The Surpassing Excellence of Christ - 1

Well, as I've already mentioned, we begin our study through the book of Hebrews today, which is a challenging book in many ways and requires some understanding of the Old Testament, but we will try to supply that information when it comes up in the text throughout the book. The book of Hebrews not only requires an understanding of the Old Testament, but it also completes a better understanding of the New Testament, and we will try to expound that properly as we move along. The book of Hebrews exalts Christ and the New Covenant inaugurated by Christ. It warns against abandoning faith in Christ. It warns against having only a superficial faith in Christ. It is indeed an exceedingly profitable portion of God's Word, so let us without a do a begin. And today I'm going to approach this in three parts. First of all, understanding the big picture, and that's background.

I think we need a little bit of that. Secondly, laying the foundation, and that's verses one and half of verse two as we get into the text. And then finally, number three, introducing God's Son, and that's the last part of verse two and verse three. So we're taking the first three verses today. There's an awful lot in them. I hope I haven't bitten off more than I can chew. It's a bit of a struggle. On the one hand, if we don't bite off a decent portion, we'll be studying this book for years and years and years and years.

But on the other hand, if we go too quickly, we're going to miss an awful lot. So here we go. Pray for me as we move through this study that I will make good choices in these matters. Alright, understanding the big picture, some background. Six areas of background information. I'm going to talk about the author, the recipients, the date, the purpose, the theme, and what I've called the gravitas. The author. Who is the human author of Hebrews? Answer, nobody knows.

That's the short answer, the quick answer, and probably the only answer that we can give you at this time. It is a vigorously debated issue. Bible college and seminary students love to get together and debate who the author of Hebrews is. There's one thing that I think I can say with a great deal of dogmatism, and that is the human author was not, capital N-O-T, not the apostle Paul. Though there are a good many scholars, particularly some of the older ones who are excellent men of wide and a welcome reputation who just as dogmatically state that the author was Paul.

But I will show you a little bit this morning and more as we go along why I think that is impossible. One commentator says about Paul as the stated author of the book that quote, this is more convenient than convincing. It would be a convenient answer to the question who wrote this book, but it is not convincing. It was not Paul, but it was clearly someone who belonged in Paul's circle of ministry, someone who undoubtedly knew Paul and knew the same people that Paul knew. We see those references throughout the book, and that's one reason why some people are convinced that the author indeed was Paul. But there are significant stylistic differences between Paul's writings and this particular book.

More clear to those who can study it in the original language, but some things are pretty obvious, I think, even to English readers. For example, every one of the 13 epistles that we know to be penned by the apostle Paul follow the customary epistolary format. That is, they follow the format that letters in that day always followed, starting with a salutation, identifying the author, the recipients, and a greeting.

Every one. Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the church at Philippi, greetings in the name of Christ, and so forth. Every one of them start that way.

How does Hebrew start? God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in times past to the fathers by the prophets. The author plunges in to the material, to the theme, to the issues, to the doctrines of the book without any greeting, without any reference. It's so uncharacteristic that that in itself, I think, would cause us to be cautious about stipulating Paul as the author. This is a very strange omission if he's the author. But there are other reasons, and when we get to chapter 2 and verse 3, I'm going to show you a statement that I think makes it impossible for it to be Paul, but we'll save that for that time.

Who else it could be? Martin Luther said it was Apollos, some said Barnabas, some say Silas, some say Peter, and the answer is nobody knows. But the interesting thing is there has never been a question by Bible-believing people that this is the inspired word of God. The book is so clearly God's word.

It is so clearly doctrinal. It is so clearly without error that everybody recognizes it as an inspired portion of God's word. And therefore, the answer to the question, who is the author of Hebrews? The answer is Almighty God.

That's all we need to know. He gave it to somebody, but he wrote it. It's his word.

So much for the author. What about the recipients? The recipients we can pick up as we move through the book, and it's clear that they are Hebrew Christians in some unknown location. We don't know where, but obviously he was writing to Jewish people who had come to embrace the Lord Jesus Christ, but some of whom were wavering in their commitment to Christ.

