Verses 3 and 4 say, “For He has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses, by as much as He who built the house has more honor than the house. For every house is built by someone, but He who built all things is God.” Both Christ and Moses are apostles. Yet Christ is the Builder of the house of God, whereas Moses was only a part of the house in type. Hence, Moses is inferior to Christ. Christ is counted worthy of far more glory than Moses.
Verse 4 says that every house has a builder, but He who built all things is God. This proves that the Christ who is the Builder is God Himself. This Apostle, the One sent by God, is God Himself. He is the universal Builder, the unique Builder in the entire universe. The central building of His ministry is His house. Verse 6 says, “Christ was faithful as a Son over His house, whose house we are.” We are the house which Christ is building.
This house is the church. Christ is the Builder of the church (Matt. 16:18). Christ builds the church by caring for all the needs of His people, as Moses did, and by bringing His people to pass through the wilderness into the rest of the good land. The good land typifies Christ Himself, and the wilderness is a type of the soulish life. Christ builds up the church by bringing us through the soulish life into our spirit where He abides as the rest, the good land. Our concept may be that God sent Christ to us as an Apostle greater than Moses in order only to take care of our needs. If we need manna, He gives us manna. If we need living water, He gives us living water. If we need peace and joy, He gives us peace and joy. However, if we think only in this way, we are shortsighted. In the picture in the Old Testament, Moses did not care for the people’s needs merely for their own enjoyment—he took care of them so that the tabernacle would be built up among them as God’s dwelling place.
Christ is not only a part of the house but also the Builder of the house (Heb. 3:3-4). Moses had only one nature—humanity. This human nature is good as the material for God’s building, but Moses did not have the divine nature which is good for being the builder. The Lord Jesus has two natures: humanity, which is good for the material for the building of God’s habitation, and divinity, which is the element of the Builder. In His humanity, Jesus is the stone for God’s habitation. He is the foundation stone (Isa. 28:16), the cornerstone (Matt. 21:42; Acts 4:11), the topstone (Zech. 4:7), and the living stone (1 Pet. 2:4) to produce us as living stones (v. 5). In His humanity He is the good material for God’s building, and in His divinity He is the Builder. Moses was an apostle sent from God to constitute God’s house on earth, and Christ is also the Apostle doing the same thing. But Christ is not only a part of the building; He is also the Builder. This is the difference between Christ and Moses.
Moses was only a part of the house, whereas Christ is both the house and the Builder of the house. Thus, Christ is counted worthy of more glory and honor than Moses (Heb. 3:3). We need to see that Christ as the Builder of the house has more glory and honor than Moses. Hence, Christ is much superior to Moses.
Verse 6 says, “Christ was faithful as a Son over His house, whose house we are.” In Old Testament times the house of God was the house of Israel (Lev. 22:18; Num. 12:7), symbolized by the tabernacle or the temple, which was in Israel’s midst (Exo. 25:8; Ezek. 37:26-27). Today the house of God is actually the church (1 Tim. 3:15; 1 Pet. 4:17). The children of Israel, as the people of God, are a type of us, the New Testament believers (1 Cor. 9:24—10:11). Their entire history is a prefigure of the church.
In Hebrews 3 Christ is the Apostle, and the brothers are the house of God. The church has a double function. To Christ, the church is the Body; to God, the church is the house. Christ is the Head, and the church is the Body of the Head. This is the first function of the church. God is the Father, and the church is His house. This is the second function of the church. Just as Christ is the Head and the church is His Body, so God is the Father and the church is His house. The church as the Body of Christ is an organism. In like manner, the church as the house of God is not a physical house; it is a living house.
The Greek word rendered “house” may be translated as “household,” or using the modern term folks, the members of a family. God’s house is not a physical house but a living house. God’s house is His family, and His family is His house. His house is also His household, for His folks are His dwelling place. If a certain family has a house, the family is one thing and the house is another. The family is living, and the house is physical. But God’s family and God’s house are both living.
God’s house is living in the Father’s name and in the Father’s life. When we say that it is living in the Father’s name, this means that it is living in the Father’s reality. This house is a living composition of the many children of God in the Father’s life and reality. Where the house of God is, there is the family of God, and where the family of God is, there is God the Father with His life and reality. This is similar to the church as the Body of Christ. Christ is not separate from all the members of the Body, for as the Head of the Body, Christ indwells all the members. Christ should not be counted as a separate member of the Body, because He is in all the members of the Body. Likewise, God’s house is God’s family. The Father is not a separate member of the household but is in all of the children. This is Bethel, the house of God, the house that Jacob saw in his dream (Gen. 28). This is the reason that where the church is, there is Bethel, the house of God with the Son of Man, Jesus Christ, as the heavenly ladder (John 1:51). Such a church is the gate of heaven by which people can communicate from the earth to heaven. There is even now a communication between earth and heaven. When we are in the proper church life, we are in the gate of heaven. If we have the spiritual eyes, we can see the angels ascending and descending upon the heavenly ladder.
