Hebrews 3 - Introduction

Chapter 3 Jesus Is Greater Than Moses, Let Them Therefore Beware of Failing to Follow Jesus, As Israel Failed To Follow Moses.

Having shown that Jesus is both the very likeness of God and His glorious Messiah, and therefore far superior to the angels. And that the reason that He humbled Himself and became man, and was established as ‘the second man' (crowned with glory and honour), was in order to die to save men and women and raise them to new heights in ‘the world to come', that new world which had now come in Him, and which would continue for ever. And that He is our Sanctifier, our Trek Leader and our great High Priest. He calls on his readers to consider Him for what He is, the One Sent Forth (Apostle) and High Priest to Whom we point and Whom we confess.

He especially contrasts Him with Moses and Joshua, the architects of Israel's great deliverance, the very foundation stones of the Jewish faith. It is almost impossible to overstate the importance that was placed on Moses by the Jews. The angels were seen as hugely important, but they were in Heaven and we are on the earth. Here, however, was one on earth who above all had proved himself the very friend of God, and had delivered Israel from bondage in Egypt, and had brought to Israel the great covenant of Sinai, commencing a theocracy which had established them as a people with Yahweh as King. And they placed their faith totally without reserve in the Instruction (Torah) that Yahweh had given them through Moses, remembering that it had come through him by the mediation of angels. He above all had been the true servant of Yahweh, the God-appointed man for the reception of God's unique word, followed immediately by Joshua (the only two who were ever specifically titled ‘the servant of Yahweh').

Thus those who would follow the Messiah Jesus needed to see Him in relation to those two great figures, those two giants of their faith.