So, Hebrew Christians. Number three, the date. When was it written? Well, the two things that we can nail down, it was written after the return of Christ to heaven and before the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70. There are several references in the book about the temple offerings and priesthood that was in operation during the time that the author wrote. So, the temple had not yet been destroyed, and Jewish worship had not yet come to an end, so it was before AD 70. And when?

Before, we don't know, but let's say probably sometime around AD 60 or 65. That brings us, number four, to the purpose. What is the purpose for the writing of this book? And again, we pick this up by seeing what the author said, and the purpose seems to be as much as anything to deter some who were tempted to return to Old Testament Judaism. Hebrew Christians who had embraced Christ, but who were suffering persecution and hardship for that decision, if we want to call it a decision. Some of them were wavering, and so the author of Hebrews writes to hold them firm in their embrace of Christ.

He tells them, and us by extension, that before Christ, yes, Jews practicing Old Covenant Judaism were saved by faith in the promises of God. Not all Jews were saved. It wasn't the rituals.

It wasn't the sacrifices. It wasn't the religion of Judaism that saved anyone. It was faith in the promises of God. But those who had faith in the promises of God obediently and carefully followed Old Testament Judaism. So, before Christ came, there were Jews who practiced Old Testament customs and religion, who were indeed saved by their faith in the promises of God. But now that Christ has come and fulfilled those promises, you can't turn back. In other words, it is not possible now, writes the author of Hebrews, to become a Jew practicing Old Testament customs and acting as if Christ has not come and being saved.

You can't do that. Before Christ, many did, because Christ had not yet come. After Christ has come, you can't do that. You have to take the revelation that has been given, the additional revelation that has been given. Salvation is always by faith. It is by believing the revelation of God. God has revealed Himself and His Son.

You can't reject the Son and go back and say, I like the old revelation, but not the new revelation, and say, but I'm confident that I'm a child of God and going to heaven. No, you're not. No, you're not.

No, you're not. It's a serious matter. Which brings us, number five, to the theme, as we're still dealing with the background. And the theme, of course, relates to the purpose. And we could say the theme of Hebrews is Jesus Christ is superior to everyone and everything else that you might name. The title of my sermon today is The Exceeding Excellence of Christ. Jesus Christ is superior to everyone and everything else. And in the first several chapters, Paul, there I go, the author of Hebrews, it's easy to think so, but it wasn't. In the first several chapters, the author of Hebrews very clearly draws some contrasts. Jesus Christ is greater than the prophets, chapter one, verses one through three. Jesus Christ is greater than the angels, chapters one and two. Jesus Christ is greater than Moses, chapter three.

Now, if you think about it, those three right there. And the fourth one is Joshua. Jesus Christ is greater than Joshua, chapter four.

And the fifth one is Aaron. Jesus Christ is greater than Aaron and the Levitical priesthood. And if you think through that list, angels, Moses, prophets first, angels, Moses, Joshua, Aaron. Think about how Hebrew Christians, or even those who had not come to Christ, think about how Jewish people so highly regarded all of these. These were very, very, very important people, and in the case of angels, spiritual entities in their thinking.

Highly, highly, highly regarded. Who could be greater than our prophets? Who could be greater than Moses? Who could be greater than Joshua who led our forefathers into the promised land? Who could be greater than Aaron, that great high priest? Who could be greater than the angels who gave much of God's word in the old covenant days?

And the answer is Jesus Christ. He's greater than the prophets. He's greater than the angels. He's greater than Moses. He's greater than Aaron.

He's greater than Joshua. Jesus Christ fulfills everything these and the old covenant scriptures prepared us for. That's the theme of the book of Hebrews.

That brings me finally in background to what I've called the gravitas, the weight. How weighty is this epistle compared to others? How significant is this epistle compared to others? And indeed, I regard it as an epistle.

Well, by size, it's pretty significant. It's 13 chapters and is therefore among the four largest epistles you will find in the New Testament. You've got first and second Corinthians, Romans and Hebrews that all roughly fall into that category.

