Message Info:
- Text: Hebrews 1:1-14, KJV
- Series: Christ in the New Covenant (2018), No. 2
- Date: Sunday morning, April 29, 2018
- Venue: Trinity Baptist Church — Seminole, Oklahoma
- Audio File: Open/Download
Listen Online:
Watch Online:
Video Unavailable
Transcript:
⟦Transcript⟧ Two weeks ago, we began our series on the book of Hebrews by looking at chapter 1 and focusing in on the first four verses. And these four short verses are incredible for how much they tell us about who Jesus is. They paint a picture of Jesus as the ultimate revelation of God’s nature, which he is.
They tell us how he embodies and fulfills thousands of years of Old Testament prophecy. They call him the image and the glory of the Father. They describe him as the sovereign creator and sustainer and Lord of the universe.
They teach that he single-handedly purged the sin of man. And they identify him as the son and heir of the Father. Now, not an error in the sense that he lacks something he would later inherit, but an error in the sense that he’s the only begotten son of the Father, and that he’s the possessor of every attribute that belongs to the Father.
As I said last time, we don’t know with any certainty who the writer of Hebrews was. We only know that he was an apostle or one of their close associates. Our writer, whoever he was, was addressing a group of people who had trusted in Jesus Christ, but were nevertheless tempted to draw back to the old covenant of works.
And the words he wrote here were to remind them of precisely who Jesus Christ is. If they wanted to know the Father, they needed to look no further than Jesus Christ. If they wanted access to the Father, they had to approach him through the Son. Jesus is just like his father, so he revealed a flawless picture to us of who the father is, and the new covenant that he brought unfolded as a perfect plan for reconciling man to the father.
And these four verses that we looked at last week, they present Jesus as the ultimate revelation of God. Now, if he is the ultimate revelation of God, we would be foolish to settle for anything less, right? Imagine that you went to a steakhouse, if you like steak, you went to a steakhouse and you ordered the finest cut of meat off the menu, you ordered it cooked just exactly the way you wanted it with all the right trimmings, and then imagine that they brought you a tin of Vienna sausages instead.
I used to like those, not so much anymore. You might like them, but they’re not steak, are they? I doubt that very many of us would settle for that and say, oh, the Vienna sausages, that’s just as good.
That’s good enough. No, that’s not going to happen. So when we have the Son of God willing to bear our punishment, willing to stand in our place, to plead our cause before the Father, and willing to reconcile us to Him, why would we settle for anyone or anything less and say that their efforts are good enough?
Now the writer of Hebrews made the point abundantly clear in the next ten verses when he showed how even the angels pale in comparison to Jesus. Hebrews chapter 1, starting in verse 1, says, God who at sundry times and in diverse 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 being made so much better than 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, when he bringeth in the first begotten into the world, he saith, and let all the angels of God worship him. And of his 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 thy 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 has laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the works of thine hands. They shall perish, but thou remainest, and they shall all 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 not fail.
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, in case the original audience didn’t fully understand the point in those first four verses, the writer spent the next ten verses comparing Jesus to the angels just to drive the point home.
Now, the Sadducees considered themselves to be too elite and too educated to believe in the more supernatural elements of their religion. Other than them, the Jewish people believed in and they revered the angels. And as I told you last time, that doesn’t mean that they worshipped the angels.
They merely gave them the respect that they deserved as messengers of the Most High God. After all, the angels had regular access to the throne of God, and they had a history of bringing messages from God to the people. Throughout the Old Covenant, they were the ministers and messengers of God himself.
So they would have had this sort of natural reverence for the angels. They weren’t wrong in revering the angels, but the writer brings up this comparison with the angels to make a more significant point about Jesus Christ. And he expresses his surprise throughout this, that people who were so firm in their reverence for the angels could be so unsure in their faith in Christ. Of course, the angels were the messengers of God, but Jesus himself was the message. And yes, the angels were ministers of God who came to carry out the tasks that he assigned to them.
