God Has Spoken Regarding His Son

Transcript

GR 1670
12/16/12
God Has Spoken Regarding His Son
Hebrews 1:1-2
Gil Rugh

I want to start a study of the book of Hebrews with you this morning, because the emphasis in Hebrews, and particularly as the book starts out, is so pertinent to what we are celebrating these days. I thought it would be a good time to begin this study. So if you want to turn in your bibles to the book of Hebrews. If you’re an old timer here at Indian Hills, 35 years ago, almost to the month, only one month away, we began a study of Hebrews. I know it’s still fresh in your mind, but we’ll review it anyway. The book of Hebrews. Everything significant in Christianity focuses in Christ, how else do you say it? Without Christ, there is no Christianity. Everything we believe and base our hope upon, for future eternity, centers in the person and work of Jesus Christ. Hebrews is the most detailed and specific systematic presentation of the person and work of Christ we have in all the bible. If you want to learn about Jesus Christ and understand as we must, not only who he is but the significance of his being born into the human race. His functioning as High Priest, which is essential to our salvation. Because without that, there could be no salvation, you have to come to the book of Hebrews. One person commenting on the book of Hebrews said, it’s the most extensively developed and logically sustained piece of theological argumentation in the whole of the New Testament. We come here to find out about Jesus Christ, and yet the book of Hebrews remains something of a puzzle for many believers. In that sense it’s something like the book of Revelation. You need to understand and appreciate the culmination of all things in Christ. The problem in the book of Revelation, it is saturated with references, not direct quotes, but references based on Old Testament truth. We are not as familiar with Old Testament, so we find ourselves lost in the book. I think that intimidates many believers when you come to the book of Hebrews. Just look at chapter 1. You’ll note how, when they’re quoting the Old Testament, they mark it off in capitol letters, most of your translations do it that way. You go to verse 5 of Hebrews 1, all the way down through verse 13, that’s just a series of quotations from the Old Testament. You come into chapter 2 and you have verses 6-8, the same way. Then down to verse 12 & 13, then into chapter 3, you pick up with verse 7 and following. Not only the direct quotes but the references to the Old Testament. Sometimes we find ourselves somewhat lost in all of that. Yet it is absolutely essential that we understand the truths that are being revealed here. This clear systematic unfolding of the person of Christ and his work accomplished on our behalf. Particularly the focus will be on his high priestly ministry. As you look at the book of Hebrews, it is different than other letters we would have in the New Testament. There’s no beginning so to speak. There’s no greeting, not like Paul would write – Paul an Apostle of Jesus Christ and so on. Writing to the church at such and such a place. This letter just jumps right in. Some commentators debate, is this really a letter, because it doesn’t have the introduction that would be on most letters. The only other letter like this in the New Testament is 1 John, that also begins right into the subject, without any greetings or identifications. Some say, maybe it’s not a letter, maybe it’s a sermon that was written out. There is something to be said for that. Come over to Hebrews 13: 22, we think it’s a rather long letter. He says, “But I urge you brethren, bear with this word of exhortation”, so it is an exhortation, he’s exhorting them to something. “For I have written to you briefly”, as a word of exhortation, I like sometimes to listen to the bible being read. When these, who were the recipients of this letter, we have titled, the letter to the Hebrews, came to their local church, you know what, they all came and sat together, and then a person says, we have a letter, let me read it to you. Now I listened to this, I timed it, and it takes, oh, a little less than 45 minutes to listen to the letter the Hebrews read. I try as I’, listening to this thinking, now this is all they had, they didn’t get a copy. They didn’t have anything to take home. They had the seriousness of this letter. The reasoned arguments, the strong exhortations, and this is being read to them. If their mind wandered, they missed that section. And I realize and thought what a great privilege we have. We bring a copy of God’s word with us. We take it home with us. We can go back and re-read it and see, did we miss something here. They were responsible before God to take it in. I’m sure some of them said, do you think when we get together next week, you could re-read that? I think I may have missed something. So great privilege we have here. It is, I take it, a letter. It ends like a letter. There will be greetings there. He’ll even refer to Timothy who was with him. But I think it is an exhortation written to them as a letter. Exhortation permeates the letters, on what they must do. As far as the Author of the letter, it doesn’t tell us. I’m interested as you read the commentaries, they all acknowledge, there’s not Author identified, and they usually quote origin from early church history. Only God knows who the human author of Hebrews is. But then they’ll go on for the next 30 pages. Developing the possibilities. When all is said and done, we know the Holy Spirit directed the writing of this book. We have reference to Hebrews as early as 96AD. Clement of Rome, refers to the Book of Hebrews. Doesn’t it the letter to the Hebrews, but he quotes from the context, refers to the contents of the letters. So very early book. We don’t know who wrote it. Some will say Paul. The author will refer to Timothy, we know Timothy was a close companion of Paul. His reasoning through the Old Testament scriptures, certainly Paul does that is some of his letters. One of the strongest things people quote is from 2 Peter 3. Peter who is writing to believing Jews in the diaspora, says that Paul has