The Superiority of Christ
“IN THE FIRST VERSE AND A HALF OF HEBREWS, THE HOLY SPIRIT ESTABLISHES THE PREEMINENCE OF JESUS CHRIST over all the Old Testament, over its message, its methods, and its messengers. It was just what those Jews, believing and unbelieving, needed to hear instead (they were intending to return to the primacy of the old covenant of works instead of going on in the New Covenant inaugurated by Christ’s death on the cross. – TAR). And so is established the priority of Jesus Christ. He is greater than the prophets. He is greater than any revelation in the Old Testament, for He is the embodiment of all that truth, and more. God has fully expressed Himself in Christ.” – MacArthur
THE SUBTITLE OF THIS BLOG IS “INTRODUCTION TO HEBREWS – PART II.” There is much important introductory information to say about Hebrews, so many significant points to be commented upon in these opening verses, that I feel having multiple introductory blogs is the only way to do the rich information justice.
A GREAT INTRODUCTORY ARTICLE IS THIS “ARGUMENT OF THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS”… God spoke in various ways to our fathers through the prophets, but now He has spoken His final word to us in His Son, His perfect representative. The Son of God is greater than any prophet; He is greater even than the angels, as the ancient scriptures abundantly testify. It was through angels that Moses’ law was communicated, and its sanctions were severe enough; how much more perilous must it be to ignore the saving message brought by no angel, but by Jesus, the Son of God!
Jesus, the Son of God, is the One to whom the dominion of the world has been committed for all time to come. As the eighth psalm teaches us, God has put everything under the dominion of man, and it was the nature of man – our nature – had the Son of God took upon Himself in order to win back this dominion. To do this He had to conquer the devil who had usurped it, and rescue those whom he held in bondage’ and He conquered the devil when in death He invaded the realm of death, which the devil had controlled until then. It is because Jesus is truly Man, moreover, that He is qualified to serve as high priest on His people’s behalf; He knows all their trials from His own experiences and therefore, can give them the timely help they need.
But let us beware: those who rebelled against God in the last days of the wilderness wanderings were excluded from His rest in the promised land. There is, however, a better rest than that which the Israelites found in Canaan; it is the rest which awaits the people of God. We much take care not to forfeit that rest by rebelling against God, when He speaks to us no longer through His servant Moses, as He did in those days, but through His Son, a greater than Moses.
The Aaronic priests minister under the old covenant instituted at Mount Sinai; JESUS IS THE MEDIATOR OF THE NEW COVENANT – the covenant whose inauguration Jeremiah foretold:
NAS Jeremiah 31:27-34 “Behold, days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of man and with the seed of beast.28 “And it will come about that as I have watched over them to pluck up, to break down, to overthrow, to destroy, and to bring disaster, so I will watch over them to build and to plant,” declares the LORD. 29 “In those days they will not say again, ‘The fathers have eaten sour grapes, And the children’s teeth are set on edge.’ 30 “But everyone will die for his own iniquity; each man who eats the sour grapes, his teeth will be set on edge. 31 “Behold, days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, 32 not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,” declares the LORD. 33 “But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the LORD, “I will put My law within them, and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. 34 “And they shall not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,” declares the LORD, “for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”
THE INTRODUCTION OF THE NEW COVENANT MEANS THAT THE FORMER ONE IS OBSOLETE. The old covenant made provision for the removal of external pollution by means of animal sacrifices and similar rites, but these things could never remove sin; under the new covenant, Jesus, by yielding up His life to God as an acceptable and efficacious sacrifice, cleanses the conscience of guilt and thus abolishes the barrier between His people and God. The Aaronic priests minister in an earthly sanctuary belonging to the old order, where access to the divine presence is barred by a curtain; Jesus exercises His high priesthood in the heavenly sanctuary, where there is no such barrier between the worshipers and God. And this heavenly sanctuary in which direct access to God is accorded through Jesus is that spiritual and eternal order of which the earthly sanctuary is only a temporary and inadequate copy. For THE NEW ORDER INTO WHICH CHRIST BRINGS HIS PEOPLE IS TO THE OLD LEVITICAL ORDER AS SUBSTANCE TO SHADOW. – F. F. Bruce
THE WRITER OF THE BOOK OF HEBREWS THROUGHOUT ITS 13 CHAPTERS EXHORTS HIS MOSTLY JEWISH READERS NOT TO RETURN TO THE OLD COVENANT BUT “APPROACH GOD ALONG THIS NEW AND LIVING WAY WHICH JESUS BY HIS DEATH HAS OPENED UP FOR US.” – Bruce
THIS, IN ESSENCE, IS THE BOOK OF HEBREWS: DON’T GO BACK TO THE OLD COVENANT; GO ON IN THE SUPERIOR NEW COVENANT INAUGURATED BY THE DEATH OF THE SUPERIOR SACRIFICE JESUS CHRIST.
NAS Hebrews 1:1-4 God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, 2 in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world. 3 And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power. When He had made purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high; 4 having become as much better than the angels, as He has inherited a more excellent name than they.
