(avg. read time: 4–8 mins.)
3:1 Therefore, holy brothers and sisters, partakers/participants in a heavenly calling, consider the apostle and high priest of our confession, Jesus,
3:2 being faithful to the one who appointed him even as Moses also was in all [“all” is omitted in some manuscripts] of his house.
3:3 For even more than Moses this one is worthy of glory, just as the one who builds the house has more honor than it.
3:4 For every house has been built by someone, but the builder of all is God.
3:5 And while Moses was faithful in all his house as a servant as a testimony of the things that will be spoken,
3:6 Christ was faithful as a Son over his house; now we are his house, if indeed we hold firm the boldness and pride of/that belong to hope. [alternative: if we hold firm until the end]
3:7 Therefore, just as the Holy Spirit says,
“Today if you hear his voice,
3:8 do not harden your hearts as in rebellion as in the day of temptation/testing in the wilderness,
3:9 where your ancestors put me to the test, though they saw my works
3:10 for forty years; therefore I was angry/offended with this generation and said, ‘They always go astray in their heart and they have not known my ways,’
3:11 as I swore in my wrath, ‘You will not enter my rest.’”
3:12 Take heed, brothers and sisters, lest any of you should have an evil, unfaithful/unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God,
3:13 but exhort one another each day, so long as it is called “Today,” unless any of you is hardened by the deception of sins;
3:14 for the partakers/participants of Christ we have become, if indeed [only in Hebrews] we hold firm our first confidence until the end,
3:15 as it is said,
“Today if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.”
3:16 For who were they who despite hearing became embittered [hapax]? Was it not all who went out of Egypt with Moses?
3:17 Now with whom was he, “angry/offended for forty years?” Was it not with the ones who sinned, whose corpses [hapax] fell in the wilderness?
3:18 Now about whom did he, “swear they will not enter my rest,” if not about the ones who were disobedient?
3:19 And we see that they were not able to enter because of unfaithfulness/unbelief.
The first section of chapter 3 restates Jesus’s superiority over Moses, although here it is anticipating the typological argument about the rest of God offered through them both. The exact nature of this contrast will serve as an important example of how the author’s typology works. But first the author must build off of the previous statement to anticipate where his argument will arrive most fruitfully in chs. 10–12 about the need for persevering faithfulness in the face of opposition. As such, he tells the brothers and sisters to consider this same Jesus who faced temptation in the face of death and is able to help those who are tempted. This same Jesus constituted them as a family through what he underwent and made them participants in a heavenly calling.
This Jesus is the one that the author calls the apostle and high priest of their common confession. Again, the high priest designation is part of this letter’s unique construction and emphases of Christology that I will address in more detail later when the author does, but for now there is another distinct notion to note here. Although this is the only NT text in which an author refers to Jesus as an apostle (ἀπόστολος), the basic notion behind the concept is expressed often through the use of the related verb ἀποστέλλω (Matt 10:40; 15:24; 21:37 // Mark 12:6; Mark 9:37; Luke 9:48; 10:16; John 3:17, 34; 5:36, 38; 6:29, 57; 7:29; 8:42; 10:36; 11:42; 17:3, 8, 18, 21, 23, 25; 20:21; Acts 3:20, 26; 1 John 4:9–10, 14) and less often (outside of John) through the similar verb πέμπω (Luke 20:13; John 4:34; 5:23–24, 30, 37; 6:38–39, 44; 7:16, 18, 28, 33; 8:16, 18, 26, 29; 9:4; 12:44–45, 49; 14:24, 26; 15:21; Rom 8:3). This is another way to convey Jesus’s role as the executor of God’s will, since he is the one sent by the Father to perform the work the Father appointed for him (which the author of Hebrews will go on to describe primarily in terms of high priestly work). And he is faithful to the one who sent him and appointed him for this work, even as Moses was also faithful.