But Jesus humbled himself and took on the role of a servant, not just to carry out a job here and there, but to completely fulfill the redemptive plan that the Father had formulated before the foundation of the world. In other words, while the angels had a role in God’s plans, Jesus is the very heart of God’s plans. So let’s look at verse 5.
It says, 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. This verse quotes two verses from the Old Testament, Psalm 27 and 2 Samuel 7, 14, respectively.
Parts of these verses speak of the Messiah. And he was asking these wavering believers a couple of rhetorical questions. He asked which angel was called God’s begotten son.
And of course, the answer was God never called any angel that. And he asked them which angel has a father-son relationship with God. And again, none of them have any such relationship.
In asking these questions, he was reminding them that Jesus is the son of God and the angels are not. And then the comparison goes a step further. Verse 6 says, and again, when he bringeth in the first begotten into the world, he saith, and let all the angels of God worship him.
Now that verse tells us a few things about Jesus. Calling him the first begotten doesn’t imply that there are others begotten after him. Every believer, folks, every believer is an adopted son or daughter of God, but there is only one begotten son of God.
There are many sons by adoption, but there’s only one son by nature, Jesus Christ. Six verses in the New Testament refer to Jesus as the only begotten son, not just the first begotten, but the only begotten son. John 1. 14, John 1.
18. By the way, I realize I’m throwing a lot of verses at you today. If you don’t catch these, I can give you a list later.
John 1. 14, John 1. 18, John 3.
16, John 3. 18, Hebrews 11. 17, and 1 John 4.
9. These all say he’s the only begotten son because he is the only begotten son of God. The Greek word used here is prototokos, and it means firstborn.
And again, before we think this means that he was just the first and there were others that came after him, consider the context of what this whole passage is saying to us, and what it’s saying about Jesus. The whole chapter is intended to point out the unique place that Jesus occupies in this new covenant as the son and heir of God. It’s all about how unique Jesus is.
To twist that into saying that he’s just one of many is to misinterpret the chapter and make it say the opposite of what God intended. Being the firstborn in the ancient world meant holding a position of honor, obtaining a double share of the inheritance, and being the next in line to the throne. So by calling Jesus the firstborn of the Father, the writer of Hebrews was doing nothing more than using every phrase he had at his disposal to point out the unique nature and position of Jesus Christ. By saying the Father brought him into the world, it’s also not implying that the Father created Jesus or that Jesus was a created being or that he had a beginning.
This bringing into the world that it talks about describes how the Father introduced Jesus to the world at Bethlehem. And as this verse says at Bethlehem, the angels worshiped him. Now, not only does this verse reinforce what the previous verses have already taught us about Jesus being the son and heir of the father, but this verse also tells us that because of who he is, that because of who he is, Jesus is deserving of the angels worship.
You realize that? No angel was begotten by the Father, is called Son by the Father, or is worthy of anyone’s worship, but Jesus is all of those things. He’s begotten of the Father, he’s called Son by the Father, and he’s so worthy of worship that even the angels bow down before him.
Now look at verse 7. It says, and of the angels he saith, who maketh his angels spirits and his ministers a flame of fire. This verse is a direct quotation from Psalm 104.
4, where David described the angels as created spirits who served God. Now, they are incredibly powerful. That’s why he uses the imagery here of them being as forceful as fire.
But they are not eternal like Jesus because they were created and they had a beginning. They also don’t call the shots like Jesus because they exist to serve him and to minister on his behalf. We have to compare this with what verse 8 says, But unto the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever.
A scepter of righteousness is the scepter of thy kingdom. And this verse quotes Psalm 45, 6 about Jesus Christ. Remember last week I told you that, or two weeks ago I told you that he quotes the Old Testament extensively. Here you’re beginning to see how often he does it.
