1Therefore, holy brothers, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession: Jesus, 2who was faithful to him who appointed him, as also Moses was in all his house. 3For he has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses, because he who built the house has more honor than the house. 4For every house is built by someone; but he who built all things is God. 5Moses indeed was faithful in all his house as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were afterward to be spoken, 6but Christ is faithful as a Son over his house. We are his house, if we hold fast our confidence and the glorying of our hope firm to the end. 7Therefore, even as the Holy Spirit says,
“Today if you will hear his voice,
8don’t harden your hearts as in the rebellion,
in the day of the trial in the wilderness,
9where your fathers tested me and tried me,
and saw my deeds for forty years.
10Therefore I was displeased with that generation,
and said, ‘They always err in their heart,
but they didn’t know my ways.’
11As I swore in my wrath,
‘They will not enter into my rest.’”
12Beware, brothers, lest perhaps there might be in any one of you an evil heart of unbelief, in falling away from the living God; 13but exhort one another day by day, so long as it is called “today”, lest any one of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. 14For we have become partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence firm to the end, 15while it is said,
“Today if you will hear his voice,
don’t harden your hearts, as in the rebellion.”
16For who, when they heard, rebelled? Wasn’t it all those who came out of Egypt led by Moses? 17With whom was he displeased forty years? Wasn’t it with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? 18To whom did he swear that they wouldn’t enter into his rest, but to those who were disobedient? 19We see that they weren’t able to enter in because of unbelief.
As the center of worship in Israel, the temple was the location of many significant activities of Jesus. Since Jesus Himself is "God with us" (Immanuel, Matt 1:23), whose very body is His tent (tabernacle) among men (John 1:14); and since He is the High Priest (Heb 3:1ff) who offered Himself as the final sacrifice for the sin of the world (John 1:29), it is most fitting that the temple in Jerusalem should be prominent in His life and ministry. He referred to Himself as "greater than the temple" (Matt 12:6), and to His body as the temple He would raise up in three days (John 2:19-21).
As an infant, Jesus' parents presented Him to the Lord in the temple (Luke 2:22-24), and Simeon blessed Him (Luke 2:25-35). At twelve, Jesus was interacting with the teachers in the temple, which He identified as His Father's house (v. 49; compare John 2:16). Satan tempted Jesus from the pinnacle of the temple (Matt 4:5; Luke 4:9). On two occasions Jesus drove out of the temple those who profited dishonestly from the sale of sacrificial animals (John 2:16; Matt 21:12; Mark 11:15; Luke 19:45ff). Jesus often taught in the temple (Matt 26:55; Mark 12:35; Luke 19:47; 20:1; 21:37, 38; 22:53; John 7:14, 28; 8:2, 20; 10:23; 18:20); and healed in the temple (Matt 21:14). At His death, the veil of the temple was torn from top to bottom (Matt 27:51; Mark 15:38; Luke 23:45). After His Resurrection, Jesus' disciples were continually praising God in the temple (Luke 24:53). The part of the temple-complex called Solomon's portico is probably where the Holy Spirit came on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:1ff; compare Acts 3:11; 5:12). -DG