Hebrews · Chapter 3
Hebrews 3 KJV Explained Verse by Verse
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About Hebrews 3
Most of us keep a quiet list of things we’ll get to someday, like calling the brother we haven’t spoken to in years, or finally getting serious about God. In chapter 3, God takes that word away from us and hands us a different one: today. It comes up three times in this chapter.
Verse 15: “While it is said, To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation.”
Those words come from Psalm 95, and they point back to Israel in the wilderness. For forty years they watched what God did, and when the time came to trust Him for the next step, they would not. A hard heart doesn’t happen all at once. It builds up like a callus on a hand that keeps gripping the same rope. The first time a man lies to his wife, he feels sick about it for days. By the tenth time, he hardly notices.
Nothing about the lie changed. His heart did. So is there something God has been pointing out to you that you’ve stopped feeling bad about?
Teaching Notes
Consider Him (verses 1–2)
These believers are called holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling (verse 1). Holy there isn’t about how they felt that week. God had set them apart as His own. They’re told to consider Christ Jesus, the Apostle and High Priest of the faith we confess. An apostle is someone who is sent, and Jesus was sent from God to us. A high priest goes to God on behalf of the people, and Jesus did that too. He was faithful to the One who appointed Him, as Moses was faithful in all his house (verse 2), words God Himself spoke about Moses in Numbers 12. To consider someone means looking long enough to let what you see settle what you do.
The builder and the house (verses 3–6)
Jesus is counted worthy of more glory than Moses, the way the builder of a house deserves more honor than the house (verse 3). Every house is built by somebody, and the One who built all things is God (verse 4). Put verses 3 and 4 side by side. Jesus built the house, and the One who built everything is God. Without stopping to explain it, the writer has told you Jesus is God. Moses was faithful as a servant in God’s house (verse 5). Christ is faithful as a Son over His own house, and we are His house if we hold fast our confidence and “the rejoicing of the hope” firm to the end (verse 6). That word if deserves a careful answer. Holding on to the end does not keep you saved. It shows that you belong to His house.
To day (verses 7–11)
The warning comes from Psalm 95, and the writer puts it as the Holy Ghost speaking in the present (verse 7). Israel tested the Lord in the wilderness ten times, as Numbers 14 records. In Exodus 17, when there was no water, the people asked, “Is the LORD among us, or not?” They had already seen the Red Sea open in front of them. For forty years they watched what He did (verse 9), and He swore in His wrath that they would not enter His rest (verse 11). Their bodies fell in the wilderness, every one counted from twenty years old and upward, except Caleb and Joshua. A hard heart doesn’t happen all at once. It builds up like a callus. But as long as it’s still called To day, you can still answer Him.
Exhort one another daily (verses 12–19)
We’re warned against “an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God” (verse 12). Unbelief isn’t just having questions. It’s turning away from Someone who is alive. The cure comes right after it: exhort one another daily, while it is called To day, lest any of us be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin (verse 13). To exhort means to urge someone on. We are made partakers of Christ if we hold our first confidence firmly to the end (verse 14). Not all who came out of Egypt rebelled (verse 16). Caleb and Joshua looked at the same land as the other spies, but they told Israel the Lord was with them. Verse 17 calls the ones who fell those who sinned, and verse 18 calls them those who did not believe. In this chapter those two go together. Verse 19 sums it up: they could not enter in because of unbelief. Could not. Unbelief shut the door.
Hebrews 3 (KJV)
1 Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus;
2 Who was faithful to him that appointed him, as also Moses was faithful in all his house.
3 For this man was counted worthy of more glory than Moses, inasmuch as he who hath builded the house hath more honour than the house.
4 For every house is builded by some man; but he that built all things is God.
5 And Moses verily was faithful in all his house, as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken after;
6 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.
7 Wherefore (as the Holy Ghost saith, To day if ye will hear his voice,
8 Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness:
9 When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my works forty years.
10 Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, They do alway err in their heart; and they have not known my ways.
11 So I sware in my wrath, They shall not enter into my rest.)
12 Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God.
13 But exhort one another daily, while it is called To day; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.
14 For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the end;
15 While it is said, To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation.
16 For some, when they had heard, did provoke: howbeit not all that came out of Egypt by Moses.
17 But with whom was he grieved forty years? was it not with them that had sinned, whose carcases fell in the wilderness?
18 And to whom sware he that they should not enter into his rest, but to them that believed not?
19 So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief.