God Has Spoken (Hebrews 1:1-2)

Kootenai Church

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Turn your Bibles to the book of Hebrews, to Hebrews chapter 1. Alright, let's pray before we begin.

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Our gracious God, if you had not chosen and willed to reveal yourself in the pages of Scripture, through holy men who wrote and spoke, and then in the person of Christ, we would be cut off from ever knowing anything about you which would be salvific, any way of understanding your plan of redemption or what you demand of us.

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We would be cut off from all knowledge of your holiness and your righteousness and your justice, and we would be cut off from all knowledge of your love for us, your compassion for humanity, and what you have done to rescue a people for yourself.

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So we are the grateful recipients, the humble recipients of your word, and of the truth that we find in the

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Old Testament and the New Testament, and revealed so clearly in Jesus Christ. We thank you for that and we ask that you would open our eyes to the value of this revelation, and the glory of the revelation that is in your son, that we may know him, and that our hearts may embrace him by faith, and that we may love and obey you as a result of that faith.

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May you be glorified here through our study. Send your Holy Spirit to be our guide and our teacher, we ask in Christ's name.

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Amen. Hebrews chapter 1, we're going to read together the first four verses. God, after he spoke long ago to the fathers, in the prophets, in many portions, and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in his

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Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom also he made the world, and he is the radiance of his glory, and the exact representation of his nature, and upholds all things by the word of his power.

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When he had made purification of sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high, having become as much better than the angels, as he has inherited a more excellent name than they.

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So we're not even one sentence into the book of Hebrews before the author takes us into the deep end of the theological pool.

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Did you notice that? And there's no introductory salutation where he kind of warms us up and says, look, it's good to speak to you, it's good to know you, it's good to write this letter to you.

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Nothing like that. He just takes us immediately in, before we even hit the first period, we get into an explanation and a manifestation of the majesty of Christ, and the glories of his nature, and the excellencies and the virtues of Jesus Christ.

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And we have to, in these first four verses, ask questions like, who is Jesus, and what has he done, and what did he come to do, and why did he come, and what are the results of his coming, and is he coming again?

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All of those issues are raised in the first four verses. So right away, we have to dive off into answering these questions, who is

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Jesus Christ, and what has he done? Because that is what the entire book of Hebrews is all about. It is all about Jesus Christ, who he is, and what he has done.

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So in the first four verses, they kind of serve as an introduction to the rest of the book. So the topics that are raised in these first four verses are then explained, and expounded upon, and expanded upon later on, all the way through the book of Hebrews.

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So I want you to look at the subjects that you just read over. Now maybe in those first, as we were reading those verses, maybe your eyes kind of read through it, and you didn't really stop to ponder and think about all that is contained there.

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But I just want you to notice the subjects that are raised. Look in verse one. First of all, we're told that God has spoken.

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That's the doctrine of revelation. When he has spoken, and how he has spoken. In the prophets, in many portions, and in many ways.

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That covers the Old Testament. In these last days, he has spoken to us in his Son. That is the doctrine of incarnation.

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That God has revealed something in his Son, in Jesus Christ. And what does Hebrews tell us about the

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Son? He has been appointed the heir of all things. That means he is to inherit,

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Jesus Christ is to inherit, everything that is the Father's. All of creation, all of the kingdoms, everything that is.

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He is the heir of all of that. Everything that belongs to the Father is going to be given over to the

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Son, ultimately. In a glorious gift to the Son of all things. So he is the heir of everything.

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Further, not only is he being appointed the heir of all things, it is through Christ that he, that is the

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Father, made the world, or God made the world. So he is the creator of all things. He is the heir of all things.

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He is the creator of all things. He is the radiance of God's glory. He is the manifestation of the glory of God.

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He is the exact representation of God's nature. And he upholds all things by the word of his power.

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He created all things. He is heir to all things. And he upholds and sustains all things. Hebrews is describing the

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Son. He's describing Christ here. So that is who he is. Now look what he has done. When he had made purification for sins, that is when he had provided an atonement, and dealt with the sin issue that the

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Old Testament explained and was intending to deal with and point to. When he had made purification for sins, that is his work on the cross, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high.

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So he did that work on the cross. He rose again from the dead. He ascended to heaven. He has taken his seat at the right hand of the majesty on high.

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And he has become much better than the angels, having inherited a more excellent name than they. So in those first four verses, we go from eternity past, when the

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Son existed and nothing else did, to the fact that he created all things, that he is the exact representation of the nature of God.

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He came in this world to make purification for sins, to provide an atonement, to deal with the sin issue. He rose again from the dead.

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He ascended to heaven. He sat down at the right hand of God. And he has inherited a more excellent name than they. And he will inherit all things.

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He will come back, and he will rule, and he will reign. Now that is the glorious doctrine of the person of Christ from first to last in four verses.

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Isn't that magnificent? You'll be encouraged to know that we're not going to get through all four of those verses today. Because that would be to do a travesty of an injustice to this passage if we were to do that.

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So today we're just looking at how it is that God has spoken to us. And here in the first verse and a half, verses one and two, we see that one of the things that the author is telling us is that Jesus himself,

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Jesus Christ, is the revelation of God in human flesh. He's not just a revelation, another in a series of revelations, a revelation kind of like what was given to Elijah or Moses, but he is the revelation, the incarnation of God in human flesh.

