Translation & Sermon by Nate Wilson for Christ the Redeemer Church of Manhattan, KS, 7 Oct. 2018
· When I was a child, my uncles introduced me to the music of PDQ Bach. A certain Dr. Peter Schickele, of the University of Southern North Dakota at Hoople, began claiming in the 1960’s to have discovered music manuscripts by J.S. Bach’s youngest son, wadded up and used for insulation in the attics of old German houses – some even being used as coffee filters. The compositions, he claimed, were by a creative genius whose work had inspired some of the greatest classical composers after him, for instance:
o Professor Schickele discovered a dreadful musical round entitled the “Coffee Canon” which bears a remarkable resemblance to Pachelbel’s Canon,
o and then there’s an oratorio filled with bad puns entitled “The Four Seasonings,” which Schickele dates before Vivaldi’s Four Seasons,
o and perhaps even more remarkable is PDQ Bach’s “1712 Overture,” which contains some of the same themes found in Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture.”
· The fact that PDQ’s overture also contained jazz chords never heard in classical music before the 20th Century, has led music scholars to strongly suspect that Peter Schickele is merely a second-rate modern classical composer who has been using PDQ Bach as an alter ego to promote his own plagiarized compositions.
· I became further suspicious of this when I heard Peter Schickele on a radio show, comparing the great symphonies of Beethoven with the works of PDQ Bach. Schickele said condescendingly that Beethoven was “all right, considering his handicap.” (Referring to the fact that Beethoven was deaf when he wrote his last musical works.)
· In truth, Schickele has all but conceded that PDQ Bach is an elaborate hoax intended to bring humor to the classical music genre. I even got to see him conduct the Chattanooga Symphony Orchestra once, and it was pretty funny. But, if you ever run into him, don’t ask him straight up if he is a fake, because I’m sure he would feign great offense at the question. He continues to maintain that PDQ Bach, despite his rather mediocre work, is worthy of his life’s devotion.
· Now, this is obviously all for a bit of fun, but it is indeed possible to get so devoted to one thing that we miss out on the something else much better, and in the early church to which the book of Hebrews was written, there were Jews who were so devoted to Moses that they were in danger of missing the greatness of Jesus, so our author is hammering away at the superiority of Jesus to bring them back into balance.
· In chapters 1-2, Jesus was proved to be greater than all the angels (despite Him having taken on human flesh and blood), and now in chapter 3, Jesus is proven to be greater than Moses, truly one of the most outstanding leaders in all of history.
· He begins by comparing the scope of responsibility of Moses compared to Jesus:
· My Dad’s seminar professor, Phillip Hughes, noted in his Commentary On The Epistle To The Hebrews that, “The concept of Christ as the builder of the house is probably based on the messianic prophecy of Zechariah 6:12f,. which declared: ‘Behold the man whose name is the Branch... It is he who shall build the temple of the Lord, and shall bear royal honor, and shall sit and rule upon his throne.’ It also rests on God’s promise to David that he would raise up for him a son who would build a house for God and whose throne would be established forever (1 Chr. 17:11f.).”
· There are many parallels between Moses and Jesus.
o God made Moses lead the nation of Israel out of slavery in Egypt to the Promised Land, over Moses’ own objections and misgivings about such an overwhelming enterprise, but Moses got with the program and faithfully did what God told him (with only a couple of exceptions that we know of[2]).
o In the case of Jesus, there are things about the relationship between God the Father and God the Son that we don’t know, but we do know that Jesus said that God the Father sent Him with a plan to save a people for Himself, and we also know from eyewitness accounts of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane that there was something difficult and overwhelming for Jesus about going through with that plan, but He got with the program and faithfully did what God the Father wanted without fail.
· “Moses was faithful in all his house/οἴκῳ” is a quote from Num. 12:7.
· In this case, the “house” is not a brick-and-mortar domicile, and not merely those living under his roof, but the “whole” nation under his political governorship and under his spiritual priesthood[3], as the parallel use of the whole “house” of Christ bears out in a few more verses. (And in Acts 7:10, the same phase is applied to Joseph’s political leadership in Egypt.) For Moses, this “house/administration” was the “people of Israel,” and for Jesus it is “all Israel” (i.e. all those of the faith of Abraham).
