Hebrews 1:1-2

THE REVELATION IN JESUS CHRIST

‘God, Who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son.’

Hebrews 1:1

To know God must be the great aim of man. Reason says it, and Scripture affirms it. For all things meet in God, Who is alike their fountain, whence they spring—and the glory of them.

Before Christ came, God showed Himself to His creatures through various channels; but all dimly, as it must be in all human experience. But from the time Christ came, He is the one only demonstration. The exhibition of God is the Son—all comes through Christ.

I. God reveals Himself in Jesus Christ as the Word.—How is Christ the Word? Because He is between the Father and us. Precisely what words are between man and his fellow-man. By the word I speak, the latent and unseen thought of my mind conveys itself to your mind and apprehension. By a perfect parallel, the mind of God conveys the ‘Word,’ and you read in the ‘Word’ the mind of God. Then that living ‘Word’—the Lord Jesus Christ—is pleased to reflect Himself in the written ‘Word,’ which is the Bible. And the Holy Ghost enlightening your understanding, you can see and take in, first Christ, and then God in Christ.

II. There is another way in which Christ exhibits the Father.—The first thing you have to do with the work and death and glory of Jesus Christ is to secure your own salvation—so to accept and appropriate it that you have no doubt whatever of your own pardon—and so find perfect peace by the Cross of Christ. This, when done, you will be free to turn it to another account. You can contemplate and study that wonderful plan of man’s redemption as a wonderful exhibition of the mind of God.

III. Every intelligent creature must desire to know the Creator, and every child of God must yearn to know his Father. And God has met the aspiration. But you must seek your satisfaction in the method He has been pleased to appoint. And that method is not by many ways, but by one. ‘God is a Spirit.’ And to us, ‘spirit’ is only a word; we can attach no definite meaning whatever to ‘spirit.’ It is intangible, even to thought or imagination.

Rev. James Vaughan.

Illustration

‘There is a different and somewhat more accurate translation of this passage in the revised version. It replaces the phrase “sundry times” by the phrase “divers portions”; and it changes “by” into “in.” God hath spoken in the prophets; God hath spoken in His Son. The difference between these two little words “by” and “in” is considerable. To speak by the prophets may mean no more than that the prophets were used as a passive means of communication between God and man; just, for instance, as a flute or a trumpet, which lies quietly in the hand of the performer whilst his breath causes it to emit its musical sounds according to his own good will and pleasure. But when God is said to speak in a prophet, we are intended to understand that He enters the being of the man.’

(SECOND OUTLINE)

GOD SPEAKING IN HIS SON

The language employed is significant: ‘By His Son’; or, rather, by One Whose characteristic is that He is ‘Son.’ The prophets were, in a true sense, ‘sons of God.’ So with the angels: they are ‘sons of God.’ And so are all real disciples: ‘Beloved, now are we the sons of God.’ But the great Being here referred to is ‘Son of God’ in a unique and exceptional sense. He is the only-begotten Son. No one can possibly be son as He is Son.

I. Jesus Christ reveals God to us by His words, by His statements, by His teachings, recorded for us in the pages of the New Testament. These words are human utterances; but at the same time they are Divine. They come to us with absolute authority; they remove all difficulties and settle all controversies; they are final, and there is no further communication from heaven to be expected. When God has spoken to us by His Son, it is not likely that He will send us another prophet to succeed Him.

II. Christ Jesus speaks to us by what He is in Himself.—In Himself—in His own person and life—He is a revelation of the Father. ‘He that hath seen Me,’ He tells us, ‘hath seen the Father.’ Even on Calvary, no less than in the other circumstances of His wondrous life, we learn that such as Jesus is, such is the great and invisible Jehovah Himself. It is simply marvellous; for what does it amount to? To this. The life of Christ informs us that God is so wonderfully kind that He takes pleasure in His creatures. In other words, the life of Jesus of Nazareth lets us know that the greatest, and most powerful, and most awful of all Beings is also the gentlest, and the tenderest, and the kindest, and the best.

III. But there is a formidable side to the character of Jesus Christ.—Were it not so, His goodness would be feebleness. No! Jesus is not mere easy-going good nature; nor is God. Jesus showed plainly enough during His ministry amongst us that if judgment was His ‘strange’ work—uncongenial and, so to speak, distasteful work to Him—it was work that He was perfectly capable of executing. Let us bear that in mind. It is essential to a complete view of the Saviour. Without it we should not be able to understand the full force and emphasis of the statement already quoted, ‘He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father.’

Rev. Prebendary Gordon Calthrop.

Illustration

‘Of course, there are depths of meaning treasured up in the words of Christ which the interpreting Spirit will bring out so as to meet the exigencies of the Christian Church. We may expect to be led, if we put ourselves under Divine guidance, into an ever-increasing acquaintance with the thoughts of God as contained in those words. But the Divinehuman utterance of Christ is now complete; and it is at the infinite peril of any man if he presume to add to it or to subtract from it. What we have to do now is simply to take it as we find it; and by the help of the Holy Ghost to understand it, and by the same help of the Holy Ghost to live according to it.’