The Ultimate Revelation of God

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I once heard John MacArthur introduce a series of sermons on the book of Hebrews, and he told his church that when they finished that book in a few years, they would be extremely familiar with it. That phrase, a few years, really jumped out at me, because each of you knows all too well that I could talk about the book of Hebrews or anything else, really, for a few years. But I’m pretty certain that I’m no John MacArthur, so I’m going to go in a different direction with our study of the book of Hebrews.

We are going to study through the book of Hebrews starting today, but we’re not going to take years to go through every single verse. Instead, we’re going to look at one of the major themes that we see in this book, which is the absolute unmatched, unmatchable, undeniable supremacy of Jesus Christ in the new covenant that God has given us, in the new covenant that God has made with man. In the coming weeks, as we follow this theme through the book of Hebrews, I’m going to highlight for you several of the passages that are most crucial to our understanding of who Jesus is and what he’s done for us and what he’s doing even today to give us continued access to the Father.

But there’s so much richness and so much depth to the book of Hebrews that even as we narrow our focus to just this one theme of the book, there’s still a mountain of truth for us to sift through. And so as I studied this first passage for this morning’s message, There was so much to say that I had to decide whether I was going to keep you all afternoon or split it into two messages and finish up later on. Well, I could keep you in suspense, but I’m not going to.

I’m going to split it in half, and I’ll give you half today and half in two weeks. So despite all that we can learn from the book of Hebrews, there are a few things about the book of Hebrews that we don’t actually know. We don’t know for sure who actually took out his quill and his parchment and wrote it down.

But by some of the statements that are made in the book of Hebrews, we know that it was either one of the apostles or one of their close associates. The most likely candidates seem to be Paul, Luke, Apollos, or Barnabas. I lean toward Barnabas personally, but I don’t know.

Neither does anybody else for sure. Regardless of who the writer is, though, whoever it may have been, they came from a Jewish background, and they quoted extensively from the Old Testament. We know by what’s written in the book that he probably wrote during the 60s AD, during the last decade that the Second Temple was standing in Jerusalem before the Romans destroyed it in 70 AD.

And during this time, the reason that’s important is because during this time, the gravitational pull of Judaism was really strong on those who had left Judaism in order to follow Jesus. Now, for some of these people, for some of these people, the majesty of the Jewish temple and its rituals was always going to be far more appealing and far more stirring than the simple unadorned worship that took place in some Christian’s home. For some of these people, working to fulfill the demands of the law was always going to be more satisfying to their pride than the idea of seeking undeserved grace through faith alone.

That’s why the writer of Hebrews warned in Hebrews 10. 38, he said, Now the just shall live by faith, but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. He was concerned about people drawing back.

So the concern throughout the book of Hebrews is that for one reason or another, believers were going to turn their backs on Jesus and his new covenant and that they were going to draw back to the old covenant. And throughout the book, those that were tempted to draw back are confronted with the supremacy of Jesus Christ and the superiority of the new covenant that he ushered in. And from its very first sentence, as we’ll see in a moment, this book emphasizes the excellency of Jesus Christ far beyond everything else that they were tempted to put their faith in.

So if you haven’t already, turn with me to Hebrews chapter 1, starting in verse 1. It says, the angels, as he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they. For unto which of the angels said he at any time, Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee.

And again, I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. And again, verse 6, when he bringeth in the first begotten into the world, he saith, and let all the angels of God worship him. And of the angels he saith, who maketh his angels spirits and his ministers a flame of fire.

But unto the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever. A scepter of righteousness is the scepter of the kingdom. Thou hast loved righteousness and hated iniquity.

Therefore God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows. And thou, Lord, in the beginning, hast laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of thine hands. They shall perish, but thou remainest. They all shall wax old as doth a garment, and as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed, but thou art the same, and thy years shall fail not.

