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Lesson 1: Introduction To “Jesus Christ: God Revealed” (Hebrews 1:2-3)

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Editor’s Note: This article is the lightly edited manuscript for the accompanying audio message that Vickie delivered.

During the height of the DaVinci Code media craze, about 10 percent of the books on Amazon.com’s bestseller list were dedicated in full or in part to disproving commonly held beliefs about Jesus Christ and Christianity. More books are still being released embellishing Dan Brown’s theme. One came out recently where the author claims that she is a descendant of Mary Magdalene and Jesus. Fortunately, Christian scholars have written some excellent books proving the DaVinci Code to be full of inaccuracies and outright lies. But, if we are honest, would each of us really be able to answer the question. What do we really know about Jesus? Who is Jesus anyway?

Why is this such an important question? Because the answer determines life on earth and life in eternity.

God has always been the eternal mystery. God created the human heart with an inner longing to know God, even though it cannot always identify that longing. Pascal called it a God shaped vacuum. But how can a person come to know God? Does the universe give us any evidence that God really exists?

Rom. 1:19-20 tells us that God has revealed His existence, divine power and His divine nature through His created world. And Rom. 2 tells us that He has revealed His moral nature through the conscience that all people have that sense of right and wrong. So just from this evidence every person on earth can believe that there is a great and powerful God who has righteous moral standards.

But we still do not really know Him, do we? What is He like? What does He think? How does He feel about people? Is He distant and unreachable? Is He sitting up there waiting to zap us when we sin? Is it possible to know Him personally? God knew our need and the impossibility of our reaching Him through human reason or human effort, so He revealed Himself in two powerful ways.

Heb. 1:1-3 tells us the lengths God went to so that we might not only know He exists but that we may have a personal relationship with Him.

Hebrews 1:1

God spoke verbally to men in OT times, either directly or through visions and dreams. He gave these prophets His message to give to His people. Over a period of about 1500 years His Words were written down by about 40 human authors inspired by the Holy Spirit, the divine Author. The Bible is God’s written revelation, inerrant in the original manuscripts. It is our only source for the true knowledge of God

The central message of the OT is that God created men and women for a relationship with Himself. But our sin separated us from God. So God promised to come Himself to redeem His fallen creatures and make it possible for us to be reconciled to Him. God promised that a divine Savior would come to earth and reveal God’s glory to us.

The NT tells us that He kept his promise and the Savior came. He not only spoke God’s Word to us but He revealed God’s nature.

Hebrews 1:2

The Son of God is God’s final revelation to us. He is the fullest revelation of God that we will ever have here on earth. Do you not see why Satan has tried through the centuries to distort and deny who Jesus really is? The book, The DaVinci Code is just a warmed over version of the Gnostic heresy of the first 3 centuries that both Paul and John combated so strongly in the NT. But the controversy and the questions it has raised are not unimportant. The authors of a new book, Reinventing Jesus put it this way:

“Attempts to reinvent Jesus are nothing new. The vines of radical skepticism toward the biblical Christ have been creeping up the walls of the ivory tower for two centuries. But only in recent years has such intense cynicism sprouted at the grassroots. And it has spread quickly. The media’s assault on the biblical Jesus, postmodernism’s laissez-faire attitude toward truth, and America’s collective ignorance of Scripture have joined to create a culture of cynicism. In short, society has been conditioned to doubt.”

We in God’s family must examine ourselves to answer honestly 2 questions:

Do I believe the Bible is the inerrant, authoritative Word of God and totally true?

Do I believe what the Bible teaches about Jesus Christ, that He was the fully human and fully divine Son of God?

John 1:1 calls the Son of God, the Word for good reason. Words reveal our invisible thoughts. In the same way Jesus made the invisible God visible. How did He do it?

The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth....No one has ever seen God but God, the One and Only, who is at the Fathers side, has made him known. John 1:14, 18 (NIV)

When did the Word become flesh? When did God become a human being? God the Son left heaven for a few short years to become a man. The Holy Spirit overshadowed Mary and placed in her womb the Holy one who was the Son of God. When Jesus Christ was born 2000 years ago, God entered this physical world and lived among us. No one has ever seen God’s essence but God the Son has made him visible and knowable. He said Himself, Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. John 14:9.

The Son revealed that we have a heavenly Father. And what do we see when we see Jesus? The glory of a God who is full of grace and truth. Our God is not a cosmic ogre waiting to destroy us but a merciful, gracious Father who welcomes us into His family.

