that the way of righteousness opened up in the gospel is attested by the law and the prophets by pointing to the testimony of Scripture about Abraham, who "believed Yahweh; and he reckoned it to him as righteousness" (Gen. 15:6; quoted in Rom. 4:3; Gal. 3:6). James quotes the same testimony, but relates it to Abraham's offering up of Isaac in support of his insistence that "faith apart from works is barren" (Jas. 2:21-26). Our author here, and more fully in 11:8-19, presents Abraham as the supreme example of a man who received promises from God, and lived in the good of these promises, persevering to the end in faith and hope.
To our author Abraham was a significant figure, not only because of his faith in the promise of God, but also because of the part he plays in the story of Melchizedek. God's faithfulness to his promise to Abraham is a token of his faithfulness in regard to another of his promises, that concerning the Melchizedek priesthood. These two promises "hang together, and as Paul worked out the one in Galatians so our author will work out the other."74
The particular promise in view here is that made by God to Abraham after his offering up of Isaac: "By myself I have sworn. . . , `I will indeed bless you, and I will multiply your descendants"' (Gen. 22:16f.).75 But this was a recapitulation and elaboration of God's earlier promise to Abraham that he would bless him and make of him a great nation (Gen. 12:2f.). At the time when that earlier promise was made, Abraham was childless. As time went on, however, it was made clear to him that the promise would be fulfilled through the birth of a son to Sarah and himself when, by all natural reckoning, such a prospect would have been dismissed as impossible. Yet Abraham believed God, and in due course the promised child was born. On Isaac now hung every hope that the further promises of God regarding Abraham's descendants would be fulfilled; yet it was Isaac whom Abraham was commanded to offer up to God. When Abraham's faith and obedience were shown in his readiness to do even this, he received Isaac back from the dead, as it were (Heb. 11:19), and received at the same time a reaffirmation of the promises of God, reinforced on this occasion by the divine oath: "and thus, having patiently endured, he obtained the promise." There was much in God's promise to Abraham whose fulfilment lay in the distant future, but in the restoration to Abraham of the son upon whose survival the promise depended Abraham did, in a very substantial sense, "obtain the promise."76
16-17 Our author emphasizes the fact that when God repeated his promise to Abraham after the offering up of Isaac, he confirmed it with an oath. When human beings swear an oath in order to underline the certainty and solemnity of their words, they swear by someone or something greater than themselves. "As (surely as) Yahweh lives" was the supreme oath in Israel. Abraham himself swore by God and made others do the same (Gen. 14:22; 21:23f.; 24:3). But, says our author, God has none greater than himself by whom to swear,77 so when he wishes to confirm his promise in this way, he swears by himself (we may compare the recurring "as I live" in divine oracles throughout the Old Testament). This insistence on the divine oath in God's promise to Abraham prepares the readers for the significance of the fact that God's promise regarding the Melchizedek priesthood was similarly confirmed by an oath: "Yahweh has sworn, and will not change his mind" (Ps. 110:4).78
Who are "the heirs of the promise" to whom God wished in this way "to show more convincingly ... the unchangeableness of his purpose"? Not so much Abraham and the other patriarchs,80 who for all their faith did not live to see it vindicated and in this sense "did not receive what they had been promised" (11:39); but those, like the writer and his readers, who experienced in the gospel the fulfilment of the oath which God swore to Abraham.
18-20 It is we, says our author, for whom this "strong encouragement" is intended. The "two unchangeable things" from which this encouragement is derived are (a) the promise of God (for "it is impossible for God to lie"), and (b) the oath by which his promise is confirmed. We are refugees from the sinking ship of this present world-order, so soon to disappear; our hope is fixed on the eternal order, where the promises of God are made good to his people in perpetuity. Our hope, based upon his promises, is our spiritual anchor. The figure of the anchor is not pressed; all that is meant is that "we are moored to an immoveable object"81-and that immovable object is the throne of God himself, established (as is made clear in ch. 9) in the heavenly holy of holies, the counterpart in the eternal order to the inner sanctuary of the wilderness tabernacle, shut off from the outer sanctuary by the heavy curtain behind which dwelt the invisible presence of the God of Israel. And our hope is fixed there because Jesus is there, seated, as we have already been told, at "the right hand of the Majesty on high" (1:3). His presence there is a powerful corroboration of our hope. Abraham rested his hope in the promise and oath of God; but we have more than that to rest our hope upon: we have the fulfilment of his promise in the exaltation of Christ. No wonder that our hope is secure and stable.82
For Jesus has entered into the eternal world not only on his own behalf but on his people's too. He is there as our "forerunner," a word in which the conception of precedence prevails over that of speed, as E. K. Simpson tells us. "As applied to the Saviour," he continues, "it recalls His own care-quelling utterance: `I go to prepare a place for you.' But the errand of this Forerunner embraces far wider ends than that of preparation. It proclaims an accomplished work of redemption and signalizes the first fruits of a mighty aftercrop. Precursor is a relative term implying a sequence. With their glorified Head, the members of His body must in due time be conjoined; and the sublime office of intercession above vested in the Eternal Priest constitutes the indispensable medium of its accomplishment. His advocacy is the safeguard of his church and the earnest of her glorification."83
He is there as his people's forerunner, the surety of their admission to the dwelling-place of God; he is there, too, as their perpetual high priest, "after the order of Melchizedek." With these words our author comes back to the point from which he digressed in 5:11; now he will go on and say what he has to say about the Melchizedek priesthood, "hard of interpretation" though it may be, in order that his readers may be educated to maturity of faith and life.84
HEBREWS 7