Hebrews 1:5-6 - The Promise of Christmas: The Son

Introduction

Let’s open our Bibles together this morning to the book of Hebrews, chapter 1, verses 5-6.

[READ HEBREWS 1:5-6]

Last week we began to look at the story of Christmas by looking at the REASON it was necessary:

In particular, the birth of the Son, the Incarnation of the Son of God, was necessary because we are all born into a fallen, warped, sinful nature that is destined for death and judgment.

That catastrophic fall happened when our first parents, Adam and Eve, rebelled against God’s express law.

We should never underestimate the hopelessness of that plight.

The greatest person, living the most exemplary life, even hypothetically choosing every right thing to do his entire life,

Would STILL be found UNWORTHY to approach our holy God even in worship,

Because that man is born ruined, born unworthy of God,

Unworthy of salvation,

Unworthy of ANY kindness from God at all.

As children of Adam, we simply have no claim on any goodness toward God,

And we have no claim on His goodness toward us.

Some may declare that as unfair, since we might try so hard,

But the Scriptures are clear that the BEST efforts and behavior of Adam’s children are putrid and rotting offerings toward God.

We see it in the Law of Moses, don’t we?

Think of all the things that God declares that make someone even unfit to come before Him in worship:

Infectious diseases, such as leprosy, disqualified a person from the assembly.

Touching a corpse made a person unclean.

Good and natural things, like marital relations and childbirth, required purification before that person could again enter the temple.

And even coming into contact with an unclean person would make you unclean.

Before you get concerned, these, as the Ceremonial Law, are no longer in effect for the church of our Lord, Jesus Christ.

But the “general equity”, the thing that endures and is taught by all these rules is this:

To come before our holy God, you must be CLEANSED.

Not just the washing of water, but the washing of regeneration through something infinitely stronger than water.

What so many people believe in our day is that God just wants you to come to Him,

Just begs you to worship Him,

Is happy with whatever you bring to Him,

Is delighted that you simply remember Him at all.

They think God doesn’t look at the half-hearted offering or distracted worship,

But simply sits like a doting grandfather, smiling as long as His children are playing at His feet.

Regardless of the game they are playing, no matter how perverse it may be.

That’s not a holy God:

That’s an idol.

Idolaters say, “Come however you like.”

Our holy God says, “You shall be holy as I am holy.”

“You shall come to me in the way I define.”

“There is ONE WAY to come to God:

Through the gate HE has made;

Through the blood HE has ordained;

Through the MAN HE has sent:

That MAN is THE SON.

The Promise of the Son

Look again at the words of verse 6 in our passage today:

Hebrews 1:6 “...when he brings the firstborn into the world, he says, “Let all God’s angels worship him.””

THE Firstborn.

Not “A” Firstborn, but THE Firstborn.

When Isaiah looked to this birth in his prophecy, he declared:

Isaiah 9:6 “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given”

But here, in the greater light of the Scripture AFTER the Son has come, and after the Spirit has come,

We find He is not simply “A” firstborn, one among many;

But THE Firstborn.

Before ANYTHING was created, before the events of Genesis 1:1,

Before time was made, and the first day dawned,

THE Firstborn, the Eternal Son, IS.

Our Triune God - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - eternally One and Eternally Distinct.

Notice, and this is very important, He is not called here in Hebrews “God’s Firstborn.”

Jesus Christ, in the Luke 2:7 “And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.”

For Mary, Jesus was HER Firstborn son.

That tells us a few things:

1. She had other children. For why would He be called her “Firstborn” is she had no others;

If she had no other children, He would have been called her “ONLY” Son.

2. Jesus is called HER Firstborn Son, calling back the first promise of God that shows us Jesus.

Genesis 3:15 “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.””

Every other man, woman, and child is counted from Adam, since through the line of the father, we are his children.

But Jesus isn’t in the paternal lineage from Adam, since He was conceived in the woman by the Holy Spirit.

His Father is God THE Father.

3. There was a beginning to Jesus’s flesh and blood.

The Son, the Only Begotten of the Father, had no beginning because He IS God;

But the Incarnation - God becomes flesh - Emmanuel, God with us - that happened on one particular day.

But from all eternity, THE Firstborn was ALWAYS the Son.

