The major theme of the letter to the Hebrews is reality. What Christ has opened up for us all is the way into the real world - the world of ultimate reality where you can be sure of everything - the realm of experience where life is totally fulfilling, beyond any risk of disillusionment, and absolutely indestructible.
Its author rings the changes on phrases which tell you this: "an anchor for the soul", "the true tabernacle", "the promised eternal inheritance", "the heavenly things", "the world to come", "an eternal redemption", "eternal salvation" - and all these are summed up in a favourite expression: "better things". He is always drawing a contrast between shadow and reality.
A broad outline of the whole epistle is supplied in ch. 3:1: "Jesus the apostle and high priest of our confession":
1. His Apostleship
1: 1 - 4:13
His service to God
2. His Priesthood
4:14 - 10:39
His service to man
3. Our confession
11 - 13
faith, hope, love
Turn now to the opening few verses.
v. 1: "In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times ..."
The truth was spelled out in
instalments:
Amos - social justice
Isaiah - the holiness of God and His redemptive purpose
Hosea - God's costly, forgiving love
Jonah - God's missionary concern
Ezekiel - our personal moral responsibility ... and so on.
... "and in various ways ..."
to Joseph & Daniel - in dreams.
to Moses - face to face, as a man with his friend.
to the Prophets - in the language of inner conviction as they
pondered history in the light of the Law as given to Moses.
to the Psalmists through heightened awareness experienced in the
worship of the sanctuary.
It was rich, all of it - but it lacked a unifying factor, something to pull all those scattered threads together. Christ is that unifying factor; in Him all those threads are pulled together and woven into a single skein of living truth.
The revelation of the Old Testament is a progressive revelation - not in the sense that it goes from misunderstanding to right understanding, nor from unworthy statements to worthy statements, nor from immaturity to maturity - but in the sense that it progressed from incompleteness to completeness, from fragmentation to wholeness, from promise to fulfilment. This is one of the excitements that motivated the writer - he expresses it as progress from the shadow to the true.
There is therefore a wholeness to
Scripture.
The Old Testament is not rightly understood apart from the New
Testament.
The New Testament is not rightly understood apart from the Old
Testament.
Aim to be acquainted with the whole Bible ... "study to show yourself approved unto God, rightly dividing the Word of Truth." II Tim. 2:15
v. 2 "... but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son."
The emphasis on this is heavy.
Because He is a Son, He, better than any servant, can interpret His Father's mind, and bear His Father's authority - He has "dwelt in His Father's bosom." John 1:18
No-one in the world can bring God alive to you as Jesus can.
He is God fully expressing Himself in a human life. He is God's self-translation from the language of eternity into the speech of time.
The prophets fell short due to their own personal limitations - none of them was complete enough in his person to reflect the full orb of truth. They were like the stone balls on Claire Bridge at Cambridge University. As you cross the bridge they all appear to be complete and in place, but when you look at the other side of each one where they face the water, there are quarters missing!
But Christ is "filled with all the fulness of God." Col. 2:9
There follow Seven Assertions about Christ, convictions which underlie the thesis of this letter:
The whole estate is destined to be His - administered by Him.
That means that nothing in this world will ever work out save as it is made to serve Christ's interest in it. Anything in your life or mine that is not drawn into harmony with His interest in it will be a dead end. Nothing in the world, save as it is drawn into line with His purpose for it, can hope to survive.
The whole estate is destined to be His - administered in its every detail by Him.
Every ambition outside it is doomed to failure - is waste.
This is a simply enormous thought.
How much of your life now is already misdirected? How much of your past endeavour is already waste? How much striving in this world is mere wind? Nothing in the end will survive that is not as He would have it. He is the heir.
This is underlined in the phrases following:
The whole created universe of space and time bears Christ's impress on it. The clue to its meaning, and the meaning of all its parts, is to be found in Him.
I once watched a TV science program which reviewed the latest theories of the astronomers and cosmologists. It ended with a comment by one of them - expressed almost as a wistful hope - that perhaps they were on the brink of discovering the unifying principle that holds together all the forces that shape the universe: gravity, the electromagnetic force, and what they call the "weak nuclear force" and "the strong nuclear force" ... and I muttered, "Try the living Christ for size." Doesn't it stand to reason that what turns out to hold together the whole fabric of things must be - since human life and personality is part of it - not some impersonal force, but a living, personal dynamic?