written to them. Some say what Peter refers to is what Paul wrote, is probably the letter to the Hebrews. There’s some problems with that, example, in Hebrews 2:3-4, it talks about the message of salvation. “After it was at the first spoken through the Lord, it was confirmed to us by those who heard, God also bearing witness with them, both by signs and wonders “, Paul never takes a second hand approach, he always claimed he received the revelation of God’s gospel directly, not through intermediaries. So that raises the question about Paul. Some say, well maybe it was Luke. One man has written a whole book arguing that Luke would have been the author. Then some say Apollos. If we’re throwing out names, some say Pricilla, why not. The fact is we don’t know. Now I just want to say here, at times I may slip and say, when Paul wrote, or Paul says here, you say, Oh, Gil really believes Paul wrote it. But I don’t, that’s just age. You know, we’re used to saying Paul, and when you don’t have a letter to identify it with, you grapple for a name. But, I don’t have any idea who wrote it. The human author, it doesn’t change anything, this is God’s message to us. Secondly, it doesn’t say who it’s written to. We have, at the top, the letter to the Hebrews. The problem is, the earliest manuscripts we have, don’t have that, it comes significantly later. We can’t say, it’s titled, it’s never in there, like say James did, when we studied James, it says, to the Jews in the diaspora. Or like Peter does in his first letter, to the elect sojourners of the diaspora. But I think the title reflects the contents. The indication would be that he is writing to Jewish believers, that’s the whole argument in the letter. That doesn’t mean it’s not pertinent to us. The argument he’s giving is necessary for us to understand, because what he’s going to argue is, those things which were revealed in the Old Testament were preliminary and foundational to the revelation we have in Christ. So a failure to know something about that revelation and how it prepares for the coming of Christ creates difficulties. So I think these are believing Jews. Indication would be that he address them as fellow believers. We’re not going to go through, we’ll see that as we go through, he identifies them, the writer and the way he writes. They know him and he knows them. The way he writes and the closing remarks at the end of Chapter 13, indicate he’s familiar with them, he knows them, they know him. He’s looking forward to seeing them again. There is a relationship here. Put it into context, I think he’s writing to believing Jews, but the indication of the letter is, he has a serious concern for them. These are difficult times for these believer. It seems that they are a local congregation. These are not the Jews of the diaspora that Peter wrote to, or James, scattered outside of Palestine. We don’t know where this group is located. Some believe their in Palestine, some believe their in Rome. At the end of the letter Paul says, those from Italy send their greetings. So some say that’s indicating he’s writing to believing Jews in Rome. Others say Syria. We don’t know where. But it is a local congregation. Clearly the way he writes, and we’ll see this as we go through, this is a specific group. It’s not just believing Jews, wherever they are or a group of congregations. He addresses them in a way you would as a local congregation. There are problems developing that he’s concerned about. They are second generation believers. They have been believers for some time. And something of that initial passion and endurance is wavering. So he writes to challenge them regarding the necessity of endurance. I think it’s interesting, the most detailed and systematic theological explanation of the person and work of Christ we have in the New Testament, is not written as a doctrinal dissertation. It’s written as a word of exhortation to challenge these believers to continue on. To tell them you can’t go back. You have no choice to keep going. And the truth given about Christ is essential, but it’s presented as the foundation and motivation for them to keep going. We’re reminded that the truth concerning Christ is foundational for us. You can see these believers have been, I say second generation, in Chapter 2 of Hebrews verse 3-4, this salvation, “After it was at the first spoken through the Lord, it was confirmed to us by those who heard”, we mention this, being an issue about Paul, this person doesn’t connect himself with those who got it directly from Christ. Paul always, like in Galatians 1, even though he wasn’t part of the earthly ministry, claimed he got his revelation directly. These, that’s why we call them second generation, they heard it from those who heard. Hebrews 2:4, “God also bearing witness with them, both by signs and wonders and by various miracles and by gifts”. That’s why we call these second generation believers. They had come to believe through the message of those, like the apostles who had received it first hand. They have cooled off, Chapter 5:11, they’re not continuing with the same passion and growth that they should. Verse 11, “Concerning him we have much to say, and it is hard to explain”, this is his high priestly ministry after the order of Melchizedik. “Since you have become dull of hearing. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for some one to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food.” We’ll talk about this in context of this warning passage. You see, it’s a rebuke. You’re stagnated, somethings wrong, you should be a lot further along then you are. Come over to chapter 10. What’s happening here, these Jewish believers are thinking, you know, maybe we made a mistake. They’ve been in conflict, they’ve been in battle, they’ve suffered persecution, they’ve had it all. Maybe it’s time to go back to Judaism. Understand, as we’ve talked about in our other studies, like James and it comes up in Peter. Jewish believers are in humanly speaking, the worst situation. As Jews, they’re hated by Gentiles. As Jews who believe in Christ as their savior and messiah, they are hated by fellow Jews. So this brings persecution and opposition to them from all sides. And that wears us down. When we’re first saved and we’re new and things are fresh, bring on the battle, here we go. It’s exciting and the Lord’s working and nothing can cool our passion for the Lord and our service for Him. You know, it gets old. After time we find ourselves you know, I remember talking to an older man I had as a professor on the west coast. He had a ministry for many years, but his ministry was over, he says, you know I’m tired, I don’t want to be in conflict anymore. I thought, he’s in trouble, he said I don’t want to battle, I go, you can’t serve the Lord then, you’re done, somethings wrong. That’s where they were. Hebrews 10:32. “But remember the former days”, so you can see these have been believers for awhile. “Remember the former days, when, after being enlightened, you endured a great conflict of sufferings, partly, by being made a public spectacle through reproaches and tribulations, and partly by becoming sharers with those who were so treated. For you showed sympathy to the prisoners, and accepted joyfully the seizure of your property”, I mean these aren’t people who haven’t paid a price. But, the passing of time, what does he have to tell them down in verse 36, “You have need of endurance”, I mean it’s not over. Come over to chapter 12, the end of verse 1, “let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus”, so you see the truth, he’s been presenting Christ is the foundation for them to be motivated and to keep going. He doesn’t work up some emotional arguments and try to pump them up. It’s just the truth concerning Christ. If that doesn’t motivate you to endure, and you still want to go back to Judaism, you are in serious and eternal trouble. As we’ll see, as we move through Hebrews, he said back in chapter 10, those who go back, go back to destruction. That’s just not an option. So in chapter 12, he continues down in verse 3 “Consider Him (Christ) who has endured such hostility by sinners against himself, so that you may not grow weary and lose heart”. Good message for us. We’ve been, by the grace of God, a local church for some time. We’re privileged to have older believers, newer believers. But you know what, we’re honest, we admit, the battle does get old. The conflict gets old. I’ve had people, I appreciate their honesty, although I’m concerned for them, they say, I’m just tired of the conflict. Good people, “I’m just tired of the conflict, I just don’t want to do it anymore, and so we’re leaving.” You know if God’s leading you to another ministry, that’s great. If you’re running from the conflict, you’re in trouble. I mean, that’s not an option. We get the idea, when it starts out, somethings new and fresh and we’re ready. As it goes on, we think, this is not quite the way I thought, I thought it would be a little nicer, I thought people would begin to, wait a minute, it’s a battle. That’s why in chapter 12, he tells us to “run the race with endurance”. Faith is going to be a key element in the book of Hebrews. We get confused, we talk about faith as though it is a point in time. All error has an element of truth connected with it, that’s what makes it acceptable to people. We come to trust Christ, and we act like, well, that happened there. Great, that’s done, that’s settled. You don’t understand, that began there. That was the beginning of my life of faith. That’s going to be the argument of the book of Hebrews. If that’s not the beginning of your life of faith, then you never had the salvation. Like somebody who comes to be part of a race, they all line up at the gate, the gun goes off, everybody takes off, and this person takes a couple of steps and sits down and says, well that’s done. I joined the race, I say no you didn’t. You hung around at the starting gate. You’re not running the race. Those who are truly in the race, took off and they are still running. Hebrew’s think they can stop and go back. The exhortation of the book of Hebrews, you can’t, that’s not a possibility. That’s why Jesus said at the beginning, when He was on earth, He said, take up your cross and follow me. Count the cost, don’t be a fool, don’t start something you’re not willing to follow through with. That’s what the book of Hebrews is saying, you can’t go back. There’s no going back. True believers can not turn back, and anyone who turns back, turns back to eternal destruction. It’s like Peter writes, he’s concerned for believing Jews as well, in a little different setting. He tells them, better that you had never heard then you hear and turn back. You’re like a dog that returns to its own vomit. There’s no going back. Good reminder to us, we get weary. We think, I don’t know if I can continue. We better consider, I can’t not continue. He will give the reasons and explanations. Ok, come back to chapter 1. We’re going to say that the theme it of the letter is, the superiority of Christ, that’s simple. You want to put it in a statement from Hebrews, look at verse 1 and 2, the key element. The first four verses of Hebrews are one long sentence. We have it broken up into English, with verse 3 starting a new sentence, but you’ll note in the margin of your bible. It says it’s literally, who being, verse 3 begins, not and he, but who being the radiance of His glory. So it’s one long sentence. The key statement in that sentence is, God, starts our English text, and then in verse 2, has spoken to us in a Son. That’s what the book of Hebrews is about. God has spoken to us in a Son. So we’re going to develop what He has said. Regarding the Son, regarding the work of the Son. The superiority of Christ is going to be demonstrated, showing He’s superior to everything that preceded in the prior covenant. There’s going to be a contrast between the Old Covenant, which is the Mosaic Covenant, the covenant given to Moses on Mount Sinai, beginning in Exodus 19, and the new Covenant established in Christ in chapter 8, will be about that new covenant. So it’s that contrast, what he’s going to show, is that Jesus is superior to everything associated with the Old Covenant, the Mosaic Law. Starts out, he’s superior to the prophets. God spoke in the prophets