Hebrews 1:2-3

God who in sundry times and diverse manners, great in time past, unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, or in Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, and by whom also he made the worlds, who being the brightness of his glory and the express image of his person, and he upholds all things by the word of his power, when he hath by himself purged our sins, and now is set down on the right hand of the majesty on high.

The grand theme of the book of Hebrews is the supremacy and the superiority of Jesus Christ. And in the first three verses, the theme of Hebrews is gloriously unfolded for us. It's brought out and really the first three verses of chapter one are the entire message of the book of Hebrews. It's all put in that little nutshell of the opening of the book of Hebrews.

Now, the reason why Hebrews sets forth the superiority of Jesus Christ is because Hebrews is written to Jewish believers who were backsliding.
They were falling away from Christ and faith in Christ, and they were turning back to Judaism. They were turning back to the old covenant. They were going back to the prophets in the Old Testament, and they were going back to angels who were the mediators of the old covenant. They were going back to the teachings of Moses. They wanted to go back to the temple and offer sacrifices and have a high priest that was tangible, that they could see and touch and feel.

And they wanted to offer blood sacrifices once again. They wanted to see the lamb slain and know that they had that atonement for sin.
And so they were in danger of leaving Christ and going back to the old covenant. And so all through the book of Hebrews, it is a setting forth of Jesus Christ superior to the old covenant, that his person is superior to prophets, to angels, to Moses, and to Aaron and his priesthood. And we find that in the first six chapters, but in the first three verses, we find the superiority of Christ over prophets, specifically over the Old Testament prophets, of course.

Now it says in verses one and the first part of verse two, we looked at last week, that God, who in sundry times, and that phrase in the King James Bible, sundry times means many portions. It speaks of God's progressive revelation. In the Old Testament, which was the word of God and was true, it was progressively being revealed to the prophets.
God's nature, God's character, God's revelation was coming to them progressively. Now that doesn't mean it wasn't true, it was true. That doesn't mean it wasn't God's word, it was God's word. But that means in the Old Testament, no prophet had a full or complete understanding of the nature and character of God. It was not a full, complete revelation of God to man. It came in many portions. It came in what is called the progressive revelation. And it came, verse one, in diverse manners. God spoke through dreams, God spoke through visions, God spoke through typology, God spoke orally through the prophets. The prophets would say, thus saith the Lord, and it would be the word of God. And so there were many different ways that God spoke unto his people by the prophets.

But what the writer of Hebrews now says is that now in these last days, God has spoken in his Son. The supreme revelation of God is in the person of Jesus Christ. The Old Covenant prophets, Jesus, the Son of God, is superior to the prophets. You had many prophets, you have one unique Son.

You have progressive revelation that came in different ways, now you have final revelation in his Son.

The book of Hebrews, as it's stated here in the first verse, is that God has spoken, and that it is the last word that God has spoken.

The book of Hebrews might be titled God's last word, God's final word.

God has spoken in his Son, Jesus Christ.

There's no need for further revelation.

What we need now is inspiration to understand what God has already spoken.

We don't need someone to come along and say, I got a new revelation from God.

All of the Christian churches are wrong, and I'm gonna start a new religion and come up with some new doctrine or some new idea.

God has spoken in his Son, who is the living word.

And we read about God's Son in the written word, the Bible.

And so Jesus is God's last word to man.

If you do not believe the words of Jesus, the revelation of God in Jesus, God has no more to say to you.

There won't be any prophet come along and tell you that there's some other way to heaven.

If you do not listen to God speaking in his Son, there is no other voice to hear the voice of God.

And so it's God's final revelation.

It's the apex of God's revelation.

God hath spoken in his Son.

Now, the next part of verse two and verse three are a continuum of this thought.

God has spoken, notice this, in his Son.

Now the writer of Hebrews goes on to speak about the Son.

And it's kind of like holding up a diamond.

And he begins to turn the diamond.

And as we look at this diamond, all the different facets of this diamond begin to shine forth.

All the different glories of this diamond begin to shine forth.

And he sets forth for us at the end of verse two and the third verse, seven facets of the Son.

Seven characteristics of the Son, showing that he is superior to the prophets.

Now, these seven statements to show the superiority of Jesus to the prophets, I've put in two groups.

The first I've called cosmic supremacy.

We see Jesus and his supremacy as it relates to the cosmos or to the universe that is around.

And then the second group is his priestly supremacy.

First are five in his cosmos supremacy, and then the next two under his priestly supremacy.

Now we're going to look at each phrase, so I want you to follow with me closely in your Bible.

And we're simply going to just pick these phrases apart.

First of all, he says, after saying God has spoken in his Son, notice the first aspect of his cosmic supremacy, whom he hath appointed heir of all things.

