Introduction to Hebrews

Title and authorship

Nothing in the book says who wrote it, who received it, or where either party was. It has no greeting, no name, and no address — the only writing in the New Testament that begins without identifying anybody.

What it begins with instead is God: God, having in the past spoken to the fathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, has at the end of these days spoken to us by his Son Hebrews 1:1–2. The opening sentence is a comparison, which is what the whole book turns out to be.

And yet it ends like a letter. The last verses ask for prayer, promise a visit, pass on news of Timothy, and close with the Italians greet you Hebrews 13:18–24. So a document with no opening formalities has all the closing ones.

It names its own genre once: endure the word of exhortation, for I have written to you in few words Hebrews 13:22. The phrase describes a sermon rather than a letter, and the book reads that way — long stretches of argument broken by direct address, each stretch ending in something the readers are told to do.

Who wrote it is not recoverable from the text, and the text does not treat it as important. One clue is internal and points away from an eyewitness: the salvation was spoken through the Lord and then confirmed to us by those who heard Hebrews 2:3 — the writer places himself in the second generation.

About the readers rather more can be said, because their situation drives every argument. They know the sacrificial system in detail. They had endured a great struggle with sufferings and the plundering of their possessions Hebrews 10:32–34. And they are drifting Hebrews 2:1, slow to learn Hebrews 5:11–12, and neglecting to meet Hebrews 10:25. The book is written to people losing their grip, not to people asking questions.

Date

The book gives no date and names no ruler, and the two things it does say point in opposite directions.

The writer belongs to the second generation. The message was confirmed to us by those who heard the Lord Hebrews 2:3, so the founding witnesses are the previous cohort. The readers' own leaders are spoken of in the past tense, with the instruction to remember them and to consider the results of their conduct Hebrews 13:7 — men whose lives can now be reviewed as finished.

Against that, the sacrificial system is described in the present tense throughout. Priests stand day by day serving and offering Hebrews 10:11. Gifts are offered according to the law Hebrews 8:4. The outer tent still stands Hebrews 9:8. A writer arguing that these arrangements are obsolete never once says they have stopped — which would have been the shortest possible argument if they had.

So the pressure the letter answers is a live one. The alternative its readers were drifting toward was still functioning.

The persecution is real and specific and behind them: imprisonments, public exposure, and the seizure of property, borne joyfully at the time Hebrews 10:32–34. And one line dates the struggle relative to something worse — you have not yet resisted to blood, striving against sin Hebrews 12:4.

Timothy is alive and expected Hebrews 13:23, which ties the book to the circle of the Pauline letters without placing it inside them.

A closer date would rest on reconstruction. What the reading needs is the situation rather than the year: a second-generation congregation, some years past a costly persecution, tired, and able to return to something that was still there.

Backgrounds

The readers are assumed to know the sanctuary from the inside, and the book spends whole chapters on furniture and procedure without once explaining why any of it matters to them.

It walks through the tent as though from memory — the lampstand, the table, the show bread, the golden altar, the ark with the tablets and Aaron's rod, the cherubim over the mercy seat Hebrews 9:1–5 — and then breaks off with of which we can't speak now in detail. That aside only works on readers who could have supplied the detail themselves.

The institutional vocabulary is equally assumed. High priesthood, daily offering, the annual entry into the inner room, the blood of bulls and goats, the ashes of a heifer, the red-heifer sprinkling for uncleanness Hebrews 9:13: all used without gloss.

And the people addressed are worn down. They are drifting Hebrews 2:1, they need milk rather than solid food and have become dull of hearing Hebrews 5:11–12, and some have made a habit of forsaking our own assembling together Hebrews 10:25. Their hands hang down and their knees are feeble Hebrews 12:12.

What happened to them is described plainly. After being enlightened they endured a great struggle with sufferings — publicly exposed, imprisoned, and their property taken, which they accepted joyfully, knowing that you have for yourselves a better possession Hebrews 10:32–34. That is a congregation that has already paid, and the book's problem is not that they were never committed but that the commitment has aged.

The pull is described in one image at the end: let's therefore go out to him outside of the camp, bearing his reproach Hebrews 13:13. Whatever the camp stood for, it was a place with walls, a name, and standing — and returning to it was the option on the table.

