Hebrews Chapter Three, Worthy Of Honor

 

Hebrews 3:3 For this One has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses, inasmuch as He who built the house has more honor than the house. [4] For every house is built by someone, but He who built all things is God.

 

Continuing to contrast Jesus and Moses, we are told that Jesus is worthy of more glory than Moses; the reason being that the builder of a house deserves more honor than the house itself. The house, impressive though it may be, is a testimony of the genius and ingenuity that designed and constructed it. 

If the house Moses ministered in was Israel, the nation chosen from among the many nations that had since sprung up since the dispersion at Babel, then Moses was a steward tending to God’s business. Tasked with a great responsibility, he was in the employ of the God of Israel, by whose power Egypt’s gods suffered judgment. Christ was the God-man. Incarnated as the Son of man, Son of Mary, He was nonetheless God incarnate, builder of the nation of Israel from the seed of Abraham.

 

Christ came as the builder of the house, whereas Moses, though dutiful, was a steward given charge over Israel’s doings for a time. Moses, being a member of the nation of Israel, from the tribe of Levi, was also a part of that house. And as we know that all houses are built by someone, the maker of all things is God. Verse 4 clearly indicates the deity of Jesus Christ. Following the line of thought begun in verse 2, the writer compares Moses and Jesus, being mutually faithful in God’s house. Yet Christ deserves more honor than Moses, “inasmuch as He who built the house has more honor than the house.” The comparison alludes to the idea that Jesus was the builder of Israel as a people (see Genesis 12:1, 2), including Moses, God’s friend and faithful steward. So Christ came to His own house to present Himself as Israel’s King and Messiah, John 1:11.

 

Verse 4 verifies this idea, simply telling us that all things are built by God. Christ deserves more glory than Moses the prophet because He is God: Moses’ Creator. Verse 4 further evidences that all visible things in this universe can be traced back to the creative agency of God. Our universe, and planet Earth in particular, are not the result of aimless, pointless, time, chance and random mutation. We are not the result of punctuated equilibrium. We do not exist because there is a fictional multiverse. Long eons of time cannot create organized matter that in turn becomes alive. All matter and energy cannot spring from a cosmic egg that suddenly exploded and expanded into our presently beheld universe.

 

“The fool has said in his heart there is no God,” Psalm 14:1. What was true in David’s time is no less so in ours. Explaining the universe while lacking any functional causality is indeed extremely foolish. The retort of “who created God?” when this argument arises reveals ignorance. First, the Bible posits God not as a part of material nature, but a Spirit that existed (prior to creation) apart from what humanity names the cosmos. Second, if we accept that thoughts and abstract ideas do not originate with the brain but elsewhere, having no material corollary, then this evidence is a powerful proof that humanity isn’t simply muscles, nerves, and flesh. Abstract concepts that have no material origin testify to the existence of reality beyond time/space/matter. Third, this suggests a Creator who endowed us with the capacity for speech to articulate ideas that have no material origin. As the law of biogenesis states that life only begets life, there should be a metaphysical corollary that intelligence can only beget intelligence. Forth, our creation’s beginning must be addressed. It is largely accepted that the universe is not eternal, though some still believe it to be. Sir Fred Hoyle proffered the steady state theory: a cosmological theory suggesting (among other things) that the universe has no beginning or end.

 

Ultimately, however, mankind is left with two opposing choices:

 

#1: supernatural creation of the universe in the six days described in the Book of Genesis.

 

#2: the big bang theory that begins existence in a cosmic egg containing the potentiality for the universe we know, which eventually exploded and expanded, and over billions of years (the debate remains on how many billions) giving us our present universe.

 

Yes, I have left out the Gap Theory, the Day-Age Theory, et al. from a Christian perspective, as well as views like punctuated equilibrium from the evolutionary viewpoint. But that is simply because I’m speaking to origins right now, not progressive function. The above theories all lean on the big bang theory in the end. Christianity has largely sold out to Darwin and abandoned trust in God’s record of how things came to be, because modern science guarantees that the Bible is incredibly in error. But with scientific consensus (read: collective opinion) always shifting and adjusting itself, not to mention evidences ignored and men of science spurned simply because of their faith, I will happily retain the witness of Genesis. After all, if we believe that God is, then we can also believe that He can verify the creation account, having been there and having performed it personally.

 

I believe the church has declined into a rather pitiful state because many adherents no longer believe much of what Scripture says pertaining to life and godliness, or even to God Himself. But verse 1 tells us to consider Jesus, the Apostle and High Priest of our confession. When we confess Christ, we take His name and speak with His authority. What He spoke as truth provides the upper limits of what we are permitted to speak. But we also must speak no less than what our Lord did. Verse 3 states that Jesus deserves more glory than Moses, despite the fact that Moses was indeed faithful to Him in His house. Why? Because Christ made Israel, and Moses, and us. He made the stars and the expanse of the heavens. “He alone spreads out the heavens…He hangs the earth on nothing,” Job 9:8, 26:7. Job, who is believed to have lived during the days of Abraham, knew that the earth hung in the void of space. It hung on nothing, but was suspended in the ether beyond the face of the skies. This is a far cry from the planet being flat, or sitting on Atlas’ shoulders or on a giant turtle.  “It is He who sits above the circle of the earth,” Isaiah 40:22. Isaiah, written during the days of Ahaz, Hezekiah, and Manasseh, kings of Judah, described the earth as a globe. Despite using phrases such as the four corners of the earth for literary purposes, the patriarchs and prophets demonstrated an uncanny understanding of earth’s position and shape, long before modern science shook off the mythological. Christ created all things by the word of His power. Why, my fellow Christians, do we doubt this?