14 For we have become partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence firm to the end

It is very significant that the writer inserts this verse at this point. He has been talking about the dangers of falling away, and here he presents yet another danger in that area, but also the means of overcoming.

Often it is all-too-easy to just slide over the statements of Scripture and not take them fully to heart, not even really hear what it is saying. “We are made partakers of Christ.” What an awesome statement!

Firstly, we have become partakers in His life. Outside of Christ, it was only our bodies and souls that were alive – our spirits were dead, non-functional because of sin. That’s why the very first step of our Christian walk is for us to be re-born of the Spirit. Just as God breathed life into man at the creation, when we are born again he breathes the life of the Spirit into us. This is the same Spirit Who overshadowed Mary at the conception of Jesus; the same Spirit Who empowered all of His life; the same Spirit Who raised Him from the dead.

We have become partakers in Christ’s righteousness. We had no righteousness of our own. Every one of us had failed to live up to the standard of God’s image in which we were created, every one of us had acted contrary to God’s will many times. Yet when we come to Christ, the Father declares us to be righteous because of His righteousness. Theologians refer to this as Christ’s righteousness being imputed to us. Even beyond that, His righteousness is imparted to us as the Spirit works within us, transforming us into His likeness.

We are partakers in Christ’s authority. Both by reason of His nature (God the Son) and of His victory at Calvary, He has “all authority in heaven and on earth.” (Matthew 28:18) He has given that authority to us, in order that we may go and make disciples of all nations. He has given us authority over all the power of the enemy (Luke 10:19) that we may have victory in every area of our life and witness.

We are partakers in His power, for the same Spirit Who empowered Him lives in us. When Jesus walked on the earth, He did not operate as God. He never for one instant ceased to be God, but He laid aside all the power and prerogatives of Godhead to live on earth as Man totally empowered by the Spirit. We have that same Spirit, Who is God, living within us.

We are partakers in His victory. At the cross, He disarmed the principalities and powers (Colossians 2:15). Now, when we are engaged in spiritual battle, we are not fighting to gain the victory, but to enforce the victory that has already been won.

Most of all, we are partakers in Him. We are bound to Him as closely as the branches are bound to the vine. Without Him, we can do nothing, but in Him we can do all things.

… if we hold the beginning of our confidence …

Just as the branch only continues to have life while it is attached to the vine, so our experience of all that being partakers in Christ means will continue only as long as we remain attached to Him. The word “confidence” carries the significance of a foundation, that on which something is built. In the beginning of our Christian walk we built on only one thing, the fact that Christ died in our place and that because of that death we can receive forgiveness, cleansing and new life. If we move our confidence – our foundation – to something else, we will not experience the fullness of that new life. It doesn’t matter whether we begin to build our Christian life on our own efforts, or on the doctrines of man, or on the personalities of leaders, or any thing or person other than Christ, the result will be the same. None of those things is sufficient to sustain our life of faith.

… firm to the end.

It is not just the beginning of a thing that counts, but its ending. Christian life is not a sprint, but a marathon. There will be many temptations along the way to place our faith in something other than Christ; many temptations to build foundations other than on Him. It is only as we, by the power of His Spirit, overcome those temptations that we will find ourselves truly partaking in all that He is.

3:13 But exhort one another daily, while it is called Today; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.

Whilst the previous verse spoke of the danger of personally falling away, the writer now takes the responsibility beyond the personal to the corporate. We are not only to be concerned about our own spiritual wellbeing, but also about that of our brothers and sisters in Christ.

Too often Christians think that the role of exhorting belongs only to the pastor or leader, but God says that all of us are to exhort each other. This does not mean that we are to judge or criticize, but rather that we should be a cheer squad for others in the Body of Christ. When a brother is struggling, we should be there to remind him that Christ has already won the victory, and to encourage him to take hold of that victory for himself.

In the context of this passage, the area in which we should be most encouraging others is that of faith. When we try to stand alone, it can be all-too-easy for the circumstances of life to overwhelm us to the point where we first begin to question God’s promises, and eventually to declare them false. It is far easier for someone who is not going through those particular things to come alongside us and remind us again of what God has said, and of His faithfulness demonstrated both in His Word and in His dealings in our lives to this point.

The writer emphasizes that this is not just a one-off thing. We are to do it daily. It is part of the nature of human beings that we forget very easily. The things that were real and concrete to us yesterday become ephemeral and slip away so easily. The faith that rose so confidently to take hold of God’s promises yesterday can today find itself deflated and overpowered. We need reminding daily.

Of course, it is impossible to encourage another in this way without at the same time encouraging ourselves. Like so many things in our walk of faith, whatever we give out comes back multiplied.

… while it is called today …

Again, the emphasis is on the “now”. No matter how good our intentions, we cannot go back to encourage someone in the past. Whatever opportunities we missed are gone forever. We can, however, take hold of whatever fresh opportunities present themselves today. Neither can we travel to the future and encourage someone there. We have no way of knowing what may happen on the journey between now and then. We can, however, encourage our brother today, and determine in our heart that, God permitting, we will continue to encourage him tomorrow and for all the tomorrows down the line.

