Stoned-Campbell Disciple

I began 2024 in the Sermon to the Hebrews. This morning, after time in the Psalms, I reread the Sermon “to the Hebrews.” To read the entire sermon called “to the Hebrews” take about an hour. If there was ever a sermon about Jesus that comes from the Hebrew Bible it is “Hebrews.”

Hebrews is a sermon on the “Old Testament.” Even when Jesus is quoted in the book, it is a quotation from the Hebrew Bible (from the Septuagint).

A few observations on Hebrews as it is fresh on my mind yet again today. My reading of Hebrews is perhaps different than many in Churches of Christ. But I hope it is actually what the author was saying.

First Century Eyes

A couple of obvious but often overlooked and ignored facts. Hebrews is a Jewish composition. It is as “Jewish” as anything from Philo, Fourth Maccabees, Josephus, the Community Rule of the Essenes at Qumran. Moderns have a tendency to read/hear Hebrews with post-Marcion eyes and ears as if something called “Christianity” was a separate religion. When Hebrews arrived and was delivered no one thought it was the latest addition to the New Testament (in fact it might be centuries before that belief became firmly established).

The Sermonator firmly believes that its audience has the same faith and are part of the same people/”house” as Moses (3.5-6, read it again, slowly). They are the same faith, just read Hebrews 11.

Hebrews May Not Say What We Imagine

There are those that seem to believe that Hebrews teaches that the “Old Testament” is now not to be listened to. It was done away with, as the lingo goes. Oh it (the “Old Testament”) is still God’s word they say it just has nothing to say about salvation. We are to listen to Jesus and not “Moses and the Old Testament prophets.” I point out the obvious here, Hebrews never once uses the phrase “Old Testament.”

One hundred percent of the scriptural quotations in Hebrews are from the Bible of Israel. Rather it is scripture and Sermonator declares that Scripture from Genesis to Psalms to Malachi (and possibly Wisdom and 2 Maccabees) is “living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword” (4.12). If the rule of context has anything to do with it, this statement has nothing to do with Acts, Romans, Galatians, Ephesians, 1-2 Timothy, Revelation. Simply keeping the Sermonator and the Sermon in literary and historical context can throw a monkey wrench into unfounded assumptions that are alien to the first century.

I grant that Hebrews says listen to Jesus but Hebrews does not in anyway, shape, fashion or form contrast the Hebrew Scriptures and Jesus. Hebrews listens to Jesus FROM the Hebrew Bible (the Sermonator used a translation of the Hebrew Bible called the Septuagint, LXX). The Sermonator quotes Jesus and does so from the Bible of Israel.

The claim is made, by some, that Hebrews 1.1 insists contrary. They read it as if it says Jesus INSTEAD of the Hebrew Bible. But if that is what Hebrews 1.1 says or means then the Preacher himself did not practice his own exegetical principle.

But the contrast in Hebrews 1.1 is not Jesus vs the “Old Testament” (a term the Hebrews Preacher never once uses to refer to the Hebrew Bible). Rather, the contrast is One vs Many. According to Hebrews it is in fact the same Spirit that spoke in the prophets that speaks even today. Where does the Spirit speak “Today?” In the very Psalms and Prophets that some want to dismiss.

The preacher quotes the Psalms and says “Today if you hear HIS voice.“

Whose voice? The Holy Spirit’s voice! (3.7, 13; 4.7).

What is the Sermonator referring to when the phrase “word of God” appears in homily? What is sharper than any two edged sword in Hebrews? (4.12). The text itself explicitly quotes Psalm 95.

The Sermonator has just quoted, again, the so called “Old Testament” when this statement (word of God) is made (4.7), that is Psalms and refers to Joshua (4.8). He certainly is not referring to Acts, Romans, Galatians, nor even Hebrews itself. It is in the Psalms that the Spirit addresses the Sermonator’s congregation “Today.” Not yesterday. And it is a voice that is to be obeyed “Today.”

Not only is it the voice of the Spirit in the Scriptures that some (not the Sermonator) call “Old Testament,” but it is the voice of the One we learned of in 1.1! It is the voice of JESUS. In Hebrews 2.11ff the Sermonator says,

“For this reason JESUS is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters.”

Then the Sermonator quotes the Living and Active Scripture (“Old Testament”) and identifies the speaker as none other than Jesus himself.

“For this reason JESUS is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters, saying,
‘I [Jesus] will proclaim your name [God’s] to my brothers and sisters in the midst of the congregation [ekklesia]“

So we not only hear the Spirit “Today” directly from the Psalms, addressing us “Today” but it is the voice of Jesus Christ (Psalm 22.22).

This same phenomena is repeated in Hebrews. In chapter 10 we read, “when Christ came into the world, HE said ...” and then Psalm 40 is quoted (see Heb 10.5-10).

When the Sermonator wants his/her congregation to “hear” Jesus it is Hebrew Scriptures that speak.

There is not the slightest hint, ANYWHERE, in Hebrews that because Jesus has come the “authority” of the Hebrew Bible is diminished. Jesus is speaking. The Spirit is speaking “Today.” The Sermonator makes every single doctrinal claim about Jesus on the basis of the authority of the Hebrew Bible. There no exception to this. Not one.

Every claim about Jesus is derived from and rests upon the authority of the Hebrew Scriptures. They are after all, “living and active.” The authority of Jesus ministry is not some how contrary (much less in contrast) to the Hebrew Scriptures and the Sermonator never suggests it is. Rather the “authority” for Jesus being a priest outside of the tribe of Levi comes from two biblical sources: the Law of Moses itself and Psalms of David. And in good Jewish fashion, the Sermonator establishes the testimony on the basis of two witnesses, “by the mouth of two or three witnesses the matter shall be established” Deuteronomy 19.15.

