Hebrews 11 - The Faith Chapter

Continued from yesterday
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Probably the best known part of Hebrews is chapter 11, the "faith chapter." Hebrews 11:1 is a common memory verse: "Faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see."

This verse is not exactly a definition of faith, although the NIV has translated it somewhat like one. It is more of a description of faith. The Greek reads more literally, "Faith is the substance of things being hoped, the proof of things not being seen."

It is really somewhat of a poetic statement. What is it like to have faith? It is like having something now that you are hoping to have in the future. It is like having evidence now of something that you cannot see. Faith is like that.

For almost two chapters now we have been unfolding the situation and message of Hebrews. Hopefully you can now see that Hebrews 11 did not just come out of nowhere. This chapter, full of heroes of faith, fits perfectly with the rest of Hebrews' message.

Hebrews has been telling its audience repeatedly that they needed to keep going in faith. They did not want to be like the wilderness generation of Israel that left Egypt but never arrived at the Promised Land. The author has sternly warned them that if they fall away, they will never find their way back. Even after the central argument of the sermon is over at 10:18, the author urges them not to continue sinning, not to stop meeting together. We are not like those who shrink back, he tells them, but like those who keep going and finally make it to salvation (10:39).

It is exactly at this point that Hebrews 11 comes. Faith keeps us going to the end. The chapter is full of examples of individuals who kept on going. When the chapter is over, Hebrews 12:1-3 confirm the point at which all these examples have been driving. These examples form a "cloud of witnesses," like crowds in a stadium watching us run a race. They are urging us on to finish the race as we look to Jesus, who finished the very same race first.

The faith examples of Hebrews 11 are not haphazard. The author arguably chose these specific examples because he thought they were directly relevant to the situation of the audience. They basically fall into three categories. Some have to do with trusting when you cannot see, especially when something hasn't happened yet that God has promised. Some arguably have to do with trusting in Christ's sacrifice (e.g., Abel in 11:4). Some have to do with trusting God in persecution, knowing that sometimes God rescues us. But even when he doesn't, there is a better salvation yet to come.

Noah and Abraham are key examples of faithful individuals who kept going even though they had not yet seen what God had promised. Noah was told to build an ark. Abraham was told to go into a land his descendants would inherit. But the promise took a long time to come. But they kept going anyway. The point for the audience is obvious. They needed to keep going too. Here we might mention that the word faith in Greek has several different nuances, one of which is faithfulness.

Hebrews 11:13 is thus something like the key to the whole chapter: "All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth." So the audience needs to keep going in faithfulness, even if they should die before they finally see the promise.

Of course, sometimes, God does rescue. Enoch was rescued from the earth (11:5). The Israelites were rescued through the Red Sea, while their persecutors died (11:29). The Egyptians in this case might easily have reminded the audience of the Romans.

Indeed, some of the imagery of Moses has to do with resisting a persecuting king. Moses' parents disregarded the command of the king (11:23). Similarly, Moses did not fear the king's anger (11:27). Without the kind of faith that keeps going when you cannot see, even when you are being oppressed--without that sort of faith it is impossible to please God (11:6). [1] These images might easily remind the audience of Rome and its emperor.

Of course sometimes God does not rescue us on earth. Some examples of faith were victorious (e.g., 11:32-34). Others were not (11:35-38). Some suffered a martyr's death, "refusing to be released so that they might gain an even better resurrection" (11:35).

Again, the point to the audience is clear. They might not yet see Christ's return. They might not yet see the promised salvation. They may be facing significant persecution from the Romans. They may feel like they have no city, no homeland (11:10, 14-15). But God has prepared a city for them in heaven, a better country (11:16).

[1] The mention of believing that God exists would relate more to a Gentile audience than a Jewish one.

Hebrews - the Big Warning

Continued from Saturday
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... However, the strongest warning by far in Hebrews comes in 5:11-6:8. After the author has started to discuss Jesus as a priest, he suddenly interrupts his train of thought to give the sternest warning to the audience in the whole sermon. They have been believers long enough to be teachers but they are back on milk again, presumably because they don't understand that Christ has now made the sacrifices of the Old Testament unnecessary. [1] The author warns them in the strongest of terms that if they don't watch out, they may end up in the fires of God's judgment, even though they started out so well.

First, the sermon slaps them for being babies. They can't tell the good from the bad, the author scolds them (5:14). It's like they need to go back to elementary school and learn their ABCs all over again (5:12). They can't see the clear path of righteousness.

