A Treasury of Truth and Encouragement
Hebrews is a rich treasury of life-transforming truth and heart-sustaining encouragement. Do you long to know Jesus of Nazareth? Hebrews introduces him as the eternal Son who radiates the glory of God (Heb. 1:2–3), the royal Messiah whom God calls “God” (Heb. 1:8), and the Creator of earth and heaven (Heb. 1:10–12). Hebrews also shows how close this glorious divine Son has come to you, sharing your human flesh and blood (Heb. 2:9–16), enduring suffering and trials like yours (Heb. 2:17–18), and empathizing with your weakness to help you in crisis (Heb. 4:15–16).
Do you long to see why Christians base all their hopes—and risk their lives—on this paradoxical union of divine majesty and human frailty in the person of Jesus? Hebrews reveals the perfection of Jesus as the one and only mediator between God and humanity, who secures our communion with God (Heb. 7:22; 8:6; 9:15). God created you for his friendship, but your bad choices have stained you to the core, creating a chasm of estrangement that you cannot cross. The Son came into the world to do God’s will, enduring temptation without sinning and offering his body as the blameless sacrifice that cleanses your conscience and brings you home (Heb. 4:15; 7:26; 9:14; 10:5–10). This same Son was raised from the dead (Heb. 13:20), “crowned with glory and honor” (Heb. 2:9), and enthroned at God’s right hand (Heb. 1:3, 13; 8:1). There he lives forever to pray for you (Heb. 7:24–25).
Dennis E. Johnson,
Thomas R. Schreiner,
Brian S. Rosner
Drawing on the dominant biblical-theological themes of Hebrews, this addition to the New Testament Theology series explores how Jesus fulfills perfect priesthood as he calls believers to hold fast to him amid persecution.
Do you long to understand whether (or how) the confusing regulations and rituals about worship in Exodus and Leviticus have anything to teach us today? Hebrews helps us make sense of the interlocking system of architecture (Heb. 9:1–5), priestly credentials and conduct (Heb. 5:1–4; Heb. 7:11–16, 23–28), sacrificial rites (Heb. 9:13–22), and sacred calendar (Heb. 9:6–7; 10:1–3, 11) that God gave to Israel. Hebrews cuts through the complexity by showing that the core issue is the need to “perfect” worshipers—to cleanse the conscience, not just the flesh—so that they can approach God in his holiness (Heb. 7:11, 19; Heb. 9:9–14; Heb. 10:1–4). The elaborate network in the ancient law functioned as “a shadow of the good things to come” (Heb. 10:1), a preview of the ultimate conscience-cleansing event that would open the way to communion with God. Jesus’s sacrifice on the cross was that watershed event (Heb. 9:14; 10:10–14), so now through him we can draw near to God (Heb. 4:14–16; 10:19–22).
Perhaps, recalling that the risen Lord Jesus explained to his apostles everything written about him “in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms” (Luke 24:44), you long to see how those ancient Scriptures, given centuries before his birth in Bethlehem, foretold and foreshadowed his mission. Hebrews bursts with Old Testament passages and insightful interpretations that unveil their testimony to Jesus the Messiah. Moses testified beforehand (Heb. 3:5) to Christ’s priesthood, which was foreshadowed in the mysterious Melchizedek (Heb. 7:1–10; cf. Gen. 14:18–20), and the law’s Levitical system prefigured Christ’s singular sacrifice (Heb. 9:1–10:14). Later prophets foretold Christ’s inauguration of a new covenant to surpass and displace the old, shattered covenant of Sinai (Heb. 8:5–13; cf. Jer. 31:31–34). Psalms declared the Son’s superiority to angels (Heb. 1:5–13; cf. Pss. 2; 45; 97; 102; 104), his connection with humanity (Heb. 2:5–14; Ps. 8), his sacrificial obedience (Heb. 10:5–10; cf. Ps. 40), and his glorious exaltation to God’s right hand (Heb. 1:3, 13; 8:1; 10:12; cf. Ps. 110). If you want to read the Old Testament the way Jesus taught his apostles to read it, watch carefully how Hebrews handles Scripture.
Do you long to know Jesus of Nazareth? Hebrews introduces him as the eternal Son who radiates the glory of God.
Do you long to discern whether your own little life and human history have meaning? Hebrews reveals a God who sovereignly controls the unfolding eras of time. He directed the flow of millennia toward the arrival of the “last days” (Heb. 1:2), the “end of the ages” when the Son entered human history “to put away sin” (Heb. 9:26). The Lord still maneuvers events toward a triumphant consummation, “the world to come” (Heb. 2:5) and “the city that is to come” (Heb. 13:14), an unshakable kingdom (Heb. 12:28) reserved for those who trust him (Heb. 1:14; 6:12; 10:35–36). Covenant—a sovereignly imposed commitment between the Lord and his people—is the pattern that structures God’s plan for history. So Jesus’s inauguration of a new covenant, replacing the covenant mediated by Moses, brings the dawn of the era of perfection for which ancient believers longed (Heb. 8:6–13; Heb. 9:8–10, 13–26). Your own life and the entire universe are directed by God’s design toward a glorious destiny.
Do you find yourself weary with life’s humdrum struggles, discouraged by opposition, dismayed by dangers, and doubting God’s promises of a better future? Hebrews presents a realistic but hopeful paradigm to make sense of your daily experience: like the Israelite generation who left Egypt with Moses, your life is a trek through a hostile wilderness, en route to a homeland that transcends this sin-stained earth (Heb. 3:7–4:13; Heb. 11:9–10, 13–16; Heb. 13:14). Hebrews strengthens drooping hands and weak knees with its display of Jesus, faith’s pioneer and perfecter who endured the cross and despised its shame (Heb. 12:2–3) to liberate his brothers and sisters and lead them to glory (Heb. 2:10–15).
Dennis E. Johnson is the author of Perfect Priest for Weary Pilgrims: A Theology of Hebrews.
Dennis E. Johnson (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) is professor emeritus of practical theology at Westminster Seminary California and assistant pastor of Westminster Presbyterian Church in Dayton, Tennessee. He is the author of several books and contributed to the ESV Study Bible and the ESV Expository Commentary. Dennis and his wife, Jane, live in Dayton and have four children and sixteen grandchildren.
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