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Each volume combines verse-by-verse commentary, charts, maps, photos, key terms, and background articles with practical application. The newly updated volumes now include parallel presentations of the NLT and NASB before each section. This series is a must-have for pastors, teachers, and anyone else who is seeking a deeply practical resource for exploring God’s Word.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781496410634 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Tyndale House Publishers |
| Publication date: | 05/09/2017 |
| Series: | Swindoll's Living Insights New Testament Commentary , #12 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 256 |
| Sales rank: | 207,575 |
| File size: | 3 MB |
Read an Excerpt
Swindoll's Living Insights
New Testament Commentary, Volume 12
By Charles R. Swindoll
Tyndale House Publishers
Copyright © 2017 Charles R. Swindoll, Inc.All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4143-9377-3
CHAPTER 1
CHRIST IS SUPERIOR IN HIS PERSON (HEBREWS 1:1–4:16)
The central theme of the book of Hebrews is simple but powerful: Christ is superior in His person and work. Throughout the book, the author develops this theme in vivid detail. In this first section, 1:1–4:16, the author demonstrates that Christ is superior in His person. As the Godman, Jesus Christ is greater than all the prophets of old, being perfect not only in His prophesying but also perfect in His person (1:1–3). He is also greater than the angels (chapters 1–2), greater than Moses and Joshua (chapters 3–4), and even greater than the Law and its priesthood (chapter 4).
The application of Christ's superior personhood is clear. With Christ standing at the pinnacle of perfection, to defect from Him would be to exchange Him who is greatest for things that are lesser. Because Jesus Christ is better than all things, we should take care not to drift away from Him or the gospel. As the author asserts in the climax of this section: "Since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. ... Let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need" (4:14, 16).
What happens when E. F. Hutton talks? Well, if you're over fifty and watched TV in the 1970s, you know the answer: "When E. F. Hutton talks, people listen." That television ad for a once-prominent financial advising firm has stuck with me for decades — long after the company itself stopped talking!
I never watched that ad without my mind jumping to another wellknown group that thrived thousands of years before anybody heard of E. F. Hutton. They weren't a financial group peddling products or services. They were Spirit-empowered prophets, and when God's prophets spoke, God's people listened. They had clout because when they spoke, it was as if they were speaking with the very breath of God. Their words were God's words. However, though every prophet's words were worthy of obedience, not a single prophet of God was worthy of worship.
Drawing on the great regard the Hebrew people had for the major means of revelation in the Old Testament, the prophets and angels, the author of Hebrews compares these celebrated earthly and heavenly beings with God's Final Word and Messenger, Jesus Christ. As powerful and significant as those holy people and holy angels were, they were inferior to the Son of God. He alone is God's Last Word, superior in His person to God's previous messengers and ministers — whether human or angelic. Why? Because Jesus is the Word incarnate — fully human and fully divine — who occupies a superior place over all things.
— 1:1 —
In the first century, the apostle Peter described the ministry of the Old Testament prophets, noting that "no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God" (2 Pet. 1:21). For centuries leading up to Peter's simple summary of the process of divine inspiration, a long line of prophets spoke and wrote God's words under the supernatural guidance of the Spirit. Their words were "inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness" (2 Tim. 3:16). These prophets issued warnings and rebukes, which flew off their lips like arrows from a bow to strike at the hearts of their hearers.
The names of these servants of God endowed with the prophetic gift reads like a roll call from the Bible's Who's Who list: Elijah and Elisha ... Isaiah and Jeremiah ... Daniel and Jonah ... Malachi and John the Baptist. The prophet was God's representative and spokesperson-saying, doing, and writing down what God wanted said, done, and written. It never took them long to win a hearing as they stood up-often standing alone-to speak the truth. They were never very easy to listen to, especially by those who had drifted far from God. But as the sole bearers of God's messages to humankind, they couldn't be ignored.