And then he says, whom also made the worlds, verse three, who being the brightness.

So he's speaking of the Son, who, whom, and who.

Now the first thing we see concerning Jesus Christ is that he is the inheritor.

It says there that he hath appointed him heir of all things.

Heir of all things.

Now that is a natural flow or a natural progression.

Natural flow or progression in that, first we have the Son mentioned.

And the natural progression is, is that the Son is to be heir.

I have children.

And if I were to die, or if my wife and I were to die, what little possessions I have, or material possessions I have, my children would be the heirs of my inheritance.

They'd get my skateboard, my surfboard, and my old beat up tennis shoes.

And a whole bunch of books.

I often wonder what my daughters are gonna do with my library.

Oh great, Dad left all those commentaries for me.

And so the Son naturally becomes the heir.

He becomes the inheritor.

And so the Son in whom God has spoken has been appointed, and that appointment was by the Father to inherit all things.

Now this has a two-fold aspect.

First of all, as creator, both God the Father and God the Son, as creator of the universe, naturally it's theirs.

They own it by right of creation, thus they will inherit it, it is all theirs.

And so there is that aspect of Jesus as we're gonna see even in the text tonight, that he is the creator, that he made the universe, that he can take it back to himself.

Though he gave man dominion over the earth, and man sinned, and forfeited the right of dominion over the earth to Satan, and he's called the prince and the power of the air, Jesus Christ by right of creation is going to be the inheritor of all things.

But it also has the idea of redeemer as well.

Not only is Jesus Christ the creator, Colossians 1 verse 16, for all things by him were made and for him, but also he became a man and thus became the redeemer of fallen creation and fallen creatures, being mankind.

The fact that Jesus Christ was willing to come down to earth to take upon himself the form of a man, to take upon himself flesh, it's called the incarnation of Jesus Christ.

The word incarnate means becoming flesh.

It's a Latin word that means becoming flesh.

God incarnate, God became flesh.

We're headed into Christmas, and Christmas is a time when we celebrate the fact that God became a man in the person of Jesus Christ.

Veiled in flesh, the Godhead see, we sing at Christmas time.

Now the fact that Jesus Christ willingly gave himself for the mission of becoming a man, being born through the Virgin Mary, and becoming our goel in the Hebrew, it's the kinsman redeemer.

He thus gave his life, paid the price, to redeem fallen man back to himself.

And so redemption has this idea of Jesus Christ inheriting man, which is the treasure that he would redeem.

In John chapter one, verse 14, it says, the word became flesh and dwelt among us.

That's a reference to the incarnation.

In Philippians chapter two, it says that he took upon himself the form of a servant, which means, again, that he became a man.

Now he did that, as I mentioned, that he might redeem fallen mankind.

The only one who could redeem man would be the God-man, Jesus Christ.

Now he came into the world through the Virgin Mary, so he had flesh, but it wasn't sinful flesh.

A sinner cannot redeem another sinner.

He had to be perfect, he had to be like the lamb in the Old Testament, without blemish and without spot.

No inherited defect or no acquired defect.

Jesus did not inherit a sin nature, and he lived a sinless life.

And so he was the perfect redeemer.

He died on the cross to redeem mankind.

Now, when Jesus died on the cross, it was the idea of he would redeem man back to himself, he would redeem creation back to himself, and that one day he would inherit all things.

He would re-inherit that which was lost by the fall.

In Revelation chapter five, when John was weeping convulsively because no man in heaven or earth was found worthy to take the scroll and to loose the seven seals thereof, one of the angels said, weep not, for behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah hath prevailed.

It's a reference to Jesus.

And that he prevailed in his death and his resurrection to take the scroll and to unloose the seals thereof.

I believe that scroll's the title deed to the earth.

And that it was that reclaiming of that which has been lost through the fall.

He was redeeming man and sinful earth.

And so this idea of error of all things means that one day Jesus Christ will be the inheritor of the fallen, rebellious world and mankind.

Now, the interesting thing is that you and I as the church are that inheritance that Christ is gonna receive.

The Bible tells us that when he went to the cross, he despised the shame, but for the joy that was set before him, he endured the cross.

What was the joy set before him?

That understanding that he could redeem mankind back to himself.

That he could redeem the church back to himself.

He saw you, he saw me, he saw the church, and he wanted to redeem us back to himself.

He despised the cross and the shame, but because of his love for you and I, he willingly became a man.

Now that is a low step to begin with.

And he became a servant.

And then he went all the way, as Paul said in Philippians 2, to suffer even the death of the cross was what's a great humiliation.

All that to redeem a treasure, you and I.

By the field, Jesus gave the parable, and take the treasure out of the field.

That he would become the inheritor of all things.

And that one day in a future tense, Jesus Christ will redeem the earth.

It'll begin to unfold during the tribulation, and it will culminate in the second coming.

When the earth during the millennial reign of Christ will be restored, and the church will be fully redeemed.

An amazing thought as well is that we as Christians become children of God.

Now if I become a child of God, Bible says in Romans chapter eight, that we are joint heirs with Christ.

There's the scriptural teaching that I too am going to inherit with Christ as a co-heir all things.

Jesus said the meek shall inherit the earth.

You go to the beach and you can't find a private beach to be able to spread out your towel and enjoy, and you think all these rich people have their beach homes and no one can get down to the sand.

Well, one day it's all going to be yours.

I love the beach, I go down the beach and I walk along the beach and I see these big, beautiful beach houses and I think, man, that's not fair.

You know, there's only so much beach, why do they get to have that part of the, you know, real estate, I mean, why do they get to live there, you know, I think, man, that's not fair.

One day, as God's child, I will inherit as a joint heir with Christ all things.

God the Father has appointed that Jesus Christ would be the heir of all things and that I also am a joint heir with Christ.

Read Romans 8, verse 17.

Now, the second thing we see about Christ is that he is the creator.

It says there in Hebrews 1, verse 2, by whom he made the worlds.

Now, again, we're setting forth the superiority of Christ over prophets.

This is something a prophet could not do.

Why would you want to leave Jesus Christ and go back to the prophets?

We're talking about someone who is the creator of all the world.

He is the creator of all the world.

Now, the word worlds is in the Greek word eonios A-I-O-N-A-S, which literally translated means ages.

And it has, again, a twofold idea.

It has the idea of the created world, but it also carries the idea of the history as it relates to the time-space creation, the cosmos that God created.

You see, not only did Jesus Christ create the heavens and the earth, the dirt and the mountains and the beach and the sea and created the stars and he created the animals, but also he created the very ages that are unfolding, that he is in control of the eonios, or the ages of man.

Someone said history is his story.

That is so true.

And you know, if you eliminate the idea of a creator, if you eliminate the idea of a God who is in control of the ages and that history is God unfolding his purposes and plan, then you really have no significance in life.

You really have no purpose or meaning behind it all.

There's really no significance behind all the world wars that we've gone through and the different progresses, the progressional aspect of man's knowledge and history and the different nations of man and God's hand on mankind and the ages and through history.

There's just nothing really significant about it.

It's all just haphazard, but the Bible teaches that he is the one who created it all and has it all laid out.

You see, we live in a time-space dimension.

God does not, and God created time and space.

He created the world as well as the ages, the eonios.

Both ideas of creation and time are contained in this word, worlds.

Now, it says here clearly that Jesus Christ made the worlds.

God the Father made it through God the Son, and I believe he did it by his Spirit.

Spirit of God moved upon the face of the deep.

All three of the persons in the Godhead, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, were actively involved in creation.

God the Father said, let us make man in our image after our likeness.

And he breathed into man's nostrils.

Man became a living soul.

So the Father and the Holy Spirit and the Son, they were all working together in unity as far as creation is concerned.

We are learning today that the world is not created, that it is a product of evolution.

And I believe that that is one of the greatest causes for the undermining of faith in God in the world today, the evolutionary theory.

People are buying it and have bought it for years, hook, line, and sinker.

It is not a scientific fact.

It is not proven by science.

It is a theory or a hypothesis at best, this idea that billions and billions and billions of years ago there was a Big Bang.

At the origin of life, don't let anyone fool you, no scientist understands or can explain.

If there was a Big Bang, what caused the Big Bang?

If you want to describe the different chemicals that were involved in the Big Bang, where did those chemicals come from?

Well, let's not think about that.

You either believe in eternal, all-existent matter of some kind or an eternal, all-existent God.

It all had to start somewhere.

You can't have something out of nothing.

What is the origin of the universe?

Is it that we have eternal matter?

That's kind of hard to buy.

It's kind of hard to believe.

But you either have to accept that there was some form of eternal matter that always has been, and those who believe that believe there always will be.

It'll just, you know, the Earth will maybe blow up again and take on a different shape, and billions and billions of years from now, there'll be the whole evolutionary process once again.

Or you believe that in the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth.

Now, if you believe the evolutionary theory, then you have God removed from the picture, and then there's no real purpose or meaning, no significance, no higher authority, no absolute word.

You lose all the basis for morality when you throw God out.

And the implications are just staggering.

I was reading today about a Cambridge physicist.

His name was Stephen Hawkins.

He's been called the most brilliant theoretical physicist since Einstein.

He wrote a book called A Brief History of Time.

And in his book, he says that our galaxy is an average size, a spiral galaxy, that it looks to other galaxies like a swirl in a pastry roll, and that it is over 100,000 light years across.

So just the galaxy that we live in, he estimates, is 100,000 light years across, about 600 trillion miles, he says.

We know that our galaxy is only one of some 100,000 million that could be seen by using modern telescopes.

Now, that's all that you can see by using a telescope, 100,000 million galaxies.

Each galaxy itself contains some 100,000 million stars.

It's commonly held at the average distance between these 100,000 million galaxies, each 600 trillion miles across, containing 100,000 million stars, is three million light years.

And that nearly all that are in the universe, they estimate that the most distant galaxy is eight million, or excuse me, eight billion light years away, and that it's racing away, that's the theory of the expanding universe, at 200 million miles an hour.

Now, I'm sure that just throwing out some of those figures, you can't really get a perspective on that.

You haven't walked a billion miles lately, driven a trillion miles.

I mean, it's kind of hard to relate to.

If I said, you know, the galaxy's 100 miles wide, you could kind of, yeah, yeah, I can kind of get a perspective on that.

When we're talking trillions and billions and 100,000 light years across, it's kind of hard for us to fathom.

This is the macrocosm that God has created out in the universe, the vastness of space.

When you begin to just think about it, it blows your mind, you just kind of fuse out.

Ever find yourself looking up into the sky and thinking, you know, where does it all end?

You know, when you go to Disneyland and you ride the Pirates of the Caribbean, you know, one of the things I get off on is the sky.

It just looks so cool, you know, it's kind of got that real blue tint to it, and that shade, and you see the stars up in the sky, but there's a ceiling up there.

were to turn the lights on you'd just, ah no biggie.

There it is.

It looks like you're out on the Caribbean and the pirate ships and the sky looks so vast.

It looks so glorious, but I mean, it's man-made.

There's a ceiling there.

But did you ever think about when you go outside?

If you could take off like a rocket and go and go and go and go and go and go and go and go and go and go and go, you'd never ever hit, poof, the ceiling.

That blows my mind.

How big is this universe?

Who knows?

I laugh when you read about these physicists and scientists that are estimating the size of the cosmos and how in the world can they even begin to know?

There's no way.

It's just silliness.

And that's just the creation.

What about the creator behind it?

You can't have a greater cause than the effect or the effect than the cause.

God is the cause of all this.

As you look around, that's the effect.

What kind of a cause caused that?

The Bible says that he measures the universe with a span of his hand.

I mean, trillion, billion light years wide, he just goes, hmm, about that big, you know.

We can't even begin to fathom it.

And then you can go the other way.

You can go down to the microcosms and the nucleus of an atom and the marbles of an atom and the positive and negative protons and neutrons and revolving around the nucleus of the atom and the spaces that are between them and how small they are.

It can't be seen with the naked eye.

And it's just amazing.

And to think that God created it all through who?

Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ was the creator.

Can you imagine the disciples as they lay out in some of the hills of Judea with Jesus at night?

And I believe they slept out under the stars and they're laying there next to the Lord and they're watching stars and, ooh, look at that one.

And Jesus goes, yeah, I did a good job on that one, didn't I?

You know, he just looking up into his creation, which he made, setting forth the glories of Jesus as the creator.

In John 1, verse 3, without him, nothing was made that was made.

Question is, is how big is your God tonight?

Say, gee, I really have this big problem in my life.

And someone says, trust in the Lord.

Well, I don't know.

You think God is able to help me?

You think God's big enough?

I'm really emotionally disturbed.

Someone says, just go to the Lord, talk to him about it.

Well, I don't know.

I think maybe I ought to see a psychologist.

I think maybe they could help me better.

He's not big enough?

He's not able?

He's not sufficient?

How big is your God?

The problem is that we are not worshiping the God revealed in the Bible.

We've limited God by making a God of our own understanding.

The folly of man determining what God is like.

Well, if I don't believe in a God that, you know, would do that, or I can't believe in a God like this or God like that.

But what do you base your belief of God on?

What source do you derive your understanding about God from?

The only sure source, reliable source, is the Bible.

And you listen to this guy and that guy, and he tells you about God, and they all have their different ideas.

You must go to his word where he has spoken to find out who God is and his nature and his character.

That's the revelation that we have of God.

The third thing we see about Jesus there in verse three now is that he is the radiator.

First, he's the inheritor.

Secondly, he's the creator.

And thirdly, he's the radiator.

It says, who being the brightness of his glory.

Notice that in verse three, who being the brightness of his glory.

