Hebrews Explained: The Book Written to People About to Give Up

The book of Hebrews is one of the most

sustained and carefully argued letter in

the entire New Testament. And its single

purpose, its whole reason for existing

is to answer one question. Is Jesus

worth holding on to when holding on is

hard? Let's get into it.

Before we can understand what Hebrews

says, we have to understand who it was

written to. Because this letter does not

exist in a vacuum.

>> [music]

>> It was written to specific people in a

specific situation under specific

pressure. And when you know what that

pressure was, every single argument the

author makes becomes personal. It stops

being theology. It starts being a

lifeline. Nobody knows for certain who

wrote the book of Hebrews. The author

never names themselves.

Paul has been suggested Barnabas,

Apollos, Priscilla.

The honest answer is we don't know. What

we do know is that whoever wrote it was

one of the most gifted writers in the

entire New Testament and they knew the

Hebrew scriptures in extraordinary

depth. What we also know with confidence

is who they were writing to. Jewish

Christians. people who had grown up

inside Judaism, who had known the Torah

since childhood, who had been formed by

the temple, the priesthood, [music] the

sacrifices, the festivals. All of it was

their world, their identity, their

entire framework for understanding God

and how to reach him. And then they had

encountered Jesus and they had believed

and they had joined this new community,

the church,

which in its early decades was largely

Jewish believers who understood Jesus

not as a departure from their heritage

but as the fulfillment of it. And now

they were under pressure. The letter

appears to have been written somewhere

around the 60s AD, [music] a time of

increasing Roman hostility toward

Christians. A time when following Jesus

was beginning to cost things, real

things, jobs, relationships, social

standing, safety.

Look at what the author writes in

chapter 10:es

32-34.

He is reminding them of their own

history. Remember those earlier days

after you had received the light when

you endured in a great conflict full of

suffering. [music] Sometimes you were

publicly exposed to insult and

persecution. At other times you stood

side by side with those who were so

treated. You suffered along with those

in prison and joyfully accepted the

confiscation of your property.

Their property was confiscated. They

were publicly insulted. They watched

friends go to prison. [music] And in

those early days they endured it

joyfully because the faith was alive.

[music] The conviction was strong. The

hope was fresh and immediate. But that

was earlier days. Now in the present of

this letter, the faith is not as fresh.

The hope is not as close and the cost

has not gone down. If anything, it is

going up. And some of these people are

quietly [music]

privately considering the exit. And the

exit available to them is [music] not

abandoning religion altogether. The exit

is going back back to Judaism, [music]

back to the temple and the priesthood

and the sacrificial system which was

legal under Roman law in a way

Christianity was not, which would

relieve the social pressure which would

make life easier.

You can understand the logic. I started

this because of Jesus. But the old way

is still there. The temple is still

there. Maybe I can ease back. Maybe I

can hold on to the spirit of what Jesus

was without the cost of being openly

identified with him. And the author of

Hebrews sits down and writes a letter,

not a scolding letter, not a shaming

letter, a letter that builds the most

thorough, most careful, most

compassionate case possible for one

single conclusion.

Jesus is better. Not just good. Not just

one option among many. Better. Better

than everything that came before. Better

than the angels. Better than Moses.

Better than the entire Levitical

priesthood, better than the sacrifices,

better than the temple itself. And if

Jesus is better, then going back is not

[music] neutral.

Going back is walking away from the real

thing and back into the shadow of it.

And these people, the author is

convinced, [music] deserve to understand

exactly what they have before they let

it go.

The author doesn't waste a single word.

The letter opens in its very first

sentence with one of the most majestic

statements in the New Testament. Hebrews

1:1-2.

In the past, God spoke to our ancestors

through the prophets at many times and

in various ways. But in these last days,

he has spoken to us by his son whom he

appointed heir of all things and through

whom also he made the universe in the

past prophets

in these last days his son. The author

is not dismissing the prophets. He is

placing them in sequence.

>> [music]

>> There was a word through Moses, a word

through Isaiah, a word through Ezekiel.

