Just Who is Jesus? Hebrews 1:1-3 We are setting out on a journey through the book of Hebrews, one of the most encouraging and challenging books of the New Testament. Hebrews was written by believers, to believers, and for believers, and is jammed packed with spiritual truth to any serious believer who desires to mature in his or her faith. Warren Wiersbe The epistle to the Hebrews is a book we need today. It was written at a time when the ages were colliding and when everything in society seemed to be shaken. It was written to Christians who were wondering what was going on and what they could do about it. The stability of the old was passing away, and their faith was wavering. Written during a volatile time in history, the book of Hebrews targets Christians who were tempted to abandon their faith and slip back into the old ways of Judaism. Thus, the author of Hebrews challenges them to be bold and understand how Jesus is so much better than anything else Judaism had to offer. Arthur Pink It is difficult for us to appreciate the position, at the time this epistle was written, of those in Israel who had believed on the Lord Jesus. Unlike the Gentiles, who, for long centuries past, had lost all knowledge of the true God, and, in consequence, worshiped idols, the Jews had a divine religion, and a divinely appointed place of worship. To be called upon to forsake these, which had been venerated by their fathers for over a thousand years, was to make a big demand upon them. Even those Jews who had embraced the gospel found it hard to part with ceremonies and rituals which had been engrained in them from birth. It was counter-cultural for them to do, and largely a decision of ultimate consequence. And so the purpose of Hebrews is to show how and why Christianity is superior to everything thing else. How true it is that when times get tough, we are often tempted to retreat. The world and the flesh comes calling, and we may feel that the Christian life is just too hard. It is then that the message of Hebrews needs to be understood. Jesus is all that we need! Five Characteristics of the Book of Hebrews: 1. It is a book of evaluation
The word better is used some 13 times and we are told how Christ is better than anything else The word perfect is used 14 times, and is used to describe a perfect standing before God The word eternal is another key word; Jesus is the author of an eternal salvation (5:9), believers are given an eternal inheritance (9:15) Jesus and the life He gives are better because these blessing are eternal and they give us a perfect standing before God 2. It is a book of exhortation That simply means encouragement; the purpose is to encourage believers through instruction Five Warnings Drifting from the word (2:1-4, neglect); Doubting the word (3:7-4:13, hard heart); Dullness toward the word (5:11-6:20, sluggishness); Despising the word (10:26-39, willfulness); Defying the word (12:14-29, refusing to hear) These five exhortations are addressed to people who are truly born again, and their purpose is to get them to pay close attention to God s Word. 3. It is a book of examination As you study the book, you will find yourself asking, What am I really trusting? Am I trusting the Word of God, or am I trusting the things of this world that are shaking and ready to fall away? God desires for us to plant out feet on the solid foundation of faith, not on things that will one day vanish. 4. It is a book of expectation The focus of the book is on those things that await the believer in the future. The example of the faith of the patriarchs shows how they were looking for the future city of God. Like them, we today should reckon ourselves to be strangers and pilgrims on the earth. God desires for us to turn loose from the things of this world and stop depending on them. He wants to center our attention on the world to come. 5. It is a book of exaltation Hebrews exalts the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ, and we see this beginning in just the first three verses where several unique statements are made about the Lord Jesus. Notice six truths about Jesus Christ from verses 1-3: 1. Jesus is the complete revelation of God (1:1-2a)
God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son It is said that when Charles Spurgeon opened this text to his congregation on Sunday night, May 21, 1882, he began by saying, I have nothing to do tonight but to preach Jesus Christ! Acts 5:42 And daily in the temple, and in every house, they did not cease teaching and preaching Jesus as the Christ. Jesus is superior to all the Old Testament prophets. To begin with, He is the unique Son of God and not merely a man called by God, as were they. John Phillips Throughout the Old Testament era, God communicated to men using spokesmen like Jonah, Jeremiah, David, Daniel, and Moses. But there remained so much more to be said! How could He fully express His heart, His mind, His will? He would send His Son! There are two fundamental truths set forth in these verses. One is that God simply exists. Nowhere does the Bible try to prove the existence of God. It assumes the existence of God. It is assumed that any person with normal intelligence will believe there is a God. If a person don t, they are a quart low! Two bricks shy of a full load! The second truth set forth is that God speaks, or, God has revealed Himself. In our day, there are many different opinions when it comes to God. The atheist says there is no God. The agnostic says that he doesn t know if there is a God or not. The deist says that there is a God, but He isn t involved in the details of creation. The polytheism says that there are many gods. The writer of Hebrews is telling us here at the beginning of his message that Jesus Christ is the complete revelation of God to humanity. There s no knowledge of God apart from knowing the Son. 2. Jesus is the recipient of all things (1:2b) whom He has appointed heir of all things Someone has well said that Jesus Christ came from the throne of the Father to the womb of a woman. He put on humanity so that we might put on divinity. He became the Son of man so that we might become the sons of God. He was born in a stable, lived His days in poverty, and was raised in obscurity. He had no wealth or influence and had no training, no education from the world s schools. His relatives