long ago, but he has spoken in Son in these last days. He’s going to show he’s superior to angels. Picking up into verse 4, “having become much better than the angels, as he has inherited a more excellent name they they for which of the angels did they ever say, you are my son. He is superior to the angles who play a key part in the giving of the Mosaic Law, as we will see. That goes down through chapter 2. We come to chapter 3, it shows that Christ was superior to Moses, who of course was a key figure, key prophetic figure. He’s the one that God spoke to on the mountain, face to face. A unique privilege given to him. And yet we’re told that Christ has more glory, verse 3 of chapter 3, “He has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses.” So He’s superior to Moses. That goes through all of chapter 3 and all of chapter 4. Then you come to what the heart of the issue is in chapter 5. He’s superior to Arron. He has a priesthood that is superior to the Aaronic and Levitical priesthood. That will go all the way through chapter 10:18. Because this is the heart of it, He is the high priest who could offer the acceptable sacrifice. He is the high priest who has the personal characteristic and attributes, as a sinless one, who can offer the sacrifice, which is the sacrifice of himself. And it’s his high priestly ministry, that our whole salvation hinges upon. Because only those who have Christ as their high priest, receive forgiveness before the throne of God, and have access to him. So that is foundational. Those are the key areas. Then with chapter 19 through the end of the book, there will be more focus on further exhortations, regarding their behavior. There are 5 warning passages spread through the book of Hebrews, that raise a lot of discussions and questions. There are passages used by people who believe you can loose your salvation as a believer. Much discussions go on about them. We’ll look at them as we go through. We’ll start in chapter 2 and the first 4 verses. Chapter 2 begins, “for this reason, we must pay closer attention to what we’ve heard”, you see he’s unfolded something of the person of Christ and his superiority, then he’s got this exhortation, you better pay close attention. This is or utmost importance that we pay close attention to what we’ve heard. That we won’t drift away from it. It’s like a picture of a ship drifting past the safe harbor, a terrible danger. In those days of sailing ships, when they drifted by the safe harbor, you didn’t just turn on the engine and go back, you were out now in trouble in the storm. So that warning passage, we’ll have one in starting in chapter 3:7, which starts out, “Therefore just as the Holy Spirit says, today if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts”, warning, strong warning that will go on down to chapter 4:13. Then you’ll come to chapter 5:11, he rebukes them for being dull of hearing, failing to go on as they should. And that warning passage will go down into chapter 6:20. Then the forth warning passage in chapter 10:26, “If we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sin.” What a terrifying expectation of judgement. That will go down through verse 31. Then chapter 12:18, “You have not come to a mountain that can be touched and to a blazing fire, to a blast of a trumpet, but you’ve come to Mount Zion”, verse 22. On down, verse 25, “See to it that you do not refuse Him who is speaking”. These exhortations, you see how many are spread through the letter in addition to other things. This is serious business. He writes to those that he has a relationship with, that he loves. You’re close to the end, look at chapter 13:18, “Pray for us”. Verse 19 “I urge you all the more to do this, that I may be restored to you”, Verse 20, “Now the God of peace, who brought up from the dead…equip you in every good thing to do His will, working that which is pleasing in His sight, bear with this word of exhortation I have written to you briefly. Our brother Timothy has been released, if he comes, he’ll see you. Greet your leaders and all the saints. Those from Italy greet you”. You see, there’s a relationship here and he knows these people, he addresses them as a body of believers, but this is serious business. You know you just can’t slow down, there’s no excuse for giving up, or wanting to give up. There’s no going back. Do you understand who Jesus Christ is? Do you understand what Jesus Christ has done? Then what’s this talk about not enduring and keeping going? I mean you understand, there’s no choice. You go back, you go back to hell. If you make a decision to go back, there’s really no way to drive home the seriousness of this issue, if you don’t grasp these truths. He’s written to those he has a relationship of fellowship of believers that he could identify with, that know him, but he wants them to understand the seriousness of the issue. Come back to chapter 1. Want to just open up, and look at the first part of chapter 1. The first four verses form a unit, they’re one sentence. We’re not going to get through all of that, but you note how we have in our English Bibles, “God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world. And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power. When He had made purification of sin, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high; having become as much better than the angles, as He has inherited a more excellent name than they.” Two things that will be emphasized here. One shows the continuity in revelation between the Old and New Testament. And two, there will be an emphasis on the contrast between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. Our bibles put God first in the verse. But really, the emphasis is not put there as the writer wrote this. Literally in the Greek text it says here, “In many portions and in many ways, long ago, God spoke.” The emphasis is not primarily on, God spoke, not to minimize the importance of that, but there’s no issue over that, there’s no misunderstanding. Of course the Jews agree that God spoke in the Old Testament. So that’s not the disagreement. The disagreement is in how he spoke. In the difference in the way