Articles, Bible studies, and sermons that contain Hebrews 3:5:
Hebrews 3:1-6
Let us go along to another one, this one in Hebrews chapter 3. It is a similar metaphor. It also uses the metaphor of a house but there is a little bit of a twist on it.
Now, you could say, this is just like the other one there in I Corinthians 3. But it is a little bit different. God's house here, that he is talking about, is that the metaphor focuses not on the building materials like Paul did, but on the people who inhabit the house - a household, a family as it were. But it is not just the family. The idea of a household in that age was a lot different than ours. We think of mother, father, and two kids as the house. But this is much broader. The house is a family, yes; it is not only the current family but it is the whole dynasty, the whole line. The whole genealogy of the family is included in this as well as the members of the household that may not even be part of the family by blood.
Notice Moses. Moses was a servant in the house. He was not the son or even a son. In this particular analogy, he was a servant who, in those days, was a part of a household. So it is all, in whatever function that they have, who inhabit that house and have to work for the profit and the good - the efficiency - of the whole household.
So, in that day and age, it might have been a patriarch, a matriarch, sons and daughters, and all the maidservants and manservants. And it could have been a steward who was over the business aspects of the house. It could have been a teacher, a physician, various other employees, or slaves that were in the house. They were all part of the household. They all had their functions and they were all supposed to work for the benefit of the whole house. And Moses was faithful in what he did for the whole house, was he not? He did a great job guiding Israel through the wilderness and giving us the law and all the other things that he did. He was a faithful servant and his work (going back to Paul's other metaphor) stands today even though he was tested by fire.
So what we need to understand here is that we are individuals in this household. We are called sons and daughters. We are not servants necessarily, although we are. We may have different responsibilities in the body of Christ that make us servants. But we are really sons and daughters. But our inclusion in the Family, as he shows here in verse 6, is that we remain loyal. We remain faithful to the Heir, the Son who is the quintessence of faithfulness.
He is showing us how to do it. He is showing us all along how to be faithful. And we have to copy the faithfulness of Jesus Christ and the faithfulness, the loyalty, and the dedication of Moses to remain a part of this Family. Because that was the problem the Hebrews were having: They were beginning to slip away. They were not doing their jobs in the Family, in the household. They were allowing themselves to drift.
Just a note of interest. You might want to jot down I Timothy 3:14-15; Galatians 6:10; and Colossians 3:18-4 verse 1. These are all part of the metaphor of the household and almost all of the references to a household as the church speak to the proper conduct of members of God's house. And the one in Colossians chapter 3 talks about husbands, wives, children, master, servants. They were all part of the household at the time and they all had their responsibilities and they all needed to conduct themselves properly to remain as members in good standing of the household.
Moses is one of that great cloud of witnesses, and there is much that we can learn from his life. He was faithful as a servant. No higher tribute can be given a man than that.
Moses, the servant of God, received accolades from God. He did the job that God gave him, and he did it well. That is what set him apart.
He was faithful. So well did he do it that our Messiah our Savior is compared to Moses. That is pretty high praise.
God said to Moses, There is no one like you. He was without peer among the holy. Ordinary prophets had to be content with visions and dreams, but God spoke to Moses personally.
Moses was in a class all by himself. There was nobody on earth more intimate with God than Moses. As a result of that, Moses was entrusted with all of God's estate.
All His house is a figure of speech indicating the building and everything in it. What is normally in a house is a family. Moses is faithful in all of God's Household, in all of God's Family.
Nobody was faithful like Moses was faithful. Therefore he could interpret God's will to Israel with full authority. That is what was behind those words.
It is very clear what set Moses apart from others. He was faithful. This can be seen when he is contrasted to Israel, who were God's Family at that time.
They were the people that he was leading, but they were anything but faithful. The reason that they failed was because of their lack of faith. Without faith you cannot be faithful.
Moses was faithful in all of God's house. He was the steward of God's house at that time. A steward is a deputy or agent of the owner.
A steward had authority to administer the property of the owner, including the other slaves. But the steward himself was under the authority of the owner and therefore was a slave too. Above all things, a servant must be faithful, reliable, dependable, trustworthy, and responsible in carrying out his obligations to his owner.
A good steward is a faithful steward. A good steward or a good servant is one who follows through with his responsibility. Being a faithful steward of God's gifts can appear to be a discouraging responsibility, given our knowledge of how weak we are.
