The Superiority of Christ (Part B)

He has declared him, so you want to know what God is like. Look at Christ, because the word God, it needs definition.

It's so general. Everyone has an opinion about the word of God except believers. Believers, we do not have an opinion. We have a revelation. We've received a revelation.

God has told us. We're not guessing about what he is like. He is holy. He is full of mercy. He delights in forgiving those who repent, but he will judge those who reject. We know about him. What does he think of my enemies? What does he think of how I should treat my enemies? Well, to answer that, you just look at Jesus Christ. That's right. If you want to know what God is like, look at him.

Well, where am I going to get a picture of him? Well, you start in the gospels. You can find it in the Old Testament also, but it's veiled a little bit there. You move into the New Testament, and the veil is removed. And that's why we are ministers of the New Covenant.

Because it is about Christ having come, died, rising again, ascending to heaven, dispatching the Holy Spirit upon us, and moving toward eternity with us. And so Moses, Moses wanted to know, what are you like? I want to see you. I know you speak to me. I've seen the miracles.

I have no question about your existence. Moses had a theophany, where he did not see the person of God in the burning bush, but he saw the bush, that shrub that was burning, but not consumed. Because God was in it, that makes it a theophany, an appearance of God within creation. A shrub. What's a shrub?

I mean, we think of shrubbery, you know, and landscaping. That wasn't the case on the backside of the desert. That's where Moses was. The Bible tells us he was on the backside of the desert.

I've always wanted, it just seems a place that I never want to be. But this is what Moses said, he says, now therefore I pray, if I have found grace in your sight, show me now your way, that I may know you, that I might find grace in your sight, and consider that this nation is your people. I just wanted to get even closer. You see, if you have an idol, an idol demonstrates that you're distant from God. You don't sense his presence as it really is.

You have to come up with something to satisfy your carnality. But faith overcomes that. Faith says, I know he's right here. He's demonstrated his love. He's died for me. I've read his word.

Nobody can make these things up. He's spoken to my heart. He's touched me.

His fingerprints are upon me. But Moses, he wanted a little bit more. He wanted to see. And of course, God had to hide him. At that time, you cannot see the essence, my essence.

Yes, he could have manifested himself into a Christophany, but he opted not to do that with Moses. So John writes in his first, staying with Moses, this desire to see God. John writes in his first chapter of his gospel, no one has seen God at any time. In his purity, the only begotten son who is in the heart of the Father, he has declared him. So you want to know what God is like. Look at Christ. Because the word God, it needs definition.

It's so general. Everyone has an opinion about the word of God except believers. Believers, we do not have an opinion. We have a revelation. We've received a revelation.

God has told us. We're not guessing about what he is like. He is holy. He is full of mercy. He delights in forgiving those who repent, but he will judge those who reject. We know about him.

John continues, well, again, I want to reread that. No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten son who is in the heart of the Father, he has revealed him.

He's pulled back the veil. He has shown him to us. And so Moses prayed, and he said, please show me your glory. And so Paul writes, that I may know him and the power of his resurrection. And the fellowship of his sufferings.

I'm not so sure we can really see Christ anew in a fresh sense as Christians if we lose sight of the fellowship of his sufferings. I get tired of suffering. I don't want to suffer anymore.

That paid my dues. But that's according to me, not according to God. Not according to life. And so when we come into suffering, we understand God, I think, is ready to move closer to us than in unlike any other situation. But suffering requires submission in the presence of God. That I may know him, the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his suffering. Being conformed to his death.

It even got worse from suffering to death. An unjust death. If by any means I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. That I may know him.

That I may see him and hold him and be with him. And this is what the writer in Hebrews is talking about. He, Christ, is the expressed image. And Christians get tripped up when they lose sight of this. Then they start tinkering with things that will damn their souls if not careful. This is what apostasy is made from.

Backsliding. And so this majesty of the son. Majesty as the son of God and his ministry as the son of man. Do you understand the role of Messiah? His ministry towards man? But his majesty, his essence, his glory as the son of God. Before he was born of a virgin. And so the Bible places emphasis on this Jesus whom we love. How else will we get to know him?

What is he supposed to do? Materialize for every generation? Throughout the ages? He is spoken. He is spoken through his son. And he is preserved. What he has wanted preserved.

And it is here. Upholding, he says. That's a powerful word. Because it means to produce or to bear. When they brought the paralytic to Christ to be healed, they used the same Greek word. When they brought him, they produced him. They sustained him and got him to Christ. When Jesus said, go get a coin to tie to Caesar.