Though English translations of Hebrews 1:1 usually begin with "God," the original Greek text actually begins, "In many portions and in many ways ..." For the sake of emphasis, the author points out the varied manner in which God's messages were delivered "long ago." If we flip through the pages of the Old Testament, we see what he meant. God spoke through dreams (Gen. 37:5), visions (Isa. 1:1), angels (Zech. 1:9), voices (1 Sam. 3:4), writing (Dan 5:5), and even Balaam's donkey (Num. 22:28)!
Not only did the messages from God come in various ways, but they also came at various times rather than all at once. Though all the messages were accurate, they were also incomplete. God always has more He can say. This reminds me of my own childhood. I got a lot of information from my parents over the course of many years — fragmentary, partial, incomplete. Sometimes this information would be in the form of instruction or discipline or living examples to follow. Sometimes it would come in conversations over supper, or alone with my father, or over the telephone, or through a handwritten note. Of course, we can all remember profound, wordless messages that came to us from our mothers with "that look." Those messages came to me continually throughout childhood and into adolescence-all for progressively building me up toward maturity as an adult.
This experience of childhood is similar to the ministry of the prophets in the Old Testament. Their messages were accurate and contributed to the growing body of revelation from God to His people. Like an instrument played in the hands of a master musician, the prophet conveyed the notes God wanted to communicate. Together, the individual prophets whose writings were gathered in the Old Testament canon formed a symphonic harmony of revelation building up toward a great crescendo, when the final movement of God's revelation would be unveiled: the Lord Jesus Christ.
— 1:2-4 —
"Long ago" versus "these last days" — the contrast between the prophetic anticipation of the Old Testament and the fulfillment of the new covenant in Christ is immediately highlighted in Hebrews 1:1 and 2. Through the prophets, God spoke "long ago" (1:1). But now He has spoken "in these last days" (1:2). Literally, the Greek says, "in the last of these days"; that is, at the culminating moment when He had spoken through the prophets. The point is that God's message of the Old Testament prophets has found its climax and supreme expression through the person and work of the Son (1:2).
Let me modify my musical metaphor a little to indicate the profundity of God's ultimate revelation through Christ. It's not simply that the symphony of revelation culminated in a moving climax, like the booming cannons of Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture. Rather, the composer and conductor Himself stepped onto the stage and became the soloist, summing up in His performance all the themes, motifs, and melodies of everything that came before.
In other words, Christ is superior in His person and work. And He is the final and fullest expression of God's message and word to all humankind. Not that the old means and manner of speaking to His people were defective or deficient. They were great. But Christ is Greatness. The prophets' messages from the Lord were perfect. Jesus is Perfection. The seers of old were the instruments. The Son is the Music. He is the One to whom, for whom, through whom, and about whom all the musicians had been playing.
In what follows in the argument of Hebrews, the centrality of Christ in God's work of revelation depends on the superiority of Christ in His person and work. To underscore this point, the author of Hebrews opens his sermon-like letter with seven strong statements that demonstrate the superiority of the Son as God's Word to all things on heaven and earth, visible and invisible.
First, the Son rightly rules as heir of all things (Heb. 1:2). And "all things" means all things. Nothing stands outside that circle. God had given a share of the responsibility to rule over this created realm to Adam and Eve as His image-bearers (Gen. 1:26-28). But when those first humans fell into sin, they forfeited their right to rule as heirs of God's creation (Gen. 3). However, when the divine Son took on humanity, He became the "last Adam" (1 Cor. 15:45) — Jesus Christ. All that Adam lost has been restored to Him.
Second, the Son created the universe of time and space (Heb. 1:2). The Greek term translated as "world" (aion [165]) literally means "ages." It's the word from which we get the term "eons." It includes "the periods of time through which the created order exists." As the perfect human, Jesus is ruler over the created realm; and as the perfect Creator, He is the sovereign ruler over all creation — past, present, and future. Paul also clarifies Christ's role as Creator in his writings: "For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities — all things have been created through Him and for Him" (Col. 1:16). Similarly, the apostle John opens his Gospel with this same majestic truth: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being" (John 1:1-3).