One is never going to be faithful if one's beliefs remain merely preferences. We must be convicted of the rightness of what we believe, or we will never be faithful. Moses became convicted.
Moses had convictions. By the time we get to Numbers 12, Moses was a man of conviction and he really was faithful. He could be relied upon to do the job that God gave him to do.
So much so that God, in a sense, just turned the authority over to him. Moses kept in constant contact with God too. That was part of his responsibility as the servant to keep in contact with the Boss so that he would understand what the Boss' mind would be, and so that he could then faithfully do the job that God wanted him to do.
Please turn with me over to Hebrews 3. In contrast to the ancient Israelites, we must be diligently confident and conscientiously hopeful with joy. Their servant leader Moses was faithful to his house, Israel, as a type of Christ over His own house, God's church, and its individual members. Here, there is a comparison between Jesus Christ and Moses, showing Jesus Christ to be the more faithful one, but Moses still having been faithful.
The faithful Moses was a type or forerunner of Jesus Christ. But the Israelites he led out of Egypt had inconsistent faith and hope, and they focused on physical things and their work of bondage because of their fearful and distracted mindset. They resisted hope. The physical challenges of life were more real to them than the spiritual realities of God's deliverance. Had they had real hope they would have been willing to suffer and endure and persevere to achieve the goal of their future reality. We have a different future reality in that it is a spiritual reality. It is a reality of liberty which these days represent, and also of the Kingdom of God. Theirs was a physical liberty in the land they were to inherit at the end of the 40 years. This confident message of hope means our life involves endurance and perseverance. Faith and hope are interconnected. Faith will diminish without hope because hope is a motivator. In stark contrast to Moses, the Israelites in the world today believe that the word hope means something that is uncertain, which is the opposite of what true hope is. But for us, the church, it refers to what is sure and certain, but for which we wait. The apostle Paul calls this one hope in Ephesians 4:4 because it embraces a unifying set of beliefs among us, the elect of God, the saints. Another way of thinking about our hope is to say that when Jesus Christ returns, we are going to be with Him. People from all races, nations, and economic backgrounds will be together with Jesus, our Savior, our King; and the many things that divide us now will be forgotten then. It is vitally important that we remember our privileges as members of God's church. And it is our privilege that we are called children of God. To bear the name of the Family of God is something to keep our feet on the right path that set us climbing toward perfection. Nevertheless, we are not merely called children of God. We are the children of God. And it is by the gift of God that a person becomes a child of God. By nature we are the creature of God, but it is by grace that we become children of God. Please turn over to I John 3. While all humans are children of God in the sense that we owe our lives to Him, we become His sanctified children in the intimate and loving sense only by an act of God's initiating grace and the response of our own hearts. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind.
Jesus Christ is the epitome of loyalty and faithfulness. He is called a merciful high priest and He fulfills the role finally and ultimately in the service of God to make expiation for the sins of the people. Jesus Christ is faithful in Moses' role.
He surpasses and fulfills the faithfulness and loyalty of Moses in building and ruling the household of God and the church of God. We are in danger of being depersonalized, of having our hearts hardened. Unbelief is faithlessness, and part of faith is loyalty; therefore disloyalty equates to unbelief, to faithlessness.
It is loyalty to God and Jesus Christ first, and then to our brethren, as long as we are following God and doing what He says in His inspired holy written word. The servant owns nothing, is heir to nothing, has no authority and no right to control anything and is himself wholly at the will of another. A son, however, is the heir of all, has a prospective right to all and is looked up to by all with respect if he is a good son or righteous son.
The idea is not merely that Christ is a son; it is that as a son, He is placed over the whole arrangements of the household and is one to whom all is entrusted as if it were His own. We are part of God the Father and Jesus Christ's family. We belong to the family over which Christ has been placed as the Firstborn Son.
Jesus Christ is the consummation of God's determined loyalty to His gracious covenant relationship with His people. Christ is faithful and loyal to the Father and the Father to Him. We have the wonderful opportunity to be part of this faithful and loyal family.
The training ground for it is here and now, in our own households, and in the household of God. Loyalty means enduring commitment to a person over a long period of time, often with the implication of the commitment persisting in the face of obstacles that threaten the lasting commitment. Jesus Christ's words on loyalty and faithfulness suggest complete sacrifice for others, which is exactly what Jesus Christ did.
