Hebrews 1 -- Explaining Jesus To Jews

The writer of Hebrews faced the task of developing a presentation to those who’d been raised as Jews, but who had embraced the Christian faith.  In their minds, it was almost sacrilege to give up all that God had, for centuries, been telling Jews to do for their worship.  What better way to start than to use the verses from their own Scriptures.

They’d known that disobedience led to punishment.  Now he wrote to convince them that Jesus was the One mentioned in many verses of their Scriptures, and therefore He must be obeyed to avoid punishment.

After opening the door about Jesus, he said, “God is the One who made all things, and all things are for His glory.  He wanted to have many children share His glory, so He made the One who leads people to salvation perfect through suffering.  (They equated suffering with punishment from God, not something to perfect someone)  Jesus, who makes people holy, and those who are made holy are from the same family … Jesus Himself became like them.  He did this so that, by dying, He could destroy the one who has the power of death – the devil – and free those who were like slaves all their lives because of their fear of death … Jesus had to be made like His brothers in every way so He could be their merciful and faithful high priest in service to God.  Then Jesus could bring forgiveness for their sins.”

They had to understand that He wasn’t just a man, for no man could die for their past, current, and future sins.  They needed to see that He was first of all God – Yahweh – who, seeing their plight, had taken pity on them, come down from heaven Himself, and offered Himself as a ransom for those who could not save themselves.

Father, they had trouble believing that their Sovereign God would become a man.  Our trouble today seems to be believing that something so simple could be so true.  Please help all mankind to understand that Jesus was who He said, and that the only way to You is through Him.

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford