Christ Superior to Moses

We are tracing Paul’s arguments in Hebrews that show how Christianity excels Judaism.¹ We contend that Inmillennialism supports his reasoning well. This will hold true as he takes the next step: Christianity excels Judaism because Christ excels Moses (Heb. 3:1–4:13).²

Paul supports his argument in ways that affect our prophetic framework. First, he uses extensive Exodus typology. Second, he refers at least five times to “the end.” These elements of the argument for Christ over Moses complement and reinforce one another. We will examine each and show how they relate to our prophetic model.

Exodus Typology

Paul uses typology throughout Hebrews. We considered types and antitypes in our last post. There we mentioned that Paul used typology in his first argument, which was Christ’s superiority over angels (Heb. 1:4 – 2:18). The Apostle said God was using miracles in his generation to establish Christ’s word. This display of miracles sustained the church during the Mosaic-to-Messianic age transition (Heb. 2:3–4; cp. Mark 16:20; Acts 14:3). This was the antitype of God working miracles to establish Moses’s word and sustain Israel during their 40-year transition from Egypt to Canaan (Exod. 4:30–31; 16:35; Deut. 8:2–4; Neh. 9:20–21; et al.).

In the section of Hebrews now before us, Paul extends this typology in three distinct steps, each designed to show the superiority of Christ (the antitype) to Moses (the type). He describes both as 1.) founders of houses, 2.) leaders during a transition, and 3.) givers of rest.

House Founders

Paul first establishes the type-antitype relationship between Moses and Christ by noting they were both founders of houses. He says, “And Moses verily was faithful in all his house, as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken after; But Christ as a son over his own house; whose house are we” (Heb. 3:5–6). The word “testimony” (Gk. marturion) means “an objective act, circumstance, or statement that serves as a means of proof evidence, testimony, witness.”³ Moses’ acts were a “witness . . . the declaration which confirms or makes something known.”⁴

Paul says the house-building acts of Moses declared and made known the future house-building acts of Christ. Commenting on Heb. 3:5, John Gill says:

Moses in his office was typical of things to be spoken and done by the Messiah, when he came; as his deliverance of the children of Israel out of Egypt; his leading them through the Red sea and wilderness, to Canaan’s land; his giving them the law from Mount Sinai; the erection of the tabernacle, with all its furniture, and the institution of sacrifices and the like.⁵

Paul incorporates this typology into his argument for the superiority of Christ to Moses. Moses was a type, Jesus is the antitype, or fulfillment of the type. Moses was a witness, Jesus is the One of whom he witnessed. If Moses established a house (i.e., family⁶), his doing so served as a picture, illustrating how Jesus would establish the actual house (i.e., family) of God (1 Tim. 3:15; Eph. 3:15). The Hebrews to whom Paul wrote should have no question which is greater: the reality (Jesus and his house/family) supersedes the shadows (Moses and his house/family).

This typological role for Moses and his actions is an integral part of inmillennialism. We have emphasized how Paul’s perspective on the Exodus events—“And those things became types of us” (1 Cor. 10:6, YLT)—maps precisely to the prophetic framework we derived from the Olivet Discourse and First Corinthians 15. Both Moses and Christ founded their respective houses over the course of a single generation.

Transition Leaders

Paul’s second typological step in this section involves a comparison of Moses to Christ as leaders during transition. Moses, as the head of his family, led Israel from Exodus to Canaan, a process that involved forty years in the wilderness. Under his leadership, certain members of the family yearned to return to their old situation. Moses himself provides the historical account of this amazing development:

And all the congregation lifted up their voice, and cried; and the people wept that night. And all the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron: and the whole congregation said unto them, Would God that we had died in the land of Egypt! or would God we had died in this wilderness! And wherefore hath the LORD brought us unto this land, to fall by the sword, that our wives and our children should be a prey? were it not better for us to return into Egypt? And they said one to another, Let us make a captain, and let us return into Egypt. (Num. 14:1–4)

Even while Moses was leading them to their (typical) inheritance—of which Paul will have more to say in his next section of Hebrews—they threatened to turn back to the old order in the face of wilderness hardships, trials, and tribulations.