· Now, being appointed by God to be the leader of His people didn’t mean there wouldn’t be challenges.
o The very passage in Numbers 12 from which this phrase in Hebrews 3:2 is drawn is in the context of a political uprising against Moses. God had clearly called and appointed Moses for the leadership role, but Moses’ big sister and brother tried to cut in on him, claiming that they had just as much authority from God as Moses did. God came down in a cloud of glory and gave them what-for and struck Miriam with leprosy.
o Later on, Korah, Dathan, and Abiram tried to usurp Moses’ leadership, which also ended badly for them. And there were other challenges as well.
o Likewise, with Jesus, He was clearly God’s special Messiah, but that didn’t mean everybody accepted Him as such.
§ His hometown leaders tried to throw Him off a cliff;
§ and wherever He ministered, lawyers proclaimed Him a fraud,
§ and the supreme court sentenced Him to death as a criminal.
o The point is that we should not allow our esteem for Jesus Christ to diminish just because there are naysayers and others who blow Him off. Even the greatest of leaders like Moses throughout history faced opposition, so other people’s failure to acknowledge Him for who He is, is no reason for us to lose respect for Jesus ourselves.
· I’d also like to point out that the Greek verb of being at the beginning of v.2 is present tense.
o That means that Jesus not only “was” faithful to God the Father, but that He still “is” (Present tense) faithful. He still is that “merciful and faithful high priest concerning the issues we have before God,” as we saw in Hebrews 2:17.
o All of us who are Christians are under His administration, as He is the “head of the church,” and He is – and will continue to be – faithful to protect, provide for, redeem from sin, ensure justice for, and lead us, fully discharging all of His duties with perfect faithfulness in His appointed role over us.
· V.3 continues the thought with a qualifying statement, “for” – or more appropriately “yet” – “this” Jesus “has been considered/counted/found worthy of more glory than Moses…”
o The One who evaluated Jesus to be more worthy of glory than Moses was God the Father who had delighted in the presence of the Son of God from eternity past and had perfect confidence in Him, unlike Moses who was a mere creation of His – and an occasionally disobedient one at that.
o Furthermore, Moses was part of the people whom God was saving and building up, whereas Jesus was part of the planning committee, as it were, for creating and saving that group of people – long before Moses was a gleam in Amram & Jochabed’s eyes. In other words, Jesus is the builder; Moses was just part of the building; that makes Jesus worthy of more praise than Moses by far.
· I was recently up at Mt. Rushmore, and, as I walked through the long colonnade between the entrance and the viewing platform, my attention was arrested by a giant bust of Gutzon Borglum, the man who sculpted the presidential faces on the mountain, then we watched the video presentation about Mt. Rushmore, and, again, the plans made by Borglum, and the methods he used in chiseling out the four giant faces were featured, so that when we finally came to view the mountain with the likenesses Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Roosevelt carved in it, we thought not only of our nation’s history, but of how that monumental task had been done by this sculptor.
· “The builder of the house is worthy of greater praise than the house itself,” although so often, the builder is forgotten, and that can be a problem:
o If I had not told you the name of the man who carved Mt. Rushmore, you probably wouldn’t have been able to tell me who did it.
o I have no idea who build the Taj Mahal, but I would recognize the image of that house anywhere, and anyone would acknowledge that it is an amazing structure. (Did you know that Taj Mahal’s foundations were set in a pool of water so that earthquakes would not be able to break it down?) Whoever designed that was brilliant!
o Then, when we look at the human body, we see a construction even more awesome than Mount Rushmore or the Taj Mahal. Yet, when we are enamored with a pretty face or a handsome body or when we gaze at a baby as adorable as one of my grandchildren, do we have the presence of mind to remember that God is the architect of the human body, and, as such, deserves greater praise than we are giving to that human being we are looking at? It is idol-worship to adore any person more than that person’s maker.
o Isaiah 40:28 “And now, hast thou not known? hast thou not heard? the eternal God, the God that formed [κατασκευάσας] the ends of the earth, shall not hunger, nor be weary, and there is no searching of his understanding… 45:5-7 …I strengthened thee… That those from the east and from the west may know that there is no God but me. I am the Lord God, and there is none beside. I am he that prepared light, and formed darkness; who make peace, and create calamity; I am the Lord God, that does all these things.”
o “…it is more important to give heed to God and to trust in God than in a creature.” ~Lefevre d’Etaples
o Are there any people or things or activities you have been devoted to which you need to leave behind in order to fully practice and proclaim your faith in Jesus?
