Before we continue we should remember from ‘chapter 2’ that today we live in the time when “not-yet we see all things having been subjected2 to him” – the Lord Jesus. He is in the process of bringing all things to completion. The present time is between the day of Pentecost (Acts 2) and the coming of Christ to gather all holy-people together with him, and then follows other events (some scriptures that pertain to these events are: I Corinthians chapter 15; I Thessalonians 4:13-17, and the Book of Revelation).
Hebrews 3:1-6:
3:1From-which, holy brothers, sharers of (the) heavenly calling, you must mentally-perceive the apostle and chief-priest of our agreement: Jesus, .2being believing to the (One) having made him as also Moses in His house, .3for this (Jesus) was esteemed-worthy2 of more glory beside Moses – according to as-much-as he has more honor than the house, the (one) having fully-prepared it, .4for every house is fully-prepared by someone, but the (One) having fully-prepared all-things (is) God, .5and Moses indeed believing in His whole house as (the) attendant for a witness of the (things that) will be uttering-forth, .6but Christ as (the) son on His house, which house we are, if-ever-indeed we may hold-down the boldness and the boast of the hope.
Continuing from the end of ‘chapter 2’: From which fact…
The calling is the invitation that God has issued to all of mankind by means of the Lord Jesus Christ. All holy-people accepted this invitation at the moment we believed what God says regarding Himself and His son, and we received the gift of holy spirit. All holy-people are now God's sons with the spirit of Christ in us, the seed of Abraham, and we will in the future receive all that God has promised us in Christ Jesus. We have not yet received our new spiritual bodies like Christ has, but it is available for us to be active sharers with Christ during the everyday living of our lives while he carries out his present tasks and responsibilities in bringing all things to completion.
From-which, holy brothers, sharers of the heavenly calling, you must mentally-perceive (fully take-note of, attentively notice in your minds)…
…of our agreement (pertaining to our saying the same thing, speaking the same words, our speech in agreement with him, our assent):
…being believing (Jesus is presently being faithful, having active belief/faith, trusting, he is reliable) with respect to the One Who made him (Who is God) in comparison to Moses who was also believing with respect to God Who made him in God’s house (referring to the household of God’s people). Jesus believes God today within God’s household of people (holy-people), and Moses believed God when he was alive within God’s household of people at that time (the sons of Israel).
The word “house” when used of God’s house also includes reference to the tent/tabernacle during Moses’ time (Numbers 12:4-10); the true temple while Jesus was on earth before his crucifixion of course was himself (Matthew 12:6, 26:61); and the temple today is the resurrected Christ Jesus with all holy-people (Acts 17:24; I Corinthians 3:16 and 17 and 6:19; II Corinthians 6:16; Ephesians 2:21).
In truth, this Jesus has been esteemed-worthy (held, counted, deemed to be of equal-value, of like-worth) and he continues esteemed-worthy by God with/of more glory beside Moses (a bigger amount of importance, splendor, renown aside-from Moses, when compared against or side-by-side to/with Moses).
Why is Jesus esteemed worthy by God of more glory beside Moses?
In accordance, conformity and proportion to how much he has more honor than the house (to such a degree, as big an amount as he is estimated to be more valuable, deemed worthy of a bigger price than the house, which also has a certain value) – who has more honor than the house? – the one who fully-prepared it (who made the house ready, as putting an implement, vessel, utensil down in the correct position so it is prepared, the one who caused it to be ready for its appropriate use). It is a fact in the physical realm that all/every house is fully-prepared by someone (the house cannot make itself ready for use but someone has to make it ready according to how he wants it to be used).
But the One having fully-prepared all-things is God. We should always remember and acknowledge that God is the One Who has fully-prepared all things within His realm, including Jesus and Moses and of course God’s own house (household). God is the One Who has put all the implements, vessels, utensils down in the correct position ready to carry-out His will (whether they do or not is their free-will decision). Jesus did not make himself into being in a particular position within God’s house and neither did Moses – but GOD fully-prepared all things.
And Moses indeed believing (while he was alive he was faithful with respect to God) within the sphere of action of God’s whole house (the entire household at that time)…
– in what capacity? –
But Christ is believing (he is living today and he is being faithful with respect to God)…
– in what capacity? –
Again, the truth that he is God’s son is emphasized and God is the One Who made Jesus His son within His household. Also, we should remember what Paul has already explained to us about this in Hebrews chapters 1 and 2.
