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Bro. Otis Fisher
I hope you all have been studying it this week. I need to make a few comments first. God does not tell you after you have done something wrong. When does he tell you? When? Before you do it. He tells you before you do it.
I want you to realize something. We are not a human being on a spiritual journey. We are a spiritual being on a human journey. We are a spiritual being on a human journey. It is one thing to understand the proof of a text, but quite another to understand the fact that it was proven.
In case you are wondering, we are going over the same lesson we had last week. I thought the rest would be here, but they are not. The highest of all revelations is given to us now in the Son of God. There can be nothing higher than him.
It is higher than the angels who, having completed the redemption process, sits enthroned at God's right hand. In the book of Hebrews, as in the book of Genesis, there is no attempt made to prove that God exists.
The second assumption is that God has spoken. If God should speak to us today, he would say nothing new. Everything that we need to know has already been said by him. All he would do is to repeat himself, and that is not God.
Romans 8, 16, the Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. If children, then heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ, if so be that we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified together with him.
We are not co-heirs. We are joint heirs. What is the difference between a joint heir and a co-heir, Virg? A joint heir means that someone else has control. A co-heir means that you all share exactly alike.
The epistle to the Hebrews is not light, easy reading. It is extremely deep in spiritual truth, and we will find that out. You must read and reread and study vigorously and look to the Holy Spirit to open the scriptures for you.
There is no other book like Hebrews. Never has been, never will be. Now, why did God not speak everything at once, David? It is simply that mankind could not take it all at once. We are in a fallen state, remember.
He had to lower his method of communication. God had to lower his method in order to tell us that we understand. He had to speak in a language that is fitted to you, wherever you are on this scale of advancement.
But do not ever think that this is God's level of interest. It is far more than that. 2 Timothy 3 .16, all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine and reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.
2 Peter 1 .21, for the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man, but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. The Son of God became the Son of Man so that we may become the sons of God.
Hebrews 1 .1, God, the Father, the first person in the Trinity who at sundry times and in diverse manners spake in time past of old unto the fathers by the prophets. Let's look at this. We have God the Father.
There is none higher than God the Father. He is it. Diverse manners, harmony of many different parts, spake in time past of old, former, long ago, unto the fathers by the prophets. Now, at sundry times, what does that mean, Bill?
Sundry times, all right? At sundry times or by several parts, as the word signifies, which may refer either to several ages of the Old Testament dispensation, the patriarchal, the mosaic, the prophetic, different times, or it may speak, and I think this is the way it is, to the several gradual openings of his mind concerning the Redeemer.
To Adam, that the Messiah should come of the seed of a woman. To Abraham, that he should spring from his loins. To Jacob, that he should be of the tribe of Judah. To David, that he should be of his house.
To Micah, that he should be born at Bethlehem. To Isaiah, that he should be born of a virgin. Sundry times, piecemeal, 1 ,600 years in the making. Spake in glory everlasting, in government of all times, in time and eternity, through all ages to come, that it is as a perfect, no likewise, no likewise, a final revelation of God's mind and will to a lost world.
A further discovery of the mind of God for man's salvation is not to be expected. We're not going to get any more in this age. The gospel in the last effort, which the divine mercy and goodness will make upon mankind in order to eternal happiness, herein God has spoken to us by the Son.
It's that Son that we're going to study. And if we will not hear him, he will speak no more. We must expect no other. He can send no greater prophet than his Son. No greater person to us than his own Son.
And as he can send no greater, so will he send no other. For if we despise him, who will we reverence? The people of Israel were like men listening to a clock, always striking, always looking for the full amount, but obliged to wait on time.
Hebrews 2, he has in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds, hath in the last days. What is the last days? Dennis, what, what, the last age, what is that?
When did it begin? When did it end? When will it end? All right, we're in this long, long expanded last days. Spoken unto us the saved, this is written to the saved Jew. He's spoken to us by his Son, the exact counterpart of God the Father, according to his humanity, Jesus, not because of his deity.