The author shames them. When they first believed, they had to learn about not sinning and about trusting in God (6:1). They learned about Christian baptism and about laying hands on people, perhaps to receive the baptism of the Spirit (6:2). When they first believed, they learned about the resurrection and eternal judgment for those who are not going to be saved. [2]

They need to move on from these ABCs. Now, they need to trust in Christ for atonement and let go of their felt need for the temple. They needed to go on to maturity (6:1). Some of this heightened shame tactic is meant to move them to action--the author doesn't really think they will fall away (6:9). But this sort of shock therapy was a culturally appropriate way of scolding them into movement again.

The most shocking statement of all no doubt comes in 6:4-8. They have come so far. They have received the Holy Spirit and thus tasted the glory of heaven that is coming. They have experienced the power of the coming age. If they fall away at this point, Hebrews says, they will never find their way back. It would be impossible for them to get to a place of repentance again.

Hebrews 12:16-17 use Esau as a model of someone who sold his birthright and then tried to find a way back to the blessing. But although Esau tried, "he found no place for repentance, though he sought for it with tears" (12:17, NASB). The parallel for the audience is obvious. If they sell their "birthright," if they toss away their sonship (e.g., 2:11-13), they will not be able to "be brought back to repentance" (6:6). Rather, their corpses will fall in the desert, short of the Promised Land, like the wilderness generation (3:17).

Hebrews says to toss Christ away at this point would be like trying to crucify Jesus all over again (6:6), putting him up on the cross to humiliate him again. Hebrews 10:26 uses the image of using up the sacrifice of Christ and having no more blood left. Obviously this is just a picture but it is truly a shocking one. To turn away from Christ deliberately when they have come as far as the audience, that would be like insulting the Holy Spirit (10:29). It would be like throwing the blood of Jesus on the ground and stomping on it.

The warning in 6:7-8 ends with yet another halting image. If you keep watering a piece of land over and over again, but the only things that grow are thorns and thistles, that land is destined for burning. The author surely made his point clear. Having come so far at such a key point in history, the audience had best think carefully before they turned away from the living God! "It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God" (10:31).

[1] It is the mention of Christ as a priest like Melchizedek that sparks this interruption, reinforcing our sense that it is the final sufficiency of Christ's atonement that is key to their wavering faith in some way.

[2] It was this list that changed my mind about whether the audience was primarily Jew or Gentile. This is not the sort of list that a Jewish believer in Christ would learn when first believing, but it is the sort of list a new Gentile believer would learn when converting.

Hebrews - So Keep Going

Continued from Thursday
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Much of Hebrews is devoted to building its audience's confidence in Christ, whether in Rome or wherever this sermon was sent. They can trust in his atonement. Whatever the cause of their worry--whether the destruction of the temple, expulsion from the synagogue, or something else--the author makes a brilliant case that Christ's death has made any earthly means of atonement irrelevant. They have a reason to be confident, a solid footing on which to stand.

Accordingly, the last few chapters play out the need for this congregation or community to continue on in faithfulness. The theme was always there in the sermon. In the first few chapters of the sermon, Hebrews has regularly interrupted its argument to remind the audience what the bottom line was--they needed to keep going in faith. If the argument about Jesus as high priest bolstered their confidence, the author's interruptions in the early part of the sermon warned them of the consequences of disregarding God's command.

Hebrews 1 began with a celebration of Jesus' enthronement as cosmic king at God's right hand. He had received a name that they did not have, the name, "Son of God" (1:5). Jesus was God's king, God's Lord of the universe. By contrast, even the angels were nothing. They were just servants in God's house (1:14). Their role with humanity was passing, like a flame of fire (1:7). They were our ministers in the lead up to final salvation.

But now final salvation has begun with Christ. Hebrews warns the audience that if those who disregarded God's word under Moses faced severe punishment, then imagine what awaits those who choose to ignore the covenant of the far superior Christ (2:1-4)! This is another thread that runs throughout Hebrews, a warning of the consequences of turning away from Jesus after starting on the journey.

For example, when we get to Hebrews 3, the author begins as he did with the angels, except this time, he looks at Moses. The angels brought the old covenant to Moses (2:2). But Moses was the one that delivered the Law to Israel. Moses was perhaps the greatest Israelite of all time in the Jewish mind.

And yet, again, Moses was just a servant in God's house (3:5), just as the angels were. Jesus was a Son, in fact the Son of God. If it was serious to disregard the first covenant, it is far more serious to disregard the second.

The rest of Hebrews 3 emphatically makes this point. The Israelites had left Egypt (3:16). But they did not finish the journey. Their corpses fell in the desert because of their lack of faith (3:17-19).

