Revising Christ

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“…he became as much superior to the angels as the name he has inherited is superior to theirs.”

Hebrews 1:4

Main Readings: John 1:1-18 & Hebrews 1:1 – 2:1

Related Readings: Romans 1:1-17

This letter’s written to Hebrews - people with a Jewish background.  But not just any old Hebrews - a specific group.  Jews, yes!  But Jews who’d come to know Jesus.  Born into Israelite families.  And brought up in that way of living.  Then… born again of God’s Spirit.  And now living a new life in Christ.  But they were under pressure - to ‘drift away’ from this new life of faith.

In their old way of life, they’d looked like everyone else.  And had been accepted by others.  But now, faith in Christ made them look different.  And people – often – they don’t like different!  They faced criticism - opposition - exclusion.  These things tested their faith.  And tested their commitment to Christ.  And they looked like failing that test.

It reminds me of school.  The morning of a test – I always looked like failing that test.  The reason?  No revision.  I’d good intentions.  But good intentions don’t get good grades!  I’d arrive home from school, dead keen - tonight was the night.  I’d get my books out and crack on.  Then there’d be a knock at the door.  ‘Paul – fancy a game of footy?’!  And I’d think, ‘Give me an hour to get m’revision done.’  But by the time that thought got to my lips, I’d say, ‘Give me a minute to get m’shoes on’!

I had other friends who were stricter.  More disciplined.  Less distracted.  We’d knock on their doors.  They’d turn us down.  And I’d think, ‘Why?’  And then we’d face the test.  And I’d be staring at the question paper in horror.  While they’d be busy scribbling, with a calm look.  And I’d go, ‘That’s why!’  ‘That’s why you didn’t get distracted.  And why you paid careful attention to revising what we’d heard in class.’

Cos that’s part of the answer given to these Hebrew believers who looked like failing this test of their faith.  Cos chapter 2 verse 1 says it – ‘We must pay the most careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away.’  The writer of this letter’s encouraging revision - Looking again.  ‘What we have heard’ – so, like, before… ‘we must pay… attention to’ now.  Why?  ‘So… we don’t drift away.’  So that we don’t fail when our faithis tested.

So what’s the subject?  That they needed to revise.  What’s the subject we need to revisit always as believers.  So we always have it correct in our minds?  And enter life’s tests better prepared for what we’re gunna face.

It’s the subject of Chapter 1.  The Son of God.  Last time we looked at the first 3 verses.  They say awesome things about Christ Jesus – God’s Son.  And we noticed the teacher of that lesson - God himself.  Verse 1 reveals him as he reveals himself - the God who speaks.  And verse 2 reveals his best ever lesson.  And his favourite subject.  ‘He has spoken to us by his Son.’  And we noticed the importance of that word ‘by’.  God’s not merely speaking ’about his Son.’  But ‘he has spoken… by his Son.’

Who are the teachers I remember most fondly from school?  The ones who did practical demonstrations.  The ones who didn’t just tell me stuff.  But the ones who showed me stuff.  They’d a theory I needed to grasp.  And believe.   And they’d told me.  But I hadn’t got it good.  And then they did a demo showing it in real life.  And I got it good.  And believed the theory too.

That’s what God’s done.  We had a problem.  Understanding the theory of what God’s like.  Until he spoke ‘by his Son.’  This was the real-life demo we needed to break through our fog.  What’s God like?  Our world was dying – perishing away – through sin.  And ‘us’ with it.  But ‘God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son.’  He died for ‘us’ and our sin on that cross.  And then said ‘to us by his Son’ – ‘whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.’

You wanna know what God’s like?  Go to the Cross.  That’s a practical demonstration like no other.  You a sinner?  Go there and see God’s love for you in Christ.  And believe the theory.  Get it good.  And don’t let it go.

Cos that’s the problem here.  Letting the lesson of God’s love in Christ Jesus slip away.  Thinking that maybe the answer lay elsewhere.  Or that there were other answers to the deepest questions of our deepest need.  Other answers that were easier.  That didn’t stir up so much trouble.  And Hebrews says no.  You got the right answer when you went to the cross first-time round.  Jesus is the answer - that you need your God to keep speaking to your lives!  Revise what you’ve learnt.  Don’t get distracted by others knocking at the door of your Christian life.  Don’t get distracted by anything.

Anything!  Cos this is where Hebrews gets weird!  Cos one of the things that they were getting distracted by was angel-theory!  That’s what the writer to the Hebrews wants to undo in verse 4 onwards – the Hebrews angel-theory!  Yes, these Christians were starting to wonder whether angels were perhaps on a par with Jesus.  Perhaps if they revised angel-theory they’d get better ratings from those around them.  I suspect we’re not usually tempted in quite that way.  But - though that may not be what’s distracting us from paying careful attention to Christ alone - something else may be.  So, revising these verses about Christ may help us.