All of them true, all of them important,

all of them part of the same story. But

now the son has spoken. And when the sun

speaks, it is not one more voice in a

long line. It is the voice the whole

line was building toward. the clearest,

fullest, most complete communication of

who God is that has ever been given. And

then the author spends the first two

chapters arguing that Jesus is greater

than the angels.

Now, why would he need to argue that?

Why is the comparison even necessary?

Because in 1st century Judaism, angels

were understood to be the intermediaries

through whom the law was given. Acts

7:53, Galatians 3:19.

The law came through angels which meant

[music] angels were associated with the

highest possible spiritual authority in

the Jewish world. So the author says

Jesus is not an angel. He is the son. He

sits at the right hand of the majesty.

The angels worship him. [music] He is

categorically above them. And then

chapters 3 and 4, Jesus is greater than

Moses. For a Jewish audience, this is

even more striking. Moses was the figure

above all figures. The one who spoke

with God face to face. The one through

whom the law came. The one who led the

Exodus. He was the central pillar of

Jewish identity. To say someone is

greater than Moses was not a small

claim. And the author makes it directly.

Moses was faithful in God's house as a

servant. Jesus is faithful over God's

house as the son. The builder of a house

is greater than the house itself.

Moses pointed to something. Jesus is

what Moses was pointing to. And then the

author moves to the argument that is

really the heart of the whole letter.

The priesthood here is the situation in

the old covenant. [music] The people of

Israel needed to approach God. But God

is holy, completely [music]

and utterly set apart of a purity that

human beings in their broken state

cannot simply walk into. There is a gap

and God in his grace built a bridge

across it. the priesthood. A group of

men from the family of Aaron, the tribe

of Levi, set apart to serve as

intermediaries, to stand between the

people and God, to offer sacrifices that

covered sin and maintained the

relationship to be the ones who could go

where ordinary people could not. And

once a year on the day of atonement, Yam

Kapour, the high priest, would do

something that no one else on earth was

permitted to do. He would enter the

innermost room of the temple, the holy

of holies, the room where the presence

of God dwelled above the ark of the

covenant. He would go in alone once with

blood and he would make atonement for

all of Israel. This was the highest

moment of the entire religious year, the

closest any human being ever got to the

full presence of God. And then he would

come back out and the people would know

for another year the relationship is

intact. The gap [music] is covered. But

here is what the author of Hebrews wants

you to see about this system. It never

finished. Every year the high priest had

to go back in every year. New blood, new

sacrifice, new atonement. Because the

blood of bulls and goats, however God

prescribed, however necessary, could not

permanently remove sin, it could cover

it for now, for this year and next year.

It needed covering again. The author

says this directly in chapter 10:es 1:4.

The law is only a shadow of the good

things that are coming, not the

realities themselves. For this reason,

it can never by the same sacrifices

repeated endlessly year after year make

perfect those who draw near to worship.

A shadow, a picture, a placeholder built

by design with a limitation inside it

because it was never meant to be the

final thing. It was always pointing

forward to something that could actually

finish the job. Now, here is where

MelkiseDC comes in. And I know that name

sounds like it belongs in a different

kind of video, but stay with me because

this is the piece that unlocks

everything. MelkiseDC appears exactly

once in the entire Old Testament.

Genesis 14.

Abraham returns from battle. And this

mysterious figure, king of Salem, priest

of God most high, comes out to meet him.

He brings bread and wine. He blesses

Abraham. Abraham gives him a tenth of

everything. And then MelkiseDC

disappears from the narrative

completely. No genealogy, no birth

record, no death, no father or mother

listed, no beginning of days or end of

life recorded. He simply appears,

blesses, and is gone.

And Psalm 110, which the New Testament

quotes more than any other Old Testament

passage, says this about the coming

king. You are a priest forever in the

order of MelkiseDC.

Not in the order of Aaron, not a

Levitical priest, a priest in the order

of MelkiseDC, a priesthood with no

recorded beginning and no end, eternal,

permanent, not requiring repetition or

succession. The author of Hebrews says

that is Jesus. Jesus did not offer the

blood of animals. He offered himself

once, not to be topped up, [music] not

to be repeated. Chapter 9:26.