… lest any of you be hardened …

The people of Israel were hardened. In spite of the multiplied miracles they had witnessed, in spite of the overwhelming evidence of God’s faithfulness, they had come to a point where they not only rejected God’s promises, but they rejected God.

Very seldom does anyone who has walked with God turn away from Him overnight. Hardness creeps up on people: a little attitude that is left unchecked, a little doubt that is not challenged, an expectation of God’s goodness exchanged for an expectation of disappointment … They all add up. Just as a body that is not exercised becomes stiff and eventually incapable of exercise, so faith that is not exercised becomes hardened. All the more reason why we need to encourage each other to faith!

… through the deceitfulness of sin.

Sin is always deceitful. Deceit is the devil’s nature, and so it is natural that his works would be deceitful. Sin always comes wrapped up in pretty packages – attractive at least to those at whom the temptation is targeted. The particular sin that is being addressed here, unbelief, will disguise itself as reason. After all, surely it was reasonable that the Israelites would want to know what sort of land they were about to enter before they took the huge step of actually going in. It will call itself prudence – surely it was prudent for them to establish the strength of the forces that would be opposing them? It will pretend to be compassionate: it was the women and children who would suffer most if they faced a slaughter.

In reality, it was none of those things. It was just plain, simple, naked unbelief. God had said the land was good, and He had said it was theirs, but they didn’t believe Him.

We also need to strip our attitudes of their fancy disguises, and see whether what we find underneath is truly unbelief.

3:12 Beware, brothers, lest perhaps there might be in any one of you an evil heart of unbelief, in falling away from the living God;

Throughout the book of Hebrews the writer’s primary purpose is that his readers should take to heart the lessons to be learned from the ancient Israelites. These stories are not merely history, to be learned as an academic study. Nor are they written simply for the present generation to shake their heads (as we so often do) in disbelief at the behavior of their forefathers. Rather, they are object lessons from which both the readers of the first century and we today should learn for our practical Christian lives.

So, “take heed”. The fate which befell the ancient people of God, their exclusion from His rest, may also come upon His people today if they demonstrate the same heart attitudes.

… an evil heart of unbelief …

As they stood at the edge of the Jordan, the unbelief of the people was demonstrated not only in their response to the spies’ report, but in the very premise on which they were sent in to spy out the land of Canaan.

God had already promised them two things: firstly, that He would give them the land; and secondly, that it was a “land flowing with milk and honey.” When God told them to send someone in to explore the land, it should have been simply to find the best route by which they could do what God had said they would do: go in and possess it.

Instead, Moses sent the spies in with this mandate: “See what the land is like; and the people living there, whether they are weak or strong, few or many; and what the land is like where they live, whether it is good or bad; and what cities they live in, whether in tents or in strongholds; and whether or not the land is productive; and whether there are trees there or not.” (Numbers 13:18-20)

God had already told them it was a good land. In telling the spies to check out its productivity, Moses was expressing a lack of belief that the land was really as God had said it was. God had already told them that He would give them the land. In telling the spies to check out the strength of the people and their cities, Moses was expressing a lack of belief that God was indeed able to take them in and enable them to conquer.

When the spies returned, the seeds of unbelief that had been sown at the beginning of their mission were reaped as a harvest of rebellion. We need to take great care about the seeds we sow in our hearts, and in the hearts of others.

It should also be noted that there is a difference of degree between a lack of belief and unbelief. Lack of belief may be simply an uncertainty, an inability to rise up and take hold of the things that God has said. Unbelief, on the other hand, has become a positive assertion that what God has said is not true. Moses’ lack of belief – his uncertainty about the promises of God, which had been expressed in the framing of their mission – had been, by the time of their return, hardened in the people’s hearts into a positive unbelief. They believed God could not do what He had promised, that He could not or would not give them the land. They believed that if they were going to take it they would have to do so in their own strength, and they believed that their own strength was not enough to stand against giants.

The reason God calls such a heart attitude “evil” should be obvious: the people were, in effect, calling Him a liar. It is a very small step from “lack of belief” to “unbelief”. If we do not embrace God’s promises as absolutely true, then it is easy to move to the place where we see them as positively false.

… in falling away from the living God

After their lack of belief had moved to positive unbelief, the people very quickly moved to rebellion. Once their hearts had moved away from God, their actions quickly followed. Once they had departed from His grace, it was easy for them to depart from His command.

It has always been this way. In the Garden of Eden, it was not rebellion that came first, but unbelief. In accepting the doubt planted by the devil’s “did God really say?”, our first parents chose to believe that God was not truthful and therefore not to be trusted. When someone is not to be trusted, it is natural for us to refuse to obey that one.

We need to take care that we do not follow this same route. Every time we fail to positively believe the Word and the promises of God, we set ourselves up for unbelief – a heart attitude that says that God and His Word are not true and not to be trusted. And every time we move into unbelief we set ourselves up for rebellion. Truly, a heart of unbelief moves us away from the living God.