This is the distinctive difference between the OT and the NT. The almighty, sovereign God of the OT is the personal heavenly Father of those who have put their faith in Jesus Christ. In the NT God is called Father over 240 times as compared to a small handful of times in the OT.

“You sum up the whole of the New Testament religion if you describe it as the knowledge of God as one’s holy Father. If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God’s child, and having God as his Father. If this is not the thought that prompts and controls his worship and prayers and his whole outlook on life, it means that he does not understand Christianity very well at all. For everything that Christ taught, everything that makes the New Testament new, and better than the Old, everything that is distinctively Christian as opposed to merely Jewish, is summed up in the knowledge of the Fatherhood of God. Father is the Christian name for God.” (J. I. Packer)

This is hard for some of us. If you had a loving, caring earthly father, it is easy to transfer that image to a heavenly Father, just multiply it by a million. But if you had a distant, absent or abusive father, you will have a problem. You will have to disconnect everything you experienced with your earthly father and learn how wonderful your heavenly Father is and choose to believe it.

That is why Jesus spoke so often of God as our heavenly Father. Then His life showed us what the Father is like. But why was Jesus Christ able to reveal the invisible God? Because of who He is. We cannot disconnect Jesus from God. He was not just a perfect man or an ideal example. He was God in a human body. Immanuel, God with us.

Hebrews 1:3

Let us look at each of these phrases separately.

The Son is the radiance of God’s glory

Radiance means outshining of the brightness of God’s glory. You cannot separate the brilliance of the sun from the sun itself. And you cannot separate the glory of the Son from His deity. He is God. The disciples saw His glory when he was transfigured before them on the mountain.

Representation is the word, “charakter,” only here in NT. It means a mark stamped on something, like an image on a coin. When we see Jesus we see what God’s nature really is like.

Col. 1:15 (NIV) says “He is the image of the invisible God.”

Sustaining all things by His powerful word.

Col. 1:17 (NIV) says, “in Him all things hold together.”

Scientists have never been able to discover the force that keeps the protons and electrons in the atom spinning in perfect order. What keeps the planets and stars in orbit? The Bible says that God the Son is not only the Creator, but the Sustainer of this immense universe.

THINK: If He cares about the atom and the stars, how much more do you think He must care about sustaining our lives, of holding our lives together. We are the ones for whom He came to die. The next statement brings us to that.

After he had provided purification for sins:

Seven words, but what a story they tell.

How did the Son make it possible for us to be forgiven and cleansed from our sins?

He, God in human form, suffered and died on the cross to satisfy God’s justice. He himself took the penalty for the sins of his fallen creation, so that those who believe on Him might have eternal life and fellowship with God. Then He rose from the dead to prove that He was truly the Son of God and to prove that all the sins of everyone who has ever lived were paid for. 40 days after his resurrection he went back to heaven and

He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.

This is a very important statement. He sat down because the work of redemption was finished. Do you remember He said precisely that when He hung on the cross?

It is finished meant penalty for sin was paid in full.

There were no chairs in the OT tabernacle. The priests never finished their work because there were always sacrifices to be made for sins. Animal blood could not pay for people’s sins. Every animal slain on every altar in the OT just pointed to the future One who would be the one sacrifice for all sins forever, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

Heb. 10:11-12 gives us the contrast.

Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God. (NIV)

It is absolutely essential for your spiritual life that you understand that when you study the Bible it is not for the purpose of just learning all kinds of facts about the Bible. You can go to seminary or any other kind of study and learn the facts and stories from the Bible. But if that is all you do you miss the point entirely.

Donald Barnhouse:

“Suppose a friend had a hotel room in Acapulco overlooking the ocean on his vacation. He comes back and tells you about the wonderful window in his room. It had one large pane of glass, and 4 smaller panes on either side. It was 6 feet long and 4 feet high. Its framework was made of steel that resists corrosion. In fact, he even had the glass analyzed chemically. Would you not think he had missed the point? The window was there for him to see the ocean, not to study the window.”

The Bible is a window. We look through it to see Jesus Christ, the Son of God. And when we see Him we see God in His essential nature. We see our heavenly Father.

Have you realized before today that the One who died in your place on the cross is really God the Son, your Creator and Sustainer? Have you put your faith in Him alone to forgive your sins, give you eternal life and make you a child of God.

