S7 || The Reason Why Jesus is Human and Divine || Hebrews 3:1-6 || Session7

Step past the veil and into the core claim of Hebrews: Jesus is not only our mediator but our high priest who became the final, perfect sacrifice. We start with the Old Testament portrait—priests from among the people, a high priest entering the Holy of Holies once a year—and show why that pattern points to a deeper need. To truly represent us, a priest must share our humanity. To truly reconcile us, the priest must offer a sinless, sufficient sacrifice. Only Jesus is both.

We walk through Hebrews chapters 1–2 to see how the text holds together Jesus’ full divinity and full humanity, then unpack propitiation with clear language: God’s justice satisfied, the barrier removed, the way back opened. No more yearly cycles of guilt. No more blood of bulls and goats. “It is finished” means done once for all. From there, Hebrews 3 turns the diamond: Moses served in the house; Jesus built the house. That shift matters, especially for anyone tempted to settle for tradition, tribe, or moral effort. The builder outranks the servant because the builder authors the story.

Along the way we address a common struggle: confusing spiritual feelings with spiritual facts. Hebrews calls believers “holy brethren” and “partakers of a heavenly calling” because God sets us apart in Christ. That assurance empowers perseverance. When the author says “we are his house if we hold fast,” the “if” functions as a marker of genuine confidence—those who belong continue, not by grit alone, but because Christ is faithful. Consider Jesus becomes our rallying cry: engage your mind, weigh the claims, and become firmly persuaded.

If you’re hungry for a faith that invites thinking, offers real assurance, and centers on a Savior who is both advocate and offering, this conversation will steady your steps. Listen, share with a friend, and tell us: which image of Jesus—high priest, sacrifice, builder—strengthens your hope today? If this helped you, subscribe, leave a review, and pass it on.

Chapters

• 0:00 Meeting The True High Priest
• 2:45 What Priests Did And Why It Mattered
• 4:55 Why Jesus Had To Be Human
• 6:40 Propitiation Explained Clearly
• 9:20 One Sacrifice Once For All
• 11:20 Transition To Hebrews Chapter Three
• 13:00 Holy Brethren And Heavenly Calling
• 16:10 Consider Jesus With A Thinking Faith
• 19:30 Apostle And High Priest Together
• 22:00 Jesus Faithful To The Father
• 24:30 Greater Than Moses: Builder Of The House
• 28:10 We Are His House If We Hold Fast
• 31:00 Confidence, Hope, And Daily Assurance
• 33:00 Closing And Next Warning Preview

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:20

Many governments have representatives of the people that the people will elect to go represent them at the Capitol. Well, we have something similar to that in religious ceremonies, at least in the Old Testament religious ceremonies, the priest had to be part of the people. And he represented the people to God in the temple ceremonies. Well, today we're going to meet the high priest, the one who was the most important high priest. Hi, my name's Glenn. I'm here with Steve. We have a ministry we call Reasoning Through the Bible. Today we're in the book of Hebrews and we're introduced to the concept of a high priest. With this, we're going to see how Jesus is our high priest. Hebrews chapter one has Jesus as God Almighty. Hebrews chapter two has Jesus as man. Towards the end of chapter two, it mentions Jesus as being the high priest. Steve, what was the role of the high priest in the Old Testament ceremony?

SPEAKER_01: 1:28

Well, the priesthood came out of the tribe of Levi or Levi, and they were responsible for taking care of all of the sacrifices and the temple worship for the people and representatives for them. The common priest would, as I mentioned, take care of some of the things of relighting the lamp stat, the menorah that was in the tabernacle, refreshing the show bread, keeping the altar of incense going, and of course, all the sacrifices that were going on outside. But the high priest, there was only one of them that served at any given point in time. There weren't multiple high priests. And the high priest was responsible for not only overseeing the other priests, but once a year on the Day of Atonement, he would go into the Holy of Holies. That was an area where the Ark of the Covenant was. It was separated by a large, thick veil that was between it and the regular holy place where the menorah lampstand and the uh table of showbread was. He would go in and sprinkle the blood of the atonement sacrifice on the Ark of the Covenant. He would do that once a year. That was what the responsibility of the high priest was.

SPEAKER_00: 2:53

The priest would go into the temple or tabernacle and have priestly duties he had to do to represent the people to God. A prophet in the Old Testament was one who took God's message and spoke to the people in the name of God. If you were with us when we studied Ezekiel, Ezekiel would often act out things as if he were God, and he would separate himself from the people. For example, a prophet, or in the New Testament sense, an apostle would speak for God to the people. A priest would do just the opposite. A priest was part of the people, and he would represent the people to God, specifically in the tabernacle. Now, today we often get this all confused, and we put a priest up on a pedestal and think this is a person that speaks for God, that there's some sort of a holy person that would have some sort of a blessing from God in the sense of like a prophet or an apostle. That's not the case. A priest represents the people to God. This becomes important because Hebrews 2.17 tells us why Jesus had to be a man. It says, therefore, he, Jesus, had to be made like his brethren in all things, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God to make propitiation for the sins of the people. Jesus had to be human so that he could be the high priest, so he could then represent people to God. Now we have in the book of Hebrews, chapter one had Jesus as God so he could be sinless. Chapter two, Jesus as man, so that he could pay for our sins. Also in chapter two, Jesus as man, so he could be our high priest that goes before God to be our intercessor and advocate. That's a wonderful thing, Steve, that we have an advocate that is a perfectly sinless high priest, but he goes to represent us. He had to be man so that he could represent us to God. And that's a theme, really, of this whole book. This is the first that's been introduced here, but we're going to see much more of this in the book of Hebrews.

SPEAKER_01: 5:20

Yeah, it goes back to what we've mentioned before is that it's just a wonderful that Jesus has gone to this length and extent in order to communicate and with mankind himself and provide this way of salvation that we can have to be able to spend eternity with him. Words just really can't describe it.

SPEAKER_00: 5:42

We're also introduced to a five-syllable theological word here that's introduced to us here in 217. Jesus made propitiation for the sins of the people. Now, propitiation, I think, came from the old King James. It's there's a lot of historical theology built around it, so the translators keep using the word here. But propitiation, not a word we often hear in common conversation. What it really means is to wipe out the separation from God. Or propitiate means to cause a reconciliation, to reconcile two different groups that had been separated. Propitiation is a satisfaction of the offense that we caused against God. As high priest, Jesus can make the sacrifice that satisfies the justice and wrath of a perfectly holy God. Jesus can then be just himself and be the justifier of mankind. Because he was the sinless high priest, he could go in and offer the sacrifice, which in this case is himself, that would satisfy a God. He would propitiate or make a way back. He satisfies God. Steve, how wonderful it is that Jesus is both our just and our justifier. He is both the high priest and the sacrifice that makes a way back to God. How wonderful is that?

SPEAKER_01: 7:13

I've often described this as being a satisfactory sacrifice, meaning that it took God Himself to be able to be a satisfactory sacrifice to satisfy the debt that needed to be paid. Once again, it's just a picture of what we mean to God and Jesus in order to come and associate with us, call us brethren. It also gives us a picture of something that we can depend on because it is a satisfactory sacrifice. It's not a sacrifice that has to be done every year. It's not a sacrifice that's done with the blood of bulls or goats. It's one that is done, as he mentioned at the end on the cross. It is finished. It's been done once and for all, and it has met all the requirements. There doesn't have to be anything else that needs to be done. And we can take rest in that of knowing that by trusting in Jesus Christ, we don't have to worry about any type of sacrifice that has to be done periodically once a year for that purpose. There's only one. No more have to be done.

