By
Rev. Jack Simonds, PhD
The epistle to the Hebrews reveals Jesus as the Center and Circumference, Beginning, Ending and Entirety of the Gospel. Hebrews is the first book of the eight General Epistles. Hebrews was written before the destruction of the temple which took place in 70 AD. Even before the destruction of the Temple, the original disciples had begun to preach among the Gentiles. It was perhaps during this early period that the Epistle to the Hebrews was written. Paul is the most likely author of Hebrews. Hebrews is credited in its title to Paul in the 1611 "King James Version" of the Holy Bible. It is thrilling to read what Paul says about Jesus, and the church of God. The Epistle is intended to celebrate the all-sufficiency of Christ as the great High Priest, who has made atonement by his own blood, as distinguished from the Old Testament types that were intended to point forward to him. If called to use a single word to best describe Hebrews, the word I would suggest is “faith”. Jesus is presented as “the pioneer and perfecter of faith”. Our Christian faith is based solely on who Jesus is, what He has done for us and continues to do for us. The author of Hebrews presents in Chapter 11 a host of “faith warriors” from the history of God’s people in the Bible.
At first glance, Hebrews appears to be a difficult book to understand and relate to us modern day Christians having little knowledge of Jewish matters, but Hebrews is a gold mine and there is much treasure to enrich our understanding of God and his purposes. Every carefully structured section contributes to the development of a central theme about the person and work of our Lord Jesus Christ and the nature of our salvation. We are shown how to interpret the Old Testament in the light of its fulfillment and can understand how the two Testaments of our Bible link together and become one Bible – The Word of God. Hebrews demonstrates that effective warning