· Even the prepositions in this statement speak of the superiority of Jesus to Moses.
o The preposition in v.5 that relates Moses to the “house/administration of God” is the word “in,”
o but the preposition in v.6 which relates Jesus to the house is the word “over.” That’s superiority!
· Another contrast is that Moses is called “servant/minister,” whereas Jesus is called “Son.”
o The Greek word for servant/minister is therapwn, a word used nowhere else in the N.T.
o It is not the generic word for “slave/servant,” but rather a specialized term which connotes – not poverty and bondage but rather – dignity as a citizen committed to represent and follow the head of his state.
o About half the occurrences of this word in the Old Testament are in Exodus, describing the dignitaries in Pharaoh’s court.
o Moses called himself God’s therapwn, and God also called Moses His therapwn[4]. It is also used to describe Job (2:3), Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Deut. 9:27), and Joshua[5].
o So I translated it “minister,” as I think it is used in the same sense that we use it for a political office – a public servant, such as the Minister of Education or the Secretary of Defense.
o Moses represented God and carried out God’s agenda as a secretary, but Jesus represented God and carried out God’s agenda as God’s own Son.
· The third contrast in these verses is that Moses’ role was a supporting role, whereas Christ was the main role.
o V.5 says Moses was a “witness” to something in the future. (Most English versions add the word “later/after/future, which is not explicitly in the Greek text, but goes with the future tense of the verb.) What was it that would be “spoken in the future” that Moses’ faithful execution of political leadership of Israel would prove? Jesus, the Word of God, came later and fulfilled all the typology that Moses foreshadowed, making Christ greater than Moses[6].
o Jesus said in John 5:46 “…Moses… wrote of me.”
o Peter explained this in Acts 3:20-23 “Jesus Christ… was preached to you before… For Moses truly said to the fathers (in Deut. 18:15), 'The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brethren. Him you shall hear in all things, whatever He says to you. And it shall be that every soul who will not hear that prophet shall be utterly destroyed from among the people.'” (NKJV)
· Moses was all right, but Jesus was something else! Moses was a faithful administrator in the government of God’s people Israel in his day, but Jesus has been and will be faithful as the Son of God over all of God’s people – both the Jews and proselytes of Moses’ day, as well as Christians in the whole church today. We are part of that house of God![7]
o “Moses was as faithful as any servant in a house can be, while Christ was not a servant in the house, but a son, and displayed his fidelity in that capacity… Moses was a part of the O.T. system – a servant in the house; while Christ, as one with God who established all things, was the founder and establisher of both the Old and the New Testament economies. ” ~Marvin Vincent, Word Studies Of The New Testament, 1886
o “As he had spoken the words of God to the people of Israel and had led them from the bondage of Egypt to the land of promise, so the Coming One would proclaim the words given him by the Father (Jn. 12:49f.) and deliver the Israel of God (Gal. 6:16) from a more terrible tyrant than Pharaoh (Heb. 2:14) and bring them to an inheritance better than that of Palestine (Heb. 11:13-16, 13:14).” ~Phillip Hughes
· We must Hold on/hold fast/kataschwmen
o Cf. Hebrews 3:14 “For we have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end” (NKJ)
o The “if” here is “thoroughly in line with God’s covenant relationship with His people… (Deut. 30:10 ‘…the LORD will rejoice over you for good… if you obey the voice of the LORD your God’)… [and] it is entirely in line with the teaching of Christ, who declared: ‘If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples’ (Jn. 8:31)… Nor does an admonition of this kind conflict with the dominical and apostolic teaching that the Christian’s eternal security is dependent not on himself but on Christ and his merits alone (cf. Jn. 5:24; 6:37; 10:27-29; Acts 2:47; rom. 11:6f.; 1 Cor. 1:26ff.; 2 Cor. 5:18ff.; Eph. 2:8-10). But it does mean that a man whose profession of faith is contradicted by the quality of his life should examine himself to see whether he is a Christian at all (2 Cor. 13:5). Security in Christ does not absolve one from personal responsibility…” ~Phillip Hughes
· What must we hold onto to be household members of the church under Christ’s administration?
o παρρησίαν – the literal meaning of this word has to do with something that is “out in the open,” and the figurative meaning springs off of that as something which you are willing to “set out openly for everyone to see.”
