Welcome to our program. Now today
the message is entitled, Christ the Greater Glory of God. And
I'll be preaching from the book of Hebrews chapter 1. The book
of Hebrews is a very special book of the Bible. The whole
Bible is the Word of God and that makes it all special. But
this book of Hebrews, someone said one time that the book of
Hebrews is the best commentary that you can buy on the Old Testament. especially the book of Leviticus,
because it opens up in detail some of the mysteries of the
Old Testament. Well, the theme of the book of
Hebrews is the greater glory of Christ. Its theme is the fact
that Christ himself, Christ in him crucified, his finished work,
all that he accomplished on behalf of his people in his obedience
unto death, is far superior than anything that went before it.
That everything that Christ is, everything that He has done,
where He is now, why He did it, is all far superior, better,
much better. The word better is used over
and over again several times in the book of Hebrews because
Christ is better. And that's the theme of the book
of Hebrews. In the book of Colossians chapter 1 and verse 8 it says
this, And Christ is the head of the body, that's the church,
who is the beginning, Christ is the beginning, he's the firstborn
from the dead, that speaks of his resurrection, which is the
fruit of his finished work. Christ died for the sins of his
sheep, he satisfied law and justice, he brought in everlasting righteousness,
therefore the grave could not hold him, and he arose again
the third day. And here's the reason, that in
all things he might have the preeminence. He is the chief
one. He is superior in every way,
in everything, especially salvation. And the book of Hebrews also,
as I said, opens up the mysteries of the Old Testament law, the
law of Moses. In fact, the book of Hebrews
shows us that in Christ we find the purpose of the law, the meaning
of the law, and the use of the law. Paul described this in Galatians
chapter 3 and verse 24 when he says the law was a schoolmaster
to lead sinners to Christ. You see, salvation always has
been and always will be by the grace of God in Christ Jesus. It has never been by the works
of the law. So the book of Hebrews shows
us in detail how Christ is all and in all, that all things are
fulfilled in him, by him, and for him, and all things in salvation
were finished in Christ. Now if you look at Hebrews chapter
1, beginning at verse 1, we see first of all that Christ is the
fulfillment of the word of God. In fact, he is the very word
of God. It says in verse 1, God who at
sundry times, that word sundry means many, God who at many times
and in diverse manners, that is in different various manners,
many different manners, ways, spake in time past unto the fathers
by the prophets. And he hath in these last days,
verse 2, spoken unto us by his Son. Now let's stop there. First
of all, he begins by saying, God in the past, in many different
ways, many various ways, he spoke unto the fathers by the prophets. Now, the key to this is this,
God has spoken. That's the revelation of God
of himself and his word. And he spoke in the past in many
different ways. He spoke in dreams, in visions. Sometimes he spoke audibly to
the prophets. He gave them a word by his voice.
Sometimes he came and actually dwelt among them in pre-incarnate
form, Christ in the Old Testament. You see, it was Christ before
his incarnation who spoke to Moses through the burning bush.
It was Christ who visited Abraham. It was Christ who wrestled with
Jacob. All of these things were pre-incarnate
appearances of Christ. And God spoke to these fathers. He spoke by the prophets, the
word of the prophets. The words of Isaiah, and Jeremiah,
and Ezekiel, and Daniel, and all the prophets. God spoke by
the prophets, His word. When God spoke, what did He say? He spoke of salvation by grace
in Christ Jesus. That was the main message. He
spoke of Christ as the promised Messiah who was to come and who
would stand in the place of sinners and satisfy law and justice on
their behalf and enable God to be just and justifying. He spoke
also through the types and the pictures of the Old Testament,
the Old Testament tabernacle. It was a picture of Christ, his
person, his mediatorial offices as prophet, priest, and king.
his high priestly work, his substitutionary sacrifices, all the animal blood
that was shed on the day of atonement and on other days, pictured and
typified, foreshadowed and pointed to the blood of the Lord Jesus
Christ, the Passover lamb. The Apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians
chapter 5 that Christ is our Passover. The Sabbath day, that
Sabbath rest that was given to the nation Israel under the Old
Covenant was a picture and a type of Christ who is our Sabbath. He is our rest. We rest in Him
today. We don't keep a Sabbath day because
Christ is our Sabbath. Now, when Christ has come, and
he already has come and finished his work, all those pictures
and types and shadows are now done away with, because now we
have the substance. We don't need the picture, because
now Christ has come. And that's what he means there.