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So he's not just another revelation, he's the revelation. So this passage deals with what we know about God and how we know it in the person of Christ.

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And the intention here by the author is to make a contrast between the

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Old Testament, the old covenant revelation, Genesis through Malachi, and to contrast that with the person of Christ and the glory of what he reveals regarding God.

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Now Hebrews, the entire book of Hebrews is built around these contrasts. You see it in the first chapter.

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And really the whole argument of Hebrews is intended to show us everything that you might think is good about the old covenant, the

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Old Testament, the old economy, you might think that it's glorious and perfect and good and doesn't need to be improved upon, there is something that has come that is much better and it is

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Jesus. And so all the way through Hebrews, the author contrasts Jesus with what came before him.

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And so you see it in chapter one. When it comes to the revelation of God, he spoke in times past through the prophets in various ways and in various means.

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There was revelation that was given in the Old Testament, the old covenant. But in these days he has spoken to us in his son.

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And the intention is that that revelation is better than the Old Testament revelation. Then he contrasts Jesus with the angels.

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We see that Jesus is better than the angels. And then the author goes on in the rest of the chapters to contrast him with almost everything that we find in the

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Old Testament, in the old covenant. Jesus is better than Abraham, he's better than Isaac, he's better than Jacob, he's better than Levi, he's better than Aaron, he's better than Melchizedek, he's better than David.

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His blood is better than the blood of bulls and goats. The sacrifice that he offers is better than the Old Testament sacrifices. The priesthood that he occupies is better than the

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Old Testament priesthood. The intercessory work that he does is better than any intercession that any priest has ever done in the history of the

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Old Testament from any Old Testament priestly family. It's better. He is better than the tabernacle.

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He is better than the temple. His sacrifices are better. His work is better. What he did on the cross is better than what the high priest did over the mercy seat on one day of the year in the

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Holy of Holies on the Day of Atonement. It is better than that. What he has provided in his salvation and access to God is better than anything the

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Old Testament could provide. All the Old Testament could do was promise those things. It could never provide those things. So, in every way and every level, at every point,

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Jesus is better than, and you fill in the blank. Whatever it is. Doesn't matter what you put in that blank. Jesus is better than that.

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That's the theme of the book of Hebrews. He's better than this. He's better than that. He's just better than that. We're going to see this contrast over and over and over again.

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Because these Hebrew Christians were struggling with the persecution that they were enduring. They were looking back at the Old Covenant, the

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Old Testament, and thinking to themselves, I miss the smells and the bells of the tabernacle and the temple and all of the trappings of that.

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I miss that. You mean all I have is Jesus and he's not even here? I used to have the priesthood and the vestments and the temple and the veil and the smell of burning flesh and the blood of bulls and goats and the incense and the prayers and the priests and all of that.

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All of the music I have. And now all I have is Jesus? And the point of Hebrews is, all you need is Jesus because he himself is better than all of those things.

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So you can kick all of those things to the curb because you have been given the fullness and the finality of what we have in Jesus.

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That's the argument of the whole book. And we see that contrast here in the very beginning. In times past, God spoke through various means and in various ways to the prophets, to the fathers and the prophets.

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In these last days, he has spoken to us in his Son. So that takes us to our passage. Let's look again at verses 1 and the first part of verse 2.

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God, after he spoke long ago to the fathers and the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days, has spoken to us in his

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Son. Do you notice how many prepositional phrases there are in those first two verses? There's a lot of them.

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Some of you know what prepositional phrases are. The rest of you went to public school. No, I'm just kidding. If you strip away all of the prepositional phrases out of those first two verses, you're left with a subject and a verb.

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Look at the prepositional phrases. After he spoke long ago to the fathers and the prophets in many portions, in many ways, in these last days, to us in his

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Son. What are you left with? Three words. God has spoken. God has spoken.

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Now, for us as Christians, that determines everything. That is determinative. Ultimately, as Christians, we come back to that reality.

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It is a self -evident reality. If anything exists, God has to have created it. If God has created it, he has created communicative beings, and then

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God has spoken. This is the self -evident truth. We embrace this as a feature of the reality in which we live.

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We believe that God has spoken as Christians. All of the battles going on in our culture and our nation all come down to this.

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Who says? Who is the authority? If truth exists outside of us, then someone else is an authority regarding those issues.

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If God has spoken on an issue, that settles it. It doesn't matter what our culture says, what our president says, what the Supreme Court determines.

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If God has spoken on something, then that alone settles the issue. For Christians, that is enough. If truth is inside of us, if it is a feature of how

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I feel or what I think or what our culture determines or however I reason about what I think is right and wrong and what is true and what is not true, if it's inside of us, then there is no such thing as any kind of external standard of truth.

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That means I can determine what gender I am today. It might be different tomorrow. I can determine what marriage is. I can determine what right is. I can determine whatever is convenient, whatever is right and wrong for me, whatever

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I want to do because I determine those things. But if truth is external to me, then truth must be revealed to me.

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There are certain things about truth that I can understand and I can discern without them being revealed to me.

