Hebrews 1:1

God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by his Son, whom he has appointed heir of all things, through whom also he made the worlds.

Before we open Hebrews, we have to understand the God who is and who speaks—and why His final word to us is His Son.

Beginning a Study in Hebrews

I was blessed to attend a conference this last week in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I don't know who decided to hold a conference at the end of January in Minnesota, but it drove home the reason I live in Southern California. Even cloudy and rainy days here beat ten-degree weather every day. It was also a blessing that Pastor Pat Kinney, who pastored this church for 27 years before handing it off to me in 2008, was able to come back and share this last weekend.

As a church, we've been working chronologically through the New Testament. We finished Luke, went through Acts from late 2008 to mid-2014, and along the way studied the letters written during that history—James, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, Galatians, 1 and 2 Corinthians, and Romans. Since Acts we've continued through Ephesians, Colossians, Philippians, Philemon, 1 and 2 Peter, and Jude. Now the next book in our chronology is Hebrews.

Hebrews is one of the longer and more theologically deep books of the New Testament. Before we jump into the text, I want to spend this week and next giving background, because Hebrews has so much to do with the Old Testament.

What Is the Old Testament?

The Bible is a book of books—66 books written by 40 authors over 1,500 years on three continents in three languages. It is divided into two sections: the Old Testament, the first 39 books, and the New Testament, the last 27. Like many churches, we spend most of our time in the New Testament, so it's easy to forget that it's only a third of the Bible.

To understand Hebrews you need at least some grasp of those 39 books, because this letter was written primarily to people who were Hebrew—Jewish in heritage, now Christians who had come out of the Jewish faith. There are at least 99 references to the Old Testament in these 13 chapters; 21 of the 39 Old Testament books are referenced. About every third verse points back to the Old Testament. If you've never read the Old Testament, things in Hebrews will go over your head.

So I encourage you, as I do every year, to read through the whole Bible from Genesis to Revelation. Many publishers now make "reader editions" that remove verse and chapter numbers so you can read it like a book. Some of you took the challenge starting January 1st, and I want to champion you—because right around February and March, when you hit Exodus and Leviticus, that's where the speed bump comes. If you make it through First Chronicles by about May, you'll be on the downhill run.

Two Testaments, Two Covenants

Why do we have an Old Testament and a New Testament? The word testament could also be translated covenant, because there is an Old Covenant and a New Covenant. When Jesus came, He spoke of this New Covenant on the night He was betrayed. As He shared the Passover meal, He took bread and broke it, then took the cup of wine and said, recorded in Matthew 26:28:

For this is my blood of the New Covenant which is shed for many for the remission of sins.

A covenant is the way God is able to have a relationship with you and me. During the time of the Old Testament—Genesis to Malachi—God interacted with the children of Israel through a covenant centered, as Leviticus describes, on animal sacrifice. The reason we cannot connect with God on our own is our sin; humanity has transgressed His commandment, and there is a separation between God and man. Under the Old Covenant, that divide was dealt with through the shedding of blood.

It sounds gruesome, and yet for thousands of years Israel came before God with these sacrifices. But the problem of sin remained, because the sacrificial system could not overcome the power of sin. We needed one who could—and that is what Jesus did. His blood was shed not merely to cover sin under the Old Covenant, but for the complete removal of sin in the New Covenant.

A New Covenant Foretold

This idea of a New Covenant did not begin with Jesus. It was spoken about 500 years earlier by the prophet Jeremiah. God said through him in Jeremiah 31:31:

Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a New Covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant which they broke... but this is the covenant that I will make... I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts, and I will be their God and they shall be my people.

The first covenant was established under Moses, who led Israel out of Egypt to Mount Sinai, where God gave the law and a covenant was made. Jeremiah announces that God will start a new covenant—not like the one made at Sinai, but one written on the mind and heart. Then in the Gospels, Jesus lifts the cup and says, "This is my blood, which is shed for many for the remission of sins." He is establishing the very covenant Jeremiah promised.

Point one: Jesus came to fulfill the Old Covenant and to establish a New Covenant. He did not come to abolish the Old Covenant as though something were wrong with it—God Himself established it. The people broke it, but Jesus fulfilled it by living a perfect life that met everything the law and covenant required, and now He brings in a better, new covenant.

Jesus Is Better

The Christians who first received this letter were being drawn away from the simplicity of Jesus—from the truth that He is enough and what He did on the cross is sufficient. Even in the early days of the church they were tempted to add to it. The author of Hebrews answers: no, that is enough.

That's why the theme at the top of your sermon guide reads, Jesus is better. He is better than the Old Covenant, better than angels, prophets, priests, kings, and presidents. He is better than any religious sacrifice, ritual, or pilgrimage. These believers were pulled back toward the temple and the sacrificial system, and the author insists Jesus is better than all of it.

That message matters for us in the 21st century, too. Two thousand years later, many things still vie for our attention and devotion. Even I as a pastor need to be reminded regularly that Jesus is better than the ideas and philosophies of man, and that He is the only one we ultimately need.

Hebrews Begins With God

The letter opens, "God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets." The very first word of the book is God. Hebrews begins with God—a reminder that everything begins with God. But who is He? What is He like?

Not only Hebrews but the whole Bible begins with God. Genesis 1:1 says, "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." That is the worldview of anyone who believes the Bible: God is. And not only is He, but He existed before everything that exists. Everything we see—and the things too small or too far to see—God created, which means He pre-existed it all.

The question always comes: where did He come from? The biblical answer is that He was, He is, and He always will be. No one created God; He always was. People say that's far out, and I understand—He is bigger than us. If I could comprehend God, He wouldn't be God; I would be. That is exactly where our fallen nature wants to go: I am God. We see it in our culture, but it's not new—it goes all the way back to Genesis 3.

Point two: God is, and was, and created all things. Some of you may say, "Couldn't you go deeper than that?" But this is the first basic proposition of Scripture, and it is essential. If you don't grasp that God is, was, and created everything, it will be very hard to understand Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and everything after. Hold this as the default truth.

God Speaks: Revelation

Hebrews 1:1 continues, "God, who at various times and in various ways spoke." Many in our culture can give a passing thought to a Creator—over 80% of Americans acknowledge there is probably a God—but for many He is far away, uninterested, and disengaged. The author of Hebrews says, not so. God not only creates, He speaks.

This isn't new to the New Testament. Genesis 1 says the earth was without form and void, darkness was over the deep, the Spirit of God hovered over the waters—and then God said, "Let there be light." Through the six days of creation, God speaks and speaks and speaks. When God speaks into the environment we live in, we call that revelation.

Why call it that? Because God is independent of His creation. He does not need it. Everything in our universe is inside the "box" of creation that He spoke into existence, and He exists apart from it. Today we have instruments that look further into the cosmos every day, and the Hubble images of the edges of galaxies boggle the mind—but all of it is still inside the box. To us it's a huge box; to God it's not, because He is outside it.

The Altair and the Language of the Box

If God wants to speak into the box that is creation, He must do so through revelation, in a special way—and a naturalistic world that doesn't believe in the miraculous calls that insane. Let me illustrate. In 1974, engineers in Albuquerque, New Mexico created something amazing: a small gray-and-blue box with lights and switches—the first microcomputer, the Altair 8800. But it was completely useless, because it had no language by which anyone could tell it what to do.

A picture of that box appeared in Popular Electronics in early 1975. Two young men in Boston saw it and wrote to the company asking, "Are you interested in buying a BASIC language for your microcomputer?" Their names were Paul Allen and Bill Gates. They went out to New Mexico, started a little company called Microsoft, and wrote the first language to tell the box what they wanted it to do. But to do that, they had to speak into the box in a language the box could understand. They didn't demand that the box learn their language; they had to learn the language of the computer.

That seems magical—"Hey, Siri" talks back to me, which is kind of freaky. But maybe it's not magic; maybe it's amazing engineering, with an amazing engineer behind it. If I told you a big bang happened and this table just appeared, you'd say that's stupid—because even a simple table requires an engineer with intelligence and resources. Yet your eyeball is far more complex than this table, and many people say it just happened. That is a huge leap of faith. It takes more faith to believe God is not than that He is.

So the Engineer who made everything has to speak in a way we can understand—just as those engineers in 1975 had to speak in the language of the computer. Point three: the Creator God speaks to His creation by revelation. How? At various times and in various ways. I'd suggest there are three forms.

General Revelation

The first is general revelation. King David wrote in Psalm 19, 3,000 years ago, "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the earth shows forth his handiwork; day unto day they utter speech, and night unto night they reveal knowledge. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard." Wherever you live and whatever you speak, you have access to general revelation.

Paul wrote in Romans 1 that the wrath of God will be revealed against all ungodliness of men "who suppress the truth in unrighteousness," because what may be known of God is manifest to them, "for God has shown it to them." Verse 20: "For since the creation of the world his invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse."

General revelation is God shouting to us through the creation. Everything we see declares that God is, down to the simplest life forms—which are far more complex than science once admitted, especially at the level of DNA. Francis Collins, head of the Human Genome Project, wrote a book called The Language of God. He helped deconstruct the human genome, and he believes in God, because what he found is language. From general revelation we learn three things: God is, God is smart, and God is powerful. Its two primary modes are creation and conscience—every human being has been hardwired with a conscience by the moral lawgiver, a moral law written on the heart so we are without excuse.

Point four: creation and conscience give us a general revelation of God.

Special Revelation

Second, there is special revelation, best seen in Exodus 3. Moses, a shepherd, is walking the desert—a place that looks a lot like East County—and sees a bush on fire that is not consumed. As he approaches, something even more miraculous happens. Exodus 3:4–10:

When the Lord saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, "Moses, Moses!" ... "Do not draw near this place. Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground." Moreover He said, "I am the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." ... "I have surely seen the oppression of My people who are in Egypt... So I have come down to deliver them... Come now, therefore, and I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring My people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt."

In special revelation God reveals who He is—"I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob"—and His will: "I want to deliver My people, so I'm going to send you." This is like the engineers writing in the language of the computer to tell it what they want. God speaks in a language that can be understood, and those who receive that word we call prophets.

Point five: the Old Testament is the account of God's special revelation. Those first 39 books record God speaking to and through Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David, Isaiah, Elijah, and many others—revealing who He is and what He wants to do. God has a plan and a purpose, and we would not know it if we did not hear His voice.

Personal Revelation

The third form is personal revelation. Hebrews 1:1–2 says God, who spoke in times past by the prophets, "has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, and through whom also He made the worlds." John 1 declares:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God... All things were made through Him... And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

Personal revelation is greater than general and more powerful than special, because it is God coming in bodily form to reveal Himself. The mode of this revelation is Jesus—the Word, the Son—who came to reveal the glory of who God is in personal form. Through Him we learn what God is actually like. Hebrews 1:3 says Jesus is "the brightness of God's glory and the express image of His person," manifesting the actual glory of God in time and space.

Point six: the New Testament is the account of God's personal revelation.

Why We Need Jesus to Reveal God

Consider this fountain pen. Just by looking at it I know it didn't happen on its own—someone engineered it, with the resources and intelligence to make it. It even uses capillary action to draw the ink down to the tip. That's general observation. The word "Lamy" on the side might tell me the maker's name, but I still don't really know what that person is like. Is he kind? Does he like ice cream? Is he good to his wife? I might guess this pen is sharp enough to hurt someone—so maybe the maker is mean. Or maybe he's loving, and I could write a love note to my wife for Valentine's Day. I can't truly know until I'm introduced to the person.

That's what Jesus came to do—introduce us to God. When people look at this world and see suffering, hunger, death, and pain, they often conclude that if there is a God, He's mean and angry. You can come to wrong conclusions about God by looking only at what's around you. So general revelation is not enough. Even special revelation is limited—the prophets said some strange things; read Ezekiel and you'll wonder what he was doing.

But Jesus is better, and this world needs the personal revelation of Jesus more than ever, because there are so many wrongheaded ideas and misunderstandings about God and about why we are here. God has something to say about all of it in the person of Jesus Christ. If you want to know God, the best place to start is with Jesus, for as He said, "If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father."

Closing Prayer

Lord, I am absolutely convinced that the world we live in needs to know You—how good You are, and how You are better than prophets and priests and kings and angels and all other things. But Lord, first we who trust and believe the things of the Bible need to be convinced that You are better. So remind us again, as we prepare to study through this book, that You are better—better than any distraction, better than anything we could put our trust or hope in. Help us to find our hope and trust only in You. We ask this in Jesus' name, amen.