Verse 4 has the word ‘superior’ twice.  Christ is superior.  He’s better by far.  Here it’s angels.  But - as we go through Hebrews – we’ll find Christ compared to other things too.  What Christ’s compared to - in Hebrews - will change. But the conclusion’s constant.  Christ is superior!  Better by far - than anything and everything other!

In verse 4, Christ has a superior name.  And verse 5 onwards highlights that name.  God the ‘Father’ saying, ‘You are my Son.’  God’s Son.  A name and position like no-one else.  These verses 5 to 13 - they’re quotes from various places in the Old Testament.  And Hebrews highlights their superior meaning.  As they speak to us about Jesus.

But these verses do throw up questions?  That could question some of our core beliefs about God’s superior Son.  It’s important that we pay the most careful attention to them.  And also to the whole package of God’s word.

Cos John 1 also speaks of Christ.  John calls Christ ‘the Word.’  In Hebrews, ‘God has spoken (his word)… by his Son.’  In John 1, there’s that Word of God.  And there God’s Son was always God’s Son.  Always there.  Always God.  Always one with the Father.  Always.  ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.’  It’s absolute.  And absolutely clear.  And yet these verses in Hebrews maybe muddy the waters.

Verse 4, says that Christ ‘has inherited’ his ‘superior’ ‘name.’  Verse 5 says, ‘You are my Son; today I have become your Father.’  ‘I will be his Father, and he will be my Son.’  And verse 6 talks of Christ being God’s ‘firstborn.’  We could start to think that maybe Christ’s Son relationship began at some point.  And wasn’t always and forever. So what is the meaning here?  How should we understand this?

Well, angel-theories wasn’t the only way that the culture of these Hebrews differed from ours.  And their culture – like many ancient cultures – would’ve understood the real meaning of these words very differently.  And we need to hear God’s word here, as they’d’ve done.

It’s about coming-of-age.  Now – in our culture - we have something of that.  For some reason we’ve chosen 18.  Are you 17 years and 364 days old?  Puh! - you’re just a kid!  But the following day - you wake up – magic!  Everything’s changed!  An adult!  How’s does our culture often celebrate this coming of age?  Head on!  Yesterday, we were kids.  All we could cope with was a sniff of sherry at Christmas.  Now we’ll be right-as-rain with 6 pints of lager!  The next morning, we realise - not so much has changed!  Society may treat us as grown-up.  But our throbbing head tells us - we’ve still got lessons to learn!

So what was coming of age like in this other time and culture – the world that first got these words.  Different.  They weren’t given our excess.  They were given the family name.  So, even though they’d always been who they were – in that family – when they came of age they were officially given the family name.  They inherited what was already theirs.  And the firstborn was the special one! Hey, we might find that difficult.  Parents having favourites!  One child more special.  But these cultures had no such problem.

At their coming of age, the firstborn was shown to have special status over their siblings.  They were above - all their brothers and sisters.  They were stand-out!  What belonged to their father – the head of the family – was all declared that it’s all gunna be all be theirs.  Title and ownership are coming their way.

And that’s what’s pictured here.   Christ isn’t God’s ‘firstborn’ in the sense that God made him first.  He’s firstborn in the sense of being God’s special – superior - stand-out one.  In God’s new family – everything belongs to him.  That ‘today’ in verse 5, isn’t a day when Christ became God’s Son – like suddenly.  As though he wasn’t always.  It’s the time when he was shown to be who he is - to the rest of those who would be God’s children.

So when did this time happen?   This time happened when God’s forever Son entered our time.  When he came here.  Verse 6 has that time of celebration at his arrival.  Christ celebrated as the Son who came.  Angels on a par with Jesus?  Nah!  ‘God’s angels worship’ God’s Son. And verse 3 has that time at the cross – where ‘he… provided purification for sins.’  And describes what came next.  The resurrection is inferred.  Cos Christ goes on going.  Going to heaven’s glory.  To sit ‘down at the right hand of the majesty in heaven.’

And Christ’s death and rising again are the time when this declaration – of who he is - is made most powerfully.  God always knew that Christ was God’s saving Son.  But here we see it shown to us.  So we could know it too.  Romans 1 4 tells us - I’m gunna steal it from the ESV - he ‘was declared to be the Son of God in power… by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord.’

