Son of Superiority
"In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe." Hebrews 1:1-2
Main Readings: Hebrews 1 & Psalm 2
Supporting Readings: Colossians 1:15–20 & John 1:1–18
As we embark on this new series in Hebrews, you’ll be glad to know that it is a book that oozes Jesus from every page – he is THE great theme of it.
And the reason for that, is not only that he is worthy of that focus – he is! – but that it is necessary that we see him as the great theme of our lives. Without him at the centre of our lives, we’re in big trouble!
Hebrews is not a book that starts like most other New Testament books. The others mostly reveal themselves as letters – apart from the gospels of course.
They start with an author. And the author addresses the recipients. But here there is nothing like that.
In fact, the book of Hebrews starts, and continues, in the vein of a sermon.
It has large sections of doctrine designed to underpin arguments, and then it has sections of application that follow.
In other words, the author is trying to get through to us, his listeners, about something.
And that thing is ultimately this: The supremacy of Jesus.
And so, even though the writer doesn’t introduce himself – and I’m not going to waste any time trying to pin down the identity of the author because it simply isn’t clear to me who it is (come and see me if you’ve got some ideas) - nor does he introduce his hearers either, yet we candiscern that the people he exhorts here in the sermon are characterised by one particular thing: drifting!
Think of a day at the beach for a minute. You’re in the water and you know you must stay between the flags – because that’s what the lifeguard says, for your safety.
But you’re in the water – enjoying the waves; looking out to sea; with your back to the beach, and then you look around to see where you are, and you’re no longer between those flags.
In fact, the flags are 200m up the beach. Why? Because imperceptibly the current has taken you from your fixed position.
These Christians were like that. They were drifting from Jesus, which is where they had started out.
For the Christian, Jesus is always between the flags. But they’ve got their faces out to sea, and not on him!
And I want to show you that’s the case this morning as we unpack the first 6 verses of chapter 1.
It’s important to say, that the likelihood is that, both the author and the target audience, are of Jewish descent.
In verse 1, you can hear the author identify himself with them by saying ‘our forefathers’. And you can tell that their in-commonforefathers were Jewish because, their forefathers ‘heard from Godthrough the prophets’ - which is a clear reference to the Old Testament prophets.
So, I think they were Jewish converts to Christianity.
And based on evidence within the wider book, it seems, that asChristians, they were experiencing pressure – whether internal or external; maybe both – pressure to turn away from Jesus.
They were being tempted to ‘throw away their confidence’ in him chapter 10 says. And then in chapter 12 the writer also exhorts them to ‘consider Jesus who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that they do not grow weary and fainthearted’.
The author considers this so serious, he’s going to use the whole book to show them why drifting from Jesus, even though it be costly to stay between the flags, is absolutely necessary for every single Christian – Jewish or otherwise.
To that end, the burden of the writer, here at the beginning, is definitely that of the origin of the message they had heard.
‘From whom did the words of eternal life come?’ And this is going to be his burden through to nearly the end of chapter 4.
It’s precisely why, here at the beginning in verse 1, he sets up a contrast, straight away, between hearing God in the past and hearing God in the present.
Verse 1 is concerned with the origin of God’s message as it came to God’s people in the past. He says, ‘In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets’.
Take Moses for a minute. Deuteronomy 34 says ‘there was no prophetin Israel like him, whom the Lord knew face to face’.
And Dave helpfully pointed out to me this week, that God said in Numbers 12 that ‘He revealed himself to prophets in dreams and visions, but to Moses, he spoke clearly face to face’.
And here in verse 1 we have it stated that in the past God spoke to the people through the prophets, ‘at many times and in various ways’.
Moses was clearly a supreme prophet, who God spoke to in a uniqueway – after all he was the prophet God used on Mount Sinai to deliverhis covenant to his people.
Even so, he was also just a prophet amongst many prophets. A prophet who God used to convey his message to his people down through the history of Israel. And he did that in lots of varied ways - dreams and visions included.
That’s all well and good and I think we understand that – I hope we believe that that was the case, because it really happened that way.
But then in verse 2 comes a contrast.
‘Back then it was like that, but “in these last days” – by which I think he means since Jesus appeared on the scene – “[God] has spoken to us by his Son”’.
‘In these last days’ means the same period that he uses the phrase in chapter 9 to describe, when he says, ‘But now he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages’.
When he says in verse 2 ‘these last days’ he means now.
And there, in chapter 9, ‘now’ is called ‘the end of the ages’ and is specifically connected with the appearing of Jesus.