But to which of the angels said he at any time, sit on my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool? Are they not all ministering spirits sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation? Now as we read this, keep in mind that it was being addressed to a group of people who had believed in Jesus, but nevertheless were still attracted to their old religion, to their old way of life, and to the things that up until now had always made sense to them.

They could not let go of the awe-inspiring majesty of the temple. They could not let go of the authority of their traditions. They could not let go of the comfort of having a priest to stand in between them and God and plead their case before him.

They could not let go of the law and the idea that righteousness came from their own good works. They could not let go of the image of their blood sacrifices and the feeling that by bringing their animals as an offering, that they had really done something to make peace between themselves and God. They could not let go of those things.

And it was a system that made sense to them. It was a system that they had participated in for a long time. It was a system, too, that we see here that threatened to draw them back in.

And, folks, that is the pull of Christless religion on our human nature. That’s what pulls us back. We want to feel like we have done something.

We want to feel like we’ve contributed in some way to our own salvation. We want something tangible. We want something that we can hold on to.

We want something that assures us, something we can feel that assures us that we have a connection to God. We want to believe that we can understand God on our own. We want to believe that we can approach God on our own.

And they’re just falling into human nature. They were still longing for all the trappings of the old covenant. They were looking back at the way they’d always done things and holding on to that instead of putting their faith completely in Jesus.

But the trappings of the old covenant that they longed for in their hearts, folks, these things were never able to reconcile them to God in any lasting way, nor were they meant to. These things were merely signposts. All these things that they were looking back at were merely signposts pointing them to Jesus Christ. They were pointing to the one who would bring them a new and an everlasting covenant.

That’s what the Apostle Paul meant when he wrote in Galatians 5, 24 and 25, Wherefore, the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ that we might be justified by faith. But after that faith has come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster. This man, Paul, who had put so much of his life into obeying the law, said that the whole purpose of the law was to show us our need for Christ. And the writer of Hebrews later drove this point home when he wrote in Hebrews 8, 6 through 7, But now hath he, meaning Jesus, obtained a more excellent ministry by how much also he is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises.

For if that first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second. So Jesus completed the demands of the old covenant when he ushered in the new covenant. The new covenant, Hebrews says, is superior to the old.

Otherwise, the writer says Jesus wouldn’t have needed to bring in the new covenant. And yet these people, these early Christians, some of them were tempted to re-embrace the old covenant anyway. They were tempted to go back.

So the writer of Hebrews begins his case here by addressing their knowledge of God under the old covenant. The very way that they knew God. Verse 1 says, God who at sundry times and in diverse manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets.

So he said that God had a history of making himself known to Israel at various times and in various ways. But his most common means of making himself known to the people of Israel had been through the prophets. When God had a message for the nation, he had spoken to a prophet.

That prophet then had relayed God’s message to the people. And through this system, the people knew about God. They knew about God.

But God had more to reveal, and in the new covenant, in the new covenant, we would not have to settle for only knowing about God, because Jesus Christ made it possible to know God. There’s a difference between knowing about God and knowing God. So verse 2 says that God 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.

Now, the same God who used to reveal himself to the people through the prophets had gone one step further, and he had revealed a more complete picture of himself by his son, Jesus Christ. And as a word of caution, as a word of caution here, when he talks about the prophets, the writer of Hebrews is not attacking the prophets. He’s not attacking the Old Testament at all in any way. He’s not saying it was not worthwhile.

He wasn’t saying that it had no value or that it should be ignored. he quoted extensively from the Old Testament in what he wrote here. He was merely pointing out that Jesus was the complete, Jesus was the revelation of God that completed the work begun by the prophets.

There’s a huge difference between knowing someone because you’ve read about them and knowing someone because you’ve met them in the flesh. It’s a huge difference. In the Old Covenant, they had known about God because they had read his words given to the prophets.