He has appeared once for all at the

culmination of the ages to do away with

sin by the sacrifice of himself.

Once for all. And then this is the

detail I want you to sit with.

Chapter 10 11 to 12. Day after day every

priest stands and performs his religious

duties. Again and again he offers the

same sacrifices which can never take

away sins.

But when this priest had offered for all

time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down

at the right hand of God. He sat down.

Every Levitical priest who ever lived

stood [music] at his post. Because the

work was never finished, there was

always another sacrifice to offer.

Another year coming, another yam kapour

approaching.

Jesus sat [music] down. You sit down

when the work is done. Not when there is

more to do. Not when you need a rest

before continuing, when it is finished.

This is what the people reading Hebrews

were considering walking away from. A

priest who sat down because the

sacrifice was final. The gap

permanently, once for all, irreversibly

closed. Now, here is where the author

makes the most personally tender

argument in the entire letter. He could

have stopped at the priesthood argument.

[music] Jesus is a better priest.

Permanent sacrifice done once finished.

That alone is a compelling case. But he

goes further. Chapter 4:es 15 and 16.

For we do not have a high priest who is

unable to feel sympathy for our

weaknesses. But we have one who has been

tempted in every way just as we are.

[music]

Yet he did not sin.

Let us then approach God's throne of

grace with confidence so that we may

receive mercy and find grace to help us

in our time of need. We do not have a

high priest who is unable to feel

sympathy for our weaknesses. The old

high priest was a human being which

meant he had his own weaknesses which

meant before he could enter the holy of

holies for the people he had to offer a

sacrifice for himself first. He was not

above the problem. He was part of it.

But Jesus is different. [music] He knows

what your life feels like from the

inside. He knows hunger, exhaustion,

grief, betrayal, being misunderstood by

people close to him, being rejected by

people he came to help, the weight of an

impossible situation with no easy way

through. He was tempted, the author

says, in every way, just as we are. Not

almost every way, not most ways, every

way. and he did not give in. Which means

he is not looking at your struggle with

contempt. He is not sitting at the

throne of grace with impatience waiting

for you to get it together before he

will see you. He is a high priest who

has been in the same terrain you are

standing in. Who knows what the ground

feels like under your feet and who has

what you actually need.

Mercy and grace to help in [music] your

time of need. Not mercy and grace once

you've improved. Not mercy and grace

when you've earned an audience in your

time of need, which is now, which is

whatever brought you to this video

today. So the author says, "Approach

with confidence. Not crawling, not

performance, not a rehearsed speech

about how sorry you are. Confidence.

Because the one you are approaching is

not cold. He knows. He has been there.

And he is not going anywhere.

Now the author turns from argument to

direct appeal. He has built his case

carefully. Jesus is greater than angels,

greater than Moses, greater than the

priesthood. His sacrifice is permanent.

His intercession is personal.

The old covenant was a shadow and the

shadow is given way to the real thing.

And now chapter 10 35-36,

he says this. So do not throw away your

confidence. It will be richly rewarded.

You need to persevere so that when you

have done the will of God, you will

receive [music]

what he has promised.

Do not throw away your confidence. The

Greek word for throw away is a pablelet

to hurl something aside to discard it.

And the author can see it happening. The

grip loosening, the hands opening, the

quiet private drift toward letting go.

Do not throw it away. And then one of

the most honest lines in the letter, you

need to persevere.

Not this should be easy by now. Not a

mature believer would not be struggling

like this. You need to persevere.

Perseverance is a need. Meaning this is

genuinely hard. Meaning holding on

requires something. The author is not

pretending it is easy. He is saying I

know what it costs. Hold on anyway. And

then he does something brilliant. He

gives them a running start for

perseverance. He reaches back into their

own history, the history of their

people, and he builds a case from the

lives of everyone who came before.

Chapter 11.

Chapter 11 begins with one of the most

quoted definitions in the entire Bible.

