This message is about
the Superiority of Jesus Christ according to the letter to the Hebrews. The letter to the Hebrews is written
anonymously to Jewish Christians to encourage them from reverting back to the
old ways of the Law by setting forth the Superiority of Jesus Christ. From beginning to end the author demonstrates
that Jesus is greater than the prophets, the angels, Moses, the Law, the
priesthood, the animal sacrifices and the temple.
In setting out to show the In chapter 1, verses 1
through 3 there is arguably no greater way any book in the NT is opened
up. Majestic, awesome, profound are
words that only begin to describe it.
Perhaps the opening 18 verses to John’s Gospel, or the first 14 verses
of the letter to the Ephesians, or the great Christological section in
Colossians 1, might perhaps rival the opening verses of Hebrews. William MacDonald in his commentary says, “Without benefit of salutation or
introduction, the writer plunges into his subject. It seems as if he were constrained by a holy
impatience to set forth the superlative glories of the Lord Jesus Christ.” Zane Hodges says in his commentary, “In a majestically constructed paragraph, the
writer introduced his readers at once to the surpassing greatness of the Lord
Jesus Christ. The Son, he declared, is
the par excellence vehicle for divine revelation.”
Quote MacArthur, pg. 9-10.
In Hebrews 1 we see there are 7 ways Jesus is superior.
#1: Jesus Christ is superior because He is the
Son of God.
Notice first of all
that Jesus Christ is superior because He is the Son of God. Verse 1 and 2, “In the past God spoke to our
forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in
these last days He has spoken to us by His Son.” God has spoken many times to the nation of
Israel through prophets. These prophets
are regarded highly by Jews who look back on them. But the author here contrasts Jesus with the
prophets, and it is obvious that Jesus is not counted as equal with them but is
set apart from them as superior to them.
He says, “God spoke… through the prophet…BUT, in these last days He has spoken to
us by His Son.” He is conveying
that no matter how great the prophets were, Someone exceedingly greater than
the prophets has come - God’s Son.
Of course, Jesus was a prophet – He was the
greatest prophet. A prophet is someone
who receives a message from God and is commissioned to speak for God and tell
it to other people. A prophet spoke for
God to men: they spoke-forth what God
told them to speak. Jesus said in John
12:49-50, “I did not speak of my own accord, but, the Father who sent me commanded
me what to say and how to say it. I know
that His command leads to eternal life.
So whatever I say is just what the Father has told me to say.” In John 1:18 it says, “No one has ever seen God but God
the One and Only, who is at the Father’s side, has made Him known.”
He is a prophet, He is the Prophet - the apex prophet of God. He is the greatest of all Prophets and in Him
the office of Prophet climaxes. For
instance, Jesus said that John the Baptist was greater than all the prophets of
old and yet John the Baptist said he wasn’t worthy to untie Jesus’
sandals. All the OT prophets pointed
towards Jesus Christ – the Consummate Prophet.
In Acts 3 Peter told the Jewish crowds that Jesus was the ultimate prophet
predicted by Moses in Deuteronomy 18, and in verse 24 states that all the OT
prophets spoke of the days of Jesus Christ, “Indeed all the prophets from
Samuel on, as many as have spoken, have foretold these days.”
But Jesus stands apart and above the OT prophets in
2 ways. First, in Him is the full and
complete revelation of God. What God
revealed to the OT prophets was bits and pieces of truth, partial and
incomplete knowledge that was not whole or comprehensive. What they said was true, but it was
incomplete. They were each being given
different pieces of the same puzzle, but, none of them had all the pieces. It is not until Jesus Christ, God’s Son,
came, that the complete and full picture of God’s revelation of Himself was
given. Jesus said, “If you have seen me you have seen
the Father”. Colossians 2:9, “For
in Christ all the fullness of deity lives in bodily form.” Hebrews 1:3 says, “He is the exact representation of
His being”.
The 2nd way Jesus Christ is set apart
and above the OT Prophets is that He is God’s Son. No OT prophet was the eternal Son of God. Jesus alone is God’s Son. He is the only begotten, the one and only
unique, eternal Son of God who came in the flesh. There are two important points here. First, since Jesus is God’s Son He is the
ultimate Prophet. No one is a greater
spokesmen for God than God’s Son.
