Who is Jesus? God’s final word
Hebrews 1:1-2a
A vox pop in Engadine re Jesus
I wonder if we did a vox pop here in Engadine. You know where you go around and you ask people what their opinion is on a particular subject. I wonder if we went around Engadine. Or Heathcote. Or whatever suburb you live in. And asked people who do you think Jesus is. What do you make of what Jesus has done. I wonder what responses we’d get back? It’s actually not a bad question to ask people when you get to talking about spiritual things. Matters of faith. Steering things towards, ‘Who do you think Jesus is? What do you think about what he’s done?’
Just last year the firm, McCrindle Research, actually conducted some studies in this whole area of faith and belief in Australia. And, in the part of their research that relates to what we’re thinking about today, they discovered the following. You can see it on the overhead.
How much do Australians know about Jesus’ life? 45% of people surveyed said ‘A significant amount’. That’s encouraging. 24% said ‘a moderate amount’. But 28%. Over a quarter. Responded by saying that they know very little or nothing about Jesus’ life. In fact the research showed that 1 in 29 Australians have never even heard of Jesus. That’s eye-opening, isn’t it?
In terms of how important Jesus’ life was to the history and culture of the world, 53% of people said he was extremely or very important. 33% said ‘Slightly or somewhat’. And only 14% felt that he was not at all important in that regard.
But look what happens when the question gets turned over to the individual themselves and they’re asked, ‘How important was Jesus’ life to you personally. The ‘slightly or somewhat’ response in the middle. That remains steady. But whereas 53% of those surveyed felt that Jesus was extremely or very important in terms of the history and culture of the world, only 31% said that he was extremely or very important to them personally. Which also gets reflected in the ‘not at all’ category. Where now 37% of people. So over a third. Consider that Jesus is ‘not at all’ important to them personally. As one respondent said, “There’s nothing negative about him, he was a very moral person. So many good traits there … if he does exist”.
Now, I don’t share those things with you just because I worked in market research for a while and happen to be a bit of a statistics nerd. I share those things with you because that’s the society. That’s the culture. That we’re living in. The faces of your family and friends. My family and friends. Are embedded within those figures. Your life and my life. Our view of Jesus. It’s captured there as well.
So what we want to do over these next four weeks. Through this month of August. Is to fix our eyes on Jesus. Now, we try to do that all the time here, of course, but we’re going to be doing it in a very particular and specific way during this series. We want to be asking, who is Jesus and what has Jesus done. And we want to be looking to the Bible to give us the answers to those questions. If you’re not used to looking to the Bible to give you answers to the big questions in life, that’s OK. We’re really glad you’re here and that you’ve decided to join with us. Just sit with things. Think them through. And see what you think for yourself in light of what you read and hear.
We’re going to be basing ourselves particularly in the first few verses of Hebrews Chapter 1. Those verses that Nesta read out for us. At times we’ll bring in other parts of the Bible as well to help fill out our picture. But these first few sentences in Hebrews. As the author doesn’t even introduce himself but rather just dives straight into talking all about Jesus. They are just so deep in what they have to tell us about who Jesus really is. They’re just so rich in terms of helping us appreciate what Jesus has done. And seeing those things for the first time. Or seeing those things again freshly. For ourselves. They help put everything else into perspective. As one author, Peter Adams, puts it, “The only real world is the one where Christ, the true representation of God, is the centre and purpose of creation, which he keeps together by his almighty power. It is the world in which he died for our forgiveness, over which he rules, and in which he offers us the power of the new covenant”.
That’s where we’re headed over these next few weeks. I think it sounds like something worthwhile to be spending our time considering and reflecting on and seeking to live in the light of. And I hope you do too. So let’s ask God for his help as we turn now to look at his Word. Let’s talk to God …
Our great God, as we’ve already prayed this morning, we ask that you would help us to listen to you. That you would help us to fix our eyes on Jesus and see who he truly is and what he has really done. And that that would be for our great good. And we pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.
The God who speaks
Well, having spoken to God, let’s hear him speak to us. Have a look with me just at the first little bit of Hebrews Chapter 1 …
“In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son”.
Before we see anything else here I want us to see the verb. The doing word. That gets repeated in this sentence. Can you see it? [PAUSE] “… God spoke”. And then again. “… he has spoken”. If you just sit with that for a moment. Just in itself, that is a staggering truth. And one we shouldn’t take for granted. Though I wonder in what ways we do so often take it for granted.