Nothing in the world can ever make sense until we understand it in relation to Christ - not the sciences, not the arts, not the humanities, not philosophy, not religion, not industry, not commerce, not labour, not leisure ... not anything. Unless you know Christ, you will spend your life blundering about in a twilight of ignorance and confusion, understanding neither the world, nor yourself, nor your reason for being here. It is His creation.
The "effulgence" of His glory - the radiance streaming forth from its blazing source.
Christ is to God what the sun's light is to
the sun:
... there is nothing in that light that has its origin anywhere but
in the sun, and the whole sun pours itself totally into the radiance
that shines from it;
... the whole being of God is poured into Christ, His Son, and there
is nothing in Christ that comes anywhere but from God.
Where is it you are looking for God? What a huge folly to be looking for Him anywhere but in Christ!
I frequently hear that I am to seek God in my neighbour ... or in my inner self. What nonsense! Why look for the sun in a broken bit of glass because it glistens, when all you have to do is lift your eyes? I shudder to think what understanding of God you would get if you chose me for the "neighbour to seek Him in" - and started really looking! God is to be found in Christ - look for Him there!
The phrase means the stamp cut by a die.
When you use a true mould, what you have is an exact replica; the phrase means that Christ is exactly what God is - down to His finger nails and hair, so to speak. "He who has seen me has seen the Father." John 14:9
The contrast here is with the prophets, whose exposition of truth was only partial. Jesus is not fragmentary and incomplete, as the prophets and their message were. The very substance of God's being is the whole substance of Christ's. All that God is, is wholly present in Christ.
Ponder that!
You know how Christ comes to you: that is
how God comes to you.
You know how Christ gives Himself to you: all that God is is so given
to you.
The abundance of personal resources pressed upon us is simply staggering. We are rich beyond our wildest dreams. "He does not give the Spirit by measure." John 3:34
Wake up and live! ... your funds are inexhaustible!
Just as the world was fashioned by Christ's agency, so it is sustained in being by His agency. Except God through Christ continually 'intended' the whole space-time continuum, it would collapse back into the formless void out of which He summoned it - and us with it!
You continue to be you, only because Christ wills you to continue to have being. Even when men disbelieve in God or defy Him, "God's power remains the very ground they stand on in their opposition to Him," (John Owen). His the power that nerves the arm that strikes Him.
Why does God continue to give men life and
being that they might do this?
To give them time and room to repent.
But if they will not repent, it becomes true - tragically, terribly true - that He has held them in being ... for judgment; and the Bible does not shrink from stating that truth in stark terms:
"What if God, desiring to show His wrath and make known His power, has endured with much forbearance the vessels of wrath made for destruction?" Rom. 9:22
It was never God's intention in giving them life and being that they should be destined for destruction; that is their own fault. God holds men in being that they might have the chance of life. That is why we are alive today, and did not die in our beds last night.
For what God desires is revealed by the next assertion ...
He has provided the means whereby all that separates us from God can be removed. Jesus has done it. He who made us has redeemed us. Our Creator is also become our Saviour.
His qualifications for doing it we have already noted, namely:
a. His relation to God.
b. His relation to us and the whole creation.
No other could have done it. Jesus is the only Saviour.
And even He could have done it, only if it belongs in the very nature of God to have it so.
Your redemption, your salvation, your preservation to the life of the ages rests absolutely, entirely, and altogether upon God and His desire for you.
That means that He rules from the very throne of God.
He is reigning now over all the earth. His reign is not unchallenged - but He reigns ... and His reign must continue until "He has put all His enemies under His feet." (I Cor. 15:25). The history of this world is the history of the defeat and the destruction of all that does not acknowledge Him, and the history of the establishing and perfecting of all that does.
Therefore I beseech you, acknowledge Him ... confess Him.
Note finally: No priest in Aaron's line ever sat down in the course of his duties. There was not even a seat provided where he could. Their work was never done. Our author draws attention to this specifically in ch. 10:11 and 12:
v. 11 "Every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices which can never take away sins ..."
v. 12 "When Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, He sat down ..."
Christ's work is done ("It is finished") and He sits.
His heavenly session is God's entire confirmation of the total worth and efficacy of all He did for us men and our salvation.
"He is able to save to the uttermost all who come to God by Him." Heb. 7:25
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