Introduction to Hebrews — Chip Brogden

I will rejoice and be glad in it. Hello again everyone. This is Chip Brogdon coming to you with another edition of our weekly webcast. I'm streaming online at www .mwatchman .net and today is a very special day because we're beginning a brand new study in the book of Hebrews.

Introducing the Study of Hebrews

So if you would grab your Bible and turn with me to Hebrews chapter 9. We're going to read a few scriptures to give us an introduction to Hebrews and looking forward to this, Hebrews is about 13 chapters and so it's a pretty substantial book.

But in the other studies that we've done so far, we've studied Galatians and we've also studied the Messianic Psalms and it seems like much of the material that I've been sharing with you has come through the book of Hebrews.

And so it's been very tempting to spend a lot of time in Hebrews so we prayed about it and thought well why don't we go ahead and just do a study of Hebrews chapter by chapter and that would be a nice way to tie together all the other teachings that we've done.

So that's what we're starting on this week. Book of Hebrews, first of all before we read the scripture or get into the introduction of Hebrews, why don't we go to the Lord in prayer and ask him to bless this study and bless the time that we have together.

Thank you Father for another opportunity to study your word and to hear what your spirit is saying to us. I thank you for this book of Hebrews and I pray Lord that you will open our eyes, open our understanding, Lord purify our hearts and cleanse our minds from every prejudice and every preconceived idea and open us up to receive your spirit and life and your wisdom and your truth through these pages.

I thank you Lord that your words are living and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword and we get that from this letter to the Hebrews and so thank you Father for quickening your word to us and let it produce fruit in our lives, 30, 60 and 100 fold return.

I thank you for everyone that's listening and I pray Lord that you would give me and give us ears to hear what the spirit is saying to the churches. In Jesus name, Amen and Amen. Praise the Lord. The book of Hebrews, who was this book written to?

The Jewish-Christian Audience of Hebrews

It was written to Christians living in and around Jerusalem who had converted to Christianity from Judaism. Now this is completely different from the letters to the churches of Galatia and Corinth and Ephesus.

All of those letters were written to Gentiles, non-Jewish people who had received the Lord Jesus and confessed him as Lord. The book of Hebrews is different in that it is written to people who used to be Jews.

So these people were Torah observant. They kept the laws of Moses and they kept the festivals and the feasts and the rituals of circumcision. They were living in and around Jerusalem and in Judea. And so whereas Galatians is written to Christians who were being tempted to adopt some Jewish ways, if you'll go back and read that book of Galatians or better yet go back and listen to that teaching series that we did on Galatians, you'll find that that book was written to people who were not Jewish.

They were Gentiles and they had received the Lord and then some people from Jerusalem, some people from Judea who were Jewish came to the church there in the province of Galatia and said it's great that you received the Lord Jesus as your Savior.

Now if you really want to please God you need to keep the law of Moses also and that's what Paul was writing to correct that misunderstanding so that the Galatians would not put themselves in bondage to something that God had not called them to.

God has not called us to put ourselves in bondage to the old covenant law. So we're going to see that even more clearly here as we go through the book of Hebrews even more clearly because this book of Hebrews is written to people who were saved, who had received the Lord Jesus, accepted him as Messiah, but they were being tempted to go back and adopt some of the Jewish customs and some of the Jewish ways that they had been partially delivered from.

It was a very slow process to get them to understand that Christ fulfilled all of that in himself. In other words that Jesus is the Messiah and that he is the mediator of a new covenant. Those are the things we're going to learn here in the book of Hebrews and so it's very instructional for us whether we are outside of a Jewish ancestry or whether we are inside a Jewish ancestry.

Regardless in Christ all of that has been fulfilled and so Galatians is written, Ephesians is written, Corinthians, Philippians, all of those letters were written to Gentiles. The letter to Hebrews is unique in that it's written to Jews who had converted from Judaism and now they were Christians.

Now they were confessing the Lord Jesus. But because of persecution, because of suffering, they were being tempted to go back into Judaism. And that's what the writer of Hebrews is trying to prevent them from doing.

The writer of Hebrews is trying to encourage them to hold on to their faith in Christ and not go back to Judaism, not go back to the law of Moses. So that's why the book was written. Who was it written to?

