Introduction to Hebrews
Special thanks to Joseph Richards for providing
me with audios and books on Hebrews and to Perkins Onome Abaje for the corrections. God bless you real good.
The book of Hebrews was written at a time when the
Jewish Christians were undergoing persecutions and some of them have been
considering a return to Judaism. The author of this book wrote this book to
encourage the Hebrew Christians and present the supremacy of Christ. The first
10 chapters reveal that Christ is better than the Old covenant (Old Testament).
And Chapter 11-13 emphasized Christ benefits.
The author of this book is not given but several
people like Paul, Apollos, Luke, and Barnabas, have been suggested by different
scholar. And if you ask me, I would say Paul wrote it but let us not dwell on
that and forget the main message.
Hebrews
1:1-14 Jesus superior to Angels
Memory
Verse: Heb 1:8(KJV)
But unto the son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom.
In the beginning when God created man, his desire
was to have a personal relationship with man but unfortunately that relationship
was destroyed when Adam ate of the tree of life. God did not stop the communication
with his people completely; He spoke to them mainly through the prophets until
Jesus came to restore our relationship with God.
God spoke to his ancient people at various times and
in various ways: He spoke to them through dreams, visions and also through the
prophets.
This wasn't God’s intention for man; He wanted to
have a personal relationship with man. Man’s work wasn't sufficient enough to
restore that lost relationship with God; we had to be saved by grace hence
Jesus coming to die. The revelation which God made by his son is better than
the former.
Jesus is the brightness of God’s glory. Let’s take a
look at the sun. We cannot stare at the sun directly because it can make us go
blind but we benefit from the rays of the sun. From the sun we have light, heat
and energy. We haven’t seen God but what
we know about God is the revelation He gave through his son. Jesus is the representation
of God and having Jesus on earth in human form meant the ancient people gets to
see God in flesh. Jesus reveals God to us today; He is the revelation of God
because he is the image of God.
Vs. 4-14 presents the supremacy of Jesus over the
angels. Angels are messengers of God and
at this time some of the Jews had an extreme admiration for angels because of
their active work in the ancient times. The Jews were used to the ministry of
the angel and some of them were beginning to have religious worship of the
angels. There are about 273 references to angels in the bible.
The author of this book knew about the Jewish worship
of the angels, therefore there was a need to emphasize Jesus supremacy over the
angel and he used several passages in the Old Testament to back it up. He quoted Psalm 2:7, 2 Sam 7:14, Deuteronomy 32:43,
Psalm 104:4, Psalm 45:6&7, Psalm 102:25-27, and Psalm 110:1
John 1: 1-3 tells us about Jesus being present at
the beginning of creation and through him all things were made. Jesus is the
creator of all things including the angels. Since Jesus created the angels, we
can conclude that He is greater than the angels and if that isn’t enough proof,
you can compare what God said to the angels with what He said to Jesus and supremacy
of Jesus over the angels becomes apparent.
As you go on your daily routine, always remember
that none is above Jesus, not even the angel. According to Philippians 2:9-11,God
exalted Jesus to the highest place and gave him a name that is above every
name. At the name of Jesus, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess. Amen
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