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A Study Of The Apostle Paul’s Letter To The Hebrews

Don’t fall away!. Don’t Depart!. Don’t neglect your salvation!. Don’t cast away your confidence!. Don’t harden your heart!. Don’t drift away!. A Study Of The Apostle Paul’s Letter To The Hebrews. How can we neglect so great a salvation? ~ Hebrews 2:3 . Hebrews: Christ Is Superior!

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A Study Of The Apostle Paul’s Letter To The Hebrews

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  1. Don’t fall away! Don’t Depart! Don’t neglect your salvation! Don’t cast away your confidence! Don’t harden your heart! Don’t drift away! AStudyOf TheApostlePaul’s LetterTo The Hebrews How can we neglect so greata salvation? ~ Hebrews 2:3

  2. Hebrews: Christ Is Superior! Superior Person (1:1—4:13) Superior to Prophets (1:1-3) Superior to Angels (1:4—2:18) but… We’ll only get to 1:10-14 today. Superior to Moses (3:1-19) Superior to Joshua (4:1-13) Superior Priest (4:14—7:28) Superior to Aaron (4:14—6:12) Superior to Melchizedek (6:13—7:10) Superior to Levi (7:11-28)

  3. Hebrews: Christ Is Superior! Superior Pact (Covenant) to Moses’(8:1—10:18) Superior Promises (8:1-13) Superior Sanctuary (9:1-14) Superior Sacrifice (9:15-28) Superior Results (10:1-18) Superior Principle (Faith) to Moses’ (10:19—13:25) Superior Things (10:19-39) Superior Actions (11:1-40) Superior Relationship (12:1-29) Superior Way of Life (13:1-25)

  4. Let’s add to the previous points that Jesus is superior to angels because He’s God as well as God’s Son, He’s to be worshipped and served by an-gels, and He was given an eternal kingdom to rule as its King.

  5. Quoting Psalm 102:25-27 Paul wrote, You, Lord, in the beginning laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of Your hands. They will perish, but You remain; and they will all grow old like a garment;like a cloak You will fold them up, and they will be changed. But You are the same, and Your years will not fail(Heb. 1:10-12).

  6. As we’re prone to do when we aren’t very careful to place ourselves in the shoes of the recipients* of New Testa-ment letters, people today generally in-terpretthispassageliterally.However… I will share with you why this passage is alluding … not to the extinction of our literalworld, but … to the removal of the Jewishworld; i.e., Paul wrote aboutthe removal of the old covenant world and its replacement by the new covenant world. So…

  7. Let’s ConsiderThe Three Contexts The Remote Context(the Bible in general) The Adjacent Context(the letter of Hebrews &the paragraph of the text) The Immediate Context(the passage itself)

  8. The Bible Hebrews 1:10-12 Heb. 2:2-3 Heb. 12:18-26 “You, Lord, in the beginning laid the founda-tion of the earth, and the heavens are the work of Your hands; they will perish, but You remain; and they will all grow old like a garment; like a cloak You will fold them up, and they will be changed. But You are the same, and Your years will not fail.” Isa. 51:4-16 Isa. 65:17-22 Mat. 23:31-38 Mat. 24:34-35 Mat. 5:17-18

  9. The Remote Context:The Bible The Bible reveals thatheavensandearthare used together numerous times to refer to the government or theworldof the Old Covenant people; after all, like various other Bible covenants, it was a covenant between God in Heaven and men on Earth.

  10. God once reminded the Israelites of His covenant with them by say-ing, Iam the Lord your God who divided the [Red] Sea[when they were baptized unto Moses, 1 Cor. 10: 1-2]. … I have put My words in your mouth; I have covered you with the shadow of My hand that I may plantthe heavens,lay the foundations of the earth, and say to Zion, “You are My people”(Isa. 51:15-16).

