Heb 3:1–6 — Greater Than Moses

The title of the sermon today is Greater Than Moses. I think that is a fair summary of this paragraph that we just read, as the author of Hebrews is comparing Christ with Moses. Moses was faithful in all God’s house as a servant, but Christ is faithful. In all God’s house, not merely as a servant, but as the son. The son title there that is in verse six, as a son or the son, harks back to the previous two chapters of The letter in Hebrews 1 and 2, the main point of that whole section is that Christ is the eternal, divine Son of God.

He is the radiance of God’s glory. He is the one through whom God made all things. And this glorious, eternal, divine Son, who is equal with the Father in every way, became a man. He became a little lower than the angels for a time. He humbled himself, sharing in our humanity, going to the cross to offer the final sacrifice for sins. And now, as the incarnate Son, he has been exalted to the right hand of God, where he reigns in glory over all things, having been given all glory and honor,” he quotes from Psalm 8, to demonstrate that point. That although he was made for a little while lower than the angels, he, through his resurrection and ascension into heaven, has now been crowned with glory and honor.

And everything, all of creation, is in subjection under his feet. In chapter 3, the author of Hebrews says, Therefore, let us now consider this one whom we have been talking about. Therefore, holy brothers, you who share in a heavenly calling, you share in the heavenly calling, that is this calling to this heavenly inheritance that Christ has purchased for his people. Because you share in that calling to receive that glorious heavenly inheritance.

Consider Jesus

Consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession.” When he says, consider Jesus, I think you could almost say that this is a fair summary statement of the whole letter, is it not? Is not the whole letter to the Hebrews saying, consider Jesus? Think about how great Jesus is. And he is saying this here, consider Jesus, not as a imperative for you to go out and do right now. He is not saying in the Christian life, you need to go out and consider Jesus. He is saying, consider Jesus, whom I am going to present to you in the rest of this letter in all of his glory as the great high priest.

He is beginning already now at this point to, after establishing the Christology, that is that he is the divine son of God who became man and is now exalted as the glorious exalted son. Having established the basic Christology of the God-man and the two natures of Christ, he then says, okay, now, sit down. Take a little sip of your coffee. I want you to listen now to all about this Jesus.

Consider this Jesus. And I am going to spend the next 10, 11 chapters going over who this Jesus is and what he has done specifically in relation to the Old Covenant. Specifically in relation to the Old Covenant, that Jesus is the greater Moses, he is the greater High Priest, and he is the mediator of the New Covenant. Therefore, holy brothers, you who share in this heavenly calling, consider Jesus the apostle and high priest of our confession.”

Now, why does he call Jesus here an apostle? That is kind of an unusual statement. We do not find that statement too often in the New Testament, that Jesus is an apostle. That title is usually reserved for the 12 apostles or for someone like the Apostle Paul, although he was not one of the original 12, he was also called to be an apostle. So why is Jesus being called an apostle? The answer is that the word apostolos in Greek simply means sent. And so he is the one who was sent from God to proclaim the gospel of the kingdom and to inaugurate the new covenant. He uses this title here, apostle, or sent one, to connect back to what he had said earlier.

If you remember back in chapter two of Hebrews, in that first paragraph there, where he says let us pay much closer attention to the things we have heard so that we do not drift away. He mentions there in that paragraph in verses 3 and 4 that the salvation that the author of Hebrews is talking about, this great salvation that we have, was something that was first proclaimed by the Lord Jesus himself. And if you recall, I mentioned that this is referring to the earthly ministry of Jesus. When he was on earth, before his death and resurrection, he went around preaching the gospel of the kingdom and performing miracles as the sign of that gospel message that he was proclaiming. And the author of Hebrews is alluding to that. He says that the gospel or the great salvation was declared at first by the Lord. In his earthly ministry. And then it was attested to us by those who heard the Lord, that is by the original disciples, with God also bearing witness by signs and wonders.

That is what the author he was referring to here when he says in our text that he is the apostle and high priest of our confession. He is the sent one from God who first proclaimed this message of the gospel. It does not deny the fact that the message was already prophetically promised in the Old Testament, but he is the one that announced that it was coming, that it had arrived in his person and work. So he is the apostle, that is, he is the sent one from God proclaiming this gospel, and he is the high priest of our confession, the high priest whom we confess.