The point to the audience was obvious. They had started well. They had a history of faithfulness even under persecution. But it wasn't enough to start well. They were in danger of not making it to the Promised Land because they were wavering in their faith.

The audience need to keep going so that they might finally enter God's rest (4:11). On the one hand, the God's rest is something we enter every day (3:13; 4:7).  But the most important entrance is the final one, the one that ultimately counts. The audience, as us, needs to be careful not to miss it (4:1)! ...

Hebrews - True Sanctuary with a Superior Sacrifice

Continued from yesterday
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... So the author has powerfully argued that Jesus is a superior priest to any earthly priest. Next he will argue that Jesus offered his sacrifice in a superior sanctuary to any earthly sanctuary. Jesus serves in the heavenly sanctuary, the one that served as the pattern for the sanctuaries of Israel on earth (8:5).

Is there actually a structure in heaven? Different interpreters of Hebrews have different interpretations. For some, Hebrews is like other Jewish writings that picture an actual building in heaven. [1] For others, the author is thinking more generally of heaven as the Most Holy Place within a universe that, as a whole, is like a temple for God. [2]

The most important point, though, is not what kind of a temple Hebrews pictures being in heaven. What is important is that the sanctuary in which Jesus offered his blood is a far superior sanctuary to the sanctuary on earth. If you have a superior priest offering a superior sacrifice in a superior sanctuary, why would you need an earthly temple at all?

And Jesus' death on the cross was a superior sacrifice. The blood of bulls and goats can't really take away sins, Hebrews says (10:4). By contrast, Jesus offered his blood "through the eternal Spirit" (9:14). The author of Hebrews makes the bold claim that none of the sacrifices of the old covenant actually took away sins (10:1). They were just foreshadowings of the one true sacrifice that Christ offered (e.g., 8:5; 10:1-2). They were like a rain check, a promise that those under the old covenant would find forgiveness once Christ's sacrifice was in place. [3]

But now that Jesus has offered himself on the cross, there is no more need for earthly sacrifices. The body of Christ has taken away the first sacrificial system (10:8-9). And while priests continually offered sacrifices in that old covenant, Christ's death is a once and for all sacrifice (10:12).

Hebrews makes an allegory out of the two parts of the wilderness tabernacle (9:6-9). Priests used to go into the first room, the Holy Place, continually, but only high priest went into the second room once a year, the Most Holy Place. In the same way, in the first age under the old covenant, sacrifices were offered without end. But now, in the new covenant, Christ has offered his sacrifice once and for all, with no need for a sacrifice ever to be offered again...

[1] E.g., 1 Enoch.

[2] E.g., Philo, Josephus

[3] Hebrews 11:40 puts it this way: "God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect."

Hebrews - Definitive Priest

Hebrews continues.
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... His strategy is comprehensive. He will show that Jesus was a superior priest in a superior sanctuary, with a superior sacrifice.

First, in Hebrews 7, the author of Hebrews shows how Jesus might be considered a priest. By the normal Old Testament criteria, Jesus would not be a priest in Israel, on earth (cf. Heb. 8:4). The Old Testament appoints the descendants of Levi, one of the sons of Jacob in Genesis, as those who would be priests for Israel. But Jesus' human family tree did not descend from Levi. Instead, he was from the tribe of Judah, the tribe from which the kings came (e.g., Heb. 7:14).

Hebrews would not have to argue that Jesus was a priest. Christians before the author of Hebrews, like Paul, used the metaphor of Jesus' death as a sacrifice without explicitly arguing that Jesus was a priest. In 1 Corinthians 5:7, Paul compares Jesus to a Passover lamb. In Romans 8:3, Paul compares Jesus' death to a sin offering. This same picture probably stands behind 2 Corinthians 5:21, where Paul says that God made Jesus to "be sin" for us.

To think of Jesus as a priest takes this metaphor of Jesus as a sacrifice to the next level. [1] Jesus becomes both the offering and the one offering. The closest Paul comes to calling Jesus a priest is when he says that the Christ who died now sits at God's right hand to intercede for us (Rom. 8:35).

But the author of Hebrews is making a comprehensive argument that the sacrificial system has been completely replaced. It serves this argument to show a sense in which Jesus might be a superior priest in a superior sanctuary with a superior sacrifice. Psalm 110:4 serves the author well to create this picture, since the earliest Christians could easily read this verse in relation to Christ.

Christians from the earliest days read Psalm 110:1 in relation to Jesus' resurrection. "The LORD says to my Lord: 'Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet'" (cf. Heb. 1:13) The earliest Christians heard this verse as a prediction that God would install the risen Messiah Jesus as king of the world at his right hand in heaven. It was thus easy for the author of Hebrews to go on and draw attention to verse 4: "You are a priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek" (e.g., Heb. 5:6).

