HEBREWS – PART TW0 – LESSON 2
“In Spite of It All: There Is a Way”
Kay Arthur, Teacher
In spite of all, there is a way, and you can make it—if you will draw near to Jesus. Let’s look at the book of Hebrews. When you look at the book of Hebrews, one of the things that you have to consider is the question: To whom was it written? We know the purpose of the book. We know that the book was written as a word of exhortation. The author said, in Hebrews 13:22, “Bear with this word of exhortation, for I have written to you briefly.” So we know that it is a word of exhortation. But to whom was this exhortation given? I believe you will see that when you look at Hebrews, and you go all the way through the book, and you take every direct reference to the recipients (and the first direct reference in Hebrews to the recipients of the letter is found in 3:1.) (1) “Therefore…consider Jesus, the Apostle and High Priest of our confession.” [As you look at that, I believe that he is talking to Christians. I think that as you go all the way through the book that you will see that the author is convinced that these people are truly children of God.
What is their nationality? Where did they come from? Are they a mixture of Hebrews and Gentiles? I don’t believe so. I believe that he was writing to a group of Jewish (Hebrew) Christians, and I believe that you can know this by the tenor (or tone) of the book, by the way he deals with these people. As you look at the book of Hebrews, you see that it is filled with Old Testament references. I think that there are about 86 Old Testament references, in which he quotes from over 100 Old Testament passages. He quotes them in the Septuagint, rather than the original Hebrew. The Septuagint was the Old Testament translated into koine Greek. That was the common Greek language that was used in the Roman Empire at that time. When the Jews were dispersed under the Romans, they were sent to various parts of that Roman Empire. As they gave birth to children, and the children were growing up, since the common language of the day was the koine Greek, many of those Jews did not learn the Hebrew language. The Jewish fathers, wanting their people to know the word of God, to understand the word of God, took the Old Testament in Hebrew and translated it into the koine Greek, into the common Greek language of the day. That translation was called the Septuagint. As you read commentaries, you will see them referring to the LXX. That is the term that is used as representative of the Septuagint. It was written, we believe, to Hellenistic Jews. Hellenistic Jews were those that had been Hellenized, so to speak, that come under the Greek influence.
As you look at this letter of the epistle to the Hebrews, and it was written to Jews, it was probably not written to Jews who were in Jerusalem. It was probably written to Jews who lived outside of the land of Israel, in some other part of the Roman Empire at that time. There is speculation—maybe they lived in Rome, and all sorts of other speculations. We don’t know where they lived, but it is important that we understand that he is speaking to Hebrew Christians.
He is speaking to Hebrews that are going through a very, very rough time. You can pick that up from the book of Hebrews, and I want to share with you several passages. I want to take you first of all to Hebrews 6:9-12. These were believers. Here is another reference where he lets them know that he believes that they are born again. It is interesting to me that the two most difficult passages in Hebrews to interpret, which are Hebrews 6 and Hebrews 10, he talks to them about their salvation. But also in those passages, he reminds them of their past work for the Lord, or their past enduring of suffering. I think that is very significant.
Hebrews 6:9 says, “But, beloved, we are convinced of better things concerning you, and things that accompany salvation, though we are speaking in this way. (10) For God is not unjust so as to forget your work and the love which you have shown toward His name, in having ministered and in still ministering to the saints.” [When you read this passage, you see that the author believes that these people are saved. He is saying that God is not unjust. God remembers the work and the love that you showed to Him, to His name, to the name of Jesus Christ, by ministering to the saints, and you are still ministering to the saints. As you look at these people, you see that he believes that they are genuinely saved.] (11) “And we desire that each one of you show the same diligence so as to realize the full assurance of hope until the end, (12) that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.”
He realizes and believes that they are saved, but he knows that they are going through difficulty. It is such a difficulty that those Christians are tempted to draw back from their belief, from their confession of Jesus Christ. If they draw back, where are they going to go? Well, because I believe it is written to Hebrews (and I believe this is clear as you go through the text), they are in danger of going back to their Judaism, of going back to the practices that they lived under when they were under the old covenant. He is saying to them, “I know that things are difficult, but in spite of it all, there is a way you can make, but it is not by going back, it is by drawing near to the Lord Jesus Christ.”
Look at Hebrews 10:32, where we find out that they were not only believers, but they were being tested. This is another difficult passage. (32) “But remember the former days, when, after being enlightened, you endured a great conflict of sufferings, (33) partly, by being made a public spectacle through reproaches and tribulations, and partly by becoming sharers with those who were so treated. (34) For you showed sympathy to the prisoners, and accepted joyfully the seizure of your property, knowing that you have for yourselves a better possession and an abiding one. (35) Therefore, do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. (36) For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised.” [He is saying to them, “You are going through a great conflict of suffering. You received Jesus Christ back here. You believed; you believed in Jesus, the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, and your goal was to live for Him. You loved Him, and you worked for Him, and the way that you loved Him and worked for Him was by ministering to other saints along here that needed ministering to. Now, a great conflict of suffering has come into your life, and I want you to know that you are not to turn away, that you are to continue to go on to Christlikeness. You are to continue to persevere, even though the suffering has come.”]