that the revelation was given and communicated. And the instruments used. So, first the continuity. Just for the clarity, “ God after He spoke long ago “, referring to His revelation given to the fathers in the prophets – that’s the Old Testament, not just what we would identify as the prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, but the whole Old Testament. David is a prophet because he received revelation from God and communicated it. Of course Moses is a prophet, these men are identified as prophets, but they’re not traditional prophets, like we think of Daniel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and so on. He’s talking about all the Old Testament scripture. It was God who spoke. It’s a participle. Some may wonder, why do you pick out “God spoke to the Son” as the leading verb. Well that’s the leading verb here. In English you translate “After He spoke”, to be a way to translate this participle. Some of you are taking Greek, an aorist participle, so can be translated, “after He spoke”, having spoken. So it was God who spoke in the Old Testament. Turn over to chapter 3:7, “Therefore, just as the Holy Spirit says.” Then he quotes from the Old Testament. A recognition, that was God speaking then. Just keep on going through Hebrews, James, and then you’ll come into Peter, and we’re going to 2 Peter 1:21 “for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke form God.” So it’s God speaking, no doubt about that. It’s His word being communicated in the Old Testament. The same God, the only God, is the spokesmen. Now how He did it, He gave His word, The Holy Spirit impressed it on the hearts and minds of the men selected by God, so that they would speak and write. God spoke. That’s why 2 Timothy 3:16 says, all scripture is God breathed, it comes out from God and is profitable for us in everyway, to summarize it. So back in Hebrews 1:1, after God spoke long ago to the fathers, the ancestors of these Jews that he writing to. In the prophets, variety of prophets. The Old Testament came over a period of time, he says in many portions and in many ways. The exodus out of Egypt happened, if I remember correctly, 1446 BC, Moses leading that. So he’s the one God used to write the opening books, the first five books of the bible. Malachi writes about 400 BC, so we say roughly over a period of a thousand years, our Old Testament was written. And in a variety of ways. God spoke with Moses face to face on Mount Sinai. Other prophets were given a dream or a vision. And it happened over a millennium of time. So He spoke in many portions and in many ways. But God spoke. We’re emphasizing this because I have to be clear here, there is nothing wrong with the revelation. It is a revelation of the same God as will now speak in the one who is a Son, in these last days. I want to be careful. There’s not a problem with the content of the Old Testament revelation. It’s not less true than the new revelation. There are not any flaws in it. The Mosaic Law was just as God intended it to be. Come back to Romans 7:12. Paul is dealing with a similar subject that is covered in Hebrews, and the place of the Law. Verse 12 “So then, the Law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.” Nothing wrong with the Law, it is God’s revelation. Come back to Hebrews. So God spoke long ago, in the prophets, in many portions and in many ways. In these last days, now we have a contrast. And I’ll summarize these contrasts with you in a moment. So He spoke long ago, and now He’s spoke in the last days. He spoke to the fathers, He spoke to us. In these last days, He’s spoken to us. He used the prophets, He uses the one who is Son. So there’s contrast here. The time period, long ago, these last days. The recipients, the fathers – us. The agents used for revelation, prophets – Son. And the ways, well there were various ways. And without stating it directly, there’s one way, the Son. He says he spoke to the prophets in portions and in many ways, but verse 2, He’s spoken in Son, period. There’s no multiple ways and multiple times, spoken in these last days. Here where the contrast between long ago and in these last days, for the Jews, no problem here. Cause the Old Testament, their familiar with this, the last days were the days of the Messiah. Remember in the Old Testament there’s no revelation of a time period between the first coming of Christ and the second coming of Christ. So the Old Testament prophets saw the coming of Christ. Peter says this is why the prophets couldn’t understand how the Messiah could come and suffer and die and rule and reign in glory. Because it wasn’t revealed to them that there was a two thousand year interval between those two events. He would come twice. The prophets wrote about the Messiah would suffer and die and be rejected, Isaiah 53. And yet they wrote about His ruling and reigning in glory. So for them, when they talk about the last days, they’re talking about the days of Messiah. So, “in these last days” refer to the events with the coming of the one who is identified as Son. Messianic days, that’s the fullness of revelation. So the failure on the part of Israel, was not that there was something wrong with the Law, that would have been given to them, the first covenant, the mosaic covenant, but their failure to appreciate this was to prepare them for the coming of the Messiah, who would be the fulfilment of it. Turn back to Galatians 3:23, for context here, look at verse 21. “Is the Law then contrary to the promises of God? May it never be!” That’s not an option, there can’t be a conflict within God. God didn’t give a law that was in conflict with what He had promised He would do. You have to understand the Law and it’s purpose. When you come to verse 23 “Before faith came, we were kept in custody under the law, being shut up to the faith which was later to be revealed. Therefore the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ.” To lead us is in italics, that’s been inserted. But literally, our tutor to Christ. In other words, the Law was to guide them and prepare them for the coming of Christ. With the coming of Christ the Old Covenant, the law had fulfilled its