A Speech Superior to the Prophets
Notes
Transcript
Crab feast with kids- Christ’s speech was progressive not because of God but because of us.
Christ’s Speech is Superior to the speech of the Prophets.
Christ’s Speech is Superior to the speech of the Prophets.
Amazing that the Lord speaks at all.
The writer of Hebrews begins his letter of exhortation by laying a foundation. He is preparing the reader to see the authority of the Sons speech and greater ministry. Remember what we do know is that the recipients of the letter were familiar with the Old Testament scriptures. Most of the allusions with out much qualification or explanation come from the Torah, that is the first 5 books of the bible. These believers even if they were in danger of abandoning and walking away from Christ would have had loyalty to the Old Testament scriptures and in particular to the prophets who wrote them.
But from the first words of the book the writer is showing the inferiority of their speech.
His speech is fulfillment. (1)
His speech is fulfillment. (1)
The prophets like the priests of old were many. They came from all walks of life and and different times. The contrast between the prophets and Christ are stark, they are many, He is one, they spoke long ago in many different times, He has spoken in theses last days, they spoke in many different ways.
Isaiah walking around naked prophesyingJeremiah hiding his underwear under a rock by the Euphrates Jeremiah wearing “yoke-bars” as he spoke to the nationHosea marrying a prostitute and naming his children weird namesJonah running from God and ending up in the belly of a great fish for 3 daysEzekiel eating a scroll, laying on one side for 390 days, cooking his food over a fire of manure, prophesying over dry bones that come to life John the
All of this speaks of the fullness and variety of how God spoke but implies that their speech was incomplete until the time of Christ.
For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory.
The issue is not whether or not their speech was of God, it most certainly was. The issue is one of maturity. Their words were pregnant with meaning and awaited a future and final fulfillment. Prophecy in this sense was progressive. Christ did not just appear immediately after sin in the garden, neither did he appear when He did without context and the backdrop of the Old Testament. The progression of prophecy is from many to one, from promise to fulfillment, incomplete to complete, from immature to mature.
“The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen—
ILLUSTRATION: Coupon books
His speech is final. (2)
His speech is final. (2)
The term “last day” and the past tense “has spoken” speak of the finality of Christ’s speech. It is Christ who has the last and final word. In the Garden Satan spoke lies, and the prophets spoke after of a coming messiah who would undo the fall that come about through Adam. The law spoke and shut all men up under sin and death. And now Christ speaks the final words on the cross “it is finished” So in the cosmic battle of words the wisdom of God hidden in Christ has the final word. As we will see in the weeks to come the law of God according to the old covenant delivered to the Israelites by the Prophet Moses and Angels was inferior as it was written on stone tablets. But the new speech the new covenant is superior in that it is written not on stone but on the hearts of men and women whose faith is in the Son.
His speech is flawless. (2b-3)
His speech is flawless. (2b-3)
Because it leads to His doing.
Adam when he was in a state of innocence was not mature in the sense that he was untested. He did not reach a state of maturity in the sense that he did not secure for himself or his posterity eternal life. He failed to keep the covenant of God and plunged us all into sin and death. Hence the first prophecy given in Genesis by God Himself that He would send the snake crusher to deal a death blow to the serpent of Old and to death itself.
The radiance of His glory.
The radiance of His glory.
There never was a time in its existence when the sun did not put out rays of light and give warmth to the earth, so there never was a time when the essential glory of God did not shine forth in the eternal Son of God.
Illustration: In 1964 two race car drivers were injured in a pile up cased by the black smoke of another car on fire. Which led to the development of Methanol as a fuel. Methanol when it burns creates a smokeless and invisible flame. Of course it continues to burn with intense heat you just cant see its flame.
Never was the veil holding back the glory of the Lord from our eyes thinner than at the Mount of Transfiguration. Matthew 17:2
And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light.
His rays of fire coming from the Lord became burst forth at the incarnation but the heat from the glory of can be seen through out the Old Testament though invisible and hidden from plane sight.
I am the Lord; that is my name;
my glory I give to no other,
nor my praise to carved idols.
Just as you cant have radiance with out glory or glory with out radiance, so John tells in
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
The Son is both the very essence of God and yet distinct from the Father in His personhood. This the very essence of the Triune nature of God.
The exact imprint of His nature
The exact imprint of His nature
A coin is engrave with an image that bears the likeness of or image of man, so Christ is likewise said to be the exact imprint of His nature which means his real essence or substance, as opposed to something fake or false that is meant to merely look like it. It is according to this image that all men were created but like all men that image was marred and corrupted by sin. If you took a coin and bury it for a thousand years, it will tarnish and decay in the ground, when you uncover it, you can make out its image but the image has deteriorated. So Adam our first father was immature and corrupted by sin, He passed to us that very marred image of God and yet the mature and flawless Christ came to become the 2nd Adam the one who would reverse the curse of Adam and give to His posterity not death but eternal life.
HOW DID HE DO IT? By offering up a better sacrifice for sin. By offering up Himself as the sacrifice which would once for all take care of the problem of our sin.
But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God,
All of this lays the foundation for Christ’s superiority as prophet with better speech, as priest with better sacrifice, and king on a greater throne.
Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own, for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.
How do we know, how are we assured that His sacrifice is a better one? That His offering was sufficient not just to cover but to remove our sin for good. Because He was exalted. Never is it said that the priest of the old order sat down. Infact there as no place to sit in the temple for the work to be done was never finished. But His work was complete, His work was finished and He sat down.
Not that the Son sits idle on His throne, He is busy upholding the universe which would fall into chaos at just the slightest slip of his grip, and He continues to intercede on behalf of the elect of God and even rises to come to their defense.