Unlocking Hebrews: Why This Book Matters for Your Faith | Insights with George Guthrie

In this episode of Exploring the Language of Scripture, Daniel Mikkelsen sits down with George H. Guthrie, a leading New Testament scholar and Professor at Regent College, Vancouver, to uncover the profound significance of the Book of Hebrews for believers today.

Together, they explore how Hebrews presents Jesus as the ultimate High Priest, bridging the Old and New Testaments, and offering hope, perseverance, and clarity for the Christian life. From the transformative reality of the Incarnation to the new covenant and its implications, this episode delves deep into the theology and practical applications of Hebrews.

Whether you’re a student of Scripture, passionate about theology, or seeking ways to strengthen your faith, this conversation will inspire you to see Jesus with fresh clarity and live a life that glorifies Him.

Don’t Miss the Next Episode:

Our next episode features a conversation with Alex Muir on the theme of consolation in Paul, exploring how Paul offers hope and encouragement in the face of suffering.

Chapters:

00:00 - Introduction
02:08 - Introducing George H. Guthrie
04:48 - How George Got Into Greek
07:39 - Two Examples Illustrate the Usefulness of Greek
14:54 - The Incarnation and Its Transformative Significance
16:17 - Why George Loves Hebrews So Much
21:07 - Orientation to Reading Hebrews for Improved Understanding
26:26 - The Key Themes of Hebrews
28:29 - Understanding Jesus' Superiority Over Angels in Hebrews
34:30 - The Rest of God and the Word’s Power in Hebrews
42:36 - Hebrews Perspective: Jesus as Messiah and High Priest
50:51 - The New Covenant and Its Implications
52:20 - God's Discipline and Esau’s Example
55:36 - Practical Lessons from Hebrews
57:44 - Living for Jesus and Glorifying Him in Our Daily Life

Music Credits:
Music from #Uppbeat
https://uppbeat.io/t/all-good-folks/aspire

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Podcast Keywords:
biblical languages, New Testament, Old Testament, Christ, bible study,  Relationship with God, learn biblical languages, Biblical Theology, Christianity, Covenants, New covenant, old covenant, language acquisition, Biblical Greek, Biblical Hebrew.

Transcript

0:00

If you summed up the message of Hebrews, is that your perseverance in the Christian life is going to be in direct proportion to the clarity with which you see who Jesus is and what he's accomplished on our behalf. In other words... according to Hebrews, how is Jesus fulfilling the role of becoming a being the Messiah or the anointed one, Christos? Yeah, it's very interesting because... one thing that I think the Muslims have got right is that the abomination that God should become human, but they just didn't get that that was what happened. right. It is mind-blowing, it really is.... In Hebrews, you have the understanding that Jesus is a priestly king. He is anointed, but he's anointed both as king and priest. And I think the reason for that is... Hebrews chapter 1, many translations say that, you know, formally in various ways and various times, God spoke. to the fathers, but in these last days, he has spoken to us by his son, and they'll kind of have those two statements of speaking as contrasting. There's not really a contrast in the passage, though, there. In fact, there's continuity because... Hi there and welcome back to another episode of Exploring the Language of Scripture. My name is Daniel Mikkelsen I'm your host. And if you don't know who I am, I'm the founder of NT Greek Tutoring, an online Greek tutoring company that hosts this podcast. I'm PhD candidate at the University of Edinburgh in New Testament and Christian origins. And I study New Testament at Cambridge and theology at the University of Copenhagen and Fjellhaug International University in Copenhagen. And this podcast exists to make the gems from biblical studies accessible to everyday Christians and show how the biblical languages can open up scripture so that hopefully this conversation that I'll have today and all the podcast will enrich your walk with God and increase your love for God and for his word so that we will spread his word to more people in this world as Jesus commanded us to do. And today I'm joined by none other than George Guthrie who is professor at of New Testament at Regent College in Canada. And he has taught in many places around the world. He was 28 years at Union University before he started his tenure at Regent College in 2018. He is a very well regarded scholar in the New Testament. He has written several books amongst them commentaries on Hebrews, James, 2 Corinthians, and his most recent commentary is the commentary on Philippians. in the Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament, which was released in October 2023. He'd also written many articles on the New Testament subject, and I had personal experience with his work, most intimately with his two Corinthians commentary when I was writing on joy and suffering in two Corinthians in my MPhil in Cambridge. And I had the pleasure of meeting him in person and not just online at Tyndale House in 2021. just before I started my PhD in Edinburgh. So it's a great honour to have you on the podcast, George. Well, Daniel, thank you for having me. It's a joy to be with you and get to catch up with you a bit. So thank you for having me on. likewise. Yeah, anything else you want to add about yourself before we go into the first question? Well, I am married to the wonderful Pat Guthrie. We've been married for 37 years and just are enjoying life together in the ministry that God has given us. Have two grown children who are back in the States. We're from Tennessee. so we're thankful for the life that the Lord has given us. I can't think of a much better life than kind of integrating. life of the mind in an academic context with Christian discipleship and life in the church and being on mission, you know, in the world. So I'm very thankful, very, thankful for the things that we get to do. And it's great to have conversations like this to kind of help people think through that integration. Yeah, thank you for adding that. Yeah, this is also why I'm doing this. This is why I want to teach people Greek. It's why we emerge in this because theology is not meant to be done in a vacuum, I don't think. And I think we very much agree on that. No, absolutely. Absolutely. think if what we're doing is not advancing the kingdom