The word brightness again has two meanings.

It can mean to reflect as a mirror, or it can mean to radiate as a light.

Now, Jesus Christ does both.

He reflects the image of the Father, and he radiates the image of God because he has that glory in and of himself.

Now, I know this is kind of technical stuff.

As we go through Hebrews, it won't all be this technical, but please try to track with me and bear with me.

There are two aspects, as I've mentioned.

The first is a reflection.

The moon is a reflection of the sun, that is the light that comes off the moon.

A couple weeks ago, we saw a lunar eclipse.

The earth came into line with the sun and the moon and blocked the sun's light upon the moon, and you could stand there and watch the moon just be blotted right out.

That was just awesome to watch that.

Well, the moon does not radiate its own light.

It's only a reflection of the light of the sun.

When Jesus Christ came to earth, he was reflecting the Father.

He was a perfect reflection, a radiation of the Father.

But it means more than that.

It also has the idea that he not only reflects, but he himself radiates the brightness of the Father's glory.

Now, that would be the idea of the sun, not the moon.

The sun radiates its own light.

The sun radiates its own light comes forth from it.

It doesn't need to derive its light from another source.

Now, the word glory there, when it says, who being the brightness of his glory, the word glory has the idea of the full manifestation of the divine attributes and essence.

What is the glory that's referred to?

It's the full manifestation of God's nature and essence.

Jesus in praying in John 17, his high priestly prayer, several times, but at the end of the prayer, Jesus said, Father, I will that you restore me to what?

The glory which I had with thee before the world was.

The radiance of his divine essence, he said, I had it before the world was that which came forth from Jesus Christ.

Now, the reason Jesus Christ, when he was in flesh on earth, didn't have a halo and didn't glow in the dark and didn't have people just looking at him and say, look at that guy, look at him, he must be God, he's glowing.

Was because his deity was veiled in flesh.

He took upon himself the form of a servant.

But you remember the story of the transfiguration?

When Jesus took Peter, James and John, Matthew chapter 17, and he went into a high mountain, some people think it was Mount Tabor.

And he began to be transfigured before them and his glory shone and his garments and vestments became as white, so white that no fuller could whiten it.

And the radiance and the glory of his deity shone forth from his flesh.

It was though he was pulling back the veil of his flesh and he was letting his deity, his true nature, his true essence, his God, letting it shine forth that his disciples, Peter, James and John could get a glimpse of his glory.

That was the real Jesus Christ in his glory.

And Peter writing about it years later said, we saw his glory when we were with him on that holy mountain.

So it speaks of that radiance of his glory.

Remember in Acts chapter nine, when Paul the apostle or Saul at that time was on his way to Damascus, what happened to him?

He was struck down to the earth and saw what?

A bright light.

And you know what time of the day it was?

High noon.

Above the brightness of the sun, a glorious bright light shone on Saul.

And then a voice came and said, Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?

Saul said, who are you, Lord?

That I might serve you.

And the voice came back.

I am Jesus.

Who thou persecutest.

Jesus right now is re-glorified in a sense back in heaven.

Now he had it from eternity past.

He had it when he was on earth in his flesh.

And now he's restored back to that full glory again in heaven.

And he shone that light on Saul on the Damascus road.

And he spoke to him very clearly.

Even the word in verse three there, being, who being the brightness of his glory, not becoming or will become or hopes to become, but he being present tense.

He always had it.

He always will have the glory of his deity.

The fourth thing that we see in looking at Jesus Christ there in verse three is that he is representor.

He is not only the inheritor, the creator, the radiator, but he's also the representor, or he is the express image, as the scripture says, the express image of his person.

What does that mean?

That means that Jesus Christ is a perfect representation of the father.

Man, fallen man with his sinful nature is not perfectly representing God.

Jesus did.

When Jesus was born on earth as a man, he was not only God, but he was a perfect representation of God.

And in a sense, because he was God.

And so he perfectly bore the image of the father.

The word image transliterated into English is the word character.

The word was used for a die.

It was used to stamp a coin and to put an image or an impression on the coin.

And so the idea of image there was used of the imprint or the image made when you take a die and you'd stamp it on the coin, it would make a perfect representation of that image.

It's kind of like a jello mold.

To use a homely illustration out of your kitchen.

You know, if you take a mold and it's shaped like a horse and you want to pour jello in it, you know, you pour your jello in it.

And when it's jelled, you pop it out and you got a horse jello.

Maybe you're going to make some angel jellos or something.

They can kind of shake for Christmas or something.

I don't know.

But when the jello comes out, you look at it and go, wow, it's exactly like the mold.

It takes the shape, pops out.

And I mean, they both the same size, same proportions.

