Smoodock's Blog

Some Biblical critics are troubled over the idea that Paul seems to say Timothy had been in prison, when nothing is known of such a thing in ecclesiastical history. Some even believe the letter to the Hebrews wasn’t written by Paul or anyone else prior to the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple. Nevertheless, there would be little sense for writing it, unless it was written prior to the Jews’ war with Rome in 66 to 70 AD. If the epistle was written late, to which group of scattered Jews would it be sent, and how would the author know that that particular group had many Messianic Jews in their number, whose faith was beginning to fail? A post war epistle makes little sense, especially since the defeated nationals were angry with the Messianic Jews who hadn’t helped in the war. The angry Jewish nationals took steps to rid their community of all believing Jews. Therefore, the Epistles to the Hebrews makes little sense in such a context.

The mystery of the Gospel that reveals the death of the Messiah, and the idea that out of that death would arise the salvation of mankind had been kept secret since Adam’s rebellion in Eden (Romans 16:25). Now, Paul called upon the God of peace (i.e. the God who is now at peace with mankind due to the death of Christ – Hebrews 13:20), the same God who brought Jesus out of the grave, to send that great Shepherd, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, and make every Hebrew believer “perfect in every good work, to do his will” (Hebrews 13:20-21).

Paul’s reference to the blood of the everlasting covenant points to Zechariah 9:9-13. This is a Messianic prophecy that points to the time when the Messiah would reunite the House of Judah and the House of Israel at the end of the age (i.e. the end of the Jewish age; cp. Deuteronomy 31:28-29). The prophet calls upon the daughter of Zion (the daughter of Jerusalem) to rejoice in the coming of her King who appears to her “lowly and riding upon an ass, upon a colt, the foal of an ass” (Zechariah 9:9; cp. Matthew 21:5). The war machine of the Lord’s people (Judah and Israel) would be destroyed (Isaiah 2:4; Joel 3:10; Micah 4:3), and the Lord would speak the words of peace to the heathen (the gentiles; cp. Zechariah 9:10). In other words, the Messiah would not plead with the nations through war. They wouldn’t be forced into submission. Rather, the Lord would “speak peace” to them through the Gospel (cp. Ephesians 2:17), and his Kingdom would stretch all over the earth. Through the prophet the Lord declared to the heathen that he called them out of the dry pit of hopelessness into the stronghold of Christ, in whom they would receive a double blessing (Zechariah 9:11-12), and this would be done at the time when the Lord would use Judah and Israel together as his weapons of spiritual warfare (cp. Ephesians 6:10-17) against the children of the gentiles (Zechariah 9:13).

This was Paul’s prayer and hope concerning how his epistle would affect his readers, asking them to bear with him in his exhortation, not desiring to rule over their faith, but, rather, to inspire them to continue to reach out to do the will of God (Hebrews 13:22).

Paul claimed that he had freed Timothy of the reins of the Gospel to which he was bound, and sent him to Jerusalem with this Epistle to the Hebrews. In doing this Paul would know their state through Timothy, including their disposition toward Paul’s words (Hebrews 13:23; cp. Philippians 2:19-23; 1Thessalonians 3:6-7). So Paul ended his epistle by sending greetings to the leaders of the Jewish believers and to the church at large, saying that all in Italy send their greetings and well wishes of the grace of God to all at Jerusalem (Hebrews 13:24-25).[1]

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[1] This concludes my study of Paul’s Epistle to the Hebrews. May the Lord bless abundantly all who have taken this journey with me.