Paul makes this analogy: the Hebrew Christians to whom he wrote were also en route to an inheritance—life in the Messianic Age. The least person in the coming age would be greater than the greatest prophet of the Mosaic age (Matt. 11:11). In spite of this, some of the Hebrews were threatening to do just what their fathers had done in the typical journey: they were considering a return. The return they were considering was to the old, Mosaic age worship and ceremonies focused on the Temple. They were doing this although they lived in the “last days” of the old age and the new age was already eclipsing the old. The Temple would soon fall (Matt. 24:1–3, 34).

The Hebrew Christians needed to learn the lesson Stephen taught just before his martyrdom. After rehearsing Israel’s Exodus history, he condemned the unbelieving Jews for their response to the new Exodus: “Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye” (Acts 7:51). They were not longing for the Messianic Age under Christ just as their fathers had not sought the Promised Land under Moses.

Paul elaborates on Stephen’s message in this section of Hebrews. He warns the Hebrews, again, against imitating their fathers:

For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the end; While it is said, To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation. For some, when they had heard, did provoke: howbeit not all that came out of Egypt by Moses. But with whom was he grieved forty years? was it not with them that had sinned, whose carcases fell in the wilderness? (Heb. 3:14–17; emphasis added)

The Apostle used the typical events under Moses to warn his readers of their danger. How could they escape if they neglected the “great salvation” of the new age and preferred the typical salvation of the old (Heb. 2:1–3)?

Rest Givers

In his third typological step, Paul broadens the analogy still further to include the destinations to which Moses and Christ were leading their people. The Promised Land “rest” to which Moses led his family typified the “rest” into which Jesus was leading his. Paul draws an extended comparison between type and antitype:

And to whom sware he that they should not enter into his rest, but to them that believed not? So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief. Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it. For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it. For we which have believed do enter into rest, as he said, As I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest: although the works were finished from the foundation of the world. (Heb. 3:18 – 4:3; emphasis added)

The rest-message preached to Israel under Moses corresponded to that preached to the Hebrews under Christ, with one all-important distinction: the first was a typical rest, the other an antitypical. The latter excels the former as a real body excels the shadow it casts.

Paul uses this typology as he encourages the Hebrews to “labour therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example (Gk. hupodiegmati) of unbelief” (Heb. 4:11). The word “example” is a near match for “type” (tupos),⁷ providing further evidence of Paul’s deliberate use of Exodus typology as he develops his arguments.

Paul’s Hebrew readers must embrace God’s word through Christ and enter the kingdom under his rule, or attempt to hold on to the kingdom as it existed under Moses. The glorious Messianic age had arrived, the heavenly (true) Jerusalem was prepared (Heb. 12:22–23; cp. Gal. 4:26), and (true) rest was available. God was replacing the earthly types with their heavenly counterparts. Would the Hebrews recognize this transformation and respond to it in faith?

Inmillennialism and Typology (again)

We wish to emphasize that Paul’s sustained use of Exodus typology reinforces our prophetic model. It is impressive that Paul—in concert with other New Testament writers—uses Israel’s history to interpret what was happening in his generation. They believed God had intended the redemption of Israel “after the flesh” (1 Cor. 10:18) to serve as a picture of the redemption of Israel after the Spirit. The earthly story was much more than a convenient source for illustration. It explained the events through which the Hebrews were passing in the apostles’ day, giving them a dramatic object lesson for every stage of their journey.

In this section of Hebrews, Moses’ founding of a family in the Exodus pointed to Christ as the superior family-builder. Events that occurred under Moses as the leader of his family through the wilderness served as warnings to the Hebrews as the age-transition generation came to a close. Moses led his family to a destination of rest. This was a picture of the Rest to which Christ led his family—the Messianic Age (Matt. 11:28, 29).

As we saw in our last post, inmillennialism matches both the typical Exodus under Moses and the antitypical Exodus under Christ. This is problematic for other prophetic frameworks.

“The End”

Besides his argument from typology, Paul develops his overall theme—the revelation through Christ surpasses that through Moses—by pointing his readers toward something he calls “the end.”