Third, the Son brilliantly radiates God's glory (Heb. 1:3). The noun "radiance" (apaugasma [541]) refers to "brightness from a source." As the rays of the sun continually convey light, heat, and energy as long as the flaming orb continues to burn, the Son of God eternally conveys the glory, majesty, and power of God from eternity past to eternity future. No prophet, however holy or wise, could claim that. They were merely reflectors of God's glorious light. The Son is the light itself.
Fourth, the Son exactly represents God's nature (Heb. 1:3). The four words that make up this Greek phrase are packed with profound theological significance. This clause basically asserts that the Son shares in everything that God is in His divine nature. The word translated "exact representation" is a figurative use of the noun charakter [5481], a word used in reference to "an engraved character or impress made by a die or seal," like the minted impression on coins. The Son is no cheap knockoff of deity, no inferior reproduction of a superior original. The term for "nature" is hypostasis [5287], referring to the authentic being of God. The Son is therefore "completely the same in his being as the Father," though Father and Son are distinct persons. The Father is not the Son, and the Son is not the Father, but everything the Father is, the Son is too.
Fifth, the Son powerfully upholds all things by His word (Heb. 1:3). You may have seen the image of the god Atlas holding the globe on his back and shoulders, straining under the weight, his bulging muscles beading with sweat. Banish that image from your mind! The Son of God upholds not just this world but also the entire universe. And He sustains this creation not by physical strength but by His almighty word. The Son Himself has the power to sustain through His very word.
Sixth, the Son made perfect purification for sins (Heb. 1:3). The first Adam undid humanity by his disobedience, plunging this world into darkness, death, sin, and suffering. But the last Adam, Jesus Christ, through His voluntary suffering and death on the cross, drove out the darkness and banished death. What had been poisoned by sin was cured by the blood of Christ — forever, once for all, never to be repeated. As the author of Hebrews will explain throughout, neither earthly humans nor heavenly angels could have accomplished this.
Finally, the Son sat down at the right hand of Majesty (Heb. 1:3). The book of Revelation describes a scene in the heavenly throne room where humans and angels — indeed "every created thing which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and on the sea" (Rev. 5:13) — worship God as Creator and Redeemer. No exalted saint or powerful angel can stand at the right hand of the Father to receive praise and glory that is due only to the divine Majesty. But the exalted Son, Jesus Christ, the perfect Lamb of God, is worthy to sit in this place of glory and receive the worship of all creation: "To Him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb, be blessing and honor and glory and dominion forever and ever" (Rev. 5:13).
Seated in the most exalted position in the universe, Jesus is superior in His person and work over all things. This includes "the angels" (Heb. 1:4) — those spiritual creatures fashioned by God through the Son to be ministers and servants (1:7). When the Son took on a human nature, endured death for sin, rose from the dead victorious, and ascended into heaven, He inherited a name that no angel had the right to bear (1:4). What name was this? As a son bears the name of his father, so the Son of God would bear the name of God, the divine name YHWH, often translated kyrios [2962] in the Greek translation of the Old Testament. Paul also teaches this in Philippians 2:9-11, where he writes, "God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."
— 1:5-6 —
Nowhere in the Bible do we have such a sustained, thorough treatment on angels as we do in Hebrews 1–2. In fact, nowhere do we even have a clear account of when they were created! Genesis 1–2 is silent on the creation of angelic beings, though we know that immediately after the fall of Adam and Eve, God stationed angelic cherubim east of the Garden of Eden to guard the entrance to Paradise (Gen. 3:24). So sometime before Genesis 3, God created the angels.
As powerful creations of God, angels conduct various services for the Lord. They carry His messages and perform His will among us — warning, protecting, helping, and rescuing. These supernatural creatures render service from heaven to earth. They aren't a pantheon of "mini-gods" worthy of veneration; they are God's servants who, like us, render worship to Him alone (Rev. 5:13). Nor are they cosmic go-betweens who pass messages for us from earth to heaven. Rather, they carry God's messages from heaven to earth. But as remarkable as angels are, their blazing light dims in the glorious blast of pure radiance that is the Son of God. Without denigrating the vital role of angels in the service of God, the writer of Hebrews puts them in their place in comparison with the person and the work of the Son.