It is important that the New Testament describes Jesus as faithful. He is called a merciful and faithful High Priest. He fulfills that role finally and ultimately in the service of God, to make expiation for the sins of the people, as Hebrews 2:17 tells us. Also, Jesus Christ is faithful in Moses' role; He surpasses and fulfills the faithfulness and loyalty of Moses in building and ruling the house of God - the household of God - the church of God.
The writer of Hebrews goes on to say that the children of Israel continually tested God's faithfulness and loyalty, and always God was faithful to His covenant, and He was loyal to those who were loyal to Him. But they suffered from the human trait that comes out of rebellion - unbelief.
Unbelief is faithlessness, and part of faith is loyalty, therefore, disloyalty equates to unbelief. The servant owns nothing, is heir to nothing, has no authority, and no right to control anything, and is himself wholly at the will of another. A son, however, is the heir of all, has a prospective right to all, and is looked up to by all with respect. But the idea here is not merely that Christ is a Son; it is that as a Son He is placed over the whole arrangement of the household, and is one to whom all is entrusted as if it were His own already. We are part of God the Father and Jesus Christ's Family. It is where we belong. That is, we belong to the Family over which Christ the Son is placed. Jesus Christ is the consummation of God's determined loyalty to His gracious covenant relationship with His people. Christ is faithful and loyal to the Father and the Father to Him. We have the wonderful opportunity to be part of this faithful and loyal spiritual Family. The training ground for it is here and now - in our own households and in the household of God.
Paul is saying that Christ and Moses are on different levels. Moses was a mere servant, whereas Christ was the Son. One of the main themes of Hebrews is that everything with Christ is better in every way than the way it was before.
Moses was a servant in the house. Christ is the Son, and we are the house. It is an analogous metaphor as the body.
We are Christ's body. He says we are Christ's house. What he is saying is that we have been given an opportunity to be in a place, in a level, in a position even above Moses.
Look how much you revered Moses and what he did. Because of what Christ did when He was here, and because He is now our faithful High Priest, we have an opportunity to be even greater than Moses was. What he is doing is piling on proof of their obligation to do things like Christ did.
What we need is to be faithful, and to be good stewards like Moses was. Moses was faithful as a servant. We need to be faithful like Christ.
We need to be faithful. We need to be enduring all the way to the end. This is what it is going to take.
He is really making it tough on them. He is saying, You don't have any excuse because you have been put in a place of great honor, great potential, and if you want to be like God, then you have got to do things like Christ, because He is the pattern we are supposed to follow. He is really turning the screws on them.
Christ Jesus is the Apostle and High Priest of our profession. He was faithful to Him who appointed Him, as Moses also was faithful in all his house. This Man was counted worthy of more glory than Moses.
Moses built a tabernacle. Christ is going to build a House, a Tabernacle, a Temple. The ground has been prepared by John the Baptist.
He who has built the house has more honor than the house. Every house is built by some man, but He who built all things is God. Moses truly was faithful in all his house as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken after.
Christ is as a Son over His own house, whose house we are if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end. Paul called himself a wise master-builder. Jesus Christ is the wise Master-builder.
He builds by means of His Spirit, His Word, His interventions, and His gifts. Jesus did a much better job than John did. Something interesting happened along the way.
Jesus preached to thousands of people during His ministry. A strange thing happened along the way to this Man, the greatest Man, the greatest Builder who ever walked the face of the earth. An amazing turn of events occurred that one would hardly expect to occur to the One who deserves more glory than any person who has ever lived.
The New Testament describes Jesus as faithful and He is called a merciful and faithful High Priest. He fulfills that role finally and ultimately in the service of God to make expiation for the sins of the people, according to Hebrews 2:17. Now Jesus Christ is faithful in Moses' role. He surpasses and fulfills the faithfulness and loyalty of Moses in building and ruling the house of God, the household of God, the church of God.
The servant owns nothing, is heir to nothing, has no authority, and no right to control anything, and is himself wholly at the will of another. A son, however, is the heir of all, has a prospective right to all, and is looked up to by all with respect. But the idea here is not merely the Christ as a Son, it is that as a son, He is placed over the whole arrangements of the household and is one to whom all is entrusted as if it were His own. We belong to the Family of God the Father and Jesus Christ. And Christ is the consummation of God's determined loyalty to His gracious covenant relationship with His people. He is loyal to the Father and the Father to Him. We have the wonderful opportunity to be part of this faithful and loyal Family. The training ground for it is here and now in our own households and in the household of God.