And they produced it, the same Greek word. He upholds, he sustains, he bears it. They bore the coin to him and this is the same idea. So he has not abandoned the universe. He sustains it and my grace also.

This is critical. Alright, so God keeps the moon from slamming into the earth. That's a good thing. But is that all that he does?

How will I know if he does any more than that? I think God loves me more than the moon because he didn't die for the moon. He can sustain me too. Even in my sin. That's called recurrent grace. The grace flows. It is current.

It is not static. Grace is not this pond that you have to go to and jump in to benefit from it. It is a river that flows.

It is a rain. It is something that is constant for those who are in Christ Jesus. And because you stumble doesn't knock you out of Christ Jesus. Your salvation is not made of eggshells. It's not something that's fragile.

It is near invincible. You have to opt out. You have to say away with you Jesus Christ. I don't want you anymore.

Many have done that. And so no Christian needs to be walking around fretting. Am I saved? Am I saved? You believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior. No other as your Savior. You know that he is God the Son. The Son of God. That he died on a cross for you and rose again and sits at the right hand of the throne of God and is coming again. And you will be with him. Do you believe that?

If you say yes I do. Amen. You are saved. The only one that will come along and lie to you are the devil and his dupes. Don't pick it up.

They throw that lie down to you, don't pick it up. Where sin abounded, grace did much more. There is therefore now no condemnation in Christ.

That's what that means. Otherwise we're all toast. Because the same little sin will damn you just as fast as the same big sin.

There's not this river of grace that we all benefit from. And so he says all things by the word of his power. The one who holds the universe together can hold me together.

The one who holds the universe together can bring me into heaven and he will. And John wrote his first letter saying I've written to you so that you may know that you have salvation in Christ Jesus. Hebrews chapter 11. By faith we understand that the world is reframed by the word of God.

So that the things which are seen are not made of the things which are visible. This is his all power. All things by the word of his power. Daniel chapter 5. Remember every word of God. Maybe I should read every word right now. I'll start in Genesis.

It'll only take about two weeks. Daniel 5, 23. The God who holds your breath in his hand and owns all your ways you have not glorified. He said that to Belshazzar. That was that king whose knees smote one against the other. Who lost control of himself when the handwriting was on the wall. And Daniel comes in and they say offer him the trinkets of the kingdom and you keep your junk.

I'm not here for your costume jewelry. And he spoke God's word and this is what he said. God who holds your breath in his hand and owns all your ways you've not glorified.

And of course Belshazzar died that night. So much again for deism. The belief again that God created the universe and then abandoned it. He's not a deadbeat God.

He's very much here. And when you find yourself in a place as a Christian and you do not sense God's presence. Your faith is then to kick in. It's sort of like a backup generator.

You don't run it when everything is working. It's when things aren't working. And so when things aren't working in your life that generator of faith kicks in. That glorifies God through your sufferings.

Not that well he's not coming to help me. Walk by faith not by sight. Psalm 148 let them praise the name of Yahweh for he commanded and they were created. Now we just read that Jesus is the creator and there in the Psalms we see Yahweh is the creator because they're the same. Revelation 4-11 you are worthy O Lord to receive glory and honor and power. He's talking to the Lamb here in Revelation 4.

You created all things and by your will they exist and were created. It continues when he had by himself purged our sins. Not Mary. Mary is not the co-redeemer.

That is a lie out of hell. I don't care what church preaches it. If you say well I'm offended at that.

Well you have to be offended. But worse than that you're heading towards hell with that kind of a doctrine. To suggest that Christ is not sufficient.

That he needs a helper. That his death on the cross really wasn't all of that. It is a sin. The Bible speaks vehemently against it. Nor is there salvation in any other name. For there is no other name under heaven by which we... Acts chapter 4 verse 12. Why aren't people who say they're Christians knowledgeable of these things?

Why, how many Christians that, born again Christians, don't even know these things exist in the scripture? Because they're just satisfied with knowing well I'm not going to hell. And I can sing the music to demonstrate that. I can sing with passion in my heart. Well that's sort of like marching with fake rifles if that's all you've got.

You're just a cadet and not a true soldier. If the word is not flowing out of you, how do you get the word to flow out of you? You fall in love with Christ.

All of him. You fall in love with his word. That's how it gets out of us. That's how we become full.