This verse quotes Psalm 45, 6 about Jesus Christ. So while these angels are created spirits, Jesus is the eternal God, God the Son, whose kingdom goes on without end. And while the angels serve, Jesus rules over them with a scepter of righteousness. The angels are here to serve, but Jesus rules and reigns.
Now the very next verse from Psalm 45 is quoted in verse 9. It says, Thou hast loved righteousness and hated iniquity, therefore God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows. Jesus, like his Father, is incomprehensibly holy.
And we can’t even understand it. Jesus loves righteousness and hates sin because it’s in his nature to do so. And because of this, the Father has anointed Jesus with the oil of gladness above all others.
And just like kings and high priests received anointing under the old covenant, the Father has anointed Jesus in the new covenant. And this anointing is just another way of showing us how the Father sees Jesus Christ, how he feels about his Son. Even though Jesus Christ was rejected and crucified by sinful men, he is wholly acceptable to the Father.
And that anointing shows it. He’s wholly acceptable in the Father’s eyes. And the Old Testament references continue with verse 10, which draws from Psalm 102.
25. It says here, Again, the writer of Hebrews was reminding his readers that if they were to draw back away from Jesus Christ and re-embrace the old covenant, they would be turning their backs on the creator of the universe. We see here yet again this chapter identifies Jesus as the creator.
not only of the earth itself but of all the heavens. He’s the creator. It says they are the work of his hands.
And if these early wavering Christians thought that there was anything too big for Jesus to handle and that they needed to go back to the old covenant in order to be secure, they were confronted here with the reality that there’s nothing beyond the scope of Jesus’ ability to handle. And we need to understand that today too. There’s nothing that Jesus cannot handle.
There’s no spiritual problem you have that Jesus cannot handle that is too big for the hands that created the universe. The hands that created the universe have the power to save anyone in it. So he was here before the universe existed, and he brought it into existence himself.
And likewise, he’ll bring it all to a conclusion, and he’ll be here long after the earth as we understand it, as we currently know it, has ceased to exist. Verse 11 says, they shall all perish, but thou remainest. Folks, all the planets and the stars that he made, all these celestial objects that we look at, and they seem so permanent from the standpoint of our brief human existence, all of these things, they will come to an end someday. And when they do, Jesus will still be there. He’ll still be there, unchanged, unchanging, and unchangeable.
And notice how the writer of Hebrews said it in verses 11 and 12. He wrote, and they shall all 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 not fail. Just as an article of clothing gets old, it wears out, it decays, goes out of style, someday the world that we live in is also going to reach its expiration date.
But at the end of the world, Jesus is no passive observer sitting back watching it happen. Verse 12 says that he will fold it all up like an old garment, but not to put it away, he will transform the world as we know it. Just as he created it.
Just as he created the heavens and the earth, he will someday create a new heaven and a new earth. But as significant as those events are going to be, the way the Bible refers to them here and the words the writer used, it tells us even more about Jesus than about these end time circumstances. Okay, whether we look at the grammar in the English or the original Greek, it’s going to show us the same thing.
Look at all the phrases in these two verses, 11 and 12, that refer to these events. Okay, they say, shall perish, talking about the events, shall perish, shall wax old, shalt thou fold them up, and shall be changed. Those all refer to these events.
Each of these refers to some specific but uncertain point in the future. when our current world is going to come to an end, and Jesus is going to transform it into something better. Everything that we know changes, except for Jesus Christ, who is, according to Hebrews 13, 8, the same today, yesterday, and forever.
Now look at the phrases in these two verses that speak about who Jesus is. They say, thou remainest, and thou art the same. Both of these statements are in the present tense, because regardless of what has changed, or will change, he is always Lord.
When it talks about these events, it’s always some future tense, a one-time event, something that will happen, but when it talks about who Jesus is, it’s always present tense in these verses, because in comparison to everything that changes, Jesus is steadfast, and Jesus is always Lord. The writer moved on to another rhetorical question in verse 13. It says, but to which of the angels said he at any time, sit on my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool.
