Interpretation of Hebrews

Contents

Reading pages: 0–1.10 · 2.1–4.14 · 5.6–6.19 · 7.3–8.13 · 9.1–10.39 · 11.1–11.33 · 12.1–13.25

1. 0Theodoret defends Paul's authorship of Hebrews against the Arians, outlines the letter's argument, and expounds Heb 1:1–3 as teaching the Son's eternity, consubstantiality, and distinct subsistence.
2. 1.4Theodoret explains that Christ, maker of the angels as God, became greater than the angels as man after his resurrection and ascension, and that the name he inherited is that of Son.
3. 1.5Theodoret explains that “today I have begotten you” and “I will be to him a father” refer to Christ's humanity, since as God he is Son by nature and eternally.
4. 1.6Theodoret expounds the Old Testament testimonies of Heb 1:6–12 as distinguishing the Son's eternal divinity, which never suffered or changed, from the humanity that was anointed and is worshipped, against Arius, Sabellius, and the Jews.
5. 1.10Theodoret explains that Christ sits at God's right hand as man, since as God his throne is eternal, while angels are sent as servants for the salvation of human beings.
6. 2.1Theodoret draws from the Son's superiority to the angels the need to hold more carefully to the teaching.
7. 2.2Theodoret shows how the gospel, given by the Lord himself and confirmed by miracles and the Spirit's gifts, surpasses the law given through angels, and applies Psalm 8 to Christ's humanity, to which all things will be subjected.
8. 2.9Theodoret reads “apart from God” as meaning that Christ died for all creation, which needed healing, the divine nature alone excepted.
9. 2.10Theodoret explains that the pioneer of salvation made perfect through suffering is the human nature assumed by God the Word, whose resurrection brings about ours.
10. 2.11Theodoret explains that Christ calls us brothers and children because he shared our nature, destroyed death and the devil by dying in it, and became our high priest and apostle as man, not as God.
11. 3.3Theodoret explains that Christ surpasses Moses as a maker surpasses what he has made.
12. 3.4Theodoret explains that Christ's superiority to Moses rests on his divine nature, that Moses is servant and Christ Son, and that “faithful” is no lowly title, since Scripture uses it of God.
13. 3.7Theodoret explains that Paul cites Psalm 95's warning about Israel in the wilderness to urge his readers to guard their faith and hope against unbelief.
14. 3.10Theodoret explains that “Today” means the present life, and that the “beginning of our confidence” is the faith received in baptism, by which we were joined to Christ and received the Spirit.
15. 3.16Theodoret explains how Heb 3:16–19 should be read and recounts how the generation of the Exodus, except Caleb and Joshua, perished in the wilderness for refusing to enter the promised land.
16. 4.1Theodoret explains that God has promised another rest, which we must strive to reach so as not to share the fate of the wilderness generation.
17. 4.2Theodoret explains that hearing God's word does not save without receiving and keeping it in faith.
18. 4.3Theodoret explains that Scripture speaks of three rests, the seventh day, the promised land, and the kingdom of heaven, and that David's “rest” cannot be the first.
19. 4.5Theodoret notes that David, long after the entry into the land, still speaks of a “Today” and a rest still to be entered.
20. 4.8Theodoret explains that the promised rest is not the land Joshua gave, but a sabbath rest in the future life, free of toil, as God rested on the seventh day.
21. 4.11Theodoret warns that the living word of God sees every hidden thought, so that at the judgment sinners will stand silent like sacrificial victims, and urges constant watchfulness.
22. 4.14Theodoret explains that the names “high priest” and “lamb” belong to Christ's humanity, since his divinity is everywhere, and that he sympathizes with our weakness, having shared our sufferings without sin.
23. 5.6Theodoret explains the throne of grace as Christ's seat at God's right hand as man, and that, like Aaron, Christ was appointed high priest by God, though of a new order and from the tribe of Judah.
24. 5.7Theodoret argues that Christ's prayers, tears, and fear of death in Heb 5:7–10 belong to his humanity, which truly suffered, against those who held that his body was only an appearance.
25. 5.11Theodoret notes that Paul tempers his rebuke of the readers' dullness with praise.
26. 5.12Theodoret explains that the “milk” is the lowlier teaching about Christ's humanity, given first to those of weak faith, as Peter and Paul did, before the “solid food” of his divinity.
27. 6.1Theodoret explains the “elements” of Heb 6:1–2 as the first teaching of converts, and reads Heb 6:4–6 as forbidding a second baptism, not repentance, against the Novatianists.
