Hebrews 1:1-4
Often, when I was growing up I was given the admonition to not look at the sun. “You’ll hurt your eyes,” I was told. But I wanted to anyway. It was so bright and warm and well so bright. I remember getting a telescope with a “sun lens,” an especially dark lens with which to view the sun during eclipses or to view sun spots. Perhaps I loved to look at the sun because I knew it provided the light we needed to live.
The author of Hebrews, instead of telling not to look at the SUN begins his letter by commanding us that we ought to look at the SON. Now I don’t mean this star that sits a mere 93 million miles off earth’s bow. I mean Jesus Christ, the Son of God. He begins his letter by explaining that the Son of God eclipses everything else in the universe. He describes Jesus in such grand terms we cannot but help to marvel at this introduction. And he starts this letter by amassing the most potent words of the Greek language to describe who Jesus is in no uncertain terms.
Before we begin to look at the outline of this passage, the author introduces his focus on Jesus by describing the difference between the revelation of the Old Testament and the revelation of the Son of God. The Old Testament was described as being delivered in many portions. This speaks of the time factor given to the Word of God. The Old Testament was written down over a period of about 1100 years starting from 1500 BC (with Moses) to about 400 BC (with Malachi). The author also says the Old Testament came in many ways. And we can see that the ways in which the Word of God came was as variegated as the authors who wrote it. The Word of God was sent through angels, dreams, visions, sometimes it even came as God’s direct voice, whether very loud as thunder and trumpets, or very still and quiet as a whisper.
But the revelation of God through His Son came at one time and one place. He came to Israel in the last days. His coming inaugurated these days for us. He appeared on the scene, and as John the apostle said, “We beheld His glory, the glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” And this is whom the author of Hebrews now introduces. Let us look at the Son.
The key idea of the passage at hand is that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is the culmination in God’s plan for revealing Himself to the world and redeeming the world for Himself. The author relates three truths about the Son of God in this passage.
I. The Agency of the Son
The first truth the author of Hebrews relates to us is the agency of the Son. In verse 2 we see that Jesus is the agent through whom the Father accomplishes His work in this world. And the author mentions two specific ways in which He is the Father’s agent.
A. He is owner of all
First, Jesus is described as the owner of all. He says, “Whom He appointed heir of all things.” In this verse the author sets Jesus as the owner of everything. He is the heir to the Father’s estate. And what is the Father’s estate? It is the entire cosmos. There is nothing that is not under Jesus’ ownership. Psalm 2:8 reflects this. There King David notes the Lord’s words to the Messiah. “Ask of me, and I will surely give the nations as Your inheritance, and the very ends of the earth as Your possession.” And truly Paul’s words in Philippians 2:9-11 clearly mark this. Paul said, “For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
What does this mean? As owner of everything, all people will submit to His authority. Now this may not seem to be the case today. It seems like everyone can do whatever they want and get away with it. People are living according to their feelings instead of according to the Word of God. They want to feel good instead of live right. They want to be their own person and make their own decisions. They think that they are accountable to no one but themselves. They live according to the motto, “Be true to yourself.” But they forget that they do not live in a vacuum. They are accountable to Jesus Christ our Lord and one day, “every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. And that means every one will bow whether willingly or unwillingly. What about you? Have you bowed your knee to Jesus Christ as Lord? It will be much better to submit to His authority now and live then to live your own way now and later dwell under the eternal wrath of God.
B. He is Creator of all
Secondly, Jesus is described as the Creator of all. The rest of verse two reads, “through whom also He made the world.” Jesus was the Father’s agent as the Creator of this universe. You need not go far through the Scripture to see that God’s creative work is a very important theme throughout the Bible. God as Creator isn’t some obscure doctrine found in a few scattered verses in Scripture. It is found in literally thousands of places. I have even decided that as I read through the Scripture this next time I will catalog just how many times God’s creative activity is mentioned. It is the foundation of God’s right to rule the universe. If He is the not the Creator and if Jesus is not the agent of creation then they have no right to set the rules. They have lost their authority to reign. They have become a non-entity. This is what people have tried to do by evolution. They have sought to remove God’s role as Creator from Him and thus strip Him of His authority over them. They knew what they were doing. Romans 1 says, “Though they knew God they did not honor Him as God or give thanks but became futile in their speculations and their foolish heart was darkened.” But this is why Scripture leaves us without doubt as to God’s role in creation.