We've discussed that. Who wrote it? Who wrote this book of Hebrews? No one knows for sure because it's one of the only letters in the Bible, one of the only books in the Bible that does not have a formal greeting.

In all of Paul's epistles he says this letter is from Paul called to be an apostle by Jesus Christ and he gives us kind of an introduction. Hebrews is different because Hebrews does not give us that kind of introduction.

It just begins to speak and you really don't know who is writing. It's never referenced in there. And so that has caused a great deal of speculation over the last 2000 years of who actually wrote the book of Hebrews.

Some people, some scholars have speculated that Apollos wrote it or Barnabas wrote it or Luke wrote it. But from the very beginning, this epistle, this letter, this book of Hebrews has been attributed to Paul.

The Debate Over Hebrews' Authorship

So let me tell you why I believe Paul actually wrote this letter and not Apollos, not Barnabas, because first of all, most of the early church fathers attributed it to Paul. He they believe that Paul wrote this in Hebrew and then Luke translated it into a very precise Greek.

It's a very good Greek, a very excellent Greek, very polished is is the is the way it was translated. Now, I don't speak Hebrew or Greek, but this is just what I learn as I study what other people have said, that it's believed Paul wrote this in Hebrew and that Luke later translated it into a very excellent form of Greek, a very polished Greek style.

So that's one reason why, because most of the early church attributed this letter to Paul. Now, it's quite different from any letter that Paul wrote. And when you understand who he's writing to in the circumstances, that makes total sense.

He's not writing to Gentiles, he is writing to Jews. And so he's actually writing to Jewish Christians. And so they have an understanding of the law and an understanding of Moses and of Israel that is going to be quite different from someone living in Galatia or someone living in Corinth.

These people lived in and around Jerusalem and in Judea. And so they had come out of Judaism and they were professing Christ. So that's one reason why it's the style is different. And for that reason, some people think Paul didn't write it.

But I believe Paul wrote it because Paul had the deepest insight as far as I'm concerned. He had the deepest insight into Christ as the fulfillment of the law. Now, it took the rest of the disciples. Paul was not one of the original 12 disciples.

It took the other disciples a little bit of time to really grasp the significance of the fact that Jesus is the is the author of a new covenant that's established upon better promises. So you see this conflict in the book of Acts where God is trying to to get this good news out of Jerusalem and out of Judea.

He's not he's trying to get it out of the the environment of Judaism and get it into the Gentiles, get it into the whole world. And it took persecution for the early church to actually scatter. They were they were trying to make this gospel, whether it was consciously or unconsciously.

Nevertheless, they were interpreting the gospel to be for the Jews. And it took the Holy Spirit scattering them and persecution, scattering them before people even began to preach the gospel to the Gentiles.

And then the Holy Spirit came upon the Gentiles. And and you saw it took several chapters there, lots of a lot of periods of time before the church could really understand, hey, this gospel of Jesus Christ, it's not just for the Jews.

It's for the Gentiles. Also, it's for everybody. It's not just for Jews. It's not just for those living in Jerusalem and Judea. Jesus said to go into all the world. And even when they went into all the world, they were just preaching Jesus to the Jews only that Jesus is the Messiah.

It took some disciples from Jerusalem to go to Antioch and begin to preach Jesus to somebody other than Jews to see that the Holy Spirit poured himself out upon them just as he did on the Jews. And then all of a sudden the church woke up and said, wow, you know what?

God's sending his Holy Spirit to people and they're not even Jews. They're confessing Jesus and God is filling them with his Holy Spirit and they're Gentiles. And it was Paul, I believe, who who grasped this more deeply than any other.

You see Peter there in in Galatians chapter two, that he withdrew himself and he didn't eat with the Gentiles when the Jews from Jerusalem came and even Barnabas, it says, was carried away. And they they they had this problem accepting and bringing in Gentiles into what had been up to that time a very Jewish gospel.

And Paul says, look, it's it's in Christ. There is no Jew and there is no Gentile. This gospel of Jesus Christ is for the Jew and for the Greek. It's for the the people living in Jerusalem. It's for Judea, Samaria and the uttermost parts of the earth.

And Paul got that more than anyone else. The others, it took him a while to get there. I think eventually God was able to show them. I remember in in Acts, when Peter was there praying on the rooftop and the sheep was let down from heaven with all kinds of unclean animals in it, and a voice came to Peter and said, get up, Peter, kill and eat.