§ When the Jewish rulers commented that Peter had parresia, it was because he was preaching about Jesus openly in the temple, saying that “there is no other name by which you must be saved” (Acts 4:12-13),
§ and when the early church prayed for parresia in Acts 4:29, it was for courage to preach the gospel despite Jewish opposition – and their prayers were answered when the Holy Spirit filled them so that they could “speak the message of God” with parresia (Acts 4:31). [9]
§ And the book of Hebrews portrays the same thing, addressing these same Jewish believers in Jerusalem not long afterward and speaking of that same confidence, but in this book, the parresia/confidence is in a different direction – toward God.
· For instance, Hebrews 4:16 Let us therefore come boldly [with parresia] to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” (NKJV)
· The Apostle John also mentions this: 1 John 2:28 “And now, dear children, stay in Him, so that whenever He is revealed, we may have an open conversation/parresia and not be embarrassed by Him in His presence.” (NAW)
· Open confidence about your relationship with God will give you open confidence to talk to other people about Jesus, so the two are related.[10]
o The other thing we have to hang on to is καύχημα translated “boast/rejoice,” and, while, in many ways it is a synonym for parresia, if I had to make a distinction between them, it would be that parresia has to do with what you do that demonstrates what you trust in, while kauchema has more to do with what you say to express that trust[11].
§ Kauchema also does not have the negative connotations in Greek that the word “boast” has in English; it is just telling someone else about someone whom you think is great.
§ John Chrysostom delivered a sermon on this text around the year 400AD, and his note on the converse of boasting is convicting: “He however. that is distressed in his trials and who falls, doth not glory: he that is ashamed, he that hideth himself has no confidence, he that is perplexed doth not glory.”
§ John Owen, stated it more positively in his exposition of Hebrews in the year 1650, “Now a hope in us of a blessed immortality and glory by Jesus Christ requireth… an open opposing of our hope, or that which is hoped for, unto all difficulties, dangers, and persecutions, with a holy boasting and glorying, or rejoicing in our lot and portion, because the foundation of our hope is sure, and the things we hope for are precious and excellent, and that to the contempt of everything that ariseth against them.” (That is how Paul could “glory/boast” in his infirmities in 2 Cor 10:5-10.)
§ Deut. 10:20-21 states it even more positively: “Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God, and serve him, and shalt cleave to him, and shalt swear by his name. He is thy boast, and he is thy God, who has wrought in the midst of thee these great and glorious things, which thine eyes have seen.” (Brenton)
§ Psalm 89:16-18 “…in thy name shall they rejoice all the day: and in thy righteousness shall they be exalted. For thou art the boast of their strength; and in thy good pleasure shall our horn be exalted, for our help is of the Lord; and of the Holy One of Israel, our king.” (Brenton)
o The Greek text modifies the words “parrasian/confidence/courage” and “kauchema/rejoicing/boasting” with the phrase “of THE hope.” (τῆς ἐλπίδος)
§ Most modern versions added the word “our,” which is not in the Greek texts, but which is permissible according to the rules of Greek grammar, however, since the word “our” is not there in the original, it cannot mean simply being brave and confident and hopeful out of your own reserves of courage and confidence and hope which you manufacture for yourself.
· This isn’t Julie Andrews singing The Sound Of Music, “I have confidence in confidence alone.” No, that is not Biblical Christianity.
· Rather, this is speaking of holding fast to belief in Jesus being the Son of God, the Creator of the Universe, the Messiah/Christ who took on flesh and blood to reconcile sinful man to God, and the head of the church, this is THE faith which Christians are called to practice openly and to speak confidently of.
· Notice what it is that keeps you in the house of God:
o Is it not eating pork and not drinking alcohol?
o Is it wearing dresses and headcoverings or a coat and tie to church?
o Is it not using birth control? Homebirthing? Homeschooling?
o Having an ichthous-fish symbol on your business card?
o Listening to BOT radio or KLOVE or watching VeggieTales?
o No, it’s none of these things, although some of them might be part of how you practice it.
o What keeps you in the house of God is trusting Jesus. Placing your hope in Him to make you right with God, to lead you, and to take care of you in His house forever.
o So one application is to keep the main thing the main thing. If you have a chip on your shoulder about a particular issue that is not essentially about trusting Jesus, then you may need to change your ways to show that trusting Jesus is more important to you than that issue[12].
