Читать книгу The Letter to the Hebrews - Jon C. Laansma - Страница 10

An Invitation to the Text

Imagine the Scriptures as a great river, the Mississippi, if you will, but any great river will do. Already as the Mississippi flows past St. Louis it is a wide expanse, and all the more so as it is joined by the Ohio downstream. The more northernly expanses are like the law and the prophets of Israel, deep and broad, moving inexorably down the bed. Imagine, then, that when it has reached its greatest volume all of its waters are forced at once through a gorge of only a few meters in width. This is Hebrews. Even on its surface one can see Hebrews’ character as an exposition of the OT Scriptures that spans the Pentateuch, the historical writings, the psalms, the wisdom literature, and the prophets. When we dive into its substance, all the more do we appreciate that this sermon’s dependence on the Scriptures is owing to a comprehensive retelling of Israel’s history from the viewpoint of its conclusion in the new covenant brought to effect in Jesus the Son. The preacher is a master of allusion. Not for nothing does he pause mid-sermon to chide his listeners—“you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God.” He does this not in order to stop and review but in order to stir them to remember what they should already know so as to grasp the teaching so necessary for the moment. If we think that Hebrews’ reading of Pss 8, 95, and 110, or Prov 3, for example, can be understood by examining each citation in detail our attempt will end in puzzles and the whole will seem only a badly assembled mosaic. We will have to “think together” the stories of Israel, the Son, and our new covenant situation if we are to sense their harmony. Consider, then, that when Hebrews chides in this way, holding our feet to the fire with respect to deep biblical literacy, it is addressing the whole church—not merely a special group of scribes and lawyers, that is, biblical scholars—and it is arguing that our lives depend on paying attention to the story. God has been telling a story and he expects that we are not lazy listeners but interested and attentive ones. This is so because this story is our story and the story of the entire world whether or not we pay attention. We are inside this story and everything hangs on whether we embrace its script or resist it. And to those who have more is given. For those who do not treat this like some conceptual problem but who instead take up their place in its story by faith and inhabit its world the meat of this gospel’s teaching becomes strengthening food.

Some passages in this book are among the most memorable of Scripture. Some speak almost immediately to believers of all times and places with transparent images, fear-inspiring warnings, and strong encouragement. Yet other passages leave us flat or confused, wondering if we have comprehended even what we thought we understood. Its teaching on Christ confronts us as directly with his full divinity as any NT writing, but just as uncompromisingly (almost uncomfortably) with his full humanity, as at once eternal and historical. Its teaching on the covenants seems to set gospel and law against each other but just as clearly views them in total continuity. Its gospel is recognizably that of Paul, John, Peter, and Luke but we question at times whether it has broken ranks by an attempt to conceptualize the gospel in terms of Greek philosophy or by pressing its warnings too far. Its imagery of blood and sacrifice seems worlds removed from our own scientific age. Maybe it really is the gospel to and for the Hebrews, not for the Gentiles, after all. But, no, it is the gospel for all peoples.

Hebrews requires us to view earth from the vantage point of heaven—not unlike Revelation. So completely is this true that we know nothing definite at all of the identity of writer and original readers. This is a pastor who believes that if we are not heavenly minded we can be of no earthly good. The preacher will therefore as a matter of urgency resist the temptation to translate the gospel into a form applicable to the lives of his readers and instead translate their lives into the heavenly drama of the Son. All history proceeds from heaven to earth so that when we see salvation’s accomplishment there we know what is true, what must be true, and what will be true on earth. This is also a pastor who believes that the history of God’s covenants is the history of the world. The viewpoint of many interpreters notwithstanding, this teacher has not applied a pre-conceived cosmology to the Scriptures as a way of understanding priesthoods and sacrifices. That understanding has it backwards. Rather, from the history of God’s covenants he understands the history of creation. Already in the OT the temple is the center of the world. For Hebrews, as goes the tabernacle so goes the world. This is a teacher who believes that salvation is of the Jews; that the God who speaks as the Father of the Son is the same God who created heaven and earth, delivered his promise to Abraham, and established his covenant through Moses. This teacher has long since come to grips with the implications of this truth for the understanding of divine speech, the person and work of the Son, and the great salvation worked. He now bends all these resources to the urgent need of his brothers and sisters to persevere to the obtaining of what was promised Abraham.1

In ways that probably have yet to be fathomed Hebrews has formed the confession and the life of the church and catalyzed her reading of the other prophetic and apostolic writings, even where its influence was unacknowledged or even felt.2 Who can read any other part of the canon forgetting that Christ is our high priest and offering? Who does not feel the potency of its language of shadows and copies as a way of holding together the continuities and discontinuities of the covenants? Its imagery of pilgrimage, its promise of a resting place, its examples of faith, its vision of divine discipline—these and others of its teachings acquaint us with the salvation to which with greater understanding we then go on to hear Paul, Peter, John, and the others witness. Consider its logic: Without the pouring out of blood there is no forgiveness; it is impossible for the blood of animals to remove sin; the blood of Jesus, through the eternal Spirit, cleanses us; God did not desire sacrifices, though he commanded that they be offered; through the offering of the body of Jesus we have been made holy.

Alec Motyer reportedly characterized how Israelites under Moses would have summarized their experience: “We were in a foreign land, in bondage, under the sentence of death. But our mediator—the one who stands between us and God—came to us with the promise of deliverance. We trusted in the promises of God, took shelter under the blood of the lamb, and he led us out. Now we are on the way to the Promised Land. We are not there yet, of course, but we have the law to guide us, and through blood sacrifice we also have his presence in our midst. So he will stay with us until we get to our true country, our everlasting home.”3 It is hardly credible to think that the vision of Hebrews has not instructed such a reading as this, even if that reading purports to represent a pre-Christian viewpoint.

In part because Hebrews uttered more directly what was assumed by the other NT authors and their heirs and in part because its message has since worked itself so fully into the church’s reading of all of Scripture, a theological understanding of the whole of the canon is impossible to imagine without this brief word of exhortation.4

Approaching the Text: The Genre and Argument of Hebrews

There is finally no reason to doubt that Heb 13 was part of the original composition—the alternative theories of some notwithstanding—and no strong argument for assigning any of that chapter to a hand other than the author of the rest of the book. That said, Hebrews closes like a typical letter but is otherwise composed in the form of a direct address to the church from a known teacher. We have too little definite knowledge of ancient homilies to draw confident inferences about Hebrews’ genre and structure based on that characterization, but the writer’s own description of his work as a “word of exhortation” (13:22; cf. Acts 13:15), the nature of its contents, and the near-certainty that it was meant to be read to the gathered church and thus received orally justify styling it for moderns as a sermon. We will refer to the author as either a writer or as the “preacher,” and to the book as either a letter or a sermon. If we refer to the recipients as “readers” it is to be understood that for the greater part they would have in fact been listeners.

That the preacher was not only highly educated but a masterful orator is plain. The power of his rhetoric has been universally felt and the intricacies of his argument have been endlessly studied and admired. The conclusions of those who have attempted to uncover the letter’s structure, however, have led to no consensus.5 We can say with confidence that the writer knew where he was going with his argument from beginning to end. There is nothing arbitrary about it. He employs a range of rhetorical devices to underscore, remind of, and anticipate ideas. But he also seems to have been working from pastoral instinct, seeking effect more than strict orderliness of presentation. Exchanges between intimates follow their own rules and rhythms. His effort, which was oriented on a particular audience known to him, was to bring to mind a divine drama of salvation and to convince the recipients of their place in it, impressing on them that they were in this drama whether they acknowledged this in faith or not. He is clarifying ideas but even more to the point he is situating us—we may as well include ourselves without further ado—in a story. The result for our outlines is that more than one approach can get it right, and those that get it right succeed in highlighting differing aspects rather than exhausting the whole.

Our view is that following the opening—the exordium of 1:1–4—the preacher draws on the resources of their existing confession to convey the glory of the Son, in and as whom God has spoken, and the urgency of perseverance in faith if entrance into the promised inheritance, God’s resting place, is to be attained (1:5—4:13). In more than one way the whole drama of salvation, from creation to the end, is related. He then proceeds to his central exposition which revolves chiefly on Ps 110, Jer 31, Exod 24–25, and Ps 40 (4:14—10:25). Here the focus is on the pivotal moment of salvation in Christ’s offering and the approach that it opens and necessitates. Finally, the sermon proceeds to a series of exhortations that call to a response of enduring faith in our identity as the new covenant family of God (10:26—12:29). After the climax of 12:18–29 there comes a peroration (13:1–17) and the epistolary closing (13:18–25).

1:1–4 Exordium: God has spoken in his Son

1:5—4:11 In praise of the Son who became high priest and the need to listen to what God says

1:5–14 The Son in and as whom God speaks in relation to God’s angels

2:1–4 Exhortation

2:5–18 The Son’s way of salvation in relation to God’s angels

3:1–6 Moses and the Son in the history of God’s house

3:7—4:11 The need of faith for the entrance into God’s promised inheritance

3:7–19 Ps 95 as a warning not to repeat the rebellion of Israel

4:1–11 Ps 95 as a promise that remains and the need to respond in faith

4:12–13 Conclusion to first movement, reprisal of exordium

4:14—10:25 Christ as high priest and offering

*4:14–16 Transition, frame with 10:19–25

5:1—7:28 Christ is high priest

5:1–10 You are a priest

(5:11—6:20 Warning, encouragement, exposition)

7:1–10 According to the order of Melchizedek

7:11–19 Forever

7:20–25 The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind

7:26–28 Summary application

8:1—10:18 Christ’s high priestly ministry

8:1–6 Introduction: The tabernacles, priesthoods, and covenants

8:7–13 The better promises of the new covenant

9:1—10:10 The covenant of which Christ is mediator

9:1–10 The first covenant as copy and anticipation

9:11–14 The second covenant as accomplishment

9:15–22 The inaugural mediation of the second covenant

9:23–28 The eternal, heavenly, and final character of Christ’s ministry (divine drama)

10:1–10 The bodily offering that accomplished God’s will (human drama)

10:11–18 Conclusion: The better ministry

*10:19–25 Transition, frame with 4:14–16

10:26—12:29 Exhortations toward faith and progress

10:19–31 Exhortation to faith and warning against apostasy (reusing 10:19–25)

10:19–25 There is now forgiveness (10:18), so approach!

10:26–31 There is no other or further offering for sin (10:18), so do not refuse the one given!

10:32—12:3 Enduring in the great contest of faith in the promise

10:32–39 A call to endure based on their earlier history and the promise of Habakkuk and Isaiah

11:1–40 Examples of enduring faith from Israel’s history

11:1–2 Opening thesis: What faith does.

11:3–7 Faith and the biblical story before the patriarchs (Gen 1–11).

11:3 Faith and the word of creation.

11:4 Abel’s faith through which he was attested to be righteous.

11:5–6 Enoch’s faith by which he pleased God and because of which he did not see death.

11:7 Noah’s faith by which he became an heir of righteousness.

11:8–22 The patriarchs (Gen 12–50).

11:23–31 Moses, the exodus, and the conquest (Exodus – Joshua).

11:32–38 Faith in the remaining history of the old covenant (Judges and following).

11:39–40 Closing summary.

12:1–3 A call to endure based on the example of Jesus

12:4–17 Enduring as the genuine children of the covenantal Father

12:4–11 Developing the image: Undergoing hardship as authentic children of the covenantal Father

12:12–17 Applying the image: Live as strong-bodied, stout-hearted children of the covenant, secure in your place, pursuing its life, taking care of the family, and cherishing your birthright

12:18–29 The grand finale: closing vision of the promised inheritance, the peril of refusing the promiser, and a final warning/exhortation

12:18–24 The reason why they must endure in the great contest and as genuine children of the covenant

12:18–21 Negatively: The mountain that pointed to the goal (old covenant and present age)

12:22–24 Positively: The mountain that is the goal (new covenant and age to come)

12:25–29 Final warning and exhortation

12:25–27 Warning: Listen to the divine word for it has inaugurated the final judgment

12:28–29 Exhortation: Worship God suitably in obedience to the word spoken in the Son

13:1–17 Peroration

13:1–6 Specific applications on conventional topics

13:7–17 Restatement of the call to perseverance in connection with an endorsement of the church’s leaders

13:7 Recall the message of the former leaders

13:8 Recall who Jesus Christ is

13:9–14 Follow Jesus outside the gates

13:15–16 Render worship corresponding to faith

13:17 Submit to your leaders who share in your pilgrimage with special responsibilities

13:18–25 Closing

For the purposes of exposition, in this commentary the text has been divided into thirty-seven units.6 A few of these units group or divide within the preceding outline.

