The Epistle to the Hebrews Written

An unknown author writes to Jewish Christians tempted to abandon their faith and return to Judaism. The letter argues Christ's superiority over angels, Moses, Aaron, and the entire old covenant sacrificial system.

Hebrews provides the most detailed theology of Christ's priesthood and the relationship between old and new covenants. Its faith hall of fame (chapter 11) inspires believers of every generation.

Key Verses

Background

Sometime around 67–69 AD, an unknown author — the identity of the writer has been debated since the second century, with Apollos, Barnabas, Priscilla, and Luke among the suggested candidates — composed an extraordinary theological treatise addressed to Jewish Christians facing a crisis of faith. These believers, possibly in Rome or perhaps Jerusalem, were experiencing significant pressure to abandon their allegiance to Jesus and return to the safety and familiarity of traditional Judaism. The destruction of Jerusalem may already have been underway or imminent, and the community had already suffered persecution, public shame, and the plundering of their property. The temptation to drift back to the old covenant structures was powerful.

The Event

The Epistle to the Hebrews is the New Testament's most sustained argument for the absolute supremacy of Christ and the new covenant. The author proceeds through a series of carefully constructed comparisons, each demonstrating Christ's superiority: greater than the angels through whom the law was delivered; greater than Moses the servant of God's house, because Christ is the Son over God's house; greater than Aaron and the entire Aaronic priesthood, because Christ is a priest after the order of Melchizedek — a royal priesthood untied to the Levitical system, whose priesthood is eternal rather than hereditary. The Temple sacrifices, the author argues, were always shadows of the true — they could never actually cleanse the conscience, only Christ's once-for-all sacrifice could do that. The climax of the argument comes in the "faith hall of fame" of chapter 11, which rehearses the entire sweep of the Old Testament as a story of faith exercised in the face of unseen promises, and chapter 12's vision of the great cloud of witnesses urging the community to run with endurance the race set before them.

Theological Significance

Hebrews is the most thoroughgoing treatment of the relationship between the old and new covenants in the New Testament, and its argument — that the old covenant was always pointing toward its own fulfillment in Christ — provided the framework within which subsequent Christian theology has interpreted the Old Testament. Its portrayal of Christ as the great High Priest who sympathizes with human weakness because he has been tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin, has given generations of believers both a foundation for confidence in approaching God and a richly human picture of the interceding Christ. The famous definition of faith as "confidence in what we hope for, the proof of things we cannot see" remains the most quoted definition of faith in Christian literature.