Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript – Reformation Covenant Church
## Pastor Dennis Tuuri

We turn today for the sermon text to Hebrews 1:1-4. This is a much-used text that is preached on and proclaimed in the context of the Christmas season by the church for the last 2,000 years. We seem to be a little shy on orders of worship for some reason. I have an extra up here and if those of you might have ones that could share with someone else—some of us, I think, don’t have any. So somebody could come up and take this back to someone that could use it. I would appreciate that.

Thanks very much. In the order of worship, there is the text of Hebrews 1:1-4. And if you follow along with that text, you’ll see the structure of this as Barkley says, the most sonorous of all New Testament Greek writings—the most beautiful, well-crafted—so you can follow along with the particular structure that I’ll be addressing the text from. So Hebrews 1:1-4, please stand for the reading of God’s word.

God who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets has in these last days spoken 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.

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for this beautiful piece of scripture. We thank you, Lord God, for your inspiration, but also for you using the talents of whoever wrote this. We thank you for the beauty of this text, Lord God. May it speak to us in beautiful tones as well. And may we rejoice this day and receive encouragement from the gospel that’s found in these four short verses that serve as an introduction to this long book.

We thank you, Lord God, for this text and pray that you would shine forth in our lives through it today by the power of the Holy Spirit. May Christ speak to us and transform us by his bright word. In Christ’s name we ask this. Amen. Please be seated.

Well, this is a most beautiful of texts. It is very carefully crafted and written. It represents great rhetorical skill. This is, I think, not an epistle as such. The book of Hebrews is, I think, a sermon. And this sermon begins with a beautifully constructed introduction to the book, as well as a specific introduction to the next section of the book.

I have the benefits this year of being able to preach two Christmas sermons. One today—before Christmas Day is celebrated this Saturday—but next Sunday we’ll turn to Daniel 9 where the answer to Daniel’s prayer is brought by the angel of God. And we’ll see that this also is Christmas—this is a gospel sermon that we can preach from the book of Daniel as well. And then as we move to the new year, we’ll look at some psalms that deal directly with the great hope that God will indeed perfect that which concerns us, and then we’ll return to the book of Daniel. But this Sunday we pause for a few minutes here on this beautiful text from the book of Hebrews.

God has spoken and he is not silent. Francis Schaeffer. Well, that’s what this text basically says from one perspective. God has spoken. He is not silent. He is there and he has spoken, and the word that he speaks is one of beauty and glory—bright. And the text before us represents the beauty of the spoken language that tells us of the beauty of the center of this text, which is the coming and the brightness of the Lord Jesus Christ.

This is a passage which any good orator—a classical orator of the time that this was written 2,000 years ago—would have been absolutely proud. The writer of the Book of Hebrews brings to this whole book, but particularly to this introduction, all the skills of oration and writing that are given to him to use for the glory of God. He takes this most noble of thought at the center of this introduction—the brilliance and shining of the Lord Jesus Christ—and he must then take great pains to make that a beautiful setting by the use of the Greek language as well, to hold such a wonderful picture of the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ and its impact for man.

He doesn’t throw his training away, this classical orator, whoever it was. He employs all of his skills and abilities in the language of the time to be used for the proclamation of the good news of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is a piece of what some have called artistic prose. It’s not poetry. It is prose, but it is the most artistic of prose. It involves several aspects that we cannot go into in detail, but it involves alliteration. It involves meter and rhyme. It involves the variation of word order. It’s a very carefully crafted text in the context of the original Greek language.

There is a parallelism of sounds that comes to pass that ties together two psalm references from Psalm 2 and 110. There’s parallelism of sense that happens here. There is, I think, a great focal point in the middle. And rather than seeing it as sort of dealing with it in the order of the actual text, when we see this great focus at the middle, it’s been my decision today to let that brightness of Christ at the center of this text beam forth back through either side of this central pivot point of this text.

