Fr. Stephen: Okay, we’ll go ahead and get started, and when we get started, we will be picking up at the beginning of St. Paul’s Epistle to the Hebrews, chapter 3. So, as we talked about, St. Paul’s Epistle to the Hebrews is really a homily, that sort of material, commenting on Psalm 110 or 109 in the Greek numbering. And he’s working his way thematically through the text. The first part that we read, in chapter 1 and part of chapter 2, he was talking about the first verse of that psalm, “The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet,” and talking about the difference between Christ as the unique Son of God and the angels who are called sons of God, talking about Christ’s both divinity and humanity, identifying Christ as God and as man to distinguish that.

And now he’s begun the segue toward the next part of the psalm which talks about– says, “I made you a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.” He hasn’t quite segued into that yet, but he’s introduced the idea of Christ as high priest, and so he’s working his way toward that. And he’s also compared the Gospel that comes through Christ to the Torah that came through Moses. So, when you get Moses, you get Aaron the high priest. Before he was talking about the creation of the world; now he’s moved on, he’s been talking about Moses, the high priest, and that’s where we’re going to pick up now. That’s the key thing to reintroduce because he’s going to pick up talking now about Moses. Before, he talked about the Covenant – if the blessings and curses were sure that came from the Torah, then how much more so – the blessings being so much greater that come to us in Christ, how much more, then, is there a danger if we disregard the New Covenant that comes in Christ.

And he introduced this high priest idea, and now, as we pick up here, he’s not only going to be talking about Christ as high priest, but he’s going to start explicitly talking about Moses. So, that’s really what we’re picking up. So, hopefully that’s enough to get us back into the swing. And unless there’s any lingering questions, comments, sports scores, we’ll go ahead and pick up in St. Paul’s Epistle to the Hebrews, chapter 3, verse 1.

“Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, Christ Jesus.” So, a little bit of a translation thing here. It probably seems weird right off the bat: “Wait, Jesus is an Apostle?”

Interlocutor 1: Yeah. [laughter]

Fr. Stephen: “Wait, huh?” So, a couple of things here. First: “Therefore, holy brethren,” that’s the people who he’s talking to; we talked about that “brethren” language, we see that all through Acts. We talked about how a lot of the language, even through people want to point out that the language itself in Hebrews is a little dissimilar from St. Paul’s epistles, it’s very similar to the way St. Paul talks in Acts, in the book of Acts. That’s one of the places where we get the idea that St. Luke was involved in what we have here. And so, that “brethren” language is what’s used to refer to Christians, members of the family of God. So, they’re identified as being brethren, as being holy, as being partakers of the heavenly calling. Notice, again, this is a calling, because he just talked about the potential for people to disregard what’s come to us in the Gospel. So, one can answer a call or not answer a call. Recall what Christ said several times, “Many are called; few are chosen.”

So, we’ve received this calling, and therefore, because you’ve received this calling, you need to consider—you need to think about, you need to remember—Christ Jesus, who is now – obviously, high priest, he’s already been talking about, but also apostle. Remember, “apostle” – they’ve just transliterated it, but “apostle” means “the one sent.” “The one sent.” Remember how the Epistle to the Hebrews began: “God spoke to us in former times in many ways; now he has spoken to us in his Son.” So, Christ is the one sent by God the Father to give us this calling. He is both the one sent to give us this calling and, as he mentioned, he’s also the high priest who intercedes for us when we have problems with our calling.

Interlocutor 1: [The high priest] “Of our confession.”

Fr. Stephen: So, both roles. And confession literally means “to say the same thing.” So, this could be – I would better translate it, “of our profession,” “of what we profess.”

Interlocutor 1: Ah, okay. I thought that’s what it was aiming at.

Fr. Stephen: Right, of what we profess. Not confession like, “I confess a sin.” More, confession in the sense that, like a Protestant denomination would say, “This is our confession of faith,” where it’s really more the idea of profession. Not like a job – yeah, all these words get muddy. But yes, what you profess.

Interlocutor 1: I did get rid of my Calvinist baggage… [inaudible]

Fr. Stephen: Yeah, not profession like a job, not professor like a teacher, but what you profess.

So, “consider Christ.” Who’s both the one through whom we receive the calling—and what we profess, where we learned it—and is the one who then intercedes for us, on the other side of that.

Verse 2: “…who was faithful to Him who appointed Him”– that “appointed” language, like “the sent.” “…who was faithful to Him who appointed Him, as Moses also”– we got some words added. “…as Moses also in all His house.” So, we’re now going to compare Christ and Moses. So, Christ was faithful to the Father in everything. And then he says, “Remember, Moses also was a faithful one.” Moses who received the Torah from angels, that we talked about last chapter.

Interlocutor 1: “In his house” seems like a strange expression.

Fr. Stephen: Well, we’re going to get to that. We’re going to get to that.

