Hebrews 1:1-4

The Supreme Revelation of God

Introduction

In Hebrews 1:1-4 we have the preacher's introduction to the sermon.  Here the preacher provides for us, in summary form, everything he is going to unfold for us in the sermon. 

These verses also contain the preacher's first point of his sermon, which is found in v. 4:  Jesus is superior to the angels, who are the heavenly messengers of God's revelation and has been given a name which is "more excellent" than they.

Before we look at vv. 1-4 more carefully, lets see where the preacher is going to take us in unfolding this first point.  In a long tradition of Jewish scholars, which was adopted by the early Christians, was the belief that the law of Moses was mediated through the angelic messengers of God (cf. 2:2; Acts 7:38-39; Gal. 3:19).

The Law of Moses was God's faithful revelation of His very character to Israel so that they would both know God and know how they were to behave in the presence of the True King of heaven and earth.  But that revelation, though true, was imperfect and needed a fuller, more complete revelation to come.  Now the Jewish Christians to whom this sermon is addressed would readily affirmed this point. 

So the preacher now makes his first point:  the revelation that God has given in His Son is superior to that angelic revelation to Moses.  In His Son, God has spoken definitively in a way that far surpasses and completes what God had spoken through His angelic messengers to Moses. 

Therefore, the preacher urges in 2:1-4, listen to Jesus!  In these verses the preacher exposes the serious error of failing to hear Jesus, the consummate revelation of God.  We expose ourselves to ultimate doom and peril if we do not give heed to the Son! (cf. Ps. 2).  In Hebrews 12 the preacher will exhort:

Hebrews 12:25  See to it that you do not refuse Him who is speaking. For if those did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape who turn away from Him who warns from heaven.

So in chap. 1, vv. 5-14 and in chap. 2, vv. 5-18, the preacher not only provides biblical support for the superiority of Jesus to the heavenly messengers but equally argues that Jesus' condescension to be made lower than the angels (2:9) was absolutely necessary as the God's plan to bring redemption to fallen sinners.

Now, before the preacher unfolds his first point on the superiority of Jesus to the angels, in vv. 1-4 he tells us how Jesus is superior to yet another form of God's previous revelation followed by the 7 characteristics of the Son's greatness, which qualifies Him to be the highest revelation God can give.

Note in v. 1, the preacher begins:  God has spoken!  This affirmation that God has spoken is foundational to the Christian faith.  For if God had remained silent, hidden from sinners we would all be justly condemned to eternal separation from God.  But God has spoken and the preachers point is that he has graciously spoken in the past in many portions and in many ways.  In the former ways, he revealed himself to the fathers of our faith through the prophets, God's earthly messengers of his will. 

The prophets in the Old Testament were welcomed into God's secret council and leaned what God was about to do and were commissioned to reveal his will to his people.   This morning, what a joyful excursion we could all take to tell the stories how God spoke through Moses, Elijah, Isaiah, and Jeremiah to remind the people who God is and what he expects of his people.  But while that revelation was true, it was also incomplete.  There was much more that God wanted to tell us and the only way to perfectly reveal himself to us was to send His Son in human flesh so that when we had seen him we would have seen the Father (John 14:7-9).   

If we were to add up all the various revelations throughout the Old Testament this morning they would not add up to all that God wanted to say.  Until Christ came there was much more He wanted to tell us.  But when Christ came, what He spoke in Him was God's complete word.  In Him all the promises of God are:  Yes and Amen! (cf. 11:39-40)  The story of God's revelation is a story leading up to Christ and once we have arrived at Christ there is no more story to tell.

Therefore, upon you this morning the preacher says the end of the days have come.  You now live in the last days, which began at Christ's cross and will last until we all see Jesus' final victory displayed for the whole universe to see.  In those previous days God has spoken through His prophets but now in these last days God has spoken to you through His Son.

Now, the preacher lays before you the 7-fold character of this supreme revelation of God to you through His Son:

1.  God appointed Him as "heir of all things."  This is an allusion to Ps. 2:8 where the royal Son of God is assured that in response to his petition to the Sovereign Lord of Heaven and Earth he will be given all the nation's as his inheritance.  God has given His Son everything -- the whole cosmos including this world and the world to come (cf. 2:5) as His inheritance for the work he has completed.  Also, in 2:5-9 we see that under the feet of the second Adam God's subjection of all things. 

Now that we have arrived at the conclusion of the history of redemption, this giving of the nations as an inheritance reminds us of the very beginning of this history when God came to another son, Abraham, where God also gives him a new name (cf. Heb. 1:4) and solemnly promises, "I have appointed you the father of many nations" (cf. Gen. 17:5).