Yes, and everything will converge on you to stop that from happening. Especially your moods. How many of you have been victim of some other Christian's moods?

Everybody should raise their hands because you know it's true. It's like, oh brother, what was that? You want to say, what's your problem now? You know, you're trying to be nice to someone. That's one thing when you're with your child you say, listen, boy, I'm trying to be nice to you. And while you're reaching for your belt. Well sometimes with other Christians, you're trying to be kind to them and patient. And they're just trampling away.

Like they've got some sort of badge to do this. They're in the flesh. And they're drawing you in the flesh. And you are not justified.

Yeah, well that, I about had it. I've done that as a pastor and I've paid. And I work very hard not to get in the flesh as a pastor. Now when I'm alone with God, I don't get in the flesh, but I let them have it.

You know what they did. And I know what you did for me. And so I'll just take my lumps because I am not better than the least of them. Ephesians, we're talking about when he by himself purges us, and for by grace you have been saved through faith, that not of yourselves or Mary or any other saint or angel or any other created being. He continues, that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.

Not of works lest anyone should boast. No one will hold an IOU on God, many try it. Well I'm a good man.

Compared to who? You've heard Christians or people say that. Well you know God understands, I'm a good man. Your goodness is filthy rags to him. What does that make your badness? And this is what we're supposed to tell him.

Some of you have parents or family members, they're quite smug about it. Well you know I'm a decent person, not next to Jesus, and that's who you're going to be judged by. He purged our sins, mark the contrast. Looking at verse 3. His glory, his person, his power, our sins. Why would he love us? His glory, person, and power, our sins. A stark contrast. It is the most brief and comprehensive statement in Scripture concerning the Lord's first work at his first coming.

It covers it all. He purged our sins, that is what it was about. When he comes back he will purge a kingdom for himself. No purgatory, no reincarnation, reincarnation is actually pretty dumb. Just do it again, and again, and again, over again.

It's like I've seen this movie, I want out. Who thought of that? Well whoever did it, they thought of it again and again and again. But anyway, it's sort of like evolution falls from billions and billions and billions of years ago, it didn't exist. But, no purgatory.

There's no holding then. What is purgatory? What do you do there? I mean, 1 John chapter 1 verse 7, the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin. Repeated cleansing, 1 John chapter 1 verse 9, if we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

That blocks out those who have rejected him. Sat down at the right hand of majesty on high. Five times in Hebrews do we read about Christ sitting down on the throne in his majesty. We'll just take 1 Hebrews chapter 10. But this man, speaking of Christ, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God.

And so, again, five times in Hebrew. So let's review just this one section and then we will move through verse 4 pretty swiftly. I'm quoting scripture, verse 2, whom he has appointed heir of all things, through whom also he made the worlds.

Verse 3, who being the brightness of his glory, the express image of his person, upholding all things by the word of his power, he had by himself purged our sins and sat down at the right hand of majesty on high. This blows away the doctrine of the Jehovah's Witnesses, the Mormons, the Unitarians, the oneness Pentecostals. It just blows it out and says, well, look, you're using the Bible, but you have, you know, selective ignorance or selective illiteracy.

You select what you don't want to read. You select what you don't want to believe in God's word and you edit it out. And that is heresy. And those people are not your brothers and sisters in Christ.

I don't care how sincere. Jesus, the Bible teaches us that a person's sincerity is no evidence of their accuracy. This was the story with the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel.

They were cutting themselves, they were flogging themselves, they were shouting out to exhaustion. They were very sincere about the wrong God because they did not love and receive the truth. Try applying these attributes to anyone less than God himself and you'll find you cannot do it. He is always superior to his creation, to all of it. And because he subjected himself and was born of a virgin does not mean he was created. He stepped into our time. Verse 4, having become so much better than the angels, he has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they.

I don't know about you. Maybe this is, okay, I got it, I got it. This is the best thing to preach for any pastor ever, to preach on the glory of Christ. We have to preach on other things too. And what comes to my mind is the Corinthians and the Galatians, all of the corrective stuff, telling Christians to stop doing that stuff.

You have to do it. But when we get to talking about Christ and not about us, it is so much better. This is a beautiful psalm to speak of his glory. Having become so much better than the angels and has by inheritance, verse 4, obtained a more excellent name than they. Now he did not evolve. He developed, you can in that sense, in the strict sense of the word. Remember verse 3 said he created the angels.