Looking Behind the Text: The Original Setting

Questions of who, where, when, and why are tangled together. The name of the human author is unknown. Origen’s oft-repeated comment, “who wrote the epistle, in truth God knows” (Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 6.25.11–13), probably refers to the pen rather than the voice of the letter, but it has served as a convenient bottom line for many. For this reason there cannot be certainty that Paul did not write the whole of the book or possibly the final verses, but there are strong arguments against such theories. That the writer was a male remains probable, partly in the light of the grammar of 11:32, though again certainty is not possible. The mere listing of other possible names (e.g., Apollos, Barnabas, Luke, Clement) supplies no reliable basis for further interpretive inferences. What we know of the author is what we gather from what he wrote. He was a highly educated, literate, eloquent person, theologically mature, pastorally hearted. He had a history with this church, but we cannot be sure he had been numbered among its “leaders.” More on his background anon.

The earliest manuscript of Hebrews in our possession, P46 (c. ad 200), carries the heading, “to the Hebrews,” a theory on the audience that must already have been established in some circles (cf. Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 6.14). Allied with this was the assumption that this text had been addressed to believers in Judea. Both of these associations seem to have been grounded in inference rather than reliable traditions. There is no conclusive evidence or argument against a Judean destination, but 1) the phrase “those who come from Italy” in 13:24 can imply that Italians are sending greetings back to their homeland, 2) there are strong parallels with 1 Peter, which is another epistle associated with Rome, 3) the earliest evidence of Hebrews’ thought is 1 Clement which was written from Rome in the late first or early second century, and 4) the general circumstances and other details comport with a Roman (or Italian) destination.7 That the audience was in Italy and probably Rome is our own assumption but it can be only speculation. The church may have been in Asia Minor, Syria, Judea, Egypt, or elsewhere. More on their background anon.

If, for the sake of argument, it was written to Jewish believers in Judea (or elsewhere, for that matter) tempted to return to non-Christian Jewish temple worship (whether directly or indirectly via the synagogue) then it would naturally stem from some time before ad 70 when the Romans destroyed the temple. But Hebrews’ argument revolves on Moses’s tabernacle and never mentions the temple. It is also more forward looking than backward looking in this sense: If one used the analogy of two married couples, one of which suffered from a desire of one of the members to return to his parents’ home, the other of which suffered from a simple failure of one of the members to have embraced married life as fully as he should have done, Hebrews sounds more like the latter. Its message is less like, “Do not go back home,” than it is like, “Move forward!” Such a message could be addressed to the church of any time or place. The argument’s strong rootedness in the OT does evidence a readership already fully invested in those Scriptures and, at least in principle, in the sanctuary-centered life of Israel, but the preacher’s theology of divine speech would have required the expositional strategy he follows for Gentile as well as Jewish Christians. Moreover, particular texts (2:3; 5:11–14; 13:7) suggest a later rather than earlier date, as does the way in which the letter’s teachings seem to be building on a theologically developed confession. The church, we theorize, was probably of mixed ethnic character, particularly if we are right in locating it in Italy or anywhere else outside of Judea, and if we are right in thinking that the letter was sent at least as late as the early 60s.8 The invisibility of the Gentiles is part of the larger absorption of the audience into the “heavenly” story of the promise. We may observe that many a Gentile congregation has subsequently believed itself to be directly addressed by this text; the substance of its message has proved meaningful to a Gentile readership. It would be strange if the preacher missed the implications for a decentralized mission that were built into his own argument. The theory that it was written to believers in Rome (or environs) after the experiences of Claudius’ temporary expulsion of the Jews (ad 49; cf. 10:32–34; Acts 18:2) but before Nero’s deadlier persecutions (ad 64–68; 12:4) had taken hold has a satisfying fit. Nothing, however, finally excludes the possibility that the letter was written after the destruction of the temple, albeit prior to the composition of 1 Clement and Timothy’s death (unknown, but likely within the first century).

The lack of precision on such things is a problem that becomes amplified when it is a matter of finely-tuned historical theories, but is a significantly exaggerated problem in other ways. The historical glass is more than half full. There is for us no doubt that the letter emanates from the same period as the rest of the NT writings, that it represents a witness at one with that of the apostles, and that, even if it is not from Paul’s hand, it belongs to the Spirit’s own witness among the other canonical writings.

For the rest, space allows only the stating of our conclusions which will be operative for our own exposition: For all its uniqueness, Hebrews shares particular parallels with the writings of Luke (especially Acts, and particularly Acts 7), Peter (1 Peter), Paul, and John. Its teaching is deeply rooted in the apostolic tradition, which it is faithfully developing. The Timothy mentioned in 13:23 can be taken as Paul’s associate, evidencing a concrete link with Paul’s mission and gospel. Its message is centered on strengthening the core of fellowship in perseverance but it everywhere breathes the theology of a church caught up in mission. It is a church that is the result of mission and its theology is the theology of an inclusive, outward-moving mission. Signs of inner Jew-Gentile tensions over matters of law are non-existent; all believers are together the seed of Abraham (2:16) striving as one people toward the goal.

The beginnings of the church reached to the period relatively soon after the gospel events (2:3) but some time must have since passed (5:11–14; 10:32; 13:7). The earliest history of the church was characterized by a robust life of faith that met with and endured public persecution and that upheld the life of fellowship. Their unbelieving society had attempted to shame them back into conformity; they had suffered loss of property and some had been imprisoned. It is possible that there had been a season of relative calm and that storm clouds now loomed. Whether or not that is the case, there had been a waning of faith among at least some of the church’s members. The specific charges lodged are that some had begun to forsake the Christian assemblies (10:25), that the church as a whole had not matured as it should have done given the time (5:11–14), and that they have forgotten how God addresses them as his children (12:5). Beyond this we note passive (e.g., drifting [2:1]), active (e.g., rebellion), and external (persecution) aspects of the problem9 that are vague enough to accommodate a range of hypotheses. On the one hand there is the failure to persevere in the “approach” to the divine throne with a confidence that is based on Christ’s atonement, with an understanding of the way of salvation, and with a sense of urgency in keeping with the historical moment (inhabiting what is unseen). On the other hand there is a failure to persevere in the life of bodily fellowship and in their public witness (the visible). Hebrews calls them to faithfulness in both spheres but the greater emphasis falls on the former, suggesting that it—the confidence to approach through Christ in the understanding of God’s history—is the real epicenter of their problems. Whether or not this is how the readers would have described their situation, this will have been the preacher’s diagnosis.

Looking in Front of the Text: Hebrews’ Reception (Canonicity)10

Questions of canonicity are by their nature never questions of historical judgments only but nor can our historical judgments about this text go unaffected by our conclusions on canonicity; this holds as much for those who reject Hebrews’ place in the canon or reject the very category of canonicity, as it does for those who affirm these. We therefore pause to enter its consideration here in the midst of our introductory historical and literary comments.

There was no immediate and direct line to acceptance for Hebrews as there was for other parts of the NT. The Western and Eastern branches of the church in the first three centuries handled it differently. In the West, Pauline authorship was doubted or rejected and the letter’s strong wording of 6:4–6, among other things, sat awkwardly with that tradition’s more hopeful views of the restoration of lapsed Christians to fellowship. Hebrews’ authority was accordingly placed in doubt, though it was read and respected. In the East, Pauline authorship was more widely accepted and the letter’s theology resonated with the philosophical and mystical bent of their thought and practices.

Eventually Hebrews found a constructive place in the church’s christological controversies and its teaching on repentance came to be interpreted in ways less problematic for the practices of church discipline. When Jerome (d. ad 420) and Augustine (d. ad 430) leaned toward Pauline authorship—more out of respect for the Eastern church’s tradition than the evidence of the text itself—the recognition of Hebrews proceeded on a steadier track toward broad acceptance. The canonical lists of the fourth and fifth centuries affirmed it as such, though it eventually settled into place at the very end of the Pauline collection, on its margins, as it were. Questions of authorship were renewed at the time of the Reformation, with more or less affect on the question of authority. In the modern period Pauline authorship has been widely (not universally) rejected, including among many who fully affirm its canonical character.

One could say in retrospect that Hebrews declared its own authority and its place in the Christian canon, possessing the (finally) irrepressible voice of apostolicity. Direct apostolic authorship has never been a requirement for inclusion (cf. Luke–Acts), and it is to be expected that authentic witnesses will jar us with their unique perspectives as much as they will affirm one another in the unity of their convictions. The church stands under the Scriptures, not over them—though the Scriptures indubitably came through the church by way of authorship and recognition. By analogy, the Lord himself came through human parentage and is acclaimed (or not) as Lord in the world though he is its Lord. On such scores as apply, Hebrews has passed the test and must therefore be read for what it is, inspired, canonical divine speech.

Looking Through the Text: The Preacher’s Strategy

As already indicated the preacher’s strategy is to translate the readers’ lives into the heavenly drama of the Son’s salvation. This is the real context by which to make sense of their social-psychological-physical lives, to be sure without any reduction to the reality and importance of the latter.

The sermon is a soundly-reasoned argument with themes that give it a distinct profile. Its coherence, however, finally consists not in syllogistic argumentation nor in abstract (e.g., the superiority of Christ) or specific themes (priesthood, covenant, divine speech, perseverance, etc.) but in the history of God’s covenantal speech which attained its goal and revealed its center in the Son. The Son is the one in and as whom God speaks his world-creating, -governing, and -cleansing word, within which world we are created participants. As the Father of the Son who is Jesus his newly spoken word is one with all his words. Or rather, all his words are now found to have been oriented on the Son, to whom they witnessed; they were expressive of the Son. The flip side of that claim is that the Son is known in those earlier words, and thus as priest and offering according to the shadows and copies of Moses. This is not merely a convenient set of categories for a Jewish readership but the divinely created light in which the Son’s person and work are known.

That history not only enables us to see the Son but with him ourselves and his salvation in our own time. This is the time in which the Son’s salvation is given in the word of promise—gospel—while the already-enthroned Son waits for his enemies to be made a footstool for his feet. That image of the enthroned-but-waiting Son accounts for the ongoing resistance to his rule (persecution, temptation), the provision for the present, and the certainty of hope. The proclaimed word of forgiveness, as a word of promise, must be received in faith, which means a faith that falls into step with this history and that perseveres in this to the end. That way of faith is none other than the way of the Son’s learning of obedience through his suffering, again illuminated from the history of Israel’s pilgrimage as God’s covenantal children. In all of this, Hebrews is a retelling of the entire history of creation and its salvation, prepared and anticipated in the old covenant history, accomplished in the now-inaugurated new covenant, verging on its great dénouement.

The thread that unites this story is the one already supplied by the Scriptures, namely, the promise of God to Abraham that he would inherit the world (Rom 4:13) and that all nations would be blessed through him. Hebrews affirms nothing of the cosmos or its history that is not known from and by this history; it pretends to no metaphysical commitments that do not emerge from this history. It is interested in the literal fulfillment of that historical promise. The promise, it is understood, concerns the entrance into the inheritance, which is the world fully consumed by the holiness of God, God’s own resting place. This is the original intention for the world; the association of that resting place with the creation sabbath has this intention. That promise was elaborated in the covenant established with Abraham’s seed through Moses, a covenant that dramatically enacted the (at that point still-blocked) entrance into the holy space of God’s presence. The challenge posed to the promise was the unfittingness of the seed to make that entrance, defiled as it was by sin and under the sentence of death. The covenant, as the bond of willing parties, was accordingly a failure because of Israel but, because God is faithful, it will not fail. The history of failure was enacted in the shadows and copies of Israel’s history. The act of salvation was not an act of mere power imposed on creation, but the free choice of the Son to receive the body prepared for him—created existence is not foisted on humankind, but freely chosen by our first member—sharing fully in the blood and flesh seed of Abraham and as a man doing God’s will to the uttermost. Abraham’s seed kept covenant. By his self-offering his brothers and sisters are cleansed of their defilement. Because of his suffering he is crowned with glory and honor. As the God-man fitted for this exaltation he has entered the Most Holy Place of God’s presence and is seated on the divine throne where he waits for all things to be placed under his feet and where he always lives to intercede for those who draw near to God through him. Thus the promise of Psalm 8 concerning the created status of humanity is fulfilled. What remains is the doing away with all that is not of the holiness of God, the great “shaking” of which Haggai spoke (12:25–29).

We can focus this history further: The story of Israel is not merely one that leads up to the Son; it is the Son’s own history in shadows and patterns. Even more basically we must say that real history is the history of the Son, and from it we understand Israel’s history. If that seems too abstract and therefore unlikely we should remind ourselves of the comparison of the tabernacles—the true tabernacle preceded Moses’s (8:5), casting its shadow down from heaven and back from the Son, and its history overarched the whole of time (9:12, 14, 26)—and then repeat that the rest of the cosmos is understood from this. The universe itself was made “through” the Son and he is the heir of all things; he bears all things by his own powerful word.11 This applies not only to the history that preceded Jesus but the history that follows, which is why the post-resurrection church correctly finds itself inside the gospel narratives of Jesus’ life—not just in the sense that we benefit from those events but that, for instance, we are in the boat with the other disciples undergoing what they did in a storm on the Sea of Galilee or that the raising of Lazarus is a manifestation of the general resurrection. Hebrews accordingly directs its readers to find their story in either Jesus’ own (2:5–16; 12:1–3; not to mention 9:15) or in Israel’s (e.g., 3:7—4:11). These are really one and the same, but their center is always Jesus.