And Peter said, not so, Lord. I've never eaten anything that was unclean. And he's referring back to the Hoseaic law. And God is trying to tell him, look, Peter, if I say something is clean, don't say it's unclean.

If I'm telling you that these Gentiles are OK and I receive them and accept them, then who are you to say that they are unclean? That was the lesson that that Peter had to learn. And it took it seems like it took them a long time.

But Paul, on the other hand, he really got that revelation of Christ, of being Lord of all, not just a Jewish Messiah, but the savior of the whole world and a light to the Gentiles. And if you look in the Old Testament, you'll see that this Messiah, this Jesus who is prophesied, he is prophesied as a light to the Gentiles, not just a Jewish savior, not just a Jewish Messiah, but a light to the Gentiles, a light to the nations.

All of these prophecies, certainly it's inclusive of Israel, but it's not exclusive of everybody else. It is inclusive, inclusive of all nations and all people and all tongues. So praise the Lord. That's one reason why I believe that Paul wrote this, because I don't think very many others had the depth of the revelation and the insight into the fact that Christ fulfilled all of the law of Moses, as is revealed through Paul and his other letters.

And this letter of Hebrews is right up there as far as the revelation insight. It sounds just like Paul. Now, you can disagree about who wrote it and it's not going to take away from the book, but I just think it's interesting that that that I believe Paul wrote it.

I think it's interesting because the other reason is it's anonymous. He doesn't put his name on there. And why is that? That sounds just like something Paul would do, because Paul was not a very popular person back in Jerusalem and in Judea.

He was his name was not not a name that people would associate with something good. So if Paul wanted to write something to them, it makes sense that he wouldn't sign his name to it. And then maybe they would read it and they would listen to it if they saw that if he wrote that letter, my brain's going faster than my mouth can keep up.

If he wrote this letter the way he wrote every other letter and said this letter from Paul called to be an apostle. You know what? They probably tear it up and throw it away that because Paul just didn't have a good reputation back home in Jerusalem.

That's unfortunate. But that's that's just the way it was. So I'm sure I believe Paul wrote it. I don't believe anyone else could have wrote it. And with the depth of wisdom and revelation equal to Paul.

And I don't believe that anyone else writing it would have left their name off of it. There was no reason not to sign it. But Paul, certainly if he signed it, it would hurt people. It would hurt the chances of people reading the letter.

So that's why I believe Paul wrote it simply because he didn't sign his name to it. To me, that sounds just like something that Paul would do. Now, whether you accept that or not is beside the point. But I think it's interesting to look at.

Hebrews' Date and Historical Setting

Now, when was this epistle of Hebrews written? When was it written? And everyone I've consulted as far as Bible scholars, they all say that it was written prior to the destruction of Jerusalem, which puts it in A .D. between A .D. 60 and prior to A .D. 70.

Jerusalem was destroyed by Titus, the Roman centurion or the Roman leader in A .D. 70. So the general consensus is that this letter had to have been written before that time because once Jerusalem was destroyed, the Jews were scattered.

We note also, why don't you, I told you to turn to Hebrews 9. But if you turn to Hebrews 13 real quick, we're going to get a couple of clues here about when the book was written. And it's it's very critical, at least that we frame the context here.

And this also adds to our belief as to why we think Paul wrote the letter right here in verse 23. And the very back of the book, Hebrews 13, verse 23, says, Know that our brother Timothy has been set free with whom I shall see you.

If he comes shortly, greet all those who rule over you and all the saints, those from Italy greet you. So we find out two things here. First of all, whoever wrote this was in Italy, more than likely was in Rome.

And the second thing we know is that they were with Timothy. So again, that leads us to believe and to conclude, along with most people, that Paul is the one who wrote this letter. And he simply didn't sign his name to it because no one would read it if he did.

No one in Jerusalem, that is. So it's very interesting. The book was written to encourage people who had converted from Judaism to stay fast, to stand fast with their their faith in Christ and not fall away, not go back to Judaism.

And if you believe, as most scholars do, if you're in agreement that this letter was written prior to the destruction of Jerusalem, that would put it possibly right about the time that James was killed.