So, we can say, confidently, we live at the end of the ages, now. We can say we live in the last days.
And that should have a certain effect on us, I think.
It should prevent us from thinking that the world as we know it is going to simply go on and on.
No, Jesus is returning. We live in some sense, close to his return. Therefore, we need to live a certain way. Not resting on our laurels.
And we’ll see the importance of that later in this book.
So, there’s been a huge and monumental shift in how God has spokento us.
In the past, through prophets. Now through his Son.
And let’s not miss the significance of the word ‘Son’.
Of all the Old Testament prophets, God never spoke to any of them like he did to Moses – face to face. But of all the Old Testament prophets, which did he ever call ‘Son’? Answer: None!
Moses was special for sure. But ‘special’ is a word that should be reserved for Jesus, and Jesus only in Hebrews. And we’re about to find out why.
But before we do. Ask yourself a question: what message was spoken to us through Jesus?
That’s what the preacher is saying – God has spoken to us by his Son. But what has he spoken?
I’ll go to one place to sum it up for us: John 6.
Peter said, ‘Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life’.
Eternal life is what we all need. Our sins are going to kill us and separate us from God for ever if they go unanswered.
And Peter notes, ‘where else shall we go for the answer?’
It’s a rhetorical question. The answer isn’t Moses. The answer is Jesus. ‘Only you Jesus, have the words of eternal life’.
In other words, God has spoken the answer for our sins to us in Jesus.
That’s the message we have heard. It’s the message we have believed. It’s the message that imparts life to us. And it comes through Jesus alone!
So, we see that the writer is speaking to us. God has spoken to usthrough his Son in these last days that we live in.
The message his audience heard is the message we have heard. The message they had believed, is the message we believe. And that message is salvation from sins through faith in Jesus alone.
So, now that we’ve got that established, let’s track with the writer as he takes us on a time-journey with Jesus so that we can see why it’s so much more significant that God has spoken to us by Jesus, than it was that he spoke in the past by the prophets.
What does it mean that Jesus is God’s Son? Let’s see.
I see seven things that Jesus is, as God’s Son, which are designed to awe us about Jesus.
First, like an only son in any family, he is the natural heir of everything God the Father owns.
And we see that here in the second half of verse 2. God ‘appointed him heir of all things’.
If God is God, then he must own all things surely. And he does!
I don’t believe God can be God, unless he owns all things, do you?
And therefore, as the owner of all things, he has made his Son the heir of all things.
And because there is a progression through time here, which we’ll see unfold in a minute, I think this is an acknowledgement of an eternalreality.
The Son is eternally begotten of the Father and is the eternal heirwithin the incomprehensible complexities of the Godhead.
John says, ‘No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known’.
Mindboggling! And absolutely true. The Father, the Son, and Holy Spirit as well, have always co-existed.
Then, secondly, no sooner have we peered into eternity past than we arrive at the creation of the universe.
There came a time, then, in God’s infinite wisdom, when he made everything that is material. That is to say, he made the universe.
The writer does not believe that the universe is the result of merehappenstance. He believes and asserts, as truth, that the universe was intentionally made by a person, and that person is God.
I believe that is true also! And I will strive for that truth to be upheldby this church as long as I’m here.
Here, God’s Holy and perfect Word says, God made the universe. And it is part of our most Holy faith, that we hold that to be true.
The focus of the writer though, is to say that when God made it, he made it through Jesus – that is, through his Son.
Maybe that’s not how we think of creation - as mediated through Jesus. But that’s what the writer reveals. The Apostle Paul says the same thing. ‘In [Jesus] all things were created: things visible and invisible…’ Colossians 1:16.
So, Jesus is the eternal heir. And Jesus is the creator of the universe.
What next? Number 3, and verse 3, he is the ‘radiance of God’s glory’.
Think like this: the sun in the sky is an awesome ball of burning gas that sustains this planet that we live on.
It appears to us to be an orange disc in the sky. But it’s so much morethan that! And we know it is – even without modern telescopes.
Because…
we experience the beautiful - and we would say glorious - effects of that orange disc in the heat that comes from it and warms us. And in the light that comes from it and illuminates us. And in the vistas that it creates every single day on the horizon as it rises and sets. And in the colour it paints across the sky. And in the rainbows, it creates on a rainy day.
That orange disc is glorious, and we know it is because it radiatesglorious heat and light which we can experience as so good’.
The Son of God is the radiance of his Father. And we behold God through the bright rays that stream from him in the form of his Son.
Jesus is the light of the world. Jesus is the glory of God transmitted to us.