Who is the One who formed, built, and constituted this house and who takes care of this house? Jesus Christ, the Apostle sent from God, has been and still is constituting and building up His house. This house is a movable, portable house; it is a living and walking house. We are living, walking, and moving. We are walking corporately with the Apostle. God’s house is a corporate Body. If we would enjoy the Apostle and the Father with His reality, we must be in the house. We must know that we have an Apostle. Our Captain of salvation and our High Priest are the Apostle, the One sent by God to take care of God’s house. If we are not in the house, we will not enjoy Him in His aspect of being the Apostle. We may enjoy Him in other aspects, for He is great, kind, and very merciful, and He will do many things for us. But as far as the church as the house of the Father is concerned, we will not be able to enjoy Him as the Apostle.
For this reason, we should not be individualistic Christians. If we are individualistic, we are through. When we are individualistic, we are separated stones. As separated stones, we have nothing to do with the house. We need to be in the church. What enjoyment, blessing, and grace we have partaken of since we came into the church! We will see wonderful things happen in and to the house.
As the Apostle sent by God and from God to us, Christ builds the house of God (Heb. 3:3). He is the Builder of the house, and we are the house (v. 6). This means that He is building us together as the house of God. In order to enjoy Christ and know Him, we must realize that He is our Builder and that we are a part of the house of God. Without the house of God, the church, it is difficult for us to enjoy Christ’s building work. If we would experience and enjoy Him as the Apostle sent by God and from God to us, we need to realize that we are members of the house of God under His building (Eph. 2:19-20).
By taking care of us, Christ builds us together as the house of God. The matter of building is covered also in Hebrews 11, which mentions the New Jerusalem, the holy city (vv. 10, 16). We need to tell the Lord, “You are the Builder, and we are the building. We are parts of this building, and now we are under Your care in Your building work. Under Your building work, we enjoy Your care.” All builders care much for what they are building. To enjoy Christ’s care, we must be a part of His building.
We are God’s living, spiritual, organic house (1 Tim. 3:15; 1 Pet. 2:5; Eph. 2:21-22), and Christ builds God’s house, His church, in an organic way. God in Christ is within us to build Himself into our being and to build us into His being (3:17; John 14:23). He builds His divinity into our humanity and builds our humanity into His divinity in order to mingle and blend His divinity and our humanity into one entity. Christ came into us as the Spirit to be life to us. He is now building with Himself (divinity) and with us (humanity) to produce a home, a dwelling place. Eventually, this dwelling place, which is a mutual abode of God and man, will issue in the New Jerusalem (Rev. 21:2-3, 22).
At this point we need to read Hebrews 3:6-7: “Christ was faithful as a Son over His house, whose house we are if indeed we hold fast the boldness and the boast of hope firm to the end. Therefore, even as the Holy Spirit says, ‘Today if you hear His voice.’” Verse 6 says that we are the house of God and that the Son of God is now over the house taking care of it. If we would enjoy Christ, we need to be in the house and be a part of the house. Verse 7 begins with the word therefore, indicating that it is the continuation of the foregoing verse. The use of the word therefore to connect verses 6 and 7 means that we must take care of the house of God or else we will miss the Sabbath and not enter into rest. Hebrews 4:7, being a continuation of 3:7, says, “He again designates a certain day, today, saying in David after so long a time, even as He has said before, ‘Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts.’” Verses 8 and 9 continue, saying, “For if Joshua had brought them into rest, He would not have spoken concerning another day after these things. So then there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God.” If we put all these verses together, we will see that today the Sabbath rest is the house of God. If we do not remain in the house of God, we will miss the Sabbath rest. The Sabbath rest today is the house of God under the care of the Son of God.
Although thousands of Christians have been saved, so many of them remain in the wilderness; they have never entered into the good land. Today’s good land is a situation in which there is God’s habitation with God’s kingdom. This is the church life. The church is God’s house, God’s habitation, and God’s kingdom. Thus, the church is today’s good land. If we miss this, we will miss today’s Sabbath rest. The house of God under the care of the Son of God is our rest, home, homeland, land of Immanuel, and good land flowing with milk and honey (Isa. 8:8; Deut 26:9).
In Matthew 11:28-30 the Lord Jesus said that if we are burdened and will come to Him, He will be our rest, and in Matthew 12:8 He said that He is the Lord of the Sabbath. Where is this Christ who is our rest and who is the Lord of the Sabbath? He is in the church. If we would take Christ as our rest, we must be in the church. The book of Revelation mentions clearly that this Christ, the all-inclusive One, is now walking in the midst of the lampstands, that is, among the churches (1:13, 20; 2:1). Not only is He walking among the churches, but as Revelation 2 and 3 reveal, He is the Spirit speaking to the churches. If we want to touch Christ, enjoy Him, and partake of Him as our rest, we need to be in the church. The church life is today’s Sabbath rest. We all must endeavor to enter into it, and once we have entered into it, we should never leave it.