· μέχρι τέλους βεβαίαν Three out of the thousands of Greek manuscripts of this verse don’t include the final phrase “firm until the end,” so the NIV and ESV omit the phrase, which, I think, is a mistake, because
o even though those three manuscripts are some of the oldest-known, still four of the other oldest-known Greek manuscripts do include the phrase,
o and besides, modern scholars recognize that those three manuscripts which omitted the phrase already have two other errors in this passage alone[13],
o and furthermore, the phrase is clearly scriptural because it occurs without controversy in the manuscripts later on in v.14.
o The meaning isn’t essentially different whether we hold fast indefinitely or we hold fast until the end, but it is good to know that there will be an “end,” after which we will see Christ face-to-face, when “hope” and “confidence” will not be such a big deal anymore because, in the world to come, we will be able to see the One we believe in and we will have received what, in this world, we hoped for.
o Ephesians 4:13 “until we – all of us – arrive into the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, into being a mature man, into the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” (NAW)
o 1 Timothy 6: 12 “Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, to which you were also called and have confessed the good confession in the presence of many witnesses… keep this commandment without spot, blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ's appearing…” (NKJV)
· “…know who your High Priest is, and what He is, and ye will need no other consolation nor encouragement.” ~Chrysostom
· “If therefore ‘we are saved by hope’ (Rom. 8:24), and “are waiting with patience” (Rom. 8:25), let us not be grieved at present things, nor seek now those that have been promised afterwards; ‘For hope which is seen is not hope.’ For since the good things are great, we cannot receive them here in this transitory life. With what object then did He even tell us of them beforehand, when He was not about to give them here? In order that, by the promise, He might refresh our souls, that by the engagement He might strengthen our zeal, that He might anoint and stir up our mind... Let us not then be troubled… when he seeth the wicked prospering. The recompense is not here, either of wickedness or of virtue; and if in any instance there be [consequences] either of wickedness or of virtue, yet is it not [all that is] deserved, but merely, as it were, a taste of the judgment, that they who believe not the resurrection may yet even, by things that happen here, be brought to their senses. When then we see a wicked man rich, let us not be cast down; when we see a good man suffering, let us not be troubled. For yonder are the crowns, yonder the punishments.” ~Chrysostom
· But there is a balance between being a bold practitioner and preacher of your faith in Jesus in the world and being a peacemaker in this world. Jesus calls us to both, so we need wisdom to know when to focus on peace and when to focus on courageous action. Early Christians sometimes had to face the lions in the Colosseum in order to “hold fast” the witness of their faith, but others did stupid things just because they wanted the fame of being a martyr. Regarding this, Chrysostom wrote, “…be continually in thine armor, sober, watchful, ever looking for the enemy: do not however breed wars, for this is not [the act] of a soldier but of a mover of sedition. But if, on the other hand, the trumpet of godliness call thee, go forth immediately, and make no account of thy life, and enter with great eagerness into the contests, break the phalanx of the adversaries, bruise the face of the devil, set up thy trophy. If however godliness be in nowise harmed, and no one lay waste our doctrines (those I mean which relate to the soul), nor compel us to do anything displeasing to God, do not be officious.” Are you willing to “go forth immediately and make no account of your life” if God so calls?