Paul does this at least five times in Hebrews, twice in our present section comparing Christ to Moses and three times to support his next argument.⁸ We will deal with all five of them here as a group to take advantage of the mutual light they shed on one another. Here are the references, with emphasis added:

1. “But Christ as a son over his own house; whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end (Gk. telos)” (Heb. 3:6).⁹
2. “For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the end (Gk. telos)” (Heb. 3:14).
3. “But that which beareth thorns and briers is rejected, and is nigh unto cursing; whose end (Gk. telos) is to be burned” (Heb. 6:8).
4. “And we desire that every one of you do shew the same diligence to the full assurance of hope unto the end (Gk. telos)” (Heb. 6:11).
5. “But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages (Gk. sunteleia tōn aiōnōn) to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself” (Heb. 9:26).

This concept of “the end” is of great import in Paul’s thinking, but to what “end” was he referring? Some commentators suggest he meant “the end” of life for each of his readers.¹⁰ This is a possible meaning for the Greek words Paul uses. In this letter, for example, Paul wrote that Melchisedec was without “end (telos) of life” (Heb. 7:3).¹¹ Other writers take these words to refer to “the final redemption of individuals and of the whole church.”¹² One could defend this meaning as well. However, neither of these options fits the context of Paul’s overall argument.

Our prophetic model suggests one that does. We see that suggestion when we note that the words Paul uses in Hebrews for “the end” are almost identical with those Jesus and his disciples used in the Olivet Discourse to describe “the end” associated with the fall of the Temple. Here is the list in Matthew’s account:

1. “And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world? (Gk. sunteleias tou aiōnos)” (Matt. 24:3; cp. Heb. 9:26).
2. “And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end (Gk. telos) is not yet.” (Matt. 24:6)
3. “But he that shall endure unto the end (Gk. telos), the same shall be saved.” (Matt. 24:13)
4. “And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end (Gk. telos) come.” (Matt. 24:14)

Jesus foretold the destruction of the Temple, an event the disciples identified with “the end of the age (sunteleias tou aiōnos)” (Matt. 24:3). Jesus then refers to the destruction of the Temple as “the end” (telos) three times.

One must strive hard to resist the conclusion that Paul, in Hebrews, is aligning himself with the same timeframe Jesus used in the Olivet Discourse. When he says “the end,” he means the same thing as Jesus. He meant “the end” of the Mosaic age signified by the destruction of the Temple.

Inmillennialism accepts this meaning in a natural and unforced manner. Any other meaning of “the end” fails to recognize the historical setting and the flow of Paul’s argument.

Conclusion

Inmillennialism has fit every turn in Paul’s argument to this point. The typology Paul uses to encourage Hebrew Christians against apostasy agrees with the typology embedded in our model. His sequence of types agrees with the historical order of Exodus events, making them agree with the historical redemptive events under Christ.

In addition, our model illumines certain concepts like “the end” and makes them relevant to Paul’s overall argument. These facts increase our confidence that inmillennialism is an accurate representation of the framework within which Jesus and the apostles ministered.

We can overlay the thoughts developed in this section onto the antitype diagram in our last post:

Our next post will (D. V.) examine Paul’s next argument for the superiority of Christianity over Judaism.

1. John Brown, Hebrews, (London: Banner of Truth Trust, 1961), 10.
2. The painting is Transfiguration of Christ by Biovanni Bellini, c. 1487.
3. T. Friberg, B. Friberg, and N. F. Miller, Analytical Lexicon of the Greek New Testament, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2000), 254.
4. Spiros Zodhiates, The Complete Word Study Dictionary: New Testament, (Chattanooga, TN: AMG Publishers, 2000), s. v. μαρτύριον martúrion.
5. John Gill, An Exposition of the Old and New Testaments, The Baptist Commentary Series (Paris, AR: The Baptist Standard Bearer, 1989), 9:389.
6. Cf. Matt. 10:6. See Brown, Hebrews, 158f.
7. A word closely associated with tupos (type). Johannes P. Louw and Eugene Albert Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament: Based on Semantic Domains, (New York: United Bible Societies, 1996), 591.
8. Paul there argues Christ is superior to the Aaronic priesthood.
9. The Greek word for “the end” is found here in the Received Text from which the Authorized Version was translated. It is omitted in the Critical Text upon which most modern translations are based. We prefer the Received Text.
10. For example, Brown, Hebrews, 170.
11. Scholars, however, debate Paul’s precise meaning.
12. Franz Delitzsch, Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews, vol. 20, Clark’s Foreign Theological Library, Fourth Series (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1871), 179.