We have a God who speaks. You know, repeatedly the psalmists and the prophets. They poke fun at the idols, the false gods, that other people follow. Because they’re mute. Because they can’t speak. Psalm 115, for example …
“But their idols are silver and gold, made by the hands of men. They have mouths, but cannot speak, eyes, but they cannot see; they have ears, but cannot hear, noses, but they cannot smell; they have hands, but cannot feel, feet, but they cannot walk; nor can they utter a sound with their throats. Those who make them will be like them, and so will all who trust in them”.
Or Isaiah 46 verses 6 and 7 … “Some pour out gold from their bags and weigh out silver on the scales; they hire a goldsmith to make it into a god, and they bow down and worship it. They lift it to their shoulders and carry it; they set it up in its place, and there it stands. From that spot it cannot move. Though one cries out to it, it does not answer; it cannot save him from his troubles”.
Or Jeremiah Chapter 10 verse 5 … “Like a scarecrow in a melon patch, their idols cannot speak; they must be carried because they cannot walk. Do not fear them; they can do no harm … nor can they do any good”.
Not so the God of the Bible. “… God spoke”. “… he has spoken”. And so he can do good. Even such ultimate good as to save us.
From our end, we desperately need God to speak to us. Not just because we’re mere creatures. And therefore limited in so many ways. But also because we’re creatures who have sinned. And are therefore affected by our sin in so many ways. We need God to reveal himself to us so that we can know him. We need God to reveal us to us so that we can know ourselves. And this God. The God we meet in the Bible. Is a God who has come down to our level. Who has accommodated himself to us. In order to make himself known to us. Just like we might adjust the speed with which we speak. Or the vocabulary that we might use. To accommodate to someone for whom English is a second language. Or when we speak to a child. So God speaks to us that we might know him and know ourselves.
This truth. That the God who is there is a God who speaks. Is at one and the same time a wonderful, comforting, truth and also a challenging, pointed, truth. Because it means that he is not a God who sits far off and can therefore be ignored. No. Rather he’s a God who has opened his mouth, so to speak. Who has breathed out words. And so the challenge. The call. Is that we must listen. We must pay attention to him and his voice over and above the myriad of other voices that compete for our attention and our affection.
And what the author of this book of Hebrews does here. Particularly in terms of this area of God speaking. What gets called revelation. God revealing himself. God making himself known. Is that the author. He sets up a comparison to help us see the wonder and the supremacy of who Jesus is.
You might’ve seen those Industry Super ads on the tele. You know the ones where the people try and make the shape of Australia with their hands. They want to get you to compare the pair. To help you to see that if only you’d switched to an industry super fund 15 years ago. Or 10 years ago. Your superannuation. And you. Would be this much better off.
Well, the author of Hebrews here. He gets us to engage in some comparison of our own. Particularly in terms of God speaking. Revelation. God making himself known. So that we might better understand and appreciate Jesus. That we might see the supremacy of Jesus. And the comparison. It’s set out for us in terms of when, to whom, and how. This comparison. It builds as it goes along. When God spoke. To whom God spoke. And how God spoke. And so we’ll turn now to look at what’s said here under each of those headings.
When?
Firstly, part of the comparison is a comparison in terms of when God spoke. Let me read the verses again but this time emphasising particular parts. Hebrews 1 verse 1. “In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son”.
Clearly, according to the author of Hebrews, there are two distinct eras or time periods in history. In which God has spoken. There’s a time. A period. An era. Which he describes as “the past”. And there’s another, which he describes here as “these last days”.
Now some people talk about the last days in a way that makes you think that they’ve only just begun. That because certain recent events have occurred. Say in the last twenty or thirty years. That that’s the signal. That means. That we’re now in the last days. Or really in the last days. But clearly. According to the author of Hebrews here. He places himself. And those he’s writing to. In the last days already. “… but in these last days he has spoken to us …”.
The perspective that we get from the New Testament is that the last days commenced with the arrival of Jesus Christ. Most particularly they commenced with his death, resurrection and ascension. From then they’ve continued right through to this day. And they’re brought to a conclusion when Jesus returns. All of that is the last days.
But we need to be careful how we think about this particular aspect of the comparison. Because this is not a movement from what is less true to more true. Or from less worthy to more worthy. Otherwise we’d end up saying that what God spoke in the past. In the Old Testament, for example. Was less true or less worthy than what he’s spoken in these last days. No. The movement is rather one from promise to fulfilment. Or, as Hebrews itself puts it, from shadow to reality. What God spoke in the past. The Old Testament. Was the promise pointing forward to Jesus. It was the shadow. And what he spoke in these last days. Through his Son. And the New Testament that tells us of him. Is the fulfilment of that promise. The reality to which the shadow was pointing.
To whom?