28. 6.9Theodoret explains Paul's praise of the readers' past service and his call to patient hope, using Abraham, who received God's sworn promise and saw it fulfilled only after long endurance.
29. 6.18Theodoret explains that God's word and oath are the two unchangeable things that give believers firm hope in promises not yet seen.
30. 6.19Theodoret explains the hope that anchors the soul in heaven, where Christ has gone as our forerunner and eternal high priest, and begins the comparison with Melchizedek, whose names make him a type of Christ.
31. 7.3Theodoret explains that Melchizedek is “without father, mother, and genealogy” only because Scripture records none, while Christ is so truly: without mother as God, without father as man, eternal and immortal.
32. 7.4Theodoret stresses that Abraham, root of the priests and bearer of the blessing for the nations, gave tithes to Melchizedek, and that the Levitical priests take tithes from their own kin.
33. 7.6Theodoret notes that Melchizedek, though not of Levi's line, took tithes from Abraham and blessed him, and that “without genealogy” means only that his descent is not traced from them.
34. 7.7Theodoret notes that the greater blesses the lesser, so Melchizedek's blessing shows him greater than Abraham.
35. 7.8Theodoret explains that Levi, still in Abraham's loins, paid tithes to Melchizedek through him, so that even the Levitical priests acknowledged Melchizedek's greater priesthood.
36. 7.11Theodoret argues that the promise of a priest after Melchizedek's order shows the Levitical priesthood, through which the law was kept, was not perfect.
37. 7.12Theodoret explains that, since the law is bound to the priesthood, the end of the Levitical priesthood means the end of the law.
38. 7.13Theodoret explains that Christ, from the royal tribe of Judah, is priest by God's oath for ever, that the ritual parts of the law cease as weak, and that all lowly statements of Heb 7:13–8:2 apply to Christ's humanity.
39. 8.3Theodoret explains that the law's worship was a copy of heavenly things, and that the church's priests offer no new sacrifice but the memorial of Christ's one saving sacrifice, as he commanded.
40. 8.6Theodoret contrasts the bodily promises of the old covenant with the eternal life and kingdom promised by the new.
41. 8.7Theodoret introduces Jeremiah's prophecy of the new covenant as proof that the first was not faultless.
42. 8.13Theodoret explains that the old covenant, suited to mortal life, has grown old, while the new remains ever new, and that Jeremiah's “all shall know me” will be fulfilled in the life to come.
43. 9.1Theodoret explains the tabernacle as a type of the world, its curtain dividing the Holy Place (earth) from the Holy of Holies (heaven) as the firmament divides the two heavens.
44. 9.2Theodoret notes that “Holy Place” here must be read as a neuter plural, matching the name “Holy of Holies.”
45. 9.8Theodoret explains the tabernacle as a parable of the present life, notes that the Spirit's speaking through it shows his dignity, and calls Christ's virgin-born humanity the tent not made with hands, whose blood purifies the conscience.
46. 9.15Theodoret explains Christ's death as the death that ratifies the new covenant, reads the rites of Moses' covenant sacrifice as types of baptism, the Spirit, and Christ's divinity and passion, and stresses that Christ entered heaven once as man and will return without sin.
47. 10.1Theodoret distinguishes the realities (the life to come), their image (the gospel way of life), and the shadow of that image (the Old Testament).
48. 10.2Theodoret notes that the yearly sacrifices could not cleanse the conscience but served to accuse sin and drive people to grace.
49. 10.4Theodoret shows from Ps 51 and Ps 40 that animal blood could not remove sin, and that the first sacrifice was set aside for Christ's offering of his own body, which is God's will for human salvation.
50. 10.12Theodoret contrasts the many priests and victims of the law with Christ, at once priest and victim, who sits with the Father until his enemies are subdued, and notes that Hebrews ascribes Jeremiah's prophecy to the Holy Spirit.
51. 10.18Theodoret says baptism brings the forgiveness promised in Jeremiah, closes a discourse with a doxology, and then explains the new and living way through Christ's flesh, the cleansing of baptism, the duty of mutual encouragement and unity, and the warning that there is no second sacrifice for willful sin.
52. 10.28Theodoret says Hebrews softens its warning by reminding the readers of the persecutions they had already endured with joy after their enlightenment.
53. 10.35Theodoret encourages endurance, saying the reward matches the labour, that Christ will come soon, and that even under the law salvation came by faith.