All the others are shorter. So according to size, it would certainly be a weighty epistle indeed. But I think even more importantly in regard to theology, it is significant, highly significant, and I think could probably only be compared favorably with the book of Romans. Not that any part of God's word is not weighty. It is the word of the living God.

Even the shortest epistles are very weighty indeed. It's God's word. But Hebrews is a highly significant portion of God's word. With it, we understand so much more.

Without it, we would be so impoverished as to the totality of our understanding of truth. One final way to understand the gravitas of this book is for me to tell you that John Owen, the great Puritan theologian, wrote a seven-volume commentary on the book of Hebrews. My version is only four volumes.

It was combined, but nothing is left out. Those seven volumes were combined into four volumes when published by Pilgrim Publications back in, I think, the 1960s. Of those four weighty volumes, volume one is entirely introduction. You don't even get to where we're getting this morning until you get to volume two. Aren't you glad that I didn't decide to take one-fourth of my study of the book of Hebrews with introduction? I could do it if I was following Owen's.

It's certainly worthwhile, but I'm not going to do that. We're going to get right into the text this morning. So that brings me now to number two, laying the foundation back to verse one. God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in times past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by his Son.

And here's the foundation. It tells us how God speaks to men. I begin by pointing out the reality of biblical revelation. The writer of Hebrews tells us God spoke. God spoke in times past to the fathers by the prophets. God in these last days has spoken to us by his Son. We're so accustomed to the idea that God has spoken, we don't really understand, I think, the full significance of that.

That is a tremendous truth. If indeed there is a God, then how can you look at this universe and not come to the conclusion that there was someone of immense power, immense wisdom, who created all this? Frankly, I don't have enough faith to be an atheist.

I can't explain this universe that we live in by anything other than the reality, the existence of an almighty God. But what if God had never revealed himself? What if God had never spoken?

What if there was indeed this great God and he made all this and said, figure it out for yourselves? But God didn't do that. God chose to speak to humankind. That is of immense significance. That ought to call forth our greatest thanksgiving and praise. God spoke. God has revealed himself. And furthermore, these statements tell us that whatever was spoken by the prophets was indeed spoken by God. It has in that short condensed form a description of the Bible, which is at the same time the word of the living God and the word of human authors.

The human elements trip some people up. How can it be perfect? How can it be infallible? How can it be totally accurate if sinful, fallible human men were the ones who penned it? Because it is not just the word of man.

It is that. But it is the word of men as the word of the living God spoke through them. God spoke by the prophets or more literally in the prophets. Actually, he was within them. And then God spoke to us by his son.

And he was certainly in the sun. And therefore it is the infallible, inerrant word of the living God is originally given. God has spoken. God has revealed himself. God has revealed a certain portion of his will to us.

Whatever was spoken by the prophets that God chose was spoken by God himself. Therefore, we need to pay attention to what is the word of this great, powerful, majestic, eternal God who created this universe. He has given us revelation about himself.

Pay attention to it. Now, what is the methodology of biblical revelation? After having looked at the reality of biblical revelation, God spoke. But how did he speak?

What is the methodology of biblical revelation? And our text tells us, number one, how God spoke in the past and number two, how God speaks in the present. How God spoke in the past, in times past or long ago, as it's sometimes translated. God who at various times and at various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets.

There's the answer. He spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets. How did God speak in the past? To his chosen people.

The fathers refer to the fathers of Israel. He spoke to the fathers, his chosen people, through his chosen prophets. He spoke by his prophets or in his prophets. And he did that, we read, in successive portions. My translation says various times, but that probably would be better translated in many portions. God didn't speak at all at one time.

A little here, a little there, a little more here, a little more there. Sometimes he gave an entire book to a prophet, but many times even the prophecies that we have written by the prophets came to them in several different segments. The word of the Lord came unto me again saying. The prophet writes that down.

And then the word of the Lord came to me again saying. And the prophet writes that down. And so there are a lot of portions. Many books, 39 Old Testament books as we count them. And I say as we count them because the Hebrew people didn't count them quite the way we did.

We've divided some of the long ones. We have 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, 1 and 2 Chronicles. They just have the book of Samuel, the book of Kings, the book of Chronicles.

