Heb No.1 God has spoken 1v1-14

Let me read to you again from the authorized version of the Bible this time, the first three verses of the first chapter of the epistle to the Hebrews. God who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets hath in these last days spoken unto us by his son whom he hath appointed heir of all things by whom also he made the worlds who being the brightness of his glory and the express image of his person and upholding all things by the word of his power when he had by himself purged our sins sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high. I was reading just before I came out one comment on the epistle to the Hebrews and the writer says that this is a tonic for those people who are spiritually sick.

Actually he said debilitated but you might not know what that means. It's a tonic for people who are spiritually sick. John Calvin said there is no book in scripture which speaks so clearly of the priesthood of Christ so splendidly extols the sacrifice and the power and the worth of the unique sacrifice which the Lord Jesus offered by his death and explains how the Lord Jesus Christ is the end of the law.

And one final comment from Dr. Hughes. We neglect such a book at our own impoverishment. We become paupers if we don't study the epistle to the Hebrews and yet it's a very difficult book.

Perhaps this is embarking on one of the most complex theories of Bible studies that I have ever launched here in the tabernacle. And yet those who are prepared to stay the course will discover much that will enrich them. They will find in the words of the first quotation that I gave you a spiritual tonic for those who need to be invigorated.

Those who need a spiritual blood transfusion. Now the authorship of this book despite what the introduction may say to the AV, epistle to the Hebrews, the authorship is really unknown. One of the things that you can possibly say and be absolutely certain is that it wasn't written by the Apostle Paul.

And you may immediately feel upset because I've said that. But I'll try and show you particularly I think in the third or the fourth study why it could not conceivably have been written by the Apostle Paul. There have been a number of suggestions as to who did write it.

They've gone from the sublime to the ridiculous. Some have suggested that Priscilla might have written it, for instance, whose name is mentioned earlier on in the Acts of the Apostles. Some others have said that the man Apollos who is said in the Acts of the Apostles as being a man mighty in the scriptures probably wrote it in conjunction with what he learned from the Apostle Paul.

And that may indeed be the case. And you could go on citing a number of candidates and you could get no further than the conclusion of a great Christian in the third or fourth century by the name of Oregon who when asked who wrote this epistle said God knows. And indeed the Lord does know.

And in his purpose he's decided not to let us be aware of the identity of the author with any certainty. But that doesn't really matter because this book is timeless in its relevance and it speaks about the supremacy of Jesus. Indeed the concept of how wonderful Jesus is dominates this book.

And it could well be that in the third chapter and the first verse when reference is made to the Lord Jesus as the apostle and high priest of our profession the author didn't want his own name at all to be known. He didn't want anything to detract from the glory of the Lord Jesus for his whole thesis will show that Jesus Christ is supreme. I once preached an address here not that long ago for you to have forgotten it in which I employed the Italian word supremo and it's got the idea of the ultimate the absolute.

Well Jesus Christ is supremo. He's greater than the angels. He's greater than Moses.

He's greater than any of the Old Testament characters whose names are referred to in the faith chapter of Hebrews. He stands out unparalleled the Lord Jesus Christ the greatest person of all times. It's very interesting to note and perhaps there's almost a tinge of humor here that when you get to the 13th chapter of Hebrews the writer makes reference to the brevity of his letter.

