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4 For every house is built by someone, but God is the builder of everything. 5 “Moses was faithful as a servant in all God’s house,” bearing witness to what would be spoken by God in the future. 6 But Christ is faithful as the Son over God’s house. And we are his house, if indeed we hold firmly to our confidence and the hope in which we glory. ~ Hebrews 3:4-6
We return today to our study of Hebrews 3 where we have been implored to be preoccupied by the One who is our Creator and Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. The infinite and indisputable supremacy of the Lord Jesus is of paramount importance because if we lose sight of Him, we will drift further and further away from the very source of life itself.
In v.4-5 of today's passage we read, "4 For every house is built by someone, but God is the builder of everything. 5 “Moses was faithful as a servant in all God’s house,” bearing witness to what would be spoken by God in the future."
Having established the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ is God, the writer of Hebrews uses a metaphor to get his point across to us. Earlier the writer of Hebrews brought our attention to Moses who was chosen to begin building the house of Israel, but, all the while, God alone is the One who builds the house. All along, it has been the Lord Jesus, who being the exact image and representation of the invisible God, who made all things, especially the house.
Moses may have been the faithful servant whom God used to construct the Tabernacle and to build up the house of Israel into a great nation but it was God who laid out the plans for Moses. He gave His servant the blueprint in the Law of Moses. And, Moses faithfulness was used of God to build the long promised house of God in the nation of Israel.
In like manner, there was a day when someone shared the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ with you and me. That somebody introduced us to the possibility of a personal relationship with God through His Son. When we trusted in the Lord Jesus as our Savior, we, through Christ's identity, became children of God. And, those who shared the gospel with us were faithfully responsible, in a human sense, for building our house. God really built the house. And, this, is the point of the writer of Hebrews: Moses played a part in the building of the house, but, it was the Lord Jesus who built the house.
Moses is God's servant whereas the Lord Jesus is God's Son. And, as a servant, Moses was a faithful steward of God. In Exodus 40, we read eight times of Moses’ obedience to all that God commanded him. And, in our text for today, the writer of Hebrews compares Moses successes to the successes of the Lord Jesus. But, he never compares the Lord Jesus with the failures of Moses because the Lord Jesus never had one failure. And, due to this the Lord Jesus is greater than Moses.
According to v.5 of today's text, "Moses was faithful as a servant in all God’s house, bearing witness to what would be spoken by God in the future." Moses wasn’t the end, he was a means to the end. And the end is the Lord Jesus Christ. In Hebrews 10:1 we read, "For the law, having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make those who come to it perfect."
The law of Moses was a shadow of the perfect that was to come. And, if we reject the perfect, the shadow doesn’t mean much of anything. And so, the old covenant was just a shadow of the real life that burst on the scene. In John 5:46 the Lord Jesus said, "If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me." Then, in Luke 24:27 we read, "And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself." The "he" here in Luke 24:27 is speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ.
In v.6 of today's passage we read, "But Christ is faithful as the Son over God’s house. And we are his house, if indeed we hold firmly to our confidence and the hope in which we glory."
Here, God gives a guarantee that we’re the spiritual house, " if indeed we hold firmly to our confidence and the hope in which we glory."
Many come to this verse and claim that our good works factor into our salvation. Be assured, we can not save ourselves nor can we keep ourselves saved. Continuance in the faith is the proof of reality. We can always tell who the real believers are, because they continue in the faith. The one who doesn't continue in the faith, never belonged to the faith in the first place. After we first believed in the Lord Jesus, we continued in the faith due to His abiding presence in our lives, via the Holy Spirit. You see, when we were "born again," God made His residence in us, and that is the reason we persevere in the faith.
This is why the Lord Jesus said in John 6:39, "And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day."
This is our confidence and hope: the Lord Jesus Himself. The Lord Jesus has never lost any of those whom the Father has given Him, and, He is not about to mess up His record on you and me. True believers in Christ remain and continue in the faith, despite the many peaks and valleys in our spiritual journeys. We persevere in the faith because of the sustaining work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts and in our wills. We persevere in the faith because of His presence in our lives. We are safe, secure, assured, and protected by God’s grace because of the person of Christ who will remain in us throughout all of eternity.
