“IS
THE BOOK OF HEBREWS
WRITTEN TO CHRISTIANS?”
If Paul is
writing to backslidden Christians, all he
has to do is to refer them to his other books he has written to the
churches,
where there is more than enough correction for sins and sin. Take your
pick –
in the Corinthian church there’s lust, idolatry, fornication,
tempting,
murmuring and factions within the church. If their sin was drifting
away from
their love of Jesus, we have the epistle to the Ephesians. If
they were
going back to weak and beggarly elements, there is the book to the Galatians.
If they needed a refresher on imputed righteousness, they had the book
of Romans.
If they were being beset with gnostic knowledge, they had the book of Colossians.
Liars, evil beasts, slow bellies, heresies, sound doctrine? There’s the
book of
Titus. Fearful of persecution? Encouragement about being caught
up to
meet the Lord in the air? There’s 1&2 Thessalonians. All
these books
were written before his epistle to the Hebrews.
Before
Christ went to the cross, the Hebrews to which Paul writes,
believed Christ was continuously fulfilling the law on their
behalf, and
they were more than happy attending the temple for animal blood
sacrifices to cover their sins. All this was with Christ’s
endorsement.
Yes, they believed that Christ was their Messiah and that he would
eventually
establish some sort of earthly kingdom. As to the how, when, where or
why, they
weren’t quite sure.
But after
30 years, it is now late in the 60’s, around 65-68AD, when
Paul writes to them, things hadn’t much changed. In fact, persecution
from the
Romans was on the increase as Emperor Nero was burning the Christians.
They
were feeling mightily insecure and unsafe, because although they
themselves
weren’t Christians, they had a lot of sympathy for them. They liked
Paul and
the other Christians as they were friendly, nice and welcoming.
They were
starting to question whether Christ was the Messiah at all,
and have serious doubts as to his promises. Their hearts began to grow
cold to
the idea of Christ. In fact, they were becoming like the many who
walked away
when Jesus was alive on earth
(John 6:66).
They were
thinking about going back under Moses, where at least there
was security with the animal sacrifices for sin. But they were being
warned by
Paul that this type of on-going and daily blood atoning for sin had
finished.
They now had to trust on the shed blood of Christ for eternal security.
Should
they fully retreat back to trying to fulfil the law themselves and
atone for
their sins with animal blood, or should they take the ‘big leap of
faith’ and
become Christians as Paul urges them to do. They were afraid! To become
a
Christian and be burned at the stake. THIS IS THE THEME OF THE BOOK
OF
HEBREWS.
There are THREE
groups mentioned in the book of Hebrews:
God is
light (1John 1:5) and when God came to Abraham, the first Hebrew,
and his descendants the Hebrews, they were ENLIGHTENED (Heb
6:4). The
Hebrews first brought the light of God into a dark world, and every
time Aaron
lit the lamps in the temple (Exodus 30:8) he was demonstrating this.
When
Christ appears on earth as the Messiah, he is the actual physical
brightness of God’s glory (Heb 1:3), and is the light of the world
(John 19).
Like a ‘human spiritual light bulb’, Christ was the illumination (the
illuminator
or the one who lights up) to the world, such that, “the people which
sat in
darkness saw a great light...” (Matt 4:16). The disciples of the
Messiah were ILLUMINATED
(Heb 10:32), being told “Ye are the light of the world” and “…let
your
light so shine before men…” (Matt5:14,16)
In Hebrews, Paul urges these illuminated Messianic disciples to take another step forward and trust the Lord Jesus Christ as their Saviour and become CHRISTIANS. Like being on 3rd base in a baseball game, Paul urges these unsaved believers in the Messiah to run home into Jesus Christ the Saviour.
Harley Hitchcock
**** ****
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