Verse 3: “For”—because—“this One has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses inasmuch as He who built the house has more honor than the house.” So, “this one,” meaning Christ, “is counted worthy of more glory than Moses.” Why is Christ better than Moses? Well, what Hebrews is saying is that Christ is greater than Moses because he is in a different category than Moses. It’s not that he and Moses are both prophets, and Christ is just a somewhat greater prophet or was chosen for some greater role. It’s that Moses is part of the house – he’s part of the house, he’s in the house; Christ built the house. Christ created the house. So they’re not in the same category. Christ is not just a prophet; he’s not just one sent like Moses was sent to deliver the people from Egypt.

Verse 4: “For every house is built by someone, but He who built all things is God.” So, who’s he saying Christ is?

Interlocutor 1: God.

Fr. Stephen: God. [laughter] And we already – this is returning to what he said in chapter 1, that God the Father created all things through Christ and for Christ.

Verse 5: “And Moses indeed was faithful in all His house as a servant, for a testimony of those things which would be spoken afterward.” So, Moses is a servant in God’s house, and he was a faithful servant. So, this isn’t a criticism of Moses. Moses fulfilled his role faithfully, but that role was a servant in the house.

Verse 6: “…but Christ as a Son over His own house, whose house we are if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm to the end.” So, Moses is a servant in the house; Christ is the Son of the Father who is over the house. So, if you have a household, the heir, the son of the father – of the pater familias in a Roman household is in a different category than one of the household servants, even if that household servant is an incredibly faithful and loyal and good servant at his job, they’re not in the same category. Now, notice: “whose house we are.” So, what is the house we’re talking about? What is the household we’re talking about? It’s the Church. It’s the household of faith. So, Christ is over us–

Interlocutor 1: And this is continuous – the Christian Church and the Jewish faithful are included.

Fr. Stephen: Right. It’s the same house, it’s one house. It’s not, one house got burned down and so God built another one. Moses is in the same house as Christ, as the people reading Hebrews. So, the imagery is that the household – Christ is over us in the Church, and then there are those leaders, like Moses, the Apostles, the bishops following them, who are appointed to serve in the house. This is very much in line, of course, with everything Christ said to his disciples about leadership. “The one who would be greatest must be the servant of all,” all of that. He’s over the house; they’re not over the house. Moses was not over the house. Moses was a servant within the house. And so, leadership in the Church in that sense, other than Christ’s own, is being a servant to the household. So, that – he sort of finishes up with that bit of the imagery. So, that’s the imagery. And that’s why Christ and Moses are in different categories, and Christ and St. Paul are in different categories, and Christ and St. Peter are in different categories.

And now, notice also that “we are his house” – what, if we choose to be? If we sign up? No. If we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of hope firm to the end. He keeps coming back over and over again to this idea that we can leave. That we can leave if we want to; God doesn’t force people to be part of his household.

Verse 7: “Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says:” – this is interesting, because he’s now going to quote Psalm 95. Which is a Psalm of David. So we get an idea of how the author here understands the Scriptures, which is in keeping with what St. Peter says; St. Peter says that men wrote as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. This is the same kind of idea. So, yes, David wrote a hymn, but this is the Holy Spirit speaking.

“…the Holy Spirit says: ‘Today, if you will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, in the days of trial in the wilderness, where your fathers tested Me, tried Me, and saw My works forty years. Therefore I was angry with that generation and said, “They always go astray in their heart, and they have not known My ways,” so I swore in My wrath, “They shall not enter my rest.” ’ ” So, this is the opposite of holding true to the end. He says, “Since we’re talking about Moses, you remember that first generation of Israelites that went out into the desert, out into the wilderness with him, and what they did? They tested God in the wilderness; they grumbled against God in the wilderness; for forty years they saw all of the signs that God wrought, and they didn’t care. They complained, they kept trying to kill Moses.” “Moses, you brought us out here in the desert to die; we want to go back to Egypt; we had it better in Egypt as slaves, dah-dah-dah-dah-dah, on and on and on.”

And finally, they run out of chances to repent, and God says, ‘This is it, none of this generation is going to enter the land.’ And so, they ended up walking around in circles in the Sinai desert until that generation had died off, other than Moses and Joshua and Caleb, and the next generation got to enter the land. So this was true from the beginning. God didn’t force them to receive his blessings, he didn’t thrust his blessings upon them against their will.

Verse 12: “Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God.” So, this is one of those places where we’ve talked before a bunch of times about how the same set of words gets translated—“belief,” “believing,” “faith,” “faithful”—in different places in the Old Testament. So, this is a place where they chose “unbelief.” Let’s read that sentence again. “…in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God.”

Interlocutor 1: It’s weird.

Fr. Stephen: Right? That doesn’t really make any sense. Especially since we were just talking about how Moses was a faithful servant. Contrasted with the generation that came out of Egypt with him, that perished in the wilderness. So, what happens if we just stay consistent? “Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart an evil, faithless heart in departing from the living God.”