It looks just like it's like a stamp on a piece of wax.

You know, the same thing that's on the die when you hit it on the wax, the same image comes out.

And so the image of the father was stamped on Jesus Christ.

And as you look at Jesus Christ, you have a perfect representation of the father.

Anyone who says.

I can't see God, I'd like to see God, if there's really a God, let me see God.

Tell him to look at Jesus Christ.

You go, well, Jesus isn't here anymore.

Then open the Bible and read Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and take a good look at Jesus Christ.

And you're looking at God.

John says that which was from the beginning.

The word of life, which our hands have handled and our ears heard and we saw we declare unto you.

You want to see God look at Jesus.

That's why studying the Gospels and life of Christ is so wonderful, because you're reading and you're looking and you're seeing God.

Now, a fine line, but it's important for you to make this note is that though Jesus is a perfect representation of the father.

He is also God himself and that he is a separate person from the father.

This is the doctrine of the Trinity or the triunity.

There are two separate persons.

There are God, the father and God, the son.

Matter of fact, there's a third person, God, the Holy Spirit.

In the first verse of John's Gospel, chapter one, it says, in the beginning was the word and the word was God.

That's a reference to Jesus Christ, who is God.

And the word was, then you have with God.

So you have the word who is God and the word who was with God.

You have two separate persons.

And then in verse 14, the word became flesh and dwelt among us.

And then in verse 18 of John's Gospel, no man at any time can see God.

You want to know why?

Because God is spirit.

Man cannot see spirit.

So the only begotten son, which is in the bosom of the father, he hath declared him or made him known.

He became flesh so that we could see him.

We could touch him.

We could feel him.

God invaded our time, space, no man.

God became a man.

He could be touched.

He could be felt.

You can study archaeology.

There were eyewitnesses in the whole idea that Jesus Christ was a historical figure.

But Jesus Christ was more than just a man.

He was God.

He represented the father and he was God himself.

He said, he that has seen me has seen the father.

Here we again see the deity of Jesus Christ.

Now, when we looked at Jesus and when we look at Jesus in the Gospel, we see that he represents a God of love, God of grace, God of mercy, God of compassion, God who is holy, God who is righteous, and God who is just.

All those things shine in the person of Jesus.

But there's a fifth aspect as you continue to turn that diamond and look at the different facets of Jesus Christ.

And that is he is also the sustainer.

Not only is the creator and the radiator, but he's also the sustainer.

It says there in verse three that he upholdeth all things or upholding all things by the word of his power.

Right there in the third verse, he is holding all things by the word of his power.

Has the idea of supporting and directing once again.

You ever wonder what holds the stars in space?

I know that we have meteorite showers and some of them break up and have hit the earth and things like that.

But what keeps the sun the right distance from the earth?

And what keeps the atom from just exploding positive particles in the nucleus of an atom that should repel?

What keeps this whole universe together?

The Bible teaches clearly that Jesus Christ is the one that holds all things together.

In Colossians it says that he holds all things together.

He's the one that holds the universe by his very word.

It says the word word in the Greek is the Greek word rhema.

It is not the normal word used for word there often, which is the word logos.

John 1.

1 in the beginning was the logos, but it is the word rhema.

Logos has the idea of revelation, God revealing of the thought of God.

The word rhema in the Greek, when it's translated word, has the idea of spoken word specifically.

Jesus Christ holds the worlds together by his spoken word.

Now he created the world by his spoken word.

He spoke it into existence and now he's sustaining it by his spoken word.

You know, I marvel when I read the Gospels again and I look at Jesus Christ, I marvel at the power of his words.

Now this is where the faith teachers go off.

It ties in with the idea that we're little gods and that we can speak the rhema word or that we have the divine fiat, the ability to speak things.

So they'll go into their empty garage and start speaking a portion to existence or I'll speak money into the bank or I'll speak healing or I'll speak this or speak that.

It's the idea of confessing, positive confession.

It's all tied together.

But we as human beings do not have divine fiat.

And I'm glad we don't.

It's like the guy who got the wish and said he wishes that everything he would touch would turn to gold.

And he went to heaven in an Out Burger.

And he reached down to pick up his double double with cheese and onion on it and he just touched it and the thing turned to gold.

Bit and broke his tooth.

Ah, bummer.

Throws it away.

Now I'm starting to get really hungry and so I go over to McDonald's and try a Big Mac, you know, and I grab the Big Mac and it turns to gold.

Didn't take long before I realized this is a curse.

This isn't a blessing.

You know, if we had the ability to speak things into existence, watch out.

Can you imagine what men would be doing with that ability?

God is alone the one that has that ability, not man.

Jesus stands in front of a grave and Lazarus has been dead three days.

