Category: Bible

Hebrews 10, Christ’s sacrifice once for all, the new covenant, a new and living way, the just shall live by faith.

This chapter of the letter to the Hebrews was instrumental in solidifying my faith after salvation. It got a little lengthy, but enjoy!

“a body you prepared for me” is from the Septuagint, “but my ears you have pierced” is from the Hebrew Psalm. When a servant wilfully gave himself away to serve his master, the master pieced his ear to show voluntary bondage.

Jeremiah 31:33 “This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel
    after that time,” declares the Lord.
“I will put my law in their minds
    and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God,
    and they will be my people.
34 No longer will they teach their neighbor,
    or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’
because they will all know me,
    from the least of them to the greatest,”
declares the Lord.
“For I will forgive their wickedness
    and will remember their sins no more.”

Let us take a look at the theology of covenants, this ties in naturally with this letter.

According to dispensation theology there are ten major covenants in Scripture.

Covenant theology has simplified all the covenants into just three

Dispensation theology emphasizes God manifests himself differently in the different dispensations, and yet He is the same God yesterday, today and forever.

We are now at the dispensation of grace, commonly known as the Church Age.

We go back a few verses in Hebrews 10

Jesus closed the scroll after “to proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD“, stopped mid sentence  and did not read the end of the verse “and the day of vengeance of our God”

This gap defines the time of grace!

To determine which of these options is the right one, I turned to

To know which of these dates is true it would help to know when Jesus was born.

Enter

Dionysius set the birth of Jesus Christ to Dec 25, 1 BC, and the death at 33 Anno Domine, the only year according to the lunar calendar that made Good Friday occur on a Friday. ( check https://lenbilen.com/2017/04/14/when-was-the-crucifixion-of-jesus/ ) He was only off by a few years. The dates are now set to:

But it is getting even more complicated. Without vowel marks the word for seven can have three meanings dependent on how it is pronounced.

That’s when it hit me.

I had fallen into the same trap as so many before me. We live in the age of grace!

The word for today is “today”.

Now back to where we left off in Hebrews 10.

Bur the book of Hebrews also comes with warnings!

Here I am borrowing from a slide series from somebody else. I can no longer find the source, but thanks, whoever it was.

Knowledge of the truth is not what saves you.

A fortiori simply means that the argument in verse 29 is much stronger than the one in verse 28

And then there is

This then excludes option 1

Between option 2 and 3: God be the judge.

Verse 38 convinced me I had to be baptized in a believers baptism, even though I had been baptized as an infant. It really had nothing to do with salvation, that was settled at the time of belief. It was an act of faith and obedience to remain in close fellowship with God. And my living hope is that God will keep His promise, He will keep me eternally secure even if I lose my mind, which still may happen late in this life, but will be fully restored in the life to come.

Hebrews 9, the earthly sanctuary, the heavenly sanctuary, the greatness of Christ’s sacrifice.

Footnote on Joseph’s genealogy:  According to Jeremiah 36:30 Therefore thus saith the Lord of Jehoiakim king of Judah; He shall have none to sit upon the throne of David: and his dead body shall be cast out in the day to the heat, and in the night to the frost.

Although Joseph was of the kingly line and a rightful owner of the throne of David, defunct since the captivity in Babylon, (Israel was never independent after that) this problem was solved. Jesus was adopted.

Hebrews 8, the new priestly service and the New Covenant.

Abraham did not offer in the tabernacle or in the temple, he offered up his son, Isaac on Mount Moriah, which according to legion is where now the Dome of the Rock stands as a shrine.

There is great controversy on where the temple once stood, but it is probably near the El Kos Fountain, and would partly overlap the El Aksa Mosque.

Hebrews 7, Jesus Christ, high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.

Melchizedek was either a real person, king of Salem, later to be named Jerusalem, or he was a Christophany, that is a manifestation of Jesus Christ.

Psalm 110:4b  Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.

Psalm 110:4 The Lord hath sworn, and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.

 

Hebrews 6, can you lose your salvation?