were not well known nor were they influential. In infancy he startled a king, in boyhood he puzzled the most learned, and in manhood He ruled the course of nature. He walked on water and hushed the waves to sleep. He healed the sick, gave sight to the blind, and raised the dead to life again. He never wrote a book, yet even the world could not hold all the books about Him. He never wrote a song, yet He has supplied the theme for more songs than there are songwriters. He never founded a college, yet all the schools together cannot boast of as many students as He has. He never practiced medicine, yet He has healed more broken hearts than anyone combined. Jesus Christ is the star of astronomy, the rock of geology, the lion and the lamb of zoology, the harmonizer of all discords, and the healer of all diseases. Throughout history, great men have come and gone, yet He lives on. Herod could not kill Him. Satan could not seduce Him. Death could not destroy Him. The grave could not hold Him. He is unlike anyone who has ever lived. Gregory of Nazianus (A.D. 381) He began His ministry by being hungry, yet He is the Bread of Life. Jesus ended His earthly ministry by being thirsty, yet He is the Living Water. Jesus was weary, yet He is our rest. Jesus paid tribute, yet He is the King. Jesus was accused of having a demon, yet He cast out demons. Jesus wept, yet He wipes away our tears. Jesus was sold for thirty pieces of silver, yet He redeemed the world. Jesus was brought as a lamb to the slaughter, yet He is the Good Shepherd. Jesus died, yet by His death He destroyed the power of death. For that reason, God the Father has appointed Jesus to be the heir of all things! Psalm 2:7-8 I will declare the decree: the Lord has said to Me, You are My Son, today I have begotten You. Ask of Me, and I will give You the nations for Your inheritance, and the ends of the earth for Your possession. Revelation 11:15 The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever! The Bible says that all things have been put under His feet. That is, all things are in subjection to Him and belong to Him. When He came, the Bible says that He became poor for our sake, that we might become rich in Him. However, when He comes again, He will come as conquering Lord who inherits all things.
Romans 8:16-17 The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together. His inheritance is our inheritance! 3. Jesus is the reason for life s existence (1:2c) through whom also He made the worlds The writer of Hebrews reveals Jesus to be the agent behind creation itself. He is Creator and Sustainer of life. This is a clear statement of the deity of Christ. John 1:1-3 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Genesis 1, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are present in Creation: Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Genesis 1:2 The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. Genesis 1:3 Then God said, Let there be light, and there was light. This is a testimony to His ownership of all things. Colossians 1:15-17 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. As Creator, all things are under His command. This includes all things in heaven and earth, all things visible and invisible. He is behind the creation of everything that is seen.
John MacArthur By studying the creation, one can gain a glimpse of the power, knowledge, and wisdom of the Creator. The sheer size of the universe is staggering. The sun, for example, has a diameter of 864,000 miles (one hundred times that of earth s) and could hold 1.3 million planets the size of earth inside it. The star Betelgeuse, however, has a diameter of 100 million miles, which is larger than the earth s orbit around the sun. It takes sunlight, traveling at 186,000 miles per second, about 8.5 minutes to reach earth. Yet that same light would take more than four years to reach the nearest star, Alpha Centauri, some 24 trillion miles from earth. The galaxy to which our sun belongs, the Milky Way, contains hundreds of billions of stars. And astronomers estimate there are millions, or even billions of galaxies. What they can see leads them to estimate the number of stars in the universe at 10 25. That is roughly the number of all the grains of sand on all the world s beaches. He is behind the creation of everything that is unseen. Thrones, Dominions, Principalities, Powers this refers to the realm of angels and the unseen world; all are subject to Him as Creator Philippians 2:10 That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth. All powers are subject to His power! 4. Jesus is the radiance of God s glory (1:3a) Who being the brightness of His glory and the express image The words brightness of His glory refer to the shekinah glory of God that dwelt in the Tabernacle, and later in the Temple. It is in the reference to the manifest glory of the presence of God. This can literally be translated, Who is the radiance of God s glory. And notice that the writer of Hebrews doesn t say that Jesus merely reflects God s glory. There is a huge difference between radiating and reflecting. The difference can be seen in our own solar system. The sun radiates light. That is, it gives off its own light and energy source. However, our moon is merely a reflector of light. In other words, it reflects a light that it doesn t produce.