He says for instance in the 22nd verse of that last chapter and I beseech you brothers suffer the word of exhortation for I have written a letter unto you in few words and one wonders what his letters might have been like that he considered to be lengthy but praise God for what he called a brief statement on the supremacy of Jesus and I think that what he had in mind was this that there's a lot more that could have been said like the concluding comment you remember of John's gospel in which the writer there known John himself says that if everything that the Lord Jesus Christ did and everything that he said was written down then there would not be enough room in the world to contain it well that may be an exaggeration but it is a pardonable poetic exaggeration indicating metaphorically that what Jesus had to do and what he had to say was so great that you couldn't compress the full story into a book so this writer this unknown author of the Hebrew epistle is going to tell us something about the supreme worth the supreme value in the Lord Jesus but he's not going to do it in a mere merely abstract way what I mean by that is he's not a professional theologian in fact the bible doesn't recognize such a thing as an academic theologian the sort of person who locks himself up these days in a university days gone by in a monastery and pushes a pen and is concerned purely about Greek and Hebrew and Aramaic and writing commentary and writing abstract theology no the writer of the Hebrew epistle is a very practical man as indeed some of the professional theologians today are witness professor Bruce and in the second chapter of the of the epistle and the first four verses for example you get some of the immediate practical application having talked to us about the greatness of Jesus and how much more how superior he is to the angels he goes on in the opening verses of the second chapter to say therefore you people who are reading we ought to give more earnest heed to the things that we have heard and he goes on in that well-known third verse how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation so you get a little bit of teaching then a bit of application more teaching more application and that of course is the biblical pattern of teaching as witnessed the example of our lord Jesus Christ well then let's come to our immediate study today in which we're going to contend ourselves at looking at the first three or four verses and you will see that the writer immediately plunges into his subject there's no salutation there's no introduction we don't know anything about his circumstances at all he's concerned to deliver a message a brief address of 13 chapters and he starts off as though he really wants to get the accelerator down and move along in his argument God who at sundry times and in divers manners spaking times past unto the fathers by the prophets hath in these last days spoken unto us by his son and that's an interesting point just to stop for a moment before I come back and open up these first four verses do you notice in the second verse the way that he expresses himself let me try to give you a rough translation from the original because the word his in the authorized version isn't in the greek what we get is that God has spoken to us in sun God has spoken to us in sun that doesn't really make much sense when first you hear it may fall a little crudely on your ears but let's for a moment imagine that I've gone across to Paris and I'm speaking there how would I speak I would speak in French or let's turn the clock back let's imagine we're in the Roman Empire and I'm preaching then how do I preach in Latin I convey what I have to say in that ancient tongue or I convey it in in French or I convey it as this evening in English so God speaks in son he speaks through his son the Lord Jesus Christ because you see as I pointed out to you in the notes and this I didn't pinch from any of the three or four commentaries that I was recommended recommending a moment or so ago Jesus Christ is God's audio visual you know about Jesus you hear or rather you know about God you hear God through Jesus he speaks to us in son isn't it interesting those of you who know your bibles that the opening words of the fourth gospel speak about Jesus Christ in the terms of the logos or the word God speaks through the logos God reveals himself through the logos God communicates in the language of his son it's just as though God presents himself to the world in the form of Jesus in fact it's not just as though he does that that's precisely what he does God the father reveals himself through the son God is articulate in Jesus so on one occasion when people are getting a little concerned because they don't know the father Jesus says to the disciples you remember in John's gospel he that hath seen me hath seen the father the two are so indissolubly connected that Jesus is the revelation of the father so the father speaks to us Jesus language he speaks to us through the son praise God the creator of the universe the principle behind life is articulate our God is not silent is a comment that Schaefer makes in a book actually that I believe bears that title and it's true God is a speaking God God is articulate God speaks to us through his son well all this is really expressed in those first three or four verses of this introductory chapter and in the first verse in particular we are reminded that God has been speaking to us even before Jesus God who at sundry times in many parts and in many places through a variety of people has spoken in times gone by unto the fathers that means the old testament early characters in in the in the first part of our bible God spoke to the patriarchs God spoke to those in the prophetic era through the mouths of his servant through the mouths of his servants the Lord has always been speaking and yet it seems to me that when you ask yourself the