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COMMENTARY TO THEBOOK OF HEBREWS
This is the best commentary to the Book to Hebrews I have ever red!
Written down from the sermons by
JACK SEQUEIRA
Hebrews 1:1-3
Christ, God’s Final Word
The Greek of Hebrews is very unlike Paul. Therefore scholars say thatlinguistically it could not have been Paul who wrote the book 
. So many peoplehave been considered as the authors of Hebrews. Besides Paul there is
Timothy,Barnabas, some say it is Luke, some say Silas, some say Peter, some say Apollosand even some say it is Priscilla
. If it is Priscilla it is the
only book written by a woman
in the New Testament.
I will give you my opinion, I feel that Paul wrote it, but he did not write itin Greek. He wrote it either in Aramaic or Hebrew because He was writing for theJews. It was translated possibly by Luke and we have lost the Hebrew manuscriptand all we have is the Greek text. By the way, Ellen White took the positionthat it is Paul who wrote the book 
. No matter what position you take we must allagree that this is the
inspired word of God
. That’s what counts.The second thing I would like to say about the book concerns its
destination
. Towhom was it written? Even the title of the book tells us very clearly that itwas written
to the Jewish Christians
. Now there was quite a community of JewishChristians in Rome and there was quite a community of Jewish Christians inJerusalem. Many feel, and I think they are right, that it was primarily
to theJewish Christians in Jerusalem
, but I’m sure that it included the JewishChristians in general.The next thing is the date and I think this is important. We do not have theexact date but it was approximately
between 64 A.D. and 67 A.D.
Now why is that
 
date important?
What took place in 70 A.D.?
 
Jerusalem was destroyed
, includingthe
temple
.Remember that the
temple to the Jews was everything
. It symbolizedto the Jews the
presence of God
. The
destruction of the temple meant that Godhad departed from them
. If you have read
Daniel nine you will know that Daniel’sprayer concerned the restoration of the temple in Jerusalem. That meant thatGod’s favour was back on them
.If you go today to Jerusalem a
portion of the wall is still existing
. Do youknow
what they call it? The Wailing Wall
. Why?
They cry that the temple may berebuilt.
Now something else has been built over the rubble of the destroyedtemple. It is the
Dome of the Rock 
, which is a
Muslim mosque
. For them torebuild the temple on the original site of the temple of Jerusalem
they wouldhave to destroy the Dome of the Rock 
. If they did that all hell would break loose. The Arabs would never take that sitting down.
They think that rock uponwhich the Mosque is built is where Ishmael was offered by Abraham and the Jewsand the Bible says that it was there that he offered Isaac.
So we have Abraham the father of the Jews as well as the father of the Arabs. Ithink Abraham will shed many tears when he discovers in the kingdom
what havoche caused by not sticking to faith in God’s promise.God, I believe, was preparing the Jews for the crisis. Three to five yearsbefore the destruction of Jerusalem the book of Hebrews was written. The purposeof the book was to turn their eyes from the temple and the rituals to Christ
.We don’t know how soon but we are going to face a similar crisis. And I believethat the book of Hebrews can be of tremendous meaning to us. It will help us toturn our eyes from social security, from welfare, from the plastic card that can buy anything in America....When we first came here it was in the middle of winter and my wife was freezing.I was in the immigration office and she walked out; when she came back she waswearing boots. She had no money and I knew that. I said, “Where did you getthat?”“From the shop,” she replied.“How much did you pay?”“Nothing,” she said. “I showed them this plastic card that you gave me.” It wasa [department store] plastic card.I said, “That was for emergencies.”She said, “This was an emergency!”I said, “Okay.”If you look through the book of Hebrews, the
theme
therefore is that
Jesus isthe fulfilment of all that God had promised in the Old Testament
. He is the
reality
. Therefore, the
key word in the book of Hebrews
is,
“better”
.Christ is the “better”
revelation
as given in the first four verses of chapter 
one
.
 
Christ is the “better”
hope
in
chapter seven verse nineteen
.He is the “better”
priesthood
in chapter 
seven
.He is the “better”
covenant
and promise in chapter 
eight verse six
.He is the “better”
sacrifice
in chapter 
nine verse twenty-three
.He is the “better”
possession
in chapter 
ten verse thirty-four
.And He is the “better”
resurrection
in
chapter eleven verse thirty-five
.So you see Christ is presented here as the “better” of all the types that were promised in the Old Testament. Christ is the anchor of the soul it says in chapter six, because He is “the better”.If you read the book of Hebrews you will
not find it to be a theological book 
.It is not a book that explains the rituals and the types of the Old Testament.
The main purpose is to present Christ as the total answer to every human need
.That’s the purpose of the book. Jesus Christ is the answer to every human need.He is the same yesterday, today and forever. He is still the only answer toevery human need.
Therefore Hebrews is the clearest and most systematicpresentation of Christ—His person, His earthly ministry, His heavenly missionand ministry
. In Hebrews, type and antitype are compared and contrasted.
Hebrews is the finest book if you want to study about the person of JesusChrist
. You may say, “What of the gospels?” Well, the
gospels are an historicalaccount of the acts of Christ.
But in terms of the person, His earthly mission,and in terms of our redemption, His heavenly ministry, the book of Hebrews isthe best book.
That is why we need to study the book of Hebrews because we needto know Jesus Christ
.There were
two problems the Jewish Christians were facing. Both of the problemscan be related to our situation
: The Jewish Christians were
getting a bit discouraged because they were toldthat Christ was coming soon
to establish the kingdom. And now thirty,thirty-five years later, He had not yet come. We have been preaching for over one hundred years that Christ is coming and a lot of our young people aresaying, “Where is His coming you have been promising us?” And so,
many of theJewish Christians were discouraged. They were reverting back to Judaism
.That’s why Paul is trying to convince them. “
Please don’t go back 
, because youare taking a backward step.”The Jewish Christians were facing a lot of persecution. This was mainly fromtheir fellow Jews because, of course, these Jews said, “You’re a traitor tothe synagogue, you have left the truth” (i.e., Judaism). We have a similar  problem today in the Middle East. When we baptize muslims in the Middle East
of 00

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