Christ is the son who has been given authority over God’s house, which house emphatically WE are. We holy-people, brothers including the Lord Jesus Christ, are indeed the people who make up God’s household. There is no doubt about this truth in the spirit category because we have already been made holy by receiving the gift of holy spirit and this cannot be changed.
We are the household and we also should do what it is our responsibility to do behavior-wise because God has also fully-prepared all of us (refer to verse 4) to be active members of the household. We share this in action if it should indeed ever happen that we would hold-down (have or hold firm/fast, retain)…
…of the hope (pertaining to the expectation that we have of the future events coming to pass).
[Reference: Genesis 41:40; Exodus 14:31 (Septuagint); Numbers 12:7; Deuteronomy 18:15; Matthew 11:10; John 20:21; Acts 3:22 and 26, 7:35-38 and 44, 26:22 and 23; II Corinthians chapter 3, 9:13; Romans 5:2, 10:5-10, 15:4 and 13; I Corinthians 10:1-4 and chapter 15; Galatians 5:5; Ephesians 1:3, 18 and 19, 2:6 and 19, 4:1 and 4; Philippians 3:14; Colossians 1:2, 5, 23, and 27; I Thessalonians 1:3, and chapter 4; II Thessalonians 2:16; I Timothy 1:1, 3:15, 6:12 and 13; II Timothy 1:9; Titus 1:2, 2:13, 3:7; Hebrews 1:9, 2:7, 6:11 and 18-20, 7:19, 10:21 and 23.]
Verses 7-19:
.7On-which-account –
according as the Spirit, the Holy (Spirit) says, “Today if-ever you may hear His sound .8you may not harden your hearts as in the embitterment according to the day of the temptation in the desert-place .9which your fathers tempted in proving (Me) and saw My works .10forty years, on-which-account I was very-displeased-towards this generation and I said, ‘Always they are caused-to-wander with the heart but they did not know My ways,’ .11as I swore in My wrath, ‘If they will go into My rest’”
– .12you must observe, brothers, lest-perhaps there will be in someone of you an evil heart of unbelief in the departing away-from (the) living God, .13but you must encourage yourselves according to each day continuously-until where the “today” is called in order that someone from you may not be hardened with deceit of the sin, .14for sharers of the Christ we became2, if-ever-indeed we may hold-down firm the beginning of the substance up-until (the) completion .15in the (time it is) being said, “Today if-ever you may hear His sound you may not harden your hearts as in the embitterment,” .16for some-people having heard embittered, but not all the (people) having gone-out from Egypt by means of Moses, .17but He was very-displeased-towards some-people forty years – wasn’t it towards the (people) having sinned whose dead-limbs fell in the desert-place? - (yes.) .18But to whom did He swear not to go into His rest? – except to the (people) having disbelieved; .19and we observe that they were not caused-to-be-able to go-into (it) because-of unbelief.
On account of this (what is written in verses 1-6 above) –
To ‘swear’ means: to affirm or deny using an oath, making the outcome of what you say dependent upon the sworn oath. An oath was used to prove something as being undeniable, like a fence that fences-in what is spoken, a confinement, restraint, enclosure of a promise or declaration regarding what you will do, or what is true, etc.
In the phrase “I swore in My wrath” – the “in” does not refer to being in a particular location or frame of mind, but it refers to the name, power, authority, sphere of action, strength, etc, in-which or by-which or with-which the speaker, God, binds, limits, obligates Himself to cause what He states in the oath to come to pass.
The usage of the word “if” in the phrase “If they will go into My rest,” comes from the Hebrew indicating that what is spoken is in the context of an oath. Therefore it communicates that the emphatic negative of what is stated will come to pass by the speaker under penalty of the speaker receiving the consequences of what is spoken instead of those who would not perform their commitments – may I receive the consequences of My wrath if you will go into My rest! The final outcome will be determined at a future time as to who will receive God’s wrath and who will go into His rest, and then all will see what will come to pass. God told them the consequences of believing and of not believing what He said. They had to make up their own minds whether they would believe what He told them being true to/for themselves. Paul explains this in detail as we continue here in Hebrews chapters 3 and in chapter 4.