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I can know from creation without God revealing this specifically in Scripture that a God exists, but He has to reveal

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Himself to me. And in that revelation, we establish that truth is something that is external to us. That means that truth is true regardless of how

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I feel about it, regardless of how I think about it, or whether or not I agree with it. Because truth is outside of me, truth is true, and truth would be true even if I never existed because it is not subject -dependent.

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So we say that God has spoken, and that for Christians is the final determiner for all things.

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And the author assumes that his readers would understand that and embrace that and accept it, which you'll notice he doesn't argue that God has spoken.

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He doesn't try to plead the case. He doesn't try to make the case that God is a speaking God and a communicating God because he's writing to Jewish Christians, Christians who embraced and understood and had come out of the

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Old Testament. They know their Old Testament. They know their Old Testament Scriptures and what it teaches. They assumed and believed that God was a speaking

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God. So now the author of Hebrews is going to show them that that revelation, which you have embraced and loved all of your lives, that revelation is not that it's not inspired, it's not in error, but it is not as good as what we have in Jesus Christ.

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It is inferior to the revelation in Jesus Christ. And we'll look at what that means and why we say that as we walk through this passage.

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So that's the contrast for today. We're contrasting the revelation in Jesus Christ with the revelation provided to the prophets in the days of old.

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And in order to make that contrast, the author makes four little sub -contrasts. And this is going to be our outline for today.

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There are four features of these kinds of revelation that are contrasted in the passage. First, there is a contrast of time.

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You'll notice he talks about long ago and then in these last days. Second, there is a contrast of recipients.

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One revelation was given to the fathers, the other revelation is given to us. Third, there is a contrast of persons.

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One revelation was communicated through the prophets, the other revelation is communicated in a son. And fourth, there is a contrast of means.

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In many portions and in many ways, contrasted to, and the author doesn't fill this in, we'll have to fill this in ourselves, contrasted with the completeness and the perfection of the revelation in Jesus Christ.

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So those are the four contrasts. First, we'll look at the contrast of time. The long ago versus the last days.

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So in the beginning of the verse, the author says, God, after he spoke long ago to the fathers, look at verse 2, in these last days has spoken to us in the son.

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Now, for the author of Hebrews, the revelation of the Old Testament was a long time ago. Because it had been until Christ appeared, it had been 400 years since the last

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Old Testament revelation. Malachi closes out the Old Testament canon, and Malachi and a couple of prophets that were somewhat contemporary to him, he lived just after the time or in the time of Nehemiah, Malachi closes out the

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Old Testament revelation and expectation of the Messiah. And then there was a silence of 400 years when

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God did not speak. There were books that were written, the nation went on, the religious life of the nation went on and flourished, and things happened those 400 years.

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But God was silent in terms of speaking through prophets or visions or any spokesman from him. So we call it the 400 silent years.

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And then Christ arrived. So now for the author of Hebrews is writing in roughly 60 AD, that seems like a long time ago, it's 400 years ago since God last spoke.

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But when he talks about long ago, he is not describing something that is old in that sense.

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He's not describing something that is old in terms of its chronology. He is describing something that belongs to a period epic of time.

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That's what he means by long ago. And you can contrast this with the phrase the last days, in these last days.

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This is the contrast, long ago versus in these last days. Now that's sort of a messianic term that the prophets used, and it was translated out of the

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Septuagint. The Septuagint uses that very language to translate some of the Old Testament prophetic references to Christ's coming and the time of the messianic era.

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We look at the term last days, and we sometimes think of that sliver of time that exists just prior to the coming of Christ, just prior to the second coming.

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Those months or years or maybe a decade, and every generation swears that we are living in that sliver of time, right?

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We look at how things are going and we say, man, Lord has to wrap this up soon, and I mean soon, because it can't get any worse than this, and yet it always seems to get worse than this.

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And so we all think that we're living in that sliver of time, but by last days, that's... Then we look at our watch and we say, but it's been 2 ,000 years since the author of this used the term last days.

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And so what does last days mean? I mean, if he used it 1 ,950 years ago, then what in the world does last days mean?

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Last days is a way of referring to the age in which the Messiah would come and the messianic work would be accomplished.

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Okay? So like when Jeremiah describes those days that were to come in Jeremiah 33, here's what he says regarding the coming of the

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Messiah. Behold, days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will fulfill the good word which I have spoken concerning the house of Israel and the house of Judah.

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In those days and at that time, I will cause a righteous branch of David to spring forth. That's a messianic prophecy.

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And he shall execute justice and righteousness on the earth. In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will dwell in safety, and this is the name by which she will be called, the

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Lord is our righteousness. So in that passage, Jeremiah is speaking of the time of the

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Messiah, and in that sense, we do live in the last days. We have been living in the last days for 2 ,000 years because we live in that epoch of history that is initiated by the coming of the

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Messiah and that will be culminated by his return. We live in those last days. So when someone says to me, do you think we're living in the last days?

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I say, it depends on what you mean by that. If by that you mean that sliver of time right prior to the second coming of Christ, we might be.

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I don't know that for sure because I don't have any kind of a timeline on that. I don't know the timing of those events.