in some way, we need to go find something else to do. Not an end in itself. Academics is not an end in itself. No. Yeah. So that might actually be a good start for maybe the first question. So how did you get into learning the biblical languages? Daniel, when I was in high school or secondary school, I was very into sports. I actually came from a family where my parents were teachers, but there was a lot of emphasis on sports in our family. And I played football, basketball, and baseball. That's American football, and basketball and baseball year round pretty much when I was going through my teen years and was really ready to be a student by the time I got to university. And I was beginning to sense a call to some form of ministry. I never thought that I was going to be a pastor, but I was feeling drawn to ministry of some type. And so I focused on religion and my major at Union University where I would later teach. And as I was going into that, I was terrified. The older guys at the university told me how hard it was and how I was going to have to just, you know, really study if I was going to make it. And so I went in kind of with full force trying to figure out what was going with the language and found that I loved it. So I went on to major in Greek as well and did two and a half years was about all that they offered there. But really grew to love the language and that would propel me into doing seminary work and then later in doing my PhD in New Testament, I would continue to live in the language. So I got drawn in initially because I felt a call to ministry and knew that this was going to be an important aspect of being able to help people understand God's Word. Hmm. Yeah. Wonderful. That's actually a very interesting way. I do reckon with that, but probably not until we tell you, actually because of my dyslexia, I was actually a little bit afraid of studying theology. I felt like God was calling me to it. I wanted to learn Greek, but I didn't know if I was able to cope with it because of my disability. But very much as yourself, I found that I just loved it and it just propelled it on to just... yeah to just where I'm now. yeah, and I am teaching advanced Greek this term. So I have some students who are in third year Greek here at Regent. And basically what we do is we sit around with the New Testament and we read passages together and talk about the nuances of interpretation of those passages and how the Greek language just kind of opens up our understanding of what's going on. Wow, that's wonderful. That's a great way to use the Greek, think. Just to sit around and read. So, what have you experienced in knowing the biblical languages and how have you experienced it opening up Scripture for you? Yeah, think in a word, it's about nuances. If you think about any kind of communication, the best communication is where people understand the nuances and hints that are going on in the context of what's being said. Like my relationship with my wife is one by which we tend to talk in movie sometimes. And what I mean by that is we... We have certain movies that we love that we've watched over the course of our life in marriage. And sometimes I can just say a part of a line from a Jane Austen movie or something. And she knows exactly why I'm saying it at that moment, what I'm saying by at the nuance, you know, that kind of thing. And it communicates something that kind of evokes emotion and all of that. And I think with the with the Greek language, you have these nuances in the text that you really don't see when you're just reading it in translation. Now, think translations are wonderful. In English specifically, we have so many good translations these days that it's kind of a wealth. I think a lot of English speakers don't understand how unusual that is in the history of the church. But I think that being able to probe and go deeper in the languages, you see things in the text or forced to reckon with things that that kind of expand your understanding of the text. So if I could give a couple of examples, sometimes that has to do with vocabulary. So if you take something like the reference to Paraclesis in Second Corinthians, Chapter one, a παρακαλέω (parakaleō) in the verb form of that. It's a word in 2 Corinthians 1 that's often translated as comfort. And I love that translation. God is the God of all comfort who comforts us in the various kinds of trials that we have experienced. But as I was working on my 2 Corinthians commentary, I really tried to get inside what Paul was doing with that word. And if you look at the book as a whole, are places where that family of words is used in 2 Corinthians. that really those places seem to evoke not just comfort, but also it's a type of comfort that propels you forward. It has to do with encouragement. And so in studying a passage like second Corinthians 1, you look at the possibilities of the range of meanings and you grapple with that. And so my translation of that passage in chapter 1 is that God is a God of all encouragement. And of course, that has comfort within it. He does comfort us, but it's not just kind of a soothing comfort. It's the kind of comfort that picks you up and propels you on, keeps you moving when you've gone through very hard things. So sometimes it has to do with language. Sometimes it has to do are the vocabulary. Sometimes it has to do with grammar. So Hebrews, Chapter one, many translations say that, you know, formally in various ways and at various times, God spoke. to the fathers, but in these last days, he has spoken to us by his son. And they'll kind of have those two statements of speaking as contrasting. There's not really a contrast in the passage though there. In fact, there's continuity because... that first reference to speaking is a participle. It's having spoken, God spoke, which is the main verb. The main verb in that series of clauses there is that God spoke to us by a son. So what the nuance of the grammar tells us is that it is having spoken, in other words, having laid a foundation with communicating through the prophets in various ways and manners, having laid that foundation, God spoke to us in a son. So the passage really communicates more continuity than it does contrast. It is contrasting. There's a contrasting parallelism in the passage, but it's really deeply grounded in continuity. It's not God has done away with the Old Testament revelation and now he's speaking to us by the son It's that the son is issuing from that Old Testament revelation, which is why Hebrews is full of quotations of the Old Testament. So you don't see that. if you look at many translations, you don't see that kind of nuance and you have to kind of get your head around that. I think learning the languages really helps us with understanding the nuances of what are being communicated in the biblical text. Yeah, it was, it's a good, I love the two examples of at least my own experience with one Corinthian, or two Corinthians, is it, that he actually really wants to emphasize that God is the one that has the power to both comfort and to help in suffering. Yeah, when he's actually so. because he's entered into it. He is entered into it through Christ. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And that's why Paul, I think this is my sort of like twist on this. I think that when he talks about he himself had tried to overcome this struggle in Asia, and then he's using the personal pronouns three times. And then he is almost emphasizing that it was because I tried myself, I failed. Right, right, yeah, absolutely. And then he saying, and then I had to believe in and trust in the God who was able to resurrect. Yeah, and I think that that's what happens a lot of times in life is that we face these real challenges. mean, tremendous difficulties in life. Life is long and hard. And what the believer who is following Christ into those difficulties finds is those difficulties actually bring you to the end of yourself. I mean, that's what Paul says in that passage is the whole point. is that you find, I think it's N .T. Wright who said something like, you know, when you're confronted with death, then you find yourself being pushed to the God who raises the dead. And I think that's, you know, that's a big part of the point of how we think about suffering and difficulty. It shouldn't surprise us, it should push us. Yeah, exactly. And God is using suffering in many ways, in that way, using it paradoxically in many ways. Yeah, I think so. Yeah, yeah, so I could talk a long time about that, maybe that's not actually the purpose of our conversation today, I don't think. yeah, I just wanted to touch upon your example from Hebrews as well, before we move into the main topic. It was just, it's very interesting about that, like the participle thing, the fact that God has revealed things through his prophets. And now, Jesus is both fulfilling it, but he's also saying the same thing, it's now is God saying it. Mm -hmm. Yeah, is that God is now stepped onto planet Earth to communicate directly. Yeah, that's absolutely right. Mm -hmm. Yeah. Which is quite... That's insane in many ways if you think about it. It is. It is. Yeah. It changes everything. If that's true, if it is true that God stepped into planet Earth and the person of Christ and then died, was resurrected and is seated at the right hand of the universe, that changes everything. It does. Yeah. I think that's one thing that I think the Muslims has got right is that the abomination that God should become a human. But they just didn't get that that was what happened. Yeah, right. Yeah. Yeah, it is mind -blowing. It really is. So, and that's one of the reasons I've loved Hebrews so much. I originally got into the study of Hebrews when I was preparing for PhD work. I was taking a German class and was assigned an article by August Strobel. on the Psalm Grundlage or the Psalm Foundation behind Hebrews 5.7 where it says that Jesus cried out to the Father with loud cries and tears to the one who was able to save him. And Strobel was asking the question, where did this language come from? Because it's not language that you see in the Gospels when they talk about the Gethsemane experience of Jesus. And his conclusion was that it came from the Psalms of righteous suffering. And he showed a number of examples of the language being parallel to those Psalms of suffering. And boy, I became intrigued with Hebrews and I became intrigued with the use of the Psalms in Hebrews. And so that's really how I began to fall in love with the book. And I really have never lost interest. The last 10 years, I've focused more on Paul. I've... you know, done the commentaries on 2 Corinthians and on Philippians. But I am coming back around now. I'm doing a biblical theology of the New Testament on Hebrews and and I'm so enjoying getting back into Hebrews in a deep way. And I'm still learning about the book, which is just a wonderful gift at this stage of life. I feel like I'm as excited about Hebrews now as I've ever been, which is which is Great. Yeah, that's wonderful. Especially when you're working on it. Yeah. And that sort of like ties in, you almost answered the question, but just wanted to ask it anyway. So if you worked extensively on Hebrews, you published, I think it's three commentaries on it already. Yeah, have a loose track, but there's a backgrounds commentary and commentary on the New Testament use of the Old Testament and some different things. So why did you decide to focus on Hebrews rather than other NT books? You have also focused on other NT books throughout your career, but why were Hebrews in particular? I think that what I... said really answered the question that August Strobel's article drew me in. The second phase of that though, I went to do a master of theology at Trinity Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois, kind of before I started my PhD work at Southwestern. And while I was there, I came up with a research question. that basically asked what is the function of Psalm 110 .1 in the book of Hebrews. And without knowing it, I had asked a whole discourse question because Psalm 110 .1 is quoted in 1.13 of Hebrews, but it's alluded to in 1.3; 8. 