1. "If you want to know what the word G-O-D means, study Jesus. The Son shows us what the Father is like. He is the radiance of God's glory in the exact imprint of His nature. What is God like? Christ is the best answer to that question."

2. "As light streams out from the sun, so God's glory streams out to us through Christ."

3. "The Father has this glory, His nature, not from another. The Son, however, only and always has both His nature and His glory from the Father. It's the same glory, but for the Son it is always derived from the Father."

4. "You ever wonder what Jesus is doing now? Well, according to verse 3, He's upholding all things, the universe by the word of His power. He is holding forces strong and weak together, which keep our atoms in right order, our bodies carefully regulated, our world turning on its axis."

5. "Friend, there is no corner of the universe untouched by the power of Christ."

6. "God didn't just reveal Himself through Jesus as He had through the prophets. Jesus actually was and is the revelation of God. He Himself is the message. Christ Himself is called the Word of God, not simply the one who brings the Word."

7. "In Jesus we see more of God than in all of the Old Testament writings combined."

8. "Oh, but Mark, you don't know how big my sins are. Oh, my friend, you don't seem to understand who Jesus is, how great His righteousness is, how deep the Father's love is, how deep the love of the Son is."

9. "The voice that spells forgiveness will say, you may go. You have been let off the penalty which your sins deserve. But the verdict which means acceptance, justification will say, you may come. You are welcome to all My love and My presence."

10. "Christ is not merely an ethics professor. He is the crucified and resurrected Messiah. And only when you understand that as you should, do you then begin to understand and find yourself able to practice the ethics that he taught."

Observation Questions

1. According to Hebrews 1:1, how did God speak to the fathers in the past, and what characterized this communication?

2. In Hebrews 1:2, what two things does the text say about the Son's relationship to "all things" and "the world"?

3. What two descriptions does Hebrews 1:3a give to explain the Son's relationship to God ("He is the _ of the glory of God and the exact _ of His nature")?

4. According to Hebrews 1:3b, what does the Son do with the universe, and by what means does He do it?

5. What two actions does Hebrews 1:3c say the Son accomplished regarding sins and His position afterward?

6. In Hebrews 1:4, to whom is the Son compared, and what does the text say about the "name" He has inherited?

Interpretation Questions

1. Why does the author of Hebrews contrast God's speaking through the prophets "long ago" with His speaking through the Son "in these last days"? What is he trying to communicate about the superiority and finality of Christ's revelation?

2. The sermon explained that Christ being "the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature" shows both His identity with the Father and His distinction from the Father. How do these two phrases preserve the truth that Jesus is fully God while also being a distinct person from the Father?

3. What is the significance of the Son both creating the world (v. 2) and upholding the universe by the word of His power (v. 3)? What does this tell us about Christ's ongoing relationship to creation?

4. Why is it significant that after making purification for sins, the Son "sat down" at the right hand of God? What does this sitting communicate about the nature and completion of His work?

5. The sermon emphasized that the "name" the Son inherited (v. 4) refers to His title as the Messianic "Son of David." How does understanding this Messianic role help explain why the author says the Son "became" superior to angels, even though He was always essentially divine?

Application Questions

1. If Jesus is the final and complete revelation of God—greater than all the prophets combined—how should this affect the way you prioritize reading the Gospels and studying Christ's life, death, and resurrection? What specific change could you make this week to know Jesus better?

2. The sermon warned against treating God as an "absentee landlord" who is distant from daily life. Since Christ upholds the universe and your very breath by His power, how might this truth change the way you approach a stressful situation or anxious thought you are currently facing?

3. The preacher asked whether sin has "clouded up your vision" or distracted your affections from God. Is there a specific sin or distraction in your life right now that is keeping you from seeing and treasuring Christ as you should? What step can you take to address it?

4. Hebrews emphasizes that Christ alone made purification for sins—no other sacrifice, prophet, or religious practice can accomplish this. How does this truth affect the way you respond when you feel guilty or inadequate before God? How can you remind yourself of Christ's finished work this week?

5. The sermon concluded by calling listeners to "fix the eyes of faith directly on Christ." What is one practical way you can keep your focus on Jesus this week when you are tempted to look to other things for security, identity, or satisfaction?

Additional Bible Reading

1. Colossians 1:15-20 — This passage presents a parallel description of Christ as the image of God, the creator and sustainer of all things, and the one through whom reconciliation is accomplished.

2. John 1:1-18 — The prologue to John's Gospel declares Christ as the eternal Word who was with God, was God, created all things, and became flesh to reveal the Father's glory.

