Aq – The Superiority of Messiah to Moshe in His Position 3: 5-6

The Superiority of Messiah to Moshe in His Position
3: 5-6

The superiority of Messiah to Moshe in His position DIG: Who made up the household of God in the Dispensation of the Torah? What is Christ’s household? In what ways are Jesus and Moses similar? What quality did Jesus and Moses have in common? In what ways is Messiah greater? Why is that important? How would you explain someone who once professed faith in Christ, but fell back into the world? What are two important things we learn from Hebrews 3:1-6?

REFLECT Are you serving the Lord with a heart of love and affection, or out of a sense of obligation? How can you examine yourself and change that? What is your ministry in the house of God where you worship? In what sense does ADONAI live in you? When your heart doesn’t feel like you are the temple of the living God, what does your head say? What does Scripture say? Which do you believe? Do you ever worry about your eternal salvation? Are you in Christ? Is He in you? What does that mean?

There is another factor in Christ’s superiority over Moses: The prophet Moshe spoke about things to come, but Yeshua Messiah brought the fulfillment of these things. Moses, as it were, ministered “in the shadows” (8:5 and 10:1), while Jesus Christ brought the full and final light of the gospel of the grace of God.

To accept Moses is to accept Jesus: Also “Moshe was faithful in all God’s house” (Hebrews 3:2 CJB quoting Numbers 12:7 CJB), as a servant giving witness to things God would divulge later, meaning in reference to the Messiah (3:5 CJB). The word servant (Greek therapon) is not the usual word used in the B’rit Chadashah used for servant or bondslave (Greek: doulos). Therapon has an ethical character attached to it, and speaks of a voluntary servant who acts because of love and affection. In the New Covenant, it is used only of Moshe. At the beginning of his ministry, Moses was hesitant and resisted the call of YHVH. But once he surrendered, he obeyed out of a heart of love and affection.⁸⁵ Moshe ministered to Isra’el, the people of God in the Dispensation of the Torah (see the commentary on Exodus, to see link click Da – The Dispensation of the Torah), and Christ ministers to His Church, the people of God, under the Dispensation of Grace (see Bp – The Dispensation of Grace).

If this is what believers are – God’s house – then we should ask, “For what reason does one build a house?” We might conclude – “To live in it.” What a marvelous truth this is, that ADONAI has redeemed us so that He might dwell among His people (Revelation 21:3). This is true of believers individually. If you have come to YHVH through faith in Messiah, then He is living in you, working in you to will and to act according to His good purpose (Philippians 2:13), by means of the Ruach ha-Kodesh. Jesus said of the Spirit He would send to those who believed in Him: He lives with you and will be in you (John 14:17).

But this is also true of believers corporately. We are together God’s house. He dwells among us as well as in us. Rabbi Sha’ul says: We are the temple of the living God. As God has said, “I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be My people” (2 Corinthians 6:16). He used this point to argue that the universal, invisible Church, made up of Jewish and Gentile believers (Ephesians 2:14), is called to be holy, because ADONAI is holy. Kefa also said: You yourselves, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ (First Peter 2:5). The Church is the holy temple where the holy God dwells in Spirit, is worshiped and served.

When you build a house, you first lay the cornerstone, which establishes the lines and angles for the whole house. Then comes the foundation, which will support the structure that is built upon it. Sha’ul tells us in Ephesians 2:19-22 that the Church is such a house. Yeshua Messiah Himself is the chief cornerstone, and the apostles and the prophets are the foundation. Their teaching, as it is recorded in Bible, tells us how the Messianic Community was started (see the commentary on Acts Al – The Ruach ha-Kodesh Comes at Shavu’ot) and how it grew into the universal, invisible Church today. Since the apostles are the foundation (see the commentary on The Life of Christ Cy – These are the Names of the Twelve Apostles), a believer is one who receives and believes the apostolic teaching in the B’rit Chadashah and builds his or her life on it, as that foundation rests on Christ Himself.

The TaNaKh reveals the geography of salvation – if you wanted to know Ha’Shem, you could not look just anywhere. Yes, God is everywhere, yet He specially revealed Himself in a particular place, among His people in the wilderness (see the commentary on Exodus Ep – The Camp of the Twelve Tribes of Isra’el), and especially at Jerusalem in the Temple (see the commentary on the Life of Solomon Ax – Solomon’s Temple). If you wanted to find ADONAI, you had to go there, where God’s house was, the way the queen of Sheba went to Yerushalayim in Solomon’s time. Today, if you want to learn about God, you should go to a messianic synagogue or church where God’s Word is taught. Though YHVH is everywhere, it is still in His house where He especially reveals Himself to those who come in faith.⁸⁶

Although Moses and Jesus were both faithful, there was a difference. Yeshua deserves more honor than Moshe, just as the builder of the house deserves more honor than the house itself (3:3 CJB). While Moses was a faithful servant in God’s house, the Messiah, as Son, was faithful over God’s house (3:6a CJB). Moshe was but a member of the spiritual household that Jesus built. Messiah created both Isra’el and the Church. That is the essence of His deity: For every house is built by someone, but the One who built everything is God (3:4 CJB). Since through Him everything was made (John 1:3). He is God.

The mark of true believers: The closing statement shows the mark of a true believer: And we are that house of His, provided we hold firmly to the courage and confidence inspired by what we hope for (3:6B CJB). This does not mean that believers are saved only if they just hold on to the end. We can neither save ourselves nor keep ourselves saved. That would mean salvation is attained by works, not by faith. The point here is that to continue, to persevere in the faith is the evidence that a person is actually saved. Those who hold fast to their confidence and hope are proving that they are truly born again. If someone professes Christ as Savior and Lord, but abandons their profession altogether, the Bible says they were never saved to begin with: They out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us (First John 2:19).

Apparently there were some Jews in this persecuted Messianic community who had fallen away, and it was because of them that the writer to the Hebrews gives these words, which both warn and encourage. Some were at the edge of commitment, but hardened their hearts and fell away (see As – Today, If You Hear His Voice, Do Not Harden Your Hearts), proving that they were never saved. The true believers persevered, and their perseverance was evidence of their salvation: If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples (John 8:31). One of the clearest truths of the B’rit Chadashah is that the Lord holds on to those who belong to Him (see the commentary on The Life of Christ Ms – The Eternal Security of the Believer). Yeshua has never lost anyone, and never will lose anyone, from His household.

This passage teaches us two important things. First, we should be sure we are true believers. Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves (Second Corinthians 13:5). Secondly, when we know we are in Christ (Ephesians 1:3, 7, 11-12), we should keep our eyes on Him. He is all we need. We are complete in Him.⁸⁷ Therefore, Yeshua is superior to Moses in His position.

The wandering of Isra’el in the wilderness is a major theme in the book of Hebrews. However, only two men in that nation – Caleb and Joshua – illustrate the attitude described in Hebrews 3:6b. Everyone else in Isra’el over the age of twenty died in the wilderness and never saw the Promised Land (Numbers 14:26-38). Nevertheless Caleb and Joshua believed ADONAI, and He honored their faith. For forty years Caleb and Joshua watched their friends and relatives die, but those two men of faith had confidence in God’s word that they would one day enter Canaan. While others were experiencing sorrow and death, Caleb and Joshua rejoiced in confident hope. As believers, we know that God is taking us to heaven, and we should reflect the same kind of joyful confidence and hope.⁸⁸

Lord, you make it possible for me to answer a heavenly calling that is impossible to embrace on my own. Through Your Holy Spirit, give me the strength today to follow you to the Father’s heart.⁸⁹