And so when you come here, again, cultists get tripped up here, having become so much better. That means, ah, so he wasn't always pure. He wasn't always God. He wasn't always perfect.

He became better. That's how they see it and they're wrong. That is not what it means. Verse 3 already clarified that. He created the angels. He was better than them to begin with. You cannot create something better than yourself.

I don't know of anyone who has done it. Well, anyway, well, I guess you could say a rotten father could have a good child. In that sense, but that's procreation. Anyway, this is speaking of the development of his role as Messiah in this sense. Which of the angels has been slain?

None. Christ, God Almighty, subjected himself to murder. That is the sense that is speaking about his role as Messiah. He took the form of a servant, we're told in Philippians chapter 2. Hebrews chapter 2 verse 9. But we see Jesus.

What a glorious phrase. We see Jesus. Who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor that he, by the grace of God, might taste death for everyone. That's why he was made lower than the angels because if he was not, you couldn't kill him.

How can you kill, who can kill Michael the archangel? One angel is going to grab Satan by his neck and shackle him up. I want to see that. I want to root for it.

I'm bringing chips and just, I want to see it. But I will not ask for that angel's autograph. Because I have my Lord. But anyway, so I hope we're clearing up some of the cobwebs that may be in your head and why the language of the scripture is speaking this way is not evolution of his existence or his person. It's the processes that he subjected himself by his decision to save us, to humiliate himself in the sense that God left his throne to come here to deal with this.

And how many of us say, boy, this life. What a bunch of junk because of sin. And so no inferiority of Christ is here and I've covered that.

Better than the angels. Did the Mormons not, do they not know this is in the Bible? That he's not a brother of Lucifer? That he's not a created being?

Do they not see these things? The Jewish minds held angels in such esteem that the writer who is saying to them, listen, you're a second generation of Christians. You've come to Christ from people who are already with Christ. And you're Jewish. And now pressure's on you and you want to go back to being Jewish to stop suffering and receiving the persecution.

Or maybe you're just confused about the temple being there and your upbringing is so strong in Judaism you just still want to do the things that Christ has already fulfilled and you're not supposed to do. That's what this letter is all about. And so writing to them, he says, I know you've heard about how great angels are. Christ is better. And so this is what we're going to get in the coming passages of Hebrews.

Here we have better than the angels. In chapter six, better things concerning you. Chapter nine, a better hope. Chapter seven, I said chapter seven, a better hope. Chapter seven, again, a better covenant. Chapter eight, better promises. Chapter nine, better sacrifices. Chapter 11, a better country.

We're going to find he's better than the angels and Moses and Aaron and Melchizedek and all the others. A better life awaits Christians. In Hebrews 10, verse 34, there's a better place for us. As I mentioned in chapter 11, a better country. Chapter 11, again, a better resurrection. Chapter 40, a better something.

Better, better, better. That's what Hebrews is all about to the Jew. Something better exists than Judaism. And it is Christianity. And so he finishes this paragraph. As he has, by inheritance, obtained a more excellent name than them. By inheritance, in other words, it is his right. That's who he is. It's his due.

It is proper. It would be wrong to not have him be restored to the place that he left from on our behalf. So we have him come in the role of Messiah. Well, once that role is fulfilled, he's on the throne of God again because that's where he came from. And when we understand that, he became a servant, then we can understand the verses that seem to contradict, but they don't.

As far as the angels go, it is their delight to subject themselves to Jesus Christ. Every knee shall bow, every tongue shall confess to Jesus Christ. His position is that he is uncreated. He is unlimited. He is unmatched.

And he is unending. So no wonder Paul uses the same word for better. When he says here better than the angels, Paul uses that same word to speak about this life. In Philippians chapter 1, we'll close with this. Philippians 1 23.

For I am hard pressed between two, having a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better. You've been listening to Cross-Reference Radio, the daily radio ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel in Mechanicsville, Virginia. As we mentioned at the beginning of today's broadcast, today's teaching is available free of charge at our website. Simply log on to crossreferenceradio.com. That's crossreferenceradio.com. We'd also like to encourage you to subscribe to the Cross-Reference Radio podcast, subscribing ensures that you stay current with all the latest teachings from Pastor Rick. You can subscribe at crossreferenceradio.com or simply search for Cross-Reference Radio in your favorite podcast app. Tune in next time as Pastor Rick continues teaching through the book of Hebrews, right here on Cross-Reference Radio.