Taking the Epistle: Hebrews

[ETA: If at times I sound like I'm crowing about the answers to atheists' points - well, maybe I am a little (and it makes me a bad Christian for doing so!), but really my point is to express my surprise that these questions were considered even in the 1st Century CE - a surprise that, given the nature of the letter to the Hebrews, is really quite unwarranted.]

Hebrews is the first of the New Testament letters not attributed to St Paul. According to the study notes, it was commonly attributed to him by people from around 400 to 1600 CE, but before that and after that it was never really said to be by him. Because the author does not identify himself, there are a number of theories about who might have written it, Paul's associates Apollos and Barnabas are the leading suspects for the role.

Compared to the letters of St Paul, this is if anything more tied in to the structures and systems of Jewish theology - the author bases his arguments very heavily on an understanding of the Jewish scriptures and quotes from them liberally to make his points. This makes sense in a letter addressed to the Hebrew churches, of course!

The structured argument is mainly aimed at establishing beyond doubt the position of Christ as the head of the Church, as the Son of God and as the means of salvation. In so doing, it also presents a theological answer to the questions posed by Conversational Atheist that I addressed in an earlier post. (Just to be clear - in this post I present the argument that the author of Hebrews makes, I don't say that I completely follow the author's arguments here - for my arguments, see my earlier post.)

First, Christ's superiority to earlier leaders is explained through a series of Old Testament quotations that are used to imply that the Christ is exalted above Moses, David, and the angels. Then Jesus is described as a great high priest from an order that pre-dates the Levite tradition, using a name of a pre-exile king and priest who is unusual in Genesis accounts because his ancestry isn't mentioned (which according to the author of Hebrews resembles Jesus because although Jesus was born of Mary, he was actually conceived by the Spirit). The argument then goes that such high spiritual calling can only be the Son of God.

To talk of Jesus as salvation, another common atheist argument actually gets addressed: namely, why did Jesus have to die, why couldn't God just forgive sins anyway? According to Hebrews, this is because Christ had to become our brother to experience fully what humanity is, and through that, had to take on our suffering, and thus release us from the torment that we are due. Though God knows our hearts and our suffering, through Christ he experienced it directly.

In bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering. Both the one who makes men holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers.

...

Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death— that is, the devil— and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. For surely it is not angels he helps, but Abraham's descendants. For this reason he had to be made like his brothers in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.

In addressing the questions of Conversational Atheist, Hebrews says on the point of why the new covenant of Christ was needed:

The former regulation is set aside because it was weak and useless (for the law made nothing perfect), and a better hope is introduced, by which we draw near to God.

And it was not without an oath! Others became priests without any oath, but he became a priest with an oath when God said to him:

The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind: 'You are a priest for ever.'

Because of this oath, Jesus has become the guarantee of a better covenant.


Now there have been many of those priests, since death prevented them from continuing in office; but because Jesus lives for ever, he has a permanent priesthood. Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them. Such a high priest meets our need— one who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens. Unlike the other high priests, he does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself. For the law appoints as high priests men who are weak; but the oath, which came after the law, appointed the Son, who has been made perfect for ever.

The argument is that the "former law" is useless because it can only guide, it cannot correct; it does not prevent people from straying, nor does it heal the gulf of sin. As the following passage explains, the old sacrifices had to be repeated, over and over again, because they were necessarily impure and incomplete. But God's sacrifice through Jesus is perfect, and eternal - it washes truly clean in a way that the old rituals could not.

The author of Hebrews demonstrates the importance of this, that Jesus admits all people into Heaven, by reference to the torn curtain in some of the gospel descriptions of Jesus' death: the curtain separated the outer sanctum from the inner sanctum, which was the part into which only the high priest could go. Symbolically, according to Hebrews, Christ's death tore aside the curtain that separates humanity from God, just as the curtain in the temple was torn that separated the secret from the rest of the worshippers.

Like the other letters, Hebrews makes some warnings and exhortations: We must pay attention in order to receive the salvation; we must not "fall away" but remain steadfast in our faith in order to enjoy the promised rewards; we must persevere in the face of opposition. Unlike the other letters, Hebrews is very unforgiving of those who lapse in their faith:

Hebrews 6:4-6 It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age, if they fall away, to be brought back to repentance, because to their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace.

and

Hebrews 10:26-29 If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God. Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God under foot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace?

While the other letters tend to emphasise that love (the defining characteristic of the Spirit) as eternally forgiving, Hebrews emphasises the effect of wilfully ignoring the directions of the Spirit - the effect being described in the above passage as "trampling the Son of God under foot" etc.

Chapter 11 is interesting in that it offers a list of several of the characters from the Old Testament whom the authors believe exemplify faith, and the success that faith ultimately brings. The list includes most of the post-deluge patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob etc), Moses (of course), and also Rahab, the woman who sheltered the Israelite spies when they were planning the attack on Jericho. (Incidentally, Rahab is commonly described as a prostitute but according to the text notes on the book of Joshua, her business could also be translated as "innkeeper" - sadly, this feels like an attempt by translators at a later date, to diminish the importance and status of a woman in the story.)

Hebrews concludes with several familiar types of instruction, though perhaps presented slightly differently than Paul did.

12:14 "Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord."

12:16 "See that no one is sexually immoral, or is godless like Esau, who for a single meal sold his birthright as the eldest son."

Chapter 13 reminds us to "keep loving one another as brothers", and to shelter strangers because "by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing". Love of money is to be avoided. There is a reminder not to be "carried away" by "strange teachings" (although the thought in my mind at this instruction is that the teachings of the early Christians were probably among the strangest ever heard at that time and in that part of the world!) The final instruction is to obey leaders, "so that their work will be a joy, not a burden".

Overall, I think Hebrews is useful in terms of understanding how the early Church coped with understanding how the Jewish scriptures related to the new message of Christ's salvation. The actual theology is similar to the ideas expressed by Paul, but in this letter there is a more comprehensive attempt to base it in teachings that would have been familiar to the more educated recipients and give a background to the new church in terms of the older tradition, while simultaneously explaining that the old law had been superseded (though not erased).