SPEAKER_00: 8:27

That brings us to the beginning of chapter three. Just to touch base on where we are at this point in the book. We've seen in chapters one and two who he is. Now in chapter three, we're going to begin to see what he has done. In chapter three, it's going to show Jesus as greater than Moses. We've been warned about the danger of drifting away from the truth. Well, chapter three is going to warn us about the danger of an unbelieving heart and the deceitfulness of sin. So far in the book, we've seen Jesus as superior to the prophets, superior to the angels, and now he's going to be shown to be superior to Moses. Steve, can you read the first six verses of Hebrews chapter three?

SPEAKER_01: 9:12

Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession. He was faithful to him who appointed him, as Moses also was in all his house. For he has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses, by just so much as the builder of the house has more honor than the house. For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God. Now Moses was faithful in all his house as a servant for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken later, but Christ was faithful as a son over his house, whose house we are, if we hold fast our confidence and the boast of our hope firm until the end.

SPEAKER_00: 10:05

Verse 1 starts out speaking to holy brethren. Now, Steve, I don't know about you, but I don't feel very holy.

SPEAKER_01: 10:11

How about you? Well, I think that he's combining some of the previous things he's talked about. He talked about sanctification, the ones who were sanctified. We mentioned that that was being set apart. That's what the word holy means. Holy means the same thing. Somebody is set apart. In the previous chapter, he mentioned that he calls us brethren. The author here is, I think, putting those two concepts together as he begins this third chapter. Of course, in the original letter, there weren't chapter and verses, but the person that divided this done it in such a way that now, as we start chapter three, it's also in a steady flow of what was mentioned before in chapter two of being sanctified and also being called brethren. Here, he calls them holy brethren.

SPEAKER_00: 10:59

He calls them holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly calling. I said a while ago, I don't feel very holy. Well, the important thing here is that we don't base the facts on our feelings. It doesn't matter how we feel. God has declared us holy. We have a righteousness that is given to us through Christ. Now, we should, as is taught many places in the New Testament, we should yield to the Holy Spirit's guidance to live holy lives. When our flesh gets in the way, that's when we get into unholiness. We should indeed yield to the Holy Spirit to lead increasingly righteous lives. But our position in Christ is due to God's declaration, not our feelings. It doesn't matter how I feel, it matters what God has declared. So, Steve, should we base our position in Christ on our feelings?

SPEAKER_01: 11:56

Absolutely not. We should not base our position or standing before God solely based upon our feelings.

SPEAKER_00: 12:02

Our position in Christ is determined by God, and God has declared us holy. I remember in Corinthians, he starts off the book talking about sanctified people and then spends most of the book talking about problems they all had and sins they all had, but yet they were sanctified. So our position in Hebrews 3:1 is we are holy brethren, and we should act like holy brethren. But when we don't, we don't have to worry about being thrown out of God's family. He has declared us holy brethren. Our position in Christ is not based on our feelings, it's based on God's declaration. That brings the next question. So then how can God declare us holy? In what sense are we declared holy? Well, the sense is Abraham believed God and it was counted as righteousness. But it's quoted in Genesis 15:6, Romans 4.3, 4.22, and Galatians 3.6. We are declared righteous by God based on faith. Romans 4.5 says our righteousness before God is not based on good works, but rather our faith is counted as righteousness. In that sense, anyone with faith that truly trusts Christ is a holy brethren, regardless of our feelings. It also says here that we are partakers of a heavenly calling. What sort of heavenly calling do Christians share, Steve?

SPEAKER_01: 13:38

Well, we share a common calling in that we are all invited to become a follower in Jesus Christ. That's the Greek word behind this word calling. It's an invitation. So it's very clear that Jesus, through his ministry, he invited all that would to come and follow him. We're all invited to follow Jesus Christ. Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father but through me. We are all, in one way or another, whether through a somebody we know personally, or whether it's through a ministry or studying the scripture itself, there is an invitation to follow Jesus Christ in order to have that eternal salvation. Believe and trust in Him.