He has already mentioned back in chapter two and verse 17, this point that he is a high priest. 2.17 is the first reference to Jesus as a high priest, but it is going to become a major theme throughout the rest of the book. In chapter 2.17, he said that, therefore, he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, that is, he had to become a man, becoming one of us, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest. In the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people, and also to help those who are being tempted. So having said that he is the apostle, that is, he is the sent one who proclaims that the kingdom of God is being fulfilled through his person and work, he also then segues to this next point, which is that he is also the high priest whom we confess. He is the high priest whom we confessed and this is going to be one of the main points that the author of Hebrews is going to flesh out in the chapters that lie ahead.

But we have to think about that. What does that mean that he is our high priest? I was really meditating upon this week and really trying to like marinate in this whole letter, the whole letter of Hebrews, to try to understand what is the apostle, what is the author here, what does he mean by calling Christ a high priest? I think there is something deeper than simply saying that he offered the final sacrifice.

I think that the high priestly office that Christ fulfills in this letter has three aspects to it. And I came up with an alliteration for you with three Ps. Priesthood has three Ps. Purification, presentation, and perfection. Purification is the one we most commonly think of.

We think of Christ laying down his life as a sacrifice upon the cross to purify us from our sins, to cleanse us from our sin. Christ deals decisively with sin through his once-for-all sacrifice, cleansing us from our guilt, purifying our conscience. But that is only the beginning of his work as a high priest because then he is raised from the dead and he ascends into heaven and that brings us to the second P which is presentation.

That is that Christ enters the heavenly sanctuary and he appears before God on our behalf As an exalted high priest, just as the high priest would do on the Day of Atonement, once a year, after offering the sacrifice, he would then enter into the inner sanctuary. And that is a type, a picture of the ascension of Christ into heaven. Because the inner sanctuary is a picture of heaven itself. Christ enters into the inner sanctuary. He presents us to God.

Now the term that is usually used for this is intercession, that he intercedes for us. But that is a little bit limiting, I think, because when we think of intercession, we think of pleading. Father, have mercy upon my family. Have mercy upon them and do not judge them. But it is deeper than that. That is just a metaphor for something deeper, which is this idea of presentation.

Christ enters the heavenly sanctuary and he appears before God on our behalf to represent us before God and to grant us access to the presence of God. We are in him and so when he stands there before God and he is accepted, we are accepted in him. So rather than using the term intercession, I think a better term is presentation, which has the added value of being another P to keep the alliteration. Purification, presentation, i.e. Intercession, and perfection is the third P. Because not only has Christ entered into heaven, and that is where he is now, at the right hand of God, presenting us before the Father, but he is also perfecting us.

And that perfection is something that the author of Hebrews talks about a lot in his letter. He talks about perfection multiple times. He talks about how the old covenant sacrifices and the Old Testament rituals were never able to completely perfect the people of God. But Christ is the one who perfects us. And what does perfection mean? It means that He brings us to glory. Remember back in chapter 2, verse 10, He is bringing many sons to glory as the captain of our salvation. Because He is not only there in heaven to represent us so that we are accepted before God, He is there in heaven as our forerunner so that He is going to bring us with Him to glory. Christ brings his people to glory, granting them perfection.

Perfection here, and the author of Hebrews’ terminology is not focusing on ethical perfection, like being morally perfect. It is on this concept of eschatological consummation. Christ was perfected himself when he was raised from the dead and ascended into heaven.

And we too will one day be perfected when Christ raises us from the dead and grants us access to heaven and the eternal inheritance. In other words, going back to our text, therefore, holy brothers, you who share in a heavenly calling, that heavenly calling that we are called to heaven, that is already giving us that third P of perfection. Therefore, holy brothers, who share in this heavenly calling to this glorious, perfect inheritance that will be consummated one day when Christ returns and we are raised with him, consider Jesus. The apostle, the sent one who first proclaimed this, and the high priest whom we confess, that is the one who has purified us, is presenting us before the God, before God the Father, and will perfect us at the end.