So the Messiah would be a priest like Melchizedek. But who was Melchizedek and what was a priest in the order of Melchizedek? The answer to this question was to be found in Genesis 14, the only other place in the Old Testament where Melchizedek is mentioned.

In Abraham's day, Melchizedek was the king of a city called Salem. Tradition says that this city later became Jerusalem. He was also a priest of the Most High God at that time. So a priest in the order of Melchizedek, Hebrews argues, is a king-priest. The fact that Jesus is a king thus does not necessarily mean he cannot be a priest, because a priest like Melchizedek is both king and priest.

Also important for the author of Hebrews is the fact that Melchizedek was not priest because he came from a priestly lineage. As a priest, Melchizedek was "without father or mother, without genealogy" (7:3). In other words, he was not from a priestly line. He was not a priest "on the basis of a regulation as to his ancestry" (7:16). Genesis says nothing about when Melchizedek began to serve as priest, and it says nothing about when he died. In that sense, a priest like Melchizedek has no "beginning of days or end of life" (7:3).

For Jesus, this description was especially true, because God raised him from the dead. Indeed, this is the key to why Jesus' sacrifice is so effective. It was the sacrifice of an "indestructible life" (7:16). Other priests die. Jesus lives to serve as priest forever in a permanent priesthood (7:23-24).

And while the priests who descended from Levi were important, the author points out that Abraham gave tithes to Melchizedek, and Melchizedek blessed Abraham, not the other way around. This fact implies that Melchizedek was superior to Abraham. But if Melchizedek is greater than Abraham, and Levi is a descendant of Abraham, then king-priests like Melchizedek must be superior to earthly priests who have descended from Levi. [2]

So the author has powerfully argued that Jesus is a superior priest to any earthly priest. Next he will argue that Jesus offered his sacrifice in a superior sanctuary to any earthly sanctuary...

[1] A metaphor is when you create a new meaning by comparing two unlike things (cf. P. Ricoeur, The Rule of Metaphor: Multi-Disciplinary Studies in the Creation of Meaning in Language [London: Routledge, 1978]). So a literal sacrifice involved killing an animal as an offering to a god. That was not the normal, literal sense of what a crucifixion was at the time of Christ. To compare Jesus' death to a sacrifice was thus a metaphorical way of thinking of it.

[2] There has only been one priest after the order of Melchizedek in all of history. Many have suggested in the past that Melchizedek himself may have been Christ come to earth. But since Hebrews never says this idea, I think it is more likely that Hebrews is really interested in Psalm 110:4 and what a priest of the order of Melchizedek would be like. To find out, the author draws on the description of Melchizedek in Genesis 14.

But the author is not ultimately interested in the Melchizedek of history. Using some of the tools of Jewish interpretation at the time, he uses the story of Melchizedek in Genesis to discover what such a priest would be like. But, ironically, not even Melchizedek himself was such a priest. Only Jesus.

Hebrews - Jesus, the Definitive Sacrifice 1

Continued from Saturday
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The Definitive Sacrifice
Although the strange teaching of Hebrews 13:9 is related to the “main point” of Hebrews, the author doesn’t really address whatever situation is behind it in the direct way you would expect if it were the main problem that led the author to write this sermon. It feels like something more significant was going on with the audience, maybe the very same problem that also gave rise to the strange teaching. For me, the best guess again is the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem. It would have raised the question of atonement in a powerful way that we can hardly imagine, because we don’t live in a world with temples.

In that day, temples were the earthly addresses of the heavenly gods. Even when the Romans surrounded an important city, they often offered to give the gods of the city temples if they would let them defeat the city. [1] The idea of a god without a temple was a difficult one. For non-Jews, it would have suggested that the God of Israel was weak or a joke.

Even Jews would not have assumed that the temple was gone for good. Josephus, writing decades after the temple's destruction, still spoke of the temple sacrifices in the present tense. [2] What seems obvious to us today was not at all obvious to them at the time. They would have interpreted its destruction the way they always did--as God's judgment on Israel for its sins. And they would expect God to rebuild it after Israel properly repented.

Again, it's easy for us to assume that the earliest Christians immediately realized that Christ's death represented the end of all sacrifices. But Acts 21:22-26 says differently. It suggests that even James, Jesus' own half-brother and leader of the Jerusalem church, did not realize that the atonement provided by his brother was the end of any need for the temple--and here we are talking almost thirty years after the resurrection. In 2 Thessalonians 2:4, Paul has no sense at all that the temple will be destroyed. Even Jesus' prediction in Mark 13:14 could easily have been taken to be about the temple's defilement or its temporary rather than final destruction.