Now, when people do literary structural analysis of texts, when they look for chiasms—and that’s what we presented here before you today—there are several things that they look for to see whether it really is the structure that God has placed in the text. One thing that’s looked for is a focal point in the middle. Is there a focus point there that really is the focus of the text? Another thing they look for is whether there a shift in the middle?

Not just a focus point, but do things change as a result of that central focus point? And then of course you look for whether either side of these structures match up or not. And so there are these various ways to evaluate how God has written a particular text, and these things are very important. Do the center and outer brackets match? Is there a focus at the middle? And is there a shift at the middle?

So what we have here is a classical piece of the scriptures that meets in very strong form these particular characteristics that are found in the chiastic structures that God has given us in the text of scripture. There is indeed a focus and shift at the middle of this text.

I do want to spend just a couple of minutes drawing your attention to this beautiful structure of this text. You know what we have communicated in this text is relationship, not abstract data. God doesn’t speak through a series of ideas. I heard some rather horrible people talking in the middle of the night when I got up for a little bit, and they were talking about Jesus and his teachings—the teachings of Jesus, this abstract teaching. Well, Jesus certainly taught, but what we have clearly presented to us in Hebrews 1 and in the gospel message is this is not a bunch of abstract data. This is the birth of a son being described, and Jesus becoming incarnate—the second person of the Godhead becoming incarnate as a person.

And there’s this relationship stressed here, and it’s stressed in the context of a most beautiful arrangement that really is quite easy to see on your handout of the text. I’ve got 10 words underlined here, right? Spoke, spoken, appointed, made, being, upholding, and then purged, sat down, become, obtained. These are the verbs of the text. There’s 10 of them. And the way they work is the first four are past tense. The middle two are present tense. And the last four are past tense.

In the verbal structure alone, our eyes are drawn to the center of this text. There is a focus, and the focus is made quite clear to us by the change of verb tense that happens at the middle of the text itself. So we have a focal point. The focal point is the middle. And then, do we have a shift at the middle? Well, again, just looking at the verbs, we have the shift that maintains then a change. After the middle of the text, we go past, present, past. And the one doing the action of the verb changes at the middle as well and stays changed for the rest of the narrative.

God speaks in verse one. God speaks to us by his son. In verse two, God has appointed this son as the heir of all things in the last half of verse two. And then God made the worlds through the Lord Jesus Christ. But the one doing the action in the last portion of verse two—the made section—it’s God. Appoint, God spoke, God spoken, God appointed, God made. But then it describes the son who is the one being the brightness of the glory of God. That’s the son now. You see, there’s a shift from God the Father to God the Son, and this shift isn’t just a focal point. It is a shift at the middle that remains in that way.

It is Jesus who upholds all things by the word of his power. It is Jesus who has purged our sins. It is Jesus who has sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high. It is Jesus who has become so much better than the angels. And it is Jesus who by inheritance has obtained a name better than the angels.

So what we have is a focus in the middle on the present action of the Lord Jesus Christ set in the context of verbs about the past. And what we have in the middle is not just a focus but a shift. The shift goes from God the Father to God the Son and stays on the Son for the rest of this introduction. And that is really—in the very literary, this beautiful literary structure given to us in these four short verses—we really have in the structure itself what really is going on in the content of the verses.

God has spoken in various fragmentary ways and at various times in the past. But now God speaks through the Son. And once the Son comes, once the Lord Jesus becomes incarnate 2,000 years ago, once that beautiful, lovely birth happens, everything is changed from now on. All the world becomes different. History moves ahead definitively and it never goes back. The focus becomes the Lord Jesus Christ.

You know, next week I’ll talk about the hypocrisy of some at Christmas time. It was hypocrisy from one perspective that the Lord Jesus Christ came 2,000 years ago to deal definitively with, and we’ll see that from Daniel, the last half of chapter 9. And we can talk about that next week. There’s much hypocrisy at Christmas time. But this week what we want to stress is that the Lord Jesus Christ has definitively moved the world ahead.