Israel’s story is invoked by the preacher both in particular allusions (OT quotations) and sweeping gestures, both in its telling moments and in its whole arc. In the history of Israel we are in the lives of the Patriarchs, in the exodus, at Sinai, in the wilderness, on the borders of the land, occupying the land, and at the Most Holy Place. Two demonstrations of this can be mentioned as illustrative: The exhortation of 3:7—4:11 based on Ps 95:7–11 is unmistakably set against the story of Israel’s apostasy when they stood at the border of the land and refused to enter (Num 13–14). More fittingly we should say that the churchly readers are to find themselves with Israel in Deuteronomy now looking back on that earlier apostasy (Deut 1:9–46). The generation that rebelled at Kadesh had died, their children now stood again at the border, and they were being commanded to live in obedience. Moses reminds them that they have not yet “come to the rest and to the inheritance that the LORD your God is giving you.” (Deut 12:9). When they do arrive the Lord promises that he will give them rest from their enemies and choose a place for his Name where they will bring their offerings (12:10–11). This history carries forward to David in 2 Sam 7:1–29 and on into the son of David, Solomon (1 Kgs 5:3; 8:56; see further on Heb 3:7—4:11 and 12:18–29). It is into this history that Ps 95:7–11 fits, but now, in the context of Hebrews, it is recognized that the true history being enacted was that of the Son who is the pioneer for his fellow seed (Heb 2:10) and that the resting place was to be the whole world made God’s Most Holy Place. The promise remains (Heb 4:1, 6) and enduring faith that does not replicate Israel’s rebellion is the need of the hour. But how can they, unholy, enter God’s holy presence? That is what the long exposition of 4:14—10:25 will unfold.

Again, the exhortation of Heb 12:4–11 based on Prov 3:11–12 is finally to be set against the sweep of Israel’s experience of God’s disciplinary measures by which she would be purged of her sin and made fit to inherit what had been promised, especially as this is seen in the great prophecies of Isaiah and Jeremiah. The frame of reference is not that of a Jewish or Greco-Roman household as such, as if merely to put an encouraging spin on the experience of hardship. The point is to assure these Christian men and women of faith that they are the genuine children of God’s household, Abraham’s seed, the people of Israel and of Judah with whom God has established his new covenant (Heb 8:7–13), and that just for this reason they find themselves on the difficult Way of God (Heb 12:12–13). The need is to persevere in obedience, just as their elder brother did (Heb 5:7–10), and not to forfeit their covenantal birthright as did Esau. For they are come to Mount Zion itself (12:22) and nothing but the conclusion remains (12:25–29).

Hebrews is the great retelling of Israel’s entire story now successfully summed up and concluded in the career of the Son, in whose footsteps we walk with the support of our enthroned, empathetic high priest and on the basis of the covenant concluded in his blood once for all. The path before us is, however, God’s Way that must be travelled to the end or everything is forfeited.

By locating us so thoroughly in heaven’s drama is Hebrews so heavenly minded as to be of no earthly good? It has certainly not received its due from earthly-minded historians of early Christianity frustrated by its indifference to their project. It has admittedly appealed to the philosophically-minded speculators of theology. There is, however, every reason to expect that its original readers grasped its point for their lives on their Roman streets. Its call to “go . . . outside” (13:13) had nothing to do with escapism but would take them right into the hurly burly of their cities. We may suspect that those of its readers through the centuries who have found strong encouragement in its teaching have been of the same ilk. No doubt they have found here, too, strong meat in the way this gospel robs the usurping powers of the shrine and basilica of their authority by ushering the person of faith straight into God’s presence on the power of Jesus’ atonement alone, by identifying their brother Jesus as the sole mediator in this matter, and by locating their citizenship foursquare in the promised inheritance. Truly the one who had the power of death was broken, and with that all the instruments by which he ruled their lives are made useless.

The Preacher and the Philosopher

As we continue to look into and through Hebrews’ vision, it is helpful to observe what could be considered the mode of thought represented in Hebrews. What is the relation of Hebrews’ author to his cognitive environment? In what ways does this thinker share in the thought patterns of his own context? A comprehensive treatment of such questions would take us on book-length detours, so we will limit ourselves to a particular parallel that has exercised a strong influence on interpreters.

Partly because of the uncertainty over author, readers, location, and timing, the question of how Hebrews relates to its environment’s thought worlds has garnered much attention. Such questions have always mattered, but moderns have a peculiar interest in such things. In part, however, Hebrews’ contents thrust the question upon us. Its language carries numerous parallels with (among other texts) the first-century Alexandrian Jew, Philo (c. 20 bc–ad 50), who wedded his Jewish traditions with Plato’s thought and read the OT in an allegorical fashion. For him, this involved among other things a strong metaphysical dualism that correlated the “heavenly” with the eternal, stable, unchanging realm of ideas, and the “earthly” with what is inferior, secondary, shadowy, and transient. A range of theories posit some sort of connection between Hebrews and the pattern of thought represented in Philo and related thinkers, while a range of alternative theories contend against anything more than parallels of expression that substantially differ in meaning. The view of this commentary is closer to the latter end. Covenantal, apocalyptic, historical patterns bound to christological convictions are what are expressed in Hebrews through wording that sometimes reminds of the Alexandrian’s writings (e.g., 8:5; 9:9–10, 23–24; 10:1; 11:3, 8–16; 12:27). Hebrews’ conceptions themselves are at bottom one with Paul, Peter, and Revelation, though of course the teachings and emphases are distinctive. Our commentary will explain further what this means.

One important part of this conversation relates to how Hebrews interprets the OT. Is he reading “allegorically”?12

There is a range of ways of reading “allegorically” and not all are objectionable (admitting that “objectionable” reflects the standpoint generally represented in this introduction and commentary). The more objectionable form dissolves both history and literature in a strong ideological mixture, a form not absent in Philo. Isolated events, persons, and phrases become symbols in their own right so that alien thought structures can be “discovered” in the “code,” as if they had always been there. For this approach, if a divine, all-knowing voice is behind the text, all the better.

By way of illustration, Philo approvingly describes the reading approach of a group known as the Therapeutae:

And these explanations of the sacred scriptures are delivered by mystic expressions in allegories, for the whole of the law appears to these men to resemble a living animal, and its express commandments seem to be the body, and the invisible meaning concealed under and lying beneath the plain words resembles the soul, in which the rational soul begins most excellently to contemplate what belongs to itself, as in a mirror, beholding in these very words the exceeding beauty of the sentiments, and unfolding and explaining the symbols, and bringing the secret meaning naked to the light to all who are able by the light of a slight intimation to perceive what is unseen by what is visible. (Philo, Contempl., 78 [Colson, LCL])

When, over the church’s history, strains of this reading strategy pushed their way from the periphery to the center there was eventually a reaction, particularly among the Reformers and their heirs. In retrospect we would say that the gospel itself would not tolerate that type of allegorical reading because that strategy did not agree with the nature of the Scriptures, not merely that there had been underlying philosophical shifts reshaping the interpretive dispositions of the Reformers. Yet, even since that time at least pockets of the church have preserved the sounder instincts that tend toward the “allegorical” and that explain why it developed and held sway as long as it did. There was a baby in the bath water.

The preacher of Hebrews was no allegorist in the objectional manner just described, as was Philo. Yet a challenge to saying this consists in that the objectional reading strategy just described bears a resemblance to something different and necessary, not unlike the resemblance of Pharaoh’s magicians to Moses. In part, the difference goes to truth claims. Has God in fact spoken in the Son who is Jesus or not? Is Jesus properly addressed as God or not? Is this in fact the same God who spoke to Abraham and through Moses, and is he faithful and true? For the larger part, Hebrews takes such questions as answered, given its audience and the situation. But when such questions are answered they carry with them convictions—assumed more than expressed—of the nature of God’s speech through all history. Among other things, the gospel’s answers to such questions require us to take history and history’s narrative with full seriousness. This is not because there is a pre-conceived theory of history or of literature and such. No, the cause of this stems from the fact and nature of the incarnation, the fact and nature of the Son’s own history. In short, we learn from the incarnational form of his self-revelation how God has spoken and submit all our reading and interpretation to that knowledge, which is then necessarily mindful of literature (not merely words) and history in its seamless, organic whole from beginning to end. But for the very same reason it recognizes that the whole of that history and its literature depends on its being bound up with the Son, who is its origin, who bears it along and cleanses it, and who is heir of all things. These tendencies—respecting history, narrative, literature, on the one hand, and reading christocentrically (not merely christotelically), on the other—are not in competition but are mutually dependent. If history is not the history of Christ then it has lost its only possible center (because he is the actual center) and all flies apart. Only individual scholars with their personal theories can posit coherence, but their theories are merely opinion and are rightly received as such. But when the text of canonical speech is read “christocentrically” we are all the more committed to reading it in the light of history and literature and indeed all that properly belongs to the human experience.

It is in this tension, rightly balanced and preserved, that Hebrews’ argument works from beginning to end, giving us a touchstone for all proper reading of the Scriptures. There are a variety of ways in which particulars of Hebrews’ exposition will come close to or even touch Philo (at least in externals), just as will be the case with other Jewish voices of antiquity that are equally absorbed with the Scriptures. But the differences are far more important and they are completely controlling.

In short, and with an eye on the wider range of first century parallels that have been proposed as the “key” for Hebrews’ thought, we affirm that Hebrews, as canonical, divine speech, is not a patchwork of ideas drawn from diverse sources and tossed out for consideration, as if in the hope that some useful insight can be salvaged for the larger human enterprise of understanding. Rather, as revelatory speech, it moves with total certainty from its beginning to end in infallible exposition of the truth. Our receptions of Hebrews’ vision will always be imperfect, but we may be confident that it not only gives us a reliable vision but illuminates the path to right understanding.13

Meeting Jesus Again

From that mode of thought we can turn our attention to that to which Hebrews’ witness chiefly points: the Son.

The distinction between translating for someone and putting words in their mouth blurs, but we may hazard that world leaders who have personal translators working for them in a sensitive negotiation assume that there is a difference. With that rough comparison in mind we may say that our task as a commentator is to let the writer of Hebrews be the theologian in the room; our role is to translate. The teaching of the letter therefore follows in our commentary. It might nevertheless be of some use to the reader to get a broad view of this commentary’s conclusions on Hebrews’ vision of Christ. If at any point I misrepresent and steer the reader wrong, we live in hope that the Word will make himself heard in spite of and even against me.

It must first be said: Hebrews is a sermon exhorting the members of a house church to persevere in a faith that corresponds to the word of forgiveness and cleansing that God has spoken in the Son. That salvation, as both God’s word and deed, is contained in Jesus Christ—all that is true of, in, and through him. Everything depends, then, on knowing him. At its broadest (not restricted to Hebrews), he is finally known by the things said about him, by the things done and given through him, by what he says and does, and by the names and titles he bears—all within the context of the history of God’s word and deed, and only when the Son himself shows us the Father and makes him known in the Spirit as the believing community proceeds in obedience. God reveals himself through himself.

Accordingly, the knowledge of Christ—or christology—is inseparable from participation in his benefits. It cannot be pursued without loss if our interest is only in building a profile of his person. This applies to all aspects of the knowledge of him, including the study of the particular names and titles that are used of him.

Thus, the particular names and titles given him are not things that can be understood in isolation from the rest of what must be the case if we are to know this one. But if this is understood and maintained, there is real gain in considering these names and titles (henceforth simplified to “names”).

The five routine names used in Hebrews are Son, Jesus, Christ, Lord, and priest. Mediator follows as a close sixth (8:6; 9:15; 12:24; cf. Guarantee in 7:22).14 Through Ps 45 he is addressed as God (1:8–9). Also mentioned are apostle, shepherd, and, by implication, king (e.g., 7:1–2; cf. 1:3, 8–9, 13; 12:27); by more remote implication, prophet (1:1–2; 2:3; but after 1:1–2 the prophetic identity is the water in which the argument swims). Note also “son of man” in 2:5–9, though whether the titular sense is intended is properly questioned. Perhaps one could include here also forerunner, pioneer, perfecter, minister, heir, though these are more like ad hoc ways of expressing what he does or is. He is of course not only priest but offering, but Hebrews nowhere designates him as the Lamb of God, let alone a bull, calf, or goat. Despite the fact that he is portrayed as the speech of God, not even in 4:12–13 is he called the Word (Logos) as in John’s Gospel.

