The Fullness of God, Dwelling in Christ

The opening lines of a story signal something to us of the greatness and grandeur of what is to follow.

“Once upon a time.”

“In a galaxy far, far away…”

“It was the best of times; it was the worst of times…”

All of these tell us that something great and magnificent is about to follow.

Yet, all of these pales in comparison to these opening lines here in Hebrews…

“Long ago, at many times and in many ways…”

For what follows after is one the greatest exhortations of Christ. There is no story that could ever compete in beauty and eloquence to the story of Christ for us that the author of Hebrews proceeds to encourage us with.

In this passage before us, we find an exhortation and encouragement to a struggling Church. We find later in this book that they were about to face immense pressure in persecution and were being tempted to go back to ways of old.

In response to this, the author of Hebrews seeks to reorientate these Christians back to the supremacy of Christ.

It doesn’t matter how old we get; it doesn’t matter how much theology we know. The realities presented to us in Hebrews get only sweeter and Christ presented therein, only all richer.

One commentator likened the way our understanding of Christ is here, to the scene in Narnia where Lucy meets Aslan again in Prince Caspian.

“Welcome, child,” he said. “Aslan,” said Lucy, “you’re bigger.” “That is because you are older, little one,” answered he. “Not because you are?” “I am not. But every year you grow, you will find me bigger.” [1]

I love the way that this little interaction illustrates how as we grow in Christ, our understanding and perception of Christ grows. It is my hope that as we walk through this next little bit of Hebrews, that we would marvel at Christ and wonder at how He has grown for us. Christ our Lord is the same yesterday, today and forever more, but may we behold Him with greater affection, reverence, and awe as we consider His person and work for us, His people.

In this passage before us, we will seek to do this under three headings

1. Christ as the fulfillment of God’s Revelation

2. Christ as the Embodiment of God’s Nature

3. Christ as the Object of Our Worship

Again, that’s Christ as the Fulfillment of God’s Revelation, as the embodiment of God’s nature, and the object of our worship.

Christ as the Fulfillment of God’s Revelation

Beginning in vs 1 let’s read.

Head

In answer to these questions about doubt, as encouragement in times of persecution, the author sets forth firstly how we are to understand God’s revelation.

We have a progression of revelation. It is not from less true to more true. Not in content but kind. What we have now is the same in substance as those of old, but now we have the message full and clear in Christ.

In the days of old, God spoke in various ways.

He met with Abraham and revealed to Him His covenant. God spoke face to face with Moses on Mt Sinai, meeting with him in thunder and cloud. God spoke in a whisper to Elijah.

God says that he makes Himself known to prophets in visions and speaks to them in dreams. He communicates to His people through, priests, Levites, kings, and prophets. They knew of the Gospel through these many ways and yet, the revelation was shrouded in darkness and concealed in shadow.

By faith these saints of old all looked forward. Abraham, “was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.”

You can think of the way heaven is revealed to us like an artist making a picture. The Old testament is like the initial sketch, it is an outline, lacking detail yet still the picture. The New testament is like the completed picture with more clarity and detail. And Heaven is like the actual landscape being painted.

It is like an artist looking upon a vast landscape. God revealed to all these saints the things of heaven, but it was like this artist making an initial sketch. The revelation of things was a true image of the full reality, but it was incomplete. The fullness of things was veiled in type and shadow, just as the beauty of the artist’s picture is veiled in shadowy sketches of their pencil.

But now, says the author, in these last days, he has spoken to us in his Son. What is revealed in type and shadow in the Old Testament, has now come down to us in the form of the Son, Jesus Christ.

What was a sketch in the times of our Fathers, is now a full, unveiled painting, displayed in all its glory.

As Paul says in 2 Corinthians 3,

“Now if the ministry of death, carved in letters on stone, came with such glory that the Israelites could not gaze at Moses’ face because of its glory, which was being brought to an end, 8 will not the ministry of the Spirit have even more glory?... For if what was being brought to an end came with glory, much more will what is permanent have glory.”