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3:1 ῞Οθεν[A], ἀδελφοὶ ἅγιοι, κλήσεως ἐπουρανίου μέτοχοι, κατανοήσατε τὸν ἀπόστολον καὶ ἀρχιερέα τῆς ὁμολογίας ἡμῶν Χριστὸν[B] ᾿Ιησοῦν, |
3:1 In view of which, holy brothers, companions of a calling from heaven above, nail down in your minds that the One so commissioned - and the High Priest whom we acknowledge - is the Messiah Jesus. |
1 Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus; |
3:1 Therefore, holy brothers, you who share in a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession, |
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2 πιστὸν ὄντα τῷ ποιήσαντι[C] αὐτὸν, ὡς καὶ Μωϋσῆς ἐν ὅλῳ τῷ οἴκῳ αὐτοῦ. |
2 He is being faithful to the One who appointed Him - like Moses also was in the entirety of his administration, |
2 Who was faithful to him that appointed him, as also Moses was faithful in all his house. |
2 who was faithful to him who appointed him, just as Moses also was faithful in all God's house. |
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3 πλείονος γὰρ δόξης οὗτος παρὰ Μωϋσῆν ἠξίωταιRPI, καθ᾿ ὅσον πλείονα τιμὴν ἔχει τοῦ οἴκου ὁ κατασκευάσας αὐτόν. |
3 yet this One has been considered worthy of more glory than Moses, in the way that the one who has done the construction has so much more honor than the house itself does. |
3 For this man was counted worthy of more glory than Moses, inasmuch as he who hath builded the house hath more honour than [the house]. |
3 For |
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4 πᾶς γὰρ οἶκος κατασκευάζεται ὑπό τινος, ὁ δὲ [τὰ][D] πάντα κατασκευάσας Θεός. |
4 For every house is constructed by somebody, and God is the One who has done the construction of all things. |
4 For every house is builded by some man; but he that built all things is God. |
4 (For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.) |
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5 καὶ Μωϋσῆς μὲν πιστὸς ἐν ὅλῳ τῷ οἴκῳ αὐτοῦ ὡς θεράπων, εἰς μαρτύριον τῶν λαληθησομένων, |
5 And, while Moses was faithful in the entirety of his administration as a minister for the purpose of a witness of the things that will be uttered, |
5 And Moses [verily] was faithful in all his house, as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken [after]; |
5 Now Moses was faithful in all |
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6 Χριστὸς δὲ ὡς υἱὸς ἐπὶ τὸν οἶκον αὐτοῦ, οὗ οἶκός ἐσμεν ἡμεῖς, ἐάνπερ[E] τὴν παρρησίαν καὶ τὸ καύχημα τῆς ἐλπίδος μέχρι τέλους βεβαίαν[F] κατάσχωμεν. |
6 Christ, on the other hand [is faithful] as a Son over His administration, which administration we ourselves are, if indeed we hold on to the confirmed open practice and confident expression of the hope until the end. |
6 But Christ as a son over his own house; whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end. |
6 but Christ is faithful over God's house as a son. And we are his house, if indeed we hold fast [our] confidence and [our] boasting in [our] hope. |
[1] “We are then to understand that nothing is done in the Church which ought not to he ascribed to Gods power; for he alone has founded it by his own hand, (Ps 87:5); and Paul says of Christ that he is the head, from whom the whole body, joined together and connected by every subservient juncture, makes an increase according to what is done proportionally by every member. (Eph 4:16). Hence he often declares that the success of his ministry was God’s work. In a word, if we take a right view of things, it will appear that how much soever God may use the labors of men in building his Church, yet he himself performs everything—the instrument derogates nothing from the workman.” ~J.Calvin
[2] Namely, forgetting to circumcise his sons, and striking the rock to get water out of it instead of speaking to it as God had commanded.
[3] Westcott saw in this holw a “point of comparison… in the fact that Moses and Christ were both engaged, not as other divine messengers with a part, but with the whole of the divine economy…”
[4] Exodus 4:10 “And Moses said to the Lord, I pray, Lord, I have not been sufficient in former times, neither from the time that thou hast begun to speak to thy servant: I am weak in speech, and slow-tongued.” (Brenton)
[5] Exodus 33:11 “And the Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as if one should speak to his friend; and he retired into the camp: but his servant Joshua the son of Naue, a young man, departed not forth from the tabernacle.”
[6] “Moses, while a herald of that doctrine which was to be published for a time to the ancient people, did at the same time render a testimony to the Gospel, the publication of which was not as yet to be made; for it is doubtless evident, that the end and completion of the Law is that perfection of wisdom contained in the Gospel.”~J. Calvin
“…the position of Moses was one which pointed beyond itself to a future and higher revelation.” ~Moffatt
[7] “It is a frequent and well-known metaphor used in Scripture to call the Church the house of God. (1Ti 3:15). And as it is composed of the faithful, each of them is called a living stone. (1Pe 2:5).” ~J.Calvin
[8] John Owen, in his editing of Calvin’s commentary, noticed the same thing I did, that Bebaian is an adjective matching parresian, not an adverb modifying kataschwmen as most English versions render it: “Were the words ‘confidence’ and ‘rejoicing’ rendered adjectivally, the meaning would be more evident, —‘If we hold firm our confident and joyful hope to the end.’ ... Hope is ‘confident’ or assured, while it rests on the word of God, and is ‘joyful’ while it anticipates the glory and happiness of the heavenly kingdom.”