These are all wonderful positive statements about the impact of the Lord Jesus Christ, and it’s set in this wonderful context of a beautiful structure to the text. It is this beautiful structure. Now, when I get to actually preaching through the book of Hebrews in a month or two, we’ll see that this structure continues on into the rest of the book. But on your outlines, I’ve got as part of the beautiful way that this sermon is structured—I believe there’s seven sections to this book of Hebrews. The conclusion of each section ties off the section but also prepares us for the next topic.

So at the end of this introduction, clearly prophets and angels are linked. We’ll talk about that in a minute. But when we get to talk then about the Son of Jesus being preeminent to—having a better name than that of angels—this is an introduction then to the rest of chapter 1 and moving into chapter 2. It’s an introduction. It tells us the topic of the next section of Hebrews. And this repeats throughout the rest of the book of Hebrews. Each section is introduced and tied to the previous section in a very obvious and carefully constructed literary structure.

It is beautiful. It is beautiful. And if nothing else, this text in the way it’s portrayed for us, I think correctly by the outline I’ve provided you, this text should increase our sense of beauty and joy in this time of Christmas. The scriptures are not just a book to be thought about in terms of what do we do about it? What does it all mean in terms of content? There is a beauty to the word of God that is matched by the beauty of the Christmas story presented in that word, that we just delight in this time of year.

Over and over the last few weeks, I thought about what a beautiful thing the Christmas story is. It is a thing of rare beauty. I thought about it again Friday night when the kids put on the play of the book of Ruth. What a beautiful story. And what a beautiful connection and preparation God gives us for the coming of Jesus Christ by the different birth in Bethlehem of a marriage of Ruth and Boaz and all that meant.

Well, this is a beautiful text that hopefully adds to our sense of awe, joy, and delight just by its sheer beauty. But of course, there is content to it, and given the structure of this text that God draws our eye as we read it to those middle sections—those present tense actions of the Lord Jesus Christ. The outline of the text that I provided you does follow that form. We don’t begin with verse one. We begin in the middle—the focal point of the text itself.

The D section, if you will, on your handout being Jesus Christ being the brightness of his glory. This is the beginning of the middle. Jesus is the bright shining forth. All of our Christmas songs, you know, have these great references to light. “The Day spring comes from on high. The Gentiles have dwelt in darkness. Now the light of God comes.” And at the center section of this narrative, that’s what we see—an emphasis on the beauty and the light and the brilliant shining forth of the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The refulgence—some texts have it. It’s a specific Greek word that’s only used here in all of the scriptures. And it means the radiating forth. The sun is known by the radiation out of the light of the sun, and the Lord Jesus Christ is the radiation, the refulgence, the beautiful shining forth of God because he is God. So he is this bright shining forth, this glorious light that we celebrate. He is the brilliant radiance of the Father. He is as the rays of the sun.

At Christmas we celebrate the great shining forth of light in the midst of darkness in our particular part of the globe. We have the shortest day of the year coming up in a couple of days. And then we celebrate Christmas and the coming of the lightening of the year and the beaming forth of the brightness of the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus is this great shining forth.

And notice this is present tense action. It’s not that he shone forth in the birth 2,000 years ago and it stopped. Jesus is now the bright radiance of the glory of God. If you want to move away from darkness into light, come to the Lord Jesus Christ. If you want to see the brilliant radiance of the love of the God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, see it in the life of the Lord Jesus Christ and his bright shining forth that we celebrate at Christmas.

But he’s not just the shining forth who being the brightness of the glory. Skipping the middle for just a moment, he is also the one who is upholding presently all things by the word of his power. By his powerful word, the Lord Jesus Christ has burst into this earth, and he is now upholding all things. Now he’s not like Atlas—Atlas upheld the world on his back somewhat removed from it really. The Lord Jesus Christ is involved in every detail of the created order.