SPEAKER_00: 14:27

Our heavenly calling has several aspects to it. Not only the salvation, which you mentioned, Steve, but we are called to fellowship with Christ as a personal fellowship with Christ Himself. That is a heavenly calling. We're also called to make disciples through the Great Commission in Matthew 28. We are called to heavenly duties to support the kingdom. We are all part of the body, and we all have a function in the Great Commission. Our calling is of heavenly importance, and we should take our calling seriously. As Christians, the first question I asked a minute ago is about how we feel. Well, we shouldn't base our actions on our feelings. God has declared us holy brethren that has a heavenly calling. And as such, we should view ourselves with this heavenly calling and take it very seriously. Our lives and our daily walk, we should live holy lives. And we should live lives dedicated to Jesus and walking in his path, doing his service, following what he has called us to do. And when we do that, we are indeed holy brethren with a heavenly calling. We need to have that of utmost importance. We need to keep it before our eyes and realize that the great importance, the eternal importance that we take this seriously, our heavenly calling. Then it says, consider Jesus. The holy brethren with a heavenly calling should consider Jesus. This could be the rallying cry of the book of Hebrews, consider Jesus. We are to give careful, lengthy, and thoughtful consideration of Jesus. The word here means to think about, to put your mind in gear, to mull over, to chew it in your mind, to go over it. Consider who he is. He is God and man. Consider what he has done. He has submitted himself and became a man, a lowly man, and he submitted himself all the way to death on a cross. We should consider Jesus what he is doing right now, which is interceding for his brethren. Steve, what do you think of when you consider Jesus?

SPEAKER_01: 16:51

I do just that. I do consider all of the things that he's done for us in the way that he has made it possible for us to be able to have an eternal life with him. You get the picture that it's not something that's done on a whim. It's not something that's just done based off of an emotional decision. It's something that you have deliberated about and thought about. The word faith is based off of the Greek word pistis, which means to be firmly persuaded. Many critics and skeptics like to say, oh, you just have blind faith, you'll believe anything. No, true faith is one where you have considered all of the possibilities and all of the ramifications and all of the testifying miracles that were done and such, creation itself and who God is. Then you become firmly persuaded to place your trust and belief in Jesus Christ.

SPEAKER_00: 17:48

The writer here is telling us to consider Jesus. That means to think long and deep about Jesus. We are to seriously think about Jesus. Christianity is for thinking people, and we are here commanded to spend time thinking about who Jesus is and what he has done. My friend, have you considered Jesus? The book of Hebrews gives us plenty of things to consider about Jesus. It's already told us that he is God and He is man. Those alone are great things to consider. He is the apostle and high priest of our faith. He is the one that is faithful. He is more worthy than Moses. He is the one to be considered. I submit to the skeptic and the atheist, have you truly considered Jesus? To the follower of other religions, I ask you, have you considered the claims of who Jesus is and what he did? To the secular people out there who don't think religion is worth your time, that this isn't worth any moments of your day, have you taken the time to truly consider Jesus? To the churchgoer who is just here for the religion or just here for the cultural aspects of Christianity, have you considered the love and the person of Jesus? This is what we should do is consider this person Jesus. This tells us in this book so far that Jesus is more than just one thing. Verse 1 refers to Jesus as both apostle and high priest. An apostle comes from God with a message, while a high priest goes from the people to represent them before God. Jesus is both an apostle and high priest. He is both infinite God and finite man. He is both died and is alive again. Verse 1 is the second time the book has referred to Jesus as high priest. The high priest always represents the people before God. Steve, if the nation did not have a high priest, what would be the implication for our faith?

SPEAKER_01: 20:10

Well, we wouldn't have a representative. That's the picture that we get through the Mosaic Law, through all of those ordinances and statutes. Really, everything points to Jesus Christ. By looking at those and the instruments that were used and everything else, it points to having someone to be a high priest. Through all of the sacrifices and rituals that the Israel people did that God gave to them, now we can associate having that high priest that was a representation of the nation of Israel to God when he went in behind the holy veil there and put the blood of the sacrifice as atonement on the Ark of the Covenant. Well, now we have Jesus Christ, who is a high priest of not just the nation of Israel, but of all mankind. That is the implication, is that he is there as a representation for us, mankind himself.