Now, James was was killed. He was executed around A .D. 62. And so the the belief is that this letter was written to encourage the church after James, the elder, had had been killed because at that point they were probably afraid of persecution.

Certainly they were mourning the loss of their overseer and their shepherd, James. So if you take all those facts and you put them together, then what you have is this. Paul is in Rome. He's in prison and he hears that James has been executed.

And so he writes this letter and he sends it to encourage the church in Jerusalem. He doesn't sign his name to it because he wants to make sure that people will read it and not just throw it away because it has his name on it.

And the purpose that he wrote the letter was to encourage them to stand fast in their faith, to hold on to Christ and not be tempted to go back and embrace Judaism out of fear for whatever persecution or suffering may be coming their way.

So if you take all this facts and you put them together, it makes it a very interesting background in which to study the book of Hebrews. So praise the Lord. Now, there are three main points, three key points that we're going to discuss and keep in mind as we study the book of Hebrews.

Three Central Claims About Jesus in Hebrews

Three main points. And if you're taking notes, I would write these down. Number one, that Jesus is our high priest. That's number one. Keep in mind that this letter was written to people who were Jewish.

They lived in Jerusalem. And so more than any other letter in the Bible, it's going to be full of references to Jewish custom, Jewish religion, Jewish tradition, Jewish ritual. It's filled with references to the Old Testament, to the law, to the tabernacle, to the high priest, to the sacrifices.

And more than any other book in the New Testament, it helps us to rightly divide the Old Testament and understand the old covenant, the law, the books of Moses, the priesthood. All of these things are explained for us in great detail here in Hebrews.

And there are three things that Hebrews is going to teach us. So keep these three points in mind. I just shared number one, Jesus is our high priest. Number two, Jesus is the final sacrifice. Jesus is the final sacrifice.

And number three, Jesus is the mediator of a new covenant. So I'll read through them again. Number one, Jesus is our high priest. Number two, Jesus is the final sacrifice. And number three, Jesus is the mediator of a new covenant.

Hebrews 9 and the Fulfillment of the Old Covenant

Now, we'll see all three demonstrated throughout the book of Hebrews. That's the main three points we need to get. But you can see all three of them in one key passage here. You'll turn back to Hebrews nine and look in verse eleven.

I'll begin reading in verse eleven of Hebrews nine. But Christ came as high priest of the good things to come. And by the way, I'm reading from the New King James Version because it's easier to understand.

So Hebrews nine eleven. Christ came as high priest of the good things to come with the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is not of this creation, not with the blood of goats and calves, but with his own blood, he entered the most holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.

For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling the unclean sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God.

And for this reason, he is the mediator of a new covenant by means of death for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant that those who were called may receive the promise of the internal inheritance.

Praise the Lord. Now, you've got all three points here being summed up in this one passage. And so I think this would be your key passage to help you interpret and explain the rest of Hebrews. Now, as you go through the book of Hebrews and I encourage you to read through the book.

It's only 13 chapters and the chapters are not very long. So you could probably read through the book of Hebrews in about half an hour, OK, or take an hour and read it very slowly. Point is, it doesn't take long to read through the whole letter.

The Greater New Covenant in Hebrews

And what you will see is all manner of contrast and comparison. You're contrasting the old with the new. You're contrasting the way it used to be with the way it is now. And that's all of these comparisons are being made and words are being used, such as greater, more perfect once and for all.

And so the argument throughout the book is that there is a greater, more enduring covenant testament that has been established by God through Jesus Christ that far surpasses everything that he established in Moses.

And folks, once you grasp this, once you get into the spirit of this letter, you're only left with two choices. You have to either embrace what it's saying and go on into Christ or you have to reject what it's saying and stay in the Old Testament and put yourself in bondage to the law of Moses.

There is no middle ground. And that's why for the life of me, I cannot understand why so many people want to go back and insist that we live under the law, that we live under the commandments, that we live underneath the Torah, that we say Yeshua and Yahweh.

And we have to learn all these Hebrew terms. And listen, I've already made the point, so I'm not going to make it again, that we do need to understand and we need to be able to. It's good to study those things and to understand them.

But there's only so much you can apply to now. Jesus is establishing. He has established a church, a covenant that far surpasses everything that was established under Moses. They were all fulfilled in himself.

And right here is three examples. First of all, Jesus is our high priest. We don't have to elect high priests. We don't have to ask God to appoint us a high priest to go confess to because Jesus is our high priest.

Second, Jesus is the final sacrifice. We don't have to get up every morning, go offer a sacrifice, go find a priest, offer a sacrifice for our sins, and then at night do the same thing. And then every so often at different points of the year, offer more sacrifices.

That was the whole Old Testament concept. According to Hebrews, that passed away and Jesus is the final sacrifice. Not because he's offering up goats and bulls and calves for us. Not because he's sprinkling the blood of animals on everything.

All of those were types and shadows of the Old Testament, folks. Now, Jesus is the substance and says he once and for all, he went in and he offered up himself as the final sacrifice. It's very, very plain.

Number three, Jesus is the mediator of a new covenant. And you're going to see as you study the book of Hebrews that the reason for a new covenant is because the old covenant was not perfect. The old covenant was not even intended to be permanent.

It was only a temporary thing, Paul says, that was supposed to keep us in guardianship to teach us and lead us to Jesus, who would be the fulfillment. And so Hebrews says that Jesus is the mediator of a new covenant, which is established upon better promises.

It is a heavenly covenant. It is a spiritual covenant. It's not an earthly covenant. It's not a man covenant. It's not the prophet Moses. It is Jesus, more than a prophet, Jesus Christ, the son of God, the very image of the invisible God who himself has established this covenant.

Freedom From the Law Through Christ

And so scripture makes its own point. And so it's really not necessary for me, I don't think, to engage these people who write into me and say, well, what about the old covenant? And what about the Sabbath?

And what about what about what about? Have you ever read the book of Hebrews? That's my first question. Have you ever read the book of Galatians? Have you ever read the book of Romans? Because I'm not saying that Old Testament doesn't exist.

It's there and we're supposed to learn something from that. But what you learn from it is not that we're supposed to put ourselves back back underneath it. That was the whole problem with the Galatians.

They were trying to submit themselves to something God had not told them to submit to. If you're submitted to Christ, then you you are fulfilling every requirement that God has, period. He's not requiring sacrifices from you.

He's not requiring you to obey the Torah. He's not requiring you to offer up sacrifices to keep religious festivals. Paul says all of that, all that was contained in Judaism, all that was contained in the law of Moses, their shadows, their types, their symbols.

But all of these things have been fulfilled in Christ. And if you are in him, you are free from the curse of the law. That that is the message of the New Testament, folks, that in him, in Christ, we have been set free from the curse of the law.

The curse of the law is not the curses for disobedience is the law itself. The law itself was a curse because we could not keep the law. And that's exactly why Jesus came to establish a new covenant based upon his sacrifice, not on our sacrifice, not on our good works, but on his one work of offering up himself as a living sacrifice as the final sacrifice.

Now, he is our high priest. He's our sacrifice. And he is the mediator, the creator of a new covenant. And the whole point, folks, is that we live in this new covenant. We live in the new. We need to understand the old, but we need to thank God that we're delivered from the old and we are established in the new.

The Heavenly Jerusalem and New Creation

It is not the earthly Jerusalem that we need to be concerned with. Friends, I'm sorry to tell you it is the heavenly Jerusalem is the Jerusalem from above that needs to get you excited. It's the new Jerusalem, not the old Jerusalem.

We are tracing our ancestry, not to some earthly lineage, but right back to Christ. And he is the head of this second race, this new race of believers. If anyone is in Christ, he's a new creation. Old things are passed away.

All things are become new. And that includes the old covenant. It includes Torah. It includes the law of Moses, the books of Moses. They are there for a purpose. And we need to understand it. We can we can certainly get something out of it, but we need to be just as familiar with the new covenant.

And we need to understand how to live and breathe and move in this new covenant because it's a better covenant established upon better promises. Praise the Lord. So I'm excited to study this book of Hebrews with you.

And I'm looking forward to the to the chapters to come. I hope you'll tune in and we'll study them with me. And then I pray that God will open your eyes to see it just as clearly as possible so that you can be encouraged in it and you can be set free from all this religious garbage.

Praise the Lord. Hallelujah. This is Chip Brogdon streaming online at www .watchman .net. Thanks so much for listening. We'll start with chapter one next week and look forward to seeing you there. God bless you.