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Full Episode
Hey Bible Readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble and I'm your host for the Bible Recap. Today we have a mystery on our hands. We don't know for sure who wrote this book or who they wrote it to. There are a few credible theories like Paul or Luke or Barnabas or Apollos. All we know is that whoever it was ran in the same circle as the apostles.
But if we don't know who wrote it, then why was it canonized as scripture? The primary reason is that the early church fathers accepted it as scripture. We'll link to an article with more info on that in the show notes. It seems to be written to Jewish Christians, it references the Old Testament a lot, and it is a treatise on the supremacy of Christ, which is probably why it's a crowd favorite.
It has its fair share of heavy lifting, but it's so worth it. Right out of the gate, the author is laying out rich theology. Jesus created the world. Jesus is the radiance of God's glory. Jesus is the exact imprint of the Father. Jesus sustains the universe at all times. Jesus purified us from our sins. Jesus is seated at the right hand of the Father.
I'm ready for the altar call, and we've only read four verses. The earth and the heavens will wear out someday, but Jesus will remain unchanged forever despite both of his homes being done away with and made new. The author tells his readers to not let all of this escape them.
God the Son came down to earth to live as a human, and God the Father has made everything subject to the Son who created it all at the Father's command, and he controls it all. Right now it doesn't look like everything is subject to him, but someday we will see his authority and control fully expressed. One of the ways we'll see that is when he deals with Satan, like 2.14 says.
It requires a little bit of unpacking, though. It says Jesus died so that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil. Here are two things worth pointing out. First, the word destroy means render powerless, so it's less annihilation and more shutting it down. Second, does the devil have the power of death? Isn't God in control of all that?
Yes, Satan holds the power of death the way your dog holds its chew toy. It only has it when you let it, because ultimately you're the one in control of the chew toy. Everything Satan does, he does on a leash. And because of Christ's supremacy over all of that, you and I have been set free from the fear of death. Another thing that jumped out at me here is what the author says in 2.1.
We must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. It reminded me of a quote from D.A. Carson where he points to this kind of drifting. He said, "...people do not drift toward holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord.
We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance. We drift toward disobedience and call it freedom. We drift toward superstition and call it faith." We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation. We slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism. We slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated. Yikes.
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