Hebrews 1-3

Hebrews 1

Hebrews 1:1-4 Jesus, the final revelation of God. This could be a worship song, if set to music. It describes His glorious attributes. (John 1:1-14)

• He is the Son who is the rightful inheritor of all that is the Father’s;
• He is the agent for creating the universe, from the wonderful earth to the wonders of distant stars.
• He radiates the weight of God’s glory (see essay by C.S. Lewis)
• The one and only perfect representative example of God’s nature and character, His essential essence.
• The sustainer of the universe and of all matters spiritual and natural through His word. 
• He purifies from sin all who come to Him in faith, through His death on the cross.
• He sits on the throne next to YHWH AB with full authority.

I do not know of any worship song that articulates this fully. Perhaps Hansel’s Messiah in its entirety?

Hebrews 1:5-16 This section recaps several Old Testament Scriptures that point to Jesus, with the purpose of demonstrating that although Jesus and angels are spiritual beings serving God, Jesus is superior to angels, both in quality and position.

• Hebrews 1:5 He is God’s king established on Mount Zion. (Psalm 2:7) He is God’s promised Son. (2 Samuel 7:14)
• Hebrews 1:6 The angels are commanded to worship Him. (Deuteronomy 32:43, as found in the Dead Sea scrolls)
• Hebrews 1:7 God’s splendor is revealed through His angels (Psalm 104:4)
• Hebrews 1:8-9 In a wedding song celebrating the King’s Son’s wedding, God honors the Son for His character by establishing His throne forever and anointing it with joy. (Psalm 45:6-7)
• Hebrews 1:10-12 At the end of a prayer of desperation, the eternal sustainment  of the earth and heavens is promised, not as they are, but as He remains forever. (Psalm 102:25-27) 
• Hebrews 1:13-14 None of the angels will receive the promise of being an eternal priest of the order of Melchizedek. (Psalm 110:1) Angels serve believers according to God’s order. Do we serve God faithfully?

Modern worship takes many forms. One link between traditional and contemporary worship is the recognition of Jesus’ glory as revealed in all of the dimensions above. We also worship Him for His actions, recognizing and thanking Him for His work in our lives and circumstances.

Hebrews 2

Hebrews 2:1-4 We must be careful to stay tethered to the anchor for our souls. (6:19) God’s revelation initially came through the Old Testament. In the New Testament (before the Council of Hippo formally established the canon) there were eyewitnesses who told of Jesus’ life on earth, and angels who spoke from time to time. (Matthew 2:13,19; 28:5; Luke 1:18, 30; 2:10; Acts 5:19; 10:3; 12:8) What Jesus said is recorded in the gospels. The truth of the gospel continues to be confirmed by signs, wonders, and miracles. But … what Jesus said will not be changed by Holy Spirit-inspired gifts, only clarified and applied. 

Hebrews 2:5-8 David testified of God’s mighty works, and prophetically spoke of how Jesus came from mankind (which is lower than the angels because of the fall) but ultimately reigns over all things. (Psalm 8:4-6) The point is that the angels are not going to rule over the earth, but humankind under Jesus’ authority. That was the background on why Satan rebelled and tempted man to reject God’s authority. But Jesus set things right through redemption on the cross, which Satan cannot accept. No redemption for fallen angels. They see the spiritual reality of God’s nature and character and know the final outcome of their rebellion, and choose it anyway, as reflected by John Milton in Paradise List (book 1, lines 261-263).

https://poets.org/poem/paradise-lost-book-i-lines-221-270

Hebrews 2:9-11 The greatest of YHWH’s works is that Jesus was perfected by suffering as humans suffer. This is not to say that Jesus was imperfect, but that He learned what it feels like to be human and experience pain and suffering as a result of others’ actions and choices. And He experienced temptation on a human level that we cannot, both in the desert and in the garden of Gethsemane. This gave Him compassion for us, in the human condition. And Jesus completed this role by dying as we die. In some transcendent mystery, His death and resurrection is imputed to us when we receive Him by faith.