To establish the superiority of the Son to angels, the author of Hebrews skillfully builds his case from a string of Old Testament passages. Remember that many of his Jewish audience were tempted to surrender their new faith in the Messiah to the old dictates of the synagogue, where the Old Testament Scriptures would have been held in highest regard. By showing from those very same Scriptures that the Messiah was superior to all things on heaven and earth, the author would have moved his audience toward a stronger commitment to their Lord and Savior, Jesus.
He begins by citing two lines rich with prophetic import — especially related to the coming Messiah, the son of David. Psalm 2 and Psalm 89 were both key texts for the Old Testament anticipation of the future Davidic king. The first of these two psalms begins:
Why are the nations in an uproar
And the peoples devising a vain thing?
The kings of the earth take their stand
And the rulers take counsel together
Against the Lord and against His Anointed. (Ps. 2:1-2)
The Hebrew word mashiyach [H4899] and the Greek equivalent christos [5547] both mean "anointed one," which could refer to any person anointed in consecration to a sacred office: a prophet (1 Kgs. 19:16), a priest (Exod. 40:15), or a king (1 Sam. 10:1). In the case of Psalm 2:2, God's "Anointed" is a reference to the Davidic king, against whom the nations and rulers of the earth take a stand. The author of Hebrews solidifies the Messianic identification by citing Psalm 89:26-27, in which God declares, "He will cry to Me, 'You are my Father, my God, and the rock of my salvation.' I also shall make him My firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth."
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Swindoll's Living Insights by Charles R. Swindoll. Copyright © 2017 Charles R. Swindoll, Inc.. Excerpted by permission of Tyndale House Publishers.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
Contents
CONTENTS,Author's Preface, v,
The Strong's Numbering System, vii,
Introduction, 3,
Christ Is Superior in His Person (Hebrews 1:1–4:16), 11,
The Last Word ... Worthy of Worship (Hebrews 1:1-14), 12,
Don't Neglect So Great a Salvation! (Hebrews 2:1-4), 24,
Subjection ... Suffering ... and Sanctification (Hebrews 2:5-18), 34,
Messiah, Moses, and Me (Hebrews 3:1-6), 44,
Beware of a Hard Heart! (Hebrews 3:7-19), 52,
Stop Churning and Start Resting (Hebrews 4:1-11), 59,
Spiritual Surgery by a Sympathetic Surgeon (Hebrews 4:12-16), 67,
Christ Is Superior as Our High Priest (Hebrews 5:1–10:39), 75,
God's Son — Our Priest (Hebrews 5:1-10), 76,
The Peril of Failing to Thrive (Hebrews 5:11-6:8), 82,
The Brighter Side (Hebrews 6:9-20), 95,
Once More ... Melchizedek (Hebrews 7:1-17), 103,
A Perfect and Permanent Priesthood (Hebrews 7:18-28), 113,
Christ's Covenant ... New, Never Obsolete (Hebrews 8:1-13), 120,
May I Speak to Your Conscience, Please? (Hebrews 9:1-14), 129,
Signed, Sealed, Delivered ... in Blood (Hebrews 9:15-28), 137,
One for All, Once for All, Free for All (Hebrews 10:1-18), 145,
Enter ... but Come Clean (Hebrews 10:19-39), 153,
Christ Is Superior for Pressing On (Hebrews 11:1–13:25), 165,
Common People of Uncommon Faith (Hebrews 11:1-7), 166,
Faithful Walks Worth Following (Hebrews 11:8-22), 173,
Triumphs and Tragedies of the Faithful (Hebrews 11:23-40), 182,
Endurance and Discipline (Hebrews 12:1-13), 191,
Watch Out for Worldliness! (Hebrews 12:14-29), 201,
Commitment and Contentment (Hebrews 13:1-7), 211,
Changeless Truths in a Shifting World (Hebrews 13:8-17), 218,
Equipped to Do His Will (Hebrews 13:18-25), 225,
Endnotes, 235,