Secondly, being God’s Son means Jesus is God. In John 5 they wanted to stone Jesus because
He claimed to be God’s Son, which they knew was a claim to be equal with
God. When Jesus was on trial in Matthew
26 they asked Him if He was the Son of God, the Christ, knowing it would be a
claim to deity. He answered yes, and
they crucified Him for it. Many people
believe that Islam and Christianity worship the same God but we don’t. The Koran says Jesus is not God and that God
does not have a Son. Islam has a
different God. MacDonald said “Christ not only speaks for God but as God.”
Application: If all the prophets of the OT were focused on
Jesus Christ where is our attention? Our
full attention should be given to Jesus Christ.
#2: Jesus Christ is superior because He is the
Heir of all things
Secondly, Jesus Christ
is superior because He is the heir of all things. Notice verse 2, “but in these last days He has
spoken to us by His Son, whom He has made heir of all things…”
When you are an heir it means you are entitled to
inherit property from someone else. As
God’s Son Jesus Christ is the heir of all that God possesses. And God owns it all. Heaven. Earth.
The Universe. It is all His. God said to Job “Everything under heaven belongs
to Me.” In Psalm 24:1 David
said, “The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it.” And His property is not just under heaven,
but all of heaven is His as well. Astronomers
tell us that there are approximately one hundred billion galaxies in the
universe and that there are hundreds of billions of stars within each
galaxy. They all belong to the Lord
Jesus Christ. In Genesis 1:16 we learn
God made the stars on the 4th day.
Psalm 33:6 says that by His word the stars were made. Psalm 8:3 says God put the stars in their
place. In Isaiah 40:26 God says, “Lift
up your eyes to the heavens: Who created
all these? Who brings out the starry
host one by one, and calls them each by name.
Because of His great power and mighty strength not one of them is
missing.” All that inhabits the
vastness of the universe belongs to God, and to His Son Jesus Christ. From the farthest star on the farthest edge
of the universe all the way down to the microscopic molecules we’re made of,
the Lord Jesus Christ owns it all. He is
the Heir of all things. He has a right
to all things, and He will possess all things.
How ironic then that our Lord would humbly declare during His earthly
ministry in Luke 9:58 that He had “nowhere to lay His head”.
You may come across
passages in Scripture during your personal reading that refer to Jesus as God’s
firstborn. Verse 6 calls Him God’s
firstborn. Colossians 1:15 it says, “He is
the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.” In Psalm 89:27 God says of His Son, “I
will appoint Him my firstborn, the most exalted of the kings of the
earth.” When He is called
firstborn in these passages it does not mean that He was the first one God
created. Our Lord was not created when
Mary became pregnant. He eternally pre-existed
His human birth as the Word of God (John 1:1; 8:58). The term firstborn instead has to do with
legal rights – especially those of inheritance and authority. Calling Jesus Christ God’s firstborn is
pointing out the fact that He and He alone is in the position of inheriting
everything from God. God is not giving
it to anyone else. He is giving all that
is His to His Son. Jesus said in John
16:15, “All that belongs to the Father is mine.” His throne, judgment, authority, honor, glory,
all physical and spiritual property, seen and unseen, visible and invisible,
all belongs to Him.
In Revelation 5 we see
a scene in heaven where God is sitting on His throne with a scroll in His right
hand. This scroll had 7 seals on it and is
the title deed to the earth and all that is in it. It is the deed for the Heir, the one who has
a right to take the earth. During the NT
times Roman law required that a will had to be sealed 7 times to protect it
from being tampered with. As it was
rolled up, it would be sealed every turn until it was sealed 7 times. The seals were not to be broken until after the
person whose will it was had died.
The vision for John goes on, and an angel is calls
out, “Who is worthy to take the scroll
and to open it?” But no one can come
forth – no one is worthy. So John weeps
because no one was found worthy to take the scroll. Then John is comforted by an elder and told
in verse 5, “Do not weep! See, the Lion of
the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed. He is able to open the scroll and its seven
seals.” And at that moment John
saw Jesus Christ come and take the scroll from the hand of God. He alone has the right to take it. He is the rightful heir. And after He has executed Judgment upon the
earth against His enemies He will return to the earth to take possession of it
at His great and glorious Appearing where every I will see Him and everyone
will mourn because of Him. At that time
He will establish His kingdom upon the earth and reign for 1000 years as King
of kings and Lord of lords.