What form was that suffering taking? It went to the extreme of being in prison for Jesus Christ. It did not mean death; this group of Hebrews had not yet known martyrdom. We know that from Hebrews 12, where he said, “You have not yet resisted unto blood as Jesus Christ resisted.” But it meant that they were losing their property, that they were so tuned to Christ that when others suffered, they came along and they took their side. They stood with them, and they said, “If you are going to get her, if you are going to do this to Dorie, then you can do it to me, because I am not going to let Dorie stand alone. I am going to stand beside Dorie.” I have said to a number of my staff, “Tell me what they did to you, and I will get them.” (Laughter) No, it is not that I will get them, but, “I will stand with you, and I will defend you.” This is what they were doing, and it was admirable. They needed to do this, but the problem was that they were getting weary; it was getting hard. Their possessions were being stolen; they were being taken away.
Because of all this, we believe that the book of Hebrews was written between 64 and 70 A.D. We believe that it was written between these two periods because Nero’s persecution began in 64 A.D. He wanted to rebuild Rome, and he set it afire, because his council would not agree with him. It was going to take a great amount of money, and they didn’t want to do that. Nero was a terrible man, so Nero just burnt Rome. He needed a scapegoat, so the Christians became the scapegoat. So persecution broke out in the Roman Empire against Christians at that time. We believe that it was written before 70 A.D., because in 70 A.D. Titus came in, and he sacked Jerusalem. In fact, he leveled the temple to the ground. Yet, in Hebrews 8 and Hebrews 10, it talks about them offering sacrifice, about the priests standing daily ministering the same sacrifices which cannot take away sins, and of course, there was only one place for the Jews to minister sacrifices, and that was in the temple. So we believe that this book was written between 64 and 70 A.D.
It was in this period, about the year 67, that Paul was put to death. We know from the book of Hebrews that Timothy was in prison. And we know that Timothy was not in prison when Paul wrote his last epistle to Timothy (which was II Timothy). So this kind of X’s Paul from writing this book. These indicate to us that it was a very rough time for Christians. It would be an even rougher time for Jews, because the Jews had come out of Judaism. They had left their former worship; they had embraced Jesus Christ, and said, “He is the Messiah.” But when they did that, there were the majority of the Jews that had rejected Jesus. They had crucified Jesus. They had not gotten saved at the day of Pentecost, when all those Jews got saved, so when these Jews embraced Jesus Christ, it cut them off from their Judaism. But it also made them a reproach to the Romans. Now they were no longer under Roman protection, and up to this time the Jews had been under Roman protection because the Romans ruled over them. The leaders of the Jews were complying with the Romans (in fact, the Romans had bought a lot of the Sanhedrin that ruled the Jews in Jerusalem). So here are the Jews in a limbo—they don’t quite fit in with these Gentile Christians. It’s hard, because they have been cut off from everything that they have been brought up in, so to speak. Now they are getting persecution from the Roman Empire.
In the midst of all this it is wearing them down. Their hands are hanging low; their knees are getting shaky, and they are saying, “This is hard; this is difficult. I don’t know if I can endure. Maybe I would be better off going back to the temple, going back to the sacrifices, going back to that priesthood. Right now I don’t even have a priest that I can see; I don’t have a priest that I can watch put a sacrifice on the altar. I don’t have a sacrifice anymore that I can bring for my sins, and watch that sacrifice be slain and watch it be consumed on the altar. They were totally cut off, so to speak. In that being cut off, except from one another (and they were in danger of doing that), they were in danger of forsaking the assembling of themselves together, one with another, as Hebrews 10 tells us. They were not encouraging one another, so they were being cut off. God is saying to them, “In spite of it all, there is a way. There is a way that you can make it. You can make it by drawing near to Jesus.”
That was written to those Hebrew Christians, and they are long gone, and yet down through the ages, you will find the very same thing. What happened to you when you came to Jesus Christ? Did your family know Jesus Christ? Did your family understand this glorious gospel? Had they shared it with you? Had they prayed for you? Had they kept telling you, “You need to believe in Jesus Christ”? Not all of you had that kind of a background—in fact, the majority of you didn’t. So that when you came to Jesus Christ, you were like an oddball to your family, and all of a sudden a wall went up, an invisible, but almost impenetrable brick wall. Where once you had fellowship, where once you had things in common, now you were cut off; now you were isolated. And not only that, you had all these worldly friends out there, and they didn’t understand, so you were cut off from them. You were left in the middle. And yet, in the inside of you is the knowledge that Jesus Christ is the way, and the truth, and the life, and you know that your life has been changed, and you have a hunger and a thirst for righteousness. You have a new love for the brethren, and a love for other people, and so in love you go back, and you say, “Hey, listen, I have found the answer to life. I have found the word of God. It is alive; it is real.” And you have shared this with them. Or you have walked into your church, and you got saved, and most of the people in your church don’t know Jesus Christ. So there you are, in a sense, cut off, knowing and experiencing the love of God, but after awhile you begin to walk in that limbo, so to speak, out of tune with the world, out of tune with your friends, out of tune with your family, and the going gets rough. You are thinking, “Am I crazy?”
I’ll never forget the day when my relatives expressed to me that they thought I was crazy. “There she goes; off on another toot!” And I have to admit that I could go off on toots, but I knew that this was not a toot. I knew, and I remember running upstairs, and falling down beside a bed, and crying out. You begin to wonder, “Am I weird? Am I strange? Have I believed something that is not true?” All of a sudden, you are enduring a great conflict of suffering, and you become a spectacle where you work, so that there is talk about you, there is laughter about you, there are jokes about you, so that when you walk up to a group that at one time you used to laugh with and kid with, and all of sudden—it is silent. All of a sudden everybody returns back to their desks, and you are not a part of it. You are not invited to the parties anymore, and you begin to wonder.