And before anything was created - the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit had sovereignly determined the redemption of Adam’s race.

God Loves His People

I mentioned last Wednesday night something I think we are prone to forget.

I could mean we as Calvinistic, or we as Reformed Baptists,

But it’s a truth I don’t think we cling to enough.

We seem to have a pretty good understanding of the justice and holiness of God,

So that we might easily confess our unworthiness to stand before Him.

That’s the way this message began today.

But that’s not the whole gospel;

Equally true is this:

Believer - GOD LOVES YOU!

Before there was anything but God,

The Father, Son, and Spirit love YOU,

Chose YOU;

Called YOU;

And Saved YOU.

Romans 8:29–30 “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.”

Adam’s sin was no surprise;

The corruption of God’s good creation was no surprise;

Our utter inability to live by God’s Law was no surprise.

We needed to be born from a new seed;

We needed a new representative before God.

We needed a righteousness from One who succeeded in every point where Adam failed.

And so THE Firstborn came to be our Savior;

Our Ransom;

Our Substitute.

And God loved YOU, LOVES YOU,

From before the world was created, YOU were in His heart and He had chosen you to be His.

He knows you - everything about you.

And He sent THE FIRSTBORN to save you FROM that corruption and ruin you were born into.

Because He LOVES you.

Romans 5:7–8 “One will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

No other sacrifice could take away your sin,

So the SON became our sacrifice - because He loves us.

No other righteousness is good enough before our holy God,

So the SON gave us His righteousness - because He loves us.

No other blood could pay our eternal debt of sin,

So the SON shed His blood for our sin - because He loves us.

Don’t skip past this: God loves you.

The Creator of everything that is knows you and loves you.

Sent His Son to redeem you.

Child of God - if He loved you that much from before the world began,

Never allow the first thought that He might not love you now.

Even when you feel the least lovely or the least loved -

God loves you with an everlasting love.

Hear the words of Paul:

Romans 8:31–34 “What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.”

Romans 8:39 “[NOTHING] will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Believer - hate your sin - absolutely.

But know that in everything God never loves you one ounce less.

He loves you, and it’s His sovereign plan to save and glorify every person He chose before they ever did anything right or wrong.

And the way He does that - the ONLY way He EVER HAS done that - is through our Lord Jesus Christ - THE Firstborn Son.

You Must Be Born Again

We don’t get far into the gospel of John before we meet a man, Nicodemus, who came to Jesus under the cover of darkness.

He was just beginning to lay out why he came when Jesus interrupted him and said:

John 3:3 “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

Nicodemus didn’t understand it, but I hope you are beginning to see the great truth there.

Paul states it in 1 Corinthians 15:22 “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.”

We have all been born under Adam;

But to be in the kingdom of God, we must be born from above, born in Christ.

Colossians 1:13 “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son,”

Just like it was God’s sovereign will that you be born the first time;

The second birth is God’s sovereign will as well.

Romans 9:11 “though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad—in order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of him who calls—”

Here Paul is talking about Esau and Jacob, chosen and declared before they were born by God’s sovereign election.

God’s salvation is His - bestowed on those who He has loved.

Romans 9:16 “So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy.”

I wanted to mention this today because there may be concern, as is often the case when we talked of Original Sin last week,

When people wonder about babies who die in infancy, before they have an opportunity to exercise faith toward God in Jesus Christ.

The fear is that those infants may die unredeemed in their inherited sin.

If salvation, as many so-called Arminians believe, has some reliance on us exercising faith,

The only option to defend the justice of God would be to deny the first six chapters of the book of Romans and the Original Sin they teach.

If God only saves those who reach out to Him in faith, then not only infants, but adults with severe mental handicaps would be in a hopeless state.

And there is NO Scriptural support for that thought.

But the good news of the gospel is that salvation is ONLY from the will and work of God:

Psalm 62:1 “For God alone my soul waits in silence; from him comes my salvation.”

His salvation of His people was determined in God in eternity before anyone yet existed.

And His salvation of those He calls is perfect - no one He has called will be missed - even if they were too young to cry out to Him.

That salvation is why the Eternal Son, THE Firstborn, became flesh and dwelt among us.

Based on that eternal covenant in God alone, He came.

Paul describes it in Philippians 2:6–8 “who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”