Interlocutor 1: That’s coherent.

Fr. Stephen: Yes. [laughter] Right? That makes a lot more sense as a sentence, and it makes a lot more sense in context. The opposite of being faithful is being faithless. So, he’s saying, “Hey, that first generation that came out of Egypt, that whole generation—pretty much—was faithless, not faithful. So beware—Christ has now given you this greater salvation, again, this greater deliverance—lest you, like them, lest any of you should become faithless and depart from the living God the way they departed from the God who had saved them out of Egypt.”

Verse 13: “…but exhort one another daily, while it is called ‘Today’ “—picking up that language from the beginning of the quote—“lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.” This is an exhortation: “Today, if you will hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as they did, as your fathers did back in the day.” And he says, “You need to repeat this to each other today.” For as long as we still – “while it is called ‘Today’ ” means “as long as we still have a day, as long as there’s a day until the end of our days, we need to tell one another, ‘Hey, today, today’s the day to repent. Today’s the day not to harden your heart; today’s the day to be faithful.’ ”

Verse 14: “For we have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end.” So, returning to that language again. This is what makes us partakers of Christ. The word that’s translated “partakers” there is a much richer word than you get the idea here. It’s the word that—it’s “partake” here—it’s translated “participate,” for example, in Plato to describe the relationship between an ideal thing, the form of a thing, and an actual thing. “To partake,” “to participate.” So, being partakers of Christ here isn’t just referring to the Eucharist or something. Not that the Eucharist is a small thing, but this is talking about a union, a unity with Christ. We have that if – the beginning of our confidence, that zeal we had on day one when we became a Christian, if we can continue that to the end, if we can hold on to that until the end, then we’re partakers of Christ. Then we’re united to Christ. So, it’s not about just making a great start, because lots of folks make a great start, don’t carry things through to the finish.

Interlocutor 1: The parable of the sower.

Fr. Stephen: Yeah, the parable of the sower. There’s a – I’m going to do a “hello, fellow kids.” I saw a TikTok the other day where this guy, he does these comedy things about manliness, and one of them was, “Start a new project every day, never finish any of them. Be a man.” And I was like – well, first of all, I resemble that remark. And second, that’s – it’s very easy to start something; it’s easy to come up with a good idea, it’s easy to fall in love with something, it’s hard to carry that through for a lifetime, and hold on to it. But that’s where salvation is found. That’s where union with Christ is found.

Interlocutor 1: That Platonic language is really helpful because I can see the idea of Christ being the form and we participate in it as [inaudible]

Fr. Stephen: And we’re formed into the likeness of Christ.

Interlocutor 1: Yeah, we become like him.

Fr. Stephen: Right. And that’s the way, by holding on to – that continued – that’s why faithfulness is such an important word, because it has that idea of continuity.

Interlocutor 1: Steadfastly.

Fr. Stephen: Right.

Verse 15: “…while it is said: ‘Today, if you will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.’ ” Comes back to that verse again. “For who, having heard, rebelled? Indeed, was it not all who came out of Egypt, led by Moses?” Can you see how this has kind of a homiletic flavor to it? Kind of a preaching, returning and quoting the verse, and saying, “Well, who was it who rebelled? It was that generation that came out with Moses.” Explaining it and teaching it.

Verse 17: “Now with whom was He angry forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose corpses fell in the wilderness?” There’s a vivid image. “And to whom did He swear that they would not enter His rest, but to those who did not obey?”

Now look at the language we’ve got here. “Sinned,” “obey,” right? And now, look what our friendly Protestant translators do with verse 19: “So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief.” How does that make any sense with the two previous verses? They talk about sin, and obedience and disobedience. [whispering ironically] Sounds like works.

But then we’re going to translate it not as “faithlessness,” even though that’s what makes sense in context. Even though that is what makes sense in context, is to translate that “faithlessness,” we translate it “unbelief.” So, we’ve talked about this before a lot of times with the way the word “faith” is, but that’s how to bias a translation. And I’m not saying they did it on purpose. I’m not saying they sat there and [audibly rubbing his hands together] rubbed their hands and said, “Aha! We’re going to lead everyone who reads the New King James Version to Protestantism.” It worked the other way. They’re Protestants; this is what they believe, this is how they see things, this is what their presuppositions are, so when they come to the Greek text, they read things in a Protestant way. There’s nothing nefarious about it on their part, but again, I think it’s fair – and I’m trying not to come at it from, like, “Well, I’m Orthodox and I have Orthodox presuppositions, and so here’s this”; I’m trying to come at it from, “What makes sense, just in terms of the text?” You could translate this “faithlessness” and still be a Protestant. They could find a way. It’s not like, “Aha, checkmate!”

But we do need to correct the translation a little bit here, because he’s not talking about belief and unbelief in this passage, it’s very clear. And most of this passage can’t even be translated to make it look like he’s saying that. Just a couple of places, and those are translated that way because of the presuppositions of the translators.