The righteous wrath of/from God will come to pass following Christ’s gathering together of all holy-people first with him in the air away from the earth, which marks the beginning of the day of the Lord. The Lord Jesus Christ will be the primary one executing God’s wrath. See Romans 1:18, 2:5, 12:19; Ephesians 5:6; Colossians 3:6; I Thessalonians 1:10, 2:16, 5:9; Revelation 6:16 and 17, 14:10, 16:19, and 19:15.
The Lord Jesus Christ is continuing to believe what God tells him and he is now presently in the process of bringing God’s household of holy-people to the time of being gathered together with him.
On which account – you must observe, brothers (brothers as in verse 1 above, you must mentally envision, be mentally aware and able to contemplate, look at what you are doing, even though you may not physically see anything with your physical eyes, in other words, be spiritually observant relying on the holy spirit within you),…
…but contrary to departing from the living God in your behavior, you must encourage yourselves (exhort yourselves, call one another beside you as a concerned father or mother would invite their children close to them under their arms so as to help them to do what is right)…
In truth, we holy-people, all of us, have become and we continue to be Christ’s sharers. Previously we were not sharers of the Christ – but we have become sharers, we have come to pass to be partners, people who are partakers in association with one-another of the object which is the Christ, the Anointed-one, the Messiah (refer to Hebrews 1:9 and 3:1 above). There is no doubt about this truth in the spirit category because we have already been made holy by receiving the gift of holy spirit and this cannot be changed.
Sharers of the Christ we became and continue to be, and we should also do what it is our responsibility to do behavior-wise. We share this in action if indeed it should ever happen that we would hold-down firm (have or hold firm/fast, with the added word emphasizing firmly, steady; that we would retain in a secure manner)…
The truth is that some-people after they heard what God spoke and gave them to believe were actively embittered (they were sharp against God, pointed, keen, piercing and pungent, acrid, cruelly-painful towards God).
But contrary to the behavior of those people, not all of the people who came out from Egypt by means of (through) Moses were embittered after they heard what God said to them.
But God was very displeased towards some-people forty years (He was extremely grieved with some of the people, not all of them, for the time of 40 years) – what people? – wasn’t it towards the people who sinned against Him (who actively swerved from what God said, missing the mark of His Word to them), who are the same people whose dead-limbs (carcasses, corpses) fell in the desert-place? This question is written in such a construction in Greek that the answer must be, “Yes, it was towards the people who sinned against God, the same people whose dead-limbs fell in the desert place.”
But to whom did He swear not to go into His rest? In this question there is a specific word for “not” because Paul is asking who would not to go into God’s rest (refer to verse 11 above). The answer: except to the people who disbelieved. To whom did God swear that they would not go into His rest – if not those who actively un-believed, who were without faith, did not trust God [some Greek texts have the verb “un-persuaded”]). The only ones at that time who did not go into God’s rest were those who did not believe what He said to them.
And we observe (we mentally envision, look at, we are mentally aware and able to contemplate, even though we don’t physically see those people today with our physical eyes but we can read or hear what is written in the old covenant writings – we observe) that they were not caused to be able to go into it (they were not caused to have the able-power, they were not given the capability to enter inside the promised land at that past time) – why? – because of unbelief (on account of disbelief, lack of belief, they were without faith, they did not trust God).
The completeness of this truth is referring to the still-future event of entering into the new Jerusalem and Paradise of God, as recorded in Revelation chapters 21 and 22.
[Reference: Exodus 17:1-7; Numbers chapter 14; Deuteronomy chapter 1, 6:16; Joshua 5:2-9; Psalm 78:22, 95:7-11; Acts 7:36, 42, and 49, 13:18, 14:15, 19:9; Romans 7:11, 9:26, 11:20; I Corinthians chapter 10, 15:24; II Corinthians 3:3; Ephesians 4:22; I Thessalonians 1:9, 2:16, 4:18, 5:11; I Timothy 3:15, 4:1 and 10; Hebrews 1:9, 4:3, 6 and 8, 6:4, 9:14, 10:31, 12:22. Note: verbs with a superscript 2 (2) immediately following them indicate the "perfect" tense - details are provided in the "Relevant Notes" link of this study.]