Faithful in God’s House

He is the high priest whom we confess, who, verse two, was faithful to him who appointed him, just as Moses also was faithful in all God’s house. Christ was appointed to be our great high priest in his earthly ministry. He began that with his teaching and then his death on the cross. And then he was raised to the right hand of God, where he now sits in glory as the greater Moses over the house of God. He is faithful. He is faithful to do all those three things. He is faithful to purify us from sin. He is faithful to present us before the Father. He is faithful to perfect us and bring us to glory.

The Builder and the House

The author of Hebrews then goes on to say, For Jesus has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses. As much more glory as the builder of a house has more honor than the house itself. For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.” What is this house that is being described here? This house. The builder of a house has more honor than a house. Every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God. He is going to bring up this house again at the very end when he says in verse six that we are God’s house. Verse six, Christ is faithful over God’s house as a son and we are his house. Or household. The word house is one of these interesting words that has a double meaning. On the one hand, it can mean literally a building, a house.

And sometimes that might be like an individual house for a small family unit, or it might be a big house for a king. And then that would be called a palace. But that is also a house. Or it could even be a house for God to dwell in. We call that, the house where God dwells is called the temple. But that is the idea of a house as sort of an architectural image of a building. But there is also another dimension to this word house. Sometimes the house focuses upon the people in the house. And so the word house could also be translated as household.

A Son over God’s House

If we are talking about a domestic house for a family, then the household is also called the house. And I think that second meaning, the household meaning, here is part of the meaning of the text because of the fact that it says, we are his house. Verse six, Christ is faithful over God’s house as a son and we are his house. We, the people of God, are his household. We are his family.

Picking up on what he had said in chapter two about how the children whom God has given him and the brothers of Christ. Remember the brothers and the children? Remember that was a little bit confusing last week. How can we be both his brothers and his children? It is because the point is not to literally say we are his children, literally his brothers, the point is to give us this analogy of the head of the family with his children or the elder brother with his brothers. And in both there is this relationship between the head and the rest. Christ is the captain of our salvation. He is the elder brother. We are his brothers that he is bringing to glory. Or another analogy, using that passage from Isaiah 8, he is like Isaiah with his family. He is the head of the household. He is the head of his family.

Behold, I and the children God has given me. And I am going to lead them to glory. Since the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things. That is, he became a man too, so that he might save his family. That is what the author of Hebrews is saying here in verse 6b. We are his household. We are his brothers. We are his children. Using both of those different metaphors, we are the people of God.

And yet, there is also this additional possible meaning. There is this additional possible meaning of the architectural significance because it uses this analogy here of the builder, specifically uses this language of the builder, which brings us to the more architectural meaning of the word house. So it is a multi-layered concept, house slash household, and both ideas are there.

And really the key here is because of the fact that it is focusing upon Moses in particular, Moses being the head of the household in the old covenant age, we are to think also of the people of God as they are related to God as they are God’s people brought out of Egypt, brought before the Lord, and then they build the tabernacle, which will later become the temple in the days of Solomon, to be the place where God would meet with his people.

The key here is that now the author of Hebrews is beginning to shift a little bit from just talking about Christ as a high priest to talking about him as a greater Moses. And at first those two things seem a little bit incompatible because Moses was not the high priest, it was Aaron. Aaron was the high priest, not Moses. So why is he, should not he talk about Aaron? Like if you are thinking about this logically, would not you go, okay, he is already introduced this idea that Christ is a high priest with the three Ps that are involved in that, purifying, presenting, and perfecting the people. So then you would think, okay, now we are going to segue into talking about the high priest. So let us talk about how he is greater than Aaron. Why talk about how he is greater than Moses? For one thing, remember that Moses and Aaron were brothers. And remember that when God called Moses, he also called Aaron with him to be his assistant to help him in the whole process. Remember back when they are still in Egypt, Moses said, look, I do not have the ability to speak very eloquently. And so God says, OK, here is what you do. You take Moses as your prophet, quote unquote. I will speak to you, and then you speak to him, and then he will go to Pharaoh.

