Pastor Jonah Sage taught from Hebrews 1:3. Jesus can reveal God because Jesus is God. Lector: Melissa Morales
Pastor Jonah Sage taught from Hebrews 1:3. Jesus can reveal God because Jesus is God.
Lector: Melissa Morales
One of the great gifts of my life is a good relationship with my dad.
Known him my whole life. We talk for several hours a week. He plays with my kids.
But every couple of years something happens and I just wonder, “WHO IS THIS MAN”
First time it happened I was young. 10 or 11. Visited his home town.
Stranger stopped me on the street and said, “ARE YOU LEE SAGE’S SON.”
Freaked me out. Went on to tell me how he remembered some athletic feat of my dad’s. So I asked my dad about being an athlete and learned my daddy is a freak.
12 letters in high school. Recruited to play pro ball when he was 15. Tigers paid for him to go college. Crazy.
Some years ago, someone was telling me about a case study for a business certification program they were taking.
Called my dad, told him about the case study, asked him if he knew the guy it was focused on.
“Pretty sure that’s me” he said.
Shortly after, I call him randomly just to say hi. He’s in Detroit. Receiving a lifetime achievement award from an organization he started.
Every time I’ve learned something wonderful about my dad, it’s made me want to know even more.
some of you are nodding along…and some of you are filled with pain.
There’s something inside all of us that longs to know our fathers
It’s deeper than curiosity. It’s almost as if they have a secret that we need to know.
This distant knowing is most acute for those whose fathers were gone.
Maybe physically gone, maybe dead, maybe emotionally gone.
This is not to say mom’s don’t matter.
One author, reflecting on Hebrews, believes that “all spiritual quests are, in their own ways, attempts to ask, ‘what can you tell me about my father?’”(-Thomas Long, Interpretation: Hebrews, 16)
There is a tension here…we want to know our dads, but not all of our dads can be known, and this tension plays out in how we relate to God, our Heavenly Father.
Over the last two weeks, we’ve learned that 1. God Speaks. And 2. He speaks definitively through the last word, Jesus.
In other words, you have a father who makes himself known to you
If you want to understand his words clearly, look to Jesus.
If you want to make sense of your story, make sense of that longing or the unresolved pain…you have to learn to look to Jesus.
Not simply listen to Jesus, but look. God’s words and actions are inseparable.
God tells you about himself by what he says, but also by what he does.
As Hebrews 1:3 will show us, I hope you hear deeply, clearly, powerfully this morning that Jesus can make God known because is God.
God speaks in ways we understand, and his clearest words are given to us in Jesus.
Specifically now, the Preacher of Hebrews argues you see God most clearly in 3 ways:
Jesus’ power to sustain the universe.
Jesus’ purification of sin
Jesus’ position at the right hand of God.
Three events to summarize what God is like.
If you want to know God your true father, know Jesus. And if you want to know Jesus, think power to sustain, purification of sin, position next to God. Let’s look.
The Son radiates God’s own glory and expresses the very character of God
-Hebrews 1:3
Last week, we said God definitively spoke through Jesus. The LAST WORD.
This word “radiates” is used NOWHERE else in the NT.
“Expresses the very character” is used NOWHERE else in the NT. And I love this.
Unique words to describe someone completely unique.
“Radiates” refers to light shining forth…it can be either a reflection of light, or the light from a source itself…depends on nerdy grammar stuff. So, which is it here? Are we saying that Jesus reflects the glory of God, or are we saying Jesus himself shines forth the glory of God? Big heresies over the years about this. Some people say Jesus just looked like God.
Today, they’’ll say things like, “he just looks like God, but wasn’t really God.”
How would you feel if someone said, “you just look like his dad, but you’re not”?
This is a crucially important point…because depending on how you understand this, you will either see God clearly or you won’t see him at all.
Jesus expresses the very character of God.
This word here is used outside of the Bible most often talking about a stamp on a coin
Putting an image on to something. It’s an ontological word. Say it with me. Feels good.
Ontological refers to the nature of something’s being, it’s essence, what it’s made of.
When you put “radiates” and “expresses” together, what’s being said here are statements about Jesus ontology, his very being, his nature.
Jesus is uniquely qualified to reveal God, to be the final manifestation of God, because he is ontologically God.
