Epistle To The Hebrews - Purpose For Writing

Purpose For Writing

Some scholars today believe the document was written to prevent apostasy. Some have interpreted apostasy to mean a number of different things, such as a group of Christians in one sect leaving for another more conservative sect, one of which the author disapproves. Some have seen apostasy as a move from the Christian assembly to pagan ritual. In light of a possibly Jewish-Christian audience, the apostasy in this sense may be in regard to Jewish-Christians leaving the Christian assembly to return to the synagogue. The epistle dissuades non-Jewish Christians from feeling a need to convert to Judaism. The author writes, "Let us hold fast to our confession."

The book could be argued to affirm special creation. It affirms that God by His Son, Jesus Christ, made the worlds. "God...hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son...by whom also he made the worlds." The epistle also states that the worlds themselves do not provide the evidence of how God formed them. "Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear."

...the Epistle opens with the solemn announcement of the superiority of the New Testament Revelation by the Son over Old Testament Revelation by the prophets. It then proves and explains from the Scriptures the superiority of this New Covenant over the Old by the comparison of the Son with the angels as mediators of the Old Covenant, with Moses and Joshua as the founders of the Old Covenant, and finally, by opposing the high-priesthood of Christ after the order of Melchisedech to the Levitical priesthood after the order of Aaron.