3. Philippians 2:5-11 — This hymn to Christ, referenced in the sermon, describes His divine nature, His humiliation in becoming human, and His exaltation to the highest place with the name above every name.

4. 2 Samuel 7:12-16 — God's covenant promise to David that his offspring would reign forever provides the Old Testament foundation for understanding Jesus as the Messianic "Son" who inherits an everlasting kingdom.

5. Psalm 110:1-4 — This psalm, which the sermon notes is Jesus' favorite to describe Himself, declares the Messiah's session at God's right hand and His eternal priesthood, themes central to the book of Hebrews.

Sermon Main Topics

I. The Detective Story of Understanding Christ

II. What Does Jesus Christ Have to Do with God? (Hebrews 1:3a)

III. What Does Jesus Christ Have to Do with the World? (Hebrews 1:2c, 3b)

IV. What Does Jesus Christ Have to Do with Us? (Hebrews 1:1-2a, 3c-4)

V. Christ Above All: The Call to Faith

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Detailed Sermon Outline

The theology professor that I had the privilege of working for in seminary days had an amazing library.

He was born in a German prisoner of war camp during World War I, where his father was a chaplain to the French-speaking troops.

After the war, his family moved back to Geneva, where he was from, where he lived until he moved to Paris to study at the Sorbonne before World War II.

He then moved to America for graduate studies.

By the time I got to know him in the 1980s, he had been teaching at Gordon in its various forms for 40 years. His accent was irresistibly imitable.

Brother Dever, how are you today? I hear you can imitate me. Is this true? He said this in front of a class to me. So I said, Yes, Brother Nicole, it is true.

His eyebrows were gigantic. His memory even more so.

And his library, as I say, was legendary. Graduate students from down in Boston would come up to consult some of the rarer volumes he had in his collection of 50,000 theological books in his basement.

Also of interest to Professor Nicole, however, were detective stories. He loved a good whodunit. He had 10,000 volumes of those as well. He was fascinated with the whole process of piecing together a correct understanding, the challenge of the mental puzzle that the author of the stories would leave, the breadcrumb path of facts that led to the inevitable, if surprising, conclusion, and especially the satisfaction of that last piece of the puzzle falling in place. And now the whole story making sense.

That's why his coat was there when it seemed they didn't even know each other, kind of stuff.

I wonder at what points you've had that satisfaction of solution. That is, you've been wrestling with a knotty problem, and finally it seems it's yielded to your research, your ideas, your experiments, your negotiations, your mental reconstructions, and you found that answer that makes sense of the whole. Have you ever experienced that? The young mother steps into the kitchen. A pile of bread crusts are next to what remains of a mauled loaf of bread.

A chair is oddly sitting right up next to the counter at just that spot. And a guilty-looking four or five-year-old boy is denying he knows what you're talking about, even with a few crumbs on his face.

Some detective stories actually start at the end and then they back out the story for you. For those of you who are Christians here this morning, this may be a little bit of what your experience is like as we search through the New Testament book of Hebrews this year, learning more and more of who Jesus Christ is.

And why that makes other answers to the puzzle of life unnecessary and some even wrong. If you're not yet a Christian, this series of studies through this ancient Christian sermon could also help you understand more of who Jesus is and consider more of what it would mean for you to follow him in your own life.

In God's providence, Bobbi's sermon on the majestic hymn to Christ in Philippians 2 from last Sunday morning, acts as a kind of introduction to this year's study in the book of Hebrews that we begin this morning. Martin Hengel, famous New Testament scholar, said that one might almost regard the whole of Hebrews as a large-scale development of the Christological theme which is already present in the Philippian hymn.

In other words, if you want to think more about Jesus and consider Him more carefully, go back and read Philippians chapter 2 and re-listen to Bobby's sermon online and then hop on board with us for our consideration of the question, who is God's Son, as we've called this series. We study Hebrews to better understand Jesus. You'll find our text for this morning on page 1001 in the Bibles provided. Hebrews chapter 1, beginning at verse 1, the first four verses. Hebrews chapter 1, beginning at verse 1, just reading through the first four verses.

Follow along as I read.

Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets. In these last days, He has spoken to us by His Son, whom He appointed the heir of all things, through whom also He created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature. And He upholds the universe by the word of His power. After making purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.

Having become as much superior to angels as the name He has inherited is more excellent than theirs.

Those of you who know my preaching know I carefully prepare a manuscript. I'm going to go off it at this point just for those of you who are particularly geekish in wanting to understand structures of things. And I'm just going to freestyle here for a minute or two about the structure of this passage so you'll understand how I got my sermon outline. For those of you who don't like this kind of stuff, just Read the passage again for a moment. This won't take long.

All right? If you look down at the text, I think the center of the text is that first phrase in verse 3. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature. That's the essence of the text, theologically. If you back the camera as it were out from there, and you look at the phrase on either side of that, you see this concern for creation.

He made... He created the world there at the end of verse 2, and the next phrase in verse 3, He upholds the universe by the word of His power. And now if you back the camera out, as it were, one more level, you see verse... the phrase in verse 2, Whom He appointed the heir of all things. And that's the same thing He's going to talk about at the end of verse 3 with those last two phrases...

or two phrases there. After making purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high. And then the outer part, looking at it this way, you have the comparison with the prophets about his speaking in verse 1 and the beginning of verse 2 and his comparison with the angels there in verse 4. And the angels will transition into the rest of the chapter. So that's how I'm looking at it.

And that's where I get my outline from. What does God have to... what does Jesus Christ rather have to do with God? That's point 1, that's that very first phrase in verse 3. What does He have to do with the world?

That's those next phrases out, sort of 2c and 3b. And then what does He have to do with us? And that's the rest of it, 1 to 2a and 3c to 4. And that's going to be the first half, revelation, the second half, deliverance. That's my sermon right there.

You now know how I'm understanding this text. What does He have to do with Jesus Christ have to do with God? What does He have to do with the world? What does He have to do with us? I think that will faithfully convey to you what the writer to the Hebrews says in these densely packed four verses.

And I pray that as we consider this gem of the New Testament, it will be clearer to you than it has been, and He will be dearer to you. Let's jump in, first and most fundamentally. What does Jesus Christ have to do with God? Well, look at this first phrase there in verse 3. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature.

The center of this most compressed expression of truth about Jesus is right there at the beginning of verse 3, and it is clear that Jesus Christ's uniqueness must first be understood in His relationship to God. The most fundamental question about Jesus is how is He related to God? We find an important truth about people in the Bible, and this is that we are all made in the image of God. That's in Genesis chapter 1, God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him, male and female He created them. But then of course there are differences between us and God.

He is eternal, we are time bound. He is the Creator, we are His creatures. He is a Spirit, we are physical beings.

He is self-existent? We are very much not.

One way to misunderstand Jesus is to see Him only as a man. True, the Son of God became a man and is a man, but the Son of God has always existed in a way that's not true of you or me or any other merely human person.

Here at the beginning of verse 3 is this pair of expressions that are really in many ways at the heart of what the writer of Hebrews is saying about Jesus. This is one of the most extraordinary statements about Jesus in the whole Bible. The Son is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature. The radiance of the glory of God. What does it mean for the Son to be the radiance of God's glory.

It means that Jesus is, in a profound sense, the Shekinah. He is the light that shines out and gives life to the world. The glory of God's glory, he's saying here. He is God's effulgence, his splendor. He is God's glory visible to the human eye.

So Moses had seen something of this at the burning bush. The people of Israel had seen something of this in the wilderness at Mount or when they were being led by the fiery cloud. But God's glory is most fully present and displayed in Christ. We saw a little bit in the passage Jamie read earlier from Daniel 7 about the Ancient of Days where it showed His clothing as white as snow and the hair of His head like pure wool. His throne was fiery flames, its wheels were burning fire.

Here in verse 3 we see that Christ Himself is that radiance, that reflection. Do you remember the incident during Christ's earthly ministry at the Mount of Transfiguration? Do you remember what happened? Where we read Christ's clothes became radiant, intensely white, as no one on earth could bleach them. His clothes became dazzlingly white.

We read his face shone like the sun. His clothes became white as light. Even the cloud that overshadowed him, it said, was bright. As light streams out from the sun, so God's glory streams out to us through Christ. So Christ is the radiance, he says, of what?

Of the glory of God. This is the glory that appeared in the cloud to the people of Israel wandering in the wilderness. This is the weighty glory that filled the tabernacle so much that Moses was not able to enter it. This is the glory that David said in Psalm 19, the heavens declare. This is the glory that the thrice holy God has according to Isaiah, which filled the whole earth.

And this is the glory which John saw shining out of the holy city of Jerusalem, coming down from heaven, from God, its radiance like a most rare jewel. Friends, this is the kavod, the Old Testament word for weight. Glory literally means weightiness of God, the greatness of God. And that His greatness is what is radiated out to us through Jesus Christ.

And as for the other phrase, being the exact imprint of His nature. The writer is using an interesting word here in Greek, the Greek word character, meaning that Christ is the very expression of God, differing in no way from the image of God Himself. Remember that time when Jesus said to Philip in John 14, when Philip asked Him to show him the Father, and Jesus replied, if you've seen Me, you've seen the Father? All of God's essential characteristics are seen in Christ. The image is one of the imprint of the die which reproduces itself exactly.

This is the stamp that reproduces its outline. Exactly in the wax, the flawless imprint of a coin freshly minted. So the Son, He's saying, is the perfect revelation of the Father. And how could the Son perfectly reveal the Father if He didn't share the Father's nature?

In what you already thought was a dense theological sermon, hang on for this next paragraph.

This is because the Son of God is eternally generated from the Father. The Son is not lesser than the Father. His divine nature is no different. It's exactly the same. That's what the author is saying here.

But notice, this same divine nature is received by the Son. That's the significance here in verse 3 of the glory being God's, meaning the Father's, and the nature being God's. Here's the Trinity in a nutshell. The Father has this glory, His nature, not from another.

The Son, however, only and always has both His nature and His glory from the Father. It's the same glory, but for the Son it is always derived from the Father. The Son is divine, eternally generated. There was never a moment in which He was not from the Father. You see how this preserves both the Son's identity with the Father and yet distinguishes the Son from the Father.

The Son is not the Father. To speak theologically, this combines the essential glory He has as the eternally existing Son of God with the relative glory, that is the glory He has relationally from the Father. It makes a distinction between the Son's divine essence and His eternal relation with the Father. Remember what we thought of last week in Philippians 2 about Christ Jesus being in the form of God and everyone confessing that Jesus Christ is Lord. Think of the passage where Paul says to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 8:6, One Lord Jesus Christ through whom are all things and through whom we exist.

Or that great passage in Colossians chapter 1 verse 16, He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by Him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible. Whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. And He is the head of the body, the church.

He is the beginning, the firstborn from among the dead, that in everything He might have preeminence. For in Him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell. Or friends, just take your bulletin and look back to page 12. What we just read, that majestic opening of John's gospel just a few minutes ago.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him. I think, too, of the words of the Nicene Creed.

Which we Christians often confess about Christ, that He is the only begotten Son of God, begotten from the Father before all time, light from light, true God from true God. In fact, if you go through and read the Nicene Creed statements about Jesus, they seem like paraphrases from these verses in Hebrews. Friends, if you ever have any doubt about whether the early Christians believed that Jesus Himself was God, this passage should put those doubts to rest. If you want to know what the word G-O-D means, study Jesus. The Son shows us what the Father is like.

He is the radiance of God's glory in the exact imprint of His nature. What is God like? Christ is the best answer to that question.

This is something of how Jesus relates to God. Okay, we've been staring at the center of it all theologically and literarily. Let's look out one step. Number two, what does Jesus Christ have to do with the world? And to consider this, let's note those phrases on either side of this central phrase.

First, look at the end of verse 2, Through whom also He created the world. Through whom the Son, also He, God the Father, created the world. This is what we've just read elsewhere of the Son of God. In John 1:3, All things were made through Him and without Him was not anything made that was made. Or Colossians 1 again, verse 16, For by Him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things were created through Him and for Him and He is before all things and in Him all things hold together.

That last phrase Paul uses there reminds us not only did Christ make the world, but He continues to sustain or uphold it, as we read in this second phrase in verse 3, and He upholds the universe by the word of His power. Christ continues to be powerful. The world that He had once created by His powerful word, He continues to uphold by His powerful word. And He is the one who is carrying it forward toward its goal. He governs it.

Toward his own special purposes. So here in Washington, D.C., you may have a job which to you proves that the rest of the world does not understand who really controls things. Who really controls things is your boss. But that's not true. Who really controls things is God.

It is the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what we see here. He sustains Everything. You ever wonder what Jesus is doing now? Well, according to verse 3, He's upholding all things, the universe by the word of His power.

He is holding forces strong and weak together, which keep our atoms in right order, our bodies carefully regulated, our world turning on its axis, revolving around the sun at the exact distance and timing, which gives us day and night, summer and winter, and makes all life possible even which makes your life possible, and your next breath as He holds you together, even now.

Friend, there is no corner of the universe untouched by the power of Christ. Somehow, and the author doesn't say how, the Son was the agent of the Father's creating work. However it has been done, it's clear that the creation is totally dependent upon God.

I wonder if you've thought of God before as a kind of absentee landlord, a parent who has abandoned you, a distant, occasional benefactor. The truth is, according to the Bible, God has loved us. He not only made us, but He loves us. And He's loved us not merely in some abstract fashion, but like this. He's given His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.

Christian, do you understand that God has this kind of continuing stake in the world, in your life? Has some sin clouded up your vision, begun to distract your affections? Your attentions to where you don't even concern yourself so much with God.

Friends, that's the picture that we're getting right here at the very beginning of this work, that God is vitally involved with you right now. You're drawing the breath you're drawing now only because of his kind pleasure. This is something about the Son's role in creating and sustaining this world. So what does Jesus have to do with the world? He made it and He keeps it going.

The last question, but this takes up most of these verses, and this is the theme of the rest of this book. Number three, what does Jesus Christ have to do with us? And the basic answers that the writer provides here are two. Number one, He speaks to us. Number two, He delivers us.

Number one, He speaks to us. Number two, He delivers us. Let's take a moment to look at each of these. First, He speaks to us. You see that in verse 1.

Long ago at many times and in many ways God spoke to our fathers by the prophets. The very first words of this book are at many times in various ways. God had spoken in the Old Testament, but there was no one final message. God used the prophets in the Old Testament from Moses to Samuel to Nathan, from Elijah and Elisha to Isaiah and Jeremiah and Ezekiel and Daniel and all through down to Malachi, along with so many others. He's poets and priests and kings.

But in all of this, there was no final prophet. There was no final disclosure of His will. It was incomplete. It was even a bit of a riddle how some of those things could fit together and be true. It all seemed to keep pointing forward, a bit like the cliffhanger at the end of the season.

And that brings us to the now and to the Son, as he says here in verse 1. This reference to the prophets is the first indication we have of all the quotations of the Old Testament Scriptures that will be coming in this book. It was clearly written to a congregation of predominantly Jewish Christians who were familiar with these Scriptures, who believed them to be true. And surely we as a church have realized just in these last few weeks and months the power of the Old Testament books and how worthwhile they are to study. God does speak through these prophets still.

Remember the sermons on Zephaniah just a couple of weeks ago?

Or Jonathan on Isaiah, or Ben on Jonah? Or how about the marvelous series that Bobby gave us on Ecclesiastes this last year? We as a church not only believe that the Old Testament is the Word of God, we act like it is. We preach from it. So we don't just defend the inerrancy of the whole Bible, but we try to preach from the whole Bible.

Very much like the author of the Hebrews is doing in this book we're beginning to study. But he goes on here in verse 2, In these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, these last days, that's Old Testament language for the end of the world, which was beginning with the coming of the Messiah, it's what Paul calls in Galatians when the fullness of time had come. So in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son. He has spoken then not just to the fathers long past, but to us today, the writer says, and he's done that not not only through the prophets, but through His Son, Jesus Christ. So that not in the sense that Muslims might allow, or Mormons, that Jesus was a great prophet, even the greatest prophet.

That's not what the writer of the Hebrews says here. Jesus was not just the end of the line, He was the point of it all.

God didn't just reveal Himself through Jesus as He had through the prophets. Jesus actually was and is the revelation of God. Here in this passage of Hebrews we find that Christ is the mediator of the new covenant, the medium through which it came and comes to us. He Himself is the message. Christ Himself in the verses we just read from John 1 is called the Word of God, not simply the one who brings the Word.

But who is the Word Himself?

He is the Word of God. You understand what that means? In Jesus we see more of God than in all of the Old Testament writings combined.

Thus even in the first sentence, the author to the Hebrews begins in his typical oppositional way, he lodges his first opening salvo directly against anyone who would propose a revelation that is equal to that which we've had in the sun. You know prophets were wonderful, but already the author to the Hebrews begins his comparing by contrasting here the fathers in the past being spoken to by the prophets with us in the present having been spoken to by God's Son.

You see the superiority of the situation that we're in. It's the same God who had spoken in both, but the culmination of His speaking is not found by going back to the Old Testament prophets. It's found in Christ listening to Him. And notice also here in verse 2, the writer simply says, Son. He announces the Son.

He doesn't say whose son. He just assumes that those hearing this read out loud will know and understand. For in Son standing alone in a Jewish context would offer conjure up assumptions that he's talking about the Messiah as the Son of David. More of that in just a moment. That's it, that's what he goes on to say.

Which brings us to the other thing that Jesus has said here about Jesus Christ's relationship with us. Not only does he speak, So, He brings God's Word, but more than that, He is God's Word. That's what we see in that first verse and the first phrase in verse 2. But also, second, Jesus Christ delivers us. The author brings this topic into view in the second phrase in verse 2, Whom He appointed the heir of all things.

We tend to think of heir only in connection with death. But the emphasis here is on current authority. An heir held title to the property of the one who designated him as heir. So giving one this title is like saying he's the owner of all things. The earth is his possession and all that's in it.

And that fits with the phrase we see there down in verse 3. He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, the sitting down at the right hand of an emperor, a majesty was the supreme honor. It's like Joseph sat at the Pharaoh's right hand. It means He has all the authority of the King. Remember in the Great Commission, all authority on heaven and earth has been given to Me when Christ was raised and about to ascend to heaven.

He continues in verse 4, Having become as much superior to angels as the name He has inherited is more excellent than theirs. Even though the author will point out in the next chapter, chapter 2, that the Son was made for a little while lower than the angels. The Son is superior to the angels. The writer to the Hebrews uses that word superior 13 times about Christ in relation to someone or something else. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is superior.

He is superior to the prophets, we thought of in verse 1. And now we see He is superior to the angels. Christ's destiny is to exhibit the universal possession and authority of God. This is at least part of what it means for him to be the heir of all and to be at the right hand of God. But I think we understand it even more completely if we add to it that phrase just before it, They are after making purification for sins.

So nestled here in this description of Jesus is really the core argument of the book. The author is underscoring for us who this Jesus is that no one else is. And he is doing this for us in preparation for telling us that what Jesus has done for us is what no one else could do.

So if you think these are Jewish Christians who are wondering if some form of the temple worship might not be more satisfying to go back to for some reason, maybe they would get better access to God if they went back to all of the sacrifice and the food laws and the temple practices, surely there'd be in all that regalia some power of religion that they lack in this plain, mere Christian faith. The writer here is beginning at the very beginning by saying, no, there is no one else who can be who Jesus is and do what Jesus has done. So Jesus has uniquely provided purification for our sins. The writer of the Hebrews will think about Jesus as both priest and sacrifice much more fully as he unfolds his argument. Throughout the rest of this book, the writer is going to look specifically at the kind of purification provided by the Old Covenant laws and rituals and compare that with the purification provided by Christ.

In the Old Testament, the priest made an offering for the purification of sins by sprinkling blood on the altar. In the book of Hebrews we find that Jesus Christ alone can deal with our sins. Look where you will in the Bible and you'll find no story of an angel who died for our sins, whose death leads to our life. If an effective priest, an effective sacrifice is needed, it's to be found not in the angels but in Jesus. You know, maybe if we simply needed a message, if we just needed a divine word, some guideposts, well then maybe angels would have been sufficient.

But friends, that's not our case.

We need forgiveness for our sins. We needed someone who would bear the rightful wrath of God for us. We need a Savior, and the Son is that Savior. He alone is our hope. He alone is the object of our faith, of our worship.

He shares that central point with no angels, no prophets, no others.

My Christian friend, have you begun to take Christ for granted? Have you begun to think that your chief problem is that deadline you're working on Thursday, or that pressing matter in your family life?

There's nothing more pressing than your sins crying out to a just God.

How did He provide purification for sins? By standing as the substitute in our place, bearing God's wrath against us for our sins, by being raised from the dead for our justification and ascending to His heavenly Father and presenting His accomplished sacrifice for us, and by then sitting down and beginning His messianic reign and sending His Spirit to indwell and to remake us and to accomplish victory in our lives over the power of sin. You know, sometimes people talk about Jesus and they make it seem like all that matters is His teaching. I don't know, my Christian friends here, if you've ever talked to a non-Christian friend who tries to get on the same page without being a Christian, he says, oh yeah, I love His parables. Or, I love that place where He tells about God loving the world.

Or, I love where He talks about not judging.

Well, friends, I love all those places too. And those are wonderful parts of his teaching. But I know that none of what Jesus taught is more important than what Jesus did when he hung on the cross for the sins of all of us who would ever repent of our sins and trust in him. Christ is not merely an ethics professor. He is the crucified and resurrected Messiah.

And only when you understand that as you should, do you then begin to understand and find yourself able to practice the ethics that he taught. Friend, you see what this means for you in your life. You should repent of your sins and trust in this Christ for the sacrifice that he has provided for the sins of all of us who would turn and trust in him.

Talk to the friend who brought you today. If you don't know anybody, you just wandered in here, that happens all the time, I'll be at that door at the back afterwards. I'd love to talk to you. There'll be pastors at all the doors. Happy to spend as much time as you want talking with you afterwards about what this could mean for you.

Who can take care of my sins? Christ is the best answer. In fact, he's the only answer. That's what Hebrews is telling us. Once a year in the Old Testament, Aaron and the high priest that followed him were to make an atonement at the altar of incense with the blood of the sin offering.

And that's what Jesus Christ has done as both our sacrifice and our priest. He has been crucified, raised, ascended to heaven, where He has presented the sacrifice that really cleanses of sins, the things that the others were only shadows and types of.

This is what Hebrews goes on to teach in chapter 7. He has no need like those priests to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of the people, since he did this once forever when he offered himself up. Or in chapter 9, the writer refers to Christ as having put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And that's when we read here at the end of verse 3, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on High. The Majesty on High, it's an exuberant, praise-filled way of poetically describing God in His great glory.

And here we're seeing Christ sits at this place of honor. That's why the writer continues his sentence as he does, thereby becoming as much superior to angels. Pause just for a moment, because angels are so important early in this book. Just want to give you a little information. It seems like there were some people at the time who worshiped angels.

And we know that the Jews understood the laws to have been given to Moses on Mount Sinai, accompanied by angels. Perhaps some were wanting all of the religious practices they had been used to back when they were worshipers at the Jerusalem Temple, and they were trying to fit Jesus in as not unique, but simply as another something, some thought merely a prophet. But others unsatisfied with that may well have wondered, was Jesus some kind of angel? That would explain how he could be more than a man and yet not rival God Himself. But if anyone did suspect that Jesus was best understood as an angel, this book shows that that is inaccurate and insufficient, really.

You see there in verse 4 it says, Having become or becoming as much superior to the angels. That becoming happened by the purification He made for our sins, and sitting down that we read of here in verse 3. The eternal Son of God had become incarnate, truly God and truly man. And as such He lived a perfect life, He died a substitutionary death, He was raised for our justification, He ascended to His heavenly Father, thus completing the act of purification. That's what all that is being referred to by that word purification, like the heavenly High Priest He really is.

So the essential Son of God became officially the Messiah as He sat down and so fulfilling His messianic role of delivering His people as prophet, priest and king. You've got to understand that sitting correctly. There was no stool in the temple. In the holy place for the priest to sit down in, in God's presence. I mean, perhaps it could be understood as an image of the completion of his work.

But it's not mainly or merely a priestly image here, but a kingly one. When he sits here, he's sitting in a position of authority. He's sitting on a throne. And that's why he says here, By sitting he became superior to the angels, by his office. Of course, the Son of God was always superior in his nature.

He made the angels. But here he becomes superior to them in his office. He had become a man, which Scripture tells us a little lower than the angel. But it was only by his becoming a man that he could be the fulfillment of that promise God had made to David for the everlasting reign of the Messiah. 2 Samuel 7.

Verse 12, the Lord says to King David, When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. This is why Son of David in the Old Testament is so often a title for the Messiah. Friends, this prophetic promise could only be fulfilled by one who is truly human.

The essential divine Son of God could not by himself fulfill this without also becoming human. So while the Son of God is always essentially higher than the angels, he becomes, that's why the verb here, He becomes higher when he takes on this office of the messianic king, the deliverer. The Son of God becoming incarnate put him in a position to fulfill his roles as prophet, priest, and king. And after making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs. So that sitting down is something that we'll get to thinking about more as the writer to the Hebrews quotes.

Jesus seems like his favorite verse to talk about himself from the Old Testament, Psalm 110, verse 1, more on that next week, Lord willing. This sitting then was the commencement of Jesus Christ's session, his reign. This is when the King is crowned. This is when the Messiah is inaugurated. Friends, he sits down not to rest, but to reign.

Right at the beginning here, the writer of the Hebrews is saying that in Jesus is the fulfillment of all those messianic promises looking for his throne and his kingdom. It's here in the ministry of Jesus. That's what he means by this last phrase in verse 4, at the name, as the name he has inherited, is more excellent than theirs. Look at that name there, the end of verse 4. Now name, like this might sometimes be a circumlocution for the divine name, Yahweh.

So for example, last week in Bobby's passage in Philippians 2, the name that is above every name. Yes, we were being taught there that Jesus is divine. We were being taught that he is the Son of God. Essentially, he has the name of Yahweh, Lord. It's all true.

That is not what the name means here. You can tell because you keep looking at the verses after it, it's Son. It's all about the Son. The name here is Son, and it's the Son that is the Son of David. It's a messianic title.

This name that he's received that's above the angels is his title as a ruling and reigning Messiah. So it's not just his essential sonship that's superior to the angels, of course it is. But no, this is the 2 Samuel 7 sense of the Son of David, the Messiah, who would rule and reign over his people forever. So he is now in the official Messianic sense superior to the angels. And that's why it can be said to be inherited.