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But if by last days you mean the messianic era initiated by his first coming and concluded by his second coming, then yes,

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I believe that we live in those last days. I believe that those are the days in which we live. And we have always lived in those last days.

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So the author here is doing what Hebrews does often, what the author does in Hebrews often. He is saying that what was old, or what has been, that belonged to the former era long ago, that is passing away, and something new has come that has superseded it and replaced it.

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And we see this all the way through Hebrews. The old priesthood, it has passed away. A new priesthood has been established.

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Jesus Christ is that high priest. The old sacrifices, those belong to a former epoch.

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A new sacrifice has been offered which is perfect, and it is full, and it is final, and no other sacrifice needs to be offered.

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The old way of doing things, the tabernacle, the temple, that has gone away. Something new has come, and it has replaced it.

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So that's the contrast that's made all the way through Hebrews. Something that belonged to a former age has been replaced by something that is new.

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That is what the author is saying here. He is not saying that the revelation in Jesus is better because it is newer.

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He is saying that the revelation in Jesus is better because it's better. Not because it's newer. Because if the author was simply looking back and saying, look, it's been 400 years since God last spoke.

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So maybe 500, 600, 700 years since we had a bunch of revelation given. That's when God was speaking way back then.

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But now the revelation that we have is newer, and so it's fresher, it's better. If that's what the author was saying, then what would that say about the revelation that we have in the

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New Testament, which is now 1 ,900 years old? If revelation has an expiration date on it, if truth spoils with age, then we've got an issue because we're further removed from the giving of the revelation in Jesus Christ than Hebrews was from the giving of the revelation in the

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Old Testament. So he's not saying that what is new is better because it's newer. He's saying that what is new is better because it is better.

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It is a different kind of revelation, which he describes here later on.

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That's the contrast of the time. Now look at the contrast of recipients. First, he says that there was an

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Old Testament revelation given to the fathers. That revelation was given through men like Moses and Jeremiah and Ezekiel and Daniel and the minor prophets,

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David and Solomon, others who wrote scripture. That revelation was given to those who were these people's fathers, their forebears, as it were, the

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Jewish saints of old. That revelation was given to them. Now we have a revelation that has been given to us.

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Now in these last days, in this messianic age, Christ has appeared, and this revelation has been given to us.

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Now here's the important thing to catch in this phrase. You and I, we are the us in this passage.

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We are the us. This revelation in Jesus Christ has been given to us.

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It is upon us that the end of the ages has come. We are the ones who have benefited from and received the revelation that is in Jesus Christ.

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So we are the us in this passage. We have something that Old Testament prophets never had. We have a full understanding of what

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God's plan of redemption entails from first to last. The Old Testament prophets never had that. All they had was pieces of the puzzle.

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Some of them had big pieces. Some of them had smaller pieces. And they tried to fit these pieces together, but they didn't understand how it all fits together.

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This is why Peter says in 1 Peter 1 verse 10, As to this salvation, the salvation that you and I enjoy and that we are partakers of, as to this salvation, the prophets who prophesied of the grace that would come to you made careful searches and inquiries, seeking to know what person or time the

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Spirit of Christ within them was indicating as he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow.

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It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves, but you in these things which now have been announced to you through those who preach the gospel to you by the

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Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look. So the Old Testament prophets, they predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories that were to follow, and all they could do was kind of scratch their head.

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Because they would read their Old Testament, and they would say, We see that the Messiah is a descendant of David, and yet David calls him

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Lord. He's supposed to come in humility, and he is supposed to come in great glory.

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He is supposed to suffer and die, and he is supposed to rule the nations. How do you put all that together?

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How do you put those pieces of the puzzle together? They didn't have any way of doing that. They didn't have any way of knowing that.

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And so they would scratch their heads, and they didn't understand who it was or what the timing of these events were that they could all be describing this same person, this

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Messiah. But then in Jesus, what do we see? We see the one who has fulfilled all of that. And hindsight is 20 -20.

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And we look back on it, and we say, Oh, yeah, of course. He comes in humility. He is the descendant of David.

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He suffers and dies as God's servant. He rises again. He ascends to the right hand of the Father. Then he comes back in great glory to rule the nations.

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Now it all makes sense to us, but the Old Testament prophets didn't have that. All they had were the pieces of it.

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And so we have something that they never had. Upon us, you and I, has come the end of the ages.

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We get this perfect revelation. You ever stop and consider how blessed you are to have the right -hand side of your

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Bible, that New Covenant, that New Testament, and how much we wouldn't know if God had not revealed in the person of Christ the fullness of his nature and the glories and the excellencies of his person.

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We wouldn't know that. So that's the second contrast, the contrast of the recipients. Now some of you may object and say,

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Well, hold on a second, Jim. I've never been a first -hand recipient of the revelation of God. I've never seen

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Jesus. Neither had the recipients of this letter. Do you remember Chapter 2? The author says,

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The gospel was first preached by the Lord and it was confirmed to us by those who heard him. They were second -hand recipients of this truth in the same way that you and I are second -hand recipients of this truth.

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But God in his grace has written down so that we might know it years later what was revealed in the person of Christ.