  11. In the same context when prophesying about His New Law to come, God said thatlaw will proceed from Me, and I will make My justice rest as a light of the peoples. My righteousness is near, My salvation has gone forth, and My arms will judge the peoples; the coast-lands will wait upon Me, and on My arm they will trust. Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look on the earth beneath. Forthe heavenswill vanish like smoke, the earth will grow old like a garment, and those who dwell in it will die in like manner; but My salvation will be for-ever, and My righteousness will not be abolished[like the Law](51:4-6). Again…

  12. When promising the establish-ment of a New Covenant with a new people, God said,I will createnew heavensand anew earth,andthenew heavensand thenew earthwhich I’ll make shall[unlike the old heavens and earth]remain before Me(Isa. 65:17 & 66:22). Incidentally…

  13. In Isaiah 65 God had predicted that the new creation (the new covenant and new Jerusalem) would come when Israel had filled the measure of her sin and was destroyed(v. 7).And when did that occur?AD 70.Listen to the following from the mouth of the Lord Jesus:

  14. To the Jews Jesus said, You are wit-nesses against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets.Fill up then the measure of your fathers’guilt(Mat. 23:31-32); then,after referring to their immi-nent demise, He said, Assuredly I say toyou,allthesethingswillcomeuponthis generation….See! Your house is left to you desolate(Mat. 23:36&38).A few verses later…   

  15. Jesus spoke more at length of this impending doom by predicting the fall of Israel’s world—their heaven and earth—when He said thatthe powers of the heavens will be shaken(24:29), andthis generation will by no means pass away till all these things are fulfilled;heaven and earthwill pass away, but My words will by no means pass away(24:34-35). Parenthetically speaking…   

  16. (I find it interesting that in Genesis 2:4, immediately after God created Adam [the one who would head-up God’s people on Earth], the inspired writer wrote that These are the generations of the heavens and earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, KJV. Is there perhaps some connec-tion? Or is this just coincidental? Anyway…   )

  17. In Luke’s account of this warning, he recorded Jesus as saying thatThese are the days of vengeance thatall thingswhich are written may befulfilled(21:22); and what’s even more interesting is that when all this is put together, Matthew 5:17-18 makes perfect sense: Jesus said,  

  18. Don't think that I’ve come to destroy the law of Moses or the teaching of the prophets. I’ve not come to destroy them but to bring about what they said. I tell you the truth, nothing will disappear from the law until heaven and earth are gone. Not even the smallest letter or the smallest part of a letter will be lost until everything has happened (NCV).I.e…   

  19. Jesus wasn’t talking about the phy-sical world, but aboutthe covenant worldof the Jews; see, since Jesus said that heaven and earth couldn’t pass away until the law was ful-filled, then … since the material world still exists … He wasn’t talking about it—He was talking aboutthe Jewish system.

  20. It’salsoimportanttonotethatPsa.102itself (the passage Paul quoted)implies that he was referring to something that would occuronEarth nottoEarth; i.e., he wasn’t referring to the extinction of the world: the verse following Paul’s quote reads, The children of Your ser-vants willcontinue; their descendents willbe establishedbefore You (v. 28).

  21. In verse 18 the inspired Psalmist wrote that this will be written for the generation to come, that a peopleyet to becreated may praise the Lord.Well, let’s move on to… 

  22. The Adjacent Context:The Letter of Hebrews Notice how all the previous informa-tion from the remote context corres-ponds to the book of Hebrews. Hebrews, if you remember, was writ-ten to … YES, Hebrews, Jews—God’s Old Covenant people who had become His New Covenant people, a people who were being relentlessly pressured to turn back to Judaism by Judaizers.

  23. To these Hebrews, Paul spoke of the fulfillment of numerous prophecies concerning the change of covenants. In12:18&22he wrote,Youhavenot come to the mountain that may be touched and that burned with fire [Mt. Sinai]…. But you have come to Mt. Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. Then…

  24. In verses 26-28 he wrote, Now He has promised, saying,“Yet once more I shake not only earth, but also heaven.” Now this, “Yet once more,” indicates the removal of those things that are being shaken, as of things that are made, that the things which cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us have grace by which we may serve God acceptably (perfectly fulfilling Joel 3:16-17   ).