His eternal essential sonship could never be inherited in the sense there was never a time he didn't have that. But his divine office exercises as a man fulfilling this role as Messiah. This can be said to be inherited. It's an official sense of the word son adding this to his already eternally existing essential sonship. Well, that should be a fun conversation over lunch.

But friends, it's helpful to understand what's going on here, to see clearly what he's saying. And especially, there's just some more fun facts thrown in here. If we are said to be coheirs with Christ, Bobby, is that coming up Wednesday night in Romans chapter 8? Romans chapter 8, 7 o'clock, coheirs with Christ right here. So you can find what it would mean for you to be a co-heir with this one who is fulfilling the prophecies of the Son of David.

What does it mean for you if you're a Christian? 7 p.m. Wednesday night, right here.

Look again at verse 4. Thereby becoming as much superior to the angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs. The name was taken to show who the person is. And as I say, the name here is this one who is the Son of David.

Brothers and sisters, do we not have a great Savior in Christ? How God has provided for us? Could you imagine needing anything or anyone else to gain God's favor? What else would you need beyond Him?

What else could you even begin to compare to Him? He is all we need. Oh, but Mark, you don't know how big my sins are. Oh, my friend, you don't seem to understand who Jesus is, how great His righteousness is, how deep the Father's love is, how deep the love of the Son is. Friends, this is the love that we've been presented here.

How else could we be not only forgiven for our sins, I mean amazement of amazements that that is, but also adopted as His very own? The voice that spells forgiveness will say, you, may go. You have been let off the penalty which your sins deserve. But the verdict which means acceptance, justification will say, you, may come. You are welcome to all My love and My presence.

This is the verdict that is rendered on us because Christ has made purification for our sins. No sacrifices of bulls or goats, no teachings of other prophets or worship of other gods could ever affect this. Christ alone, His death alone offered in heaven for us could accomplish this. This has brought to us all the blessings of Christ's rule over all as the Messiah King and into this kingdom He invites us not only as His subjects, but also to rule and to reign with Him as coheirs, benefits unimagined, blessings untold lay before us, all only through Christ, all only for those who love Him. Friends, this is the kind of stuff you can just kind of keep skating on forever.

If we didn't have to have lunch? I mean, you can just keep thinking about this. I hope and I pray that in all this, some of the puzzle pieces of understanding who Jesus Christ really is are beginning to come together for you this morning. In the first century, these Christians were wondering if there were other better ways. This apostolic preacher responded that Christ is above all, above all prophets, above all angels above all other religious hopes you and I might rear against Him or propose as rivals.

Christ above all. This is God's grace that you and I are called to stand boldly in brothers and sisters. And if all this is true, what more does God need to say? What can add anything to this? Christ and His work has shown us grace that will never end.

That calls forth in us a gratitude as an ending. As we go through this book, we'll see holiness and faith and perseverance and grace and how it all arises in and focuses on Jesus Christ. He alone is the one in whom we cannot be shaken. Friends, this is something of what Jesus Christ has to do with us. He speaks to us and He has delivered us.

And this is what we know having begun to listen to this great book of Hebrews. But you may be like the people at the time for whom Jesus was a kind of puzzle, difficult to figure out, says He's the Messiah, doesn't look like a king to me.

In fact, he was publicly executed as a criminal.

Well, if that's you this morning, let me encourage you to take the eyes of faith and fix them directly on Christ. Look at Him. Pray for understanding as we look through this book together. Pray God give you another week. To come back next week to continue to find what we see here.

As I say, at the time this book was written, some other Jews would have mocked these Christians for their claim that Jesus was King, let alone that he was the Messiah and that he is the Messiah and that his reign had already begun.

But one preacher reflected on that final scene in the life of Christ in the Judgment Hall of Pilate. He writes, When Christ uttered in the Judgment Hall of Pilate the remarkable words, I am a king, he pronounced a sentiment fraught with unspeakable dignity and power.

His enemies might deride his pretensions and express their mockery of his claim. By presenting Him with a crown of thorns, a reed and a purple robe and nailing Him to a cross.

But in the eyes of unfallen intelligences, He was a King, a higher power, presided over that derisive ceremony and converted it into a real coronation. That crown of thorns was indeed the diadem of empire. That purple robe was the badge of royalty. That fragile reed was the symbol of unbounded power and that cross, the throne of dominion, which shall never end.

Lord, let's pray. Lord God, we pray humbly that yout would give us eyes of faith to see the truth about Jesus Christ.

Teach us, we pray, for our good and for your glory. We ask in His name. Amen.