Posts

Hebrews 3:2

Hebrews 3:2 Faithful, like Moses. The Jews have a habit of exalting the names of their greatest ancestors. And why not? The patriarchs are the first names in the Hall of Fame, so Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are regularly referred to in one breath, even to this day. David was, of course, the greatest of the kings so his name is honoured and respected. And then there is Moses, the “Prince of Egypt”, who successfully led the Children of Israel out of slavery to the boundaries of the Promised Land. What a tiresome, complaining lot those Hebrews were and what a leader Moses turned out to be! It is not his status that will be discussed in the next few verses but His mission. God gave Moses a very difficult job to undertake, to safely lead a large community of people (possibly 2 million) from a pagan country, through the wilderness, to the edge of the land that had been promised to their ancestors, centuries earlier.  Having employed many staff members over the years, I would say that there ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Hebrews 3:1

Hebrews 3:1 Fix your thoughts on Jesus! What a journey this epistle has taken us on already! Surely by now, we have established that Jesus Christ is greater than, and exalted over, any angelic beings. Not only that, but we have begun to understand the extent of His manhood and the unique way in which He, and only He, has dealt with the problem of our mortality. The one final and unconquerable obstacle to our ascent to the heavens is death; this final nail in our coffins was destroyed at the cross and Jesus is now the Victor and unsurpassed Saviour of all mankind. The only battle that really matters in the history of humanity is the battle with death, and Yeshua is the only One who has conquered and made a way through this seemingly impossible barrier. How foolish men are, to ignore Him and belittle and blaspheme Him! Who else can save us from the inevitable? No wonder the author of this extraordinary epistle now asks us to  “fix our thoughts on Jesus.” If you, like me, consider you...
Post a Comment
Read more

Hebrews 2:18

Hebrews 2:18 The one who understands temptation Much has been written about the temptations of Jesus, particularly those He encountered in the wilderness when the Satan confronted Him, head on! Let’s face it, our Lord was a man, born to a human mother, living in a world of corrupted human beings and being affected by the same lusts and lures that we all have to endure every day of our lives. Later in this remarkable epistle the writer takes the matter a step further; –  “For we do not have a High Priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are – yet He did not sin.” Hebrews 4:15. To teach that Jesus was somehow insulated from temptation is not true, He grappled with the same problems that we all have to deal with, day after day. However, He had no inclination to satisfy His fleshly desires, and He was so inspired by His Father’s will that He was able to do something that none of us can; He rejected, even rebuk...
Post a Comment
Read more

Hebrews 2:17

Hebrews 2:17 The faithful High Priest Jesus the Christ came to us from heaven, from His Father’s domain, a place inhabited by possibly millions of angelic beings. He came from a different realm, a spiritual dwelling place where God the Father is exalted by beings who do His bidding. God’s agenda was not to save the heavenly realms but to do something extraordinary for the citizens of earth, to liberate men and women, to break the stranglehold of sin over mankind, to cancel the power of death.  It was clear that to achieve this, someone had to come to the earth to carry out the mission of redemption, Jeus was the One who was both qualified and who was willing and able  to carry out the mission. He came to us in the role of a priest, a position that was already familiar to God’s chosen ones, the Jews. They had appointed High Priests for centuries and understood the purpose and function of these men. A High Priest was the head of the sacred order of men who served the Lord o...
Post a Comment
Read more

Hebrews 2:16

Hebrews 2:16 The descendants of Abraham The writer here is still contemplating the theme of chapter 1 of his letter, that Jesus Christ is superior to all the angels, that He has been proved to be the Son of God and that He reigns supreme over all created beings. The death that Jesus died, the shame that He suffered the awful events on the cruel cross at Calvary, were all undertaken for mankind. It was as a substitute for the death of men and women that He came to die, it was humanity that He came to save, not angelic beings. The generic term used here is “Abraham’s descendants” which may have a broader implication than many people realise. Firstly, Abraham’s descendants refers, of course, to the nation of Israel.  “ The LORD had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you. “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you,...
Post a Comment
Read more

Hebrews 2:15

Hebrews 2:15 No more fear of death! The Apostle Paul deals with the subject of death, and the fear that it holds for all created human beings, in a dramatic passage in 1 Corinthians 15: 53-57. Here, he explains that we are all perishable beings, that we are clothed with mortality and will never have the means of cheating the inevitability of death. However, in verse 53, he explains that because of Jesus, our mortality has been clothed with immortality and that which is destined to perish is now imperishable. Thus, death has been conquered, the victory of Christ Jesus over death has been made available to all people, and those who believe and accept the salvation of Christ are no longer threatened by the inevitability of the grave. All fear and anxiety about our ultimate destiny as human beings has been removed!  Death has an odour about it, it is the final and ultimate end of all human life however good or bad we may have been, we all must face this appointment with the grave. But,...
Post a Comment
Read more

Hebrews 2:14

Hebrews 2:14 Death is broken! t’s amazing to consider what Jesus was prepared to go through in order to become identified with us as humans. If we are the children of God and potentially the brothers and sisters of Yeshua, then we must be born like Him and become like Him! That is physically and spiritually impossible for there is no human way of elevating ourselves to His status. So instead, He lowered Himself to ours, He became human and shared in our humanity. The only things that are common to all human beings are birth and death, neither of which we have any control over (unless you believe in abortion, suicide or euthanasia!). Jesus chose to become like us, to be born as a human amongst us and then to face the greatest horror of them all, the grasping, inevitable tentacles of death. Death is the ultimate penalty for sin, it is not the unavoidable price of being human, we were NOT created by God to die! Paul puts it like this,  “Therefore, just as sin entered the world through...
Post a Comment
Read more