[9] Acts 4:12-31 “‘Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.’ Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated and untrained men, they marveled. And they realized that they had been with Jesus… And being let go, they went to their own companions and reported all that the chief priests and elders had said to them. So when they heard that, they raised their voice to God with one accord and said: ‘…Lord, look on their threats, and grant to Your servants that with all boldness they may speak Your word, by stretching out Your hand to heal, and that signs and wonders may be done through the name of Your holy Servant Jesus.’ And when they had prayed, the place where they were assembled together was shaken; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spoke the word of God with boldness.” (NKJV)
[10] Cf. Hebrews 10:32-37 “But recall the former days in which, after you were illuminated, you endured a great struggle with sufferings: partly while you were made a spectacle both by reproaches and tribulations, and partly while you became companions of those who were so treated; for you had compassion on me in my chains, and joyfully accepted the plundering of your goods, knowing that you have a better and an enduring possession for yourselves in heaven. Therefore do not cast away your confidence, which has great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise: ‘For yet a little while, And He who is coming will come and will not tarry.’” ~NKJV
[11] Cf. Matthew Henry: “…maintain a bold and open profession of the truths of the gospel, upon which our hopes of grace and glory are built, and live upon and up to those hopes…”
[12] Phillip Hughes added, “For the Qamran Sect, the ‘house’ built by God is interpreted as the community of elect and undefiled persons who have withdrawn themselves… this gives all the more force to what our author writes here; for he is then saying in effect: ‘False notions about membership in the “house” of which God is the builder are placing you in peril of slackening your attachment to Jesus as your Savior and Lord…’”
[13] Vaticanus (4th Century), Chester-Beatty Papyrus (c. 200AD), and P13 (Early 4th Century), which all omitted the word “whole/entire” in v.2, and which all misspelled either “which” or “if” in v.6.
[A] Chrysostom: “…he says ‘whence’ instead of ‘for this cause’ …seek nothing here, if ye have been called yonder—yonder is the reward, yonder the recompense.”
[B] The word “Christ” is in the majority of Greek manuscripts, including the ones used in the Textus Receptus from which the KJV was translated, and it is in the editions used by the Greek Orthodox church, but it is not in the Greek New Testament published by the United Bible Societies (4th Ed.) or the Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece (26th Ed), and, although both of the latter have critical apparati, neither offer any reason for omitting the word. On the one hand, the omission makes no substantial change in meaning, but on the other hand, it is troubling that these scholarly works don’t even make an apology for changing the traditional Greek text.
[C] Chrysostom explained: “‘to Him that made Him’—made [Him] what? ‘Apostle and High Priest.’”
[D] Although this definite article is in the majority of Greek manuscripts (and therefore is in the edition the Greek Orthodox Church uses and in the Textus Receptus used to translate the KJV), it has not been found in any of the 9 manuscripts which are older than the 9th Century. All of these older manuscripts were found hundreds of years after the KJV was translated. It makes no difference in meaning, however, since, in English, it’s not possible to put “the” as a modifier of “all things.”
[E] An intensive form of the conditional only found in Hebrews out of all the Greek Bible (although there is one use of the word in the Maccabees). ATR noted this is a “Condition of third class with ean and second aorist (effective) active subjunctive of katechō. This note of contingency and doubt runs all through the Epistle.”
[F] These three words are not found in three of the four oldest-known manuscripts (P13, P46, and B), but they are in practically every manuscript following them (including א, A, C, D) and in every ancient version (Boharic-3rd Century, Ethiopic-4th C., Latin, Vulgate, Syriac, Armenian- 5th C) except the Sahidic (3rd C.). From the writings of the early church fathers, three from the late 300’s included the phrase and two from the late 300’s omitted it.