If Hebrews were written before the destruction of the temple, it would have been radical indeed. Sure, the Essenes--another Jewish group--believed that the temple was defiled. But they looked for a time when God would let them restore it to its proper worship. Similarly, the philosophically minded Philo thought that the significance of the temple was symbolic, but he would have eagerly taken up arms if someone had dared to try and destroy it. Again, the absence of the temple is so normal for us that it is difficult for us to realize how central the temple was to Jewish faith at the time of Christ--and how devastating its destruction must have been to the overwhelming majority of Jews, including Christian Jews.

Whatever the precise date of Hebrews, the author aims to show systematically that Christ's death has forever made any earthly temple unnecessary. His strategy is comprehensive. He will show that Jesus was a superior priest in a superior sanctuary, with a superior sacrifice...

[1] See J. S. Kloppenborg, "Evocatio Deorum and the Date of Mark," Journal of Biblical Literature 124 (2005): 419-50.

[2] E.g., Josephus, Antiquities 224-57; 1 Clement 40. This is why the present tense used in passages like Hebrews 8:13, 9:9, and 10:11 does not in any way argue against a post-70 date for Hebrews. It was probably not until after the failed Bar Kokhba revolt of AD135 that it really became clear that the temple would not be rebuilt for a very long time. It is just very difficult for us to forget that the temple has been gone now for nearly 2000 years so that we can get into the thinking of first century Christians.

Hebrews - Strange Teachings Today

Continued from this morning.
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... Again, the specifics of Hebrews’ situation may be far removed from our current world. When we get to the central point of Hebrews, we will talk about the urge to substitute other means of atonement for the only means that actually works, Christ. But a good take-away from Hebrews 13:9 is for us to be able to live with ambiguity. So many of us have a compulsion to fill in the gaps. We cannot live with unanswered questions.

But we simply don’t have enough information to answer many, many questions not only about the Bible but about Christian faith in general. One thing that has impressed me about the Roman Catholic Catechism is not so much that it is way off base but that the Catholic church has been around so long that it has positions on almost everything. How can Mary give birth to someone without sin if she wasn’t without sin as well? Wouldn’t she have had to be born without sin too?

These are questions that those of us in younger denominations probably don’t think much about. How many churches have split over the answers to ridiculously unimportant questions? Is it prideful to have a horse drawn buggy with color? Should we use newly invented instruments in church if they weren’t mentioned in the Bible? Does God remove the nature inside us that causes us to sin or does he only suppress it once we are filled with the Holy Spirit?

Hebrews reminds us not to get “carried away” with these sorts of obscure issues. This was exactly what the Pharisees of the Gospels did. They majored on the minor and minored on the major. Their priorities were out of whack.

But what is the major? The major, in terms of our behavior, is the love of God and the love of others. The major, in terms of our beliefs, are the key Christian beliefs about God and Christ boiled down in the creeds. The creeds have distilled for us the most important truths of Scripture, because the Scriptures themselves are full of many details that applied to specific times and places that are themselves the source of much disagreement among Christians. Ironically, the content of Bible itself is perhaps the greatest point of disagreement among believers today!

There is a great saying from the 1600s that says, “In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things, charity.” While most everyone would agree that this saying is true, human nature inevitably then goes on to debate what is essential and what is non-essential! Some people have a very big list of things that they consider essential without question. Their lists are probably too big. Still others have a list that is probably too small.

I have personally resolved in the end to trust in God’s knowledge. When someone who believes in Christ feels very strongly that something is essential, I resolve to consider that issue seriously. This is especially the case when they seem to have significant passages in Scripture or the weight of Christian history on their side. Any believer who feels strongly about an issue deserves my respect and my consideration of their understanding—and the more of them there are, the more seriously I take it.

But there are other principles in play as well. One is that, ultimately, I am responsible for my faith with God. As Paul says of disputable matters in Romans 14:22: “So whatever you believe about these things keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the one who does not condemn himself by what he approves.” This verse both indicates that we stand before God as a matter of our own conscience and that you can be wrong about what you think is okay.

Then there is the community of faith to which we belong. God made us to live in communities, and the person who removes him or herself from a community of faith is not likely to have a vibrant faith for very long. When we join a community of faith, as when we are a part of any community or society, to some extent we surrender some of our right to do things our way. Being part of a community means in part that we make the specific beliefs and practices of that community part of our identity. Certainly in the United States, there are so many communities of faith to join that we hardly have an excuse to join a community that violates our “essentials.” The person who can't find a church that suits them probably needs to begin asking whether something might be wrong with them!