54. 10.39Theodoret introduces the roll of the faithful, which shows faith's power and consoles the persecuted.
55. 11.1Theodoret explains faith as an eye for unseen and hoped-for things, such as the resurrection, and notes that Hebrews begins with creation, the first teaching in Scripture.
56. 11.3Theodoret says faith teaches creation out of nothing, which has no human parallel.
57. 11.4Theodoret explains Abel's better sacrifice from God's reproach of Cain in Gen 4:7 and says Abel still speaks because he is celebrated to this day.
58. 11.5Theodoret explains that Enoch pleased God by faith, that faith in God as rewarder makes labour bearable, and that Noah, without the law, won righteousness by faith.
59. 11.8Theodoret notes that Abraham left his ancestral home in faith, not knowing which land God would give him.
60. 11.9Theodoret notes that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob lived as migrants in the promised land and longed for the heavenly city.
61. 11.11Theodoret explains Sarah's faith after her laughter, reads the "one" of Heb 11:12 as Abraham or as husband and wife together, and argues that unrewarded virtue proves a life to come.
62. 11.13Theodoret illustrates the patriarchs' confession that they were strangers on earth from Abraham, Stephen, and David.
63. 11.15Theodoret explains that the patriarchs could have returned home but sought the heavenly city, that God names himself after them, and that Abraham offered Isaac despite God's promise concerning Isaac's descendants.
64. 11.19Theodoret reads Isaac's rescue as a type of the resurrection and the passion, and comments on the faith of Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses' parents, and Moses in the exodus.
65. 11.30Theodoret says the trumpets sounded in faith brought down Jericho's walls like siege engines.
66. 11.31Theodoret praises the Spirit's wisdom in ranking Rahab with the saints and reads her reception of the spies and her scarlet cord as a type of the church and of Christ's blood.
67. 11.32Theodoret notes that Hebrews names further heroes of faith and only hints at their deeds.
68. 11.33Theodoret identifies the heroes behind each clause of Heb 11:33–38, from Gideon and Daniel to the Maccabean martyrs, Zechariah, and Isaiah, and explains that the saints await their crowns until the contests of all are finished.
69. 12.1Theodoret urges his readers, surrounded by the cloud of faithful witnesses, to throw off cares and resist easily committed sin, looking to Christ, who suffered willingly for human salvation.
70. 12.3Theodoret explains that the readers, unlike the martyrs, have not yet suffered to the point of blood, and that God's discipline shows them to be true sons.
71. 12.9Theodoret contrasts the short-lived and fallible discipline of human fathers with God's discipline, which aims to make us share his holiness.
72. 12.11Theodoret explains that discipline bears fruit later, identifies the sources of Heb 12:12–13 in Proverbs and Isaiah, and argues that the promise of healing for the lame refutes Novatian's refusal of repentance to the lapsed.
73. 12.14Theodoret explains holiness as a chastity possible in marriage, reads Esau's tears as envy rather than repentance against the Novatianists, makes Esau a type of the Jews and Jacob of the gentiles, and contrasts the terrors of Sinai with the festal gathering of the heavenly Jerusalem.
74. 12.28Theodoret explains the unshakable kingdom as lasting and notes the call to reverent worship.
75. 13.1Theodoret notes that the word for brotherly love joins "friend" and "brother."
76. 13.2Theodoret illustrates hospitality from Abraham and Lot, urges care for those who suffer for piety, and contrasts marriage, instituted and blessed by God from the beginning, with adultery and sexual immorality.
77. 13.5Theodoret explains that Hebrews forbids not the use of money but love of money, and grounds contentment in God's promise.
78. 13.6Theodoret says the quotation from Ps 118 was added to give the readers courage against persecutors.
79. 13.7Theodoret identifies the departed leaders as Stephen and the two Jameses and reads "yesterday and today" of Christ's humanity and "forever" of his divinity, in one Son.
80. 13.9Theodoret urges the readers to leave the observances of the law for the Christian altar and reads the red heifer burned outside the camp as a type of Christ, born of Adam, who suffered outside the gate.
81. 13.10Theodoret explains going outside the camp as leaving the way of life under the law and says praise of God profits only with faith in the Son.
82. 13.25Theodoret comments on the closing exhortations of Hebrews: sharing as a sacrifice and an exchange, obedience to leaders, prayer for the writer, the blessing on Christ the great shepherd and the eternal covenant, and the greetings, and ends with a doxology.