So there are different ways of counting them. But many books and in those books, many portions over a period in the Old Testament of 1500 years and at least 44 identifiable human authors. And yet all of that revelation came to a screeching halt 400 years before the coming of Christ.

That's known as the 400 silent years. And so the revelation began about 2000 years before Christ came and God spoke and God spoke and God spoke and God spoke. And God had chosen prophets that he used to give us another portion, another portion, another portion. The oldest of God's saints had very little revelation, but they had sufficient revelation. But more and more as portions were added, more and more revelation was given, but that still wasn't the culmination of it.

And that stopped before the coming of Jesus Christ. But God spoke in many portions and we read many ways, that is various methods. In other words, some of his word was spoken to the prophets by angels. Some of his word was spoken to the prophets by God's audible voice speaking to them. Some of those portions were spoken to the prophets by means of visions and dreams.

Various ways that God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but all of it God's word. And these many ways probably also includes the different, what we call in literature, the different genres. Some of it is narrative, some of it is poetry, some of it is symbolic, some of it is highly symbolic. I divide those into two different categories, the symbolic, like the sacrifices, the priests, the Levites, all of this was symbolic of something.

And then you get into what we call the apocalyptic literature where the symbols just are almost unfathomable. But there they are and they're given to us to reveal something of God's truth to us. And so God spoke in various portions, in various ways to the fathers by the prophets. That's how God spoke in the past, but now there's an even better way, how has God spoken to us in the present? He tells us, has verse 2, in these last days, spoken to us by His Son? In times past, by or in the prophets.

But in the present, when the author of Hebrews is writing, in the present He has spoken to us by His Son. In these last days, are we in the last days? Yes. How long have we been in the last days since Jesus came? Are we further along in the last days now than when Jesus came? Yes. Are we close to the end now? Nobody knows. We tend to think so.

How much more can this go on? How much more until God just says that's enough and stops the wickedness and says Jesus Christ is coming back and I'm bringing all this to a close. But many of God's people felt exactly the same way in past centuries and in past centuries and in past centuries. I've actually known a few godly people who unwisely said, I firmly believe that I'm going to be alive when Jesus Christ returns.

And you can go put flowers on their tombstone if you want to there with the Lord. But we're in the last days and have been since the coming of Christ. In other words, God divides history into two parts.

Before Christ and after Christ. Come to think about it, that's the way our calendar works. In spite of the people who hate it that you can't even write a date without some reference to Jesus Christ, though most people don't pay any attention to that. But everything in our world history is either B.C. or A.D. Jesus Christ is so significant that God said, I'm going to live, I'm going to put down a perpetual reminder that he is the focal point of history. And there are only two parts to human history. Everything that happened before Christ and everything that happens after Christ until he comes again.

That's it. And in the former days, God spoke to the fathers by the prophets and in these last days he's spoken to us by his son. And the son, therefore, is clearly superior to the prophets.

There's the first superiority. Now, was Jesus Christ a prophet? Yes, he was, but he was more than a prophet. He was a prophet, but he wasn't a prophet on the same level as great and revered prophets, particularly revered by the Jews like Moses, like Isaiah, like Elijah. Great prophets. But here is a prophet, priest and king, but here is a prophet who is superior to all the other prophets. And what he has spoken is final. All the other prophets spoke a portion of God's revelation leading up to the coming of Christ, the fulfillment of all of this revelation. But when Christ came, that completed the fulfillment.

And frankly, there is nothing more to add. If you know somebody who is getting revelations from God and adding more revelation to what God has given, he is badly mistaken. Don't you pay him any attention because now that Jesus Christ has come, the revelation is complete.

That's what this tells us. In the past, he spoke by the prophets. In these last days, he has spoken to us by his son, by his earthly presence, by his incarnation. He revealed much truth about God just in being the God-man, the perfect man like the sinless Adam. There never was a man like that.

How do you explain a man like that? Only because he's the God-man. What a revelation. But by what he said, the spoken word of Christ is the word of the living God and it is the culminating word, the final word. And through what he said through his chosen representatives because Jesus Christ himself said, I can't reveal everything to you at this time, but when I'm gone, I'll send the Holy Spirit and he shall teach you things to come.

That is the rest of the things that I didn't give you while I was upon the earth. And so his chosen representatives, the apostles and New Testament prophets, completed the remainder of what Jesus Christ revealed. And then when they gave us all of that, the final amen is said, the canon is closed, the revelation is over, the book is done.

There is no more. Now we read what God has given. Now we study what God has given.

Now we listen to explanation for what God has given, but we're not looking for any more. For more than two thousand years, God's people were still saying, wonderful what you've given, but give us some more. It's wonderful what we have, but give us some more. We need more. We need more.

We need more. And now God's people who understand say, we don't need a bit more. We've got it all. It all came with Jesus Christ. And there's nothing more beyond this. Jesus Christ in his person and in the revelation he gave is God's final word to man. If you won't take this, you're doomed. There is no more. If you're not happy with this, you're in trouble because God isn't going to give you anything else that's going to make you any happier. He's given everything that he intends to give to mankind. It's here for us.

So that brings me now. We've covered understanding the big picture background. We've covered laying the foundation, how God speaks to men. And now we're going to spend the remainder of our time dealing with introducing God's son. And that's the last part of verse two and verse three. Whom, speaking of the son, verse two, he has appointed heir of all things through whom also he made the worlds.

Who, verse three, being in 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 at the right hand of the majesty on high. That's where we're going to stop, even though there's a comma in my Bible at that point, because linguistically the sentence goes on to finish at the end of verse four. But thematically that pretty much takes us to where we need to go in the revelation of the son. And then verse four begins to set up this theme of comparing Christ to the angels.

It introduces that in verse four and completes that in the next several verses. So now we look at this, introducing God's son. And the son of God is impossible to describe fully just because God is impossible to describe fully. The son of God is impossible to understand fully because what human being can understand Almighty God fully?

None can. But there are several statements here which taken together paint a pretty comprehensive portrait of who God's son truly is. Maybe one or two statements might still leave some questions unanswered.

But by the time you get to the last of them, there's not much left to wonder about. What are the seven statements? I'll give them to you and then I'll go back and explain them fairly quickly. Seven statements. Number one, he is heir of all things. Number two, he is creator of all things. Number three, he is eternal deity. Number four, he is the supreme revelation of God. Number five, he is the supreme administrator in this world.

Number six, he is the ultimate sacrifice for sin. And number seven, he is the supreme ruler. Number one, he is heir of all things. Of his son, back to verse two, whom he, God the Father, has appointed heir of all things. He inherits it all. Now that gets us into the mystery of the Incarnation.

Because as the eternal son of God, he's always existed, he's always been God. He's always, in a sense, owned everything. And yet, we do learn from scripture that his willingness to condescend, to become a man, to take on the necessary work of redemption, has earned him some additional reward that relates to his deified humanity, his glorified humanity. He now is heir of all things as the God-man. And that's significant in a lot of ways, but John Trapp said, be married to this heir and have all. In other words, if you're the bride of Christ, you possess everything that he has, it belongs to you too, and he is heir of all things. That explains some of the statements we find in the New Testament about God's people having all things. If we're joint heirs with Christ, if we're in the bride of Christ and he's the heir of all things, then we have all things too. I don't understand that, I don't comprehend that.

I just tell you those few things that I can state accurately about it and I have to leave it there. I can't really get any further into that. But in some way, Jesus Christ earned the reward of being bequeathed all things because of his incarnation and the work that he did. Paul talks about that in Philippians chapter 2. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation and took upon him the form of a servant, was made in the likeness of men and being found in fashion as a man. He humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore, or therefore, depending on what translation you have, God has highly exalted him above all things as a result of his condescension and given him a name which is above every name, that of the name of Jesus, every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. He is the heir of all things. Number two, he is the creator of all things. Again, verse two, not only whom he has appointed heir of all things, but this statement, through whom also he made the worlds. God made this universe through the instrumentality of the sun. Jesus Christ is the actual creator of this universe.