3:10 Therefore I was displeased with that generation, and said, ‘They always err in their heart, but they didn’t know my ways.’ 


The writer is continuing the quote from Psalm 95, and of course the speaker is God. The word grieved implies much more than sadness, carrying the idea that God was offended and indignant with the people and their behavior. “That generation” refers primarily to those who refused to enter the land of Canaan at the time when Moses sent in the spies, but probably extends beyond them. After all, it is highly unlikely that there was any huge difference in attitude between them and the generation that had been raised by them! The behavior during the time in the wilderness bears this out: there is never a suggestion that it was only the older generation who grumbled, griped and rebelled. 

In fact, the word “generation” may not be referring to an age group, as it normally does in English. In Biblical understanding, a “generation” may also be a race - those who have been “generated” from one individual - and it is quite possible that this is the sense in which it is used here.

... They always err in their heart ...
God is not talking about a one-off occurrance - in which case it is possible that someone could have accused Him of unfairness. Rather, this has been an ongoing situation spread out over 40 years. This was surely a long enough time to fully demonstrate what was in the hearts of the people. It was not that they were seeking to walk with God but occasionally stumbled along the way. No, they were constantly rebellious, pulling against God and His purposes every step of the way, complaining about everything He did, and refusing to submit to either God or Moses. God’s judgment against them was not a knee-jerk reaction to a momentary indiscretion, but a sober assessment of the evidence of 40 years. 

His summary of the situation is that they “always err in their hearts”. Their heart attitude is off-course, and because their hearts are wrong their actions are likewise so. Behavior always begins in the heart, and what is in the heart will always be worked out in behavior.

... but they didn’t know my ways. 
It was not that they had not known in terms of intellectual understanding. There was absolutely no reason why they would not. God had given them His law in minute detail. He had demonstrated His power before them through miracles, signs and wonders. He had given them leaders to teach them and lead them. They would have had to be blind, deaf and severely intellectually challenged to have not known God’s ways in that sense.

Again, the Biblical understanding of “knowing” is far richer than ours, and includes the sense of embracing, of owning: of knowing in an experiential sense. This they had not done. God’s law had always remained external to them, something imposed upon them from outside rather than something that had taken root in their hearts, and out of which they lived. They had not even begun to enter into an understanding of God’s heart and thinking - of the “why” behind the Law. To a very large extent, God was to them no different from the gods of the surrounding nations: not personal, but just a somewhat larger idol.

 11 As I swore in my wrath,‘They will not enter into my rest.’ 
At the immediate level, this is talking about the land of Canaan, and referring to those who previously had refused to enter. Yet, as we have seen, they were not the only ones who walked in rebellion and criticism throughout the time in the wilderness. In one sense, we might even say that the ongoing behavior of the whole nation during those 40 years added up to something considerably worse than their initial refusal to cross the Jordan.

The key lies in the next chapter, in 4:8 “If Joshua (not Jesus, as in the KJV) had given them rest then He would not have spoken afterward of another day.” The nation did indeed enter in to Canaan, but they did not enter into God’s rest. Even in the natural, they were faced with ongoing wars and battles as they strove to take the land from those who already occupied it. We can only wonder what it could have been like if they had walked in joyful  obedience to God. Would He have gone ahead of them and driven out the inhabitants of the land so that all the people of Israel had to do was walk in, take over, and live in peace and security?

3: 7 Therefore, even as the Holy Spirit says, “Today if you will hear his voice, (8) don’t harden your hearts, as in the rebellion, like as in the day of the trial in the wilderness, (9) where your fathers tested me and tried me, and saw my deeds for forty years.

Again the writer moves from his demonstration of the superiority of Christ to a solemn warning about the dangers of falling away. The very fact of Christ’s superiority makes this all the more serious.

… as the Holy Spirit says …

The writer goes on to quote from Psalm 95:7-10. Even though this is one of the Psalms of David, the writer here attributes it to the Holy Spirit. Clearly, he saw this passage (and by implication the rest of Scripture, since there would be no logical reason to single out this passage from the rest) as being divinely inspired. More than that, he considers it to be a word that was relevant to his own generation – he does not say “the Holy Spirit said” but that He “says“. The Spirit was not just speaking to the people of David’s day, but to the saints of the first century – and the twenty-first century!

… today if you hear His voice …

The present-moment relevance is emphasized again in the quote itself. It is very easy for us to look back and sit in judgment on God’s people in the past. We find it hard to understand how, having had the incredible encounters with God and the awesome demonstrations of His power that they had experienced, they could then make the choices they made.

Likewise, when we look back over our own lives, we may berate ourselves for the things we have done and the choices we have made.

On the other hand, some people put the hearing of God’s voice into the future. Today, they are too busy, too caught up with life and the affairs of this world, too engaged in pleasure or too bowed down with worry. They acknowledge that some day they are going to have to hear what God is saying, but not today.

