Question
I’ve noticed is that you refer to ‘the apostle’ who wrote the Book of Hebrews. Is this a particular apostle, such as Paul or Peter, or an unnamed one who must be an apostle because of the terminology of the epistle?
Response
Actually, I do not really have much of a conviction or an opinion one way or the other on this, which is why I usually say something like “the apostle wrote Hebrews” or something to that effect. It is obvious to me that the Hebrews to whom it was written knew whom God used. But it is also obvious to me by the way the epistle is written to them, that even that issue was something that was more or less incidental to them.
Now in connection with this issue, what interests me more than any speculation on my part as to whom God used, is the fact that God did not want the individual’s name to be used. Instead, God wants His own identity by means of His own ‘name’ to appear ‘right off the bat’, so to speak. Hence the epistle begins, “God, who at sundry times…” And not only this, but it is also evident by how the epistle begins that God wants the fact that He is speaking to the Hebrews in Israel’s “last days” to be immediately impressed upon them. Hence God cites how He had been speaking unto their fathers in “time past” but how “in these last days” He has spoken unto them by His “Son”. And of course, this is exactly what God will once again be doing once this present dispensation of His grace is concluded and He returns to dealing with Israel and resumes His program with them. To me this is what God wants to make sure is the big, impressive issue to them. And so God purposely makes this to be the big and impressive thing by means of the unique opening that He uses, which in its uniqueness involves the issue of suppressing the apostle’s name through whom He actually penned it.
Moreover, to me this is not only the significant thing that is to be understood and appreciated by the Hebrew people when Israel’s program is resumed, but also by us in this present dispensation of God’s grace as we go about “rightly dividing the word of truth”. We are not only to recognize that the book of Hebrews pertains to God’s program and dealings with Israel, but we also ought to recognize what God has wisely done by means of its singular beginning. And what God has wisely done is that in advance of when He actually will resume His program with Israel He has provided Himself with the most authoritative means of signifying and verifying to them the resumption of their program when it actually occurs. In other words in wise preparation for the time when He will return to Israel, God has provided Himself in advance (through the ultimate authority of His written word to His people) with the means of impressing upon them the fact that He is once again speaking directly to them and is therefore no longer dealing with the Gentiles as per what is set forth in the epistles of the apostle Paul. Moreover, by what He says in the opening of Hebrews God also provides for His people to know that He is resuming dealing with them right where He left off dealing with them when He suspended His program with them in the past and brought in the dispensation of His grace to the Gentiles that Paul writes about.
Once again to me this is the real significant thing to be understood and appreciated by us in connection with God not having the writer of Hebrews use his name. It is a matter of God’s wisdom in not doing so. And so in view of this, as I said, I do not really have much of a conviction or an opinion one way or the other regarding whom God used.
Keith Blades
Enjoy The Bible Ministries
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