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Both Matthew and John were eyewitnesses. Mark wrote for Peter who was also an eyewitness.

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Luke wrote for Paul who also saw the Lord. So we have in the gospels the clear revelation of exactly who

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Jesus Christ is. We don't need to walk with him and to talk with him personally in order to understand and to know what is true because he has written it down.

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And the rest of the New Testament explains him and all of the implications of him. So we are the recipients of this new revelation in Jesus Christ.

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So the contrast of time. Long ago versus last days. The contrast of recipients to the fathers versus to us.

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The third contrast is the contrast of persons. The prophets versus the son. So verse 1 says that God spoke long ago in the prophets in many portions and in many ways.

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In these last days he has spoken to us in his son. So the prophets contrasted with the son. It is appropriate and right for us to refer to all of the

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Old Testament as prophetic revelation. Because even though not all of the genre is prophetic genre.

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All of the Old Testament anticipates and looks forward to something that is yet future. And the prophet was not just an individual who spoke and foretold the future.

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He also spoke forth telling the word of God. So these were men who declared the word of God. So it is appropriate to speak of Moses as a prophet and Joshua and David and all of the authors of the

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Old Testament. Whatever book it is that they wrote. It is appropriate to speak of these men as holding a prophetic office in the sense that they foretold and wrote down and foretold the word of God to people.

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They gave and scripturated the word of God to people. So all of the Old Testament is prophetic. Because even back in Genesis chapter 3 verse 15.

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God promised that the seed of the woman would come and he would crush the serpent's head and the serpent would bruise his heel. And then everything after that.

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Everything in the Old Testament looks forward to and anticipates something that was going to come and fulfill all of that.

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And so everything anticipates that one event. It is all looking forward to that. So it is all prophetic. So the

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Old Testament was what was spoken through the prophets. Those men. In these last days God has spoken to us in his son.

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Now the Old Testament were men. The Old Testament writers were men who were called by God. Gifted by God. Carried along by the

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Holy Spirit. And used as his instruments to write down scripture. We affirm all of that. God inspired the

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Old Testament books through those men of God who wrote and spoke exactly what

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God told them. And they were instruments of inscripturation. They were holy. They were righteous.

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They were good and godly men. But they were not the son. As holy as they were and as much as we might revere them, they were not the son.

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And so there is a qualitative difference between the Old Testament prophets and the revelation that we have in the son.

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And what's interesting is when the author of Hebrews says, in these last days he has spoken to us in his son.

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In Greek it doesn't come out quite as awkward in English. In Greek it's a little awkward because there's no article there.

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So it doesn't say he's spoken to us in a son or he's spoken to us in the son. It has spoken to us in son.

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There's no article. That sounds awkward, doesn't it? It has to be intentionally left out by the author.

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Because it is an awkward construction in the language to say that in these last days

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God has spoken to us in son. But the absence of that article is intended to highlight the nature of the communication.

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It came through prophets. The new one came in son. See, the prophets have a certain relationship to God.

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But what does that say about the relationship of the son? It's far greater. It is far more intimate. And so this communication that we have now in son is a communication and revelation that is entirely different in its nature, in its quality, in its clarity, in its power than that which was given in the prophets.

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What was in the prophets was different than what is given in the son by virtue of the different relationship. To give you kind of an image of this, if I were to ask

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Lanny, if I were to say, Lanny, I need you to go to so -and -so and tell him all about me. Now, Lanny would be able to go and say a few things about me.

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But if I were to say to Shepley or to Taryn or to one of my other children, if I were to say, I would like you to go to so -and -so and tell them all about me, who would give the clearer explanation of who

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I am and what I am about? Lanny, as close as we are, as good friends as we are, or my child? My child would be able to do that.

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On a much higher level, so it is with the son. Because in Christ, he is not just one who is more closely related to the father, he is one who shares the very nature and essence of the father.

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This is the doctrine of the Trinity. In these last days, God has spoken to us, not in one who is distantly related to him, but God has spoken to us in son, the one who shares with him, the father, the very nature and the essence and the substance of divinity.

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He is different in person, but he is the same in essence or substance. And so the communication, the revelation is greater, because in Christ, we have the very nature of God walking among us.

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And this is what John says at the beginning of his gospel. In the beginning, that is, before time began, was the word.

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And this is his title for Christ. He was the word. The word was with God.

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The word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things are made through him. Without him, nothing has been made that has come into existence.

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That is what Hebrews chapter 1, 2, and 3 says. He made all things. And then John says the word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory as the only begotten of the father, full of grace and truth.

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We saw the glory of God in the face of Christ, because there is no better revelation of who

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God is and what God has done than the person of Christ. It does not get any clearer than that. It doesn't get any better than that.

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There is nothing else to say after that. It's the zenith. It is the climax. It is the best. It is the height of the revelation that God could give.

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He could not speak any more clearly through any Old Testament prophet. There is nothing he can do other than to walk among us, to have the son dwell among us, so that we may see the glory and the nature of God walking among us in human flesh.

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That is the best revelation we could be given. And that is the author's argument. The Old Testament was through prophets.

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In these times, son. We see the son. In him,

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Colossians 2, 9 says, dwells all the fullness of God in bodily form. We have in Christ everything that is divine in nature.