1 and 2, 10.12, and 12.2. So it's evenly spread throughout the book. So you couldn't answer my research question. without understanding how the book works. And I didn't realize it, but I was getting pulled into a very long discussion that had been going on for hundreds of years and was actually a conflicted discussion. There was, there's a vibrant discussion throughout the 20th century about the structure of the book. A guy named Albert Van Waad did a very important monograph in the early 1960s on the literary dynamics in the book. But it is an ongoing discussion. And what I was drawn into was the fact that you have all of these eloquent, amazing dynamics in Hebrews that you have to understand to kind of understand what's going on and trying to figure out how those dynamics work together to communicate this powerful message. was intriguing to me. And it's been something that I've loved working on my whole life and still am growing in my understanding as I interact with other scholars. Sometimes I stumble upon things that have affirmed the work that I've already done. And sometimes I get stretched a bit in my own thinking. But that's kind of the history. Got drawn into that, did my doctoral dissertation on the structure of the book and that was published as a monograph in Brill's Novum Testamentum Supplement Series. I then got the opportunity because of that to do the NIV application commentary with Zondervan on the Book of Hebrews and that's opened up ministry around the world for me to teach in various places. So it's been kind of a lifelong love, you know, of mine to deal with this book and I keep getting pulled back to it in a sense. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, because it's a very intriguing book. I think like many questions find Christians, many Christians find Hebrews to be both beautiful and complicated at the same time. And why do think that that is the case? And how can we get most out of reading it? Sorry to interrupt the episode, but if you're enjoying the content, please consider subscribing and leaving a like. It really helps the algorithm and helps the podcast grow. Thank you for your support and now back to the episode. I think many Christians find Hebrews to be both beautiful and complicated at the same time. And why do think that that is the case? And how can we get most out of reading it? Yeah, if you think about it, New Testament books follow trajectories. So you have the narrative literature of the Gospels and Acts that start at kind of a point A and they work to point Z. You know, they go all the way through to an ending. And the epistles of Paul normally, not always exactly, but normally will follow some kind of pattern. where you have this step -by -step teaching that sometimes will issue in at the end of the letter to practical exhortations and things like that. But there's a kind of a standard form that you follow. The difference with Hebrews is it doesn't work like that. I've used the analogy that Hebrews sometimes feels like you're suddenly dropped down in the middle of a complicated city. Like I think about San Francisco in the United States, for instance, or even here in Vancouver. When we first moved to Vancouver, I didn't understand how the streets worked. You know, even though it's laid out pretty much in my part of the city, laid out in grid form, it took a while to understand the complexities of where I would turn. And so now I know that if I'm, if I'm going fly fishing out into, in the interior, I go down 16th street. I come to. Bernard and go over to 12th and that takes me all the way out to Highway 1 and I go out. know what I'm doing and where I'm going in the city. It makes sense to me. Hebrews needs some orientation and there are various things. But for instance, one of the basics is that Hebrews is probably an ancient sermon rather than a letter. most Hebrew scholars today, most Hebrew scholars would think that it was some form of homily or sermon. probably the most complete one that we have from the ancient world. And one of the dynamics in a homily or sermon, just as is the case today, is there's a move from exposition to exhortation and then back to exposition. So, for instance, if I'm preaching in a church here today, as I was yesterday, I preached on James, the book of James, chapter three about the tongue, and I had kind of three points in my sermon. And at the end of each of those points, I turned to the congregation and said, now let's think about where we are at this point, those of us in this church. So I turned from an explanation of the text to an exhortation of the people in the room. And then I went back to my next point and went with more explanation and then came back to more exhortation. And that's exactly what Hebrews does. The main point of Hebrews is exhortation. But the or the foundation of that exhortation is in the book's Christology. So the author goes through movements in the book, unpacking the Christology. He starts with exaltation and then moves to incarnation, then ordination of Christ as a high priest, and then the superior offering of Christ as a high priest. So with the Christology itself, it moves step by step. through the explanation of the person and the ministry of Jesus. But those steps are interrupted in very strategic, powerful ways by exhortation. And the Christology flows into those exhortations and it makes a very powerful dynamic where the author is moving back and forth. And then you get to chapter 10, verse 25, which is kind of the the bracketing off of the great center section of high priesthood Christology in Hebrews. And then the whole last section of the book is various kinds of exhortation. The author giving promises, the author giving positive examples, negative examples like Esau, the wonderful examples of the people of faith in chapter 11. That sounds like exposition because he's telling us about people, but in the ancient world, that was called an example list and the whole point of an example list where you give example after example after example is exhortation. You're saying this is the right way to live. You need to choose to live this way. So I think one of the things that we have to do is understand some of those kind of dynamics. But a good beginning place is to say, all right, this is moving back and forth between exposition about Jesus and exhortation on how we are to respond to who Jesus is and what he's accomplished for us. Yeah, you would say that the crooks of the letter or the theme, the key themes that go through the letter is Christology or would you? here's the way I would describe the key. The key thing, if you had the kind of the center of the heart of what Hebrews is about, is that God has spoken to us through his son, our high priest. And we need to hear and respond to what God has said by enduring in the faith. Let me say that another way. I'll say that again, and then I'll say it another way, because it is a mouthful. But God has spoken to us by his son. who is our high priest and he he's spoken very clearly through the son and We should respond with endurance in the faith Here's here's another way that I say it is that if you summed up the message of Hebrews it is that your perseverance