SPEAKER_00: 21:17

How wonderful Jesus is. The passage just keeps going and going higher and higher up into the stratosphere here. Verse 2, he was faithful to him who appointed him. He's talking there about Jesus, the Son, was faithful to the Father who appointed him into the role of what he was to do as the Son. Steve, I ask you, is Jesus faithful? Has he been faithful to you personally?

SPEAKER_01: 21:43

He was faithful even unto death, as Peter puts it in one of his epistles. He has absolutely been faithful to me. As I mentioned in earlier sessions, we talked about suffering. What can we learn from it? Whenever we get into a situation where we're in a bind of one way or another, first thing that we go to, or at least I do, is go to Jesus and plead our case to him and ask for mercy, or maybe even just ask for companionship or ask for him to acknowledge what we're going through. So, yes, he's been faithful in that particular way, as well as many other ways to me personally. He can be that way to you personally as well, whenever you place your belief and trust in him.

SPEAKER_00: 22:29

Because Jesus is faithful, he's been faithful to me, he's proved it over and over. But in the scriptures, we're given that he's faithful as well. Because he is faithful, we can depend on all that he promised. He promised a great deal and he gave us guidance. We can trust that guidance, we can trust what he promised. Why? Not because of me and what's in me or what's in you. It's because he is faithful. Now, if we turn that around and ask about humans, if I was to ask, are humans faithful to God or are we unfaithful to God? Well, humans have to learn how to be faithful. We must be taught how to be faithful. We must be given the Holy Spirit to give us the power to be faithful, because in and of ourselves, we have proven that we are unfaithful to God. We can rest in Christ because we know that He is faithful and He is our advocate before the Father, but we cannot trust in our own strength simply because we have proven over and over again that we're not faithful. Steve, have you found this to be true as well?

SPEAKER_01: 23:37

Yes, I have. As I mentioned before, he's the first person that I go to whenever I get myself into a bind or find myself in a bind, I should say. Of course, that doesn't mean that's the only time that I go to him. I go to him on a daily basis, just as a matter of my walk through life, living the life that we have in this world, and we see all of the evil things that are being done, and things that don't make sense. There's a lot of good things that are done as well. But there's also a lot of just things that just don't make sense and evilness that's in the world. So being able to go and converse with Jesus Christ on a daily basis and learn more about him brings such comfort to me personally.

SPEAKER_00: 24:23

We also have some lofty doctrine here in verse two. Again, it says he was faithful to him who appointed him. The new way you slice it, there's two persons there. There's the son and the father. Yet we are told in chapter one, he went over and over again, very clear, that Jesus is God. Therefore, we have Jesus as God, but we have two persons here. Therefore, the Trinity is true. Jesus is not the Father. There's a heresy out there that says the Father became the Son, because here he was faithful to him who appointed him. There's two persons there. Jesus is God, chapter one, but he's not the same person as the Father. Then starting with verse two, Jesus is being compared with Moses. Jesus was faithful like Moses was. Jesus has more glory than Moses. Moses was a servant, but Jesus is a son. Chapter three is saying that Jesus is superior to Moses. Question. The last part of verse three gives the reason why Jesus has more glory than Moses. What is the reason that it gives in the last part of verse three?

SPEAKER_01: 25:33

Because he says that Moses was faithful to the house, being the house of Israel. And here he's saying that Jesus himself is the builder of the house. Who is the greater among those two? The one that's faithful to the house that was built, or the one that built the house himself and was faithful. So it's very clear here that that's why Jesus is above Moses, is because he is the builder of the house itself.