However, neither the past nor the future are relevant. The past of others is not our concern, other than to learn from their mistakes. Our own past is beyond our control: the only thing we can do with it is to repent and bring it under the blood of Christ. Our future is also beyond our control: we cannot know for sure that we will have even a minute beyond the one in which we now find ourselves. What we have is now, and it is now that we must respond to God’s voice.

The other aspect of this, of course, is that we can expect to hear His voice. Some people find it hard to believe that God would actually communicate with people, yet surely it is the most natural thing in the world for a father to talk to his children.

The ways in which He may speak to us are many and varied. Firstly, He may speak through His Word, so we need to be spending time in it. He may speak through the prophetic word, so we need to be able to distinguish true prophecy from the words of man. He may speak through the advice of wise counselors, whether in person or through books they have written. He may speak to us in the quietness of our own hearts, so we need to learn to discern His voice. Most importantly, regardless of what means of communication He uses, we must have our ears and hearts open to hear His voice and respond.

… don’t harden your hearts …

It’s one thing to hear God’s voice, but another to respond to it. The writer to the Hebrews was addressing a people who, as a nation, had a history of not responding. From their disobedience at the edge of the Jordan, to their deaf ears turned to the warnings of countless prophets, they had constantly been hearing God’s voice but not responding to it. The Psalm speaks specifically to the beginning of that history, the time when God brought them out of Egypt by the hand of Moses. In the accounts of that exodus, we are repeatedly told that Pharaoh hardened his heart, or that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart (when we deliberately begin to harden our heart against God, He will continue the process for us.) Now, however, it is God’s people that have hardened their hearts. They have set their minds on one way, and will not allow God to take them in another.

Here again the writer is emphasizing the superiority of Christ over Moses. When they hardened their hearts to God’s word through Moses, they spent the next 40 years wandering in the wilderness. Since he has already shown Christ to be far greater than Moses, that implies that the consequence of hardening our hearts to God’s word through Christ is far greater.

… as in the rebellion, like as in the day of the trial in the wilderness …

No doubt the people of Israel, as they stood on the edge of the Jordan hearing the reports of the 12 spies, would not have considered their response as rebellion. They would have seen it as totally reasonable. It did not make sense to go in and attack a land which was ruled by giants, no matter how good the produce of the land may be.

When God tells us to do something, He does not ask us to first decide whether it is reasonable, logical or sensible. Often, it will seem to be none of those things. God’s vision is bigger than ours could ever be. So is His ability. If He says, do it, then we are to do it. If we refuse, then we are not being sensible or reasonable, we are being rebellious.

The word testing may refer to either God’s testing of Israel (it means a test or trial, not a temptation) or Israel’s testing of God’s patience, and most likely includes an element of both.

… where your fathers tested me and tried me, and saw my deeds for forty years.

Here it is Israel testing God. The implication is that they were seeing just how far they could push His patience. They “proved” Him in several ways. Firstly, they proved that He was the master, not them. They had just one chance to obey. When they refused, the door of opportunity closed. When they later tried to enter, in spite of God’s judgment that they would not, they were soundly beaten.

They proved that He was the righteous judge. If they had entertained any notion that their sin would be overlooked because they were His chosen people, they very quickly learned their mistake.

Yet they also proved His faithfulness. He could very easily have wiped them out and started fresh with a new line of people, but He did not. In spite of their reluctance, their rebellion, their complaints, He persisted with them.

They proved His love. Even for a rebellious, contentious people, He provided food, water, guidance and government.

Whilst the forty years wandering in the wilderness were certainly God’s judgment and punishment for their rebellion, they were also a time of growing close to God, of having His visible, physical presence with them every day in the pillar of cloud and fire, of His daily provision of every need, and of enforced separation from the influence of the neighboring tribes and their false deities.

Yet in spite of it all, they hardened their hearts. We must take care not to do the same.

3:5 Moses indeed was faithful in all his house as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were afterward to be spoken, (6)but Christ is faithful as a Son over his house. We are his house, if we hold fast our confidence and the glorying of our hope firm to the end.

In the preceding verses, the writer has shown that Christ is greater than Moses in the same way that the builder of a house is greater than the house itself. Now he comes from a different angle, presenting Christ as greater than Moses in the same way as the son in a household is greater than a servant.

None of those to whom the book of Hebrews was originally addressed would have had any problem in seeing Moses as a servant of the Lord. He is referred to in those terms constantly throughout the Old Testament.

They knew also that he was faithful. He had carried out all that God required him to do – albeit sometimes with hesitation and trepidation. He had not backed down or backed off when faced with Pharaoh’s constant reneging, nor when the Egyptian army was bearing down on the tribes of Israel as they stood on the shores of the Red Sea, nor when confronted with the continual griping of the people. He had been faithful both to receive the Law from the Lord, and then to administer it. He had faithfully overseen the construction of the Tabernacle, making sure at every step that it was exactly as he had been shown on the mountain. Faithfully he had instituted the priesthood and sacrificial system as he had been told by God, and faithfully he had stood against those who would challenge his authority.