It is here we can remind ourselves of the promise
in Scripture that we are co-heirs with Jesus Christ. We will share in His glory. Romans 8:17 says, “Now if we are children,
then we are heirs – heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share
in His sufferings in order that we may also share in His glory.
#3: Jesus Christ is Superior because He is the
Creator.
Thirdly, Jesus Christ
is superior because He is the Creator. Jesus
is the Beginning and the end. As the
Heir He will be there at the end when all things are concluded in Him. And as the Creator He was there in the
Beginning, causing it to “Begin”. He is
superior because He is the Creator.
Notice again verse 2, “but in these last days He has
spoken to us by His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, and through
whom He made the universe.”
God made the universe, and He made it through His Son. John 1:1-3 states this too, “In
the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was
God. He was with God in the
beginning. Through Him all things were
made; without Him nothing was made that has been made.” Jesus Christ is the Word of God made flesh,
the same Word that was actively creating all things. Colossians 1:16 says, “For by Him [Jesus] all things
were created: things in heaven and on
earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or
authorities; all things were created by Him and for Him.”
He created the vastness
of the universe and all the things that fill it. If you could fit 1.2 million earths inside
the sun you would have enough room left for 4.3 million moons. The sun is 865,000 miles in diameter and is
93 million miles from the earth. Our
next nearest star is Alpha Centauri, and it is 5 times larger than the sun. The moon is only 211,000 miles away and you
could walk to it in 27 years. A ray of
light travels at 186,000 miles per second, so a beam of light would reach the
moon in only 1 ½ seconds. If we could
travel at that speed it would take 2 minutes and 18 seconds to reach Venus, 4 ½
minutes to reach Mercury, 1 hour and 11 seconds to reach Saturn, and so
on. To reach Pluto, which is 2.7 billion
miles away, it would take 4 hours.
Having reached that far we would still be well within our own solar
system. The North Star is 400 trillion
miles away, but is still nearby in relation to even the known space. The star Betelgeuse is 880 quadrillion miles
(880 followed by 15 zeroes) from us. It
has a diameter of 250 million miles, which is bigger than the earth’s orbit.
Where did it all come from? Did it just happen? Or did Someone make it? The Bible tells us that Someone did make
it. It tells us, “For by Him all things were
created, things in heaven and on earth…” Jesus Christ made it all, and it all is for
Him.
You know what underscores that last point? “it is
all for Him”. Miracles. The miracles of Jesus are not only to
demonstrate the supernatural power He had as the Creator while He was on earth,
but, they demonstrated His attention and concern for the well-being of man. He made the star Betelgeuse, but, He
performed miracles in the individual lives of people who were hurting.
His miracles demonstrated His Creatorship, and His
power as the Creator was expressed in His compassion. He made a man’s ear so He can make the deaf
hear again. And when Peter cuts off a
soldiers ear, the Creator can replace it as He did in Luke 22:51.
As the Maker of eyes He can cause the blind to see, as when He took dirt
– which He made and which He made the first man from – and uses it to cause a
man to see again. He is the Creator and
is the One who gives life to all things, so to raise a little girl from the
dead, or to raise Lazarus up from the grave is no hard thing.
Conclusion
Brothers and sisters, this is our Lord. He is the Beginning and the End, the Alpha
and Omega, the Creator and the Heir of all things. He is the Son of God, crucified, now
glorified. He is our Savior and in Him
is life and in Him alone is salvation.
Who can compare to Him? There is
none. God says Isaiah 40:25, “To
whom will you compare Me? Or who is My
equal?” There is no other god
besides Him. He and He alone is God over
heaven and earth. He is the One whose
excellencies are unsurpassed; whose perfections are exceeding and whose glory
is His alone. Like the author to the
Hebrews wanted his readers to see, we must see Jesus Christ and His greatness
exceeds everything.
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