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We have it walking among us in humanity. And then we have it recorded for us right here in Scripture.

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By holy men who wrote it down so that we might know it. And that we, who did not live 2 ,000 years ago, might see it with our own eyes in the pages of Scripture.

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In these last days, he has spoken to us in son. The fourth contrast, the contrast of means.

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The contrast in time, and in persons, and now in means. This is the fourth one.

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The end of verse 1 says, he spoke in many portions and in many ways. In the original

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Greek, it actually begins with that. In many portions, in many ways, God has spoken in these last days.

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But in our English translation, it smooths it out a little bit if we put that later. So it says, in many portions and in many ways.

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In these last days, he has spoken to us in his son. Now this is the contrast where we're left to fill in. The Old Testament was characterized by in many portions and in many ways.

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What is the revelation of Jesus Christ characterized by? Is it little bits and pieces? Or is it one, glorious, whole, and complete and perfect revelation of who

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God is? It's a contrast of the means. In the Old Testament, it was many ways and many portions.

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Two phrases. The many ways refers to the means by which that revelation came. So in the Old Testament, we read of holy men of God, different ways that God communicated.

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Sometimes in dreams, sometimes in visions, sometimes directly speaking through the mouth of the prophet, sometimes speaking through the voice of a donkey.

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We read of God communicating through songs. We read of God communicating in wisdom literature. God communicating through the history of humanity and different events that happened.

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There are even Old Testament events which were prophetic foreshadowings of what was to come. So the

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Israel going down into Egypt and then coming out in the Exodus was a foreshadowing of Mary and Joseph taking

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Jesus down into Egypt and then bringing him out after the death of Herod. Matthew chapter 1 tells us that. The Passover lamb was a foreshadowing of our

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Passover lamb who would be sacrificed in our stead. The Exodus from Egypt was an Old Testament illustration or picture, as it were, of us being delivered out of the bondage of sin.

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The New Testament talks about these parallels. So there are even events, events that happened, historical events, which were themselves prophetic imageries of things that were to come.

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Jonah being in the belly of the whale for three days and three nights. Of course, Jesus uses that as a prophetic imagery of his resurrection from the dead.

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So in all of these various ways God spoke in the Old Testament, all of those different ways. In the

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Son, one revelation. It is unitary, it is complete, it is perfect, it's not piecemeal.

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In the Old Testament they had pieces of the puzzle that they would try and put together that they would see, and it happened over a long period of time.

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And so Hebrews says that not only did it happen in many portions, or in many ways, but also in many portions.

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We're taking it in reverse order. And the word portions there refers to something that is fragmentary or incomplete, little bits here and there.

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And this is the Old Testament revelation. No prophet, no author, no book had it all. Nobody got the whole entire picture in Revelation.

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It was given to them over hundreds of years, a little piece at a time, a little piece here and a little piece there.

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So God spoke to Adam and Eve and He told Eve, the Messiah is going to come, your deliverer will come, through the seed of the woman,

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He will crush the serpent's head and the serpent will bruise his heel. A little piece of information. Well, can you narrow it down a little bit for us?

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Well, yeah, we can narrow it down a little bit for us. Then Abraham comes along, and Abraham is told, the Messiah is going to come through you.

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Nations are going to come from your loins, and the Messiah is going to come from you, and He is going to bless all the nations. Then Abraham had two sons,

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Ishmael and Isaac. Well, then God revealed that it would be through Isaac and not Ishmael. Isaac had two sons, Jacob and Esau.

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Then it was revealed that it would be through Jacob and not through Esau. Jacob had 12 sons. Who would the Redeemer come through? Well, Jacob revealed that it would come through Judah, the tribe of Judah.

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And then the tribe of Judah has thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people. And then it is revealed that through David this promise would be fulfilled.

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See, each, over the course of all that period of time, a little bit more and a little bit more and a little bit more, a little bit of truth after truth after truth.

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And not every prophet had a full picture of what was to come. So Isaiah predicted he would be born of a virgin.

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Daniel predicted the timing of that birth. Micah predicted he would be born in Bethlehem.

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Zechariah predicted that he would be betrayed by a friend and sold for 30 pieces of silver and be pierced. Isaiah predicted that he would die with criminals and that he would be buried in a rich man's tomb.

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Jonah predicted through his three days and three nights in the belly of the world that he would rise from the dead. And then in Christ, all of that is brought together.

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So that in Him, we see portions and pictures. All of the puzzle pieces come together. One who was born of a virgin in Bethlehem, at the perfect time, who was betrayed by a friend, sold for 30 pieces of silver, hung on a cross.

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His garments were gambled for, as David said. He is buried in a rich man's tomb. He rises from the dead and he ascends to heaven.

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All of that fulfilling all of the little pieces of the Old Testament. So in the Old Testament, God spoke in portions and pieces, putting together the puzzle pieces.

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But in Jesus Christ, we see how all of those pieces come together and it is a perfect and glorious portrait. You see the image?

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This is why the new covenant revelation in Jesus Christ is fuller, it is final, it is perfect, it is glorious, because it is so much better than what we got through the

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Old Testament and the Old Covenant. So this is the argument of the author of Hebrews. What we have in Jesus is better than the

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Old Testament, the Old Testament record. So I said at the beginning that there are implications of this grand doctrine and I want to talk about a couple of those.

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So we'll sum up, here's what we'll do to cover the implications of this. I'm going to give you two statements that sort of capture everything that we've talked about so far.

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Well, not we, I've talked about, you haven't done any talking, thankfully. But they capture sort of everything that I have covered so far and then

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I'll give you some implications of that underneath each one of these statements. So here's the first statement. Jesus is here presented, in these first two verses,

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Jesus is presented as the full revelation of God. You've seen that. He is presented as the full revelation of God.

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So here's the first implication of this grand truth. And this is something that we will return to again and again as we go through Hebrews.

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So I'm just going to kind of introduce it here and we'll talk about it at a later date. First implication is this.

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The Old Testament must be read and understood in the light of the revelation we have in Jesus Christ.

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In other words, we look through Christian glasses as we read the Old Testament. It is actually inappropriate for us to try and interpret the

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Old Testament apart from the understanding that we have in Jesus Christ. He is the picture on the box of the puzzle pieces.

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You have that. Now you can go back and look at the individual puzzle pieces and say, oh, that is glorious.

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That is glorious. That is amazing. This is incredible how God put all this together. We can go back now and we can see the history of the nation of Israel preparing us for what to come because we know what was to come.

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So we have hindsight. We have to read now all of the Old Testament in light of the revelation that we have given in the

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New because this New revelation actually interprets, determines, gives us the parameters for the

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Old. So we can't try and interpret our Old Testament in isolation. It would be wrong for us to do that because we have revelation that explains that.

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And so we have to have the divinely given explanation of all of that revelation in the Old Testament.

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We will return to that later. Second, the Old Testament is true and it is inspired revelation from God. When we say the revelation we have in Christ is better than the

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Old Testament, we are not saying it is filled with errors. It is not. We are not saying that the Old Testament goes from error to truth and it sort of morphs its way through there.

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That is not what we are saying. All we are saying is that the Old Testament revelation is incomplete. That is what we are saying.

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The revelation we have in Jesus Christ completes it. So the Old Testament is like a novel missing a couple chapters at the end of the book.

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The New Testament gives us the concluding chapters. Now we can read the New Testament and say, okay, we see how it all plays together.

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John MacArthur says this wisely. He writes this, the distinction is not in the validity of the revelation, its rightness or its wrongness, but in the completeness of it and the time of it.

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That is the distinction that we are making. The completeness of the revelation and the time of it. It is not that the Old Testament was wrong and so the

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New Testament is better. They are not in conflict with one another. It is that one completes the other. One anticipates the other.

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The Old Testament anticipates the new. The New Testament completes the old. They must go together. So that brings us to our third implication.

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The New Testament maintains an unbroken continuity with the Old Testament. The New Testament maintains an unbroken continuity with the

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Old Testament. There is kind of a strain in Christian thinking sometimes. I run into it from time to time.

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Not here, so I am not pulling out anybody here. A strain of Christian thinking sometimes sort of views the Old Testament as, that is the

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Old Testament. We got something. We got the New Testament, so we are just going to ignore this as if this never happened.

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The thinking is almost like God got done with the Old Testament and He said, could have done better.

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I mean that just really doesn't reflect who I am. It doesn't reflect what I was trying to say.

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I kind of miffed it on a couple of those things. So then God took 400 years off to just find

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Himself and to center Himself and to really look deep inside and realize what

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He has been trying to say all along. He watched a couple of episodes of Oprah and realized that flooding the world and raining down fire on Sodom and Gomorrah not the best way to communicate my love for humanity.

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So I am just going to start all over again with the New Testament. We are going to hit the reboot button and I am going to send my son and it is all going to be about love and that will woo people.

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I tried to scare people to death in the Old Testament. That didn't work. So now I am just going to woo them by loving them to death in the

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New Testament. No, that is baloney. There is an unbroken continuity between the

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Old and the New. Everything in the Old prepares us for the New. Everything in the New explains the

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Old. So they go together and they must go together which is why we as believers must be familiar with our

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Old Testament. You can't neglect that side of the book. That is the foundation. That is the ground upon which our entire faith is built.

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God is not rebooting something in the New Testament. He is concluding the Old Testament. This is the new covenant that has come.

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It has replaced the old. This was partial. It was incomplete. It wasn't as clear. That was by God's design.

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And now the new has come. It is far better than the old. Not that the old is filled with error. It wasn't. It was still truth.

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It is all true. It is all God's word but it is not all of God's word. He had more to say and He has said it in Christ.

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And that gives us the full understanding of everything God is communicating to us in Scripture. That is the third implication of the first statement that summarizes the message of the book of Hebrews.

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Are you following along so far? Okay, so here's the second statement that summarizes what we've learned. Jesus is presented here as not just a full revelation but as the final revelation.

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I want you to understand what Hebrews is arguing. What his argument is in this passage. So catch it.

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There was a time when God spoke in pieces and piecemeal. It was kind of unclear. It was scattered.

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It was over a long period of time. A little bit here. A little bit there. This is incomplete. It is insufficient.