1. According to Roman Catholic doctrine no man can know if he is saved.

2. This is the Arminian position.

3. This is the Calvinist position.

4.  This seems to be the position of the author.

The difference between Arminius’ and Calvin’s five tenets.

Numbers 20:8 “Take the staff, and you and your brother Aaron gather the assembly together. Speak to that rock before their eyes and it will pour out its water. You will bring water out of the rock for the community so they and their livestock can drink.”

9 So Moses took the staff from the Lord’s presence, just as he commanded him. 10 He and Aaron gathered the assembly together in front of the rock and Moses said to them, “Listen, you rebels, must we bring you water out of this rock?” 11 Then Moses raised his arm and struck the rock twice with his staff. Water gushed out, and the community and their livestock drank.

12 But the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not trust in me enough to honor me as holy in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this community into the land I give them.”

This is a clue to what the impossible verses really mean. Think of Jesus as the rock, which he is. God told Moses to speak to the rock , not strike it as he did the first time, but instead he struck the rock twice. Jesus was struck once at the cross for our sins, from now on we speak to Christ. The Hebrews came out of the sacrifice culture, and some looked wistfully at the time when they could atone for their sins yearly. The temple was still standing at the writing of this letter, and the pressure was high to go back to their old ways. After the cross there remains no more a sacrifice for sins, and this is why it says “To their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace.”

Hebrews 5, Jesus, the great High Priest forever, do not fall away!

Psalm 2:7 I will declare the decree: the Lord hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee.  

Psalm 110:4 The Lord hath sworn, and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.

Hebrews 4, the Sabbath-rest (“σαββατισμος”) for the People of God.

Psalm 95:11 “So I declared on oath in my anger,
    ‘They shall never enter my rest.’”

Genesis 2:2 By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work.

Psalm 95:7b Today, if only you would hear his voice,
8 “Do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah,[quarreling]
    as you did that day at Massah[testing] in the wilderness,

 

Hebrews 3, Jesus greater than Moses, we are of the household of Jesus.

Psalm 95:7b-11 Today, if only you would hear his voice,
8 “Do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah,
    as you did that day at Massah in the wilderness,
9 where your ancestors tested me;
    they tried me, though they had seen what I did.
10 For forty years I was angry with that generation;
    I said, ‘They are a people whose hearts go astray,
    and they have not known my ways.’
11 So I declared on oath in my anger,
    ‘They shall never enter my rest.’”

Hebrews 2, Don’t neglect your salvation.

Psalm 8:4 what is mankind that you are mindful of them,
    human beings that you care for them?

5 You have made them a little lower than the angels
    and crowned them with glory and honor.
6 You made them rulers over the works of your hands;
    you put everything under their feet:

Psalm 22:22 I will declare your name to my people;
    in the assembly I will praise you.

Isaiah 8:17 I will wait for the Lord,
    who is hiding his face from the descendants of Jacob.
I will put my trust in him.

18 Here am I, and the children the Lord has given me. We are signs and symbols in Israel from the Lord Almighty, who dwells on Mount Zion

 

Hebrews 1, the supremacy of Jesus Christ.

(This was my first teaching the adult Sunday School class some years ago, hence the original power point background.)

My guess is that Aquila and Priscilla taught Apollos, who wrote it down, and Paul added input, especially chapter 13.

Back to the beginning of the introduction:

This is all one sentence in Greek, and together with Genesis 1:1-4 and John 1:1-14 are some of the best opening paragraphs of all literature, and should be taught in all English classes at least once.

Psalm 2:7  I will proclaim the Lord’s decree: He said to me, “You are my son;
    today I have become your father.

Deuteronomy 32:43 (ESV) “Rejoice with him, O heavens;
    bow down to him, all gods, (Septuagint and Dead Sea scrolls, this part missing from the Masoretic text) for he avenges the blood of his children]
    and takes vengeance on his adversaries.
He repays those who hate him
    and cleanses his people’s land.”

Could it be that the Masoretic text has omitted this part of the verse to lessen the divine aspect of Jesus? Anyhow, the author reminds the Hebrews that the Dead Sea scrolls  and the Septuagint contain this phrase.