But in the new covenant, we can know God because he has revealed himself in the flesh. So rather than attacking the prophets here, the writer of Hebrews is making the case that they’re only part of the picture, still part of the picture, but only a part. So if our understanding of God does not take Jesus Christ into consideration, hear me on this, if our understanding of God does not take Jesus Christ into consideration, then we misunderstand who God really is.

Verse 2 then says that God has appointed Jesus heir of all things. And there are some groups that want to twist this into the idea of Jesus being an heir, meaning that he’s less than God. But that is the exact opposite of what this means, as we’ll see in the next verse.

The writer wasn’t indicating that Jesus ever lacked any attribute of God, that he ever lacked some attribute of God until he inherited it. This is a description of Jesus’ nature. Not talking about what he received, but who he is.

When my parents made their wills just recently, they named my sister and me as their heirs. Why? Why did they do that?

Because we’re their children. So what does it mean that Jesus is the father’s heir? The father’s telling us that Jesus is his son.

That they’re of the same nature. And that everything that belongs to the father belongs to Jesus Christ. That’s a far cry from saying that he’s anything less than God. It says the opposite.

Verse 2 also says that God created everything by Jesus Christ. That’s not saying that Jesus Christ was merely a tool in the hands of the Father. Instead, Jesus, as God the Son, was involved in all the work of creation. He played a unique role in creation.

He participated in everything that the Father did. And nothing was made without his involvement. So to these people, as their faith in Jesus was wavering, these first two verses reminded them that Jesus is not just some religious teacher.

Jesus is, in fact, the Son of God, the creator of the universe, and he is the very purpose for the old covenant. And as he came to bring in a new covenant, he revealed a clearer picture of who God is. And the writer of Hebrews went on to describe the relationship between the Father and the Son and how the Son’s presence reveals this more complete picture of the Father.

Verse 3 describes Jesus as being the brightness of his glory, being the brightness of the Father’s glory. He called Jesus the brightness of God’s glory. You and I can’t even imagine what the glory of God is like.

We can’t even imagine the glory of God. But the glory of God in all its brightness, all the glory of God dwelt in Jesus Christ. Now the Greek word translated as brightness is a flood of light. It’s a flood of light.

In Jesus, folks, we don’t merely see a glimmer of the glory of God. We see an overwhelming flood of the glory of God in Jesus Christ. Because as Paul said in Colossians 2. 9, in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.

So the readers were meant to understand that if they wanted to know God in all of his glory, they needed to look no further than Jesus Christ. And that’s true for us as well today. And just like Paul called Jesus the image of the invisible God in Colossians 1. 15, verse 3 calls Jesus the express image of his person.

Jesus, in other words, is in every sense the image of God. The word that he uses here is karakter in the Greek. Sounds like character.

And what that means is that Jesus is an exact replica of his father. When the Greeks would use this word, it meant an engraver would very carefully reproduce an image so that it would be indistinguishable from the original. So the writer of Hebrews went to great lengths to explain to the earliest Christians in every way he could think of that Jesus is just like his father. We would expect him to be something like his father.

Something like his father. Most children are. Each of my children, just be careful claiming this, each of my children are like me in some way.

My oldest thinks he’s always right, like I do. My daughter has a really warped sense of humor, like I do. You might not see that if you just see me in the pulpit.

But she has a really warped sense of humor, like I do. And my youngest son has a lot of trouble going to sleep at night because there’s so much more interesting stuff to do. And that’s just like I do.

So they’re like me. And those aren’t the only ways. But each of my children is something like me.

But each of my children is different from me as well. You all see how we have to discipline them every week after church for running in the auditorium and running in the halls every week after church. I don’t know where they get that from.

That’s not me. If you see me running, if you see me running, you probably should run too. Because there’s probably a bear coming and that’s about the only time I’ll run.

Or snake or whatever you want it to be. If there’s something coming, you run too. That’s just one example of the many differences.

So we expect that children are going to be something like their fathers. but we don’t expect them to be exactly like their fathers. The writer here didn’t stop at saying Jesus is kind of like his father.

