God's Final Word in His Son

God Spoke Completely In His Son

God has always communicated with His creation. We see this in the creation account. He tells Adam of the tremendous blessing He has given him, but also the law. 16 The Lord God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; 17 but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not [a]eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.” -17

Gen. 2:16-17

God Has a desire to have relationship with His people. This is why He has always communicated with us

He spoke to the fathers in many portions and in many ways.

The writer of Hebrews points out that God spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets. This means that before Christ He would use prophets to speak to the nation of Israel. A prophet is one who speaks the words of God to men. These were men like Isaiah, Zacheriah, Elijha, Elisha, Daniel, many minor prophets. All these prophets and the words of God are recorded in the Old Testament. They would normally give a warning about their disobedience to God and a coming judgement. They would also tell of a coming Messiah.

The Prophets spoke in portions.

polymeros - in many portions adv. — in multiple and various allotments of some amount.

They did not speak in completeness. William Barclay says

They did not speak in completeness. William Barclay says

They did not speak in completeness. William Barclay says

Out of their own experience of life and out of the experience of Israel, the prophets had each grasped and expressed a fragment of the truth of God. None had grasped the fullness of truth in its entirety; but with Jesus it was different. He was not a fragment of the truth; he was the whole truth. In him, God displayed not some part of himself but all of himself.

William Barclay, The Letter to the Hebrews, The New Daily Study Bible (Louisville, KY; London: Westminster John Knox Press, 2002), 16.

They spoke in many ways.

polytropos - multifariously adv. — in diverse or various manners or way.

They would simply use words or they would use some sort of dramatic action.

“Now you son of man, get yourself a brick, place it before you and inscribe a city on it, Jerusalem. 2 Then lay siege against it, build a siege wall, [a]raise up a ramp, pitch camps and place battering rams against it all around. 3 Then get yourself an iron plate and set it up as an iron wall between you and the city, and set your face toward it so that it is under siege, and besiege it. This is a sign to the house of Israel.

Jesus revealed God by just being Himself. This is because He is God!

In the last days He has spoken to us in His Son!

God has spoken to us through Jesus in completeness. Everything that He wants us to know about Him is found in Jesus. There is no need for additional revelation. Jesus has brought the complete message of redemption. His words are the full expression of God’s message to His creation.

Jesus is the inheritor of all things. This means all things belong to Him. Since He is owner of all things he has control and authority over all things. He has the right to speak the completeness of God.

The ultimate message that He spoke, He spoke on the cross. There are three things that He said on the cross that I would like to focus on.

Father forgive them for they know not what they do.

This message gives us hope for the forgiveness of our sins. Everyone sins and needs forgiveness. This forgiveness comes through Jesus Christ.

It is finished!

Jesus completed the mission. He had taken the sins of man upon himself and paid the price of punishment that was due us. He brought the salvation of God to man! We can now have a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ.

Into thy hands I commit my spirit.

Jesus is now at the right hand of the Father making intercession on our behalf. He is going to come back and receive us and establish His kingdom forever!

Jesus Is the Radiance Of His Glory Exact Representation Of His Nature

Radiance of His Glory

John MacArthur puts it this way:

Hebrews: The MacArthur New Testament Commentary His Radiance

He expresses God to us. No one can see God; no one ever will. The only radiance that reaches us from God is mediated to us from Jesus Christ. Just as the rays of the sun light and warm the earth, so Jesus Christ is the glorious light of God shining into the hearts of men. Just as the sun was never without and cannot be separated from its brightness, so God was never without and cannot be separated from the glory of Christ. Never was God without Him or He without God, and never in any way can He be separated from God. Yet the brightness of the sun is not the sun. Neither is Christ God in that sense. He is fully and absolutely God, yet is a distinct Person.

We would never be able to see or enjoy God’s light if we did not have Jesus to look at. Standing one day before the Temple, Jesus said, “I am the light of the world; he who follows Me shall not walk in the darkness, but shall have the light of life” (John 8:12). Jesus Christ is the radiance of God’s glory, and He can transmit that light into your life and my life, so that we, in turn, can radiate the glory of God. We live in a dark world. There is the darkness of injustice, of failure, privation, separation, disease, death, and of much else. There is the moral darkness of men blinded by their godless appetites and passions. Into this dark world God sent His glorious Light. Without the Son of God, there is only darkness.

The great tragedy, of course, is that most men do not want even to see, much less accept and live in, God’s light. Paul explains that “the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving, that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (2 Cor. 4:4). God sent His light in the Person of Jesus Christ, that man might behold, accept, and radiate that light. But Satan has moved through this world to blind the minds of men and prevent the light of the glorious gospel from shining on them.

Those, however, who receive His light can say, “For God, who said, ‘Light shall shine out of darkness,’ is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ” (2 Cor. 4:6). That is what happens when God comes into your life.

Hebrews: The MacArthur New Testament Commentary His Radiance

He expresses God to us. No one can see God; no one ever will. The only radiance that reaches us from God is mediated to us from Jesus Christ. Just as the rays of the sun light and warm the earth, so Jesus Christ is the glorious light of God shining into the hearts of men. Just as the sun was never without and cannot be separated from its brightness, so God was never without and cannot be separated from the glory of Christ. Never was God without Him or He without God, and never in any way can He be separated from God. Yet the brightness of the sun is not the sun. Neither is Christ God in that sense. He is fully and absolutely God, yet is a distinct Person.

We would never be able to see or enjoy God’s light if we did not have Jesus to look at. Standing one day before the Temple, Jesus said, “I am the light of the world; he who follows Me shall not walk in the darkness, but shall have the light of life” (John 8:12). Jesus Christ is the radiance of God’s glory, and He can transmit that light into your life and my life, so that we, in turn, can radiate the glory of God. We live in a dark world. There is the darkness of injustice, of failure, privation, separation, disease, death, and of much else. There is the moral darkness of men blinded by their godless appetites and passions. Into this dark world God sent His glorious Light. Without the Son of God, there is only darkness.

Jesus shines God into our lives. He is the one who fills our soul with light and casts out the darkness from our hearts. If it were not for the Light of Christ in our hearts, we would give in to every evil motive of our heart. It is the power of the light of Christ that not only reveals the wickedness in all of us, but is also the power to overcome that very wickedness.

The Light of Christ also guides us into the will of God. It shines His will into our soul. The pathway we are to follow comes through the light of Christ.

12 Then Jesus again spoke to them, saying, “I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life.”

Because Jesus is the light, He shines through us to a dark world.

14 “You are the light of the world. A city set on a [a]hill cannot be hidden;15 nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a [b]basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. 16 Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.

He is the exact representation of His nature.

Jesus is God! Everything He did was what God does. If you want to see what God wants, look at what Jesus did. His actions, words, emotions and everything about Jesus is exactly who God is.

Jesus Is Much Better Than the Angels.

At the time that this was written, there was a doctrine that was threatening the early church. This doctrine was of the Asenes. There doctrine was that God was going to send a priestly messiah and a kingly messiah. Both of these would eventually surrender there authority to Michael the arch angel. This was a false doctrine that threatened the authority of Christ.

The writer of Hebrews substantiates Christ as the Messiah and His supremacy.

Read the rest of Hebrews