conscious design on the part of the writer, as of a single part in some great harmony.
II. Moses, Joshua, Jesus, the founders of the Old Economy and of the
New (Hebrews 3, 4)
The writer of the Epistle after stating the main thought of Christ's High- priesthood, which contained the answer to the chief difficulties of the Hebrews, pauses for a while before developing it in detail (chs. 5-7), in order to establish the superiority of the New Dispensation over the Old from another point of view. He has already shewn that Christ (the Son) is superior to the angels, the spiritual agents in the giving of the Law; he now goes on to shew that He is superior to the Human Lawgiver.
In doing this he goes back to the phrase which he had used in 2:5. The conception of hJ o ijkoumevnh hJ mevllousa leads naturally to a comparison of those who were appointed to found on earth the Jewish Theocracy and the new Kingdom of God.
This comparison is an essential part of the argument; for though the superiority of Christ to Moses might have seemed to be necessarily implied in the superiority of Christ to angels, yet the position of Moses in regard to the actual Jewish system made it necessary, in view of the difficulties of Hebrew Christians, to develop the truth independently.
And further the exact comparison is not between Moses and Christ , but between Moses and Jesus. Moses occupied a position which no other man occupied (Num. 12:6 ff.). He was charged to found a Theocracy, a Kingdom of God. In this respect it became necessary to regard him side by side with Christ in His humanity, with the Son, who was Son of man no less than the Son of God. In the Apocalypse the victorious believers sing the song of Moses and the Lamb (Apoc. 15:3). (Compare generally John 5:45 ff.)
And yet again the work of Joshua, the actual issue of the Law, cast an important light upon the work of Moses of which the Christian was bound to take account.
Thus the section falls into three parts.
i.
Moses and Jesus: the servant and the Son
(Heb. 3:1-6).
ii.
The promise and the people under the Old and the New Dispensations
(3:7- 4:13).
iii.
Transition to the doctrine of the High-priesthood, resuming
2.17f. (4:14-16).
i.
Moses and Jesus: the servant and the Son
(3:1-6)
The paragraph begins with an assumption of the dignity of the Christian calling, and of Jesus through whom it comes (3:1, 2); and then the writer establishes the superiority of Christ by two considerations:
(1) Moses represents a house, an economy: Christ represents the framer of the house, God Himself (vv. 3, 4).
(2) Moses held the position of a servant, witnessing to the future: Christ holds the position of a Son, and the blessings which He brings are realised now (vv. 5, 6).
Perhaps we may see, as has been suggested, in the form in which the truth is presentedthe Father, the faithful servant, the Sonsome