in the Christian life is going to be direct in direct proportion to the clarity with which you see who Jesus is and what he's accomplished on our behalf. Now this is wonderfully, wonderfully practical, right? Because it basically is saying that you and I will not endure in the faith through all the hard things that we experience in life. We will not endure in the faith unless we are clear about who Jesus is and have a closeness to him in that clarity and clear about the nature of the gospel. In other words, if... we become fuzzy on the identity of Jesus and fuzzy on the nature of the gospel, it's going to be very hard to hang in there as Christians. Hmm. Yeah. that's the heart of the book. Yeah, and it makes very good sense because that's what we, Christian, that's what we need to hold on to. yeah, yeah, that's a very neat way of explaining it. Thank you for that one. So, asking a little bit more specific question then. In the beginning of the letter, Jesus is contrasted with the angels. Why do you think that's the case? And how is it used in Hebrews? I know that Peter Orr for example, says that it's because of angel Cult in Colossians, but he doesn't think that that's the case in Hebrews, but I would like to hear your take on it. Yeah. Yes, I don't think that it's because of some kind of problem with angelolatry, which commentators like Buchanan, for instance, have suggested in the past. I think what is going on here is actually another very good example of how you have to understand the author's rhetorical or literary dynamics to understand what's going on. What he does is he gets to the end of the introduction, which are the first four verses, and he says that Jesus has become as much better than the angels as the name he has inherited is superior to theirs. And then he launches into a series of Old Testament passages in chapter one, verses five through 14, which shows that Christ is superior to the angels. He's superior by virtue of his unique relationship to the Father. He's superior by virtue of the fact that the angels are servants that are sent out from the throne. Jesus actually is sitting on the throne and is worshiped by the angels. He's superior in verses eight through 12 in that he is the Lord creator and sustainer of the universe. He's the one who created all things. He's the one who is sustaining all things. And he is the one who will wrap all things up at the end. He will take the created order of the universe as we know it and pack it away like an old piece of clothing at the end. And so this is the one who the author is talking about is the one who finally has sat down at the right hand of God and is the Lord of the universe, Jesus, the Son. And so he builds this up so that at the end of this first chapter, as we know it, everybody in the room is shaking their head and going, yes, Jesus is greater than the angels. So, so, so much greater. He's greater. And then the author hits them with a rabbinic way of arguing called an argument from lesser to greater. And what an argument from lesser to greater says is that if something's true in a less important situation, it's also true in a more important situation and it has greater implications. So the author says, do you remember what happened to people in the old covenant who rejected the word of God that was delivered through angelic beings. Now what he has in mind there is the delivering of the law to Moses because in Judaism you have this idea that the angelic beings were there with God on the mountain on Mount Sinai and they were part of the mediation of God's Word. And the author says, do you remember what happened to people if they rejected the Word that came through the angelic beings? Well, really, really harsh judgment. I mean, they were killed if they turned away from the covenant. Hmm. And then that's the lesser situation. He says, how much greater punishment do we deserve if we turn away from the word of salvation that initially was delivered through the superior son? So that's the greater situation. So he uses the angelic beings who are respected mediators of the revelation of God. And he says, if it's true that these exalted beings, know, the angelic beings, if it's true that people were punished for rejecting their word, how much greater punishment do we deserve if we turn away or drift away from the word of salvation that was delivered through the superior son? And then he goes on and says that that word of salvation was confirmed by the first witnesses. It actually was born witness to by God himself who took the witness stand of history. and bore witness to it by signs and wonders. So the angels are used as a stepping stone to exhort the people in the room to persevere in the word of salvation, to holding to the word of salvation. And that's the real function of the angels at that part of the book. Yeah, so reminding that the mediation of the Old Covenant was very serious and that it was a grace in itself and by rejecting that you would receive God's punishment but because it's an even greater grace that God has sent his own Son, then the punishment is even greater as well for rejecting that. Yeah, that's right. Hmm. Yeah, that's a... It's both beautiful and terrifying at the same time, in a way. Yeah. modern as modern people in the West, we don't like the idea of judgment, but you have to you have to come to grips with it if you're dealing with the New Testament. And, you know, and intuitively, even we as people in the West, we we want evil to be dealt with. We do. We want justice to be done. And I think that. The thing that we can be assured of is that God who sees all, knows all, knows every thought of every heart, that God will in absolute fairness and justice will deal with people. The joy is that the word of salvation, part of the reason why that word is used is because we are being saved from the consequences of our own sin. And the gospel, that's part of the good news is that The one who sits as Lord and judge over the universe died for us so that we might have a relationship with him through the forgiveness of our sins. And that's wonderful, wonderful message. Yeah. Yeah, it is. It is indeed. And that actually triggers into the next question I wanted to ask you, because the word κατάπαυσις (katapausis), which means rest, is used eight times in Hebrews within just one and a half chapter. And it seems to be a link to the reception of the rest and the promised land of the Old Testament. But what is the point that