Jesus doesn t simply reflect the glory of God; He is the glory of God! As sunlight is to the sun, so the eternal Son is to the Father. Illus. of the Mount of Transfiguration John 1:14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. Arthur Pink So, apart from Christ, the brightness of God s glory could not be perceived by us. Without Christ, man is in the dark, utterly in the dark concerning God. It is in Christ that God is revealed. Thus, Jesus could rightly say, I am the light of the world. Hebrews also says that Jesus is the express image of God s person. Express image refers to something engraved or impressed, such as a coin or seal that bears line for line all the features of the instrument making it Colossians 1:15 He is the image of the invisible God. The word for image is the same word that we get the term icon from. Jesus is the icon, which means precise copy, or an exact reproduction. It means to find out what God is like, all one has to do is to look at Jesus. J.B. Phillips Jesus is God in focus. John 14:9 He that has seen Me has seen the Father. Jesus is the face of God. When you are looking at Jesus, you are looking at God. These verses reveal Him to be: 1. The divine inheritor 2. The divine Creator 3. The divine revealer 4. The divine character 5. The divine sustainer
6. The divine redeemer 7. The divine Savior As the express image of God s person, it means as God is, so Jesus is. 5. Jesus is the ruler of all things (1:3b) and upholding all things by the word of His power. The word upholding does not mean holding up, which implies that the universe and its operation is a heavy burden on His shoulders. Upholding holding and carrying from one place to another; speaks of maintaining and sustaining that which has been put in motion; used in the present tense which implies continuous action This means that everything in the universe is being presently sustained at this very moment by the Lord Jesus Christ. John MacArthur We base our entire lives on the continuance, the constancy, of laws. When something such as an earthquake comes along and disrupts the normal condition or operation of things even a little, the consequences are often disastrous. Can you imagine what would happen is Jesus Christ relinquished His sustaining power over the laws of the universe? We would go out of existence. Consider what would happen is the earth s rotation slowed down by even the smallest fraction. Gravity would be impossible. If it sped up faster, we would be incapable of breathing given the force on our frail bodies. The sun has a surface temperature of 12,000 degrees. If it were any closer to us, we would burn up. If it were any farther away, we would freeze to death. Our globe is titled on an angle of exactly 23 degrees, which provides us with four seasons. If it were not tilted just perfectly, vapors from the oceans would move north and south and develop continents of ice. If the moon were not at its exact distance, ocean tides would flood the continents twice a day. If the ocean floors were merely a few feet deeper than they are, the delicate carbon dioxide and oxygen balance of the earth s atmosphere would be completely upset, and no plant or animal life could exist. If the atmosphere did not remain at its present density, but thinned out even a little, many meteors and comets which now harmlessly burn up when they enter our atmosphere would constantly bombard us and threaten our lives.
How does this balance remain? Jesus upholds all things by His power! He is the God of creation and the God of providence who is presently guiding this universe to its ordained destiny. If He upholds all things in the universe by His Word of power, does that not also include me and my life? Scott Wesley Brown wrote: There is no problem too big God cannot solve it There is no mountain too tall God cannot move it There is no storm too dark God cannot calm it There is no sorrow too deep He cannot soothe it Oh, if He carried the weight of the world upon His shoulders I know my brother that He will carry you Oh, if He carried the weight of the world upon His shoulders I know my sister that He will carry you 6. Jesus is the redeemer of sinners (1:3c) When He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high. There is only one way that sin can be atoned for and covered, and that is death. Sin demands death. Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death Jesus went to the cross, died our deserved death, and thereby took the penalty for our sin on Himself. Now, it we will accept His death and believe that He dies for us, He will free us from the penalty of sin and even purify us from the stain of sin and grant us His eternal life. Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Jesus, by Himself, purged our sins. That means that no one else could do it. Only He was qualified, and only He is thereby able to save us.
In Old Testament Israel, on a daily basis, the priests would offer up sacrifices for his own sin, then for the sins of the people. It was a daily occurrence. There was no seat in the Tabernacle for the priest to sit, for his work was never done. The priest in the Old Testament had no place to sit because his work was always sacrifice, sacrifice, sacrifice, and was never finished. Every day called for a new sacrifice to be made. However, when Jesus offered up His sacrifice of Himself, He could sit down because His work was finished. Jesus sitting down at the Father s right hand signifies four things: 1. He sat down as a sign of honor 2. He sat down as a sign of authority 3. He sat down as a sign of rest 4. He sat down as a sign of intercession A.W. Tozer In the deep recesses of man s soul lies an overwhelming yearning toward the Creator. This is a common thread through all humanity, created in the image of God. Unless and until that desire is fully met, the human soul remains restless, constantly striving for that which is ultimately unattainable. St. Augustine said, Thou hast created us for Thyself, and we are restless until we rest fully in Thee. Hebrews is about resting in the person and provision of Jesus Christ, in whom our faith is anchored securely!