Hebrews Highlights 3 Prophets and the Son

Hebrews Highlights #3

Comparing God’s former words and His last Word

Hebrews 1:1-4

 

                “God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in times past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days to us by his Son, whom he has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become so much better than the angels, as He has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they.”

            The Letter to the Hebrews has no formal greeting as most letters have in the New Testament. The letter is written with a sense of urgency concerning what the writer wants to make clear to the recipients. Many scholars, perhaps most, believe that Hebrews was written to early Christians from a Jewish background. They faced opposition and ostracism and were tempted with an option of softening their stance. There is evidence within source material found in relationship to the Essenes that at least some Jews believed that a human messiah, just beneath the angels would be the messiah. Within the Christian faith Christ was being viewed as one who was with God and was God. This was outside of some Jewish expectations of Messiah. So, if Christians softened their stance on Jesus being with God and being God then the tension between Jewish expectations and Christian beliefs could be resolved and the ostracism ended. This may be what the writer of Hebrews was writing to counter. The writer wanted it made known that Christ’s being with and being God were not optional doctrines, but at the heart of the Christian faith. The words found in the first four verses of Hebrews form the foundation to everything written in the Book of Hebrews.

            In our Sunday school class I taught this last Sunday we considered these first four verses. We especially considered how the writer compared Jesus with the earlier prophets, and what it meant for Jesus to be recognized as God’s Son, and their heir of creation. In this blog we will focus on the relationship between Jesus as God’s final word and the revelations made in various times and places through the prophets who preceded him.

            The writer seeks to make clear that what was spoken by the prophets came from God, and at the same time that what God has spoken through his Son is the greater and the final revelation of God.

The apparent implication in this passage is that the prophets spoke messages that were fragmented and diffused across the centuries preceding Christ, while in Christ the full message of God is at one time and in one place revealed in fullness. He is the final unified revelation of the fullness of God. He is more than the messenger with a message. He is himself the very message. The prophets spoke of the God who created the worlds, and is Christ is revealed as the Word through whom the worlds were created. The prophets spoke of the glory of God, and Christ is revealed as the exact representation and the brightness of God’s glory revealed. The prophets spoke of God as the creator and sustainer of the worlds. Christ is revealed as the one through whom the worlds were created and by whose power those worlds are upheld.

            One of the first thoughts the writer to the Hebrews calls upon us to consider is how this Word of God revealed in the person of God’s one true unique Son is his last word of revelation and is supreme over all previous forms of revelation. We might wrongly imagine that this meant that Christ’s Word was in opposition to the words of the previous prophets. But I think the events of this past Sunday evening might illustrate the truth of what really took place between the revelations made in and through the prophets in comparison with what has been brought forth in and through Jesus Christ.

            This past Sunday evening we experienced a rare astronomical event. We had a super moon, where the moon is as close to the earth as it gets in its orbit joined to a lunar eclipse. So early in the evening the moon appeared big and bright in the night time sky. The light of the moon was dominant over the sky in a way that is greater than normal. Here is what it looked like where I live near downtown Tulsa.

 

Super-moon hung over the Tulsa skyline Sept. 27, 2015

            What would we think of our world if we were nocturnal creatures that had never experienced seeing the earth during daylight? We might imagine that the moon was the great source of light that gave the earth its light. That is something like what the people of God faced in the centuries before Christ entered our humanity. They lived, in the night preceding the dawn in which Christ appeared. As the moon light we see in the night time is a reflection of light from the sun off the face of the moon, so the prophets spoke words of truth that had God as their source. The words of the prophets were not words having their origin in themselves. But when Christ appeared he came not only in the flesh, but as the very light of the world, the source of light as well as the presence of light. Thus we can understand that the prophets truly spoke the word of God, but we further understand that Christ not only spoke the word of God, but was Himself the Word of God become flesh, the light of the world coming into the world that we might dwell in the daylight of salvation.

            The reality of how the light of God’s Word is revealed in Christ is beautifully symbolized in a tradition I love within Anglicanism. In the Anglican tradition, there are at least two readings, and in many places three readings of Scripture during the liturgy. When there are three readings there is a reading from the Old Testament Scriptures, the Epistles, and a reading from the Gospels. The reading of the Old Testament Scriptures and the Epistles may be done by a layperson or an ordained minister. But the Gospel reading is to be done by an ordained minister wearing the vestments of his office which is representative of Christ’s authority vested in his ordained ministry. The beautiful scene is how during the reading of the Gospel the minister in his vestments comes down from the front of the church and brings the Word of God with him into the midst of the congregation. The Gospel is read in the midst of the congregation even as Christ entered the world in our humanity to bring the final revelation of God into our midst. Through this tradition we are reminded time and time again that Christ is the singular focus of God’s Word. The prophets reflected his light and truth and pointed towards him from the past looking forward. The Apostles reflected his truth and light as ones to whom it was given to explain the ramifications of his entrance into our world. They both look away from themselves to point us to Christ who has entered the world and is not far from us. He is in our midst. He has entered our humanity. He is among us and he is the light that shines in the darkness, not a reflected light like that of the moon, but the very source of the eternal light which shines in the darkness.