the author wants to make in this particular context, especially because it relates to that very famous line from verse from 4.12 about that the word of God is like a sword that will perish through our limbs and bones and our spirit as well. Yeah. Yeah. This is actually one of the most challenging passages in the book. When my students say that they want to write their exegesis paper on this passage, I actually steer them away from it because it's so complex. the kind of scholarly discussions about it are very, very, very complex. You have very good books like John Lansma has a book on looking at Matthew 11 and Hebrews 4. in talking about the rest of God. But basically what launches him into the topic of rest is the negative example of those who fell in the wilderness in chapter three, verses seven through 11. The author quotes Psalm 95, which ends with God saying to the Israelites, you will not enter my rest. And the author there points out that what was in mind initially at with that reference to rest did have to do with the promised land. But he goes on very creatively to ask, well, where else do we see in the scriptures God referring to his own rest? And so as he moves into Chapter four, he adds to Psalm 95 in this warning to not follow the example of the wilderness wanderers. He adds Genesis 2.2 that God rested from his works on the seventh day. So there's another example where God enters rest. And so he kind of concludes that the rest is not just the promised land. It's something bigger than that because God rested at the foundation of creation. Now, what he's not doing is what we typically think of as, you know, advocating a Sabbath. principle of that you should have a rhythm of rest physically and emotionally in your life. My wife and I are actually very big on that as a principle, you know, that it's not a law to us anymore, but it's a gift and a principle that we need. We need rhythms of rest in our lives. And so we just last night kind of came off of our Shabbat, our Sabbath renewal time for the week and cool things going on in all of all of that. discussion in the broader Christian movement. But what the author is doing here is he's saying there is a different level of rest that's found in resting from our own works and resting in the work of Christ. And what I think is significant is that the Day of Atonement itself was called a Sabbath of Sabbath rest. It was a high Sabbath in Judaism. And it was actually a time, the day of atonement was actually a time that you entered into the rest, the Sabbath of God. And I think that what the author has in mind in Hebrews 4 is that we enter into the work of Christ as being decisive in forgiving us for our sins. And he's anticipating there the new covenant, which he's going to deal with in chapters eight and following, is where he really gets into the new covenant sacrifice. And one of the points of that passage from Jeremiah 31 is, I will remember their sins no more. In other words, that God in the new covenant would decisively forgive us for our, from our sins. And so I think the type of rest that he's talking about in Hebrews 4 is one where we, where we strive to enter, but in the sense that we, want to make sure that we really are heirs of salvation, that we have embraced. And in the context, means adding faith or trust to our hearing of the Word of God. He says the problem with the wilderness wanderers is they did not add faith or trust to their hearing of the Word of salvation. And so he's concerned that there are people in the room that he's addressing that may be manifesting that they don't really know Christ because they're turning their back and walking away. Now there's a whole other discussion that we could get into that's very complex. But I think that the short answer to the question is that the rest he has in mind is resting in the work of God and ceasing from our own works in that sense, of similarly to what we were talking about earlier from 2 Corinthians. Hmm. Yeah, and how does that relate to the sharpness of the word as being sharper than a two-edged sword? Yeah, that is a passage of warning. And I've come to believe that actually that little section of warning starts in verse 11. And he's picking up on what he's just said about the rest, that there's a rest that remains for the people of God. And then he exhorts them and says, you know, let us strive to enter that rest. For the Word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two -edged sword. And he's in essence doing what he had done back in chapter 2 verses 1 through 4. He's giving a warning and saying, you don't want to miss this. You don't want to end up being in the place of those who were wandering in the wilderness and fell in the wilderness. Because that passage started with, today if you hear his voice. So you want to hear the word of God, you want to respond to it so that it is a word of salvation and not a word of judgment. And so that's why he then goes into that warning. The warning is flowing from the negative example of the wanderers, but also the promise of rest that remains for those who add faith to their hearing of the word of God. Does that make sense? yeah, I think it makes sense. think it's very much. I think I have two things that I want to add to that. Because I was thinking about two things I'm thinking because when I do evangelism or when I've been evangelizing, especially when I was younger, we often use this word verse to talk about how powerful the word of God is. But the thing is that it actually It makes sense that you're saying that it's an exhortation because it's really actually what I actually meant when I was evangelizing is that this can save anybody, but it can also condemn anybody. So that's what Paul also in 2 Corinthians is talking about, that he is an aroma of judgment and of life and death. which is an allusion back to Isaiah, that God's word will never return empty -handed. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, in many ways, because when we hear God's word, we can only respond in two ways. We can only say, I reject it, and then you get the judgment. Or I can say, I receive it, and then you get saved. And then you're not receiving judgment, but grace. Yep. There is no neutrality. Hmm. Yeah. And that's both wonderful. neutrality is not possible in the kingdom of God. Right, right, that's right. Yeah, yeah. Thank you for that. So according to Hebrews, how is Jesus fulfilling the role of being the Messiah or the anointed one? Christos. yeah, it's very interesting because... you actually have Jesus as a priestly king like Melchizedek in Chapter seven. So I think there are at least forms of Judaism that we're anticipating a powerful king who would come in and kick out the Romans and, you know, deal with the earthly powers and would be like David. But what you have in Hebrews is you have the understanding that Jesus is a priestly king. He is anointed, but he's anointed both as king and priest. And I think the reason for that is... because you have both in Psalm 110. The most quoted or alluded to Old Testament passage in the New Testament is Psalm 110.1. And the reason for that is the early church understood that as fulfilled in the exaltation of Jesus to the throne of the universe at the right hand of God. So if you read Acts, for instance, it's really clear that the early church from the word go understood this Psalm to be anticipating the resurrection and especially the exaltation of Jesus to the right hand of God. But I think what the author of Hebrews did is he kept reading. And if you keep reading Psalm 110, you come to verse four, which is also a declaration. And it says, you are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek. And so you have a priestly orientation there right in the same Psalm. And And so the type of Messiah or anointed one that is being anticipated in the passage is a king who does rule over the universe, but also a priest who intercedes for us and brings us into the very presence of God, I think as priest as well. He kind of as our high priest, he leads us as priest behind the curtains right into the very presence of God the Father. So I think that that is Why he focuses on both priest and king and why he brings up Melchizedek is because Psalm 110 and Genesis 14, 17 and following are the only two passages in the Bible that speak of Melchizedek besides Hebrews. And so I think that's what's going on with Melchizedek as well is he's turning to that Genesis 14 passage because of Psalm 110, 4. And Psalm 110 becomes kind of the control for the whole book of Hebrews in that sense. It's the most important passage in the whole book. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and then we could maybe like, zone a little bit into how and why it is that that that Hebrews makes such a big deal out of Jesus being high priest according to the manner of Melchizedek because as it also points out, the actual high priest was actually in the order of Aaron. Right, that's right. In chapter seven, verses 11 through 28, he makes a big point of that, that the problem with the old covenant priesthood was that these priests kept dying on you. The superiority of Jesus's ordination is, which I think happened in his resurrection, is that he doesn't die. He is raised to eternal life. And so, He always lives to make intercession for us because he doesn't die. So you have a surer, firmer guarantee because he's right there in the presence of the Father in heaven. He's not going to die, he's not going anywhere. So what you have with the Melchizedekan theology in Hebrews is it flows into showing that there is an abrogation of the Old Covenant. It's in a sense taken up. into. It's not that it's just done away with, it's taken up into and transformed in the new covenant. And that's why the author shows that Jesus is high priest according to another covenant, not the Sinai covenant, and that his offering is superior. And that's really what he's going to deal with in the latter part of the center section in chapters eight through the middle of ten. He's going to show the superiority of the new covenant offering and it's really superior for three reasons. Because it's made with the blood of Christ and not the blood of animals. He goes right into the presence of the Father in heaven. And thirdly because it's not made over and over and over again, year after year. It's made once for all time. And so it's a superior offering in every way. Yeah. Yeah, it's in a ways, yeah, the divine blood, not to make too many allusions to Greek mythology, but because I don't think that that's the point in the New Testament is that that eternity of like Jesus is there is God in human flesh, but and, and that he actually died and it was it was blood, not ichor as it would have been in it in in the mythological context. Well, and one way of saying it is that it was personal. There's a difference between me, you if I was in the ancient world, you can offer animals all day long. in a sense, in one sense, it's not personal. It's something where somebody else is carrying your penalty in a sense, but it's an animal. But when God stepped into planet Earth and the person of his son, His death was personal. You know, it's like when we have a family member die, it's much more personal than if we just have an animal that we don't have any relationship with. And so the fact that it was the blood of Christ, it was superior in that sense. It was God himself entering into our suffering, and he was doing it personally, not just through... Hmm. of some. Yeah, exactly. I like that, this is the emphasis of the personal reality that it's in a sense, it's God's own blood because it's his son. it's, so it's through his own blood, it's through his own suffering too, and through his own, yeah, it cost him a lot to redeem us who in many ways are not very how to say that is, yeah, it's not that we like to follow God, we like to rebel against God, we like to be his enemies in many ways, but God didn't care, he wanted to be with us, he wanted to redeem us. Well, in some ways, John Lennox says that the cross is the way to get into the question of suffering. know, suffering is one of the great difficult themes or questions for us as Christians. What do we do about the suffering of the world if God is all -powerful and completely good? And Lennox says that the entrance into that question, the appropriate entrance, is to look at the cross. Hmm. What is you've got to ask the question? What is if if if Jesus was God, what is God doing on the cross? Well, it's he's entering into our suffering in some way. And so it's a very practical, powerful image that the author gives us along with the rest of the New Testament. Yeah, that's wonderful. Yeah, and then we could just... We already talked a little bit about the new covenant, but sort of briefly how to summarize how that relates to the high priest, of Jesus being high priest. Well, the two main ways in 5 .1 through 