Hebrews 1-6

The Voice

1 Long ago, at different times and in various ways, God’s voice came to our ancestors through the Hebrew prophets. ² But in these last days, it has come to us through His Son, the One who has been given dominion over all things and through whom all worlds were made.

³ This is the One who—imprinted with God’s image, shimmering with His glory—sustains all that exists through the power of His word. He was seated at the right hand of God once He Himself had made the offering that purified us from all our sins. ⁴ This Son of God is elevated as far above the heavenly messengers as His holy name is elevated above theirs.

⁵ For no heavenly messengers have ever heard God address them with these words of the psalms:

Or heard Him promise,

⁶ Now, when the Son, the firstborn of God, was brought into the world, God said,

⁷ Concerning them, God said,

⁸ But to the Son He said,

¹⁰ And God continues,

¹³ Did God ever say to any of the heavenly messengers,

¹⁴ No, of course not. The heavenly messengers are only spirits and servants, sent out to minister to those who will certainly inherit salvation.

2 That is why we ought to pay even closer attention to the voice that has been speaking so that we will never drift away from it. ² For if the words of instruction and inspiration brought by heaven’s messengers were valid, and if we live in a universe where sin and disobedience receive their just rewards, ³ then how will we escape destruction if we ignore this great salvation? We heard it first from our Lord Jesus, then from those who passed on His teaching. ⁴ God also testifies to this truth by signs and wonders and miracles and the gifts of the Holy Spirit lighting on those He chooses.

⁵ Now clearly God didn’t set up the heavenly messengers to bring the final word or to rule over the world that is coming. ⁶ I have read something somewhere:

When God placed everything under the son of man, He didn’t leave out anything. Maybe we don’t see all that happening yet; ⁹ but what we do see is Jesus, born a little lower than the heavenly messengers, who is now crowned with glory and honor because He willingly suffered and died. And He did that so that through God’s grace, He might taste death on behalf of everyone.

¹⁰ It only makes sense that God, by whom and for whom everything exists, would choose to bring many of us to His side by using suffering to perfect Jesus, the founder of our faith, the pioneer of our salvation. ¹¹ As I will show you, it’s important that the One who brings us to God and those who are brought to God become one, since we are all from one Father. This is why Jesus was not ashamed to call us His family, ¹² saying, in the words of the psalmist,

¹³ And in the words of Isaiah,

And again,

¹⁴ Since we, the children, are all creatures of flesh and blood, Jesus took on flesh and blood, so that by dying He could destroy the one who held power over death—the devil— ¹⁵ and destroy the fear of death that has always held people captive.

¹⁶ So notice—His concern here is not for the welfare of the heavenly messengers, but for the children of Abraham. ¹⁷ He had to become as human as His sisters and brothers so that when the time came, He could become a merciful and faithful high priest of God, called to reconcile a sinful people. ¹⁸ Since He has also been tested by suffering, He can help us when we are tested.

3 So all of you who are holy partners in a heavenly calling, let’s turn our attention to Jesus, the Emissary of God and High Priest, who brought us the faith we profess; ² and compare Him to Moses, who also brought words from God. Both of them were faithful to their missions, to the One who called them. ³ But we value Jesus more than Moses, in the same way that we value a builder more than the house he builds. ⁴ Every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God. ⁵ Moses brought healing and redemption to his people as a faithful servant in God’s house, and he was a witness to the things that would be spoken later. ⁶ But Jesus the Anointed was faithful as a Son of that house. (We become that house, if we’re able to hold on to the confident hope we have in God until the end.)

⁷ Listen now, to the voice of the Holy Spirit through what the psalmist wrote:

¹² Brothers and sisters, pay close attention so you won’t develop an evil and unbelieving heart that causes you to abandon the living God. ¹³ Encourage each other every day—for as long as we can still say “today”—so none of you let the deceitfulness of sin harden your hearts. ¹⁴ For we have become partners with the Anointed One—if we can just hold on to our confidence until the end.

¹⁵ Look at the lines from the psalm again:

¹⁶ Now who, exactly, was God talking to then? Who heard and rebelled? Wasn’t it all of those whom Moses led out of Egypt? ¹⁷ And who made God angry for an entire generation? Wasn’t it those who sinned against Him, those whose bodies are still buried in the wilderness, the site of that uprising? ¹⁸ It was those disobedient ones who God swore would never enter into salvation’s rest. ¹⁹ And we can see that they couldn’t enter because they did not believe.

4 That’s why, as long as that promise of entering God’s rest remains open to us, we should be careful that none of us seem to fall short ourselves. ² Those people in the wilderness heard God’s good news, just as we have heard it, but the message they heard didn’t do them any good since it wasn’t combined with faith. ³ We who believe are entering into salvation’s rest, as He said,

even though God’s works were finished from the very creation of the world. ⁴ (For didn’t God say that on the seventh day of creation He rested from all His works?^{[n] 5} And doesn’t God say in the psalm that they would never enter into salvation’s rest?^[o])

⁶ So if God prepared a place of rest, and those who were given the good news didn’t enter because they chose disobedience over faith, then it remains open for us to enter. ⁷ Once again, God has fixed a day; and that day is “today,” as David said so much later when he wrote in the psalm quoted earlier:

⁸ Now if Joshua had been able to lead those who followed him into God’s rest, would God then have spoken this way? ⁹ There still remains a place of rest, a true Sabbath, for the people of God ¹⁰ because those who enter into salvation’s rest lay down their labors in the same way that God entered into a Sabbath rest from His.

