Jesus is our heavenly High Priest, and at least a quarter of the book of Hebrews is devoted to this glorious topic. The requirements and service of the temporary Levitical priesthood and the role of Israel's high priest, stands in stark contrast with Christ's infinitely superior qualifications as God's anointed High Priest and His eternal priesthood, which supersedes every aspect of its earthly counterpart.
The old system given to read more...
The eternal Son of God was sent from His heavenly home into a fallen world by God the Father, to be born as the perfect Son of Man. Though Mary was a virgin, chosen of God to be the mother of His only begotten Son, she was nonetheless a sinner and equally in need of a Saviour, as is every member of fallen humanity.
And so we read that when Christ came into the read more...
Everyone who has trusted Christ as Saviour has been set apart by God through what He did on the Cross of Calvary. Every Church-age believer has been cleansed of their sins, clothed in the righteousness of Christ, and consecrated to God, because Jesus became our substitutionary sacrifice for sin and breathed into us His own perfect, abundant, and eternal life. Every Christian is sanctified by God. Saved, by grace through faith in our Saviour, Jesus Christ.
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The Mosaic Law, the Feasts of the Lord, the different priestly ceremonies, and various sacrificial offerings, are described in Hebrews as a shadow of good things to come. Each of these elements fulfils an important function within the Old Covenant, but both individually and collectively they typified things that would be part of the New Covenant - they were a pale representation of what was to come - they were a foreshadowing of things to come.
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Christ's one offering of Himself on the Cross stands in stark contrast to the ongoing, perpetual, daily sacrifices that the Old Testament priests were required to carry out day by day in order to cover the sins of Israel. For by the one offering of Himself has the Lord Jesus Christ perfected for all time, all those who have trusted in the blood of the Lamb for the forgiveness of sins and the read more...
The writer to the Hebrews makes a direct reference back to the prophecy of Jeremiah 31 which God gave to Israel. For centuries they had done evil in the sight of the Lord. They had broken their covenant with Him and had followed after other gods. The northern kingdom had been defeated by Assyria and many in the southern kingdom had already been deported to Babylon. But God in His mercy promised to make a New Covenant with His people and instructed Jeremiah to read more...
It was the Holy Spirit Who caused the prophet Jeremiah to write of the New Covenant which God promised to make with Israel, His chosen and earthly people. And it is the Holy Spirit Who also caused the writer to the Hebrews to reiterate that same, precious promise to Israel and to build upon its truth when he wrote: "And the Holy Spirit also testifies, 'This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days. I will put My laws in their hearts, read more...
The Law was given to Moses for the people of Israel and part of that Law pertained to the Aaronic priesthood. There were laws that dealt with the sacrifices and the way they had to be offered. There were laws that covered those who could become part of the priesthood and laws that were connected with the duties that each member had to undertake.
There were rituals about washing and cleansing.. standards connected with clean read more...
"From the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour and about the ninth hour… Jesus yielded up His spirit and behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom, and the earth shook, and the rocks were split."
What a dramatic scene. Dark blackness covered the earth as our Saviour was cursed of God and became sin for us - and the brimming bowl of the wrath of God was poured read more...
Praise the Lord that it is by the merit of Christ’s shed blood that we can draw near to God and call Him Abba, Father. And in this verse, we are invited to come close to Him - to draw near to our Heavenly Father in full assurance that the price Christ paid for our sin at Calvary is paid in full and is entirely sufficient – amen!
It is because of what the Lord Jesus did at His incarnation and as the Word of God made flesh, read more...
As believers, we are given many instructions and encouragements on how to live godly in Christ Jesus. We are to draw near to the Lord with a true and undivided heart. It must be a broken and a contrite heart that has an unshakable, confident assurance of our faith which is anchored to the faithful promises of an unchanging God.
We are to seize hold the many precious promises that relate to our salvation by grace through faith in read more...
Fellowship in the life of a believer should be both vertical and horizontal. The importance of taking time to commune in private with our Heavenly Father cannot be sufficiently emphasised, but also our horizontal fellowship with our brothers and sisters in Christ is also of vital importance, and should not be ignored or dismissed.
We are in the world but we are not of the world. However, we are surrounded on every side by the lust read more...
The book of Hebrews was penned before the fall of Jerusalem in 70AD. For about 40 years after Christ's death, the Jewish nation (the Hebrews who rejected the Messiah and crucified the Lord of Glory) continued to participate in all the Jewish rites and rituals in the old covenant. They continued to make sacrificial offerings through the Levitical priesthood, even though Jesus was the full and final sacrificial offering, cutting the new covenant in His blood. They read more...
In the early years of Christianity when the Church was very young, it was very difficult for many Jews, who had placed their trust in the Lord Jesus as God's and Israel's promised Messiah, not to lapse back into pre-Cross Judaism and the legalistic rituals of the scribes and Pharisees. Most early Christians were Jews who had been born under the Law of Moses.
They heard Christ's message, accepted His Messianic claims, witnessed His read more...
The book of Hebrews is not for unbelievers, but for those that are maturing in the Christian faith... and it has been beloved by countless generations of believers. Hebrews contains a wealth of spiritual truths to help us in our spiritual growth, but we must never forget that it was originally written to early Jewish Christians who had to come to terms with the fact that 'in Christ' we are no longer under law but under grace.
As read more...
Following a series of sober warnings and solemn admonitions against legalistic practices which distort the gospel of grace, the writer to the Hebrews ends this section with an inspiring exhortation for all believers. He encourages to stand fast in the evil day, to patiently endure, and to carry out the will of God, in order to receive our promised reward at the Bema Seat of Christ.
Believers are encouraged to stand fast and not read more...
The burden of Hebrews is to keep on living our life by faith, and its target audience is not the unsaved, but believers who are encouraged to persevere despite the temptations and trials we inevitably face. Because we were justified by faith, we are to keep on walking by faith. We are to persevere and not to shrink back in fear or fall into the same attitude of unbelief we see in the times of Israel.
The first part of the chapter read more...
Throughout the book of Hebrews, faith in the Word of God and the superiority of Christ have been the author's focal point, together with a series of warnings against unfaithfulness, immaturity, falling short of God's perfect plan, or making the same mistakes that Israel made throughout their chequered history i.e. unbelief.
Although it was difficult for Jewish believers to break from centuries of tradition, the message of Hebrews read more...