But, again, what is a disputable matter? It is ironic that we debate whether it is essential to believe certain things are essential! I have personally decided that, because there are debates over what is clear in the Bible and because I am a Protestant who doesn’t put absolute stock in church history, I am just going to agree to disagree on some issues that seem to be essential to me but that are disputed by others, especially others who seem genuine in their disagreement with me. As with all issues, it is ultimately God who decides what is essential and what isn’t, not me. “Blessed is the one who does not condemn himself by what he approves.”

Hebrews - Strange Sacrificial Teachings (3)

... continued from Wednesday.
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Strange Teachings
Hebrews helpfully tells us the main teaching point of the sermon: "The main point of what we are saying is this: We do have such a high priest, who sat down at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, and who serves in the sanctuary, the true tabernacle set up by the Lord, not by a mere human being" (8:1-2). This is not just an idea the author of Hebrews is excited about. There were very real practical implications of this truth for the audience.

For one, I already mentioned the obscure comment Hebrews makes at the end, where the author tells this community not to be "carried away" by strange teachings (13:9). He then reinforces the fact that believers have a sacrificial altar from which we can eat that those who rely on normal Jewish means of atonement can't eat. Talk about an obscure statement, at least from our perspective 2000 years later. They no doubt knew what the author was alluding to but we unfortunately aren't there.

You probably know that the temple in Jerusalem, while it was standing, offered sacrifices every day not only for the Jewish people but for others like the emperor as well. Even if you were a Jew living in Greece or Rome, you knew that every day the priests in Jerusalem had your back with God. In fact, Jewish males were supposed to pay a "half shekel" tax (about a day's wage) to the temple every year to support it. [1]

Hebrews 13 doesn't sound like it is talking about the "business as usual" sacrifices, which the author considers to have been legitimate, even if ineffective, foreshadowings of Christ's death. So it doesn't seem likely that the author would refer to them as "strange teachings" (13:9). No, this comment sounds like some of the strange ideas you hear from people in the church today as they think a little too much about questions we just don't have the answers to.

So you can hear someone in the first century say, "How are we going to take care of atonement now that the temple is gone?" That is, if Hebrews was written after the temple was destroyed. Before the temple was destroyed, you could hear someone asking, "How can I get the benefit of the temple sacrifices if I live way out here in Rome or somewhere else?"

When there aren't clear answers to our questions or when there is a gap in what the Bible tells us, it is hard for people just to let the question go unanswered. This is the point where preachers can get a little strange from the pulpit or you have a strange idea in a small group or Sunday School class. Worse, this is the point where a strong personality might go start a new denomination or a cult. You ask, "Whatever happened to those ten lost tribes of Israel?" and before you know it, you have the Mormon church!

We don't know what the strange teaching was that Hebrews mentions, but it had to do with atonement and it apparently connected some "foods" (13:9), possibly some meal that was part of some synagogue. It was obviously Jewish in nature, since Hebrews connects it with "those who minister at the tabernacle," an allusion to the sanctuary that God instructed Moses to construct in the wilderness. [2] We can only guess at the details, but I can personally imagine that the time after the temple's destruction gave rise to lots of strange ideas about how to keep getting atonement now that the temple sacrifices were gone.

In response, the author of Hebrews repeats that believers have a much better altar, the altar of Christ's atonement. Did Hebrews have communion in mind? It is often suggested and is very tempting, although we cannot know for sure. [3] What we can know for sure is that Christ's atoning death has once and for all removed any necessity to seek our peace with God anywhere else other than in Jesus...

[1] Cf. Matt. 17:24-27. See ***, "Taxes," in Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, J. B. Green, S. McKnight, I. H. Marshall, eds. (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1992) 806.

[2] Again, I personally think this theoretical reference to the tabernacle fits better a context after the temple was destroyed. Those who think the audience of Hebrews consisted of Jews tempted to return back to Judaism might suggest that this point of conflict arose as Jewish believers were kicked out of the synagogues and were tempted to return so that they could partake of such meals. See B. Lindars, The Theology of the Epistle to the Hebrews (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1991).

[3] It is so hard for us to resist reading our current language and practices into the biblical text. This is the danger of anachronism, reading our definitions for words and our ways of thinking into the biblical words.

Hebrews - Its Situation

continuing from Wednesday...
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... So what can we say about the situation behind Hebrews without speculating too much? There are enough hints here and there for us to come up with a basic picture. Hebrews 10:35-36 is a good place to start: "Therefore, do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised" (NASB).