Secondly, we can identify a comparison here in terms of to whom God spoke. The recipients of God’s speech. Who received it. And it’s here that we’re forced to ask, ‘Well, where do we fit in?’ When it comes to God speaking to us we need to be clear as to where we are in this comparison. Where we locate ourselves. Again, let me read the verses, with a different emphasis this time. Hebrews 1 verse 1 …
“In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son”.
Given that the book of Hebrews was written predominantly to a Jewish audience, the “forefathers” here particularly refer to the ancestors of those receiving this letter. Going back in their family tree. Back through the generations of Israelites that have come before.
And the “to us” is the author giving us a cue that for himself. And for the ones he’s writing to. And, by extension, to us as well. That is, people who stand on this side of the fulfilment. The reality. Of Jesus and his birth, death and resurrection. There’s a difference that we need to take on board. We’re not to look for, or expect, God to speak to us in the way that he spoke to the fathers. We are not part of the “in the past”, “to our forefathers” group. We are part of the “in these last days”, “to us” group.
How?
And we see this playing out most significantly in the third and final aspect of this comparison. How God spoke. That is, the method. The means. That God used in speaking. If we are in these last days. If we are part of the ‘to us’ group. How are we to look for God to speak. To reveal himself. To us?
I’ll read our verses for the last time today, with a different emphasis again …
“In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son”.
The way God spoke in the past to the forefathers was “through the prophets at many times and in various ways”. What we see in the Old Testament is God speaking on several different occasions over hundreds of years. “… at many times”. And he spoke “… in various ways”. In Numbers 26, for example, God speaks to Balaam through his donkey. At Mount Sinai, God spoke out of the fire. There is the voice that came through the prophet Ezekiel’s wacky visions of Ezekiel 1. The writing on the wall of Daniel Chapter 5. And there are countless other examples. God spoke at many different times and in various ways. He set about revealing himself progressively. God’s method. It was piecemeal. Bit by bit.
But. Says the author of Hebrews. We are part of the ‘to us’ group. We are in these last days. And in these last days God has spoken to us … by his Son. There is something final. Something decisive. Something unique. About God’s revelation of himself through his Son. Jesus. He is God’s final word. As Charles Lee Irons puts it, “God’s climactic revelation has come in the very person of his incarnate Son”.
Of course it’d be foolish to limit God and say what he can and can’t do. But if we’re to take this part of his Word seriously. If we truly take on board what’s being said here about God’s Son, Jesus. We’d be equally as foolish. Probably more so. To go about looking for. To expect. Certainly to ask God to reveal himself repeatedly. In those various other ways. When he’s clearly told us that now in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son.
“Listen to him”
Well if that is who Jesus really is. If that’s what’s been revealed to us as to his person this morning. That he is God’s final word. Where does that leave us? What’s the response that’s called for here?
Really, it’s the same response that was impressed upon Peter, James and John in the other passage that Nesta read out for us from Mark Chapter 9. Jesus had led these three disciples up a high mountain. And there he was transfigured before their eyes. His clothes became dazzling white. And also before their eyes there appeared Elijah and Moses. Two key figures. Spokesmen. From Israel’s history. And they were talking with Jesus.
Peter. Not knowing what to say because he was so frightened. Says to Jesus, “Rabbi, it’s good for us to be here. Let’s put up three shelters. One for you. One for Moses. And one for Elijah”.
But then a cloud appears and envelops them. And they hear a voice from the cloud that declares, “This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him!” And the disciples they look around but they no longer see anyone with them except Jesus.
It’s because of who Jesus is as the Son. The supremacy of who Jesus is. That he demands a certain response. “Listen to him”. Amidst the clamour of voices that are constantly vying for our attention and for our affection there is one that must be listened to above all. As Alan Stibbs writes, “The writer of the epistle is similarly aware that such a crowning revelation as God has given of himself to men in Christ confronts us either with our supreme opportunity to embrace the best, or, if we reject him, the direst peril of being involved in the worst”. Or as the author of Hebrews himself will go on to say at the beginning of Chapter 2 … “We must pay more careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away”.
What will your response be?
I’ll give you a couple of minutes to continue dwelling on what we’ve seen in God’s Word today by reflecting on the questions on the screen. I’ll just read through them for the sake of the recording.
What are some of the other voices that compete for your attention and affection? What is it that makes them sound so reasonable and so attractive? What changes do you need to make so that you might “listen to Him” – that is, listen to Jesus?
Let’s have a couple of minutes now thinking over those questions for ourselves and then we’ll join with our musicians to express our commitment to respond to what we’ve heard today. And during that song there’ll also be an opportunity to give to God’s work both here and around the world. Let’s think and reflect …
0 Comments