He says, God, who at many different times, many different ways, spoke
in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these
last days spoken unto us by his Son. Now, what are the last days
here? Many times the scripture speaks
of the last days, and you'll hear people talk about how we're
living in the last days. Well, the last days refers to
the time of the new covenant. It is the time when Christ arrived
on this earth in his incarnation, and he walked this earth, he
obeyed the law, he suffered, bled, and died, was buried, and
rose again the third day, and he ascended unto the Father on
high. We're going to see that. from that time until the time
of his second coming is referred to as the last days in the Bible. So we are living in the last
days. Now that doesn't mean that Christ will come back in our
time before I die, before you die. He may. We don't know that.
That information is not given. It's not revealed. But we know
that we're living in the last days because Christ has already
come. And God has spoken by his Son
in that in the fullness of the time God sent forth his Son made
of a woman, that's his incarnation, made under the law to redeem
them that were under the law. All the Old Testament believers
looked forward by promise to the coming of the Messiah. Their
message is, He is coming. He is coming. All who are born
in the last days, they look back to Christ who has already come.
And God has spoken, not in types and pictures and shadows, not
in prophecies of the future, but in the fact that Christ has
already come. He has already finished the work
that the Father gave Him to do. It's done. It's over. Christ
has redeemed His people, His sheep, His church from their
sins. He finished the work. The gospel
message is the promise of salvation, not based upon a work that is
to be done in the future, but upon a work that's already been
done in the past by Jesus Christ. And in that finished work, God
has spoken. Let me give you these four things
about the Word. He's spoken. That means he speaks
a Word. Well, what is the Word of God?
Well, the Bible speaks of the Word in many different frames
of reference. For example, Christ is the fullness
of the Word of God to men. Anything you want to know about
God, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, you
can only know and learn that in Christ as He reveals it to
you in Himself. The Bible says He is the fullness
of the Godhead bodily. It pleased the Father that in
Him should all fullness dwell. In the person of Christ, the
God-man, dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. Christ
said that no man knoweth a father save the Son, and he to whomsoever
the Son will reveal him. So the revelation of God comes
through Christ, who is the Word of God. He's the fullness of
the Word. He's the communication of the
Word. You can't know God as Savior, as Father, a heavenly redemptive
Father, but through Christ the Son. Now, let me give you these
four things about this, though. The Bible, sometimes when it
talks about the Word of God, it's speaking of the living Word
of God. Christ is the living Word. John 1 and verse 1 speaks of
that. In the beginning was the Word, the Logos, and the Word
was with God, and the Word was God. And without that Word, nothing
was created that was created. That's Christ, the Living Word.
And then the Bible speaks of the Incarnate Word. In John 1
and verse 14, it says that same Living Word, Christ, the second
person of the Trinity, the Living Word, was made flesh and dwelt
among us. That speaks of the Incarnate
Word. That speaks of Christ as God and man in one person. He is very God of very God. and
very man of very man. He's 100% God, 100% man in one
person with no mixture of the two natures. He's God-man. Now,
I know that's hard for our puny minds to grasp. We can explain
it, but it's so. He had to be God in order to
give enough value to his work, his redemptive work, to save
his people from their sins. And he had to be man. because
he had to offer himself up as a sacrifice, shedding his blood
as payment for sins. So he's God-man. Now, the living
Word, and then the incarnate Word. And then the Bible speaks
of the written Word. It refers to that as the Scriptures. In John chapter 5 and verse 39,
Christ confronted the Pharisees, and he says, You do search the
Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life. They are
they which testify of me. Now that's the written Word.
The written Word tells us of the living Word, the incarnate
Word. The written Word speaks of Christ. And my friend, this
is the written Word here, the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation. And its subject, the book of
Hebrews and all the other books, is Christ and Him crucified.
And you will never understand this book. You'll never understand
the written word until you see the glory, the preeminence, the
effectual work of the Lord Jesus Christ as your whole salvation.
Without Christ, this is a closed book. You can read it from cover
to cover. You can memorize it. You can study it, but unless
you see the glory of Christ and him crucified, this is a closed
book. Every book is about Christ. He's the key that opens up the
scriptures. And then another context that
we see the word, word used, the word of God, is the preached
word, or the uttered word. Paul spoke of that when he wrote
in 1 Corinthians chapter 2 and verse 2, when he said, I don't
want to know anything among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. So you have the living Word,
the incarnate Word, you have the written Word, and the preached
Word, and they all go together. Whenever you hear a man preach,
he must be tested and judged by the written Word, as it reveals
Christ. He must be preaching Christ.
You can't have one without the other. Now this is how God has
spoken to us by his Son in the last days. Let me give you this
list. When did God speak to us by his
Son? Well, God spoke at his incarnation. Remember when he appeared to
Joseph and Mary and he said his name, the name of the Messiah
who was to be born. that holy thing in Mary's womb.