Jesus said, I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. (John 14:6, NIV)

You may, with an act of your will, put your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ today, right where you are sitting. Just tell God:

I know I am a sinner. I believe that your Son died for me and rose again. I put my faith in Him alone to forgive my sins, bring me to God and give me eternal life.

I would love to talk to anyone who did this or wants to after class.

Our Heavenly Father revealed in Jesus

Our studies this fall will emphasize what Jesus revealed about our heavenly Father while He was here on earth, both in His words and His works. I want you to be constantly thinking that was his purpose as you do the questions at home and during our lessons here:

Jesus is God the Son. He revealed the nature of the invisible God to us. He spoke God’s words, thought God’s thoughts, felt and expressed God’s emotions, did God’s works.

Malachi 3:6 (NIV) I the Lord do not change.

Hebrews 13:8 (NIV) Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.

The loving, gracious, righteous, compassionate God Jesus Christ revealed is the same today. He is our heavenly Father if we have trusted His Son Jesus Christ.

What he thought then, He thinks now.

What He felt then, He feels now.

What he did then, He would do now.

Maybe you are thinking, So What? What does this mean to me?

It means that your heavenly Father still has compassion for the poor, the oppressed, the helpless and the sorrowing. Your heavenly Father cares for you in the situation you are in right now. Your heavenly Father knows your heart is aching because of the failure of your marriage or the disappointment of children who have turned from the truth and bought the world’s lies. Your heavenly Father knows that your husband has been without a job for a long time. Your heavenly Father knows your needs and He cares. Your heavenly Father knows what sickness has done to your family and He cares. Your heavenly Father knows the difficulties in caring for an aged parent and He cares for both of you. He may not bring relief in the spectacular ways Jesus did while here on earth, but He does give strength, the ability to endure, moment by moment. And that is a quiet miracle, is it not?

Your heavenly Father does send provision for material needs in many unexpected ways, does not He? The anonymous gift of money, the friends who bring meals, who come and relieve you from the constant care of a loved one, the people who pray for you, who drive you to the doctor, who babysit your children. These are just a few of the ways your heavenly Father meets your needs today.

His heart is the same, His power is the same, but his method is different. Instead of Jesus Christ living in one human body on earth as He did 2000 years ago, He sent the Holy Spirit to live in each one of us who have trusted Him as our Lord and Savior. He lives in millions of human bodies. We together are His body on earth.

1 Corinthians 12:27 (NIV) Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. (Not an option)

He lives in us and through us to touch the hurting world around us.

He said that we would be the light of the world when He went back to heaven. How can people see God revealed in our lives today? How can we let God’s glory shine through our bodies?

Matthew 5:16 (NIV) Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.

Is it really possible to live in such a way at home and in the community that other people will see our heavenly Father in our everyday actions? That is precisely the reason for which we have been saved. We were not saved to just go on living self-centered, self-serving lives. We have been given a new motivation, a new reason for living and a new power to live.

2 Corinthians 5:15 (NIV) And He died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.

How do we live for Him in practical ways? How can our lives reveal our heavenly Father to others? By doing what Jesus did.

  • By showing compassion
  • By actively relieving the distress of those around us, first in God’s family, then the community.
  • By helping those widowed by death or divorce. Caring for orphans.
  • By visiting the sick and sorrowing.
  • By showing love and mercy for the aged.
  • By feeding the hungry, listening to the confused, sharing our material possessions with the needy.
  • By praying for the deliverance of those in bondage.
  • By moving out of our own tight circle of friends who buy their clothes at the same shops, drive the same kind of cars and become friends with people out of your social class.
  • By helping an unwed mother go through with her pregnancy, providing emotional, spiritual and practical support. It is not enough just to be against abortion.

Most of all, by bringing the good news of the Gospel to those who dont know Jesus Christ, the only way to God the Father. Jesus is the Bridge from earth to heaven, the giver of eternal life.

In His prayer just before his death in John 17, Jesus said to His Father, I have revealed you to those you gave me out of the world. Jesus revealed that we have a good, gracious, strong, merciful heavenly Father who loves us unconditionally.

Let us be willing to lay aside all the distorted conceptions we have of fatherhood and realize that our great God is everything a Father should be times a million.

Let us come with confidence into His presence, knowing we are welcome because Jesus escorts us to His Father’s throne.

Let us begin living as though we believed this is true.

Related Topics: Bibliology (The Written Word), Christology, Soteriology (Salvation), Women

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