and for the Hebrews, not for the Gentiles, after all. But, no, it is the gospel for all peoples.
Hebrews requires us to view earth from the vantage point of heaven—not unlike Revelation. So completely is this true that we know nothing definite at all of the identity of writer and original readers. This is a pastor who believes that if we are not heavenly minded we can be of no earthly good. The preacher will therefore as a matter of urgency resist the temptation to translate the gospel into a form applicable to the lives of his readers and instead translate their lives into the heavenly drama of the Son. All history proceeds from heaven to earth so that when we see salvation’s accomplishment there we know what is true, what must be true, and what will be true on earth. This is also a pastor who believes that the history of God’s covenants is the history of the world. The viewpoint of many interpreters notwithstanding, this teacher has not applied a pre-conceived cosmology to the Scriptures as a way of understanding priesthoods and sacrifices. That understanding has it backwards. Rather, from the history of God’s covenants he understands the history of creation. Already in the OT the temple is the center of the world. For Hebrews, as goes the tabernacle so goes the world. This is a teacher who believes that salvation is of the Jews; that the God who speaks as the Father of the Son is the same God who created heaven and earth, delivered his promise to Abraham, and established his covenant through Moses. This teacher has long since come to grips with the implications of this truth for the understanding of divine speech, the person and work of the Son, and the great salvation worked. He now bends all these resources to the urgent need of his brothers and sisters to persevere to the obtaining of what was promised Abraham.1
In ways that probably have yet to be fathomed Hebrews has formed the confession and the life of the church and catalyzed her reading of the other prophetic and apostolic writings, even where its influence was unacknowledged or even felt.2 Who can read any other part of the canon forgetting that Christ is our high priest and offering? Who does not feel the potency of its language of shadows and copies as a way of holding together the continuities and discontinuities of the covenants? Its imagery of pilgrimage, its promise of a resting place, its examples of faith, its vision of divine discipline—these and others of its teachings acquaint us with the salvation to which with greater understanding we then go on to hear Paul, Peter, John, and the others witness. Consider its logic: Without the pouring out of blood there is no forgiveness; it is impossible for the blood of animals to remove sin; the blood of Jesus, through the eternal Spirit, cleanses us; God did not desire sacrifices, though he commanded that they be offered; through the offering of the body of Jesus we have been made holy.
Alec Motyer reportedly characterized how Israelites under Moses would have summarized their experience: “We were in a foreign land, in bondage, under the sentence of death. But our mediator—the one who stands between us and God—came to us with the promise of deliverance. We trusted in the promises of God, took shelter under the blood of the lamb, and he led us out. Now we are on the way to the Promised Land. We are not there yet, of course, but we have the law to guide us, and through blood sacrifice we also have his presence in our midst. So he will stay with us until we get to our true country, our everlasting home.”3 It is hardly credible to think that the vision of Hebrews has not instructed such a reading as this, even if that reading purports to represent a pre-Christian viewpoint.
In part because Hebrews uttered more directly what was assumed by the other NT authors and their heirs and in part because its message has since worked itself so fully into the church’s reading of all of Scripture, a theological understanding of the whole of the canon is impossible to imagine without this brief word of exhortation.4
Approaching the Text: The Genre and Argument of Hebrews
There is finally no reason to doubt that Heb 13 was part of the original composition—the alternative theories of some notwithstanding—and no strong argument for assigning any of that chapter to a hand other than the author of the rest of the book. That said, Hebrews closes like a typical letter but is otherwise composed in the form of a direct address to the church from a known teacher. We have too little definite knowledge of ancient homilies to draw confident inferences about Hebrews’ genre and structure based on that characterization, but the writer’s own description of his work as a “word of exhortation” (13:22; cf. Acts 13:15), the nature of its contents, and the near-certainty that it was meant to be read to the gathered church and thus received orally justify styling it for moderns as a sermon. We will refer to the author as either a writer or as the “preacher,” and to the book as either a letter or a sermon. If we refer to the recipients as “readers” it is to be understood that for the greater part they would have in fact been listeners.
That the preacher was not only highly educated but a masterful orator is plain. The power of his rhetoric has been universally felt and the intricacies of his argument have been endlessly studied and admired. The conclusions of those who have attempted to uncover the letter’s structure, however, have led to no consensus.5 We can say with confidence that the writer knew where he was going with his argument from beginning to end. There is nothing arbitrary about it. He employs a range of rhetorical devices to underscore, remind of, and anticipate ideas. But he also seems to have been working from pastoral instinct, seeking effect more than strict orderliness of presentation. Exchanges between intimates follow their own rules and rhythms. His effort, which was oriented on a particular audience known to him, was to bring to mind a divine drama of salvation and to convince the recipients of their place in it, impressing on them that they were in this drama whether they acknowledged this in faith or not. He is clarifying ideas but even more to the point he is situating us—we may as well include ourselves without further ado—in a story. The result for our outlines is that more than one approach can get it right, and those that get it right succeed in highlighting differing aspects rather than exhausting the whole.
Our view is that following the opening—the exordium of 1:1–4—the preacher draws on the resources of their existing confession to convey the glory of the Son, in and as whom God has spoken, and the urgency of perseverance in faith if entrance into the promised inheritance, God’s resting place, is to be attained (1:5—4:13). In more than one way the whole drama of salvation, from creation to the end, is related. He then proceeds to his central exposition which revolves chiefly on Ps 110, Jer 31, Exod 24–25, and Ps 40 (4:14—10:25). Here the focus is on the pivotal moment of salvation in Christ’s offering and the approach that it opens and necessitates. Finally, the sermon proceeds to a series of exhortations that call to a response of enduring faith in our identity as the new covenant family of God (10:26—12:29). After the climax of 12:18–29 there comes a peroration (13:1–17) and the epistolary closing (13:18–25).
1:1–4 Exordium: God has spoken in his Son
1:5—4:11 In praise of the Son who became high priest and the need to listen to what God says
1:5–14 The Son in and as whom God speaks in relation to God’s angels
2:1–4 Exhortation
2:5–18 The Son’s way of salvation in relation to God’s angels
3:1–6 Moses and the Son in the history of God’s house
3:7—4:11 The need of faith for the entrance into God’s promised inheritance
3:7–19 Ps 95 as a warning not to repeat the rebellion of Israel
4:1–11 Ps 95 as a promise that remains and the need to respond in faith
4:12–13 Conclusion to first movement, reprisal of exordium
4:14—10:25