Contrary to the assumption that seems to lie with those that make unfounded claims from Hebrews, that affirming the value and authority of the Hebrew Scriptures DIMINISHES the glory of Jesus or his priestly ministry, is destroyed by the content of Hebrews itself. There is not one iota for Jesus’s ministry that is not from the Hebrew Scriptures themselves. And it is hard to find a more Jesus exalting sermon than the Sermonators but every syllable is an exposition of the living and active word of God that speaks Today found in Genesis, Deuteronomy, Psalms, the Prophets … the Bible of Israel.

THEM OR IT? WHAT WAS WRONG?

Jesus is the mediator of a “better” covenant. One that cannot be broken by human beings. That is why it is better. The old was “inferior” because it could be broken by Israel, because it could be broken by humans.

Hebrews does not say (nor does Jeremiah btw) that God found fault with the “Old Testament.” The text says, in black and white, that God “found fault with THEM” (8.8). It does not say “found fault with IT!.

They broke IT.
God will fix IT.

That is what Jesus the Messiah from the Tribe of Judah (7.14) did. The “new” (kainos, REnewed) covenant cannot be broken by humans any more because Jesus himself is the new covenant … or better the New Covenant is “in my blood” (Lk 22.20). The kainos covenant is not in me, you, a book, it is in the BLOOD of the of King Jesus.

It is the same God: Yahweh
It is the same People: House of Israel/House of Judah
It is the same Law: My laws
It is the same Promise: I will be their God and they will be my people
(8.8-10).

Again, God found fault with THEM, not IT. Since THEY broke it, now in the “better” covenant is secured through the obedience and indestructible life of Jesus (can’t be broken by you or me!) and “my laws” are inscribed upon our hearts (8.10-11).

The Sermonator does not claim that this renewed/new/kainos covenant has fully arrived. They still need to be taught! They still need forgiveness of sins and thus intercession! They still have a heart issue just like the ancestors! They still – we still – do not know God as we are known (8.11). We still await the fullness of this covenant made new. Like the resurrection itself this will be realized when Jesus comes from sanctuary and returns to make all things new. Sometimes, it seems to me, we only halfway read Hebrews 8.8-11.

Nowhere in Hebrews is “Old Covenant” equated with the scriptures that the Sermonator has been basing his entire sermon on. The very words for the notion of the kainos covenant are in the living and active scripture, the Prophet Jeremiah chapter 31.31-34. If he does make that equation then provide the BCV. The old covenant is nothing more and nothing less than the very specific relationship given and broken on Mt. Sinai.

The “old covenant” is not the “Bible.”
The “old covenant” in Hebrews is not even the Noahic covenant.
It is not the Abrahamic covenant. It is not the Davidic covenant.
It is the very specific Sinaitic covenant that Israel broke while still at Mt. Sinai, the Golden Calf (Exodus 32-34). Thus the “old covenant” is not even the history of Israel, it is the tragically broken covenant at the very moment of Exodus redemption.

Further, in fact in Hebrews 8.8-12 the Sermonator even makes a distinction between “old covenant” and God’s “law” (8.10 quoting Jeremiah 31.31). The Sermonator certainly believes the Law is fully in effect which is why even Jesus the Messiah could not presently be a priest on earth! “Now if he [Messiah Jesus] were on earth he would not be a priest at all, since there ARE priest [Levitical ones!] who offer gifts according to the law” (8.4). The Sermonator does not claim Jesus was a priest (much less High Priest) during his earthly ministry, Jesus became a High Priest through the “the power of an indestructible life” (7.15-17), his resurrection by God and ascension into the apocalyptic sanctuary/tabernacle/temple of God where he is right now. The resurrected Jesus, of the tribe of Judah “passed through the heavens” (4.14) and in that resurrected body “enters the inner shrine behind the curtain” (6.19) where he currently serves as High Priest in the order of Melchizedek “exalted above the heavens” (7.26). It is from there that he currently does what an Israelite priest did: leads us in worship and intercedes because like Israel of old we still sin but the covenant is guaranteed through the Priest-King Son of David.

Summary of Thoughts

Thank God that Jesus came. I praise God daily for the Messiah who is Lord and Savior. He is in fact greater than any angel. But angels are still glorious and they still freaked John out, not once but twice, who had even seen the resurrected Christ!

He is in fact greater than Moses. But Moses was and still is glorious. And we will sing the Song of MOSES and the Lamb in eternal glory (not the Song of Bobby/Paul/Peter/etc and the Lamb). Jesus is not a servant but the Son (he is also a servant btw!). He guarantees the new (or it can be translated as “REnewed”) covenant. We embrace him. But it is not Jesus instead of that but Jesus through that!

But we do not have to deny what Paul himself said about the Hebrew Scriptures to exalt Jesus. The Hebrews Preacher did not believe such teaching if his own example means anything. But Paul said, about the Hebrew Scriptures, they,

“are able to instruct you FOR SALVATION through FAITH in Christ Jesus … and are good for DOCTRINE … (2 Timothy 3.15-16).

Just some thoughts from my reading of the Sermon to the Hebrews.

Blessings.

A wonderful resource is Nicholas J. Moore, The Open Sanctuary: Access to God and the Heavenly Temple in the New Testament. The tabernacle and temple are of critical importance in interpreting Hebrews. Moore’s chapter on Hebrews is accessible and insightful. Hebrews is not Platonic.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 20th, 2024 at 11:09 am and is filed under Christian hope, Exegesis, Hebrews, Jesus, Worship, Yom Kippur. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.