Then, in verse 3, he is also, fourthly is, the exact representation of God’s being. Think of melted wax on the back of an envelope.
The metal seal presses down into it and makes a perfect impression in the wax of THE unique mark of the owner.
Wait for it to cool, and you can put the seal right back into the impression in the wax, and it fits perfectly.
Jesus is the exact representation of the one who made the impression - namely God.
Jesus stands forth from the Father as the image of him. And in this way, he reveals his Father to us, God’s people.
Fifthly, Jesus ‘sustains all things by his powerful word’ verse 3. When God made the universe, he didn’t wind it up like an old clock and release it to slowly wind down of its own accord.
No, he made it, and since then, he actively sustains it.
That means, there is not a single sparrow in all the world, ever, that landed on the ground without God expressly guiding it, sustaining it, and superintending it.
Jesus said so in Matthew 10.
And the writer says here, that that’s true - not just for the sparrow, but for all things.
And Jesus is the one who does it. And moreover, Jesus does it by his powerful word.
In the beginning God said, ‘let there be light and there was light’. Now and forever, Jesus says, ‘let it be sustained’ and it is sustained!
Think of every tiny detail. Every atom. Every decision. Every seeminglyrandom event. Every unpredictable unravelling. All of it perfectlyupheld and sustained by an all sovereign, all wise, all-knowing Jesus.
Jesus’ radiating the glory of God; Jesus representing the Father; Jesus sustaining all things. These have been going on since the beginning.
Ever since there have been created beings to see and behold God. Ever since there have been created things to be sustained.
But now, sixthly, we arrive at a moment in the history of the world, never before seen.
The writer puts it like this: ‘After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right of the Majesty in Heaven’.
In this one sentence there is a huge contrast. There is an unimaginable humbling of the Son which he takes on himself. And an unequalled exaltation of him also.
The word ‘purification’ to a Jew would have conveyed the Day of Atonement.
The Day of Atonement is the most holy day in the Jewish calendar.
On that day, two goats were selected. A lot was cast between them, and one of them was slaughtered to cover the sins of the people.
And the other was released into the wilderness to, symbolically, carrythe sins of the people away.
It was the day that the people of Israel were purified from their sinsby sacrifice, and their sins borne away by another.
The writer says, ‘after Jesus had provided purification for sins’ – which conveys: after he had been sacrificed. After he had shed his blood like the goat on the day of atonement.
After he had taken away the sins of his people ‘by dying on the cross’is what the writer means – unparallelled depths that Jesus went to.
But then, he rose up from the grave and sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in Heaven.
Unparalleled heights he was exalted to!
Into the very presence of his Father. And he sat down – enthronednext to the Majestic King of heaven – his work totally done.
So, Jesus is supreme heir; no less than creator of the universe; he is the glory of God radiating to the world; he is the stamped impressionof God; he is the sustainer of, simply everything in the universe; he is the provision for the sins of God’s people; and he is the exalted Son enthroned at the right of the Father.
And now seventhly, he is therefore superior to all the angels – verse 4.
‘So, he became as much superior to the angels as the name he has inherited [the name of ‘Son’] is superior to theirs’.
I don’t ask you to do this often, but if you can, turn the page and look at chapter 2, verse 9…
‘But we do see Jesus, who was made lower than the angels for a little while, now crowned with glory and honour because he suffered death’.
The humbling we just saw in the word ‘made purification for sin’ is the humbling of the cross. – namely his death.
And his death was only made possible by his becoming a man.
And when he became a man, he was made a little lower than the angels – chapter 2, verse 9 says.
Therefore, when he rose from the dead and ascended to the right hand of the Majesty in Heaven, he became superior to the angels.
Which is absolutely fitting for his position.
For…
his position is ‘Son of God’. And there is no higher name and there isno higher position! Not even that of angel!
Therefore, he is also exalted above the angels – by his resurrection from the dead. By his installation at the right hand of God.
So, the sweep of history is complete. And Jesus is shown to be radically superior to the prophets - God spoke through in the past.
They are as different to him, as night and day are different.
So what’s the point? The point can be expressed as a question.
Which message should you listen to? The one that came through the prophets, or the one that has come through the Son?
Answer, ‘there is no contest’. There is not even a question!
The Son is so infinitely superior to the prophets, that when God speaks through the Son, you do not return to the prophets!
Jesus is not a prophet amongst prophets to be heard like a prophet of old. He is the Son. And he must not be exchanged for an Old Testament prophet at any cost!
Let me take you to chapter 2, verses 1-3 to show you that this is exactly what he’s exhorting us about - because we have to get this!