Yet in all this he had only been a servant. He went to Pharaoh not with his own demands, but with the demands of God. His duty was not to make the law, but merely to receive and enforce it. He led the people not where he wanted, but where God directed. In everything he did, he did not act out of his own authority, but according to the purposes of God.

… for a testimony of those things which were afterward to be spoken

Not only did Moses act according to God’s direction, not his own; he also acted as a witness to God, not to himself. Moses’ life and ministry were not to bring glory to Moses, but to point both Israel and the surrounding nations to the reality of the One True God.

but Christ is faithful as a Son over his house

Even in human terms, the difference between a son and a servant is immense. The son owns the estate: everything in it is his, or will be by inheritance. The servant owns nothing of it; he is simply one who is employed to care for the house on behalf of the owner. Whilst the servant may have some authority to carry out the tasks that have been entrusted to him, he has no authority over the general running of the household. The son has all authority. Particularly this is the case here, as it is emphasized that the Son is not merely in the house, as would be a small child, but over the house; and what’s more, that it is His own house. The servant is in the house only because of the Master’s choosing; the Son is there because of His relationship with the Father.

We are his house …

The house of God is not a building, but a people. In the Old Testament, it was the people of Israel; in the New it is the church, the Body of Christ. In relation to the Church, Christ is greater than Moses as the builder is greater than the house, and as the Son is greater than the servant. That is why Christ was able to say, speaking of the Law as given through Moses, “You have heard it said … but I say unto you …” (Matt 5: 21,27,31, 33,38,43). The authority of the Son was greater than the authority of the servant.

… if we hold fast our confidence and the glorying of our hope firm to the end.

Throughout the book of Hebrews, the writer uses the superiority of Christ as a reason for his readers to remain firm in their faith, and not to backslide. He is about to move into one of those passages that warn of the dangers of letting go of the truths that he is teaching, and as an introduction to this he reminds them – and us – that the reality of our relationship with God will be evidenced by our ongoing faithfulness. If we are truly part of the household of God, we will hold on to the hope we have in Him. If we do not, then we could well question whether we were ever really part of God’s house.

3:3 For he has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses, because he who built the house has more honor than the house. 4 For every house is built by someone; but he who built all things is God.

“This man” is the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, Christ Jesus, whom the writer has asked us to consider in the first verse of this chapter. The writer has already shown Him to have more glory than the angels, now he says that He has more glory than Moses. Using the illustration of a house (which can also mean a household or family), he does this in two ways. Firstly, he shows that Christ has greater glory as the builder of the house compared to the house itself. Then, in verses 5 and 6, he goes on to show that Christ has greater glory as the Son in the household compared to a servant.

The writer does not in any way seek to detract from the glory of Moses. He does not suggest that the Jews are wrong to give Moses the honour that they do, or that Moses is unworthy of that honour. He simply states that Christ has greater glory and is worthy of greater honour.

There are many beautiful buildings in the world that people greatly admire – from the ancient pyramids and Colosseum to modern architectural marvels like the Eiffel Tower and Sydney Opera House. Each, however, was designed and built by someone. Not one of them built itself, or came together simply by chance. Nor is any of them given credit for its beauty or function. Each is only a reflection of the intelligence and ability of the one who designed it.

The house here in verse 3 may be Moses himself. Moses had a place of great honour among the Jews. At the time when he came down from receiving the Law from the hand of the Lord on Mt Sinai, he was so saturated with the glory of God that it was necessary to put a veil over his face. Yet for all that, his honour and glory was only second-hand. Had it not been for the hand of God upon his life, Moses would have grown up as just another downtrodden slave among all the slaves of Egypt – that is, if he had survived Pharoah’s decree that all the baby boys be thrown in the Nile. The only reason for Moses’ glory and honour was God, who both created him in the first place and “made” him as the deliverer and leader of Israel.

It is also possible that the house refers to the nation of Israel as constituted under Moses, its earthly head. Israel was a great nation, and could point to many glorious victories in battle. More than that, they were the chosen people of God, the place where He had chosen to dwell on earth. This pride in their position was the very thing that led many Jews, even after they had found the Messiah, to shun the gentiles. Yet Israel, too, was both created and made by God. It was God who gave His promise to Abraham that he would be the father of many nations, and God who fulfilled that promise with the miraculous birth of Isaac. It was God who had brought the slave people out of Egypt and molded them into a nation under Moses. Without God, they would have been just a scattered handful of tribes among all the other tribes of the day. The only source of Israel’s glory and honour was God.

Christ, on the other hand, was glorious in Himself, and honoured for and as Himself. He was not created, nor had anyone “made” Him as Saviour and Lord. More than that, it was He who had “built” both Moses and Israel.

Here again the writer emphasises the divinity of Christ. Everything and everyone is created by somebody. The house is created by the architect and builder. But the architect and builder are in turn created beings. At the beginning of the line of creation stands God. By presenting Christ as the builder who has greater honour than the house – whether we see the house as being Moses himself or the nation of Israel under Moses – the writer is clearly saying that Christ is God. As God, the creator of all things, He obviously has far greater glory, and is worthy of far higher honour, than any of His creation, including Moses.