Earlier in the text, we had the statement that Jesus was the agent through whom God created the world. And now we have the text that tells us that he is in the present. In the past, he’s created the world. In the present, he is upholding the entire world by the word of his great power. This is the present tense action of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The focal point of all human history is Christmas, now the advent of Christ. And the advent of Christ is presented to us here as the brilliant shining forth of the radiance of God. And the strong and powerful word—Jesus is the message and the messenger. He is the word of God, and by his mighty powerful word he upholds all things.

Now that’s something we can rest and rejoice in: rejoicing in the brilliance of his light, resting in the sure fact of his providence—his overarching sovereignty over every detail of human existence, upholding all things by the word of his power. And then if we want to, you know, in the middle of these two present tense verbs is another clause that says that he is the express image of his person. Jesus is the express image of the Father.

And of course, those of you that were here when we preached on the Gospel of John, we saw this message repeated over and over and over. “If you want to see the Father, look at me. He who has seen me has seen the Father. I come to do the Father’s will. Whatever the Father tells me to say, this is what I say. What I see the Father doing, this is what I do.” Jesus Christ is the express image of the person of the Father.

Again, here a big letter—you know, 25 cent Greek word not used in the rest of the scriptures. It is very much where our word “character” came from in the Greek. But it means it meant both the seal—you know, you’d make a die of something and then you’d make an impression on something. And this word “character” meant both of those things together. So Jesus Christ is the express image of the Father.

And that’s really sort of the very center if we want to think of it of the text here. Our eyes are focused upon the present action of the Lord Jesus Christ: the brightness of his glory, the strength of his almighty word upholding all things. And at the very center of that we give praise to God the Father in the power of the Spirit because this is whom Jesus is showing us—with the brightness of his glory and the strength of his upholding the world. He is showing us the exact representation of the Father. He is the expressed image of the Father.

The very center of our Christmas celebrations is the Lord Jesus Christ. And may God grant this week as we prepare for the great joy of Christmas to stay focused on these things: the light of the Lord Jesus Christ, the brightness of his radiance, his strength that we can rest knowing that all of the affairs of our lives—no matter how difficult they may prove, how tedious at times—they’re all undergirded by the work of the Lord Jesus Christ and the Father’s love is mediated to us through that.

Oh, how we want the love of our fathers—oh, we how we want the love of our fathers in the church, the state, the community, and in our homes. And it never seems to quite except—well of course not, because what we ultimately yearn for is the love of the Father in heaven. And this is what the Lord Jesus Christ brings to us in bright glory and great power, being the express image of the person of the Father.

Now if we take that bright core at the middle—right, that light of the Lord Jesus Christ expressing the Father and the strength of his word upholding all things—we can think of that center as shining forth then and helping us to see these matching pairs. Verse three matching pairs of truths that are spoken with past tense verbs about the Lord Jesus Christ. Working out from the middle then:

First we have a picture of the Son’s priestly work in the C sections of your text: “through whom also he made the worlds” matches with “when he had by himself purged our sins.”

Creation and redemption—Jesus, as John tells us, is the one through whom all things were created. “Without him nothing was made that is made.” Jesus is the creative agent of the Father working, and Jesus is also the one who has accomplished the purging of our sins. We’ll see in the last few verses of Daniel 9 next Lord’s day that this is the very purpose. This is what Daniel was waiting for: the advent of someone who would purify, purge our sins once and for all.

The great purification offering of the day of atonement happened every year because it could not purify things for all time. But the Lord Jesus Christ comes and purges our sins—a technical word here and a very important word for the thrust of the author of Hebrews. He will develop this concept that the Lord Jesus Christ having purged our sins once for all—unlike the priest who could not make purgation of sins permanent—he has purged our sins and now sits enthroned at the right hand of the Father.

This is a very important argument in the rest of the book of Hebrews. And here it’s brought in close connection to the creation that God has brought to pass through the Lord Jesus Christ as well. Now, for some of us, we may think, well, that’s a little artificial. One of the tests for these structures is: do these things match? Well, do creation and redemption match? Well, they do. And it’s only because we don’t know our scriptures very much sometimes that we may not quite see this connection.

But one of the beauties of this text is there—this bright light of the birth of Jesus, the coming of Jesus, his advent—shines forth that we see these things correctly and we see this creation and redemption match in many other passages of scripture. For instance, in Colossians 1, verse 16, we read this: “Because in him were created all things in the heavens and upon the earth, all things through him and unto him were created,” verse 16. And then a few verses down in that text, verses 19 and 20: “Because in him God was pleased that all the fullness dwell. So because of him created all things, the heavens, the earth. Because in him,” in verse 19, “God was pleased that all the fullness dwell, right? The exact imprint of the Father. And through him that he reconciled all things unto himself.”

So in a parallel fashion, these two verses from Colossians 1 again links these ideas of the creation being happening through the work of Christ and redemption. Creation and redemption. On your outlines, I’ve got references to Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5. We’ve talked about this as we’ve used the Deuteronomic version of the Ten Commandments as we preach through the Gospel of Daniel.

The gospel really is good news of Daniel—of the conversion of the empire. Well, we’ve used Deuteronomy 5 and Exodus 20 in the normal version of the Ten Commandments. The fourth commandment, the Sabbath day, is based upon creation: “For in six days the Lord made heaven and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day.” But in the Deuteronomy retelling of the Ten Commandments in the book of Deuteronomy 5:15, the Sabbath day is premised upon redemption: “Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt. The Lord your God brought you out from there by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm. Therefore, the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath.”

The Sabbath day—the Lord’s day itself—is a reminder to us of this connection of creation and redemption. And what this does, folks, it should thrill our hearts to know that redemption is likened by this pairing and matching here in Hebrews and throughout the scriptures as a new creation. You know, in the creating order and in the first verses of Genesis, the spirit is hovering over the waters, over the void, right? And when God brings his people out of Egypt, the very same terminology is used that God flutters over his people in the wilderness, bringing them into the new creation in the promised land.

Well, this is the work of the Lord Jesus Christ that’s being ultimately pictured by way of type back then. And that new creation is made effective once and for all through the advent of the Lord Jesus Christ. Creation and redemption are definite aspects together, showing the priestly work of the Lord Jesus Christ, who purges our sins as our great high priest.

Psalm 95 makes this same point in verse one of Psalm 95: “Oh, come let us sing to the Lord. Let us shout joyfully to the rock of Our salvation.” The reason given for the praising of God in verse one. And then in verse six, “Oh come let us worship and bow down. Let us kneel before the Lord our maker, our creator.” So creation and redemption tied over and over again in the scriptures.

Genesis 14:19 and 20 when we read that Abraham is blessed here: “Blessed be Abram with God most high possessor of heaven and earth.” God most high is the possessor, the creator of heaven and earth. “And blessed be the God most high who has delivered your enemies into your hand,” redeemed, saved Abraham. Creation and redemption brought together.

Again in Isaiah 45: “Israel shall be saved by the Lord, verse 17, with an everlasting salvation. You shall not be ashamed or disgraced forever and ever. For thus says the Lord who created the heavens and who is God who formed the earth and all things in it.” The Lord Jesus Christ is creator and redeemer. And in this redemptive work, we clearly see this office—the priestly office of the Lord Jesus Christ—being both sacrificer and sacrifice, and having accomplished the full purgation of all of our sins. He has purged our sins.

So the office of the Lord Jesus Christ is pictured here: the connection between creation and redemption. That as our great high priest, the Lord Jesus Christ has done nothing less than to usher in a new creation. And that’s what we celebrate this Saturday as we celebrate the advent of Christ. We also celebrate the kingship of the Son.

And here the text in matching sections we read that in the B section “whom God has appointed heir of all things” and in the matching section that “Jesus after he purges our sins sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high.”

These are messianic texts that are being alluded to here. Psalm 2 and first citation, Psalm 110 in the second citation. These are very important texts. Some people have thought that much of the book of Hebrews is a sermonic evaluation and an explaining forth of Psalm 110. And Psalm 2 figures prominently as well. Right after this text and the rest of chapter 1, there’s a series of seven Old Testament citations showing the supremacy of the Son to the angels.