There is a great difference between Moses and Jesus Christ. Moses was simply a servant, and he served in the house that was built by another. Jesus Christ built the house, and He is the Son of the Owner.
He has the power and the glory, and He receives the greater of everything because He is the Son and not just a servant. Because He is greater, He is more worthy of honor and attention. When we have something that Moses said versus something that Jesus Christ said, they are not going to disagree, but what Jesus Christ said is the governor for what Moses said.
What Jesus said is the bedrock on which everything else sits. He is the chief cornerstone, and the prophets and the apostles hang together on Him. He is like the keystone of an arch, which will fall without the keystone being in place, and it is the keystone that everything is balanced off of.
When there is something in the Old Testament that we do not understand, if we find what Jesus said on that subject, that should be the baseline of our understanding. Then we go back to the Old Testament and see how that fits in with what Jesus said. Jesus is the key, and He is the One who is the most important.
Christ is greater, better, superior to Moses! Whoever the author was, he handled this very delicately - very nicely. He could have caused offense by seemingly putting Moses down. Moses was held in very high regard by the Hebrew people, but here was One greater than Moses. And yet he was able to put it across in such a way that he showed that Moses, indeed, was faithful; but he was faithful as a servant within the house of which Jesus Christ is the Builder.
But notice the word confidence in verse 6. In Hebrews 4:16, the exact same word is translated boldness! These people were not rejoicing. And they were not bold any longer. Their apathy had them just sort of lying there, taking life in. They were observers, but they were not doers. They were neglecting what had been given to them. And so here is an exhortation: Be bold in overcoming and growing. Be confident in doing those things. And rejoice in the greatness of the message that we have been given. Like I said, you cannot receive a greater message than the one that you have been given. It just is not possible to hear any news that is any greater than what God is preparing for His children.
As with so many things, the symbol of the house points us back to Christ as well. He has built and is building a spiritual house, and we are that house, as long as we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm to the end. We are that house because we are in Him. Jesus promised that the gates of the grave would not prevail against the church - this house. The individual members die physically, but this house has continued for some 2,000 years. It has a sure foundation. This does not mean that this house is always tranquil inside, because it consists of still-imperfect people, and the carnality that remains tends to cause friction. But in the long view, the house is far more stable than anything that spiritual Egypt can offer because it is founded on and upheld by the Son of God. The spiritual house is a shelter from the storms that rage outside. So, part of our duty is not to bring corruption, symbolized by leaven, into either our own homes or into this spiritual house, but to prioritize feeding on the Bread of Life and helping other members of the household do the same.
The church is both God's home on earth and our home as members of His household. There is a qualification for each one of us, even each household, to be part of that household of God. Jesus is contrasted with Moses as a Son over God's house.
Moses was no more than a member of the house. He was essentially one with all others. Christ has an innate superiority.
He is the Son and as such is over the household. The spiritual or symbolic sense of household shows us united by God's election and salvation through Jesus Christ, therefore, we are included in God's household of faith. The spiritual household is first of all a relational image, a large and extended family including various associates and household servants known affectionately as brothers and sisters, or in general brethren.
Closely related is the architectural imagery of the church as pillar and foundation of the truth. In contrast to the pagan temples and even the stone Temple in Jerusalem, we are a spiritual house, built by Jesus Christ with living stones. In this house of God is the pillar of the truth.
We know who is working on us. It is our High Priest, Jesus Christ. Every house is built by someone, but He who built all things is God.
Moses indeed was faithful in all His house as a servant, for a testimony of those things which would be spoken afterward, such as types and symbols. Christ is 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. The church is indestructible because God said so.
The gates of the grave will never prevail against it. We are each a living stone in it and we have the responsibility to stand strong in the confident hope that we have in Christ that we too will be firm. We are to hold fast till then, when the Day Star arises with healing in His wings, till the Light of the world arises, or our death occurs, whichever comes first.
You can see that in Paul's mind Moses was almost incomparable with any other human being, only Christ would compare to him. The term I feel encompasses the kind of leadership that God wants from us is what Moses had in spades. He was faithful, his outstanding characteristic. Whatever God called upon him to do he was faithful in carrying it out. He was a leader.
Moses is a forerunner of Christ. It is interesting that Moses' Egyptian name means son. He was a type of Jesus Christ, who is the Son, and both of them were considered faithful in their house.
The lesson we can learn from Asa is to be zealous and faithful all our days. Nothing, like the life of Asa, could be more tragic than giving up just before the finish line.