question how does God reveal himself to the world you can't just say say through speech although that's the main way you would have to say that God speaks to us through his handiwork I was at a bible study fellowship last Wednesday out at Starrington and it was a wonderful occasion it was really more of an evangelistic outreach and at Ken Jowett's home our brother Brian Armstrong projected some pictures depicting the miracle of nature beautiful scenes sometimes of flowers sometimes of landscape and he showed us and also interwove his testimony into what he was saying how God reveals himself through what he's made and that is true of course the Lord Jesus said on one occasion consider the lily of the valley it toils not it doesn't spin and yet Solomon he was not arrayed in a glory like this from the flower argues Jesus you can go back to God and so says the psalmist in the eighth psalm in my days as a school teacher some of my lads in Tottenham were devout atheists or so they said their theological arguments were really quite corny to say the to say the least to say the worst and sometimes I would try to show them the existence of God just from projecting the situation of say someone who drew a picture on our blackboard now you'd have to be a bit of an idiot to believe that the chore took wings flew up to the board and drew the the picture they knew that every picture indicates an artist a great mind so the bible declares on several occasions that God reveals himself through the world that he's made through his handiwork but the apostle Paul doesn't stop there when he's talking about God speaking to us he says that God speaks to us through our conscience he makes reference to this in Romans chapter one and also Romans chapter three what is your conscience well your conscience is that inbuilt barometer which tells you that certain things are right and certain things are wrong you don't go and hit an old lady on the head because one you don't want to do it we hope so and two because you know such things are wrong you don't go and steal because you know it's wrong if you're playing football and someone's about to score a goal and you're the full back you don't penalize them unfairly because that is wrong and if you do penalize them that it serves you right if they show the yellow ticket a purple ticket or whatever ticket they do short football matches and register that you are a cheat and you need to be dealt with severely we've got an in built indicator of right and wrong who put that there well God put it there we have a conscience which accuses us or excuses us says the apostle Paul in Romans 2 and verse 15 but let's move on a little bit because I'm more concerned not so much about God revealing himself through nature or through conscience but the idea of him speaking to the old testament era through the prophets and he did that of course he spoke to Israel through Moses he spoke to Israel through the later prophets and they all have their little bit to contribute about God for instance if you were to read the book of Hosea one of the minor prophets you discover he's got a great understanding of the mercy of God read for example the prophet Isaiah and you'll gather that he's got a grasp of the holiness of God start off in the book of Genesis and you'll not understand too much about sacrifice but move on into Leviticus and you'll learn a great deal God reveals himself gradually to his children not from error to legend to half truth to full truth but rather an increasingly true and full revelation so when you read the old testament books of scripture you read how God spoke through a variety of men in different circumstances revealing who he was and what he desired in terms of human behavior and patterns of worship but all this pales really into insignificance when compared with how God has spoken through the Lord Jesus Christ in times past he spoke to the fathers by the prophets and additional to that verbal communication was the knowledge that they could gain about God through nature and by their own conscience but the most wonderful revelation of all the supreme one is that in these last days God has spoken unto us by his son whom he hath appointed heir of all things and so on when God speaks finally he speaks through the Lord Jesus Christ Bruce comments God's previous spokesmen were his servants but for his proclamation of his last word to man he has chosen his son have you ever thought how Hebrews chapter 1 and the opening verses reminds you of an incident in Matthew's gospel and also Luke's this isn't in your notes so you can just sit and listen to me for for a moment or so and relax from studying the handout in Matthew's gospel and in Luke's gospel you get a picture of the Lord Jesus with three of his disciples on top of a hill and suddenly a cloud comes down the Shekinah cloud that indicates the presence of God the same sort of thing that's often happened in the Old Testament era when God manifested himself in the tabernacle a sort of portable temple and later on in the real temple in Jerusalem now that Shekinah glory of God descended on the top of what we call the mount of transfiguration and there's Jesus speaking to Old Testament characters and there's Peter James and John who are witnessing the event as Jesus speaks to great men of the Old Testament era do you remember how Peter always the chap to speak first and to think afterwards says Lord it's good to be here let's let's build a booth for you and for your friends a most idiotic suggestion if ever there was one and you discover when you read the narrative particularly in Luke 9 that suddenly the Old Testament people are blotted out and there's a voice that speaks from within the cloud and the voice says this is my beloved son hear him and in Luke 9 35 you read and when the voice was passed Jesus was found alone God spoke to the Old Testament people but the greatest revelation was through