When he rose from the dead, that was the demonstration of who he always was.  So powerful it didn’t stop there.  Something follows that demonstration of God’s power.  It’s a bit like lightning.  We know what that’s like.  We have the moment when it happens.  That great flash of light from the heavens.  And then something follows.  We hear it.  Or feel it.  That continued demonstration of the power in that light, in the gradual rolling of thunder after.

So, with Christ’s death and rising again.  God’s light flashed into our dark world then.  And then the sound followed.  The sound of sin defeated.  That rolling echo from that place has not stopped.  It’s so powerful that, even now, it can stir us from our deep, deep sleep of sin.  2000 years on, that sound still reaches sinful people.  Who wake to new life in him.

All these things remind us – and revise to us - who Christ is.   He’s the special one in God’s family.  He needs to be – always and ongoing - the special one in our lives.  His right place now?  Because of that time?  Verse 3 says ‘he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.’  That seems so far away.  From our lives of failure and shortcoming.  But no.  If he’s got authority to sit down alongside God, then he’s got authority to sit down anywhere.  That time at the cross.  And that time when he rose.  Show to us.  He’s power and authority to sit himself down.  Right here.  Right now.  In our hearts.  And in our lives.  And make us holy.

Tempted to ‘drift away’ from firmly grasping the Christ-life.  Don’t!  Re-look at who God’s Son is in verses 8-13.  He’s ‘God’ – ‘for ever and ever.’  The Christian lifetime can be a challenging time.  But it ends in a superior ‘for ever and ever’ in Christ. 

Verse 9 declares of Christ – ‘You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness.’  Extremes - that we’ll never be able to do.  But extremes – that he did.  And lived.  For us.  He’s ‘set… above’ us.  Anointed with ‘the oil of joy.’

In the Old Testament, people got anointed with oil.  Priests did.  And kings did.  It was a solemn thing – meant to show the great responsibility that those roles carried.  What Christ took responsibility for was weighty.  Have we seen him in Gethsemane’s Garden struggling with the burden of our sin?  But here it’s ‘oil of joy.’  How so?  Cos that’s the end-result of what God’s Son carried to Calvary for us.  Joy is the result of Jesus.

Verse 10 reminds us that he was always there.  At creation he ‘laid the foundations of’ this world.  But revise this.  We get so distracted by life ongoing today that we easily forget the reality of our world.  But it’s there in verses 11-12.  This world’s dying.  Just temporary.  It will ‘perish.’  But of God’s Son it says different – ‘You remain the same.’  And the message of Hebrews is this – remain in him.  Cos then you won’t perish.  You’ll be with him – with a life that will see full joy when this temporary carpet of life gets rolled up.  And you’ll remain in the presence of joy for ever.

And verse 13 tells us of what God never said to any angel.  But did declare to Christ, his Son.  ‘Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.’  That’s happening now.  The church may feel surrounded on all sides.  Believers may be tempted to ‘drift away’ by the amount of ‘enemies’ that being Christ’s brings.  But they’ll be defeated in time.  And when time ends, we’ll see clearly.  All under the feet of Jesus.

Believer!  Does life feel like you’re drowning?  Gone over y’head?  Then see here.  It’s still moving under his feet.  God’s Son is your Saviour.  Stick with it.  Stick with him.

Hebrews encourages us to revise.  Look again at Christ Jesus.  Hebrews puts Christ in his right place for us.  We may not be distracted by angel-theory.  But there’s all sorts of similar stuff that can distract.  And cause us to lose focus.  We can be drawn by the power of the celebrity, or the power of the politician.  They can easily look like modern day angels - with their bright lights of fame and fortune and fix-it quick schemes.  But then we hang on their every word. And are then compromised when they get it wrong.  Cos they will.

Or church leaders?  We start to view them like God’s messengers.  And stop discerning.  That can happen.  But take the apostle Paul.  He never said, ‘follow my example always.’  He set a limit.  And said, ‘Follow my example as I follow… Christ’ (1 Corinthians 11 1).  Same here.  If I bring Christ to you - please take notice.  But if I don’t – don’t.  I can let you down.  Christ won’t.

And these Hebrews were being tempted to drift away from Christ, not so much to riotous living.  But to religious living.  To the religious framework that surrounded life then.  That’s a constant danger.  Believers ‘drift’ to thinking what they must do to keep on the right side of God.  And build up more religious framework to keep their lives contained.  Don’t do that!  The only way you’ll keep on the right side of God is by faith in the Son who sits right there!

If Jesus isn’t in the right place in our faith lives then little else will be.  But if he is, then by the power that flows from that cross of his, and through his Spirit working, he’ll keep working.  With him in his right place, he can put everything else in its right place. 

In our hearts. In our lives. Give him the top spot! He’s stand-out! He’s superior! He’s Jesus Christ - God’s Son! He alone can save!