7 .28, really 5 .1 through 10 and 7 .1 through 28, the author deals with the ordination of Jesus as the high priest of the new covenant. And then in 8 .3 through 10 .18, he deals with the superior offering, which is a new covenant offering. basically ordination is different from the Sinai covenant. because you have in the Sinai covenant the priests ordained because of who their parents were. It was about being a part of the tribe of Levi. Jesus is appointed or ordained as priest by a proclamation of God that Psalm 104, are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek. It's a different order. It's not Levi, it's Melchizedek. And it's new covenant in the sense that he is superior to those old covenant priests. And then in the latter half of this intersection, it's the new covenant offering that the author is really unpacking there in its superiority. So that's how it's really tied in. Yeah, thank you. Thank you for clarifying that. And how do we see discipline? So the end of the letter, we already touched on that, is an exhortation or a way of talking about discipline. But how should we understand the negative example of Esau in relation to the discipline of God's children? Yeah, there's a really helpful book by Clayton Croy, who did a monograph on the discipline, endurance and discipline in Hebrews chapter 12. And his main point was that in Hebrews, when we're disciplined as sons and daughters, it's not a punitive kind of discipline. It's not God punishing us for our sins. Hmm. That's a really, really important point. What God is doing is he is training us as sons and daughters through the difficult things that we experience. It's what we were talking about earlier that God is training us to live more effectively in trust of him. I remember I was teaching years ago in China and there was an older sister who was kind of the matriarch of the group who was sitting on the back row. And as I was talking about this in Hebrews 12 and that it was not punitive, it was training. She got so excited right there, you know, in the back of the class and came up afterwards with tears streaming down her face. And she said, you know, all of my life in the Chinese church, I've been taught that if I was suffering, being persecuted or whatever, that it was because God was punishing me for sin. And she said, I see now that Jesus has so completely dealt with my sins. that I'm not paying for my sins. Jesus has done that. And that what God is actually doing in the trials and the struggles is he's training me. He's training me. So when you look at the example of Esau, the author does use positive and negative examples. So used the negative example of the wilderness wanderers. He uses Esau as a negative example because Esau turned away from the blessing and his inheritance. for a cup of stew. mean, you know, basically, the author is saying, don't let discomfort, just your physical discomfort of the moment, whatever you're experiencing life, don't let that cause you to be stupid like Esau, who turned away from both the blessing and the inheritance for a bowl of soup. And he's exhorting the people that he's writing to and saying, you know, we don't want to be that kind of son. We don't want to be the kind of son that says, yeah, I think I'll give up my inheritance because I'm hungry at the moment. And that's why Esau becomes a negative example in that place. And then he's going to, right after that, he's going to move to the beautiful promises of the new covenant that you have in chapter 12 verses 18 and following where he talks about Mount Sinai over against Mount Zion. And it's just a powerful climax to the whole book. Yeah, really something. Yeah. Yeah. So that's beautiful in many ways that, and the book is ending on a high in a way that, yeah. Yeah. So as it is a tradition in the end of episodes, I always ask the question. how can we, so for the listeners and the viewers of this, how can they apply what we've been talking about to their everyday life? yep. I think I'll come around and just emphasize what I said earlier that our perseverance in the Christian life will be in direct proportion to the clarity with which we see Jesus and what he's accomplished on our behalf. A couple of times the author says consider Jesus. So I would say to us as we think about what we've talked about today, is we need to really focus on Jesus and hold to Jesus and his word of salvation as we are facing the trials and the challenges, the difficulties that we are facing in the world. This is very, very practical. mean, this is theology that is foundational for actual practical Christian life. Dorothy Sayers was writing in the 1950s and at that time there was a popular movement that said, know, I don't want to think about theology, let's just have worship, just pure worship, don't worry about theology and dogma and that kind of thing. And she says the only problem with that is it's really hard to engender enthusiasm for the worship of nothing in particular. And you know, you've got to know who you're worshiping. You got to know why you're doing the things that you're doing. And so I would say what Hebrews does is it gives us clarity on the identity of Jesus as the exalted Lord of the universe, who became incarnate and died for us, was ordained as our high priest, who brings us into the presence of God and gave a sacrifice that was decisive for giving us for all of our sins. And he can help us to endure. in the challenges of this world because we follow him and he endured. So we take a double look at him. We see him in his incarnation and his endurance in his incarnation. And we look at him in his exaltation to see the ultimate outcome that gives us perspective for living in this world. Yeah, yes, that's wonderful. The clearer we see Jesus, theology matters, because the clearer we see Jesus, the more we will live for Him and more we will glorify Him. Yeah, yeah, thank you for that, George. on today. It's been a joy to get to talk to you about these things. Yeah, likewise and thank you and all the blessing with your ministry and to you guys out there and to you guys out there. See you next time. But before you go, if you enjoyed this episode and want to keep it ad- free please consider joining our supporter program. It helps us grow, improve our content, and bring more guests on. But it also gives you great benefits in return. Check it out in the link the description below. Thank you, have a great day, and I'll see you in the next one