Jesus he spoke in times past it was an interesting communication but it pales into insignificance when in the last days God spoke through his son and if you understand Jesus and what God is saying through Jesus then in one sense you've learned all that the Old Testament could ever teach you in the opening verses of Hebrews as on the mount of transfiguration those who have eyes to see perceive no man save Jesus only God's final communication because he's got nothing else to say he spoke before Jesus and he speaks in Jesus but he will never speak beyond Jesus he is the supremo the supreme revelation and there are seven things which the writer of the Hebrews has to say about Jesus which makes him stand out superlatively and it will be a miracle if we get through the seven this evening the first thing that he has to tell us about the Lord Jesus Christ and his supreme value is that Jesus is the heir the second verse hath in these last days spoken unto us by his son whom he hath appointed heir of all things in the Old Testament time the person who was the first born was extremely significant in as much as the first born always received the inheritance I'm glad that the Old Testament principle doesn't apply in the New Testament era because I have a brother older than myself but in the Old Testament the firstborn was a title of great dignity and Jesus Christ is God's firstborn born before all creation he is God's only son and therefore his only heir Psalm 89 verse 27 says I will make him my firstborn higher than the kings of the do you remember how Jesus depicted a parable a story in which some servants recognized the firstborn the heir of their master and as he came along they said in Mark's gospel chapter 12 this is the son come let us kill him and the inheritance shall be ours and the thought was of the Jewish people wrongly killing God's own son and misunderstanding how they would enter into the blessings of God but that just by way of digression the Lord Jesus Christ is the firstborn he is the heir and the second Psalm gives an invitation to the Messiah and the Messiah is invited ask of me and I will give thee the heathen for thine inheritance and Jesus did just that he asked of the father of people who will be his own John 17 links it up in the beautiful high priestly prayer thine they were says Jesus speaking of those who will be redeemed and thou gavest them me and revelation makes reference to that innumerable international company of those who will be saved part of the inheritance of our Lord Jesus Christ God in these last days has spoken unto us by his son whom he has appointed heir of all things but not only is he the inheritor of the bounty of heaven he is also participant in the creation of the world now this is a marvelous thought by whom also he made the world did you think that God the father made the world no God the father and God the son combined together not only in the act of redemption for God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself but in the very speaking out of the creative word the son was operative as well as the father as Colossians tells us because the Lord Jesus Christ who was involved in creation without him says John was not anything made that was made there's a great man man and again this isn't in your notes just springs to my mind of a book i read some while ago the latin tongue written by a man called Athanasius and this great scholar of the third century who combated what in effect was the first beginnings of the Jehovah's Witness teaching did you think that was new there's nothing new under the sun he combated them in his century and he said this that it took the one who created the world to recreate the world what God did in creation he would have to do in redemption only through creator could become the redeemer and so here in Hebrews is a magnificent statement of the creative ability of Jesus Christ now the the writer of Hebrews is here quoting from the old testament no time to tell you about the old testament context but the verse that he's quoting from happens to be applied in the old testament to the father for very often in the old testament the work of creation is seen as the result of God's the father God the father's labor but you see in the new testament God the son steps forward the incognito is dropped we understand who he is and not only is he seen as the co-labor with the father in the beginning but logically he participates in the deity of the father what the father does so the son does and here is a magnificent statement of the deity of Jesus Christ hath God hath in these last days spoken unto us by his son the heir of all things the creator of the world moreover than this he's the brightness of the glory of God he reflects the glory of the Lord in Exodus 24 references made to the Shekinah glory of God and when John speaks about Jesus in the first chapter of the epistle that bears his name he says and we beheld his glory ah it wasn't always obvious he was a carpenter at Nazareth for for many years and then he became an unqualified or seemingly so teacher but there were things in the ministry of Jesus which transcended the merely human there were times when the God element so to speak in Jesus broke through and people recognized that he was to be distinguished from any other man no man spoke like this man no man did the things that this man did his glory fleshed out and they realized that he was more than just the carpenter from Nazareth he speaks of his glory he says to the father in the high priestly prayer father will you glorify me in the glory that we had before the world was when Paul was stopped on the Damascus road although it was noonday and the sun was high in the sky raining majestically the sun can you believe it paled into what seemed to be darkness compared with the light of the glory of Christ who illuminated the scene and it was the glory of Jesus that so transfixed