Son: Being the assumed identity even where he is not named as such (e.g., 2:5–18), this name seems to capture the identity and drama at their farthest reaches: vertically (the descent, ascent, heavenly-earthly), horizontally (eternity past to future as well as the narrower drama of the descent and ascent; typologically it aligns with patterns and expectations of Israel), theologically (indicating relation to God, identity in distinction; his sharing in divine authority and power), and anthropologically (sharing in blood and flesh with his siblings, the seed of Abraham; the Davidic king; being tempted; representing, etc.). It is aligned both in antecedent expectations and in Hebrews with both royal and priestly identities and roles. As a way of knowing Jesus, “Son” is not reducible to particular Jewish or Greco-Roman notions but has been filled out by Jesus’ presence in history and in Scripture as the church has come to grips with and developed its confession prior to the composing of the sermon that is Hebrews.

Jesus: Being the name by which he was known in “the days of his flesh,” it seems to refer particularly to him as the concrete figure of his past history who is now raised and crowned with glory and honor. He is the man who lived, did God’s will, suffered, tasted death for all, and was raised and exalted.

Christ: This seems to connote the one anticipated by Israel (messiah), witnessed to in her prophets (esp. Moses), who would achieve her hopes and, as such, serve as God’s appointed priest-king. It is not clear that these connotations have so eroded that the term is merely a personal designation, though it is equally unclear whether those connotations are fully activated in every use of the word. There might be echoes of this title’s embeddedness in the gospel narratives (5:5; 6:1; cf. 11:26).

Lord: Admittedly this is not used frequently but it seems to connote the one confessed with the church, the pre-resurrection Jesus from the viewpoint of his resurrection (2:3; 7:14; 13:20); though see 12:14 and possibly some of the other uses of the word where it could be taken as referring to God as such or to the Lord Jesus. The tradition has already identified this title with the Lord (YHWH) of the OT Scriptures (e.g., 1:10).

Our conviction that there exists some degree of interchangeability in the usage of these names is due to this: If we attempt to find a strictly consistent strategy in the employment of these names and to discern a coded message thereby in particular passages, it is hard to resist the conclusion that we are artificially clamping a theory down on the text. No doubt this is due to the ultimate coalescing of all that the separate names can signify in the single, unified figure and his history, and thus the mutual influence that the separate names have already had on each other even before this sermon was composed. There were never strict lines of difference and any lines are further blurred when the names are more governed by their subject than he by them. It is an error to think of these “identities” as “natures” that must have their own version of the hypostatic union; none of these terms aligns just so with the later debates that gave us the creeds.15 We must also consider the sermon genre, which relies on freedom of expression in achieving rhetorical ends. Again, the entire problem of title-christologies—reducing Christ to the sum of what the individual names and titles are taken to mean—should not be given new life. The titles are situated in a drama that brings its own elements to the mix, as was said above and as the opening series of OT citations in 1:5–13 illustrates.

The one who is priest is the one who is Son, Jesus, Christ, and Lord, so that the associations that attach to the latter are in some sense transferable to and activated in that priestly identity and role. At the same time, the identity of “priest” is not an empty cipher but one filled with its own history and content through the order of Melchizedek and Aaron’s shadow as well as the givenness of Jesus, with the result that his identity as priest has already shaped the conceptualization of him as Son, Jesus, Christ, and Lord. Hebrews is not merely homogenizing all these categories but it isn’t laboring to keep them distinct either. As priest—strictly the royal priest who is and acts as the word of God—he has left heaven for earth where he participates fully in the humanity and human situation of the seed of Abraham; inaugurates the new covenant through his self-offering; qualifies the people for its benefits; unlocks and releases those benefits for them; from the divine throne represents, supports, and supplies his people with these blessings for their salvation; and establishes that covenant as the certain, imminent, universal rule of God. As to when he is appointed as priest, there are strong indications that it correlated with his accomplished offering, perhaps specifically his resurrected entrance to God’s presence. Yet the latter is continuous with his incarnation (10:5–10) and life of obedience (5:1–10; 10:5–10), and at places his death as such seems to be the key priestly act.16 It is forced to correlate stages before and after his heavenly Session with Aaronic and Melchizedekian patterns. That he is high priest arises not directly from a Scriptural pronouncement—Ps 110:4 does not say high priest—but from his uniqueness (he is alone in his order), eternality, and role (his work correlates with the Day of Atonement). For further on his priestly appointment, identity, and role, see 4:14—5:10 and 7:1–28.

This leaves mediator (8:6; 9:15; 12:24; cf. Gal 3:19–20; 1 Tim 2:5–6), which overlaps with his role as the guarantee of the better covenant (7:22).17 In particular the term mediator seems to be used of his priestly role in the inauguration of the new covenant after the pattern of Moses (9:15–22, which 8:6 anticipates and 12:24 reprises), but even in 9:15–22 this is one fabric with his self-offering as the event to which the Day of Atonement and other sacrifices witnessed and also with his on-going mediation (7:25). Moreover, insofar as 8:6 serves as a kind of reverse outline for the whole of 8:7—10:18, the words “the covenant he mediates is better” are a stand in for the whole of 9:1—10:10. There are reasons to think that the identity of “mediator” was a loaded one, having received some shaping in the church’s confession (cf. 1 Tim 2:5–6) and indicating the Son’s qualification as both divine and human in the work of revealing God and achieving atonement as reconciliation. The traditional concept of a mediator could have shaped the way in which Christ as priest was to be presented in broad terms, though the preacher chose to make limited explicit use of the word and to concentrate its force on the covenant inauguration—which, again, is of one fabric with the rest of what is involved in Christ’s self-offering.

To reiterate the point about the way in which the history of the shadows and patterns and the history of Jesus have to be taken into account: In Israel’s history there was a drawn out sequence of exodus, wanderings, Sinai, preparations for the tabernacle, inauguration through Moses, implementation through Aaron with the Day of Atonement at the center. In Jesus’ history all this happens in a stroke and in a way that resists assigning discrete effects to separate stages of his work. Therefore the true Day of Atonement is achieved in Christ by the very same self-offering that inaugurates the covenant history within which (by the logic of the patterns) the Day of Atonement would be observed. That he is mediator is expressly stated in Hebrews to highlight his role as inaugurator, the one who brings all these things into effect, but this is said only with the understanding that the inaugurating sacrifice is also the cleansing sacrifice that qualifies the people for entrance. Obviously—and this is contextually warranted—he is mediator in the latter sense also.

It can be asked why Hebrews does not content itself with the already-established idea of Christ as an offering but, uniquely, goes on to name Jesus as our high priest. No doubt an expositional mindset encountering Ps 110:4 is part of the answer, but it is not likely the image would have been pursued beyond an intuition unless it proved fruitful on many levels and also comported with the person and work of the Son as already confessed. The idea of priestly representation and intercession is potent in itself, but it also brings in its wake the much larger treatment of the systems and the covenants within the history of God and his word, culminating in the announced gospel.

As for the question of deity and humanity as such, neither can be taken for granted. Moderns may take humanity as a starting point and debate whether deity is applicable, but in the history of christology it has frequently been the other way around. In Hebrews we can note the way in which the Son can be addressed as God outright (1:8) and without so much as pausing for reaction. We can then note the rhetorical effort to assert full humanity and we might wonder if the deity of the Son was a given and his full humanity was in question and in need of reinforcement. This latter seems closer to the mark if either of these identities was needing buttressing, but it is more likely that neither was really a bone of contention as such. What was needed was a deepening of both emphases—along with other aspects of their confession—in the interest of the teaching about the great salvation.

But moderns do in fact balk at this point of deity for a variety of reasons so it is worth noting the ways in which Hebrews expresses this. Firstly, it must be said that we do not subscribe to the absurd theory that the writer could not have thought a thought unless it can be documented elsewhere in his world. That he did not have the capacity to think coherently, to foresee what he was going to say or remember what he had already said, or that he did not understand the implications of his words are all theories that are in need of demonstration. That said, Hebrews’ affirmation of the Son’s deity is there in the text by the ascription of status and roles that were unmistakably those of deity in antiquity (positioned above the angels; eternity; creator).18 It is there in the angelic worship accorded him. It is there through the employment of language and traditions that apostolic teachings had already developed to confess this identity (wisdom; descent-ascent of Phil 2:6–11; pre-incarnation existence and incarnation; sinlessness; Ps 110:1; Ps 2:7). It is there through particular analogies that cast the Son in God’s role (3:4; possibly 9:16–17). It is there in calling him God outright (1:8) and applying OT texts about God or YHWH to the Son (1:6–12). It is there by placing him alongside God and the Spirit in the lead roles of salvation. It is there by the divine, eternal, complete, world-ending effects that are claimed for his salvation. It is there by the very logic of his priestly and mediatorial role. It is there by the fact that the items we just listed are not present like fragments clumsily appropriated but uncomprehended. They are harmoniously present within a coherent story. Efforts to resist this conclusion must necessarily and always do resort to a divide-and-conquer strategy. Even though it leaves the hard work for the later ecumenical efforts of the church to sort out, it must be said: Hebrews witnesses to Jesus’ divine identity in distinction from the Father. As we have already said, this perspective on the Son who is Jesus is so firm and full that we are caused to marvel at the equally strong assertions of his full humanity. But human he is.

As for his deity and humanity in his activity, there has always been a tradition of assigning certain roles or activities to either his deity or his humanity. It is not to pass judgment against all such readings to observe that Hebrews itself is more inclined to assign the Son’s work to his full identity: the Son’s work is carried out as the Son—as God-man—from his incarnation (an act of obedience in his role as our representative, an act that is uniquely his prerogative as the one who can chose to accept his body) to his exaltation (taking a place which properly belongs to God, not merely an exalted human; but doing so as one of us). The same must be said of the atoning work that spans these points. Likewise, his life won through resurrection is somehow improperly separated from (even if it might be distinguished from) his eternality by nature. The comparison with Melchizedek that launches 7:1–28 characterizes him as “without father or mother or genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life” suggesting that the “indestructible [endless] life” of 7:16 is somehow owing to something intrinsically indestructible as much as it is to what is shown to be and won as indestructible in the resurrection (cf. John 10:18).

In the Son both God and the chosen seed of Abraham keep covenant, as was fitting and necessary. In him, and as the Son, God takes responsibility for his creation and works salvation, as he alone was able (Isa 59:16; 63:5). He does so as the one who created all things for himself, acting in faithfulness to his handiwork and with transcendent power. He does so as the one whose saving work is his speech and whose speech is the act of salvation, communicated by the Spirit in the word of the gospel. He does so by giving us himself, who alone is life. Yet he does so as one of us, so that by sharing in him, the heir of all things, we receive the promised inheritance.

Jesus and the Old Testament Witness

In the course of our exposition we will be led to account for Hebrews’ appropriations of the OT Scriptures and the challenges these pose for modern sensibilities. At present we wish only to take up the thread we let drop above and suggest a broad way of thinking about what is happening for what it is worth.

In modern fiction it is not uncommon to notice what could be called fragmentary “images of Christ” scattered among the characters of a story or even in the plot line as such.19 The device is all the more compelling when the image of Christ is assigned to a character so completely unlike Christ. One thinks of Edward Wallant’s The Children at the Gate or the whiskey priest in Graham Greene’s The Power and the Glory, though the possible illustrations are many. Again, we will take recourse to the different image of light shown through a dispersive prism. The one, integrated light is dispersed into its several colors. Or again, we may think of an abstract painting of a woman. The painting has an historical individual as its subject yet the image is of such a character that the human subject could not be guessed unless she revealed herself to us in person. All her features are present but rearranged and distorted in other ways such that she is truly the one present, she and no other, but unrecognizable without direct knowledge of her in person. In fact, the abstract image can be said to reveal her essence more truly than a realistic image could give us.

Each of these analogies—images of Christ, a prism, abstract art—provide ways of appreciating how Christ is present in the OT shadows and copies for Hebrews. His one, integrated atoning act is represented in the rites of the OT that are radically diverse in character and that may even be chronologically distinct. His image is scattered among personalities so unlike each other and so unlike him as to be untraceable, and yet the correlations represent the OT divine-human authorial intention. Christ’s profile and that of his work is indubitably (as a matter of truth) that of the OT witness and yet unrecognizable in that portrayal until he steps into view as himself. All along the OT witness was signaling its incompleteness and its prophetic character while God’s speaking awaited its self-expression in the appearance of the Son who is himself the radiance of God’s glory,20 but all along it was speaking of this one and no other.

It will not do to expect easy correspondence. Where we find the most compelling foreshadowing we find the most striking dissimilarities. He is not so much answerable to the patterns as they to him, and yet he commands us to see him in them and it is clear that we cannot see him in himself without them. They are the clothing of his glory, the revelation of his person and work.