He said, his name shall be called Jesus, for he shall save his
people from their sins. His name shall be Emmanuel, which
being interpreted is God with us. He spoke at his birth, the
angel said, glory to God in the highest, peace on earth and goodwill
toward men. In Christ, this baby that was
born, this son who was given, this child who was born, is the
highest manifestation and revelation of the glory of God. God spoke
at his baptism. He said, this is my beloved son
in whom I am well pleased. Hear ye him. God spoke in Christ's
preaching. When Christ preached the word,
it was the word of his Father, the word of the Father, the Son,
and the Spirit. And they were astonished at his
doctrine. spoke in his life. You remember, he took Peter and
James and John up on the Mount of Transfiguration. And there
he stood in that glorious vision, speaking with Moses, who represented
the law, and Elijah, who represented the prophets. And they spoke
of his decease, which he should accomplish at Jerusalem. And
God said, this is again, once again, just like he did at the
baptism, this is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased. spoke
at his death. When Christ said, It is finished,
and gave up the ghost, and said, Father, into thy hands I commend
my spirit, you remember the ground shook. There was a great earthquake,
and many of Christ's sheep who had died were raised from the
dead, just like Lazarus was raised, and walked the streets of Jerusalem.
That was God speaking in the death of his son. Also, you remember,
the veil in the temple, that veil that separated the holy
of holies from the rest of the court, that veil was rent into
from top to bottom by the hand of God. God spoke when his son
died, saying, the work's done, the work's finished, and I accept
it. God spoke through His Son at
His resurrection, when He raised Him from the dead, showing that
righteousness had been established. Law and justice had been satisfied. His people had been saved. Righteousness
was given to them. And He was declared to be the
Son of God by power in that resurrection, Paul said. God spoke through
His Son at His ascension, when He took Him up and He was set
down at the right hand of the Father. God speaks through His
Son even now in His intercessory work, for our advocate is Jesus
Christ the righteous, so that when we sin, we have an advocate
with the Father. And now God speaks through His
Son in the preaching of the gospel. Any time a man stands behind
a pulpit or a lectern and preaches Christ, now you hear what I'm
saying, not just preaches anything. A lot of guys are just preaching,
but they're not preaching Christ and Him crucified. They're not
preaching salvation by the sovereign mercy and grace of God. They're
not preaching how God can be just and justify the ungodly
based on the blood and the righteousness of Christ alone. All they're
doing is exalting the flesh, getting your minds and your eyes
off Christ. But when a man preaches Christ
and Him crucified, that is God speaking by His Son through that
ambassador. So God hath spoken in these last
days to us by his Son. Now, in the rest of this lesson,
this message, I want to show you who Christ is and his greater
glory in all things. Read it again. Go back to verse
1. Let's put it in context. It says, God, who at sundry times
and in diverse manners spoke in time past unto the fathers
by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his
Son. That's the Messiah. the Messiah-Son
of God, and look here, first of all, he says, this Son, the
Lord Jesus Christ, is heir of all things. In other words, it
says, by whom he hath appointed heir of all things. That is an inheritance. Christ,
as the Son of God, has been appointed. He is appointed by the Father
to be the Savior of his people, and he has an eternal rich inheritance
that he himself earned for his people. He earned it by his incarnation. He agreed. You see, God the Father
chose a people before the foundation of the world and determined to
save those people. But those people he chose are
sinners and God must be just when he saves. He must be righteous
when He shows love and mercy and grace. He must be just when
He justifies. Therefore, He appointed His Son,
the Lord Jesus Christ, to be their representative, their substitute,
their mediator. He stored up in Christ an inheritance
of grace and glory, all spiritual blessings in heavenly places,
to give to them through His Son. And then he sent his son, the
Lord Jesus Christ, into the world to do the work that it would
take to pay the price of their salvation, to earn for them what
they could not earn for themselves, an eternal inheritance. Therefore,
he is heir of all things. He is heir of all creation. All
the creation will bow to him. He is heir to all salvation because
he is salvation. Christ is our salvation. Our salvation is not based upon
our faith or our repentance or our works. It's based upon what
Christ did. It's based upon Him alone. We
have faith in Him. We repent of not believing in
Him, of ever thinking that salvation was conditioned on us. So He
has been appointed the heir of all things. He's heir of the
church, His people. He bought them lock, stock, and
barrel, and He gives them all that they have. Everything that
I need, Everything that God requires of me for salvation, I find in
Christ. All wisdom, righteousness, holiness,
and redemption. Now, the next thing it says about...