all of Tarsus that it stayed in his in his mind and later on when he stands before a gripper he makes reference to that great shining light the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ not just reflecting God's glory but being a participant in the very nature of God having an inherent glory himself Jesus heir of all things creator of the world reflect the participant in glory also the image of God look at that third verse again the express image of his person when you were a little boy or a little girl did they say to you you're just like your father or you're just like your mother maybe if they said it to you now you wouldn't think it was a compliment I don't know but it is terminology that we use isn't it it's like his dad it's like his mom well it's that language only taken much deeper that is here used to talk about Jesus the express image of the divine person come ye you Jehovah's Witness show me where I'm wrong come you Christadelphian show me where I'm wrong here is one of the greatest passages exalting the Lord Jesus Christ and showing his deity for all to see in the whole of scripture he is the image of God so in a word that I gave you earlier he could say he who has seen me has seen the father but you know something that's perhaps even as wonderful as far as we are concerned we ourselves can partake in the nature of the Lord Jesus Christ in the nature of God when we're saved because you see we made a mess of things originally Adam fell we all fell and the image of God in us was was marred but when Jesus came into our lives by the power of his Holy Spirit he made us to be new creatures in him partakers of the divine nature linking us up within the family of God so that we become sons of God and inherit with him the blessings of eternity we must rush along he's the express image of God's person he's the sustainer of all things he upholds all things by the word of his power do you know if Jesus was not sovereign this night I believe this is as much as I believe that I'm standing here on this platform the whole of the universe as we know it the whole of this world would just fall apart molecule by molecule atom by atom the smallest particle by the smallest particle Jesus not only made all things he sustains all things if Jesus were to give the word the very universe that is held together would become not the cosmos that the earth is it would become chaotic it would become chaos Jesus sustains all things he's not the Greek atlas carrying the world on his shoulder Jesus is behind life he's behind the human story he's moving all things towards that ultimate point in the future that he has fixed when he shall return and the sons of God shall be revealed the redeemed humanity who they actually are when he shall then rejuvenate the world and bring in the new order the new heavens and the new earth he's moving everything towards that point the sustainer of all as well as the creator but not only this as the writer of our marvelous epistle he's the purger the purifier of those who are sinners when he had by himself purged our sins isn't it marvelous that when the writer is referring to the characteristics of Jesus and the excellences of this person when he speaks about such superlative things as Jesus being the heir and the creator and the and the sustainer he then talks about his his death because it was by his death on the cross that he purged our sins the cross was a stumbling block to the Jews but it will never be a stumbling block to the angelic hosts it's always an object of glory for those who are redeemed even in heaven right now they marvel at the fact that the son of God ever went to the cross he was great in his creative ability he's great as the inheritor of all things he's supreme as the sustainer of everything but the peak of his excellence is this that God's own son went to the cross to purge a broken humanity of the sin that corrupted it and when the writer lists the excellences of Jesus he makes reference to this and he's going to develop it he's going to tell us how because he's using priestly language he's going to tell us how Jesus our high priest purged our sins by the shedding of his own blood Jesus Christ the son of God the purifier of a polluted humanity and the final excellence having done this he sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high that last term is a is a phrase a Hebraic phrase which describes God the majesty on high the word there is not too easy to get into the English it means the majesty in the highest place of all the highest place that heaven affords is his by sovereign right says the hymn writer and our Lord Jesus our illustrious high priest goes into the holy place and there he takes his seat by God the father when the high priest in the old testament era went into the temple into the holy place there was no seat in the furniture at all because nobody would ever sit down and say their job was done they made an atonement for their sin and for the sins of the people but they'd be back again the next year but Jesus as the author of the Hebrews will show having made one sacrifice for sins forever sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high no more poverty no more suffering no more ignominy the Lord Jesus Christ has achieved the work that God the father gave him to do and he is now in the glory in the celestial realm seated the right hand of the majesty on high making intercession for those for whom he died God is articulate God spoke in times gone by he spoke through creation he spoke through conscience he spoke through the prophet through the priest through the singer through the sage but all the speaking of God in centuries past was nothing compared to that day when God in Christ spoke to the world and that Jesus has seven excellences which are depicted here and which our writer will go on to develop as he shows more and more the supreme work of God's own son amen