Verse 1. Now faith is the substance of

things hoped for, the evidence of things

not seen.

Substance. evidence. Those are legal

words, forensic words. Substance in

Greek is hypothesis, the title deed to a

property, the legal documentation that

proves ownership. Faith is the title

deed to what you are hoping for. You do

not possess it yet in your hands, but

you hold the legal claim to it. It is

yours. The paperwork exists. Evidence.

Alenos, a legal proof, a piece of

evidence that establishes a fact in

court. Faith is the proof of what you

cannot yet see. The author is [music]

saying faith is not wishful thinking,

not optimism dressed in religious

language. It is a legitimate legal

standing, a real possession of something

not yet physically received. And then

beginning in verse four, he lists them.

Every person who lived by this kind of

faith, who trusted what they could not

see, who kept going when it cost them,

who held the title deed and never let

go, even when the promise had not

arrived. Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham,

Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses,

Rahab, Gideon, Barack, Samson, Jeffa,

David, Samuel, the prophets, name after

name after name. And as the list builds,

listen to what the author says about

what some of them endured. Verses 35-38.

There were others who were tortured,

refusing to be released so that they

might gain an even better resurrection.

Some [music] faced jeers and flogging

and even chains and imprisonment. They

were put to death by stoning. They were

sawn in two. They were [music] killed by

the sword. They went about in sheep

skins and goat skins, destitute,

persecuted, and mistreated. The world

was not worthy of them.

These people

saw in two wandering in deserts, living

in caves. The world was not worthy of

them. They looked like the evidence had

not come through. They looked like faith

had failed to deliver. They looked like

they had lost. And the author says, "You

have it backwards. They were not too

small for the world's standard. The

world was not large enough to contain

them." And then verse 39, the pivot that

makes the entire chapter clearer. These

were all commended for their faith. Yet

none of them received what had been

promised.

None of them. They lived by faith. They

died in faith. They held the title deed

their whole lives, and the promise had

not yet arrived in full when they closed

their eyes. And then verse 40, since God

had planned something better for us, so

that only together with us would they be

made perfect. Every name in that list is

still waiting for the same completion

that these first century believers were

waiting for. The same completion you and

I are waiting for. The story is not over

for any of them. Abraham is in it. Moses

is in it. David is in it. And so are

you. And so is every person who holds on

today. They stayed in the story without

seeing the end. And the people reading

this letter who were about to give up

and walk away were one generation in a

line that goes all the way back to Abel.

To let go [music] now when every person

in that list endured things far harder

without letting go would be to break the

line. to step out of a story that has

been building for thousands of years

right before the ending arrives.

And then chapter 12, the most famous

image in the whole letter, verse one.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by

such a great cloud of witnesses, let us

throw off everything that hinders and

the sin that so easily entangles, and

let us run with perseverance the race

marked out for us.

a great cloud of witnesses.

The word witnesses here, martyron, is

where we get the word martyr.

And in the ancient world, a witness was

not just a spectator. A witness was

someone who testified, who gave

evidence, who stood up in court and

said, "I know this to be true. My life

proves it." [music] The cloud of

witnesses is not passively watching you

from the stands. They are testifying to

you. Every name in chapter 11 is a piece

of evidence. Abel's life says it is

[music] worth it even when it costs you

everything.

Noah's life says keep building even when

everyone is laughing. Abraham's life

says go even when you do not know where

you are going. The destitute [music]

caved dwelling sheepkinwearing ones say

the world's verdict on your life is not

the final verdict. All of them

surrounding you saying the same thing.

We held on. So can you. And then the

author gives the reader something

specific to lock their eyes onto. Not

the witnesses, not their own willpower,

not a feeling or an experience they are

hoping to recapture.

Verse two, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the

pioneer and perfector of faith.

Pioneer. The one who goes first into

territory nobody else has entered. Who

blazes the trail. Who makes the path

possible by walking it before you.

