The Supremacy of Christ in Hebrews

I've always said that if I were thrown into prison and kept in solitary confinement and was allowed to have only one book in my possession during my stay, obviously the book I would want to have with me would be the Bible. Then I've gone on to say, if I could only have one chapter of the Bible I'd want the sixth chapter of Isaiah. [00:00:06]

The exaltation of Christ and the preeminence of His labor and of His position in the cosmic scope of things is breathed on every page of the book of Hebrews. Let's look at how the book begins. In chapter one of the epistle to the Hebrews we read these words, verse one, "God, who at various times and in various ways, spoke in times past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son. [00:01:47]

And so again, the central focus is on Him at the very beginning as we read that thematic statement that ties up all of redemptive history, "In the former days God has spoken to us through the prophets, but now it's not just a prophet, whom He has sent, but it is His own Son -- the One whom He has appointed the heir of all things, the One who is the brightness of His glory." [00:08:56]

And what the author of Hebrews is saying is that that which makes the brightness bright in the glory of God is the second person of the Trinity -- that Christ is the very brightness of His glory. And there's been no greater, more vivid, more graphic manifestation of the invisible God in the midst of humanity in all of history than that which was seen in the incarnation of the Son. [00:10:23]

And then the superiority of Christ's priesthood is worked out through several chapters, and it has two basic foci in it. In the first place we remember that the high priest in the Old Testament was the one who made the sacrifice on the day of atonement for the people and that that sacrifice had to be repeated annually. [00:12:49]

And so what the author is telling us here is that all of the ceremonies, all of the rituals of the Old Testament that focused on atonement and upon sacrifice were all representing, as shadows, the reality that was to come that would be compressed in the perfect sacrificial offering that is made by the perfect high priest once and for all through the sacrifice of Christ Himself. [00:13:37]

And secondly, the author has to answer the question of the priesthood of Christ as it relates to the Old Testament tradition. In the Old Testament tradition the priesthood was called the Aaronic Priesthood or the Levitical Priesthood in that Aaron was the first high priest, and he was from the tribe of Levi; and so in order to serve in the priesthood one had to be from the tribe of Levi. [00:14:32]

And so what we have here is the one who is superior to the prophets, the one who is superior to the angels, the one who is superior to Moses, the one who is superior in glory and in function to the high priesthood of Aaron -- Christ Himself, who brings all these things together. [00:17:27]

And so the book of Hebrews, after taking us through this excellence of the work of Christ, then gives the strong admonition that we not be content with elementary things, that we not be as children who are satisfied with milk, but that we begin to develop a mature understanding of the things of God, that we taste of the meat of the truth of God. [00:17:51]

The author reminds his readers of the shortcomings of the people of Israel in the Old Testament, whom God visited with judgment because they took lightly the redemption and deliverance that God had provided for them in the Exodus. They murmured against him in the wilderness and so on, and so all of those things are revisited by the author of Hebrews. [00:18:41]

And if we are not satisfied with that, if we protest that God has not done enough, that He's been too narrow-minded and not broadminded enough to accommodate all of our own preferences, and so you neglect the riches of Christ, the author of Hebrews asks the rhetorical question, "How can you escape?" Escape what? How can you escape the judgment of God if you neglect so great a salvation? [00:21:32]

And then the author canvases the history of those who were devoted to the true things of God and who paid, in many cases with their lives, who were eaten by lions and cut in half and had their heads dashed against the stone and were martyred in this manner and in that manner and then goes through the role call of the heroes of faith who lived a life of faith in the midst of an unbelieving world. [00:22:21]