It is not our work in what follows to unlock the interpretive secrets behind this exposition but we will hazard its source, which is none other than the “christological big bang” of Jesus’ own presence in which he embodied those Scriptures, enacted them in his obedience, taught his disciples, received his Father’s vocal witness from the skies, and, not least, opened the Scriptures themselves (and his disciples’ minds) in the days separating his resurrection and his ascension. Subsequently he poured out his Spirit through which this understanding unfolded in the obedient life of the church. The birth of the new creation brought all this to existence. Patterns of interpretive reasoning are evident in the samples of this reading that we have in the apostolic writings of the NT though the hints are never so full as to enable us to reduce this way of reading to a set of strictly rational rules of a method.21 We must read as did the apostles but then this will mean that we must carry on as they did in the same Spirit, participating in the same obedience of the Son’s own mission. The question of hermeneutics (roughly, theory of interpretation) is nested inside of the larger movement of obedience in the Spirit. Hebrews is not a handbook of Christian hermeneutics but it is an authoritative guide to how the OT Scriptures must be read and how Christ must be known.

It is not that the modernist demand to reduce all things to reason—defining “reason” in a somewhat limited way—is a wrong approach as such, and it is one that must be respected in any earnest attempt to translate the gospel in compelling ways for a modernist (and “post-modernist”) audience. It is rather to say that what is actually happening in the gospel cannot finally be reduced to those particular tests of “reason” (of the modernistic type) and the insistence on doing so will distort our perceptions. It is not the purpose of this commentary to explore this question in its own right, but we cannot avoid acknowledging it in this general fashion if we are to read Hebrews sympathetically and properly.

Jesus and the Heavenly Tabernacle

At more than one point (e.g., 4:14–16) we will register the view that the pattern shown Moses was none other than the Son and that the copies and shadows corresponded to him and his work more than to heavenly architecture and furniture. This requires at least a brief justification and explanation.

There are ways of affirming a given writer’s beliefs about heavenly objects—however they may be imagined ontologically—that can share in the same modernist assumptions about things and language as do denials of those beliefs. To illustrate: a modernist, scientific mindset might find it more agreeable to imagine that Hebrews intended the language about the heavenly tabernacle as “figurative” rather than “literal.” We might insist in opposition that this is anachronistic. What is agreeable to us is irrelevant; the ancients “would have” (naturally, we suppose) taken the language “literally,” for which parallels can be marshaled. And yet upon inspection it may turn out that the latter view is guilty of assuming that only what is not “modern” (meaning, some belief held by modern people) can be “ancient,” which is a back door sort of way of imposing modernism on antiquity. It may in fact be equally mistaken to assert that a particular ancient thinker either did or did not believe that things “were” (or “are”) as imagery like that of Hebrews presented them. Self-consciously, these were symbolically freighted ways of talking about what exists in the most serious of ways, ways that were normatively determinative for right and wise conduct within empirical history.

Yet it stands to reason that then as now—think of the differences of views even among modern Christians!—individuals may have intended such language as that of Hebrews more or less symbolically, more or less “literally.” One may wonder if all Israelites at the time grasped Solomon’s expansive view of God’s relationship to heaven and earth (1 Kgs 8:27), a view that seemed both to affirm that God was uniquely present in the Most Holy Place of the newly built temple and yet was unlimited by that space. Putting before an ancient (or many a twenty-first-century person invested in a “mythological” conception of the universe) a model of the physical structure of the universe (heliocentric and so forth) may have precipitated either a cheerful shrug (acknowledging the truth and value of both perspectives), violent opposition, or a crisis of faith.

Taking these preliminary remarks further would draw us too far afield, requiring us to take on board anthropological, linguistic, exegetical, theological, and other perspectives. Rather we will merely indicate the considerations that draw us toward the view that Hebrews’ intention was that what Moses “saw,” to which his copies and shadows corresponded, was the Son and his work as enacted in the accepted gospel (which does not mean a fully understood or articulated gospel), while these same copies and shadows form for us what can be described as linguistic-visual “basic particulars” for seeing the Son, images past which we cannot get as if trying to get to our sort of empirically grounded description.

The following considerations are not ranked in order of importance, nor are they exhaustive. Our exposition will register a number of comments along these lines, albeit in passing and without attempting to gather then into one formulation.

Firstly, for the sake of comparison, one could think of the geography and map of Tolkien’s Middle Earth. As one reads the history of The Lord of the Rings it is clear that we are to think of that map as real and consistent; it is the physical setting of the story without which the plot would be shapeless. Or again, the geography and map of Palestine behind the canonical Gospels works the same way. If in either case that physical given were to be strangely and unpredictably morphing into other shapes as the story progressed, the whole narrative would take on a transformed sense. And yet the latter is closer to what we encounter in Hebrews, in which, as our reading will observe, the heavenly world of the drama morphs and bends according to the point being made. Is there a heavenly curtain? Does it stay in place (temporarily? forever?)? Are there divisions of the heavenly tabernacle between a holy place and most holy place, with two curtains? Is there an ark, and are the other items of Moses’s tabernacle present and functioning in heavenly one-to-one correspondences? Why are some features and rites seemingly missing? Is the liturgical movement vertical or horizontal?22 The questions multiply. The point can be overdrawn, but the impression remains: The cultic geo-architectural background is not stable in the way that Tolkien’s or the Gospels’ maps are. We can imagine that the writer of Hebrews was simply not in control of his conception, or perhaps was deceptive, thinking that the readers would not notice. We can also persevere in the conviction that we have failed to make good sense out of Hebrews’ language, which does in fact yield a consistent picture of a definite map and architecture. But we can also conclude that the controlling reality is not geography and architecture but the Son himself and his work.

Secondly, as G. B. Caird rightly observed about apocalyptic broadly, “When an author writes a book consisting wholly or mainly of symbols, there is a prima facie case for not supposing him to be a literalist; and the case holds even if he should prove to be a slavish imitator using conventional imagery and with little imagination of his own. But this generalization does not decisively settle the more particular question whether the apocalypticists intended their eschatology to be taken literally. That can be determined only by reading the books.”23 Given that each writer and writing must be taken one-by-one, when Hebrews is laced through with the symbolism of apocalyptic there is “prima facie case for not supposing him to be a literalist” respecting heavenly structures, external to the person of God and necessarily instrumental to the accomplishment of atonement, structures within which—as something containing the Son, rather than contained by the Son—the Son moves.

Thirdly, there is a strong implication that what was “upper” and “prior”—the heavenly pattern shown Moses (8:5)—was identical with what was at that point yet future, that is, what was found to be the case in the Son (9:11; 10:1).

Fourthly, it is probably deficient to think that in Hebrews’ intention what was shown Moses was merely physical infrastructure, the structures, accoutrement, and paraphernalia with and within which the priestly liturgy would be enacted—as if a building waiting to be used, vestments laid out and waiting to be donned. There is good reason to suppose that the heavenly pattern included the drama enacted therein (8:1–6; 9:1–10). Yet when we pay attention to the correspondences drawn between Jesus and the Mosaic rites, there is a tremendous freedom of both selection and conflation—not to mention that Jesus himself is the offering and the priest. The controlling center, the stable reality, is the Son and his work.

Fifthly, the effects of the Son’s atonement are cast back over history, suggesting strongly that for Hebrews the atonement itself, though once for all at the end of the ages (9:26; cf. 4:3), was ever present.24

Sixthly, if we dig down into Heb 3:1–6 and its use of the OT there is a convincing argument to be made that what Moses saw (Exod 33–34) was none other than the Son.25 In 11:26 Moses reckoned specifically on the reproach of Christ, hinting at the content of his vision.

Seventhly, on Hebrews’ terms, considered broadly, it is backwards to think of the Mosaic structures and rites as the “literal” and the realities of the Son as “spiritual-figurative.” The Mosaic structures and rites are copies, shadows, parables that witness to the actual.

Eighthly, if we undertake to interpret the respective passages of Hebrews as if they are oriented on the Son, his salvation, and his people, allowing the cultic imagery to bend and adapt as the case requires, there is a satisfying result in both the parts and the whole. If, however, someone objects that here or there the writer patently contrasts “earthly” and “heavenly” and assigns events to this or that realm, or to this or that point on the timeline, and if we then try to draw a single picture or a single timeline, the disagreements multiply. If we on our side are asked to explain these we can only respond that we are being asked to account for problems that arise through the denial of our premises.

Ninthly, the idea that God and the Son are themselves the temple of God was certainly in the apostolic air (Matt 12:6; John 2:21; Rev 21:22).26 The referent and meaning of the word “temple” in such a context is “Christ.” Likewise, we are not surprised that the extended description of Ezekiel’s temple would be prefaced with these words: “I will not hide my face anymore from them, when I pour out my Spirit upon the house of Israel, declares the Lord GOD.” (39:29); and that it closes with these words: “the name of the city from that time on shall be, The LORD Is There” (48:35). The implication seems to me to be that Israel is the dwelling place, the temple; this would seem to be how Revelation took it.27 The church as the temple is commonplace in the NT. The point is not that Hebrews’ conception is identical to these, but that one cannot assume that an “ancient mindset” would automatically or naturally lead to “literalistic” interpretations of the language.

Lastly, theologians have for excellent reasons been driven precisely by Scripture inexorably to the conclusion that there is no revelation or atonement external to the person of the Son and that there is no way to separate the speech and the work of God.28 The Son is the revelation of God and he is salvation.

In Christ, what God communicates to man is not something, but his very self. This is distinct from all other acts of God. This is God’s unique act, his reality-in-the-act, and apart from this act there is no God at all. In the act of creation, God does not communicate himself, but creates a reality wholly distinct from himself, but here in Jesus Christ God acts in such a way that he is himself in his act, and what he acts he is, and what he is he acts. . . . This unity of person and word, and person and work, and therefore of word and work, means that we cannot in any sense think of the work of revelation and reconciliation as a kind of transaction objective to Christ, or simply as an act done by Christ. It is above all the person of Christ revealing so that revelation cannot be separated off from his person. Similarly, it is the person of Christ atoning, so that atonement cannot be divided from Christ’s person. . . . The atonement is his person in action, not the action by itself.29

There is no reason or need to think that all this was present to the mind of this writer, but it is arguably consistent with the direction of his gaze. He was attempting to communicate the person of Christ. The coherence of his imagery, therefore, does not consist in his exegetical methods or the images as such but in the person of the Son to whom the images coherently witnessed. As already indicated, this does not entail the conclusion that he then thought of this heavenly tabernacle language as merely figurative, in the sense that moderns might intend that. In any event, it is due to such considerations, among others, that we will assert that for Hebrews the pattern shown Moses according to which he constructed the copies and shadows was the Son and his salvation as such.30

The Great Salvation

Inseparable from the Son is his great salvation.

The palette of salvation in Hebrews is predominantly priestly, sacrificial, and covenantal. This is no straightjacket, however, for the driving interest is to witness to “such a great salvation” in pastorally restorative and encouraging ways. The portrayal is not cultic monochrome. The kingly subjugation of Christ’s enemies is an elephant in the room, for instance. Nautical, athletic, agricultural, pedagogical, domestic, legal, economic, martial, and other imagery is laced through. Likewise, if we concentrate on the sacrificial language we will observe that though the Day of Atonement looms large it is not allowed to be systematically controlling. That prerogative belongs to the event of the Son’s offering itself, to which the entire, integrated Mosaic cultus witnessed.31 The Day of Atonement merely signifies the goal of the entire journey of the promise: entrance, once and for all, into the immediate presence of God.

For the moment it is necessary to bring together just some of the more common cultic ideas, leaving further touches to the exposition to come. This will be a little dense, but for those of us not raised in the Jewish ritualistic heritage of the first century a piecemeal discussion of these things as they arise in the text would leave something to be desired. At the least we can provide a reference point from which to take bearings as we wade into the exposition.

Koester nicely summarizes some of it, as a place to start:

Purification [= cleansing] means purging away uncleanness, sanctification [= consecration, making holy] means making something fit to be brought into the presence of God, and atonement [= 2:17] involves reconciling God and human beings. Completion [= perfection] is a complex idea that deals with the accomplishment of God’s designs for people, culminating with everlasting life in God’s presence. The human response is found in faith.32

On blood, see 9:1–10. The word atonement, when it translates hilaskomai (2:17) and its cognates, characterizes Christ’s offering as propitiatory (appeasing a wrathful god), expiatory (removing or making amends for what offends), or both. In broader theological usage it can encompass the whole of at-one-ment, reconciliation, with respect either to the means of accomplishing this or the results or both.