Theology and purpose

The book argues one thing by comparison, and it has a favorite word for doing it. The comparative better falls in twelve verses Hebrews 1:4 Hebrews 7:22 Hebrews 8:6 Hebrews 12:24, and each time the thing outranked is something God had given.

That is the discipline of the argument and it is easy to miss. Nothing in the book is dismissed as false. Angels, Moses, Aaron, the tent, the sacrifices and the covenant are all treated as genuine, and the case is made by degree rather than by denial.

The sequence runs: better than the prophets, since the Son is the final speech Hebrews 1:1–2; better than angels, by inheritance and by name Hebrews 1:4; better than Moses, as a son over a house is better than a servant in it Hebrews 3:5–6; better than Aaron, by an oath and an unending life Hebrews 7:20–25; and a better covenant with better promises Hebrews 8:6.

The hinge is priesthood. The title high priest falls in seventeen verses, and the office is transferred to somebody outside the tribe that held it, on the authority of a single psalm verse about Melchizedek — named in nine verses Hebrews 5:6 Hebrews 7:1–21. A priest without recorded ancestry, holding office by oath rather than descent, is the one precedent the argument needs.

What that priest does is stated three times as final. He offered once for all Hebrews 7:27 Hebrews 9:12 Hebrews 10:10, and the contrast is with priests who stand day by day because standing means the work is not done Hebrews 10:11. He sat down Hebrews 1:3 Hebrews 10:12.

And where he does it is the book's other insistence. The earthly priests serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things Hebrews 8:5; Christ is a servant of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle Hebrews 8:2 and entered into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us Hebrews 9:24.

Against all of it stands the practical aim, and it is not instruction but endurance. The phrase by faith falls in nineteen verses, eighteen of them in chapter 11 — a catalogue of people who died without receiving what they were promised Hebrews 11:13 Hebrews 11:39. The book's answer to exhaustion is a list of the unrewarded, and the sentence that closes it makes the readers necessary to their completion: that apart from us they should not be made perfect Hebrews 11:40.

Additional notes

Note — where the priest ministers. The book locates Christ's work in a real place and says so repeatedly, and the argument is built on a distinction between two sanctuaries rather than between a building and a metaphor.

The earthly priests serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things, and the proof offered is the instruction to Moses to make everything according to the pattern that was shown to you on the mountain Hebrews 8:5. A copy presupposes an original. Christ is then called a servant of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle which the Lord pitched Hebrews 8:2 — pitched by God rather than built by hands.

And the entry is stated three ways. He entered through his own blood into the Holy Place Hebrews 9:12; not into holy places made with hands, which are representations of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us Hebrews 9:24; and the heavenly things themselves are said to require cleansing Hebrews 9:23, which is a claim no reading can reduce to figure of speech without deleting the verse.

What the book does not do is supply a timetable for that ministry, and none is constructed from it.

Note — the warning passages, and who they are addressed to. Five times the argument breaks off into warning Hebrews 2:1–4 Hebrews 3:7–19 Hebrews 5:11–14 Hebrews 6:4–8 Hebrews 10:26–31 Hebrews 12:25–29, and the severest is the second: those once enlightened, who tasted of the heavenly gift, were made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and tasted the good word of God and of the powers of the age to come — and then fell away — cannot be renewed again to repentance Hebrews 6:4–6.

The reason given is not a limit on mercy but a description of what such a person is doing: seeing they crucify the Son of God for themselves again, and put him to open shame.

Two textual facts should govern how far this is pressed. The writer does not apply it to his readers — three verses later he says we are persuaded of better things concerning you Hebrews 6:9. And the same letter states the opposite possibility in its widest terms: he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, seeing that he lives forever to make intercession for them Hebrews 7:25.

Both stand in one book, and the book does not reconcile them. What it does with the warning is turn it into an argument for continuing, every time.

Note — a quotation from the older Greek. Where the book quotes the Hebrew Scriptures its wording sometimes follows the older Greek translation rather than the Hebrew, and one case carries argumentative weight: sacrifice and offering you didn't desire, but you prepared a body for me Hebrews 10:5, where the Hebrew of the psalm speaks of an opened ear Psalms 40:6. The difference is noted because the book's point rests on the word it quotes.

Outline

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