So Moses and Aaron were already connected together in a very close way. And in fact Moses himself even has priestly functions. Remember all the different things that Moses does that are more priestly in orientation. For example, of those three Ps. The second one is presentation. The high priest goes into the inner sanctuary and presents the people before God, and his acceptance means that they are accepted. Moses did something similar. Even though he was not ordained as a high priest, and even though he did not do that function on the Day of Atonement, Yet at the beginning when everything is being set up, when this whole covenant structure with God’s people and gathering together at the tabernacle to meet with God, when all of this is being arranged and set up, Moses has a high priestly function of interceding on behalf of the people. For example, in Exodus chapter 32, when they sinned by making the golden calf, breaking the first commandment, breaking the second commandment as well, the Lord said, I am going to destroy the people. And what did Moses do? Moses interceded on behalf of the people like a priest would.

He said, Lord, you made promises with your people that you would never leave them. And so he interceded, he reminded God of his promises that he had made. And the Lord relented and had mercy. Although initially the Lord said, okay, you can go up, but I am not going to go up with you. And then what did Moses do? Moses said, that is not good enough, Lord. If you are not going to go with us, then this whole thing is in vain.

So he pleaded with the Lord to go with the people. And he says, show me your glory. And the Lord appeared to him and showed him his glory. This is all in Exodus 32. That is the breaking of the commandment and the golden calf. And then at chapter 33, the next chapter, that is when he is interceding. He intercedes in chapter 32, but he intercedes again a second time when he asked the Lord to go with him and to show him his glory.

Moses has a priestly role, and that priestly role will then be handed over to Aaron and his sons to be continued on after Moses. But at the beginning of his ministry here, at the foundation of the Old Covenant order, and the establishment of the people of God under the Old Covenant, Moses has a priestly function. Moses, in a way, is even greater than Aaron. Because of this role that God gave to Moses. God gave Moses this authority and this role. There is another helpful passage to keep in mind. Just think about how great Moses was. That is in Numbers chapter 12. In Numbers chapter 12, this is the episode where Miriam and Aaron, Miriam was also one of the siblings of Moses and Aaron.

Miriam and Aaron, they were complaining because they said, what is up with this Moses guy? Why does he think he is the key person here? Has the Lord indeed only spoken through Moses? Has not he spoken through us as well? And I am not sure how Miriam would claim that, but Aaron could say that. Aaron could say God has spoken through him as well, to some degree.

And the Lord heard their grumbling. The Lord heard their complaining. And the Lord appeared to them. He said, okay, you three. You come and stand before me, Moses, Aaron, and Miriam. And God came down in the pillar of cloud, and he stood at the tent of meeting. And God spoke out of the pillar of cloud, and he said these words. He said, come out, you three, to the tent of meeting. And the three came out. And he said, hear my words.

If there is a prophet among you, I, the Lord, make myself known to him in a vision. I speak to him in a dream. Not so with my servant Moses. Not so with my servant Moses. He is not just an ordinary prophet to whom God would appear in a vision or in a dream. With him, I speak mouth to mouth, clearly, and not in riddles, not in visions that are hard to understand. I speak clearly, mouth to mouth, and he beholds the form of God. Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?

And it is actually this passage that we are looking at here in Hebrews 3. Hebrews 3 and the reference there to Moses being faithful in all God’s house, which is stated twice in verse 2 and in verse 5 of Hebrews 3. That is quoting from this passage I just read. In Hebrews in Numbers chapter 12 because it says in Numbers 12 verse 7, not so with my servant Moses, he is faithful in all my house and I speak to him face to face clearly.

Moses was a prophet like Elijah was a prophet or like Isaiah was a prophet. But he was more than that. Perhaps he was the greatest of all prophets because he played a singular and significant role in redemptive history. He is the only prophet with whom God spoke face to face.

Remember in Exodus 34, I have been quoting from this whole section in Exodus 32, the golden calf incident, 33, show me your glory. Chapter 34 is another one, right in that same context, where it says that Moses came down from Mount Sinai with two tablets of the testimony in his hand. And when he came down from the mountain, he did not realize it, but the skin of his face was radiant with glory. The radiance of the glory of God had been imparted to Moses. Why? Because he had been talking with God himself upon the mountain. Moses was unique. He had a singular role in the history of redemption.