Heart

The reason we can say these things is because of the one defining fact of all Biblical revelation.

It is the WORD of God.

Our confession says as much when it says,

“The Holy Scripture is the only sufficient, certain, and infallible (which means unable to be false) rule of all saving knowledge, faith, and obedience…”

and later it declares the basis of such a claim when it says,

“The authority of the Holy Scripture, for which is ought to be believed, depends not upon the testimony of any man, or Church; but wholly upon God…”

and then it says something fantastic, “Who is truth itself, the author thereof!”

*pause*

“And therefore it is to be received because it is the Word of God.”

So, you can see, we don’t accept the revelation of these things because of the various ways they were revealed.

The magnitude of revelation doesn’t require them to be heard. Whether it was the booming voice of God in thunder on the mountain, or the still whisper in the cave.

The one, defining factor of all revelation and the reason we accept and believe it, is that it is God who speaks.

And now in this time, we have the final revelation of God in the person of Jesus Christ. The One to whom all honour and glory is owed, humbled Himself in the form of a man. In this man, despised and rejected by many, “all the promises of God find their Yes in Him.”

God has taken on our flesh, he has come down to us that we may be brought near to God. What a wonderful thought this is for our weak minds. Dreams and visions were inferior, the images and types in the temple were insufficient to bring about the fullness of the revelation we have in Christ that we are forgiven and redeemed. Now we can be called children of God.

Hands

So, what are we to do? If in Christ we have the fullest revelation and picture of the heavenly realities, then, we must not go any further than Christ. In the face of persecution, hardship, and doubt, we must cling even more strongly to Christ. Paul says to the Galatians, “But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed.”

We must instead come to Christ. We must see Him as who He is, the final, full Word of God, declared to us. As Christ Himself says to us, “Come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

This is the promise of God to you, Christ has come and through Him we have the forgiveness of sins and we have fellowship with God. As the full, final revelation of God, Christ indeed can give you rest.

Christ as the Embodiment of God’s Nature

So, what qualifies Christ for this role? Why is to Him we must come and why is it at Him we must stop? The author goes on.

*Read vs 2b-3a*

Head

God has appointed Christ “the heir of all things.” As a Son, the whole world is Christ’s to inherit. Along with the whole world, Christ is also the heir of the new mankind as the first born, we are His for His own possession. Because we are His and come after Him, we are also called “Sons of God” and “heirs with Christ.”

This One who is the heir of the whole world, is also the One “through whom also He created the world.”

As Christ was the first word of creation, “let there be light” and there was light. He is also the final word of the New Creation, “The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world.” This is what Christ means when he says of Himself in Revelation 22:13, “I am the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End.”

he is the means by which this creation came into being. And now through His work as our redeemer, He is the One through whom the New creation is coming about.

Heart

Christ truly is the first and last of all creation. By that I do not mean to say that Christ was the first of God’s created beings, rather He is first primacy. That is, he is the most eminent, the first overall. He creates by His very words and sustains by those same commands. Everything comes from Him and goes back to Him. Our own lives are bound up with His also.

Head

The author goes on to say three things about the person of Christ and to this point John Calvin says this,

“but, as I have said, his purpose was really to build up our faith, so that we may learn that God is made known to us in no other way than in Christ: for as to the essence of God, so immense is the brightness that it dazzles our eyes, except it shines on us in Christ.”

It is to this point that the author here says that Christ is “the radiance of the glory of God.”

Moses beheld the glory of God on the mount and was shielded from gazing fully into the face of God, and even then, he had to shield his own face from the people of Israel. It is that same glory that has been bound up in the man Jesus Christ.

The glory that Moses could not behold is contained in the person of Jesus Christ. “So immense is the brightness that it dazzles our eyes, except it shines on us in Christ.” We could not look upon the greatness, beauty, and glory of the Father, yet in His Son, Jesus Christ, we can look upon His face.