Frank Sheed was an author and publisher in the 1940’s. He was asked to lecture at the “Hyde Park ‘Speakers’ Corner.’” In his discourse, he described the extraordinary order and design to be seen in the universe. A heckler retorted by pointing out all the world’s ills, and ended shouting, “I could make a better universe than your God!” “I won’t ask you to make a universe,” Sheed replied. ‘But would you make a rabbit – just to establish confidence?” This is the point. Can God be trusted in anything He says or does? If He did not create the universe as He said, then the credibility of the Scripture and confidence in our God is completely removed. Jesus is the Creator of all. He must be or else we do not have a god. Even those who seek to harmonize evolution with creation to make a syncretistic theistic evolution are on the wrong track. To say that God used evolution as the means of His creation, popping in here and there to help the work along makes a mockery of God’s Word. One example of this is found in Romans 5:12. It says, “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.” This verse says that until Adam sinned there was no death in the world. If God used evolution to produce life on earth then before Adam and Lucy (or was that Eve) came upon the scene there was already death and decay for millions of years. And yet the Scripture says that death did not come upon the earth until Adam sinned and plunged the world into death and decay. If this were the case God would be the author of death instead of Adam’s sin being the author of death. And what about Jesus’ words concerning Adam and Eve? As God, Jesus knows everything. Yet if He spoke as if this first couple existed when they didn’t He would be a liar. How can you trust someone like that with your soul?
You cannot believe in evolution and the Scripture at the same time. They are two opposing worldviews. One says that God created all we see and the other says that time plus chance produced everything we see. They are both faith-based views because we have no one who was there at the beginning to see the creation (except God of course – so I tend to believe His eyewitness account instead).
But the author here affirms it was through Jesus the Son that the Father made the world. Actually the term is “worlds.” Jesus made the worlds. This refers to the fact that He created both the physical visible realm and the spiritual invisible realm. There is nothing outside of the scope of Jesus’ creative work. He is the Creator of all.
II. The Attributes of the Son
The next truth we see concerning the Son are the attributes of the Son. What characteristics of the Son of God does the author present to us? He gives us two.
A. He is God over all
The first attribute of the Son we see is Jesus is God over all. At the beginning of verse 3 we read, “And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature.” The author makes a remarkable statement of Christ’s Deity. Not only is Jesus the agent of the Father in ownership and creatorship but He is the image of God in human flesh. The author could not say that Jesus is God much more strongly. The two key phrases that declare His deity are “the radiance of His glory” and “the exact representation of His nature.” In other words the author is saying, “Christ is exactly what God is.” Jesus is the radiance of God’s glory. We see glimpses of this glory when Peter, James and John observe Jesus transfigured before them when they were with Him on the mountain. The Apostle Paul saw a glimpse of this glory when He met Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus. Jesus shines with the glory of God because He is God.
The authors of Scripture do not differentiate between the glory of Jesus and the glory of God. They declare it to be one and the same. In Isaiah 6, the prophet sees the Lord Himself and all His glory. Isaiah said He saw the glory of the Lord. And yet the apostle John says, in his gospel, that Isaiah saw Jesus’ glory. John likewise makes the declaration that Jesus is Jehovah.
The author of Hebrews then declares Jesus to be the “exact representation of His nature.” The word translated “exact representation” was used to refer to the mark made by a seal or the stamping of a coin. Nothing can be more like the original than that which is pressed out by the original mold. So Jesus is the exact representation of His being. In other words, Christ appears to be God, and that is who He is. He is who He appears to be.
Again the author makes reference to very clear teaching. The teaching of the Deity of Christ abounds in examples in both the Old and New Testament. And often the teaching of the one testament will compliment the other to reveal Christ’s deity. For example in Acts 1, the angels who speak to the apostles concerning Christ’s ascension tell them that this Jesus who ascended from the Mount of Olives will descend in like manner as you have seen Him go. And in the Old Testament, in Zechariah the prophet says in chapter 14 Jehovah will go forth and fight for Israel. And there it says, “In that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which is in front of Jerusalem on the east.” It is the Lord Jesus who is returning to fight for the nation and so clearly we see He is Jehovah. The author of Hebrews declares to us that Jesus is God over all.
B. He is the sustainer of all
The next attribute of the Son we see is Jesus is the sustainer of all. The middle of verse 3 says, “He upholds all things by the word of His power.” Not only did Jesus create everything but it is by His very word the entire universe is maintained. Paul says in Colossians 1:17 that in Christ “all things hold together.” Jesus is the sustaining force preventing the dissolution of the universe. This shows that God is active in the preservation of the universe. Deists would seek to say God wound up the universe and left it to run by itself. But the Scripture consistently says He is actively involved in its governance. Even science understands there is a force of which they know little called the strong and weak nuclear force. These forces act against the columbic repulsion that would repel like charges. Normally sub atomic material like protons would repel each other but when they come within 50 angstroms they attract each other instead. And these forces are just strong enough to allow for life. These nuclear forces that hold the atoms together used to be called the Colossian force because of the passage in Colossians I mentioned previously. But then scientists got too smart to really believe that God holds the world together.