purpose. Now, we move on to the New Covenant in Christ. So this point that comes up in various places in the New Testament is what is unfolding in detail in Hebrews. How can you go back? That law served its purpose. We can learn from it, but you can’t go back to it. It’s like someone learning the ABC’s, it’s a similar situation used of the law. We’ll come to this in Hebrews 2. You learn the ABC’s the letters of the alphabet, but that’s not an end in itself. Why do you learn the letters of the alphabet? So you can put words together, right? So you can make sentences, so you can communicate. That’s the goal. Are the letters of the alphabet good? Yes. Do you just forget them? No. Well I don’t think about them, but they’re there. Some of you are taking Greek. What do you have to learn? You have to learn the alphabet. How are you going to put words together if you don’t know letters? How do you make a word? These people are thinking, well I’ll go back to the elementary things, well wait a minute, you can’t go back. That has served its purpose. Christ has come. Back to Hebrews 1, “In these last days God has spoken to us in His Son.” Emphasis on the Son. You’ll notice it says His Son. It’s true, Christ is God’s Son, but the word “His” does not appear in the text here. Nor does the definite article “the”. It appeared with “the prophets”, “He has spoken in the prophets”. It doesn’t say He’s spoken in the Son. It doesn’t say He’s spoken in His Son. It doesn’t say He spoke to a Son. He spoke in Son. In Greek when you don’t have that definite article, and you have a name or title like this, you are identifying or emphasizing the quality. The character of this one. He is one who is Son. He’s Son! He’s not a Son, because he’s not one of many, in this context. He’s not the Son, He is the one who the quality and characteristic of Him is Son. It makes Him superior. The prophets, they were important and God spoke through them. Now He has spoken in Son. Before I say something about Son, let me remind you of the importance of this verbal revelation. Just to re-emphasize it, because we lose our way on it. All the visions all the various ways God spoke in the Old Testament, how did it all get narrowed down? How did we get it? They wrote it down, right? New Testament revelation, how did we get it? It’s written down. God speaks. We often say, if there is a God and we are to know anything about Him, He will have to reveal Himself to us. If He has revealed Himself to us, the most important thing is, we find out what He has revealed. And if He has revealed Himself to us, He’ll have to reveal Himself in a way that is understandable to us. How does he make us communicate? He created us to what? Communicate verbally. Created Adam and Eve. Adam named his wife Woman. She shall be called woman, verbal. Look over in Revelation as a reminder. John is going to get some awesome revelation, visions and so on. The book of Revelation, how is it communicated to us? What does Jesus tell him? This is the intention of Revelation 1:11 “Write in a book what you see, and send it to the seven churches.” This is God’s way of communicating. Those that the letter of Hebrews is written to, they didn’t have first hand contact with Christ. It was passed on to them. How was it passed on to them? Verbally. We believe in the verbal inspiration of the scripture. God spoke. When God speaks, His words are important, they are put together in a way that says what He wants it to say. He is the God who created communication. The idea that God has spoken, but you can’t know what He has said for sure, that’s just man doesn’t like what God has said. We want to be careful because there is this constant drift away from the written word of God. There used to be an accusation against bible believing Christians, we have a paper pope. The Roman Catholics have their Pope in Rome, and the Protestants have their Pope, the bible. It’s true, this is our final absolute authority. God spoke. This is how we know what He’s like, what He requires, how we know about the salvation He has provided, verbal inspiration. I was reading an article this week in a Christian magazine, about a lady, a medical doctor who supposedly died, she says. When she’s dead, of course, she went to Heaven. So she’s written a book about it. She’s absolutely sure, you can tell from her whole argument she doesn’t know anything about, really the truth of scripture. If anybody judges that this is not right, she’s all over the place. Where do we get this? Why do Christians even put this in a publication? We have God’s verbal communication. He doesn’t say He’s giving more. We have it, we have it written down. We have it to understand. Alright, He’s spoken to us in Son. Son! This is where we’ll end. There are three aspects of this Son’s existence that we must keep in mind, otherwise we’ll get confused. When we get confused, we’ll think well maybe His being Son is just related to the time when He was born on earth, and that began His Sonship, and that’s not true. There are three aspects, these are not original with me. There’s His pre-existence, eternal Sonship. We’re going to see this, because they’ll all be entailed, even in this opening section in Hebrews. But they’ll be woven through Hebrews, so if we don’t recognize in our minds, these three aspects of His Sonship, we’ll begin to get confused. He has His pre-existent eternal Sonship. We put pre-existent on that because we mean before His incarnation, before His birth an Bethlehem. He was the Son of God, that’s an eternal relationship He has had with the Father. Then there is His incarnational, earthly Sonship. That aspect of it when He took to Himself humanity and became the God-Man. Son of God, both God and Man. That’s His earthly life and ministry. This will become key in Hebrews, because He took to Himself humanity so He could be the savior of humanity. And the High Priest of humanity. You have to understand this aspect of His Sonship. And then there is the future dimension. His exhalation to glory as the Son of God. We have all three of these in the opening verses of Hebrews, that we’ll see as we unfold just this last one, you can see at the end of verse 3.
