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God’s Final Word: His Son
In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways,
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But there is a place where someone has testified: “What is mankind that you are mindful of them, a son of man that you care for him?
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In bringing many sons and daughters to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through what he suffered.
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And again, “I will put my trust in him.” And again he says, “Here am I, and the children God has given me.”
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Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—
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saying, “I will surely bless you and give you many descendants.”
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This man, however, did not trace his descent from Levi, yet he collected a tenth from Abraham and blessed him who had the promises.
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Now there have been many of those priests, since death prevented them from continuing in office;
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which had the golden altar of incense and the gold-covered ark of the covenant. This ark contained the gold jar of manna, Aaron’s staff that had budded, and the stone tablets of the covenant.
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Otherwise Christ would have had to suffer many times since the creation of the world. But he has appeared once for all at the culmination of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself.
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so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.
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And by faith even Sarah, who was past childbearing age, was enabled to bear children because she considered him faithful who had made the promise.
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And so from this one man, and he as good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore.
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Abraham reasoned that God could even raise the dead, and so in a manner of speaking he did receive Isaac back from death.
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By faith Moses’ parents hid him for three months after he was born, because they saw he was no ordinary child, and they were not afraid of the king’s edict.
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God Disciplines His Children
In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.
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Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father?
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See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.