Such that as one author says, “Just as the radiance of the sun reaches this earth, so in Christ the glorious light of God shines into the hearts of men and women.” As we feel the warmth of the sun in its rays that come to earth, so too we have seen the Father as we behold the person of Jesus Christ.

The author goes on,

Christ is also “the exact imprint of His nature.” In the character of Christ, we see what God is like. “he who has seen me has seen the Father,” Jesus says of Himself. When we look to Christ, we see how gentle He is. He pulls little children upon His knee, He goes as a shepherd to seek and save those who are lost and of His heart, he says that He is gentle and lowly.

There is no difference in being between the Father and the Son. By saying that Christ is “the exact imprint of His nature,” he also means to say that Christ is of the same type as the Father. They are not two Gods nor two of similar type. But they are of the same substance.

He is God made flesh. The Athanasian Creed says it like this, “Such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Spirit.”

Hands

Because Christ is of the same substance as the Father, He is truly God. Christ has inherited us as His people, along with the whole world. Therefore, our lives should reflect the One who’s name is upon us. Thankfully we are not alone in this. We have been given the Holy Spirit who regenerates us and makes us new. He brings about the nature in us that makes us into the image of Christ. Do not give yourself to things of this World, to the lusts of the flesh and the desires of the eyes. Instead, know that Christ has not left us, he has given us the Comforter to bring about His will in our lives, that we would be sanctified, that we would put off the Old Man and put on the New. For we are the Body of Christ.

Heart

Christ also, “upholds the universe by the word of his power.” From the smallest atom to the furthest star billions of light years away, Christ holds it all together by the word of His mouth. He speaks and it comes into being. Who is this man who speaks and even the raging seas obey His voice? He is Christ, the eternal Son of God. He holds your life together by the Word of His mouth. As he sustains the whole universe, he sustains your life also.

Hands

So, as our whole lives are bound up in the One who holds the whole universe together, may we have the attitude of Paul in Philippians 3,

“Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own… But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.”

Even this body of sin will one day be made new, and we will experience the fullness of the redemption that has been bought for us. This is your saviour, the One who is of the same substance with the Father, by whom we know the Father and who upholds all things. He says to you now, come to me and I will give you rest.

This leads me to my final point

Christ as the Object of Our Worship

Head

Christ proved that He holds our lives together by ultimately laying down His own life. “After making purification for sins,” What then is the final word of God?

“It is finished.”

Salvation is complete. The work is done. The only begotten Son of God has come down, he lived the perfect life, then He laid that life down as a perfect sacrifice of sins. Christ has entered the holy of holies and was counted as worthy. He has gone before us into the throne room of God. Where the Priests went into the shadowy image of that throne room year after year, not ceasing their work, Christ has gone in and now,

“Sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on High.” By this one act, Christ has shown that He has “become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.” The act of sitting at God’s right hand shows His superiority which is further shown by the name that He has, Son.

Hands

Christ is our Lord, he rules and upholds all, even our very lives. Christ is also our saviour, He has washed us in His blood, he has made us new. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.”

This is the only way, to think that we can make our own apart from this blood of Christ, we undermine those words of Christ, “it is finished.”

Heart

The Kingdom of God is here, now, of which Christ is the first fruits and we follow Him. As Christ builds His Kingdom, not even the gates of Hell will prevail. For in His resurrection, Christ defeated even death itself so that it would no longer have any hold of us.

Though we may face ridicule and persecution. Though Satan may tempt us. Though we may doubt, and our bodies of sin may still entice us. Christ has gone before us, and He promises to bring us after Him into glory. This is the end to which all things are going.

Revelation 22:3-5, “No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. 4 They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. 5 And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.”

This is our Christ. He is no mere man, nor created being. He is the final Word of God, creator, sustainer, redeemer, and Lord over all. As we look to Him, may He grow ever larger for us as we grow in grace in Him through the work of the Holy Spirit.

[1] Hughes, R. Kent. 1993. Hebrews: An Anchor for the Soul. Vol. 1. Preaching the Word. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books.