His own sister said, Lord, if you roll that stone away, P.

U.

big time, it's going to sting.

You're talking dead.

Jesus said, didn't I tell you that if you believe you'll see the glory of God?

Roll away the stone, roll away the stone.

And Jesus spoke these words, Lazarus come forth.

The power of his word.

And Lazarus came out of that grave.

A dead man came back to life.

Now I can go up here to Mountain View Cemetery and stand around speaking to those graves all I want.

I don't know that anything's going to happen.

Jesus is out on the Sea of Galilee with the disciples and the wind and the waves are raging and the disciples were fearful that they were going to drown.

And Jesus stands up and he speaks.

Notice this to creation.

Have you ever talked to the wind?

If you do, something's wrong with you.

You talk to the waves.

But he looked at the wind and the waves and he says, peace, be still.

In the Greek, it's be muzzled.

And immediately the wind stopped and the waves went into a perfect glass.

Wow.

That's power.

He holds it all together by the word of his power.

A man's been lame eight years and Jesus walks up and says, pick up your bed and walk.

And the guy stands up and he's been lame.

He walks away.

A man named Bartimaeus had been blind and he said, Lord, that I might see.

And Jesus says, receive your sight.

And immediately blinded eyes were opened and he could see.

That's the power of Christ's word.

And here we're looking at Jesus, see that he holds all things together by the power of his word.

Now that is enough to blow your mind.

This supremacy in the cosmos.

But we see two more things and we'll have to hit them kind of quickly.

But that is his priestly supremacy.

And it's twofold.

He's a purifier and the ruler.

The end of verse three, when he by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high.

You see that?

This is a reference to what Jesus Christ has done in redemption.

Boy, this is exciting.

Jesus Christ is the inheritor of all things.

And I'm part of that inheritance and he's going to inherit the earth.

And he's the creator and he's the sustainer.

He's made the whole cosmos.

And man, this is so awesome.

But then to realize that this great Jesus Christ died on the cross to purify and to cleanse my sin.

Then he has not only died, but he rose from the dead.

He ascended into heaven and he's exalted and seated at the right hand of the father.

So these are the last two things that the writer of Hebrews brings out.

That he's the purifier by himself purged our sins.

Now there are three simple thoughts there.

First of all, notice by himself, the only person that can forgive, cleanse and wash from sin is Jesus Christ.

By himself, there will never be another who come along and have the ability to cleanse you from your sins.

Don't ever let some prophet or some guru or some priest or some pastor or some religious teacher say, I can cleanse you from your sin.

Jesus Christ alone had the merits and the ability to cleanse us from our sins.

He's the one that we go to for the cleansing.

He's the one that we go to for the purging by himself.

He's the only one who could be the true kinsman redeemer.

Second thing, notice the word purged.

Having purged the word, the word of the idea means to purify, to make pure or clean.

Jesus Christ himself purifies you, cleanses you.

When I became a Christian, one of the first things that just gloriously flooded my heart in life was that realization, my heart and my life has been cleansed.

I'm pure before God.

I felt clean inside.

You can take a bath or a shower, but if you're living in sin, you still feel just kind of scuzzy, feel kind of dirty.

But when Jesus Christ purifies you and cleanses you, you feel clean inside.

You feel washed.

Tonight, if you need cleansing from sin, Jesus Christ alone is the one who can cleanse you.

He alone is the one who can forgive you and wash you from your sins.

Of course, the Bible teaches that he forgives us and cleanses us by his blood.

In Isaiah 1, verse 18, it says, Come now, let's reason together, sayeth the Lord, though your sins be as scarlet, they'll be white as snow.

Though they be red as crimson, this shall be white as wool.

It's the cleansing.

In Hebrews, as we're going to see in many weeks, without the shedding of blood, there's no remission or cleansing from sin.

Notice that he himself purges us from what?

Sins.

We find the word sins there mentioned.

You know, the Bible tells us that every person in the world is a sinner before God.

All have sinned and all have come short of the glory of God.

There's no one righteous.

No, not one.

Every one of us has inherited sin from Adam, from our parents.

Sins is separation from God.

Our sin is separated from God.

And again, only Jesus Christ alone can purge us from sins.

Penalty, practice, and ultimately the presence of sin.

There's three aspects to the forgiveness of sins.

The past penalty for my sin.

As a sinner, the Bible says the wages of sin is death.

I don't have to die.

Jesus died for me.

He took the penalty for my sins.

From the power of sin in my life right now, I don't have to be a slave to sin anymore.

When you become a Christian, God lives inside of you and he gives you the strength and the ability to live a life that is holy and pleasing to him.

Not perfect, not sinless, but you do sin less.