But the Scripture describes that Christ is going to release his hold on the material world at the judgment and it is going to be burned up. Look at Peter’s description in his second letter. 2 Peter 3:10 says, “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up.” When Christ releases His hold on the world everything in this universe will fission away like one nuclear detonation.
Now think with me about the greatness of God while I digress for a moment. Does it seem like a waste that God would just allow the universe to melt away and permit it to be destroyed? For God it is just like rolling up a carpet or balling up some dirty laundry. Sustaining the universe, creating a universe or destroying a universe really takes no effort on God’s part at all because He is all-powerful. And the truth is, as we will see the author of Hebrews develop it, that all this we can see and touch and feel is not what will last anyway. There is going to be a new creation in which righteousness dwells. It is the souls of people that are eternal not our possessions.. And this is where we ought to concentrate our time, in reaching the souls of people not building up our own personal empires. For God is going to simply release His grip on this world and it will be gone.
He is the sustainer of all things. And this does not simply mean the universe in general. Let us not be deceived to think that we can see Jesus’ sustenance of the universe as that which is powerful but impersonal for He also sustains our very lives. You or I would not be able to take one more breath if it were not for the very sustaining power of God. We have our lives because of the sustaining power of Jesus. Do not boast. James says in his letter, “You do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.” And this thought ought to cause to see each day as a gift from God to us to be used for Him. And James concludes his thought by saying, “Instead, you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that.’” Jesus sustains the universe but He also sustains us individually.
III. The Achievement of the Son
Finally, the third truth we see concerning the Son is the achievement of the Son. Verse 3 mentions two such achievements.
A. Purification
The first achievement of the Son is purification. The verse says, “When He had made purification of sins.” There are a couple of aspects to notice about this achievement. First, it is already accomplished. The verse says, “When He had made purification of sins.” The verb is in the past. Jesus accomplished this once for all. He did this when He died upon the cross. He made purification for sins. The second truth is perhaps too simple to mention but the truth is He did it. He did it! Jesus Himself made purification for sins. We have nothing to do with purifying ourselves from our sins. Jesus did it. “When HE had made purification.” The author of Hebrews picks up this theme and will not let it rest until the closing verses of this letter. If there was one issue he wanted you to understand more than any other it would be that Jesus has died and He has made purification for your sins. Friend if the burden of your sin is still upon you won’t you call you to Jesus to remove that burden for which He died. He made purification for sins. Let Him remove yours.
B. Intercession
The second achievement of the Son is intercession. “When He had made purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.” This sitting means that Jesus is now interceding for each believer. And He intercedes for us to the Father that we might be conformed into His image. He never ceases or fails to pray for us so that we would accomplish the Father’s will by being made like His Son Jesus Christ.
What does this mean for us? We have no excuse for not being like the Lord Jesus. His intercession on our behalf is what we need to make us holy. Then “Why,” you ask, “can’t I overcome my sin?” Unbelief. God has cleansed you from your sin and has killed your dirty old sin nature upon the cross but you keep going and taking it down. You fail to believe what Christ has done for you in dying and rising for you. The resurrection power of Christ lives in every believer so that they can have a changed life but you don’t because you fail to appropriate the promises. We don’t overcome sin by our willpower we overcome sin because Christ lives in us and the life I now live I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me. We need to believe that Christ is our life so we can have victory over our sin.
Let me give you an illustration of this truth. When we lived in Minnesota while I was in seminary I used to use the church van for youth activities. Well I had a key for the outer door. So when I went to bring the van keys back I would go in the church and place the clipboard and key under the office door. Once my wife asked me to go to the church and get something in the receptionist’s office. I told her I couldn’t because it was locked. She asked if I had the key to the front door. I said, “Yes.” “Then,” she said, “you have the key to get into the office. It’s the same key.” You see I had access to the office the whole time. I just didn’t know it. You may be struggling with overcoming sin in your life but just don’t know that Christ living in you is how you can overcome sin. Don’t believe your flesh when it says you have to give into temptation. Don’t believe the devil when he says you have to give into temptation. Don’t believe the world when it says you to give into temptation. Believe God’s Word that says you are dead to sin therefore you are able to present the members of your body as instruments of righteousness. Christ ever lives to make intercession for you.
If you have placed your trust in Jesus Christ to save you, calling out to Him in faith and repenting of your sin and have been born again then Jesus is interceding for you to be conformed into His likeness. His power is available to you to live the way you should in righteousness and joy and peace. But remember you don’t joy and peace without righteousness. So look at the Son.