What psalm does it start with? Can you guess? It starts with Psalm 2. What psalm does it end with? Can you guess? It ends with Psalm 110. This is a carefully constructed sermon here. And it’s set up that connection of the messianic work of the Lord Jesus Christ is set up for us right here.

The bright shining forth of Jesus, the advent of Christ, the exact representation of the Father is as Christ our priest and now as Christ our king. Psalm 2, Psalm 110, both being spoken about here. Jesus Christ is the great king of kings and Lord of lords. And this section of the text tells us that what we see shining forth from the center of this text is the Lord Jesus in his priestly office but also in his kingly office as well.

Now there is a shift right: when we have focus at the middle producing a shift. And so we go from creation to the new creation of redemption, and we go from Psalm 2—where Jesus is enthroned and in Hebrews it’s directly connected to the creation—right so Jesus is forever king. But Psalm 110, Jesus becomes enthroned as the great priest. It is on the basis of the priestly action of Jesus Christ that his enthronement in the second portion of the structure—the matching structure—the citation of Psalm 110 follows the purgation of sins.

Jesus is king by means of him being the eternal Son of God, the inheritance of all things: “Ask of me, the Father says, and I’ll give you the heathen for thine inheritance.” And then Jesus talks about his purging away and purification for our sins. And now because he’s purged our sins, he sits down at the right hand of the Father. He’s enthroned as messianic king, not just on the basis of creation, but now on the basis of redemption as well.

And so Hebrews beautifully ties these things together, these messianic references to Psalm 2 and 110, and yet shows the transition: when Jesus comes in the brightness and the fullness of times in the midst of the gross darkness, Jesus comes purging our sins, creating a new world, and receiving a kingship on the basis of his sacrifice given for us. He is seated at the right hand of the Father.

Folks, and again, the book of Hebrews will make this an important part of what the author says: the priest was standing when he made purification for sins—standing, standing, standing—never brought to a completion. But the Lord Jesus Christ purifies our sins and sits at the right hand of the Father. It is over. It is accomplished.

For 2,000 years, Jesus Christ sits at the right hand of the Father until all of his enemies be made his footstool through the proclamation of this bright light of the Lord Jesus Christ, the express image of the Father, the great high priest and great king who rules the world from that right hand of the Father.

Oh, what do we want? We want to be purified. Well, folks, the gospel today is that the Lord Jesus Christ has past tense purged all of your sins and he has sat down at the right hand of the Father because it is over. The purification for your sins has been accomplished once for all. Praise God that the love of God shines forth to us at Christmas. And praise God that in that love, the Lord Jesus Christ, the high, exalted, brilliant radiance of the Father, the creator of all things, has deemed us the special object of his love, so that he comes to earth to make purgation of our sins, to die on the cross for us.

From earth’s footstool, he raises to heaven’s throne. He is the enthroned king, but he is also the great enthroned priest of God—king on the basis of his priestly work with God. Jesus is the bright shining forth as priest and as king.

And finally at the outer edges—the A and A prime sections—Jesus is the great prophetic voice of God. Once for all at the end of time, at the end of the ages, the Father has spoken not now through the prophets or through the angels, but now through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, through his coming.

Angels. Well, maybe you think I’m kind of messing this up, too. These things don’t match, prophets and angels, but indeed they do. Hebrews 2 will tell us this about these angels: “If the word spoken by angels was steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward.” In Hebrews, the angels are presented immediately in chapter 2 as the mediators of revelation, just like the prophets.

You see, we don’t think of it that way. Some people think, well, this is written to people that were worshiping angels. No, there might have been people doing that later, but that’s not what’s going on here. This book is showing us the supremacy of Christ to the Old Testament revelation that was mediated through men and angels—prophets and angels, the law and the prophets. That’s what’s going on here.