To the fathers in the prophets. That is the Old Testament, not just what we would identify as the prophets – Isaiah, Jeremiah, but the whole Old Testament. David is a prophet because he received revelation from God and communicated it. Of course, Moses is a prophet and he is identified as a prophet but they are not additional prophets. Like we think of Daniel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and so on. He is talking about all the Old Testament scripture. It was God who spoke. That’s a participle. You may wonder why God spoke to the Son as a leading verb. Well that is the leading verb here. In English, you translate and after he spoke. A way to translate a participle here. Some of you are taking Greek. In the participle it can be translated after he spoke or having spoken. It was God who spoke in the Old Testament. Turn over to “Hebrews 3:7, Therefore, just as the Holy Spirit says,” and then he quotes from the Old Testament recognition, that was God speaking then. Just keep on going through Hebrews, James, and you will come to Peter. We are going to “II Peter 1:21, for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.” It is God speaking, no doubt about that, it is his word being communicated in the Old Testament. The same God, the only God, is a spokesman. Now how he did it, he gave his word, the Holy Spirit, impressed it on the hearts and minds of the men selected by God, so that they would speak and write. God spoke. That is why II Tim. 3:16 says all scripture is God breathed. It comes out from God and is profitable. In verse 1 after he spoke long ago, to the fathers, to the ancestors of these Jews he is writing to. In the prophets, a variety of prophets, the Old Testament came over a period of time. He says in many portions and many ways. The Exodus out of Egypt happened if I remember correctly 1446 B.C. Moses leading that. So he is the one God used to write the opening books, the first five books of the Bible. Malachi, writes about 400 B.C. So you see roughly over a period of about a 1000 years, our Old Testament was written. And in a variety of ways. God spoke to Moses face to face on Mount Sinai. Other prophets were given a dream or a vision and so on. And it happened over a millennium of time. So he spoke in many portions in many ways. But God spoke. We’re emphasizing this because we have to be clear here. There is nothing wrong with the revelation. It is the revelation of the same God as will now speak in the one who is a Son in these last days. We want to be careful. There is not a problem with the content of the Old Testament revelation. It is not less true than the new revelation. There are not any flaws in it. The Mosaic Law was just as God intended it to be. Come back to Romans 7, Paul is dealing with a similar subject as Hebrews on the place of the Law and so on. Look at “Romans 7:12, So then, the Law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.” Nothing wrong with the Law, it is God’s revelation. Come back to Hebrews. So God spoke long ago, in the prophets in many portions and many ways. In these last days, and now we have a contrast. I will summarize these contrasts with you in a moment. So he spoke long ago and now he has spoken the last days. He spoke to the fathers and to us. These last days he has spoken to us. He used the prophets and he used the one who is his Son. So there are contrasts here, a time period. Long ago, these last days, the recipients, the fathers, us. The agents used for revelation, the prophets Son. The ways, there were various ways. Without stating it directly, there is one way – Son. They spoke in the prophets and in many ways, but verse 2, he has spoken in Son, period. There is multiple ways and multiple times spoken in these last days. Be aware, the contrast between long ago and in these last days. To the Jews, no problem here. For in the Old Testament, they are familiar with this. The last days were the days of the Messiah. Remember that in the Old Testament, there’s no revelation of the time period between the first coming of Christ and the second coming of Christ. So the Old Testament prophets saw the coming of Christ. Peter says this is why the prophets couldn’t understand how the Messiah could come and suffer and die and rule and reign in glory. Because it wasn’t revealed to them that there was a 2,000 year interval between those two events. He would come twice. The prophets about the Messiah would suffer and die and be rejected, Isaiah 53, and yet they wrote about his ruling and reigning in glory. So for them, when they were talking about the last days, they were talking about the Messiah. In these last days refer to the events coming to the one identified here as Son. ????????????? That is the fullness of revelation. So the failure on the part of Israel was not that there was something wrong with the law that had been given to them, the first covenant, the Mosaic covenant. But there failure to appreciate this was to prepare them for the coming of the Messiah who would be the fulfillment of it. Turn back to “Galatians 3:23, (the verse context here, verse 21 Is the Law then contrary to the promises of God? May it never be. There cannot be a conflict with God. That didn’t give a Law in conflict with what he had promised he would do. You have to understand the Law and its purpose. So you come to “Galatians 3:23-24, Therefore the Law has become our tutor to lead us (you will notice it is in italics, this has been inserted) Literally tutored to Christ. In other words, the purpose of the Law was to guide them and prepare them for the coming of Christ. With the coming of Christ, the old covenant, the Law had fulfilled it’s purpose. Now, we move on to the New Covenant in Christ. This point that comes up in various places in the New Testament is what is unfolding in detail in Hebrews. How can you go back? That law served it’s purpose. We can learn from it but you can’t go back to it. It’s like somebody learning the ABC’s and a similar kind of illustration used of the Law. What comes in Hebrews 2. You learn the ABC’s, the letters of the alphabet. That is not an end to itself. Why do you learn the letters of the alphabet? So you can put words together, right? So you can make sentences, so you can communicate. That is the goal. Are the letters of the alphabet good, yes. You just forget them, no, I don’t think about them, but they are there. Some of you are taking Greek. What do you learn? You have to learn the alphabet. How are you going to put words together if you don’t know the letters, how do you make a word? Well I’ll go back to the elementary things. Wait a minute, you can’t go back. That has served it’s purpose. Christ is come. Back to “Hebrews 1:2, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son”, emphasis on the Son, the Son. You will notice, it says His Son, it’s true, Christ is God’s Son, but the word His does not appear in the text here nor does the definite article, thee. It appeared with the prophets, he has spoken in the prophets, the prophets. He doesn’t say he has spoken in the Son. He doesn’t say he has spoken in His Son, he doesn’t say he spoke in a Son, he spoke in Son. In Greek, when you don’t have the definite article, and you have the major title like this, you are identified or emphasizing