My Bible says worlds, plural, so it's more than planet earth, and the actual Greek there is a phrase that indicates all the universe. Through Jesus Christ, God made everything. He made all things, and it was all made for him, Paul tells us in Colossians. God the Son carried out the Father's creative decree. God the Father said, we will, try Godhead, we will create a universe, and he said, Son, do it! And the Son said, let there be light, and there was light.

That's Jesus who did that. He's the creator of all things. We sometimes don't give him the full weight of his majesty, his honor, his glory, his personhood as we dwell upon his humanity, and we must think about his humanity.

That's important too, but don't forget who Jesus is. He is the creator of all things. Only God can create in the ultimate sense of that term. Most of you know that in Genesis when it tells us that God created, it means out of nothing, ex nihilo, out of nothing.

There was nothing, and then he spoke and there was something. That's the thorny issue that even evolutionists can't get back behind and explain. If everything evolved, where did the first thing come from?

Where did it come from? If it started out as nothing, you say there's something that is eternal, eternal matter? Well, that's the only explanation, but that's a little hard to explain. Something material that is eternal?

That's pretty hard to explain. At one time there was nothing, and now there's something. Where did the something come from that used to be nothing?

There's only one explanation for that. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. God created out of nothing.

Who did that? Jesus created out of nothing. The only one who can create like that is God. Therefore, the one who did create like that is God. Jesus is God.

Number three. If that weren't clear enough, he is eternal deity, verse three. Who being the brightness of his, God's glory, the brightness of God's glory, the radiance of God's glory, the effulgence of God's glory. God's glory is the visible manifestations of his nature.

It's what God reveals about himself. And Jesus is the radiance of God's glory. He who radiates the nature of God is God. No one else can radiate the nature of God. He is eternal deity.

Number four. He's the supreme revelation of God, verse three. And the express or exact image of his that is God's person.

The express image of God's person. That's a word that elsewhere is used of a seal that in those days would have been pressed into soft wax to seal something. And what was left in the wax was an exact representation of what pressed into the wax. The seal is reproduced in the wax. Or we have manufacturing today where there's a dye that will stamp something and create an image of whatever's on the dye.

Or in printing a plate that will create the image of whatever's on the plate. Now, that's not a perfect and complete explanation of what this is saying, but it gets pretty close to it. Jesus represents perfectly the nature of God. He's the express image of his person. And who can represent the exact image of eternal almighty God except God? And we'll keep coming back to it, don't we? And so he is the supreme revelation of God.

Number five. He is the supreme administrator of this universe that he made. It says that he upholds things, all things, by the word of his power.

Back to verse three. The brightness of his glory, the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power. The word of his power, just by his word, this one, the sun, sustains everything in this universe. He holds it together. He directs all things. He governs all things.

He keeps everything from falling apart. I'm not a scientist, but what little bits of science I have learned along the way. I do understand, and I think you do too, that everything that we see that's material is made out of atoms. And atoms can be subdivided further into little particles, but atoms are basically space with little particles whirring around in there, but there's a whole lot more space than there is substance. And if you take one of those atoms and break it apart, you have a tremendous explosion that's called the atom bomb.

There's fear now that maybe Russia, that's got itself backed into a corner, is going to be so desperate that it may actually use an atomic bomb, something that hasn't happened since Hiroshima in World War II, the one thing that brought World War II to a quick and immediate conclusion. And the power in the breaking the part of one atom is incomprehensible. And you think about, when we talk about the number of atoms in this universe so much, we're not talking about billions, we're not talking about trillions.

There's probably trillions right here in this pulpit. What if they all flew apart at once? Something is holding that together. Someone is holding that together. What if they all flew apart at once? Can you imagine?

I think someday they're going to, when the Bible talks about the elements melting with the fervent heat and this world coming to an end, that's probably about what's going to happen, something like the one who's holding it all together says, okay, fly apart, stop holding together. But every one of us would fly into how many pieces if Jesus Christ was not upholding us by the word of his power. That ought to make you thankful. Thank you, Lord Jesus, for holding me together. Thank you, Lord Jesus, for holding everything around me together. He upholds everything. He's the administrator, he's the governor. This has to do both of his power to hold things together as well as his governing action. He is, we talk sometimes about providence, that's the activity of God in the present world, the things that are going on.

