This Tuesday, Fr. Gabriel will be leading us through Hebrews 3-4. Please read through these two chapters as well as the Old Testament lessons referenced therein and particularly Psalm 95 and Number 13:30-14:35. In this section, the writer explores the superiority of Christ to Moses in that only through Christ can we gain the Promised Land. I have also attached Barclay’s commentary on these verses.
Last week, Fr. Gabriel led us through Hebrews 1-2. We looked at the very dense Christology in 1:1-4. It is there that the writer calls Christ – Son, heir, the agency of creation, reflector of the Glory of God, stamp of God’s nature, sustainer of the universe, and the purifier of sin. This Christology sets up the remainder of the book as showing the superiority of Jesus and Jesus as the means by which we have full access to God. The first argument presented by the writer is that Jesus is superior to the angels. The angels are servants, but Christ, as the anointed one, is King and Ruler of all and to whom all things will become subject. The writer’s argument, however, is not intended to establish a celestial hierarchy with Jesus Christ as the head of the angels. Rather, it is to establish the superiority of Jesus to the law. Jewish tradition held that Torah was delivered by the angels to Moses (Acts 7:53) and since Jesus is superior to the angels, so too he is superior to Torah.
Dinner is a 6. The menu is chicken mole. Discussion about 6:45. Hope to see you here.
Harden not your hearts, as your forebears did in the wilderness, *
Psalm 95:1-11
at Meribah, and on that day at Massah, when they tempted me.
They put me to the test, *
though they had seen my works.
Forty years long I detested that generation and said, *
“This people are wayward in their hearts; they do not know my ways.”
So I swore in my wrath, *
“They shall not enter into my rest.”