Hebrews 3:2 Commentary and Bible Study

The one who has appointed Jesus Christ is of course God the Father. Not that God the Father is senior or superior but in the arrangement between the members of the Trinity to bring about redemption, the Father is the one who plans and determines all things. Christ voluntarily submitted himself to the Father so the Scripture speaks in this way. God the Father appointed Christ to be the Saviour, and he was faithful. He did all that was required of him to bring about our salvation, to purchase our redemption. He was born under the law, voluntarily making himself obliged to keep the law, and he did so perfectly. He went all the way to Calvary.The reason for referring to Moses is that the writer wishes to make a comparison between Christ and Moses, first considering the respects in which they were similar, but then showing how vastly superior Christ is to Moses. ‘Who was faithful.’ If faith is to be convinced by something – to trust it as true – then faithful is altogether more objective. To be faithful is to be one who can be trusted, one who is loyal and consistent. Like Jesus Christ, Moses before him was also faithful in the work given to him; he had any immense responsibility to lead those people, the vast majority of whom turned out to be a great disappointment. They proved to be unbelievers as the passage will go on to say, in spite of the privileges that they had, the miracles they witnessed, the great deliverance they were given from Egypt, and the wonderful things they saw. Right from his youth, Moses was not deflected by worldly things he grew up in Pharaoh’s court and yet all the time he was ready to leave it and lead his people out on their journey. He considered the things of God far richer and far better. The writer has quoted from Numbers 12:7 where God honours Moses before the Aaron and Miriam after they challenged him about taking a Cushite wife and after they contested his exclusive right to be God’s spokesman, even though he was the meekest man on earth at the time. God’s defence of his servant is that he is faithful in all God’s house, and therefore Aaron and Miriam should not presume to question the status God has given him, for a servant is answerable to his master not to others. Moses – with one single recorded exception in his life, which cost him dearly, but which is not included here – deserves to be considered utterly faithful. He had to be faithful with regard to such minute details. Everything was made exactly in accordance with the plan of God. He didn't indulge his own imagination; he didn't impose his own ideas and methods. Moses gave the law; Moses expounded the law accurately, just as God told him to; Moses had the tabernacle made, and every stitch and all the materials - the utensils for worship, and the altar and everything – were in accordance with God’s instructions. These things provided advance pictures of the work of Christ and what he would do. So Moses had to be accurate, because otherwise the symbols would be wrong; the types and the shadows wouldn't fit the reality when Christ came. The point of the verse is that Christ was absolutely faithful to his commission, when the second person of the Godhead voluntarily became man and came to earth, and representing us lived a life of obedience to the Father. He discharged perfectly and exactly the preconceived plan for his life and redemption, conceived in eternity past, even though he was actually the Lord of Glory.