Chapter 2, verse 1: ‘We must pay THE most careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away’.
Can you hear the concern the writer has about drifting from Jesus? He wants them, and us, to pay THE most careful attention to onemessage – and one message only – namely the one that came through Jesus.
He goes on: ‘For since the message spoken through angels’. What’s he talking about? He’s talking about the Jewish Old Covenant with its law which was attended by angels at its delivery.
He’s saying, if that message – the one the Old Testament prophets spoke about on behalf of God – if that was ‘binding, and every violation and disobedience received it’s just punishment…
how shall we escape if we ignore so great a salvation?’ – namely the one that came through Jesus!
This is why angels are about to become so important.
The message these Christians were being tempted to turn back to, was the one mediated by angels. And anybody who turned away from thatmessage was severely punished, the writer says.
How much more serious is it, then, when someone turns away from the message brought by Jesus - who is exalted above the angels?
Who, in every way, as we’ve seen, is greater than any of the prophets with which that old message was concerned!
That’s the argument this writer is bringing to us.
If there is anything that tempts us to turn from Jesus, then remember this: even the message that was attended by prophets and angels, if rejected, is considered by God a greatly punishable offence.
How much more then, if we – here in the UK in 2026 -are tempted to turn away from Jesus to something that belonged to our old way of life. To ideology. To popularity. To success. To money. The material things. To entertainment. To family. To friendship. To anything!
If bread could be used to temp Jesus, anything can be used to temp us away from him! This is front line Christianity folks – for all of us!
And to drive the point home, the writer is going to major on angels now.
And I’m going to kick us off on that track, and Dave will pick it up next week.
Maybe it’s harder to conceive of Jesus being superior to angels than it is to conceive of him being superior to prophets.
Angels are real and they are awesome beings. But suffices to say here, the writer wants to convince us that Jesus is superior to evenangels - and he’s not going to quit until he’s achieved it.
So, to kick off with, he goes to the Old Testament scriptures and chooses two passages – one from Psalm 2 and the other from 2 Samuel 7.
And he places them back-to-back with each other, so that they read, ‘You are my Son, today I have become your Father’. Or again, ‘I will be his Father and he will be my Son’.
It's not just that the term ‘Son’ is relational. We might think, ‘ah, Jesus is superior to the angels because God relates to him as a Son’. That istrue. But, in quoting Psalm 2 and 2 Samuel, he’s saying more. He’s actually saying Jesus is Messiah.
And by ‘Messiah’ we mean God’s specially chosen instrument – his ultimate king - sent to liberate his people from their enemies for ever.
God only chose one to be Messiah, and Jesus – his Son - is who he chose!
There are thousands upon thousands of angels, but only Jesus has the special status of chosen Messiah.
It’s tempting to think that verse 6 is the writer taking us back to Jesus’ birth - which we know was attended by angels. And I was going there myself.
But it’s out of step with what he just said in verse 5, to go there.
And reading the commentators, they agree. The phrase in verse 6, ‘When God brings his firstborn into the world’ comes from Psalm 89.
And the focus there is unmistakably that God has been faithful to his promise to install his chosen king in the line of King David. A king whose throne will never end.
And the interpretation, the inspired writer is giving us, is that the firstborn of God – the most ‘exalted of the kings of the earth’ – is none other than his Son, Jesus Christ.
Exalted to that position, what do the angels do? Revelation 5 confirms what the writer says, ‘Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand. They encircled the throne and the living creatures and the elders. In a loud voice they were saying: worthy is the lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honour and glory and praise!’
And so, the Messiah of God is installed forever as King of kings andL of lords – and the angels are in awe of him!
God has said, ‘Let all God’s angels worship him’ and they do!
Why? Because he is utterly worthy to be worshipped!
Even by angels!
One last closing thought. The writer has given us ample reason to believe in the deity and eternality, and exalted nature of Jesus - his function as creator, sustainer, representation, sin-bearer, resurrected conqueror, and object of worship.
And, he has given us ample reason to marvel at Jesus’ condescension - at his purifying work, at his exaltation, at his becoming Messiah, at his being appointed, and born, and other things besides.
What I’m saying is, the passage holds in tension who Jesus is by nature – very God of very God. And what Jesus has become by virtue of his function – Messiah, King, and Saviour.
Both these truths about Jesus – his nature and his work - are going to be essential for grasping the point of the rest of this book.
This morning though, we behold our King Jesus as superior. And, therefore, with a superior message – the message of salvationthrough faith in him alone!