These words came directly from Psalm 110. 1. And the answer to the question is, of course, none of them.
The Father never said that to an angel. On the other hand, Jesus does occupy a place of highest honor at the Father’s right hand. And one day, he will see his enemies subdued.
Then verse 14 says, are they not all ministering spirits sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation. This verse means that while Jesus rules from heaven, the angels do his bidding, and those angels minister to those of us who through him have become the heirs of the salvation he provided at the cross. They minister for him and they minister to us.
In writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the author of Hebrews drew comparison after comparison between Jesus Christ and the angels so that he could make it clear to his readers that Jesus far surpasses any other being, any created being. Some of the early Christians who came from a Jewish background were starting to have second thoughts about whether they should put their faith entirely in Jesus or draw back to this old covenant. And here he reminded them that if they could revere the angels, then they should be able to cling to the Son of God who created those angels.
The Son of God who gave them their marching orders and sent them to minister to God’s people in the first place. There was no need for them to look to the angels to connect them to the Father when the Son is a far greater advocate. Folks, it’s always a mistake.
It is always a mistake to put our faith in the creature rather than the creator. Romans chapter 1 paints a picture of what the world looks like when we do this. Go read Romans chapter 1 sometime.
It’s frightening. Bitterness, deceit, violence, sexual perversion, every other kind of wickedness, every kind of wickedness you can imagine. They have always run rampant at any time when we have, as verse 25 tells us, changed the truth of God into a lie and worshiped and served the creature more than the creator who is blessed forever.
The creature is no substitute for the creator. By the way, when I say creature, that doesn’t necessarily mean a critter. We have these skinks that run around our house, a lizard.
we have this family of lizards that live out on our front porch and we like to watch them they’re critters when we hear the word creature we think of something like that that scurries around or we think of some big monster that’s not the way the bible uses the word creature creature is simply anything that’s created you and I are creatures god is the creator the people described here in Romans chapter 1 did worship idols that were sculpted to look like birds, beasts, and creeping things, it says. The people that are addressed here in Hebrews chapter 1 were tempted to look to the angels to find their way to God. People today put their faith in themselves and in their own efforts.
It’s easy to talk about all those groups of people, all of them and what they do, but when we see how emphatic the Bible is about the supremacy of Jesus Christ, we shouldn’t just walk away thinking, well, yeah, those people need to trust Jesus. We would do well to look at this and to inspect the dark corners of our own hearts in light of what the book of Hebrews has told us about Jesus. So here’s my question to you.
Do you find yourself putting your faith in something other than Jesus Christ? At any time, do you find yourself putting your faith in something other than Jesus Christ? Are you trusting in someone other than Jesus to save you from your sins and take you to heaven this morning?
Are you trusting in yourself and your own effort, how good you can be? Are you trusting in who your parents or grandparents were and how they served him? Are you trusting in this church?
I hope not. Are you trusting in a particular preacher or teacher? Again, I hope not.
Are you trusting in something other than Jesus Christ for your salvation? If you are, I want you to consider the scripture that we’ve studied this morning and what it says about Jesus Christ. Knowing all that we’ve read, knowing all that we’ve read, that he’s the son and the heir of the father, that he’s the all-powerful creator, that he’s mightier than all the angels, and that he came to die for your sins. Knowing all of that, do you honestly believe that there’s anybody you should trust to save you other than Jesus Christ?
When these early Christians had second thoughts about Jesus and his new covenant, they questioned whether they should go back to the old covenant and try to work for their own salvation. But the Bible made it clear that there is no one but Jesus who can redeem us and reconcile us to the Father. If you want peace with the Father this morning, if you want salvation, forgiveness of sins, he’s the only one who can do it.
Maybe you’re a believer this morning, and you’ve already put your faith in Christ alone already for salvation. So you’re sitting there thinking, no, of course, I’m not trusting in anyone else for my salvation. And that’s part of being a Christian.