No, he said they are just alike. Jesus said so too. He told Philip in John 14, 9, he that hath seen me hath seen the father.

Not that they’re the same person, but they are just alike. And because he and the father are just alike, Jesus’ power over the universe is sovereign. There is nothing in creation over which Jesus is not Lord.

Nothing. Verse 3 says that Jesus upholds all things by the word of his power. Just as he created the universe with his word, he holds it together.

He rules over it. And one day he will stand in righteous judgment of it. And then verse 3 again says that he by himself purged our sins.

Folks, he alone fulfilled the Father’s plans and promises by providing himself as a sacrifice, a once-for-all sacrifice, in order to forgive our sins. He declared, as only God can, that the believer’s sins are forgiven, and that he chooses to remember them no more. And after that, verse 3 says, he sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high.

And that tells us that Jesus not only returned to heaven, but that he returned to a place of honor, place of highest honor, at the right hand of the Father, a position for which he alone is worthy. And then verse 4 says, being made so much better than the angels, as he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they, Jesus was never less excellent than the angels. The writer was saying that Jesus returned to a place of honor that is higher than any angel could ever dream, And that that place of honor belongs to him simply because he is God’s son.

Again, that term inheritance, it doesn’t mean he’s lacking something. It’s describing his nature as the only begotten son of the father, telling us that he is by nature the son of God, that he is by nature the one who possesses every attribute that the father possesses, that he by nature possesses a more excellent name and is worthy of more honor and glory than all the angels of heaven combined, just because of who he is. Now, we don’t have the time for an in-depth look at all 14 verses this morning, but we’ll see in two weeks how Hebrews goes further in this passage in declaring, in comparing Jesus superior to the angels and showing how he’s superior in every way.

But the angels came into the discussion in the first place because first century Jewish people, with the exception of the Sadducees who didn’t believe in them, tended to revere the angels. So except the Sadducees, first century Jews tended to revere the angels. They didn’t worship them.

They didn’t worship them, but they had a certain reverence for the angels because those angels had access to God. and because those angels were often used as divine messengers. But to those believers who were at risk of drawing back, these first four verses were written to question their reasoning, were written to ask them why.

They were tempted to draw back to the old covenant and to try to understand God by old covenant means. And Hebrews reminded them that everything changed with the covenant, with the new covenant that Jesus brought. Why then, why then, would they have wanted to go back to peering at God through the shadows when Jesus had brought to light a fuller and more complete understanding of God, a clearer picture of who he is.

These verses tell us that Jesus is the ultimate revelation of who God is. So if you want to know God, if you want to know the Father, look at Jesus Christ. Look at Jesus Christ. In their old covenant way of thinking, they revered the angels because of their access to God, but there was no one who was closer to the Father than Jesus Christ. They revered the angels because they carried revelations from God. But Jesus Christ is the revelation of God.

His very existence reveals a clearer picture of God and his nature and plans than mankind had ever experienced in the previous 4,000 years. And they revered the prophets because they too brought messages from God. But Jesus was the one that those messages were about.

So by this comparison, we see the incredible foolishness of clinging to their old covenant when Jesus in the new covenant had revealed God before their very eyes. Jesus is the ultimate revelation of who God is. He surpasses the message of the prophets.

he surpasses the messages of the angels. He is the ultimate revelation of who God is. If you want to know the Father, it’s true for us today, just as it was for them 2,000 years ago.

If you want to know the Father, you have to know the Son. And there are still people who want to know or understand God on their own terms. This still happens today. To say that Jesus Christ is the only way to God sounds narrow-minded or even hateful to some people.

But if Jesus Christ is the ultimate revelation of God, as Hebrews chapter 1 shows that he is, then any attempt to understand the nature and the character of God, apart from Jesus Christ, will inevitably come up short and end in failure. We cannot understand God apart from Jesus Christ. If you want to know God, it makes no sense to reject what he’s revealed about himself. It makes no sense.