Within the shadows and copies of the Mosaic tabernacle and its system there were gradations of holiness from the Most Holy Place, to the Holy Place, and so forth out to the whole camp/land of Israel. The people could be cleansed of ritual and moral impurity but were not consecrated as were the priests and the high priest. These categories collapse in Hebrews, however, since this great salvation brings the whole people (cf. 13:12) directly to the Most Holy Place of God’s presence, first (now) in the person of their brother and high priest, and ultimately in their collective entrance—all in an achievement of a total/actual/eternal salvation that is at once “already” and “not yet.” When the Greek words for salvation itself are used (1:14; 2:3, 10; 5:7, 9; 6:9; 7:25; 9:28; 11:7), the salvation is characteristically future (e.g., 1:14, 6:9; 9:28) but it can describe the entirety of present and future (e.g., 2:3, 10) or refer to the ongoing event (7:25). Though in 5:7 the word save seems to refer to the resurrection and some other texts could be read with that focus (= “salvation from death in bodily resurrection”) it does not seem so limited in every occurrence. Without making the words for perfection, sanctification, cleansing, forgiveness, redemption, and salvation synonymous they can used in overlapping ways, as they are in 9:1–28. They are heaped up as if radiating the glory of the singular masterstroke of the Son’s person and work.

Along with “cleansing,” “perfection” is one of Hebrews’ favorite categories. Perfection “signifies fullness and completeness for whatever a person or thing is meant to be and do, often as a result of training and practice.”33 The terminology has strong associations with consecration of the priests in the OT, though Hebrews fashions its own usage. Christ is “perfected” (2:10; 5:9; 7:28) and is the “perfector” of faith (12:2) and of believers (10:14). The beneficiaries of a covenantal arrangement can also be said to have been or not been “perfected” (7:11, 19; 9:9; 10:1, 14; 11:40; 12:23). Some texts bring it into close relationship with the language of sanctification and cleansing (2:10–11; 9:9–10 followed by vv. 11–14; 10:1–2; 12:23–24), though there is a clear distinction in that Christ is not himself in need of sanctification34 (2:11; 7:26–27; 10:10, 14) though he is “perfected.” Ultimately perfection is everything involved in effecting arrival at the goal of creation’s and salvation’s history. It is the vocational qualifying of the Son as high priest who shares fully in the humanity of his siblings, obeys perfectly, offers himself, is raised,35 is enthroned, and intercedes for his people. It is the application of his priestly work to his brothers and sisters who are bound to him and each other in the new covenant he inaugurated. It is a matter of qualifying them to approach the holy God’s throne and eventually enter where Jesus has gone ahead of them. It is the promised approach through Christ to God. Rather than speaking of the “fulfillment” of the OT Hebrews prefers to show how the imperfect anticipated that which alone brings us to the goal, the perfect (cf. 1:1–4).36

As savior (a descriptor not actually used in Hebrews, so that it might serve here as a generic term), the Son works with us and for us. He is example and provision, and these roles overlap. With us and for us he is “perfected” and “saved,” but in Hebrews’ cultic logic he could not be the cause of our salvation if he were in need of cleansing, sanctifying, and forgiveness (7:26–28; cf. 4:15; 9:14). These latter are what he does for us, so that when the words “perfecting/perfection” and “saving/salvation” are then applied to us they cover both what he did with us and for us, including the cleansing, etc.

To look at it through the lens of Hebrews’ text, Heb 2:5–18 breathes enough of the above terminology through the church’s existing confession to tell the whole story in brief, hinting at what is to come in the exposition. In the discussion of Christ as priest (5:1–10; 7:1–28) the imagery contracts to perfection and salvation, focusing the basic question of whether the goal of the promise is attained or not. We need a priest who will bring us there, and with that comes a change of law, a new covenant. In 8:1—10:18, then, the exposition plunges fully into the sacrificial realm; in 9:1–28, in particular, most of the key terminology clusters (cleansing/purification, sanctification/consecration, perfecting/completing, forgiveness/liberation, salvation, redemption).

The result for the beneficiaries of this work is that they are qualified to do what only the Aaronic priests could do, approach the divine throne through Jesus and ultimately to enter where he has gone. This is indeed a priestly prerogative, but Hebrews nowhere calls us priests, reserving that role for our brother and high priest. We are the holy ones (3:1; 6:10; 13:24), the entire people of God dwelling forever in the house of the Lord.

Salvation as Gift

John Barclay has recently subjected the idea of “the gift”—broadly in anthropological, biblical, and theological contexts—to fresh investigation and clarification.37 His work provides a valuable filter through which to clarify important aspects of Hebrews as we continue to contemplate its vision of salvation.

The word grace (charis) is not alone in touching this idea of “the gift” but it is a potent term in this connection, both in the wider Greek speaking world and the NT. This word itself is not given thematic attention in Hebrews (God’s grace: 2:9; 4:16 [2x]; 10:29; 12:15; 13:9, 25; cf. 6:4 and the “heavenly gift”; our responsive “grace”/thanks: 12:28), though its use favors the inference that the preacher’s idea of grace is christologically conditioned in ways that are indebted to other NT traditions.

In Hebrews, so far as word use, grace is singularly characteristic of the gospel such that being excluded from grace (12:15) or insulting the Spirit of grace (10:29) is equivalent to loss of salvation. In 13:9 it is again a token for the whole gospel as a source of strengthening/confirmation that contrasts with “foods.” In the latter there is an echo of Esau’s fall from grace for the sake of food (12:15), hinting at the larger linkage of grace and the preached word that promised the inheritance. The first use of the word grace (2:9) characterizes the means by which Jesus tasted death in behalf of all, that is, by the grace of God. It could there be referring to the goodwill shown Jesus in response to his prayers (5:7–10; i.e., he was resurrected and enthroned so that his death could be the atonement it is) and/or the fitting way in which God perfected Jesus through those sufferings as the leader of the salvation of his brothers and sisters (2:10–18). In 4:16 it is a general descriptor of the divine throne on which our high priest sits and it is coupled with the closely related term mercy as what is to be expected from God; together mercy and grace encapsulate the character of the empathetic help supplied through our high priest.

Barclay argues that “grace” can be “perfected” (perfected = draw an idea out to its extreme in some way; this use of the word “perfect” has nothing to do with Hebrews’ use of that word) in at least six ways: superabundance, singularity, priority, incongruity, efficacy, and non-circularity. Any given writer may “perfect” the idea in one or more of these ways. At the level of everyday language use, no one way of “perfecting” the idea could make a privileged claim on the word; these were not better or worse ideas but merely different, and the different ideas could make use of the same vocabulary. Obviously things are altered when the idea is developed in a particular way within a coherent and particular version of the gospel, such as in Paul’s usage. Paul’s definition of terminology may not be determinative for Hebrews at the level of word usage, but there are canonical-theological dynamics that must be accounted for as these witnesses are taken together.

For Hebrews, thinking both of word use and wider context, the gift partakes of:

Superabundance: The gift is once-for-all. The wide range of Christ’s benefits as priest and offering are sufficient, eternal, complete, perpetual. Nothing good exists outside of the promised inheritance.

Efficacy: The gift qualifies worshippers for the approach to the presence of God in contrast with the Mosaic system, though it can be insulted and fallen short of. The efficacy of grace is objectively total and accomplished but awaiting and dependent on faith’s appropriation in the present; we have a cleansed conscience, but must take that to heart in faith.

Incongruity: According to this “perfection,” a gift is distributed without regard to merit.38 Firstly, incongruity is implied in Hebrews in that this gift in all its facets is “for all,” the “many,” or “the people” (beyond the priestly class); some of the names of 11:1–40 highlight this.39 Again, see Heb 9:15. There is no indication of a gradation of need, even if someone happened to be Judaism’s current high priest; all seem to stand equally in need of Christ’s benefits, equally without merit, indeed, equally meriting death. Secondly, beyond this general statement it is necessary to make some distinctions: Insofar as the faith of the Son is the faith of our human brother,40 the gift of salvation granted to him and his being crowned with glory and honor are entirely congruous with his merits (2:5–9; 4:15; 5:7–10; 7:27; 12:1–3). As for his brothers and sisters, salvation is incongruous now, but it anticipates a removal of all that can be shaken and of spirits made perfect so that in the unshakable kingdom there will be congruity between the gift of participation and the state of its recipients—and yet it remains eternally the effect of incongruous grace, and eternally depends on the faithfulness of the one who intercedes (7:25), so in some senses incongruity is eternal. Between baptism and Christ’s second appearance the situation is complex, leaving much unspecified: a once-for-all cleansing and forgiveness that is applied unilaterally; an ongoing intercessory and atoning representation; a disciplinary process leading to incremental progress in lived-righteousness, roughly coordinated with the language of perfection and sanctification; a final state of having-been-perfected. Rather than thinking of the life of faith as a preamble that leads organically to the state of complete perfection following resurrection, we probably do better to think of the future resurrection as the true beginning point that is partially, falteringly expressed already now from baptism to either death or Christ’s second appearance; we do not build toward it but rather live from it. Thirdly, did God choose Abraham and Israel because of some merit in them, or, again, due to a hidden scheme built into the very fabric of creation that distinguished between human creatures? Nothing indicates as much. Presumably their reception of the promise was for the sake of the seed, whose merit alone is highlighted. The promise and its gift came to the Fathers incongruously; the gift came because God willed it (10:1–10).

Priority: The initiative falls entirely on God’s side with faith as the response. There is, however, no hint of a special, individualized call or hidden election, much less a reprobation (see on 9:15).

Both singularity and non-circularity do not describe Hebrews’ idea of grace, since with God’s approaching holy presence the threat of punishment is strong for those who are “enemies” (against singularity, which would insist that God is only loving, merciful, and so forth, tending toward universal salvation) and a return both of faith/obedience and gratitude/praise is expected from those to whom the gift is granted (against non-circularity, which would insist that nothing is expected in return for a gift). Further, God “rewards” the faith that is itself the response to the initial gift (6:9–10; 10:35; 11:6, 26), which is a natural reflection of gift giving as a social bond.

Does faith then cooperate with grace in the sense that an infusion of initial grace enables a human work of obedience upon which further grace is conditioned, and so on? In 10:35; 11:6, 26; and related texts the “reward” is clearly the final reception of the promised inheritance; an ongoing, cyclical pattern of reciprocity is not operative in those contexts.41 A cooperative idea might be implied in 6:9–10, however, though we finally doubt that such a logic is at work. The vantage point of God’s remembrance or forgetfulness in that context is the final judgment (relating to the things that belong to ultimate salvation in 6:9). The threat for the readers is that of forfeiting what is already “there” in their record of obedience, what is already sharing in the atonement and its benefits—the existing track record of faith, which is the “substance” of things hoped for (11:1) and a share in Christ (3:14)—and so what is potentially approved by God (compare 10:35). The need is of perseverance to the end (6:11) so that the promise will actually be inherited (6:12).

Salvation in this context is cast as a reward but only as the reward of faith’s reception of the absolutely prior, unprompted, unearned, love-motivated (6:9; 12:6) heavenly gift, a reception that is entirely active in conforming its life to the promise in ways that are for the time being costly. This idea of a reciprocal exchange utilizing the idea of a reward thus partakes of more than one idea:

1. In everyday practice of the Greco-Roman world, gift giving played a cultural role in establishing, deepening, and maintaining social bonds. By conceptualizing the divine gift as expecting a return of faith-obedience and praise, which is, in turn, rewarded, Hebrews is not violating a Lutheran-styled rule of “pure grace,” but merely utilizing the cultural idea of reciprocal gift giving as a function of friendship. The parallel is limited to the positive point about healthy reciprocity in a loving relationship. In the end, for Hebrews the future divine “reward” is the gift already given, which is eternal and once-for-all, already perfected, in which the believer already participates (6:4–6)—indeed, it is that which makes possible the proper response of the human creature (8:7–13). It is not made, achieved, or won by the believer, but entered.

2. The baptized enjoy real participation in the benefits of salvation, whether or not they persevere or forfeit all. The baptized (= the people of God in a local gathering) are said to have been enlightened, to have tasted the heavenly gift, etc. (6:4–6). Their participation in salvation was real, not merely theoretical and imagined. It is of a piece with this that their past of obedience is thought of as belonging to the fabric of that gift; this past life belongs to salvation; it is the future salvation “falteringly” expressed already, and so a fruit of the gift (see above). Yet, just as the gifts of 6:4–5 could be forfeited, so also the past life of obedience.

3. Faith has the character of staking everything, including one’s present economic and social welfare, on the promise, and thus on the yet-future inheritance (it is the “treasure” in heaven). Hebrews styles salvation as a reward in keeping with the competition between present and future gain, present prosperity and a future inheritance. It is part of the effort to draw their attention to the city to come, and to put all their eggs in that basket. The overall framework of salvation—not least the fact that God unilaterally struck the decisive blow once-for-all in the offering of the Son, without reference to any prior cause than his goodwill—excludes the possibility of interpreting the “reward” as achieved anywhere else than in the Son’s work “by the grace of God,” and then derivatively in the faith that participates in the Son’s salvation. The Son is the “heir of all things,” and he shares his inheritance with the children given to him.