Deuteronomy 34:10 puts it this way. There has not arisen a prophet since in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face.

Because of this, the Jews thought that Moses was equal with the angels. There is a passage in the Apocrypha, it is called the Wisdom of Ben Sirach, also known as Ecclesiasticus. You may have heard about this apocryphal book that the Roman Catholic Church thinks is canonical. We do not, but it does give us some insight into what the Jews at that time thought. It says in Sirach 45 verse two, the God made Moses equal in glory to the holy ones. That is how glorious he was.

Have you ever heard about this sculpture that Michelangelo did of Moses? There is some famous sculptures of Michelangelo like the David one, but there is also a Moses statue or sculpture that Michelangelo created. It is still there in the city of Rome. And it pictures Moses as this mighty, he is a very strong individual, he is like powerful. Michelangelo does all the muscles and everything. And he is standing there holding the tablets. But the interesting thing about this sculpture is that it shows Moses with two horns on his head.

And to us, we are like, what? That sounds like Satan or something. It does not make sense. But the reason for that is because in Exodus chapter 34, in that verse that I mentioned where it says, he did not know it, but when he came down the mountain, his face was radiant.

The word radiant in Hebrew is a verb that can sometimes be translated as horned. And so the idea that Moses was horned, that is how the Vulgate, the Latin translation of Exodus 34 verse 29 puts it, that his face was horned because he had been talking with God. And so because the Roman Catholic tradition used the Latin translation, horned, became the basis for Michelangelo’s idea of the horns. But the idea was not to talk about devil horns. The idea was to signify the radiation of God’s glory coming out like horns out from his face.

The glory of God had been imparted to Moses. His face shone with the radiant glory of God because he had been talking with God face to face. And there had never arisen a prophet in Israel like Moses in this particular respect whom the Lord knew face to face. And that is why the Jews thought that Moses was on par with the angels, and was in fact the greatest of all the prophets of the Old Testament. God used Moses to do something special.

God established him as a type of Christ, as a picture of Christ. And he contained within him all three offices. He contained the office of prophet, obviously he was a prophet, but he contained the office of priest, as we already pointed out, that he interceded on behalf of the people. Just like Christ. And he also contained within himself the office of a king. He had a kingly office as well. And those three offices were then later distributed out into three different offices within the people of God.

But at the beginning of God’s work of establishing the Israelite kingdom of God as a picture of the kingdom of Christ, Moses had a singular Christological role pointing ahead to the person and work of Christ. God used Moses to create and establish the people of God as God’s house, as God’s house-slash-household. He led the people in offering the sacrifice at the Passover. He delivered the people out of bondage in Egypt with signs and wonders just like Jesus does. He brought them to Mount Sinai where he delivered the law to the people. He presided at the moment of the covenant inauguration ceremony in Exodus chapter 24 when God sprinkled the people with the blood of the covenant and said, now you are my people.

He also was the one who went up into the heavenly sanctuary. He went up into heaven itself and he saw the heavenly tabernacle. And he came down with the architectural plans for that and he said to the people, make one just like that. And so they made an earthly tabernacle as a replica of the heavenly sanctuary.

All of this, the author of Hebrews says, is showing us how great and important and significant and unique Moses was. And in everything that he did, whether we are talking about in giving them the law, or in making that initial covenant ratification ceremony, or all of these different things that Moses did, giving them this intercession, interceding before the people, Moses was doing all this as a faithful servant in God’s house. Verse 5, Moses was faithful in all God’s house as a servant, as a servant to testify to the things that were to be spoken later. Everything that Moses did, every regulation, every law, every ceremony that he communicated to the people was prophetic of Christ and his work. Moses was a mere man. He was merely called as an instrument by God.

But he was doing everything in a Christological way to show us what Christ would do and the household that Christ would establish one day. He provides a picture. He provides a type. He provides a shadow of the things that were to be spoken later. So what is the application for us from this text? Let us go back to the main imperative of our text, verse one.