SPEAKER_00: 26:02

The house here would be the house of Israel, the house of God's people. This book is not really so much talking about personal salvation as it is the person of Jesus and his relationship to mankind, especially his people. That's what it says here. So this house is the house of Israel, the house of God's people. Then in verse four, it says that God is the builder of all things. Verse five, Moses was faithful, but he was faithful as a servant. Verse six, Christ is faithful, but he's faithful as a son, not a hired servant. Jesus is faithful over all of God's house. Moses was faithful, but he was faithful like a servant is faithful. Jesus is faithful like he is the owner's family. He is the owner. He is the designer and builder of the house. It's lifting up Jesus as high as he can be lifted. Jesus is more glorious than Moses. Jesus is not a hired servant, but was a son. The son is greater than the hired servant. The builder of all things is God, it says here in this verse. Therefore, the passage is comparing Jesus to God as the builder of the house. Steve, how glorious is Jesus?

SPEAKER_01: 27:22

Well, he's the pinnacle of everything. If you remember the story of the creation of the house of Israel, the nation, is that it was created by God himself, in that Abraham was a Chaldean. God comes to him and says, Follow me, and I'll give you this land, make you a great nation, and a seed will come for you that will bless all other nations. And it says Abraham believed God, and God reckoned it as righteousness. From that offspring of Isaac and then Jacob, we get the nation of Israel. The nation of Israel is something that was built and created by God. That I think is what this author is telling the people here. And again, the book's name is Hebrews. He's writing to a group of Hebrew believers. As he mentions this house of Israel, and at the latter part of six, and he says, Whose house we are, it's talking about the house of Israel. It's very much relative that again, Israel wasn't a nation that existed on its own, meaning that Abraham was a nation on his own and then became followers of God. No, the nation of Israel was one that was pulled out and called out and became something that God built himself to be set apart amongst all the other nations, so that he could reveal himself to all the other nations as being their God. I think it's very much keeping in line with who the author is writing to. He's talking about that Jesus is above Moses, because Moses was faithful as a servant, but Jesus as God was the one who created this nation himself. He's the house builder of the nation of Israel.

SPEAKER_00: 29:18

This is lifting up Jesus so high and it's so wonderful. If we ask ourselves why, why Jesus is worthy, it's because he is the builder of the house. As it's said so far in the book, he is superior to angels, he is superior to prophets, he is superior to Moses, he is faithful to the Father, he is faithful to us, and we are the house, it says there. So he's writing this specifically to Hebrews, but it applies to all believers in Christ. All those who hold Jesus as their blessed hope are the family of God. Several times in Hebrews it refers. Refers to Jesus as our hope. This is not the hope of doubting, but it's the opposite, the confidence in the future. And before we leave this passage, I think we need to cover it says, Whose house we are if we hold fast our confidence and the boast of our hope firm until the end. Well, the hope is Jesus. It's not a doubting hope, but I want to talk about that little word if. This is not the if of like a doubting if. The Oxford English Dictionary says that the word if can be, quote, introducing a clause of condition or supposition. The word if, therefore, can mean supposing that. For example, if we look in Colossians chapter 2, verse 12, says, quote, which you were also raised up with him through faith. So it's saying that Christians were raised up with him. But then just a few verses later in Colossians 3.1, therefore, if you have been raised up with Christ, so he uses the word if as a logical argument. He's using it in many times since you were. Steve, how wonderful it is that we can live life on a daily basis, just being confident that I don't have to worry about me being good enough, me being strong enough, me living a perfect life. I have been forgiven, I've been washed. He's the one that's faithful. He is our high priest that is constantly in there making intercession for us. All I have to do is fall at his feet and love him, and I will forever be his brethren. That's what the book of Hebrews is teaching, how wonderful that is.

SPEAKER_01: 32:01

Another way I put it is to be able to have confidence to just go out and live the Christian life. Galatians talks about justification. Colossians gives us that picture of all the characteristics and attributes that we get by being somebody that's in Christ. And we then have that confidence, as I said, to just go live the Christian life and not have doubt of our salvation hanging over us.

SPEAKER_00: 32:26

Well, we're still way up here in the rarefied air of Hebrews, but next time we're going to find another one of those steel cables that's going to anchor us down to the ground with a very sober warning. And I trust you'll be back here for that as we continue to reason through the book of Hebrews. Thank you so much for watching and listening.