Now, how great is this, you see? How much greater is this than
anything that we could imagine? He's heir of all things. Christ
is. Eternity. And He's all in all. He has the preeminence. Next,
it says He's the creator of the world. Look here in verse 2,
it says, "...his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things,
by whom also he made the worlds." The eternal Godhead, Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit, is the creator of this world by the
agency of Christ, who is the creator. God the Father, God
the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. We don't believe in three gods,
we believe in one God, in three distinct persons. And sometimes
he refers to himself in the plural. He said, let us make man in our
own image. God had did it through the agency
of the sun. It is through the sun that this
world was created. It was by his powerful hands
that this earth was formed, this universe. And He is the Creator. You see, anything less than Him
cannot even compare to Him. We can't compare to Him because
we're created beings. We're going to talk about this
next week, about how He's so much better than the angels.
You know, men think very highly of angels, but angels were created
by Him. It says, "...by whom also He
made the world." It is by Christ that God made the world. And
He is the Creator. And then let's go on. In verse
3, it starts out, he's the brightness of God's glory. Look here, verse
3, who being the brightness of his glory. What does that mean?
Well, you think about it. It's like the sun and its rays. When you look at the sun, you
see that bright light and the warm rays. Well, Christ is the
brightness, the warmth of the glory of the Godhead. He's the,
as one writer said, the effulgence of the glory. the brightness
of it. Everything about God, who God
is, is seen in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
In Christ, we see every attribute of the Father, the Son, and the
Spirit working consistently together in honor and majesty and magnitude
in the salvation of sinners through the Lord Jesus Christ. The Bible
explains it this way. the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ. In him dwelleth all the fullness
of the Godhead bodily. If you want to know anything
about God, look to Christ. He's the brightness of the glory
of God. In the Old Testament, God revealed himself in various
ways. The greatest way that God revealed
himself on earth in the Old Testament was in the Holy of Holies in
the tabernacle. The old writers called that the
Shekinah glory of God. That was the greatest manifestation
of God's glory to be found in that time. Well, where is the
greatest manifestation of God's glory to be found now? In the
person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the brightness
of his glory. Next, it says that he is one
with God in nature and in essence. Look at the next line. Not only
is he the brightness of God's glory, he's the express image
of his person. That means he is the exact likeness
of God. Now what does that mean? That
means he is God. Every attribute of nature and character that
belongs to God belongs to Christ. He's greater because he's God. He's greater than Moses. Moses
was not God. Moses was a sinner saved by grace. Angels are not God. He's greater
because he is God. And then it says he's greater
because he's the upholder, the sustainer of all things. It says,
and upholding all things by the word of his power. This world
exists for one reason and one reason alone, because Christ
upholds it. Christ sustains it. He's in control. He governs it. He works all things
after the counsel of his own will to do one thing, to glorify
the Father in the salvation of his people. And then it says
he's the redeemer of sinners. It says, and when he had by himself
purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the majesty
on high. Christ, as the substitute of sinners, came and obeyed the
law perfectly. He suffered and bled and died
on the cross of Calvary. He satisfied law and justice.
He established righteousness. And he purged our sins on the
cross. He cleansed his people, his sheep,
from their sins by his finished work on the cross of Calvary.
And then it says he sat down. That means he finished his work.
Back in the Old Testament, those priests in the tabernacle, there
was no place to sit down in that tabernacle. There was no chair.
They could never sit down because their work was never finished.
But when Christ finished his work, by the one offering of
himself as payment for the sins of his sheep, his church, he
sat down. That means he finished the work,
he redeemed them, he paid the price. There's nothing left to
be done as to the ground of salvation because he finished it. And then
he's greater because he's the exalted Redeemer. He sat down
on the right hand of the majesty on high. That's the place of
acceptance. That's the place of power and
authority. He told his disciples that all
power and all authority has been given unto him. And then he told
them to go out in all the world and preach the gospel. Preach
the gospel because all power and all authority has been given
to him. Now, speaking of Christ as mediator,
you see, by nature as God, he already had all power. But as
God-man, who did the work that he was given to do, who redeemed
his people from their sins, who shed his blood as payment, who
brought forth an everlasting righteousness of infinite value,
as God-man, he's been given all power and authority to accomplish
his will in heaven and in earth. This is the greater glory of
Christ. And that's what the book of Hebrews
is all about. That's what the whole Bible is
all about. Christ is greater. He is infinitely
better than anything we could imagine. Put your trust in Him. Believe in Him and rest in Him.
Trust Him. Worship Him. Honor Him and serve
Him. Well, I hope this has helped
you to understand the issues of the greater glory of Christ.
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