  25. The Lord will roar from Zion and utter His voice from Jerusalem [cf. Luke 24:47]; the heavens & earth will shake, but the Lord will be a shelter for His people, and the strength of Israel. And don’t forget that Joel3 follows Joel2, thepassagePeter quotedfromin Acts2 about what was then beginning to be fulfilled in their hearing. So…

  26. The book of Hebrews itself verifies that Paul not onlyknew about how the heavens and earth phrase was a Hebraism denoting a government or covenant world, but he also usedit in this manner. However, looking more into Hebrews… Let’s hone in on our text in connec-tion with what we just looked at; let’s compare 2:2-3 with 12:25: 

  27. 2:2-3 If the word spoken through angels proved steadfast and every trans-gression and diso-bedience received a just reward, how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? 12:25 Do not refuse Him who speaks, for if they did not escape who refused Him whospokeonearth, much more shallwenotescape if we turn away from Him who speaksfrom heaven. There’s an unmistakable correlation, and the contexts of both are alike: both are in the con-texts of the heavens and earth idiom.

  28. Consider also the statement of 1:14 about how the angels worked for those who would inherit salva-tion; surely that was meant to apply to people on Earth. Right? One more thing here…

  29. This interpretation also perfectly fits with our comments on 1:2 and 1:6 con-cerning the different ways the word world is used in Hebrews as well as elsewhere: 1:2 speaks of how God orchestrated the ages for His redemp-tive purpose, while 1:6 speaks of the citizens of Jesus’ kingdom-age; then in 2:5 Paul stated that the world[the king-dom,1:6]to come of which he spoke (in his time before AD 70) would, unlike the Old Covenant kingdom,notbe managed by angels (cf. 2:5, etc.). Now… Let’s move on to the last context: 

  30. The Immediate Context:Hebrews 1:10-12 Remember, this passage was taken fromPsalm 102:25-27. In this passage itself there are hints that Paul had the covenant world, not the literal world, in mind. Let’s refresh our memory of this passage by reading it again:

  31. Quoting Psalm 102:25-27 Paul wrote this:You, Lord, in the beginning laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of Your hands. They will perish, but You remain; and they will all grow old like a garment;like acloakYou will fold themup,and they will be changed. But You are the same, and Your years will not fail (Heb. 1:10-12).

  32. The phrase in the beginning (v. 10) is not as definite as the same phrase found in Genesis 1:1 (in Hebrew or Greek); it actually merely means of old (as rendered in Psa. 102:25); i.e., the phrase could’ve taken its readers all the way back to the creation, or it could’ve simply taken them back to the formation of God’s covenant with Abraham and/or Moses a few gen-erations before. Besides…   

  33. The part of Psalm 102 that Paul quoted is a verse of hope sang just before Israel’s restoration to Zion after being held captive in Babylon, a type which perfectly fits the anti-type of how mankind was enslaved in sin before Jesus brought complete redemption by ratifying a new cove-nant to supplant the old one.

  34. The ideas in verses 11-12 of the heavens and earth perishing, growing old, being folded (or rolled) up, and changed are found later in 8:13 where no one I know of disagrees Paul was speaking about the passing away of the Old Law and the coming in of the New Law: In that He says, “A newcovenant”[quotingJeremiah],He has made the first obsolete. Now what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away. {Incidentally, the only other place the term for rolled up is used in the NT is in Rev. 6:12-17 which perfectly parallels Mat. 24 & Luke 21.}

  35. In 2nd Cor.3:7-13 Paul, again in the context of the New Law sup-planting the Old Law, spoke of how that the Old Law (at the time he wrote)was passing away while the New Law would remain.(The New Law was in existence at the same time as the Old Law for that generation). Likewise…

  36. Jesus said that the heavens and earth (the Old Law) would pass away, but His words (the New Law) would remain (Mat. 24:35); i.e., it would endure the shaking which that generation would experience (Mat. 24:34). OK… Let’s move on to…

  37. Hebrews 1:13  To which of the angels has He (God) ever said, “Sit at My right hand till I make Your enemies Your footstool”?