3:2 who was faithful to him who appointed him, as also Moses was in all his house.

The writer here is quoting from Numbers 12:7, “My servant Moses is not so, who is faithful in all My house.”

The context of the quoted verse is particularly interesting and relevant to our study. Miriam and Aaron had rebelled against Moses, suggesting that they should get “equal billing” as far as the leadership of Israel was concerned, because God had spoken to them as well as to Moses. God tells them that, whilst His normal means of communicating with His prophets is through dreams and visions, He treats Moses differently. With Moses He speaks face to face, and verse 7 suggests that the reason for this is Moses’ faithfulness.

Moses’ position is based on his relationship with God. Because of that relationship, God has entrusted him with leadership within his “house” (ie the people of God.) Moses has been faithful in that leadership, discharging all his duties without wavering, and even going beyond what was required (as when he suggested that God should blot his name out of the book of life rather than destroy Israel for the sin with the golden calf – Ex 32:32). That faithfulness has led to God bringing him into an even more intimate relationship with Himself, and entrusting him with even more “state secrets.”

With that background, the writer lines up the faithfulness of Christ against the faithfulness of Moses. Moses was faithful over a small section of God’s “house” – the Nation of Israel. Christ was faithful over the far greater house, the whole of mankind and ultimately the whole of the universe. For all his faithfulness, Moses had to initially be prodded to accept the job, and a number of times stood at the point of quitting, though never actually giving up. Christ willingly embraced the Father’s plan of salvation for man and restoration of the Kingdom, and even at His darkest moment declared “not My will but Yours.” Moses was privy to some of God’s secrets – certainly more than any other prophet of his day; Christ was the Word of God, the One through whom those aspects of God’s character and works that could not be seen in the creation were revealed. Moses was willing to give his life for the people, but his life could never have been a sufficient atonement for their sin. Jesus did give His life for the world, and His life was totally sufficient. Moses had been faithful, Christ was infinitely more so.

… to him who appointed him …

Faithfulness in itself is only half the story. Faithfulness misplaced can be worse than useless. We have all heard of people who have been utterly faithful to a company – or perhaps even a church or a denomination – only to find that, when the crunch comes and the organization’s “bottom line” is better served without them, they have been dropped like a hot potato. We have known people who have been faithful to friends, family or spouses, only to find that the other party has found greener pastures on the other side of the fence. Perhaps we have even personally experienced such betrayals of our faithfulness.

On the other hand, some have faithfully laboured at a job or pursued a vision, only to find at the end of the day that they come up empty-handed, and realize that they should have been doing something else. As someone once said, there is no point in struggling to get to the top of the mountain only to get there and find that we are on the wrong mountain! It is vital that our faithfulness be to the right person, and to the right vision, or it counts for nothing.

Christ’s faithfulness was to “Him that appointed Him” – God the Father. He had come to save man, but He was not faithful to man: if He had been, He would have followed Peter’s admonition to avoid the Cross. He had come as Israel’s Messiah, but He was not faithful to Israel: if He had been, He would have obeyed all the laws of the Pharisees. His faithfulness was fixed on the Father, and on the Father’s will. Had it not been so, He could have been distracted by any of a thousand different voices, and in faithfully following them become unfaithful to the One who called Him and the task to which He was called.

This in turn meant that Christ’s faithfulness was effective, because He was faithful to the Faithful One. God the Father would never back down from His commitment to and through His Son.

3:1 Therefore, holy brothers, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession: Jesus

In the light of all that he has said about Christ in the preceding chapters, the writer now invites us to think more deeply about Him. From now on he will be comparing Christ, not with the angels, but with Moses and the whole of the Old Covenant system.

He invites us to this consideration as “holy brothers” (this of course also includes “sisters”). In using this term of common lineage, he was speaking to his readers both as Jews, sharing a natural bloodline, and as Christians, sharing the bloodline of Christ. By the word “holy” he is referring to three things: (1) The imputed righteousness of Christ, received at our new birth, by which the Father sees us “in Christ” as holy; (2) The fact that we are sanctified – set apart – for the Kingdom of God; and (3) The fact that we are called to so walk in Christ that the righteousness which has been imputed to us is also manifested in our lives.

The “heavenly calling” is beginning to speak of the comparison of Christ to Moses. When God sent Moses to the Israelites in Egypt, He called them to go out of Egypt (the “type” or foreshadowing of the old life of sin and bondage) into the promised land (the “type” of the Kingdom of God.) Our call is the fulfillment of that ancient shadow: we are called out of a place not of natural bondage, but of spiritual bondage; and we are called not into a natural land, but into the spiritual land of the Kingdom. Already, without even mentioning Moses, the writer has shown that what Christ brings is far greater.