Who is actually the author of providence? It's Jesus. He is the one who is governing and upholding all things that are presently going on. You say, how can he do that for seven billion people? Only one way he can do that, because he's not simply the man Jesus, he is the God-man, he is eternal deity. Number six, he's the ultimate sacrifice for sin. When he had by himself purged our sins. The ultimate sacrifice for sin, when he by himself purged our sins. The picture here is that he is the priest who offers the sacrifice, but he offers himself. He's the victim on the altar. The ultimate sacrifice, the one that actually cleanses sins.

The one that actually satisfies the justice of almighty God. All those animal sacrifices were just keeping things in place until Jesus came. God kindly accepting that as a temporary substitute for the only sacrifice, the lamb of God, who could actually take away the sins of the world. And finally, Jesus came and he offered himself and died. The songwriter says that.

I remember writing down the words of that song in the margin of my notes, but I forgot to reproduce that in my notes. But Jesus, our great high priest, offered himself and died. That's what this is saying. There is no sacrifice beside. He is the ultimate sacrifice for sin.

And then number seven, he is the supreme ruler. Finally, when he by himself purged our sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high. Have you ever thought about the fact that the Levitical priests never sat down while they were on duty? There's some beautiful furniture in the tabernacle and temple, but there's not a single chair, a single bench, a single place to sit.

Why? Because the priest's work was never done. There's always another sacrifice, another sacrifice, another sacrifice, another sacrifice, another sacrifice.

All of that repetition pointing to the fact that these animal sacrifices couldn't really do the job. But when Jesus died on the cross, he said, it is finished. And he offered the perfect sacrifice, and then he rose from the dead and he sent it back to heaven, and he sat down.

Work is done as far as the work of atonement is concerned. But where did he sit down? At the right hand of the throne of God. Where did he sit down? On the throne of the universe. Where did he sit down?

In the place where he is recognized as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. If we didn't have anything else but these three verses in the opening of the book of Hebrews, we should have no question, no doubt, no hesitation whatsoever to understand, embrace, believe, and gladly declare that Jesus Christ is God. You don't believe the Bible if you don't believe that.

Which brings me to two closing observations. Number one, Jesus Christ is God. That's basic, that's foundational, that's essential. There's no true Christianity without it. You may call yourself a Christian, you may practice what you call Christianity, but if you don't believe that Jesus Christ is God, you are no Christian. You have denied who he is, you've denied what the Bible says about him, you have no Savior, you have no Christ, you have no Jesus, true biblical Jesus, because this is who he is.

He is God. There's no Christianity apart from this, there's no salvation apart from this. Number two, the Bible is God's word. The very words of the true and living God are given to us in this book we call the Bible. And if God has spoken to us and given it to us in a book, then that by its very nature demands, deserves and demands our greatest attention. How can we neglect this?

That deserves and demands a great priority of our time and energies. That deserves and demands that we read God's word in private, that we read God's word in our homes, that we come to church to hear God's word explained. That demands that we insist that our churches be Bible-centered churches.

It's clear that there is a lot of Christianity that's going on today that pays so little attention to the Bible that people that attend church regularly can be almost totally ignorant of what the Bible says. Some of you are nodding your heads. Some of you are nodding your heads by personal experience. You've been there, done that. You've been in some of those churches.

You know what I'm talking about. But if God has spoken, and this says he has, if the Bible is God's word, and this tells us it is, then we better give that our highest priority. And when we gather to worship God, we worship the God who has revealed himself in the Bible. We worship God by learning the revelation that he has given, studying it more carefully and believing it more fervently. And that's the way we worship God in spirit and in truth. Can I tell you one more?

No, I won't tell you this. Time is gone. So we'll just stop right there, shall we pray. Father, thank you for giving us this book. We are debtors. We are responsible for what we have been given. Help us to treat it with the utmost respect and unwavering faith as we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.