It's not a stretch to think that the audience of Hebrews is having some doubts about its faith. The author pushes them boldly: "We do not belong to those who shrink back and are destroyed, but to those who have faith and are saved" (10:39). Although we often read the "Hall of Faith" of Hebrews 11 all by itself, it flows directly from this encouragement to keep going. The heroes of Hebrews 11 are examples of individuals who kept going and were faithful despite hardships and persecution. So Hebrews 12, after all those examples are done, concludes that the audience needs to keep running the race with patience, mindful of all the examples in the stands who are cheering them on (12:1-2).

The earlier warnings of Hebrews fit well into this context. The audience needs to "pay the most careful attention" to their faith. Those who strayed from the covenant under Moses were severely punished. Can you imagine, the author then asks, "How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?" (2:2), which is offered under someone much more authoritative than Moses. We will look at the other passages like these later in the chapter.

What is striking about these warnings not to "drift away" (2:1) is that this community of faith has actually believed for some time. Hebrews 10:32 urges them to remember the way they endured in earlier times of persecution. In that earlier time they were publicly disgraced and suffered along with others who were imprisoned, even losing property. Hebrews 6:10 recalls how the community had been faithful in the past. Another intriguing allusion is to the previous outcome of their leaders' lives in 13:7. Had they been martyred?

These comments fit into more than one location in the early church, even given what little we know. It's most common to try to connect them to one or more persecution of the church in Rome. For example, in AD49, some Christian Jews were expelled from Rome because of controversies in the synagogues over whether Jesus was the Messiah. Then in AD64, Nero put many Christian leaders to death in Rome, blaming them for the fire of Rome.

So one of the key factors behind the sermon of Hebrews is a sense of impending persecution. They have not yet faced martyrdom this time around (12:4). Somehow connected to this fear is also an inadequate confidence in the atonement provided by Jesus' death. This is the most ambiguous aspect of Hebrews' situation to us, because the author isn't really clear about what is specifically troubling them.

Hebrews 13:9 does mention some strange teaching in their context involving foods that connect somehow to the Old Testament sacrificial system. On the one hand, it's hard to imagine anyone calling temple sacrifices "strange teaching," since it comes straight out of the Old Testament. Perhaps there was some synagogue meal somewhere that some Jews were teaching substituted for temple sacrifices somehow?

However, this curious comment at the end of Hebrews seems more of an aside than the central issue. The central part of Hebrews effectively argues that Jesus' death completely replaces the entire sacrificial system of the Old Testament. Either the author is trying to discourage this community from using the Jerusalem temple or, as I think more likely, he is trying to bolster their confidence in the days after the temple and Jerusalem has been destroyed.

So he reminds them that "here we do not have an enduring city" (13:14). Rather, they are like Abraham, who was a stranger in the land (11:9) and was looking for a new country (11:14) and a new city (11:10). Meanwhile, the earthly sacrificial system was "growing old" and "ready to disappear" (8:13, NASB).

So Hebrews was a sermon written to a troubled community in danger of turning away from the living God (3:12). [1] They fear that they are about to face hard times from secular, very likely Roman authorities. Not only are they dreading this prospect, since they have faced such persecution before, but they are somehow doubting the full sufficiency of Christ's death to cover their sins. In some way, the author sees his argument about Christ's atonement bolstering their confidence in the faith enough for them to keep going until Christ finally returns...

[1] Mention of turning away from the "living" God fits a primarily Gentile audience much better than a Jewish one, since a Jew would not be turning away from Yahweh to the "dead gods" of the Gentiles. Similarly, the list of beginning teachings in Hebrews 6:1-2 does not read like the kinds of teaching a Jew would have needed to learn when believing on Christ for the first time but the kinds of first teachings a Gentile would have learned.

We can imagine that the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple might have created a serious faith crisis for some Gentile converts to Christian Judaism. By contrast, it is otherwise hard to connect the audience's sense of impending persecution with it being troubled over atonement. In what pre-70AD setting would bolstering the audience's confidence in Christ's atonement help them face impending persecution? Meanwhile, we can imagine some strange synagogue teachings arising in relation to atonement after the temple was destroyed.

Hebrews - Sermon to a Struggling Church

Well, I need to get moving on the final book in my New Testament series. I started on James a bit back but wasn't happy with it. So to get over the hump, I'll jump to Hebrews.
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The book of Hebrews is a curious book in the New Testament. It doesn't tell us its author or audience. It doesn't tell us where it was written or when. It doesn't even really tell us exactly why it was written.

