The Gospel of Hebrews
May 21st, 2008
The book of Hebrews is my favorite book. It is a miniature of the entire Bible compressed into one message — that Jesus Christ is the total answer to every human need.
No book of the New Testament focuses upon Christ like the book of Hebrews. It is the clearest and most systematic presentation of the availability and adequacy of Jesus Christ in the whole of the Bible.
It presents Christianity as the perfect and final religion, simply because the incomparable person and work of Jesus Christ permits men free and unrestricted access to God. In every age that is man’s desperate need. There is no hunger like God-hunger.
The writer declares that God has spoken to man in Jesus Christ. This is the theme of the epistle. The very nature of that word indicates that:
- Christ is a stronger word than came through the prophets;
- He also has a greater name than that of the angels;
- He himself is a surer word to man than the Law.
The author of Hebrews tells us,
Hebrews 1:1-3 (ESV)
1 Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets,
2 but 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.
3 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,
We see that the word which now comes to us in Jesus Christ, both by what he said and what he was, is a stronger and more inclusive word than God ever spoke through the prophets. When you read the Old Testament you are reading the Word of God. All of it is of God, but all of it is incomplete. It never brings us to ultimates and absolutes.
As Pastor Ray Stedman notes,
But when you open the pages of the New Testament and read the four-fold picture of Jesus Christ, you find that all the Old merges into one voice, the voice of the Son. The syllables and phrases by which God spoke in the Old Testament are merged into one complete discourse in Jesus Christ. Therefore, God’s word to man has been fully uttered in the Son. There is nothing more to be said. Jesus Christ is God’s final word to man.
Therefore, the word through the Son is greater than that through the prophets because it includes and surpasses theirs. It is also greater because the Son forms the boundaries of history. The writer says, "Whom he has appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world." In that phrase, "the heir of all things," he is looking on into the future as far as the eye of man can see.
More than that, in the final statement here, his word comes with superior force because he redeems man and nature.
"When he had made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high" (Hebrews 1:3 RSV)
As we have seen, the gospel is God’s final word, beyond which there is nothing to be said or experienced. There is no way of going on from hearing the gospel to some more profound or fuller knowledge of God.
Jesus Christ is the total answer to every human need.
References: Ray Stedman, The Final Word (A study of Hebrews 1:1-2:4)