Therefore, holy brothers, you who share in this glorious heavenly calling of one day being raised and perfected and being one of the sons brought to glory, consider Jesus. Consider this Jesus in all of his glory. Consider how he is like Moses, but so much greater than Moses. Yes, he is like Moses in being the one who arranged everything in God’s house.

He is like a store manager. You imagine, let us say, one of those big box stores like Lowe’s or Walmart. There is a store manager that runs the whole place. In charge of all the people, all the staff, all the issues that have to do with keeping the stock. He is running the whole place.

That is what Moses is. He runs everything, like the palace steward. But Christ is greater than Moses, not as a servant, not as a mere man who is appointed to be a temporary type of Christ, but he is God’s eternal son, the eternal son of God, the radiance of God’s glory, who became a man and entered into our history and into our life. He had to be made like his brothers in every way in order that he might be this faithful steward of God’s house. And he runs not a typal kingdom, not a kingdom that is merely a picture of the kingdom of Christ. He runs the reality. He is in charge of the whole thing. He is in charge of God’s eternal purpose. He is the mediator, not of the old covenant with its types and shadows and its temporary nature, but he is the mediator of the new and everlasting covenant that has been established by his death and resurrection.

So if the people under the old covenant were supposed to listen to Moses and not grumble like Miriam and Aaron did, if they were to listen to Moses and take heed to what he is saying, because what he is saying is not his own mind, it is God himself speaking through him. If the people under the old covenant were called to listen to Moses and to honor him and respect him, How much more under the new covenant must we pay attention to Christ, the greater Moses?

Let us listen to him. He is the apostle of our confession. He is the one who has come and proclaimed the announcement of the fulfillment of all God’s purposes. Let us listen to him. But not only is he the apostle, when we confess, who was sent to reveal these things to us, he is also the faithful high priest.

He is faithful. The text is very emphatic about that point, about his faithfulness. It says that in verse 2, he was faithful to him who appointed him. And again in verse 5, just as Moses was faithful in all God’s house, managing the entirety of God’s kingdom purposes in his house, so also Christ was faithful, not as a servant, but as the Son. How wonderful it is to know that he is faithful. He is a faithful steward and manager of God’s household. And we are his household. We are his brothers. We are his family.

His faithfulness, though, is in our place. His faithfulness substitutes for our unfaithfulness. We are bad employees. We are not faithful, we are not on time, we are not doing everything that should be done, but he is! How wonderful it is that he is the one who is faithful in all God’s house, in all God’s household. And his faithfulness is substitutionary in our place.

Let us go back to those three Ps. Just think about his faithfulness in those three Ps. Purification. He was faithful in going all the way to the death of the cross. That was a hard thing. He was tested severely. But he said, yet not my will, but your will be done. He was faithful to the point of death. He was faithful in purifying us from sin. But he is faithful even now under the second P of presentation. He is faithful even now to present us before the Father. We get tired. Our faith goes up and down. We have good days and bad days. There are days when we really struggle, days when we are overcome by doubt and by sin.

But He is faithful. He is faithful even now, at this moment, at the right hand of God, to present us before the Father. He is faithful. Not only in his work of purifying us from sin, but he is faithful in the work of presenting us before God and interceding before the Father.

Faithful to the End

And he will be faithful to the end, the third and final P of perfection. He will see to it that all of those whom the Father has given to him will be brought to that everlasting glory. He is bringing many sons to glory. Though you may feel weak and wayward, you can be confident that He will bring every last one of His elect to that eternal end. He will perfect us.

The author of Hebrews points out how different Christ’s work of doing that is from the old covenant priests. The old covenant priests, they were weak. They were mere men. They were sinners. They would die. You would have one priest, then he would die, and the next priest would have to come and take his place. Not so with Christ. Not so with Christ.

Hebrews 7, verse 25. Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them. That is focusing then on his final work of perfecting us and bringing us to glory. So fix your eyes on Jesus. Consider him. Consider all that he has done. Consider how much greater he is than Moses. And let that spur you on to greater faithfulness and service to him.