HEBREWS


The epistle to the Hebrews is a call to Jewish believers to leave the Law completely. The time had come for a final break. The Law given by Moses had served its purpose. The intervening period of transition between the death of Christ and the destruction of the Temple was nearly over.

God did not just give Israel a bare command to leave the Law. Rather He gave, in this epistle, a beautiful, satisfying, reasoned explanation and revelation of the infinitely better way in Christ. This is the message of Hebrews -- how Christ so beautifully fulfills every type, answers every question, supplies every need.

It was a time of tremendous transition for the Jewish believer. Moses and the Law had been ingrained into every fibre of their national being for so long. Now the Old Covenant had waxed old and was ready to vanish away. The glorious New Covenant -- the Abrahamic -- was in force, established by the blood of Christ.

Those who were blindly wedded to the ritual of the old were lost and dismayed. But those who saw the purpose and meaning and deep typical significance of the glorious Law God had given Israel through Moses, were ready and eager for the change.

Bro Growcott - Go Forth To Him Without The Camp



Why was Paul not Named as the Author of the Hebrews Epistle?


One possibility was because Paul, having become known as the Apostle to the Gentiles, the "uncircumcision," he may not have been wholeheartedly received or read by the "circumcision," i.e., the Jews in Jerusalem at the time.

His name may not have carried the apostolic authority to the Jews, as it did in his epistles to the Gentiles. GEM

www.logos.org.au



Without the Camp

"God, Who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son"-Hebrews 1:1.


IN THIS first verse, the whole message of the book of Hebrews is summed up. This epistle has a 2-fold purpose: To demonstrate from the Hebrews' own Scriptures that the Law of Moses was a temporary and incomplete thing-that eternal completeness and perfection are found only in Christ, and-

Secondly, to impress not only the Hebrews but all believers of all ages with the tremendous and glorious holiness and responsibility of their high calling in Christ Jesus.

The first 3 verses express the supreme position of Christ in God's plan.

The rest of chapter 1 shows particularly his superiority to the angels. The Law of Moses, the "ministration of angels," was very rightly highly esteemed by the Jews; but Paul clearly shows that things were written of the promised Messiah that proved him to be of immeasurably greater authority and honour than the angels.

Bro Growcott




The epistle to the Hebrews is a call to Jewish believers to leave the Law completely. The time had come for a final break. The Law given by Moses had served its purpose. The intervening period of transition between the death of Christ and the destruction of the Temple was nearly over.

God did not just give Israel a bare command to leave the Law. Rather He gave, in this epistle, a beautiful, satisfying, reasoned explanation and revelation of the infinitely better way in Christ. This is the message of Hebrews -- how Christ so beautifully fulfills every type, answers every question, supplies every need.

It was a time of tremendous transition for the Jewish believer. Moses and the Law had been ingrained into every fibre of their national being for so long. Now the Old Covenant had waxed old and was ready to vanish away. The glorious New Covenant -- the Abrahamic -- was in force, established by the blood of Christ.

Those who were blindly wedded to the ritual of the old were lost and dismayed. But those who saw the purpose and meaning and deep typical significance of the glorious Law God had given Israel through Moses, were ready and eager for the change. 

Bro Growcott - Go Forth To Him Without The Camp



The epistle was written for Jewish believers, and particularly, it would seem, for those of Judea. It was written about AD 63, when the temple was still standing, and about two years after Paul had arrived in Rome in the spring of AD 61. It was obvious to the apostle that the time of Judah's judgment, as predicted by the Lord in his Olivet prophecy, was about to occur, and divine judgment poured out, so that shortly the temple and city of Jerusalem would be overwhelmed by Rome.

Up to the time of Paul's imprisonment, the apostolic preaching of the Gospel had been first to the Jews and afterwards to the Gentiles (Acts 7:2; Rom. 1: 16; 2:9-10). The result had been a large influx of Jewish believers into the Ecclesia of Christ. Three thousand were added on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2:41), and the Truth among them flourished.

Many of the priests accepted Christ (Acts 6:7), a number of the Pharisees believed (Acts 15:5), and these, together with Jewish believers generally were zealous of the Law (Acts 21:20).

They attended the temple regularly, observed many of the feasts and customs of the Law with a new understanding, recognising that they typified the substance of Christ.

But many Jewish believers still failed to comprehend the limitations of the Law. It was unthinkable to them that the ordinances, the offerings, the priesthood, and the temple were to be done away.

From the discussions at the Jerusalem Conference (Acts 15), and from arguments advanced in such epistles as that to the Galatians, it is obvious that some influential Jewish christians were trying to superimpose Judaism upon Christianity as essential to justification. In some quarters, strict observance of the letter of the Law was beginning to submerge the Truth; Christ was being overshadowed by Moses, and the ardour of such believers for the Law had to be restrained.

Judaism within the ecclesia was fiercely countered by the apostle Paul. So much so, that there was a danger that the very vigour by which he stressed liberty in Christ could have the effect of turning some to license, and adopt an extreme attitude against the Law. Already some believers--'were claiming, presumably on the authority of Paul ("we are of Paul..."), that the restrictions of the Law no longer were necessary, and they could please themselves in what they did.

There was therefore a need for a balanced approach to the Law; a need to show that it still had value and a place in a believer's life, leading him to comprehend the Truth in Jesus more completely.

This epistle does that. It shows the superiority of Christ over Moses; of the New Covenant over the Old; of faith over formalism; but it does so without detracting in the least from the Law. It reveals the Law as typical and meaningful, and shows how its foreshadowings found perfection and finality in Christ who fulfilled it in every respect.

Not one jot or tittle of the Law was unrelated to the redemption in Christ Jesus (Mat. 5: 18).

https://www.logos.org.au/expositor-hebrews/