¹¹ So let us move forward to enter this rest, so that none of us fall into the kind of faithless disobedience that prevented them from entering. ¹² The word of God, you see, is alive and moving; sharper than a double-edged sword; piercing the divide between soul and spirit, joints and marrow; able to judge the thoughts and will of the heart. ¹³ No creature can hide from God: God sees all. Everyone and everything is exposed, opened for His inspection; and He’s the One we will have to explain ourselves to.

¹⁴ Since we have a great High Priest, Jesus, the Son of God who has passed through the heavens from death into new life with God, let us hold tightly to our faith. ¹⁵ For Jesus is not some high priest who has no sympathy for our weaknesses and flaws. He has already been tested in every way that we are tested; but He emerged victorious, without failing God. ¹⁶ So let us step boldly to the throne of grace, where we can find mercy and grace to help when we need it most.

5 Remember what I said earlier about the role of the high priest, even the ones chosen by human beings? The job of every high priest is reconciliation: approaching God on behalf of others and offering Him gifts and sacrifices to repair the damage caused by our sins against God and each other. ² The high priest should have compassion for those who are ignorant of the faith and those who fall out of the faith because he also has wrestled with human weakness, ³ and so the priest must offer sacrifices both for his sins and for those of the people. ⁴ The office of high priest and the honor that goes along with it isn’t one that someone just takes. One must be set aside, called by God, just as God called Aaron, the brother of Moses.

⁵ In the same way, the Anointed One, our Liberating King, didn’t call Himself but was appointed to His priestly office by God, who said to Him,

⁶ and who also says elsewhere,

⁷ When Jesus was on the earth, a man of flesh and blood, He offered up prayers and pleas, groans and tears to the One who could save Him from death. He was heard because He approached God with reverence. ⁸ Although He was a Son, Jesus learned obedience through the things He suffered. ⁹ And once He was perfected through that suffering He became the way of eternal salvation for all those who hear and follow Him, ¹⁰ for God appointed Him to be a High Priest in the order of Melchizedek.

¹¹ I have a lot more to say about this, but it may be hard for you to follow since you’ve become dull in your understanding. ¹² By this time, you ought to be teachers yourselves, yet I feel like you want me to reteach you the most basic things that God wants you to know. It’s almost like you’re a baby again, coddled at your mother’s breast, nursing, not ready for solid food. ¹³ No one who lives on milk alone can know the ins and outs of what it means to be righteous and pursue justice; that’s because he is only a baby. ¹⁴ But solid food is for those who have come of age, for those who have learned through practice to distinguish good from evil.

6 So let’s push on toward a more perfect understanding and move beyond just the basic teachings of the Anointed One. There’s no reason to rehash the fundamentals: repenting from what you loved in your old dead lives, believing in God as our Creator and Redeemer, ² teaching about baptism,^[s] setting aside those called to service through the ritual laying on of hands, the coming resurrection of those who have died, and God’s final judgment of all people for all time. ³ No, we will move on toward perfection, if God wills it.

^4-6 It is impossible to restore the changed heart of the one who has fallen from faith—who has already been enlightened, has tasted the gift of new life from God, has shared in the power of the Holy Spirit, and has known the goodness of God’s revelation and the powers of the coming age. If such a person falls away, it’s as though that one were crucifying the Son of God all over again and holding Him up to ridicule. ⁷ You see, God blesses the ground that drinks of the rain and then produces a bountiful crop for those who cultivate it. ⁸ But land that produces nothing but thorns and brambles? That land is worthless and in danger of being cursed, burned to the bare earth.

⁹ But listen, my friends—we don’t mean to discourage you completely with such talk. We are convinced that you are made for better things, the things of salvation, ¹⁰ because God is not unjust or unfair. He won’t overlook the work you have done or the love you have carried to each other in His name while doing His work, as you are still doing. ¹¹ We want you all to continue working until the end so that you’ll realize the certainty that comes with hope ¹² and not grow lazy. We want you to walk in the footsteps of the faithful who came before you, from whom you can learn to be steadfast in pursuing the promises of God.

¹³ Remember when God made His promise to Abraham? He had to swear by Himself, there being no one greater: ¹⁴ “Surely I will bless you and multiply your descendants.”^{[t] 15} And after Abraham had endured with patience, he obtained the promise he had hoped for. ¹⁶ When swearing an oath to confirm what they are saying, humans swear by someone greater than themselves and so bring their arguments to an end. ¹⁷ In the same way, when God wanted to confirm His promise as true and unchangeable, He swore an oath to the heirs of that promise. ¹⁸ So God has given us two unchanging things: His promise and His oath. These prove that it is impossible for God to lie. As a result, we who come to God for refuge might be encouraged to seize that hope that is set before us. ¹⁹ That hope is real and true, an anchor to steady our restless souls, a hope that leads us back behind the curtain to where God is (as the high priests did in the days when reconciliation flowed from sacrifices in the temple) ²⁰ and back into the place where Jesus, who went ahead on our behalf, has entered since He has become a High Priest forever in the order of Melchizedek.