Of course the reason it doesn't tell us these things is because it wasn't originally sent to us, and the author had no idea we would be reading it two thousand years later. The original author and audience knew who they were. They knew where it was being written from and where it was being written to. They knew when it was being written and what the situation was that it was addressing. We don't know these things because we are listening in on someone else's conversation.

But God of course knew we would read it later. Hebrews is for us even though it was not written to us.
To be sure, we need to be careful to distinguish between what God meant for that time and what he meant for all time. But the last two thousand years of Christian history have given us a big head start. In fact, the Spirit has developed a certain kind of "spiritual common sense" in the Church, one we probably don't even realize we have. We often apply the text directly to today in appropriate ways even when we don't know we are reading it differently than its first audiences did.

I say, "audience," because Hebrews was almost certainly meant to be read aloud to a congregation or community as a sermon rather than to be read like a book the way we read it. The author calls it a "word of exhortation" (13:22), a phrase that Acts 13:15 uses in reference to a sermon Paul preached. While Hebrews 13 looks something like the conclusion to a letter, Hebrews doesn't begin like a letter. The first twelve chapters of Hebrews look more like a sermon that the author has sent to a community in a different location than where he is. [1]

There is no question that Hebrews would be a lot clearer to us if we knew the answers to some of our questions about its situation. For most of church history, it was presumed that Paul was the author. [2] It is certainly possible, maybe even probable that the author moved in Paul's circles. But it is hard to imagine Paul saying something like Hebrews does in 2:3, where the author doesn't seem to consider himself an apostle--he only heard about salvation second hand. [3] In the end, we just don't know who wrote it. [4]

Of all the suggestions, Rome is most often suggested as the destination of this sermon, usually based on the greeting in 13:24. The idea is that there were some believers from Italy who were sending their greetings back to Rome, perhaps even Priscilla and Aquila (cf. 2 Tim. 4:19). We know enough about the church at Rome to be dangerous. While the hints of the situation in Hebrews might have applied to many places in the early church, we know enough to connect them to things we know about Rome.

Was it written to Jews or Gentiles? Was it written before or after the temple was destroyed? To many, the answers to these questions seem obvious. Surely it was written to Jews--would Gentiles understand such an intricate Jewish argument or be interested in the Jewish temple? If the temple were already destroyed, why would the author need to tell them not to rely on it?

But what seems to be common sense to us quickly unravels when we get into the mindset of believers in the first century. The earliest Gentile converts were probably God-fearers who were already worshiping in Jewish synagogues when they believed (e.g., Acts 13:16). They would have adopted the Jerusalem temple as their temple, as the temple of the living God. [5] At this point in history, when such Gentiles believed in Jesus, they would have seen themselves converting to a form of Judaism. The Jewish Scriptures would have become as much their Scriptures as the Bible is Scripture for us Gentile believers today. [6]

Similarly, Hebrews never tells the audience to stop relying on the Jerusalem temple. In fact, it never mentions the temple at all explicitly. It's argument is entirely in terms of the wilderness tabernacle that Moses constructed in the desert. Its goal is primarily a positive rather than a negative one--to place the confidence of its audience in the atonement provided by Christ. It argues for reliance on Christ rather than against worshiping in the temple. It is thus just as possible to make the case that Hebrews was written to reassure an audience in the absence of the temple as to dissuade them from utilizing it.

The problem with all these debates is that if we choose wrongly, then we have skewed our interpretation to some extent. It's probably best then, especially when we are most interested in life lessons we can take from Hebrews, to remain somewhat tentative about the original situation. It is a hard thing to pull off, but we will try...

[1] It is overwhelmingly likely that the author of Hebrews was a man because of the grammar of 11:32. The Greek word translated as "to tell" here is masculine singular and indicates that the author was a man.

[2] In fact, it is possible that the Church stopped debating whether Hebrews was good enough to be considered Scripture when most Christians came to accept Paul as its author.

[3] Contrast Paul in passages like 1 Corinthians 9:1 or Galatians 1:12.

[4] Many names have been suggested, both in the early church and in more recent times. Was it Barnabas, Luke, Clement of Rome, Apollos, even Priscilla?

[5] It is also clear from Acts 21:24-26 that even almost thirty years after the resurrection the believers in Jerusalem were still offering sacrifices in the Jerusalem temple.

[6] It is quite funny that a lot of Christians today forget that they are Gentiles. There is a strong tendency to identify so much with Israel in the Old Testament that we can almost think of ourselves as Jews (or even of America as the Israel of prophecy).