It remains evident from the logic of 5:11—6:12 (cf. 10:26–31; 12:15–17) that while the grace of God is prior and perennially unconditioned, and while it is efficacious in cleansing the conscience and qualifying for the approach to God through Jesus, it is not efficacious in the sense that it causes all of the “ground” on which it showers to produce the intended harvest. When the ground proves to be unfruitful—the mystery of sin!—that ground is rejected and burned. This does not involve the entailment that the ground that does bear fruit is “deserving” of grace, however. Such ground simply continues to receive the incongruous, prior, effectual, superabundant grace. Consequently, it simply does what comes natural: it produces good plants. It belongs to the power of God in creation and salvation that it, the creature, does produce—the creature is the subject of the verb “produce”—but only because and as created in Christ.42

Salvation as Covenant

For Hebrews, the clock of history is measured less by planetary movements than events of divine speech, with the underlying continuity provided by the promise and sequential change provided by the covenants that give the promise expression. This is not a matter of glossing “real” history with theological interpretation, as in the dominant conception of modern culture’s outlook. For Hebrews, covenant precedes cosmology; as goes the tabernacle, so goes the world. The word of God always leads, being that by which all things where made and that by which they are borne up and along to their goal. And that word is finally spoken not only in but as the Son, the heir of all things, through whom the universe was created.43

Along with Ps 110:4, taking pride of place among the divine utterances is the prophecy of the new covenant in Jer 31. Well before it is quoted in Heb 8:7–13 it looms behind the language of Hebrews (see on 2:10–18; 7:12, 22). Not only does this text serve to signal how God’s earlier speech announced the true nature and limits of the Mosaic covenant from within that earlier history, but it established the hope that the very idea of a covenant that is securely grounded, authentically realized by both parties, and permanent in effect was not merely a dream. When God determined to establish his eternal covenant, it would not be by sheer divine fiat, imposed from above. It would not be a sham or charade, boasting harmonious relations while one side lived in open rebellion. The human partner would keep the covenant fully and perfectly, showing itself to be fully worthy of the favor of its Lord. This the Son-who-is-Jesus did, when he chose the will of his Father in the act of accepting a human body for the sake of making it an offering and redeeming his fellow children; this he did when he learned obedience through suffering, never sinning; and on account of the suffering of death he was crowned with glory and honor. In that very movement of obedience he cleared the ground for the children of promise who had been given to him, the seed of Abraham. His obedience took the form of an offering that was at once the inaugurating sacrifice of the covenant and the great Day of Atonement. By dint of this there was total remission, redemption, cleansing, and atonement. Not only was the slate clean, but a new beginning was inaugurated that gave them a share in the Son and his Spirit of obedience. The law was now written on their hearts.

It is this—fully accomplished once-and-for-all—that constitutes the beginning from which the future unshakeable kingdom proceeds, but it is this same beginning that already now finds expression in the faith-obedience that falteringly, stutteringly, but resolutely plots its course on the line of that promise.

This history is the story that occupies Hebrews and it is no accident that on the heels of the Son’s obedience (10:1–10) it is that prophecy of the new covenant that is recalled once again by way of closing the central exposition of 5:1—10:18.44 From that point on (10:19—12:29), the sermon revolves on the faith-obedience that is the emblem of the members of this covenant, and it is not in passing that the opening words of that last section characterize the Son’s salvation as the new and living way (10:20). This way is not merely one of a vertical “going up” to approach God in worship, but a “going out” to bear Christ’s shame (13:13), and a “going on” to the city that is coming, Mount Zion.

The Wrinkles in the Plot

In order to deepen the story in which Hebrews participates but to do so in brief compass, it is necessary to borrow language from elsewhere in our theological lexicon. The risk is that we flatten out the telling and even prompt misunderstanding where Hebrews either does not use a particular image (e.g., “new creation”) or uses similar language in distinctive fashion. But if interpreters appeal to the larger pattern of thought within Philo or the Qumran community to read between the lines of Hebrews, it seems warranted to do so by appealing to the larger patterns of apostolic thought in which Hebrews so manifestly participates. Our conviction—with the caveats just noted—is that these distinct apostolic witnesses do in truth focus one gospel, one reality.45 At the very least, the following will put our cards on the table, indicating how the following commentary understands these things.

Viewed from one angle, Israel, the Jewish nation, is (always, only by gracious act of God) a people that is “near” in contrast to the Gentiles who are “far”; the advantage of the Jew is “much in every way”; Israel represents the native olive tree in a way that is not true of the Gentile, who is a wild olive branch that must be grafted in “against nature.” It would seem that the people of promise, the seed of Abraham in the Jewish people, somehow shared in the incarnation of the Seed, at least by derivation. The Jew is never this by nature or possession, but by virtue of the promise given to this people, the promise formalized in the covenant and all its attendant blessings, the promise always and only received in faith. But the Jew is this. Yet from another angle, Israel is as far from God as the Gentile. There is no distinction. For both, the way can only be as radical as death and resurrection. The Jew, no less than the Gentile, must be adopted if they are to become genuine children of this family; the Jew, during the time under law, is no different than a slave. All are equally in need of cleansing, forgiveness, perfecting.

It is also true that the history of Israel is not only her history, but the history of humanity. Abraham was chosen not for the sake of the salvation of the Jews, but the salvation of all people. The God who chose Abraham was and is the God of all peoples, the creator of heaven and earth. We then take to heart how Canaan and the temple were a new Eden, as it were, a new beginning to the story of the world. But whereas Adam’s story ended in judgment and death, Israel’s would end in life from death—via judgment, that brought the old story to an end, to its intended outcome—and thus would bring the new story to birth, unlocking what was promised Abraham for his seed, a seed comprised of Israel and all nations. It is, then, the hope of Gentiles to be grafted into Israel’s history, which necessarily means into the history of Israel and the promise given to her forefather, Abraham. In Hebrews, then, all of Christ’s brothers and sisters are the seed of Abraham.

Yet again, the history of the world is divided into the history before and after Jesus Christ. Before is the time of Moses and his covenant. After is the time of Jesus and his covenant, which has made Moses’s covenant old. But then we see that this new covenant is nothing less than the new creation, dividing this age from the age to come. We see further that this new creation (with its covenant) was already in effect from the foundation of the world, which is why faith was possible from Abel on, why it is said that Christ would have to be offered many times from the foundation of the world, why forgiveness for OT believers was possible through sacrifices that could not take away sin, why the word spoken through Moses can be described as “gospel,” and how it is that Moses’s tabernacle was to be fashioned according to what already existed whole in heaven. And we see also that the old creation (with its covenant) is still ongoing, contemporaneous with the inauguration of the new, until the great removal. The “overlap” of the ages is something that was true in one way before Christ and in another way after Christ, but there was always an overlap. In order to show the continuity of God’s speech of past and present, the presence of faith in the one promise across history, and the culmination of all things in the Son—the culmination that defines the present moment with its possibility and its urgency—Hebrews dwells more fully on the overlap that preceded Christ than most other NT writers, even as it draws more sharply the line that separates and distinguishes the new covenant/age from the old. At the same time, Hebrews develops in its own fashion the overlap that follows Christ as a continuation of the time of the promise within the conditions of the old age even after the promised new covenant (with the world to come; 2:5) has already been instituted as a world-invading reality (3:14; 6:4–6; 11:1). More on this as we read Hebrews itself.

It is within this dynamic that the law of Moses (Torah) has its history. The Torah before Christ was part of the chrysalis of the gospel. Detached from Christ in his death and resurrection, it is no longer alive but lifeless matter, the shell from which the new organism emerged. Paradoxically—for here all analogy breaks down in light of the active presence and application of the gospel before Christ and the continuation of the present already-judged age after him—that same Torah remains organically related to Christ as long as the present age continues, and so remains in that sense—as rightly related to Christ—a part of the living gospel. Turning back to it as if it was something in itself, is to find that it is merely a dead casing, worthless. To disown and renounce it for what it was and what it continues to be, a witness to Christ, the gospel in the idiom of shadows, is to disown and renounce Christ.

The Hope of Salvation

We begin to close this introduction by returning to Hebrews’ vision of the goal of salvation, that toward which we are summoned to move.

The reader of an English translation of Hebrews, if not also the reader of the Greek text, might be excused for missing the character of salvation as a place in Hebrews until as late as 11:10. From that point on it is obvious, leading up to 12:22–24 and 13:14. Yet all along it has been a question of approaching or entering into a place, the Most Holy Place of God’s throne, and in 2:5 we discover that it is the coming world about which the preacher has been speaking ever since the sermon’s beginning. It is in this sense that we should understand 3:7—4:11 as well, as a matter of God’s resting place; likewise the inheritance (1:2, 14; cf. Deut 12:9).

Hebrews’ vision of a secure home and household is a compelling one. Our cities are not built to last. That the readers had suffered significant social and economic hardship is clear (10:32–39) and this dimension of a life of faith is highlighted (11:24–26, 35b–38). If we diminish what could be called the merely human aspect of this—that which would be experienced by all peoples regardless of their belief systems—we have departed from Hebrews’ and the gospel’s outlook.46 The loss of one’s “world” can be the experience of any individual, family, or other social group in any otherwise stable political state, though the horrors of a collapsing civilization are the stuff of apocalyptic nightmares.47

If, however, we fail to recognize that all of this spatial imagery coalesces against the backdrop of Israel’s inheritance of the land, her resting place, with the Most Holy Place of the temple as its center, we have failed to appreciate Hebrews’ entire vision of salvation. It is not a city as such that forms this vision, but the Jerusalem that is above, the Mount that is before us. This city has a name. Rome was the greater city by any human standard, and was probably the city that loomed largest in the social existence of the original readers, but in the perspective of the history of God’s speech Rome was no equal of Jerusalem. Moreover, this city on which hope centers does have a history. Just as the Son is known from the shadows and copies constructed according to God’s command, so this city. This understanding draws us into the broader, integrated drama of Israel’s pilgrimage as we see that in the Pentateuch and then reenacted in the prophets. Again, to find one’s identity in relation to a city requires that we know something of that city’s ethos, and in the case of this city this is what was revealed through the covenant that centered in the life of the sanctuary. This aspect of Hebrews is more implicit than explicit but it is everywhere the air we are breathing in its exhortations. To draw near to the divine throne is to participate in the full compass of covenantal life inscribed in the laws for Israel—as these carry over in the righteousness realized in the new covenant. Hebrews’ vision is finally that of the fullness of the covenantal life with God and neighbor that was presented in the shadows and copies of Israel’s history. What lies before us, and what is to shape our lives even now, is our citizenship in that city. As such, we do not retreat from but actively inhabit the cities of this age whether or not they will have us.

Encountering the Holy

That place of salvation is the place of the holy God of Israel.

One of the off-putting features of Hebrews for moderns is the controlling language of holiness, cleansing, and the like. If any aspect of its vision belongs to the scientifically debunked thought of antiquity’s mythological world it is this. However backwards the rest of the New Testament writings remain, they at least seem to represent a step forward for humanity’s emergence from myth’s hold on the mind. For many, Hebrews can itself be interpreted as a welcome translation of all of this quasi-magical blood-spilling ritual into the more palatable ideas of human interiority and moral formation.

Yet only by isolating certain of Hebrews’ comments can the latter conclusion be sustained. Body and blood sacrifice is not rejected but brought to its goal in the blood, flesh, bodily sacrifice of Jesus. The approach to God is not made without a sacrifice ritual. It is made through the once-for-all offering of the body of the Son. Blood is a symbol but only with reference to the material, physical blood of the Son. When this is seen even the word ‘symbol’ becomes inadequate if it masks the reality that all language, including scientific language, is symbolic and that in Jesus’ blood, which means in his whole person, we have to do with the living and active presence and power of God. The language of symbolism is getting at the way of understanding this reality and its effects by associating it with the copies and shadows ordained by God himself.

Our intent in saying these things is limited to asserting that Hebrews is not giving us conceptual categories that must be “de-mythologized” so as to connect them to reality as moderns conceive it by their scientific standards of knowing. If we do that we have only projected our world onto Hebrews’ or screened out what is essential to our loss. Instead Hebrews compels us to recognize the reality that creation exists in the presence of the holy God, that history is a matter of his covenants, and that the encounter with God’s holiness—the cultic—is simply a fact of human existence as well as its destiny. Where this is not acknowledged it is no less true but only suppressed and distorted. If we think otherwise we are not receiving Hebrews’ witness but arguing with it. Our efforts of understanding, translation, and explanation must work with and for that witness. Hebrews’ vision of covenant and sacrifice is the one most needed by moderns. It is a vision to be inhabited.

