Hebrews 3:1-6

Hebrews 3:1

Christ the Lord, and Moses the Servant.

I. To speak of Moses to the Jews was always a very difficult and delicate matter. It is hardly possible for Gentiles to realise or understand the veneration and affection with which the Jews regard Moses, the servant of God. All their religious life, all their thoughts about God, all their practices and observances, all their hopes of the future, everything connected with God, is to them also connected with Moses. Moses was the great apostle unto them, the man sent unto them of God, the mediator of the Old Covenant; and we cannot wonder at this profound, reverential affection which they feel for Moses.

II. After admitting fully the grandeur and excellence of Moses, the Apostle proceeds to show us the still greater glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. The zeal of Moses was not free from earthborn elements, and had to be purified. But there was nothing in Jesus that was of the earth, earthy; no sinful weakness of the flesh was in Him who condescended to come in the weakness of sinful flesh. His love was always pure, His zeal holy, His aim single. Moses spake face to face with God, and was the mediator between God and Israel. The Lord Jesus is Prophet, Priest, and King, in one Person; but He is perfectly and eternally the true Revealer, Reconciler, Ruler, and the Son of God. Moses was willing to die for the nation; the Lord Jesus actually died, and not for the nation only, but to gather all the children of God into one. Moses brought the law on tables of stone; the Lord Jesus, by His Spirit, even the Holy Ghost, writes the law on our hearts.

A. Saphir, Expository Lectures on the Hebrews,vol. i., p. 167.

Reference: Hebrews 3:1. Homiletic Quarterly,vol. i., p. 456.