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It is not as clear as it needs to be. In the person of Christ, He has spoken.

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Period. What else needs to be said? Does God need to return back to all those previous means of communicating?

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Do you think that God speaks now through visions and dreams and prophets and apostles and little words of knowledge and still small voice and some whisper

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I hear and little liver quiver and burnt images on toast and apparitions of Mary in a cave and visitations to heaven?

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Do you think that's how God speaks? Why would He return to those inferior methods when He has spoken once for all in His Son?

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What else do we need? This is the fullest revelation that can be given. There is nothing else to be said.

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Everything that needs to be said and everything that can be said has been said in Jesus Christ. So tell me, why would

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God go back to this I think I hear a voice and I'm not sure what God wants me to do. He has spoken everything that He can speak in Jesus Christ.

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Nothing else is necessary. It's final. It's final. It's over. It's done.

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Do you believe that the revelation that we have in Jesus Christ is complete or incomplete?

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If you say complete that there is nothing else for God to say to us through modern day means of prophets and apostles and all that other nonsense.

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If you say incomplete, what are you saying about who Jesus Christ is and what

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He has done? Is it sufficient? Is it enough? I used to have a friend who would use words like this.

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I get a word from God because I need something fresh. So God speaks to us today through words of knowledge and little prophecies in our minds because we need a fresh word from God.

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So that's the fresh word. And so I would stop him and I would say, what does your language say about Scripture?

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Is it stale? Is there an expiration date on this? Does it get less valuable with time?

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What else do you, well we need a fresh word. You don't need a fresh word. Your fresh words are unclear and unnecessary.

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We have the final word in Jesus Christ. Oh yeah, it's 1900 years old. I understand it's 1900 years old but there's no expiration date on truth.

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It's not any less clear today than it was when it was given. It was perfect then, it's perfect now. It was complete then, it's complete now.

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It was final then, it is final now. There is nothing else that needs to be said. Unfortunately, as we've mentioned time again in this pulpit and in our series on Roman Catholicism during Reformation month, people don't believe that.

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People don't believe that this is enough. People don't believe that this is sufficient. If you truly hungered for the word of God, you would master this book.

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And when you've mastered this book, you've exegeted every passage, every jot, every tittle. You have perfect understanding of everything that is revealed in these pages.

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Once you have done that, then come to me and tell me you need something new. Once you've mastered this, but the fact that people do not master this is what makes them chase after all of these imaginative fancies.

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So that's the first implication of that. There is no need for any further revelation. Nothing else needs to be said.

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If you think that something else needs to be said, you are saying something about the revelation of Jesus Christ. That it is in some way inadequate, insufficient, unclear, not enough.

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Don't ever say that because that revelation is perfectly clear and it is perfectly good. The second implication, we are accountable to heed and to obey this revelation.

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Because it is final, we are accountable to heed and to obey this revelation. God has spoken to us and it is clear.

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We know what his will is, we know what his character is, we know what his nature is. He has revealed himself in the person of Christ that interprets and exegetes and explains all of the

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Old Testament passages and then the New Testament authors who were the eyewitnesses of those events, they wrote those things down for us.

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Within a few years after Jesus lived, they explained all the implications of that and we have, by the power of the Holy Spirit, a given and preserved word of God that is before our eyes today so that we can see that very clear revelation.

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There is nothing else that needs to be said. We have been given all the information that we need to be given in order to make a decision. So, if you are sitting here today and you remain impenitent and hardened in your unbelief and your sin and you refuse to bow the knee to Jesus Christ, that is completely inexcusable.

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And I would ask you this, how will you escape if you neglect so great a salvation? That is the application that the author makes in chapter 2.

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How will you escape? This one who has come and revealed this and done this, he is greater than the angels. All of that has been given to us.

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All of it has been revealed to us. On that day, how will you escape? Because if you refuse to bow the knee to so benevolent and kind and loving and gracious a king who so clearly revealed to us the nature of God, how will you escape on that day?

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What excuse are you going to give? I didn't see it. I didn't know it. I didn't want it. The only excuse you can give is that you love your sin and you're hardened in your impenitent unbelief.

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And God commands you this day to repent of your sin and to turn away from your iniquity and to lay down your arms and to cease your rebellion and to believe upon his son and be saved.

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And if you will not do that, I promise you, you will not escape. Let's bow our heads.

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Our Father, you are so gracious and kind to give to us such a full and beautiful revelation of the nature and character of our

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God in the person of Christ. And then you have written that down, that we may know you and that we may obey you and that we may love you.

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Thank you for opening the eyes of your people to see these things and to respond to them appropriately by repentance and faith.

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I do pray for any who are here who do not know Christ and have not trusted him, that their eyes and their hearts may be open to that truth, that you may draw them to yourself and save them, that they may give you glory and that you may receive the full reward for all your suffering.

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Thank you, Lord Jesus Christ, for coming into this world, for being the express radiance of the glory of God, the creator in human flesh, that we might see who our

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God is. And we thank you that you have loved us enough to offer a perfect sacrifice that atones for our sins.

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Thank you for the love that you have shown and the sacrifice that you have made that has purchased a people for your own glory.