It makes no sense not to use every bit of information available to us if you want to understand God. Based on what we read in Hebrews chapter 1. Trying to understand God without Jesus Christ makes as much sense as trying to drive your car while you’re wearing one of those little sets of goggles that they give you for the tanning booth.

Trying to look through those holes. Those tiny little holes. Sure, you can see some things, but you miss the big picture and the results are going to end up pretty messy.

right? Without Jesus, our understanding of God will always be incomplete. Jesus, again, is the ultimate revelation of who God is.

He shows us what God is like. He shows us what God does. He shows us how all the divine perfections of his attributes work together in perfect harmony.

If you’re a believer already, if you’re someone who’s trusted in Christ for your salvation, and this passage is a reminder to you, just like to those early Christians, not to draw back from Jesus and start trying to build a relationship with God on your own terms. There’s a new covenant, and the road to the Father goes through Jesus Christ. If you want, fellow Christian, if you want to know more about your Heavenly Father, the Son shows us who He is. If you want a closer fellowship with your Heavenly Father, the Son, is the one who made that possible. If you want to honor your Heavenly Father, the Son taught you how.

If our understanding of God and His will does not reflect Jesus and what He taught, we are at best worshiping an incomplete picture of God, and at worst we’re worshiping an idol of our own making. Don’t draw back to a God who fits your ideas. So dangerous.

Keep looking to Jesus and of the God he revealed. Jesus is the ultimate revelation of God. Maybe this morning you’ve never considered who Jesus is or the role that he plays in God’s plans.

Maybe you’ve never considered that he’s God’s son, that he’s God in human flesh, who came to make the Father known to you and to reconcile you to God by dying for your sins. Maybe you’re trusting this morning in your own understanding of God and how he operates. Maybe this morning you’re looking for God somewhere else other than through Jesus.

A lot of people believe very sincerely that they can come to God without looking to Jesus. They think that God will just overlook the wrong that they’ve done if the good outweighs the bad. But Jesus said, Jesus said, except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.

Even the with all their rules and their rituals, even they weren’t good enough. If you’re thinking this morning that your goodness will be good enough for God, it just isn’t true. Jesus said it isn’t.

And so I would challenge you this morning, instead of trusting in your own standards and thinking that you’ll be good enough, to look at where Jesus said God’s standard was. One of the things that Jesus revealed about God is his perfection. He said, be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.

Perfect. God is perfect. And God’s standard is perfection.

But you know that none of us is perfect. We’ve all disobeyed God, and the Bible calls that disobedience sin. That sin separates us from God because he is perfection.

And it keeps us from experiencing a relationship with him. And because of our sin, because of our disobedience, because of our outright rebellion against him, God could have easily abandoned us to an eternity in hell. But here again, Jesus reveals something about who God is.

Jesus reveals his incredible love. God could have left us to our fate, but his plan instead was that Jesus would come to earth, that Jesus would live a sinless life so that he would count as a perfect sacrifice. and that he would take responsibility for our sins and be punished in our place.

God’s love and undeserved kindness for you was on full display when Jesus was nailed to that cross when he shed his blood to pay for your sins in full and then he died. Then again revealing the power of God over death Jesus rose again on the third day. He proved there that he was the son of God and he proved that he was able to forgive sin.

now not because of any good that you can do but because of what jesus has done on the cross god offers you this morning he offers to forgive your sins he offers to receive you as his child and he offers to give you eternal life with him in heaven all you folks you can take hold of this salvation this morning that god offers if you’ll simply admit your sin if you’ll simply admit your and your inability to save yourself. Stop trusting in your ability to come to God on your own terms and instead come to God through Jesus Christ. Trust that He was punished in your place. Trust that He paid for your sins in full and then ask God to forgive you because of what Jesus Christ did.

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