Hebrews: The New Covenant Administration of Christ Max A Forsythe (c) Anno Domini 2002

From the Pulpit at Pilgrim's Rest Presbyterian Church in America

“Consider Jesus, …² who was faithful to him who appointed him, just as Moses also was faithful in all God’s house. ³ For Jesus has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses  as much more glory as the builder of a house has more honor than the house itself. ⁴ (For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.) ⁵ Now Moses was faithful in all God’s house as a servant, to testify to the things that were to be spoken later, ⁶ but Christ is faithful over God’s house as a son.  And we are his house if indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope.”

Introduction:  The first thing that we have to say about today’s text is that the word “house” in the context of instruction is not an edifice, a building  but instead it means a family or a household.  The House of Saud now rules Arabia.  There are other Houses, Romanov, Hohenzollern and Stuart: of the same kind that once held a similar royal ownership of lands now under a different form of government  new administration if you will.

Now let me give you a Household example that teases the sense of our text even more than what you might expect.  The old Roman Empire hung on into modern Europe in the form of The Holy Roman Empire.  At the time of Napoleon  the royal House of Hapsburg held the title but not the power implied.  Napoleon, not to be outdone by anyone was able to finally put to rest that last vestige of the old Roman suzerainty.  The House of Hapsburg, which ruled Austria and a large number of other subsidiary kingdoms and duchies, outlasted Napoleon into the twentieth century.

Then in the moral, economic and political collapse of the treaties after World War I, the House of Hapsburg was put out to pasture.  The family was content to live on its landed estates and lived in the shadows for many years.  Then in the late eighties and early nineties of the last century  the heir to the old throne began to dabble in the political connivance of establishing a “United States of Europe.”  There was even talk of Otto becoming the first president of such a new conglomeration.  For a short while  such rumors fuelled the pre-millennialist’s speculations of certain prophecies in the book of revelation!  After all as some read it  the old Roman Empire must be renewed?  And hadn’t Austria’s motto, actually that of the Hapsburg’s been: “Today Austria  Tomorrow the World”?

Now take away the political intrigue and spiritualize it to convey the improvement of the Covenant House: the Church, in the years immediately after Christ and you will understand the hard sell that the Apostles had to explain to the Old Covenant Church once established by Moses.  And yet, theirs was no idle speculation for a pre-millennial dispensation, but the true report of what God was doing in writing larger upon the history of the world: the Old Covenant economy under the Lordship and administration of His only Son and heir:  Jesus Christ!

Development:  Now in this endeavor to explain the new and superior administration, the Apostle must explain what he means clearly and succinctly.  Commentator John Brown organizes our text in the following manner:  “The resemblance between Jesus Christ and Moses is pointed out in the second verse: the superiority of Jesus Christ to Moses is illustrated in the” third, fourth and fifth verse.  Let us work through the details of the argument, to which I would hope we are already sympathetic?

Moses as we well know from the Old Covenant record established the House of Israel in all its political and spiritual foundations.  John Brown enlarges our vision in this respect:  Moses “was constituted at once their instructor and governor under Jehovah.  He made known to them the laws, both religious and civil, which God revealed to him; and, under the direction of the Spirit of judgment, while he lived he administered these laws among them.  He was placed at the head of that economy.”

In the constitutional minimal separation of church and state of Moses’ day:  Aaron accepted the role of High Priest, while Moses served as prophetic administrator of the nascent state being founded and formulated through the laws of God.  F.F. Bruce brings into this discussion a concept not often recognized:  “The combining of the two roles of divine envoy and priest in one person is not common in the Old Testament; it appears only in a few outstanding characters, among whom Moses occupies a special place.”

After all, as Bruce describes it, Moses was the most effective intercessor for Israel.  We have only to remember Moses’ plea for the people after the golden calf incident  into which even Aaron was implicated.  Second, during the rebellion before entrance into the land, Moses once again sought God’s pardon for the people.  Again Brown writes:  “In everything he said and did, as the prophet and chief human magistrate of Israel, he conformed himself exactly to the instructions he received from God.” Exodus 40: 16 is given as evidence for this statement: “This Moses did according to all that the Lord commanded him, so he did.” Never was there a greater prophet and supplicant in all of Israel - until the coming of our Lord and Savior: Jesus Christ!

The Lord Jesus Christ in His appearance upon the stage of world history also was given a responsible agenda to be accomplished by His Father in heaven.  Even as He “tented among us” as the Apostle John describes it, He lived a sinless life  teaching the faithful all that was needed to learn of salvation and then when the time appeared: He was faithful unto death to accomplish the salvation of the elect of every tribes and nation from whom the New Covenant Church was to be assembled.

If we follow the Gospel records we see so many parallels between the Old and New Covenant experiences.  In a wonderful book of a few years ago: Vernon Poythress effectively drew out The Shadow of Christ in the Law of Moses by comparing the texts of both Covenants.  Dr Brown explains the faithfulness of Christ in this regard: “To teach and to die were the two great commissions given to Jesus by His Father, and He was faithful to both.  Thus was Jesus “faithful’ in reference to the whole family of God over which He is appointed, as Moses was ‘faithful’ in reference to the whole family of God over which he was appointed.”