Galatians 3:19 tells us the same thing: “Wherefore then serves the law? It was added because of transgressions till the seed should come to whom the promise was made. And it was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator.” Angels are the work of God, his means by which the law of God is brought to mankind.

So what we have here at the outer brackets of this bright, brilliant shining forth of Christ is that Jesus is superior to the Old Testament revelation. Now he’s the fulfillment of it. It doesn’t mean that any of that was wrong. What it means though is two things. One, it means that it was fragmentary. It means that it was not completed. It means that while it was good and beautiful and holy, the law of God and the prophets, all of the Old Testament after all—these were angels and prophets chosen by God to mediate this word. It’s beautiful. Do not demean it. Do not think that the law was bad. Don’t do any of that.

But it wasn’t complete. It was fragmentary. And now at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, the advent that we celebrate here every Christmas in this city, in this nation around the world for 2,000 years—people have been celebrating the final word of God, the coming of Jesus Christ to fulfill all these things. Again, we’ll see in Daniel 9 next week that Jesus is the great fulfillment of all these prophecies spoken that, while fragmentary, nonetheless spoke of him.

And so Jesus comes as the great and final word of God, bringing to pass what was fragmentary in the old covenant and becomes great and complete and beautiful with the revelation of Christ.

But secondly, what happens here is a time reference, right? “God who at various times and in various ways”—beautiful words written here by the way of alliteration in the Greek. “Various times” is one word. So is “various ways.” It’s a beautiful text. But he has “in these various ways and times spoke in times past to the fathers by the prophets has in these last days spoken to us by his son.”

In these last days, he has spoken to us by his Son. And the great name of Jesus, better than the angels—while it doesn’t quite give it to us in verse four, the very next section will tell us that the name of Jesus that is better than angels is “Son.” Son, Son of God, Son of man. God has spoken to us definitively and finally through the coming of the Son.

What a beautiful thing. Doesn’t come to us as some kind of abstract concept. He comes to us as one in relationship to the Father. He comes to join us to himself that we may be reconciled to our Father in heaven and to one another that we can gather around our hearth fires Christmas Eve and Christmas and delight in the restoration of relationships to the Father through the purging of our sins, through the brightness of the coming of Christ, and in the restoration of relationships with one another.

Praise God for this time of year. Praise God for this wonderful message that God has spoken to us by way of his Son. And notice the time reference “in these last days.” The Bible has two great periods of time spoken of: the old world and the new world. By way of typology, Noah came to bring the new world. As I said, the deliverance from Egypt was a new world by way of typology. All pointing to the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, which would occur in the last days of what?—in the last days of the old world. You see?

And so what God tells us here is that the shining forth of Jesus Christ as priest and king and now as prophet is the shining forth of a new world that will never go back. That we have moved definitively from the old world to the new world when Jesus came in the last days of the old creation for us.

Priest, king, priest, prophet in that order. We’ve talked about this before. Some of the Sunday school classes are going over think of the implications. It is the resonance, the radiance of Jesus Christ expressing the Father that becomes in the shining forth of Jesus as priest, king, and prophet. Well, these same aspects of priest, king, and prophet are given to us in the Magnificat that we spoke of earlier.

Like the Hebrews text, the Magnificat is also a commonly used text in the context of Christmas celebrations. We read there that “God has shown strength with his arm. He has scattered the proud of the imagination of their hearts. He has put down the mighty from their seats and exalted them of low degree. And he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent empty away.”

What’s the application from today? Well, it’s to be filled with awe and joy at the brilliant shining forth of Jesus Christ in his three-fold office. But we can also say that this is, you know, expressed in the Magnificat and here in Hebrews to help us to think about who we are. We’re lights in the world. The Bible says we’re that shining forth and much lesser way of course, but in a way that the Holy Spirit creates of Christ as well. And we shine forth in a prophetic, a priestly, and a kingly way.

