Hebrews Commentary

This commentary on the book of Hebrews grew out of an experiment undertaken by the publishers of Sound of Grace. They host an email chat group that discusses New Covenant Theology. Early in 1998, the moderators of the group formulated the world’s first on-line commentary series. The idea was that several men would all comment on the same passage of the same book at the same time and we would slowly work our way through Hebrews.

It was an interesting undertaking. I was struck by the wide variation of interpretation and presentation. We all came from a Reformed perspective, but we did not share a common eschatological view. In fact, the large majority was what we label Amillennial. I, on the other hand, am what I’ve come to call a “pre-everything-ist.” In other words, despite my adherence to Calvinistic soteriology (the study of salvation), it is clear that the Reformers never delved into eschatology (the study of “end times”) with any real vigor and their historically Roman Catholic end-time views became part of their overall doctrinal scheme. So, I am a “futurist” in that I believe there are still aspects of God’s plan for humanity that are outstanding and awaiting fulfillment. I am premillennial and even pre-tribulational. Hence, “pre-everything-ist.”

When approaching the book of Hebrews, I wanted to get at the original author’s meaning and purpose. In order to do that, I had to take his First Century audience into account. They, as the name of the epistle implies, were Hebrew converts to Christianity. Consequently, they were steeped in Judaism and needed an education on Christ’s fulfillment of Old Covenant typology, as well as assurance that Christianity was the end result of their mutual Hebrew history. To my way of thinking, it is a mistake to read this letter exclusively through Twentieth Century Gentile eyes and ignore its decidedly Jewish tone and tenor.