But Jesus is worthy of greater honor because he built the house in which Moses was faithful. Moses was a faithful servant by fore-witnessing to the things that were yet to be spoken, testifying to the gospel before the events of the gospel came to pass. But Christ was a faithful Son, faithfully carrying out his Father’s will over the house of the faithful that God had built. Indeed, the author explicitly states that he and his audience are that house over which Christ has been faithful, but he anticipates his later segments by stating that this will only be true of them if they continue to hold firmly to the hope that Christ gives them by faithfully demonstrating the boldness and pride proper to those who hope (cf. Acts 4:13, 29, 31; 28:31; 2 Cor 3:12; Eph 3:12; 6:19; Phil 1:20; 2:16; Heb 4:16; 10:35; 1 John 2:28; 3:21; 4:17; 5:14).
Verse 7 begins a section of the argument that extends to 4:11, organized as it is around the central text of Ps 95:7–11 (LXX: 94:8–11). This text is considered to be direct speech by the Holy Spirit rather than the Father or the Son, as it is directed toward the people of God in exhortation (it largely matches the LXX except for some pronouns and prepositions, including, importantly, referring to “this” generation rather than “that” generation). This is the final section of the psalm, following the call to worship and the recognitions of God as Creator and King as well as the recognition that God is the God of the audience, the one to whom they owe their personal allegiance. And the need for this allegiance to God is stressed through the negative example of the rebellious generation who wandered in the wilderness until they died off. They had seen the works of God, the most wondrous events any nation had witnessed to that point, and they still put God to the test on many occasions, not finding either these signs or their daily preservation sufficient warrant for their belief and allegiance. Because of their willful rebellion and ignorance, God swore that they would not enter his rest; namely, the rest provided in the promised land. As chapter 4 will show further, rest is a condition of God’s rule (i.e., God’s kingdom). This provides further reason for why the rest is called God’s rest rather than their rest. At this point in salvation history, God’s rule was most dramatically signified by the promises of the promised land and their implementation. As such, this oath is essentially an early statement about the unfaithful and unbelieving not entering the kingdom of God. The fate of this rebellious generation thus serves as a warning to all future generations about the consequences of being unfaithful to God, and this is part of the significance of the difference between “that” generation in the LXX and “this” generation in Hebrews, as every generation could become this generation if they rebel against God. Indeed, the alternative to being faithful to God is simply some form of idolatry or another, hence why the true God is called the “living” God, as opposed to the idols (cf. 1 Sam 17:26, 36; 2 Kgs 19:4, 16; Jer 10:10; Dan 6:20, 26; Hos 1:6–11; Matt 16:16; Acts 14:15; Rom 9:22–26; 2 Cor 6:14–18; 1 Thess 1:9; Rev 7:2).
In that light, believers are to extend the Holy Spirit’s exhortation in this psalm to one another today, otherwise their hearts may also become hardened by the deception of sins. Today, they are faced with the call of one greater than Moses and they must answer that call every day and become partakers of Christ if they maintain their first confidence until the end. The author uses in v. 14 a juxtaposition of beginning (ἀρχή) and end/goal (τέλος) for the initial state and final goal of Christian existence with the substance of life in between defined by ὑπόστασις, which earlier referred to substance or nature but here refers to the ground of confidence that gives substance to faith. This contributes to the argument that the author will make later about the importance of perseverance between now and the end. The rebellious generation serves as an even more poignant example to the author and his audience because they have received an even greater salvation than that generation of the exodus. If that generation rebelled and could not enter God’s rest, their own generation is certainly at risk of rebelling and suffering the consequence of not entering the divine rest. This text, and the larger argument that it is a part of, establishes one of the primary aspects of theology proper in Hebrews. God’s promise of rest is a prime example of how God is the promiser, the source of eschatological inheritance, and the maker of covenant. In each case, the corollary is that God is the faithful one who brings all of these promises to pass, the one who makes inheritance promises concrete, and the one who makes and fulfills covenants out of love.