The writer refers to Christ as “Apostle and High Priest”. The word “apostle” does not appear in the Old Testament. However, the meaning of the word is “sent one.” At Moses’ first encounter with the Lord in the burning bush, God said to him, “Come now therefore, and I will send you to Pharaoh, that you may bring my people the children of Israel out of Egypt.” (Ex. 4:10) This is confirmed in verse 14, “Thus shall you say to the children of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.'” In fact verses 10 to 15 of this chapter contain five statements that God was sending Moses. He most certainly was a “sent one” – in New Testament terms, an apostle.

Of course, the Jews considered Moses to be the single most outstanding character in their entire history. After all, he had led them out of Egypt and overseen the establishment of the nation. He had been instrumental in receiving the Law from the hands of God, and in enforcing that Law in the life of the nation. He had overseen the building of the Tabernacle and the establishment of the priesthood and the sacrificial system. Under his leadership, a rag-tag bunch of exiles with no vision or unity had become a nation and a force to be reckoned with. No other leader in Jewish history had held the position or the authority of Moses.

If the writer to the Hebrews wants to show that the system established by Christ is superior to that established by Moses, he must first show that Christ is greater than Moses. To do that, he must show common ground between Christ and Moses (remember, you can’t compare apples and oranges – much less apples and railway locomotives!) Like Moses, Christ was a “sent one” – an apostle. Unlike Moses, Christ can be called the Apostle. Over the centuries, there had been many sent by God, though none considered as great as Moses. Jesus Himself had those He had appointed as apostles during His earthly life, and others, like Paul, who were apostles sent as resurrection gifts to the church (cf Ephesians 4). Only Christ, however, had been sent directly from the throne of God. The others were on earth, sent by God to other people on earth. Christ alone had been sent from heaven to earth. His human life was in itself the fulfillment of His apostolic call.

The writer also refers to Christ as “High Priest”. This relates not directly to Moses, but to the priestly and sacrificial system instituted through him. Moses was not the High Priest, Aaron was. It was the beginning of God’s Old Testament version of the “separation of church and state.” The leader of the nation (in later days the king) could not be the High Priest. In fact, after the establishment of the Kingdom, the King and the priests did not even come from the same tribe. (The Word of God does not tell us why this was so, but my guess would be that it was because God well understood the nature of the human heart, and knew the potential danger that would have been in giving both political and religious power into the same hands.) In Christ, however, the two come together. He is not only the sent one, but also the spiritual leader.

Again, whilst there were many High Priests throughout the Old Testament and right up to the time when the Book of Hebrews was being written, only of Christ could it be said that He was the High Priest. As the writer will show later in the book, this was because His was a different order of priesthood, one which by its very nature was greater that that of Aaron.

It is a good point to consider that we now have just one High Priest – one “priest over the priests.” Since the Word makes it clear that all God’s people are priests (1 Peter 2:9, Rev. 1:6), this totally rules out the idea of the ministry as a “priesthood.” Ministers in the New Covenant must never assume the role of standing between God and the people as the Old Covenant priests did. (It also rules out the totally unbiblical concept, promoted by many in the church today, of the husband as “priest” of the household. The husband’s headship never places him between his wife and God. To do so would make him her “high priest”, a role that belongs only to Christ.)

2:17 Therefore he was obligated in all things to be made like his brothers, that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make atonement for the sins of the people. v18 For in that he himself has suffered being tempted, he is able to help those who are tempted.

Even though our English translations place these two verses at the end of the second chapter, they rightly belong with the thoughts being introduced in the third. The writer has completed his comparison of Christ with the angels, and has conclusively shown that He is superior to them in every way. Now he moves on to the primary theme of the book, Christ’s superiority in His priestly service. In this context He will compare Christ with Moses, with Joshua, with the Sabbath, with the Old Testament priesthood as a whole, and its sacrifices in particular, and with Melchisedeck.

Therefore he was obligated in all things to be made like his brothers

This first part of verse 17 acts as a bridge between the long argument in chapters one and two and what follows. For this reason … because as representative Man He was reclaiming all that God had originally given to mankind. For this reason … because He was to taste death for everyone. For this reason … because He was the Captain bringing many sons to glory. But also for this reason … that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest.

that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make atonement for the sins of the people.

Primarily, priesthood is about two things: access and representation. Under the Old Covenant, only the priests had access to God. The people could come into the outer court of the temple, but they could not enter into the temple proper, the Holy Place. That was for the priests alone. Yet even the priests could not enter into the inner sanctuary, the Most Holy Place. Only the High Priest had that privilege, and then only once a year, under cover of the smoke of the incense, and with a rope tied around his ankle so that if he were to die in the presence of the Lord, the other priests could pull him out without being killed themselves.

That was not how God had intended it to be. He had told the people of Israel, “Even though the whole world is Mine, you will be for Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” (Ex. 19:5-6) In other words, God wanted a nation of people who had free access to Him, and would truly represent Him to the rest of the world. The people, however, chose a second-hand relationship, and cut themselves off from the possibility of entering the presence of God. Part of Christ’s mission in restoring the world to the plan of the Father was to restore that access to the Throne of God. For Himself, He already had that access, and had done for all eternity. In order to restore that access to man, it was necessary for Him to be so totally identified with man that when He entered the Throne Room, we entered with Him. In our own sinful natures we could never enter the presence of the holy God, but in Christ we can enter freely.