If you put Jesus under a microscope you’d see God stuff. It’s what he’s made of because he is God. He doesn’t seem to be God or appear to be God, he is the exact representation of God, you can go read about this word
Hypostasis
It means real essence, the real substance. The actual stuff of God is the actual stuff of Jesus. Which means Jesus can reveal to us perfectly what God is like because Jesus is God perfectly.
Jesus is not a word from God. He is THE word of the Lord.
If you want to know God, LOOK TO JESUS’ POWER TO SUSTAIN THE UNIVERSE
This means if you want to know God, look at Jesus. And first, the Preacher tells us to look at his POWER TO SUSTAIN THE UNIVERSE
he sustains everything by the mighty power of his command.
-Hebrews 1:3
“Sustains” here is an active verb. It’s ongoing.
Many of our nation’s founders, like Thomas Jefferson, made a huge error here.
He, and many since, saw God as uninvolved in day to day affairs.
At best, God might be like Atlas holding up the earth. But not active in day to day life.
The Preacher says no, Jesus actively sustains the universe by his powerful words
His words are his actions and he is daily involved in the orchestration of the universe.
Last week, we saw he is there at the beginning and end of creation
And this morning, we see he is actively holding everything in the middle.
There is not a day when the hand of God is not on your life.
Jesus reveals that God is intimately involved in the daily affairs of his universe.
Well, you may be wondering, how is that good news?
If you want to know what God is like, keep looking at Jesus:
His power to sustain, and his PURIFICATION OF SIN
When he had cleansed us from our sins
-Hebrews 1:3
This will be a major theme in Hebrews. Chapters 7, 10, and 12 emphasizes this cleansing is a one time event. The language here in verse 3 is very particular.
Notice it doesn’t say “forgive”, which has a specific emphasis, or “remove” which has another…the preacher here, summarizing the work of Jesus, says cleanses.
For the person who loves God’s word, steeped in the OT, the word used here brings to mind the day of Atonement in Leviticus 16, the Blood of the Covenant in Exodus 24, the red heifer in Numbers or burnt offerings and sin offerings mentioned throughout the OT.
This word is a rich summary of the Bible’s revelation both of the problem of sin and its solution.
Fundamentally, sin is defilement. It is a debt, it is a miss, it is a mistake that culminates in defilement. Something made dirty and distorted.
Sin must be forgiven and paid for, yes, so that sin can be purged and cleansed.
To say that Jesus “cleansed” us from our sins, purified our sins, is to say he has fully, finally, permanently brought about the promised salvation of the Lord.
Only one who is the first and last word, who is himself God, could fully, permanently, finally purify us of our sins, because that is only a work God himself could do.
And how did he do that? Through his shed blood on the cross.
This is a clear reference to the cross of Jesus, and at the cross of Jesus we see the heart of God most clearly.
His hand is daily on your life, and we know this is a benevolent, merciful, loving hand because when we look at Jesus we see a God who laid down his life for you, to do the work you could not, which is to purify you from your sins.
If you want to know God, LOOK TO JESUS’ PURIFICATION OF SIN
And finally, if you want to know God, look at Jesus’ position:
When he had cleansed us from our sins, he sat down in the place of honor at the right hand of the majestic God in heaven.
-Hebrews 1:3
The preacher here is referencing Psalm 110, another subtle way he is showing us that Jesus is God. Psalm 110:1 says this:
The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit in the place of honor at my right hand until I humble your enemies, making them a footstool under your feet.”
-Psalm 110:1
What could he mean? Where do we see Jesus being lifted to a position above his enemies, high enough that he could rest his feet on them?
At the cross, the enemies of God thought they had one.
But a few short days after his death, Jesus was raised from the dead.
He then ascended into heaven where he is seated at the right of God, the place of honor, and his enemies have been humbled under his feat.
What is your Father like? Look at Jesus’ power to sustain creation.
What does your Father think of you? Look at Jesus' purification of sin.
Where is your Father now? Look at Jesus’ position @ the right hand of God.
Simply put, if you want to know what your Father is like, get to know Jesus.
Jesus can reveal God…because Jesus is God.
His words are his actions, and so we come now to see him most clearly, hear him most vividly, by remembering the night he was betrayed
COMMUNION
Works Cited:
Thomas Long, Interpretation: Hebrews
Peter O’Brien, The Letter to the Hebrews
Gareth Cockerill, The Epistle to the Hebrews
G.K. Beale and Don Carson, Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament
Walter Bauer and Frederick Danker, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and other Early Christian Literature (this resource is often referred to as B-Dag, or BDAG, for short)