And sin does not, as Paul said in Romans, any longer have to have dominion or control over your life.

You don't have to be the slave to sin.

And one day, because Jesus has purged my sin, I will be free from the presence of sin altogether.

When I go to heaven, I'll have a new body.

No more sin.

That'll be complete redemption.

Now the third or the last thing, the seventh thing, and it's interesting, there are seven aspects to Christ's supremacy here, is that he sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high.

Right at the end of verse three.

Sat down, right hand of the majesty on high.

When you get to heaven, it's not going to be God the Father, the Holy Spirit, and Moses on the right hand of the Father.

It won't be Peter, James, or John either.

Won't be any man sitting at the right hand of the Father.

It's going to be the Son.

Now, people have asked me, will we see three people sitting on thrones?

Will we see the Father, big tall guy, white hair, big snowy white beard, you know, and Jesus like we see in the pictures, and the Holy Spirit will just be like a light or a glow, you know?

I don't know.

I do know God is a Spirit.

But I believe the right hand idea is more of a concept of honor and authority, power, that he intercedes for us.

It's the place of honor.

God does not have a right hand.

God is Spirit.

God is not, you know, got left hand, right hand, Jesus on his right hand.

But the thing of the idea of the right hand speaks of honor and authority.

He's the head of the church.

In Philippians chapter two, it says, therefore God hath highly exalted him, given a name which is above every name, that every knee should bow, every tongue confess he is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

It also speaks, and especially in Hebrews here, of his finished work.

Notice the phrase, set down.

Why does it say that?

You know, in the Old Testament tabernacle, when the priest went in to sprinkle the blood on the altar there in the Holy of Holies or on the mercy seat on the Ark of the Covenant, or in the entire tabernacle in the Old Testament, and we'll get this a whole lot more when we go along, there was no furniture to sit on.

The high priest didn't go into the Holy of Holies and go, oh, I just think I'll sit in that priestly lazy boy, you know, and just kick back.

There was no, anywhere in the tabernacle, I mean, you can study it in Leviticus, there's not one item of furniture to sit on.

But it says that Jesus has gone into the Holy of Holies, the real one in heaven, and he sat down.

The idea is of the finished work of Jesus Christ.

You see, the priest's work was continual.

It never finished.

Every year, another sacrifice.

Every year, another sacrifice, which reminded the people their sins weren't completely put away.

But when Jesus, once and for all, he died for our sins, he went to heaven, he sat down.

When Jesus hung on the cross, remember what he said?

He said, it is finished.

Now, this shows us the folly of the idea that I can do anything to save myself, or that I have to work to save myself.

Jesus paid it all, all to him I owe.

Sin had left a crimson stain, he washed it white as snow.

I can't work to be saved, I can't labor to be saved.

Jesus finished that work on the cross, he went to heaven, he sat down, it's a finished work.

So no priest ever sat down but Jesus Christ, being the superior priest, finished work, he sat down at the right hand of the Father.

But another thought that is fascinating to me is the idea that at that place of the right hand of the Father, he ever lives to make intercession for me, and that I have access now to God the Father through Jesus Christ his Son.

What is Jesus doing at the right hand of the Father, the place of honor and authority?

He's praying for you, he's praying for me, and he's interceding for me to the Father, and I have access to the Father.

When Jesus died on the cross, the veil of the temple was ripped and it signified that the way to the Holy of Holies is now available to anyone who wants to come, and I have access to the Father through the Son Jesus Christ.

And he's living now to make intercession for me.

Now when you put it all together, you find Jesus Christ is a prophet, the perfect final word from God.

God has spoken in his Son.

This is his office as prophet.

Secondly, he is priest.

He has cleansed us or purged us from our sins.

He is the perfect priest who gave himself once and for all for our sins.

And thirdly, he is the king.

He is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

He is a prophet, he is a priest, he is a king.

He's a prophet if you need to hear God's word, you listen to Jesus Christ.

He's a priest if you need your sins forgiven, you come to him for a washing and the cleansing and the purifying.

He's the king, you need to submit your life to him.

You need to yield to his control.

He's coming back one day to reign.

You either bow your knee now and confess him as Lord, or one day you will confess him as Lord and it will be unto damnation.

You do it now and it's salvation.

Prophet, priest, and king.

And the whole idea is what really the church needs today, just about more than anything, and that is to get their focus back on Jesus Christ.

He is sufficient for all our needs.

He is everything we need.

And in these first three verses of Hebrews, he shows that he is superior to all that has gone before and all that will ever come.

Why would you need anything else?

Why would you look anywhere else?

Why would you go anywhere else?

When you have Jesus Christ.

Let's pray.