The Summons

We have said that the call of Hebrews is less, “Do not turn back!” than it is, “Move forward!” “Let us approach!” Disobedience here, it must be understood, is the characteristic failing of the human creature. Whether through sloth, indifference, ignorance, desire for the harlot Babylon, fear, guilt, pride, or enmity the characteristic failing is that of Adam hiding, the Israelite not seeking the Lord, David sending the ark off to Obed-Edom. It had been Israel’s, and thus humanity’s downfall. Turning to the Lord is the first act of obedience, from which all else follows and all else is possible. Hebrews concentrates all its effort on stirring us to do this one thing, not out of disinterest in the larger life of righteousness that characterizes full covenantal life (Heb 5:11–14; 6:7; 12:4–17; 13:1–17) but precisely because the rest is contained in it.

In truth, drawing near, through Christ, is not a burden (1 John 5:3; Matt 11:28–30). There is no greater good or beauty to be desired than the Lord (Exod 15:11; Pss 27:4; 34:8; 50:2; 89:8). With him there is perfect satisfaction (Pss 103:5; 107:9). Yet we recoil, wander, and flee due to our own falsity and defilement. The Scriptures witness to our inability to stand in the presence of the holy God apart from Christ and the terror of its threat when it appears (Exod 19:12–13, 20–24; 20:18–21; 33:20; Isa 6:5; Luke 5:8; Heb 10:31; 12:29). And it was for our preservation and salvation that his holy grace kept us at a distance while showing us the way to dwelling with him (Heb 9:6–10)—the way of the word of promise, first spoken to Abraham and then kept in his seed, the way that is the Son in and as whom God speaks.

Hebrews, in fact, is finally about the ways and the way of God, the very themes that had carried through God’s speech in the prophets (Isa 11:16; 35:8; 40:3; 57:14; 62:10; Jer 6:16; 21:8; 31:21; 50:5). Have we known his ways (Heb 3:10)? Will we travel his way (Heb 12:1, 12–13)? Will we avail ourselves of the new and living way (Heb 9:8; 10:20)?

Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.

“Today” he has spoken (3:1–19). The promise remains (4:1–11). It is simple unbelief, disobedience, faithlessness not to hold fast to the word and obey the command. There are no excuses, least of all our weakness. There is also some urgency.

Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.

That day is drawing near (10:25), which means that God no longer keeps us at a distance but in his holiness approaches, and escape is impossible.

Yet a little while, and the coming one will come and will not delay.

Heaven is reclaiming earth. He comes in his gracious act of atonement in the Son, so that the very thought of escape is the height of irrationality. Yet sin’s fear and enmity run deep. Faith alone, looking into the face of this approaching holiness, makes bold to approach in obedience. But he comes either way in his holy love. In his holy love.

See that you do not refuse him who is speaking. “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.” This phrase, “Yet once more,” indicates the removal of things that are shaken—that is, things that have been made—in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.

1. This was an insight of Hughes, Hebrews and Hermeneutics.

2. Laansma, “Hebrews: Yesterday, Today, and Future,” 1–6, 26–32.

3. Mesa, “Tim Keller and Don Carson?”

4. For other examples, see Laansma, “Hebrews: Yesterday, Today, and Future,” 1–2. Calvin is a good exhibit (see Institutes, II.7.16; II.9.4); Barclay, Paul and the Gift, 120; Allen, “The Perfect Priest,” 120–34.

5. Among the proposals, see Guthrie, Structure of Hebrews, and Westfall, Discourse Analysis of Hebrews.

6. This more-or-less arbitrary number of expositional units stems from the form of the series for which the commentary was originally composed.

7. Koester, Hebrews, 48–50.

8. See Laansma, “Hebrews and the Mission,” 328–34.

9. Ellingworth, Epistle to the Hebrews, 78–80.

10. The canonization of Hebrews is treated in all good commentaries and elsewhere. Koester, Hebrews, 19–63, is particularly helpful and expands considerably on our summary of Hebrews’ place not only in the canon but the church’s life and thought through the ages.

11. Language like this in 1:2–3 cannot be tossed to the side as an outlier sentiment nor treated as a literary code for some other idea entirely, for instance, that Jesus is being thought of as wisdom personified.

12. One helpful discussion is that of Svendsen, Allegory Transformed. His exegesis of Hebrews itself is not a strong part of his argument, in my judgment.

13. Nothing said here or elsewhere in this commentary takes a dim view of the value of historical investigation or excuses shoddy work in that regard; disregarding such work would represent a shallow view of what canonical speech is. The exposition to come will draw heavily on the spade work of historians, albeit in ad hoc fashion. Yet in doing so we must receive Hebrews for what it is: divine-human speech.

14. I owe thanks to Daniel Treier. Through personal conversations about his work on Christ as mediator (forthcoming), my rethinking of that category and its relationship to the other names and titles was stimulated.

15. Even so, it is interesting that the writer can say that is is Jesus who was made lower than the angels (2:9; cf. Phil 2:5), identifying the one known as blood and flesh with the Son in his personal movement from pre-incarnation to incarnation. This, of course, does not need to contradict the doctrine of the “enhypostasis” of Christ, namely, the idea that the human person Jesus had subsistence only in union with the Logos. Hebrews affirms personal unity and continuity in the movement from pre-incarnate to incarnate existence but is not otherwise observing the later technical distinctions in its language.

16. If we were inclined to press points, we could insist that his priestly role also had a termination, namely, when he sat (10:12–13), though this does not comport with other statements (e.g., 4:14–16; 10:19–25).

17. It may be that the verb mesiteuō in 6:17 is fully intended in this sense; see Griffiths, Hebrews and Divine Speech, 111–14.

18. Bauckham, “Divinity in Hebrews,” 15–36.

19. I owe personal thanks to Rosalie de Rosset for help with this idea.

20. Caird, “Exegetical Method of Hebrews,” 44–51.

21. The study of apostolic interpretive methods and principles has been fruitful, even if theorists have reached differing and even incompatible conclusions. For a cross-section of some of the theories, Beale, The Right Doctrine, is still useful. An analogy from the modern music industry is instructive in thinking on the almost limitless number of paths a text and its ideas could take from its origin through its stages of appropriation (McCabe, “Inspiration.”).

22. E.g., Ellingworth, “Universe in Hebrews,” 337–50.

23. Caird, Language and Imagery, 262.

24. Depending on how Rev 13:8 is translated (contrast NIV and ESV) the idea might be more directly expressed there. Cf. 1 Cor 10:1-4; Rom 3:25-26.

25. D’Angelo, Moses in Hebrews, 95–199, 248–49, 254–55, 259–63. Attridge seems to be making a related argument in “Antithesis,” 1–9; cf. Attridge, “Response,” 208.

26. In Revelation, this statement follows several definite, realistically descriptive assertions about the heavenly temple (naos): 7:15; 11:1, 2, 19; 14:15, 17; 15:5, 6, 8; 16:1, 17.

27. Beale, Revelation, 1061–62.

28. See for example, Torrance, Incarnation, 37, 107–9, 184, and Torrance, Atonement, 93–94, 124–25, 148–53.

29. Torrance, Incarnation, 108.

30. In case it needs to be said, we are attempting to understand how Hebrews is intending, for the purposes of this word of exhortation, the language of the heavenly pattern shown Moses and the heavenly tabernacle pitched by God. We are not implying that the world to come does not consist of bodies (1 Cor 15) and (re)created environment, which (based on the resurrection body of the Lord) involves definite forms. Still less are we forgetting that as human the Son existed as finite body, with all this entails. Post-resurrection he continues to exist as body—indeed as flesh and bone (Luke 24:39), capable of consuming this worldly fish—yet with what limits we do not know (Luke 24:31, 36; John 20:26; 1 Cor 15:35–58). The Scriptural imagination makes beggars of ours (Ezek 10:17). Nor have we forgotten the eye-witness-based accounts of the ascension as a vertical movement (Luke 24:51; Acts 1:9–11); that very narrative should occasion more probing reflection on space and spheres.

31. We will have occasion to observe that the idea of, for instance, a substitutionary offering is operative at points, even though the sacrificial imagery on its own would not seem to involve or require that idea. The larger reality of Christ’s salvation exerts a pressure on the images—new wine in old wine skins—and Hebrews has no final interest in suppressing this, unless perhaps there is merely the need to keep the rhetoric effectively focused for pastoral ends.

32. Koester, Hebrews, 119.

33. Marshall, “Soteriology in Hebrews,” 261.

34. This contrasts with the way that John uses the language of sanctification (e.g., John 10:36; 17:19).

35. Heb 7:28 forms an inclusion with 5:1–10; 5:9, in turn, picks up the thread from 2:10 where the idea is that the Son was perfected “through suffering.” The emphasis of “perfecting” seems to fall on the sufferings that made him a merciful, faithful, empathetic priest. Along the way to 7:28, however, more of the Son’s story has been rehearsed or hinted at, all of which is indicated in 7:26–28. This would include dealing with the problem of corruptibility through resurrection, a problem highlighted in Moses by the laws of ritual impurity, since these latter arguably address the problem of human mortality and corruptibility as unfit for God’s presence; cf. Moffitt, Atonement and the Resurrection. I do not find Moffitt’s idea of “the logic of resurrection” to be as fully controlling as it is in his argument (his exegesis of Hebrews seems to me forced at points, as if attempting to make Hebrews say what other Jewish texts say more clearly), but I strongly agree that it is ingredient in Hebrews’ larger mix of atonement theology and Moffitt’s work deserves very close, sympathetic attention. The atonement, as a reality, has more dimensions than any one human perspective can convey. Hebrews has its own emphases but has no interest in limiting its vision to these, which would amount to limiting the atonement itself. As a result, we find hints and gestures to other and deeper features of the atonement also at work and also necessary for this vision of Christ as priest and sacrifice. Among other things, Moffitt helps us hold together ideas of ritual and moral impurity as these were operative within the single fabric of Israel’s cultic system and Jesus’ effectual work. This is a much more satisfying account than those that suggest, for instance, that Hebrews treats ritual impurity as merely part of the shadowy symbolism of the Mosaic system while moral impurity is the real concern addressed in the atonement of Christ.

36. For a full discussion, see Peterson, Hebrews and Perfection; Attridge, Hebrews, 83-87.

37. Barclay, Gift.

38. In the wider world of Greco-Roman antiquity, it was natural to reserve gifts for those who merited them; there was nothing inherently contradictory between a “grace” (gift), so understood, and merit. Giving the gift without discrimination cheapened the gift itself. If it was in fact a matter of giving the gift without regard to merit, Barclay would characterize the conception as perfected in terms of “incongruity.” One question to be put to Paul, for example, would be whether the grace of salvation in his gospel was “incongruous” only in that it extended to Gentiles, or that Jews and Gentiles were equally without merit, equally deserving of divine wrath but equally offered divine grace, or some other scheme.

39. Further refinements: firstly, in contrast to Paul, there is no explicit attention to the Jew-Gentile issue. Secondly, Luther’s strong idea of the Christian life as a permanent state of incongruity (Barclay, Gift, 116) finds partial echoes, at least, in the need of a daily approach to the divine throne and Christ’s ongoing intercession. Thirdly, it is unclear if the gracious act of God is incongruous with the creature as such (before sin), or only with the creature as it has become defiled. Certainly it is with the latter. The former is beyond the horizon of what is said, though it might be hinted at in some sense by the correlation of this creation with the old covenant and by the language of Psalm 8 (Heb 2:5–9).

40. In Hebrews it will not be possible to think of Christ’s faith as an “apocalyptic” work of God, as if not a human response; it is indubitably a response of a human, Abraham’s seed, albeit a distinctive human, the Son of God who is also called God and Lord.

41. In these texts, the “reward” is not “payment for labor” or “earned wages” but the freely-given, uncoerced return to suitable recipients; cf. Barclay, Gift, 197, 316, 485.

42. To be living in the Spirit as opposed to “flesh” is not to be made a passive body animated by an alien force, but to be alive in the only way creation can be truly alive. To be without the Spirit of God is to be dead, thus powerless. To have the Spirit is to be fully human, to be fully a creaturely agent, and thus wholly responsible and free for creaturely obedience. The word “independent” can be problematic, but something like it seems important in keeping with the general doctrine of creation as not-God. The corollary of God’s radical otherness is creation’s separate existence, not as without dependence but as possessing, by and within the divine endowment, by and within the power of the divine gift, the status of its own existence. Ingredient in this for humans (whatever is said of the rest of creation) is their distinct existence as whole persons, and thus fully volitional existence.

43. See Laansma, “Living and Active Word.”

44. This is seen clearly by Lindars, Theology of Hebrews, 98–102.

45. See the title and argument of Marshall, New Testament Theology.

46. The role of honor and shame as well as patron and client relations in the Greco-Roman world as these relate to the situation of the readers is amplified (helpfully, but to the point of overstatement) in the work of deSilva, Perseverance in Gratitude and deSilva, Despising Shame.

47. Examples of the latter are easily drawn from the OT and the literature of other societies. For one vivid narration of Rome’s collapse, see Manchester, A World Lit Only by Fire, 3–5.