THE FIRST FOUR VERSES OF HEBREWS ARE TERMED “THE PROLOGUE” by most scholars. This is the second blog from these opening verses in the great book of Hebrews.
THIS PASSAGE SPEAKS ABOUT THE SUPERIORITY OF CHRIST over all previous forms of revelation. This passage asserts that the Son – who is Jesus Christ, of course – is God’s supreme revelation. Do you know what we mean when we say “revelation.” To reveal is to make known. To reveal is to disclose. When we reveal a secret we are disclosing it, making the secret known. “Revelation” is the word we use to describe the process of communication of God to man. Revelation is God revealing to us what we could not know otherwise. God made Himself known in ancient times in many and various ways to the Hebrew people by means of the prophets. But in these last days, God has disclosed Himself, revealed Himself, made Himself known in the Lord Jesus (the KJV, NKJ, and the NIV all translate v. 2, “by his Son”; “in His Son is best). Jesus Christ is God’s ultimate and final revelation of Himself. In the manifestation (appearing) of Jesus, we see God …
NLT Colossians 1:15-16 Christ is the visible image of the invisible God. He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation, For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him.
HE IS THE “VISIBLE IMAGE.” In Hebrews 1:3 we read…
NET Hebrews 1:3 The Son is the radiance of his glory and the representation of his essence,
IMMEDIATELY, JOHN 8:12 IS RECALLED (cf. JOHN 9:5; 12:46; ISAIAH 42:6)…
NAS John 8:12 Again therefore Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world; he who follows Me shall not walk in the darkness, but shall have the light of life.”
THE GREEK WORD FOR “RADIANCE” or effulgence means splendor emanating from a luminous body – light sent forth is found only here in all the N.T.
JESUS CHRIST IS THE ONLY BEING IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD WHO COULD RESPONSIBLY UTTER THOSE WORDS.
JESUS IS THE RADIANCE OF GOD’S GLORY. No one has ever seen God and no one ever will see God; it is possible for mankind to see God only in the sense of God’s radiance. We look at the sun in the sky. We do not see the sun; we see the radiance of the sun. So it is with God the Son and God the Father. The only radiance that reaches us from God is Jesus. Just as the sun was never without its radiance and cannot be separated from its brightness, so God was never without and cannot be separated from Christ. So, there is a sense in which when we see the brightness of the sun we are actually seeing the sun…
NAS John 14:8-9 Philip said to Him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father.”
GOD REVEALED HIMSELF IN HIS SON AND THE SON REVEALED GOD to mankind. Jesus is God’s prophet. He is also the Word. He is the message as well as the messenger. Jesus, the God-man is the perfect revelation of God.
OUR BLESSED LORD COMBINED IN ONE, two natures, both complete; A perfect manhood all sublime, in Godhead all replete. As man He entered Cana’s feast, a humble guest to dine; As God He changed the water there, and changed it into wine. As man He climbed the mountain’s height a suppliant to be; As God He left the place of prayer and walked upon the sea. As man He wept in heartfelt grief, beside a loved one’s grave’ As God He burst the bands of death, Almighty still to save. As man He lay within a boat o’er powered by needful sleep; As God He rose, rebuked the wind and stilled the angry deep. Such was our Lord in life on earth, in dual nature one; The woman’s seed in very truth and God’s eternal Son.
JESUS IS GOD’S RADIANCE. HE IS THE LIGHT…
KJV John 8:12 Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.
THE WORLD IN THESE LAST DAYS IS IN DARKNESS; JESUS IS THE LIGHT…
KJV John 1:4-5 In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.
ALL OF THIS IS A PROOF OF CHRIST’S DEITY. Consider this reasoning: “The Son is the effulgence or shining forth of God’s glory and the likeness of the Father. Being the effulgence of the eternal light, the Lord Jesus must also be Himself eternal. The all-glorious divinity of the Son of God is essentially one with the Father’s, but the Son is a personality distinct from that of the Father.” – Zodhiates
HEBREWS 1:3 ALSO SAYS JESUS IS THE “EXPRESS IMAGE” OF GOD. This is further proof that Jesus is God. The Greek word used here is χαρακτὴρ (ka-rak-tare), another word that is used only in Hebrews. “The word originally denoted an engraver or engraving tool. Later it meant the impression itself, usually something engraven, cut in, or stamped, a character, letter, mark, sign. This impression with its particular features was considered as the exact representation of the object whose image it bore. Whatever the divine essence is, Jesus is said to be its perfect expression. The writer of Hebrews thus sets forth a high Christology affirming the deity of Jesus Christ.” – Zodhiates
ONE OF THESE PROOFS SHOULD BE SUFFICIENT TO CONVINCE anyone
who is truly seeking God that Jesus is God. There should be no question in anyone’s mind today about who Jesus is…
THE WRITER OF HEBREWS WILL TELL US IN THE CHAPTERS AHEAD ABOUT THE SUPERIORITY OF JESUS. He is superior to the angels. He is superior to the prophets. He is superior to every being who has ever lived. He is God almighty Himself!
– Professor Thomas A. Rohm