I want you to separate his humanity from his deity. Now he is deity, we know that, but we're going to study the Son. David, can Christ inherit anything? Yes, Christ cannot inherit anything. Get that fixed in your mind.
Because he could inherit nothing, so his heirship is made possible by what? His humanity. The heirship. Think of an heir. First of all, you have to be human. Second, somebody has to die. It's because that was Jesus did as a human that he was appointed heir.
This has nothing to do with his deity or the position in the Godhead. Jesus has made the head of a new race and a new people was made the head of a new race and a new people. We come to the word of worlds.
Aheyon, A-H-E-E-O-H-N. It means forever, unbroken age, perpetuity of time, eternity. The worlds, the universes, ages, many of them, he had appointed heir. Jesus became the heir of everything. To be an heir means that you are human.
Since God cannot be an heir, then Jesus must be. Just that simple. We will find that Jesus did all he did in the holy way. Jesus, the man, inherited all things. Jesus cannot be God, but he is God. Now, how do you explain that, Virg?
Jesus cannot be God, but yet he is God. Well, there's a difference between Jesus and God, Joy. The only way we even hope to understand it is that he is God-man. It defies description. We can put it in many, many words, but I don't understand it.
God-man. But we're going to look at Jesus. Verse three, who being the brightness of his glory and the express image of his person. I'm having to read because I've got a lot in the middle. And upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, he sat down on the right hand of God.
Now, to fill you in on what I was skipping, who being, being, it means that he existed. And we know not the beginning, preexistent, essential being, the brightness of his glory. It is because he is the brightness and because he upholds that he sat down at the right hand of God.
Because of this, Jesus sits at the right hand of God. Everything is God's glory. That's right. But it was Jesus that was the brightness of his glory and the express image. Now we come to image and likeness.
Adam was made in the image and likeness of God. Image means exact likeness and perfect representative that Adam was made in the image of God, the image of God. But Christ, the second Adam, perfectly reflected the invisible God whose glory is the first Adam only in part, image involves likeness, but likeness does not involve image.
Image always supposes a prototype which it not merely resembles, but from which it is drawn the exact counterpart as a reflection of the sun and the water, the child, the living image of his parents. Likeness implies mere resemblance, not the exact counterpart, an origin as image expresses.
Hence likeness is never used anyplace applied to the sun, S-O-N. He is the image of God, of his person, of the substantial essence of God, purged our sins. He by himself, with no help from anyone, purged our nature, our guilt-laden nature.
This could not, without our great high priest, blood of atonement, sprinkled the heavenly mercy seat, come into immediate contact with God. Nothing could do that except the blood of Christ, blood of Jesus, sat down at the right hand of his majesty on high, sat.
Clarence, what tense is the word sat? No, that would be sitting. Past tense, finished, once for all, won't do it again. He has done it once for all. He sat down. Once having completed everything that he was sent to do, he sat down and this sitting down was not his idea.
The sitting of the son at God's right hand was an act of the father. It is never used of his preexistent state, co-equal to God, but always of his exalted state as the son of man after his sufferings and the mediator for man in the presence of God.
So we have Jesus, the perfect human being. He did not use his Godhead, but he lived the perfect life. Now, Roger, I have a problem with him as a baby. I can't see what happened because he didn't tell us, but we could suppose and imagine a whole lot as he grew, he was different than the other children.
We can never know our son by looking at the son. Virge, how do we know that the son exists? The son's son. What would happen if you looked straight at the son? Long enough it would deteriorate the eyes.
So we know that the son exists from the rays of the sun. We get our light, our eat, our healing. It's the same way that we know God. Jesus came. We cannot look at God. Man cannot see God. It would burn up.
He'd disintegrate, but we can know God in Jesus. Now, brightness means outshining. We know very little about God, for man cannot look on him. But we know God the Father through Jesus the Christ. He represented God.