Perfector. The one who takes faith to

its full completion. Who finishes what

faith starts. Who brings to its final

full intended purpose the thing you are

holding on to right now. Jesus is not

just the object of faith. He is its

author, its finisher, the one who ran

the race in his own person through

Gethsemane, through the cross, through

three days of silence, all the way to

the resurrection, and then sat down. He

sat down at the right hand of the throne

of God. The race is run. The pioneer has

reached the finish line. And he is not

sitting there with his eyes closed. He

is watching you run, knowing what it

costs to run it from the inside, knowing

the weight of the long middle, having

been in it himself, and he is not going

anywhere. Now, let me bring everything

together. Hebrews is not a complicated

book. It is a compassionate book. It is

a letter written by someone who could

see a group of people letting go of

something they could not afford to let

go of and who made the most thorough,

most carefully constructed, most loving

case possible for why they should hold

on. Here is the whole argument in one

place. The old covenant was real. The

prophets were real. The priesthood was

real. Moses was real. The sacrifices

were real. But all of it was a shadow, a

picture, a placeholder built to point

forward to something, to someone who

would be the substance behind the

shadow. Jesus is the substance. He is

the word the prophets were pointing

toward. He is the priest who sits down

because his sacrifice does not need

repeating. He is the high priest who has

gone into the real holy of holies, not

with animal blood, but with his own, not

to come back out, but to sit down. He is

the pioneer of a faith that is held not

on feelings or circumstances but on the

legal title deed of a promise that

cannot be revoked. And going back,

walking away from this is not a sideways

move. It is not a neutral option.

[music] It is trading the real thing for

the picture of the real thing. It is

stepping out of the sunrise and back

into the painting of the sunrise. You

have a priest who sat down. You have a

sacrifice that is done. You have a door

to the throne of grace that is

permanently, irreversibly open. You have

a cloud, every name from Abel to the

last martyr of the first century. All of

them testifying, "Hold on." And you have

a pioneer who is already at the finish

line, seated, watching you, knowing the

cost of every step. Do not throw away

your confidence. If you are tired,

genuinely, [music]

deeply tired of holding on. If what

started as alive and real now feels like

maintenance, if you are doing the

motions without the feeling and quietly

asking yourself how long you can keep

doing this, Hebrews was written for you

[music] specifically by someone who saw

exactly this coming. And their answer is

not generate more enthusiasm, feel more,

try harder. Their answer is look at what

you actually have, not at how you feel.

At what is actually objectively

permanently true. A finished sacrifice,

a seated priest, an open door, a cloud,

a pioneer. Hold on. And if you are

someone who has been drifting, not a

dramatic exit, just a slow, quiet

movement away, a little further each

month until one day you look up and the

shore is barely visible. The author has

a word for that too.

Chapter 2 verse 1.

We must pay the most careful attention

therefore to what we have heard so that

we do not drift away.

The answer to drift is not shame. It is

an anchor. Hebrews 6:19.

We have this hope as an anchor for the

soul. Firm and secure.

The hope of the gospel, the finished

work, the seated priest is an anchor.

Not one that removes the waves, one that

holds you in them. And if you are

someone watching this from outside the

faith entirely, curious, skeptical,

unsure what any of this is about, I want

you to know that the God described in

this letter is not who you might think

he is. This is not a God who is hard to

reach. Not a God who requires you to

clean up before you knock on the door.

This is a God who has gone to

extraordinary lengths through a priest,

through a sacrifice, through a son who

sat down so the door would stay open. So

that any person who wants to come can

come.

Let us approach the throne of grace with

confidence so that we may receive mercy

and find grace to help us in our time of

need.

That is an open invitation

to anyone watching this right now.

If Hebrews is a book you have never

really sat with, go back to it now

because now you know what it is doing.

You know who it was written for. You

know the argument. And when you know the

argument, every verse lands differently.

It is one of those books that rewards

slow reading. If this video helped,

please like it and subscribe. It

genuinely puts this in front of people

who are in exactly the situation Hebrews

was written for. And if you know someone

who is tired, who is quietly letting go,

who needs to hear that the door is still

open, send them this. God bless you.