the quality, the character of this one. He is one who is Son. He is Son, he is not a Son because he is not one of many in this context. He is not thee Son, he is the one of quality and characteristic of Son. That makes him superior. The prophets, they were important and God spoke through them. Now he has spoken through Son. For I before I say something about Son, let me remind you of the importance of this verbal revelation, just to reemphasize it because we lose our way on it. You know all the visions, all the various ways that God spoke on it. How did it all get narrowed down. How did we get it? They wrote it down, right? How did we get it? It is written down. God speaks. If there is a God and we need to know about him, he will have to reveal himself to us. And if he has revealed himself to us, the most important thing is that we find out what he has revealed. And if he has revealed himself to us, he will have to reveal himself in a way that is understandable to us. How did he make us to communicate? Created us to do what? Communicate verbally. Created Adam and Eve, Adam named his wife woman, she’ll be called woman. Verbal. Look over in Revelation. John is going to get some awesome revelation, visions and so on. In the book of Revelation, how is it communicated to us? What does Jesus tell him? This is the intention. “Revelation 1:11, Write in a book what you see, and send it to the seven churches”. This is God’s way of communicating. Those that the letter of Hebrews is written to. They didn’t have firsthand contact with Christ. It was passed on to them. How is it passed on to them? Verbally, we believe in the verbal inspiration of Scripture. God spoke, when God speaks, his words are important and they are put together that say what he wants it to say. He is the God who created communication. The idea that God has spoken, but you can’t know what he said for sure. That is just man who doesn’t like what he said. You have to be careful, because there is this constant drift away from the written word of God. There used to be an accusation away from the written word of God. It used to be an accusation against Bible believing Christians. We have a paper Pope, the Roman Catholics have their Pope in Rome, and the Protestants have their Pope, the Bible. This is our final absolute authority. God spoke. This is how we know what he is like, what he requires, how we know about the salvation he has provided. Verbal inspiration, reading an article this week from a Christian magazine. About a lady, a medical doctor, who supposedly died, she says, and when she was dead, of course, she went to heaven and so she has written a book about it. And she is absolutely sure. You can tell about from her argument about it, she doesn’t know anything about it really. The truth of Scripture. Anybody who judges this is not right, then she is just all over the place. Where do we get this? Why do Christians even put this in a publication. We have God’s verbal communication. It doesn’t say he is giving more. We have it, we have it written down to understand. Alright, he spoken to us in Son. I want you to understand this is where we will end. There are three aspects of this Son’s existence that we must keep in mind. Otherwise we will get confused. We will think maybe his being Son related to the time when he was born on earth and that began his Sonship and that is not true. There are three aspects, these are not original with me. There is his preexistence, eternal Sonship. We are going to see this, because they will all be entailed, even in this opening section of Hebrews. But they will be woven through his Hebrews. So if we don’t recognize in our minds these three aspects of this Sonship, we will begin to get confused. He has his preexistent eternal Sonship. We put preexistent, because we mean before his incarnation. Before his death in Bethlehem. He was the Son of God, that’s an eternal relationship with the Father. Then there is his incarnational, earthly Sonship. The Sonship, that aspect of it when he took to himself, humanity and became the God man, Son of God. Both God and man and that is his earthly life and ministry. This will become key in Hebrews because he took to himself humanity so he could be the Savior of humanity. And the high priest of humanity. You have to understand this aspect of his Sonship. And there is the future dimension, his exaltation, the glory as the Son of God. We have all three of these in the opening verses of Hebrews that we will see as we unfold. Just this last one you can see at the end of verse 3, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high. That is his exaltation, the Son of God exalted. So Son of God, we will see that as he created everything. The Son of God born into the human race to make purification of sins, we will see that in these opening verses. The Son of God exalted in the right hand of God. That is what we are talking about, when he is talking about in Son. The one who by his very nature and being is the Son of God. Sometimes we will talk about him as he was before the creation and bringing into existence the creation. Sometime we will talk about him as he came into the human race and lived and died on this earth. Sometimes we will talk about him as he has been exalted at the present. But he is the Son of God in all three aspects of that. So we will see it, but sometimes they don’t draw a line and say we are here. It is like the opening verses, they are just woven together. Because he is who he is, the Son. The revelation to him as the fullest and as Hebrews emphasized. He is the only Savior; that is totally unique. There is no one else you can go to for salvation. There is no other way. You can hear this message time and time and time and time again, but unless you truly believe it, you are lost. That is the argument of the book of Hebrews. It doesn’t matter that you suffered for this, it doesn’t matter that you were inconvenient. It doesn’t matter that you went through difficulties. If you have truly believed in Him, you will keep on. If you don’t, you are the dog who turns back to his own vomit. If you turn back from God’s provision for salvation, there is no salvation in any other person. That is the beautiful message of the coming to earth of Jesus Christ the Son of God. He has come to be the way of Salvation. Without Him, there is no way of Salvation. What an exciting message. The Son of God has come into the human race, but he is also the Son of man and that he could provide Salvation so that we could experience forgiveness through faith in him and someday be exalted because of our relationship with him to the glory of God’s presence. Let us pray together. Thank you Lord for your grace in speaking, making yourself known, speaking so that we, your creation, could hear and understand and learn of you, your purposes and plans and your Grace in providing your Son to be the Savior to cleanse us from our sins, to give us new life and to enable us to belong to you and anticipate glory in your presence. Pray that these truths will group our hearts and minds as we proceed through this mighty letter. That we might be encouraged in our hearts and minds strengthened in our endurance because we belong to the one who loved us and died for us, we pray in his name. Amen