Hebrews 2:12-13 David’s prophetic psalm was quoted by Jesus on the cross. (Psalm 22:1; Matthew 27:46) David’s prophecy continued, to promise that the Lord would declare His Name in the midst of the assembly of His brothers and sisters, quoted here. (Psalm 22:22) Isaiah declared very similarly, that those who trust in the Lord would be given as children to Him. (Isaiah 8:17-18) This was a promise to those who feared earthly enemies. YHWH AB looks after His children, the brothers and sisters of Yeshua HaMashiach.

Hebrews 2:14-18 There are three dimensions of the outworking of the power of Christ in or life. 

• Hebrews 2:14 By His death, He broke the power of Satan to kill us by tempting us into fatal sin. The devil is real. The devil does not give up easily.
• Hebrews 2:15-16 As we gain experience in walking with the Lord, we can become more aware of Satan’s ploys and the circumstances around us and choose to glorify God instead through our faith and obedience. This delivers us from slavery to the fear of death. Jesus has overcome.
• Hebrews 2:17-18 Jesus is a merciful high priest because of what He experienced in His human body. He was tempted and He overcame temptation. Nevertheless, He suffered for our sins by making atonement with his bodily death. He is therefore able to help us when we face temptation. It is not just our eternal fate that He has rescued, but He empowers us in this life as well.

Hebrews 3

Hebrews 3:1-6 In this passage discussing Israel’s history, which the Hebrew readers of this epistle knew well, a foundation is laid based on Moses. The contrast is made of the difference in roles between a person who builds a house, perhaps a contractor or perhaps the future occupant, and the head of household. Clearly, once the house is built, the occupants are what matters, far more than the building. The leadership of the head of household sets the standards and behaviors, the long-term plans, and the day-to-day actions and decisions. And in God’s household, we are His children, not servants, and Jesus is the head. God is the owner and Jesus is the Son who leads this family. Moses was a faithful servant, but Jesus is the uniquely-begotten Son who leads us, if we hold to the faith.

Hebrews 3:7-11 The Psalmist is here identified as Ruach HaKodesh, who pointed back to Israel’s history. (Psalm 95:7-11) This psalm is quoted three times in this epistle. (3:7-11; 3:15; 4:7) In the beginning of the psalm there is a call to worship the Lord and sing with joy, but it concludes rather sternly with this warning. The ancient Israelites were miraculously blessed by God, walking through the Red Sea and being fed with manna. Nevertheless they grumbled and rebelled at Massah and Meribah. (Exodus 17:2-7) Ultimately, the reason they spent forty years in the desert was because they refused to enter the promised land. (Numbers 14:23-30) The underlying root cause was because of their hard hearts, which could not understand God’s heart.

Hebrews 3:12-15 The practical step to avoiding the judgment of a hardened heart is to listen to God’s voice. (Psalm 95:7-8) Sin tries to deceive us (the world, the flesh, and the devil), and believers need to encourage each other to not be hardened against God’s voice.

Hebrews 3:16-19 The consequences of a hardened heart in our life will parallel those of Israel spending forty years in the desert. Worse is that God swore they would never enter His rest. The root of their hardened hearts was unbelief. Moses could not change their hearts, but Jesus can soften our hearts if we have faith in Him. If we see Israel as a type or picture of the believer, they eventually did enter the promised land after forty years of learning, through trials in the wilderness and also being fed daily by manna, to have faith in God. In our individual lives, it may take forty years of trials and tribulations to get to a place where we are ready to live the lives He has promised. Whether crossing the Jordan symbolizes baptism or death could be open to debate, what Israel experienced was that there were more battles on the other side. Through obedience to God and trust in Him, they were able to win those battles. This passage focuses on those who sadly never entered that rest because they did not trust God. He still took care of them, but they did not enter His rest.