The Magnificat of Mary says that when people are lifted up in the imaginations of their hearts, God humbles them. When our knowledge, our pathetic view of the world is wrong, God brings us humbly. So what is the application? To take every thought captive as true prophets of Christ to the Lord Jesus Christ, to take our thoughts themselves and our words that reflect them and that we might be great prophets as well into the great prophet, the Lord Jesus Christ.

“He has brought down the mighty of rule and exalted them of low degree.” Those who use their rule, their kingly authority for something other than the Lord Jesus Christ, Christ has definitively once for all conquered in his advent, in his incarnation spoken of by Mary long before the birth occurs. But God has done it. It’s past tense the Magnificat with the advent of this bright shining Son. He has changed definitively, and he will humble those who don’t use knowledge for him and he will humble those who don’t use rule, their kingly aspect of their life for him.

May God grant that this week we are kings in our homes and families. Whatever God has given us to rule over, may we rule for the Lord Jesus Christ.

And then Mary finally says, “He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent empty away. Those who do not use, do not consecrate the possessions for the purposes of the Lord Jesus Christ have been definitively judged, and that’ll work its way out in history and has for 2,000 years. Those who do not consecrate everything as a true priest does for the purposes of God, those things will be taken away. And those who do consecrate the small things of life will be given more.

God says that a great reversal has come. Hebrews says a great change—the new creation has come. Mary says the great reversal has come. And from now on, the prophet, priest and king, the Lord Jesus Christ, shines and he exalts them who take their knowledge, their rule and their possessions and consecrate them for his purposes.

God says that the end result of this text is we should hear it. In Hebrews chapter 2, we get to the application eventually after this long introduction. “Therefore, we ought to give the more earnest heed to these things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip.” What’s the application? Listen. Listen to the truth of this passage. Believe it. May God grant us faith to know that this passage is a brilliant piece of gospel and good news and it is true. Listen to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, the Hebrews are being told to listen so that they don’t slip away, stop worshiping correctly in serving Christ. But I think we can take the application today for us is to listen to the gospel. Believe that Jesus is shining forth in the world. That he has purged our sins definitively. That he has sat down and rules over all the affairs of men. And he has brought in the new age having come in the context of the last days.

You know, I love that song we sang earlier—although it was a bad origins, a civil war song: “I heard the bells on Christmas day.” But verse three, a lot of times people think of this in despair: “I bowed my head, there is no peace on earth, I said, hate is strong and mocks the song of peace on earth, goodwill to men.” Maybe you’re struggling this week. Well, it doesn’t seem like such a jolly thing to me, that what’s happened is a result of Christ, it doesn’t seem like Jesus is really ruling in my heart. I seem to be sinful.

But here the good news: Christ has come as the bright shining forth of the one who has made definitive purification for your sins. Established you as prophet, priest, and king through his prophetic, priestly and kingly work. Believe it. It’s the truth. It’s the very gospel and the true and amen and amen words of the Lord Jesus Christ to us.

This is the message of promise fulfilled. God had promised to deliver his people from their enemies and their sins. And this great text from Hebrews says that we can move toward the end of the week with high celebration, high rejoicing because of the brilliance of the Lord Jesus Christ that has definitively changed the world. This is great gospel and in this most beautiful setting of a delightful text that focuses on Christ and then talks about the implications of his three offices and what he has accomplished with his coming.

Let’s give praise to God for this text. Father, we thank you. We praise your holy name for the brilliance of the Lord Jesus Christ, the shining forth of the Day spring from on high. We thank you, Lord God. And we pray that as we move forward this week, we would do so with a knowledge of Christ being near to us through the Holy Spirit—the one who has accomplished these great things, thought about us and purged our sins and has redeemed us from all of our enemies, external and internal.

Grant us, Lord God, that we may hear the Lord Jesus this week in the voices of one another, in the words of your scriptures, in the urgings of the Holy Spirit. May we seek, Father, guidance and direction and blessing from the one who has surely beamed into our lives the glory of his radiance. In Christ’s name we pray. Amen.