There was really only one reason for the Old Testament priest to have access to God, and that was so that he could represent man before God, and God before man. Since God’s people had chosen not to have a face-to-face relationship with Him, someone else – the priest – had to represent them before Him, and to be His representative in their midst. As God’s representative, the priest was to teach the Law and ensure that the people understood their covenant obligations. He was also the one who enforced that Law – no “separation of Church and State” in those days! Even kings were subject to the enforcement of the Law by the priests, as is illustrated by the story of Uzziah in 2 Chronicles 26.

As the people’s representative before God, the priest had to take the people’s prayers and petitions – and even their thanksgiving – to God through the sacrificial system. Most importantly, he had to carry the sins of the people, both those of individuals and those of the nation, before God, and ensure that those sins were “covered” by the blood of the animal sacrifices that were offered. That was the only way they could continue in their covenant relationship with God.

In order to be God’s representative, the priest had to be godly. Hence there were, for him, far more stringent restrictions on his lifestyle than there were for the common people. Yet no matter how closely the priest followed the requirements of the Law, he could never meet the standards of God’s holiness. The best that the best priest in Israel could ever hope to be was a partial and very imperfect representation of God. Christ, however, was not merely the perfect representation of God, but He was God: all the fullness of the deity in bodily form. (Col. 2:9)

In order to be man’s representative, the priest had to be human. Obviously, this was not a problem for the priests of the Old Testament. They were human. Whether or not they chose to acknowledge it, they were subject to all the same weaknesses, testings, trials and temptations as those whom they represented. Therefore, Christ also had to be fully human. He could not represent man unless He was one of us.

As God, Christ could only give us the Law. He could show us what God is like: His holiness, righteousness, justice, compassion, power, truth … But God had already revealed Himself, at least partially, to man, and man’s response had been to push Moses forward as a go-between. As God, Christ could not be the mediator between God and man, because man would simply have sought out another go-between to stand between himself and Christ.

As man, fully identified with us, He became the perfect mediator: able to enter the Throne Room and take us with Him, able to bring the perfect sacrifice – Himself – to provide full expiation, not merely covering, for our sins, able to restore the relationship between both individuals and the body of mankind and God.

For because He Himself has suffered through testings, He is able to help those who are tested.

There is another aspect of Christ’s mediation. The priest of the Old Testament not only brought reconciliation between man and God, but between man and man. He was the settler of disputes and the dispenser of justice. For this role, it was a distinct advantage if he had lived a bit! If the priest had experienced trials, losses, struggles and heartaches, he was much more likely to be able to deal compassionately with those who came to him.

The word “testings” is translated in the KJV as “being tempted”, but the original word has a much broader application than simply the temptation to sin, relating more to a testing of character which may come through temptation as we normally understand it, or may come simply through the trials and difficulties of life. Undoubtedly, Christ knew both well.

It is difficult for us to comprehend that Jesus, who was God, could have experienced genuine temptation to sin, especially when we understand that for temptation to be real there must be the possibility of yielding. Yet Scripture makes it clear that such a possibility must have existed, otherwise His victory over sin would have been meaningless.

Perhaps we can understand it more readily if we consider that the greatest sin for Jesus would have been to walk away from His mission as Saviour and Redeemer. If we then think about His struggle in Gethsemane, when the full horror of what fulfilling that mission would cost broke upon Him, we can see something of the reality of temptation for Him. What caused Him to break out in a sweat of blood, and to plead desperately with the Father to take this cup from Him? Surely not just the physical trial that awaited Him, as horrific as that was. No, the sinless One suddenly comprehended the fullness of the sin of mankind that was about to be dumped upon Him. Yes, He had walked for thirty-three years in this sin-steeped world, He had seen sin in its ugliest – but that was only from outside. Now He was about to experience it from within: all the sewerage of man’s sin was about to be dumped over Him, so that it touched not only His body but the very depths of His soul. He was about to “become sin”, and though it is unlikely that any of us will ever, this side of heaven, fully comprehend what that meant, we can surely understand the power of the temptation to flee to the farthest reaches of the universe and beyond to avoid it.

We have salvation only because He overcame that temptation, and chose His Father’s will above the screaming of His body, soul and spirit. But beyond salvation, we have help, we have comfort. The temptation He felt that night was beyond any we will ever experience. He knows what temptation feels like, and is able to walk with us when we experience it. The emotion He knew that night was beyond any heartbreak, any fear, any horror that we will ever know. When we walk through those things, He is able to understand. The rejection, and the physical suffering, that were His portion, were beyond any we will have to walk through. He is able to help us when we go through trials.

Truly, He is a High Priest who has identified with us in the very depths of our experience and beyond.