Here we have the beginning and end of redemptive history that has now reached its climax in God's Son (cf. Heb. 11:9-10, 14-16).  He is the heir as the Son made flesh so that He might restore to you what was lost in Adam and grant to you what was promised to Abraham.

2.  Through Him God made the worlds.  Literally the preacher says that through Him God made all the ages (plural), referring to all that is contained in space and time.  God brought the whole universe into being through His Son:

John 1:1-3  In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  2 He was in the beginning with God.  3 All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.

And in Colossians, Paul wrote:

Colossians 1:15-16  He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.  16 For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities-- all things have been created through Him and for Him.

Think of what God has done here!  The very one through whom all things were created is now declared the sole heir of all that He has made.  The One who is the heir of the world is the very One who made it. 

When God made the world, He spoke -- and the very Word that He spoke was His Son, the eternal Wisdom of God.  In Proverbs 8:22-31 we see the personification of God's eternal Wisdom who brings all things into being.  The Son of God is God's Word, His Wisdom in human flesh.

3.  He is the radiance of God's glory.  As God's eternal Wisdom, the Son is the radiant light shining forth as God's supreme revelation.  Again in John:

John 1:4, 9  In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men.  9 There was the true Light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man. 

Unlike man and all of creation who merely reflects the glory of God, the very glory that radiates from God's being is His Son that gives light to all men.  This is what the creed means when it says that Jesus is the Light of Light.

As Calvin says, "For as the essence of God, so immense is the brightness that it dazzles our eyes, except it shines on us in Christ.  It hence follows, that we are blind as to the light of God, until in Christ it beams on us" (Hebrews Commentary, p. 36).

4.  He is the very image of the substance of God.  He is very God of very God.  In Jesus Christ there is a perfect visible revelation of the God's true nature.  On a coin you see the image of the die perfectly imaged on the face of the coin.  So the Son bears the very stamp of God's nature so that when you see the Son you have seen God.  What God essentially is, is made manifest in Christ.

5.  He upholds all things by the word of His power.  God is the sole reason why the whole universe holds together.  And He sustains all things through His powerful Word.  The very Word He spoke everything into being.  And it is that same Word that he effortlessly holds the entire world together and sustains it unto its appointed end.  Paul says:

Colossians 1:17  He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.

The Son upholds all things not by straining under its weight as Atlas upholds the whole world upon his shoulders, but simply and efficiently by His mighty Word. 

In each of these ways we see how Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, proves to be God's definitive prophet from Heaven.

6.  He has made the purification of sins.  But He is equally the definitive Priest, which the preacher will have a lot to speak about throughout the sermon.  God cannot allow any sin into His presence and remain holy.  Therefore, sin must be purged, it must be cleansed that you might be welcomed into God's presence.  But how can sin be made clean through the blood of bulls and goats?  It can't.  That's why it had to be done over and over again.  But in Jesus Christ we have the complete cleansing of sin.  Through Christ's death your sin has been cleansed once and for all.   

7.  He sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high.  And having completed that work of purgation once and for all Jesus has sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high as your perfect, and definitive King.  Here again the preacher alludes to Ps. 110:1, where the King of David is enthroned above all principalities in heaven and on earth. 

On earth we see human kings enthroned all the time, but who can be enthroned at God's right hand?  There is no higher position on earth or in heaven.  This enthronement is due to the completion of the Son's sacrificial work through whom God has completed all that Adam and Israel was commanded to do.  The Son has eternally ruled over heaven and earth but now through His faithful obedience on earth the Son of God wrapped in your human flesh has been exalted to the highest position of all and there he sits for you as King of kings and Lord of lords (cf. Phil. 2:9-11; 1 Tim. 3:16; Rom. 5:6-14).

Conclusion

Now you can see why this introduction is so important to begin to comfort these early believers who are struggling under the weight of their heavy trials through a very serious crisis of faith.  Since Jesus is the one who perfectly and completely reveals God to us -- more perfect than the prophets of old and the glorious angels from above.  Since it is He who owns the whole universe -- the very one who made the whole cosmos and upholds everything by the Word of His power.  Since He is the very radiant light shining forth from God and the very essence of God Himself.  Since He has purged all your sins away and now sits at the right hand of God as your majesty on high -- He is able to sustain you through whatever comes your way.

Jesus is your true and consummate Prophet, Priest, and King to whom alone you must look for salvation.  When God has spoken in Jesus, He has given you His perfect Word.  There is no other!  You can trust Him, that when you rest your faith on Jesus Christ alone, you will never be disappointed, either in this life or in the life to come!

Amen!

-SDG-