But folks, your Christian life only begins at salvation. We were made for fellowship with God. And so faith in Christ doesn’t end with salvation.
It doesn’t end with that moment when we’re saved. Sometimes after we’ve come to Christ for our salvation, we get hung up on our own works again, don’t we? Now, we should strive to be obedient to God, of course.
But we can start to think that if we just acted in a certain way, God might love us a little bit more. Or we can start to grow fearful that if we mess up just the right way, that we can cause him to love us less or stop loving us altogether. Sometimes we can even convince ourselves that God couldn’t possibly love us after all the times we’ve failed him.
Do you know why we feel that way? Because we start thinking that the relationship depends on us and our efforts. In other words, we stop trusting Jesus in the way we should and start trusting in ourselves for the relationship with God.
We trust in him for salvation, but when it comes to the relationship with God, oh, that’s all me. I have to reconcile myself. So let me ask you again.
Do you find yourself putting your faith in anything in someone else other than Jesus Christ this morning? If you find yourself in the same boat with the original readers of Hebrews, don’t despair. The scriptures we’ve looked at today show us the answer when they remind us that the creature is no substitute for the creator.
The remedy to our spiritual poverty, to our spiritual need, is Jesus Christ. But folks, you have to believe that he is who God’s word says he is. Don’t look to him as just a good example. or a great moral teacher, you’ve got to believe on him as the only begotten son of God who created the universe and who holds it together, who was foretold by the prophets for thousands of years, who lived a perfect sinless life so that he could be the ultimate sacrifice for our sins, who died on the cross to pay for your sins in full, who rose from the dead three days later, and who is now seated at the right hand of the Father where he makes intercession on your behalf every day, and who will one day judge the living and the dead.
Believe in that, Jesus. If you’ve already put your trust in him for salvation, here’s the challenge. Don’t forget who he is.
Don’t forget who saved you. He paid for your sin in full at the cross. He reconciled you to the Father that day, and he still holds you secure in your relationship to the Father to this very day.
And folks, there is nothing in your life that he cannot handle. It doesn’t mean that things will always work out the way we think they should, but there’s nothing in your life that he cannot handle and cannot use for your good and for his glory as he transforms you into the child of God that he created you to be in the first place. There’s nothing out of his control.
And if you haven’t put your trust in him for salvation yet, this Jesus who is spoken of in such awe-inspiring terms in the book of Hebrews stands today not only able but willing to save you, but you have to admit that you’ve disobeyed God, that you’ve sinned. Everything you’ve ever done wrong and every good thing you’ve ever failed to do has only confirmed that you’re a born sinner. Just like me, has only confirmed that you’re a born sinner and has only shown how far short you fall of God’s standard of absolute sinless perfection.
Our sin, all that disobedience, keeps us from living up to God’s standards, from ever being able to do so, and it separates us from Him for eternity. That’s why He sent Jesus Christ to earth. That’s why, folks, he is so offended by our rebellion against him, by our wickedness.
But he still loves us for some reason, and he knows we can never save ourselves from our sin. As a righteous judge, he has to impose a penalty, but rather than have you separated from him forever in hell, Jesus came to bear the penalty and to pay the price for your sins. And when he was nailed to the cross, he shed his blood and he died so that he could pay the price for your sins again in full.
And when Jesus rose again three days later, he proved himself to be everything he said he was, and he demonstrated his ability to do everything he claimed, including forgive sins. Today, he offers you salvation, but you have to stop trusting in the creature instead of the creator. Stop thinking you can be good enough.
Stop relying on your own efforts, church connection, family ties, and trust Jesus. Admit that you’re a sinner who’s in need of a Savior because you can’t save yourself. And believe that Jesus died to pay for your sins in full and rose again.
And when you’ve done that, ask God’s forgiveness. When you believe that, ask God’s forgiveness for your sins. And when we recognize the gravity of our sin and we turn to him in faith, he promises to forgive us, to receive us into his family, and to give us eternal life with him in heaven.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download