Application: There the similarities end, because in the next few verses, the Apostle goes on to argue the superiority of Christ.  Verse three hearkens back not to the second verse but to the first in that here is evidence to consider.  When we read the second verse, we must remember the important differences between the mortal Moses and the God/man Jesus Christ.  “For Jesus has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses  as much more glory as the builder of a house has more honor than the house itself”

As John Brown explains it “The founder of the family is entitled to the highest honour in the family.  Jesus Christ, who is the Founder of the family of God, is entitled to the highest honour in that family; and if so, He is worthy of more honour than Moses, who was not the founder of the family, but a member of the family raised to an official superiority over the other members of the family.  Moses was not the founder of the Israelitish family of God.  They were God’s people previously to his being raised up.  He was placed over a family already in existence. “

By contrast, from the beginning of time, the Son of God was instrumental in the processing of history and the calling out of the elect to be the seed of the Church under both Covenants.  Brown continues:  “Jesus Christ finds them not God’s people, and He makes them God’s people.  This family are ‘God’s workmanship, created in,’ or by, ‘Christ Jesus to good works.’”
The next verse in our text is one that John Brown attests has perplexed interpreters and he even tells us that the text would read well and accurately even if these words were not recorded.  (For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.)

To make a long discussion simple  this is what is being established:  “The great Founder of all these things  both of the Jewish and Christian families  is God.”
And if I may simplify the argument for this verse as well as the next:  Moses being a servant of the Most High God was raised up to prophetic status and charged with the foundational responsibilities for the Covenantal Church whose Father was God Himself.  We speak in America of George Washington being the Father of his country, and in literature Martin Luther and William Shakespeare being the fathers of the German and English tongues.  So in the sense of the argument  God retained the Fatherhood title to which Moses faithfully submitted and organized the people of God under His greater Covenant authority.

By contrast and point of argument, Jesus Christ the very image of God with us, became a servant to accomplish the all that was prophetically seen by Moses.

“Now Moses was faithful in all God’s house as a servant, to testify to the things that were to be spoken later, but Christ is faithful over God’s house as a son. ” Here in verse five and the first part of verse six, the servanthood of Moses is recorded and it is noted that to which his testimony points: the eventual Lordship of Jesus Christ.  John Brown again observes:  “the great design of Moses, as a minister in the Israelitish family, was, in the economy he introduced, to give a testimony respecting another economy, in due time to be revealed.  The righteousness of God now manifested was witnessed in the law.”

There is another more important implication in this verse and that is the special difference between the “servant” in God’s House and the “Son” of God over the House.  What this means is not only a cultural or linguistic superiority but also a legal and theological difference of the highest order.  The Son alone sits on the right hand of the Father in heaven and even adopted sons must remain lower in the grand scheme for all eternity.

Now, what does all of this mean?  The Apostle does not leave us hanging in the midst of an academic and theological discussion.  In the last sentence of our text, he applies the argument to our spiritual condition:  “And we are his house if indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope.”

We are His and He is ours  since it is the New Covenant Church being talked about here in this verse.  Looking at the charge in that declaration, we should well note as F.F. Bruce admonishes us to see “the conditional sentences of this epistle [as] worthy of special attention.  Nowhere in the New Testament more than here do we find such repeated insistence on the fact that continuance in the Christian life is the test of reality.  The doctrine of the final perseverance of the saints has as its corollary the salutary teaching that the saints are the people who persevere to the end.”

I am sadly reminded of my first communicant’ class in the early seventies.  Ten children of that church completed the course and stood up on a Lord’s Day to affirm publicly their faith in Jesus Christ.  That was the last I ever saw of two of them  since they in effect “graduated” from Church on that day.  They saw the process as an end and not as a beginning!  It always bothers me when people fall away from the church for whatever reason.  But, there is hope still in this last sentence of our text. 

Commentator Raymond Brown encourages us to note: “the perfect balance in this passage, and throughout is letter, between the believer’s promised security and his necessary perseverance.”

Two things he tells us are important to know and give thanks for.  “First, the believer’s security is assured.  Christians will not fail if they look dependently to their merciful and faithful high priest.”  We do not look to our own abilities but to what our faithful High Priest has already done.

Second, “the believer’s continuance is essential.”  F.F. Bruce describes this persistent endurance as “the test of reality.”  The family of God is not an absent family, gathering only for the holidays  but week in and week out the family assembles to give the Lord of all the earth faithful thanks, adoration and worship.  Further than that, we should be daily in our prayerful attention to His leading and faithful in reading His word.

It is a sad fact within the Church growth movement and even within the history of the church itself that faithfulness in the hope that should keep us is often so sadly missing.  Eighteen months is the average time that far too many converts stay with any ministry.  But of course, all of those in whom the Lord has an interest do indeed return again and again since it is our Lord who is faithful in holding us fast until the end.  May He hold you all close by and may you learn to depend upon our very own spiritual Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  Amen.