The words he said were God's. The action he did were God's. He came as a man to act as we do. Yet he was God in that he represented God, upholding all things just by the powerful word. If he had held his word, if he would withhold his word for a moment, what would happen to everything?
If he is upholding it, then it would be unholding. It just wouldn't, there wouldn't be. It just would not be. Did God rest at the end of his creation period because he was so tired? Why did he say that he was going to rest?
Because he had finished the creation. Yes. Yes. Yes. That's right. It is a past perfect verb. It means he sat down and that's it. But it was God the Father that called him to sit down. Jesus did not by himself.
It was God the Father that sat him down. That's right. Once forever. He by himself did it all, including the notifying of us for this life and the next. Being made so much better than the angels. He was made, the being made that brings us to Jesus was made better than the angels.
As he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they. He hath, our word has, he has obtained, has obtained. Has means what? Here. Present, past, perfect. All right. At some time he made, his past, he sat down, he's finished.
He left nothing to the imagination of man. In this verse, we come again to the word inherit. They are his angels. They are his ministers. They are his worshipers. The primary cause of Jesus going to the cross was for what, Roger?
That's right. Not for you. Now I'm so glad he did because it included me, but that was not the first reason. The first reason was God, the Father. For the sake of the Father. How dare anybody think that Jesus died just for me?
That's the only reason. That's not the reason. He died because it was the Father's will and that included me. Daniel 435 and all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing. And he doeth according to his will in the army of heaven and according to the inhabitants of the earth and none can stay his hand or say unto him, what doest thou?
Ephesians 2, 6, and he hath raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in kindness toward us through Christ.
He obtained this inheritance. Now God can inherit nothing, so it must have been Jesus. Jesus the Christ inherited. No place do you find in the scripture where God inherited. That'd be redundant, wouldn't it?
God made it all. It was all his. But Jesus inherited, made so much better than angels. It is not spoken in respect to the deity of Christ, but of his earthly work and ministry he performed in his body of humiliation.
He has not been given a higher glory, but a new glory. Jesus, after he had finished his work, sat down on the right hand of God showing the powerful position, but he was given a new glory. It was not the old glory.
It was a new office, a new glory. The office he was given was our high priest. The Holy Spirit does not overcome man's enmity against God. What does he do, David? No, the Holy Spirit does not overcome the enmity of man.
What does he do? That was my question. What does he do? What does he give you? A brand new one. He does not take the old one and overhaul it. He gives you a new life, a new life. And Virg, who is that?
This new life is Christ in us, Jesus Christ. Jesus, you must be born again. I don't know how else to say it. You've got to be made new. Jesus was made to sit down. He was made the brightness. He was made everything.
And he sat down once for all for unto which of the angels said he at any time, thou art my son. Did he say that to an angel, any angel? No. This day have I begotten thee. Did that happen to any angel?
And again, I will be to him a father and he shall be to me a son. Did that happen to any angel? Without any help, all by himself, man did nothing. Man did not kill him. For if man had taken his life, then man could hold out some hope that man doing something to obtain his salvation.
Therefore, he'd do something in getting it. This is wrong. Jesus the Christ did it all and then sat down. Psalms two seven, I will declare the decree. The Lord has said unto me, thou art my son. This day have I begotten thee.
God only does only his only will only. Does this mean that he does not do some things which are in his will, but because we did not ask, he didn't do it. Roger. What? Yes. And I'm having trouble understanding.
Tell me David, that's it. Well, what I ask is, are there some things that God has not done because we didn't ask? No. From ours maybe, but not from his. We can get all kinds of answers to the question from man's viewpoint, but not from God's viewpoint.
He didn't withhold anything because you failed to ask for it. You cannot hold back his will. Yes. Understand. You cannot hold back his will from being done. I'm going to have to quit my voices. We'll start with verse six, perhaps next week.
This is so full and so rich, I hesitate. Well, I'm just not going to rush it. Is there any question from anybody? All right. We'll start six next week. Roger dismisses, please.