  38. Thiswordisinthe pre-sent tense, meaning that it would be better understood as to be sitting or remain seat-ed, expressing perma-nency. Jesus sat down (past tense) in v. 3, and He was meant to con-tinue sitting; in fact, in thesamePsalm wefind another quote Paul re- ferred to in 5:6 which speaks of Jesus as being the High Priest forever. To which of the angels has He (God) ever said, “Sit at My right hand till I make Your enemies Your footstool”?

  39. This is the crowning argument of Paul as to why Jesus is superior to angels: the fact that on Jesus was confer-red the highest of all honors possible—to sit at God’s right hand—proves beyond dispute that Jesus is superior to every being in exist- ence, except God Him-self, of course. To which of the angels has He (God) ever said, “Sit at My right hand till I make Your enemies Your footstool”? Listen to Daniel 7: 13-14,notinghowit fitsintothecon-text of our study:

  40. Daniel described one of his prophetic visions like this: Behold, One like the Son of Man, coming with the clouds of heaven!HecametotheAncientofDays, andtheybroughtHimnearbeforeHim. Then to Him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve Him. His dominion was an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and His kingdom the one which shall not be destroyed. Likewise…   

  41. Peter wrote that Jesus Christ … has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, angels and au-thorities and powers having been made subject to Him (1 Pet. 3:22).

  42. Who are the enemies here? Well, according to Jesus Himself, His enemies at least in-cluded the Jews who rejected Him (which, incidentally, would again fit our context). Speak-ing in a parable about them, He said, Bring here those enemies of mine who didn’t want Me to reign over them, and slay them before Me (Luke 19:27).Then… To which of the angels has He (God) ever said, “Sit at My right hand till I make Your enemies Your footstool”?

  43. In Luke 20:17-19,when speaking to the chief priests and scribes, Jesus spoke of how He, as the chief cornerstone, would grind His rejecters to powder. Further… In Philippians 3:18 Paul wrote of the un-believing Jews as enemies of the cross of Christ.(Isn’t it ironic that those who put Him on the cross would end up being ene-mies of it?) (Cf. Rom. 11:28.) In Revelation 3:9Jesus called Judaism the synagogue of Satanas—the enemy.

  44. The only other item I know of that might be included as an enemy would befoundin1stCor.15:26 which liter-ally reads, The last en-emy being rendered powerlessis[spiritual] death. I added spiritu-al due to the context of this verse, such as Paul’s statement that thestingofdeath is sin,& the strength of sin isthe Law (v. 56). To which of the angels has He (God) ever said, “Sit at My right hand till I make Your enemies Your footstool”?

  45. This is an allusion to the ancient custom of placing one’s foot on the neck of the de-feated enemy (cf. Jsh. 10:22-25); some of the more haughty victors used the bodies of their defeated enemies like footstools from which to mount their horses. To which of the angels has He (God) ever said, “Sit at My right hand till I make Your enemies Your footstool”?

  46. In Hebrews Paul also wrote of Jesus that this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins for-ever, sat down at the right hand of God, from that time waiting till His enemies are made His footstool (10:12-13). Let’s move on to…   

  47. Hebrews 1:14  Are they not all ministering spirits sent forth to minister for those who will inherit salvation?

  48. This refers back to the angels in 1:13. Are they not all ministering spirits sent forth to minister for those who will inherit salvation?

  49. This word was pro-bably used in order to emphasize that even the highest rankingangelissub-ject to Christ (cf. 1 Pet. 3:22), and, in a sense, even to those in His kingdom (cf. 2:5);afterall,it does say here that angels ministered for those who were about to receive salvation. Are they not all ministering spirits sent forth to minister for those who will inherit salvation?

  50. As mentioned in our study of 1:7, the original term for minister comes from a word (“liturgy”) which referred to the work of the OT priests for the peo-ple of God. Are they not all ministering spirits sent forth to minister for those who will inherit salvation?

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