Hebrews 1:1-3

Chapter 1:1-3

                As we start to look at the book we will focus first on going through verses 1-4 as grammatically they all form a single point of thought. So as we go through this study, our goal is to keep verses together that are suppose to be together.

          Hebrews 1:1 “God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in times past unto the fathers by the prophets,”

          Hebrews cuts right to the chase when it starts. It begins with God! More importantly though it begins with showing us how God worked in the past. It tells us how God worked and what He did. When it says “sundry times and diverse manners” in verse 1 it is simply referring to in many ways and portions. Consider this, in the OT long periods of time could pass between God speaking. When God spoke then it often was not the whole picture. Something I don’t think personally we appreciate enough today is we have the entire message from God in one book unlike those in the OT and early NT. The Bible always builds upon itself to make a whole. Isaiah 28:10 says “For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little:”. The Bible we have now builds upon itself as we read it. In times past they had to wait for a new message from God. They did not have the entire Bible in one book like we do. It was built upon itself in many ways and over a very long period of time. Despite many people being involved and many years being involved the Bible gives a coherent message that Jesus Christ is the savior of the world!

          The next important part of verse 1 is who spoke to who. The prophets spoke to the fathers. Well, fathers of who? That would be the fathers of the Jews this book was written to. Save a few examples, the prophets all spoke and came to the people of God in the OT which were the Jews. Consider the time that spans Moses till the end of the OT prophets before the 400 years of silence. In that period God used many prophets in many ways that He spoke to. Some would be directly, some in visions, some in dreams, but no matter how God spoke to them, they received the holy words of God to tell the people they were sent to! This sets a stage for showing us that this former use of prophets and diverse means of communication ended with Christ! Revelation 19:10 says “And I fell at his feet to worship him. And he said unto me, See thou do it not: I am thy fellow servant, and of thy brethren that have the testimony of Jesus: worship God: for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.” Jumping a little ahead of myself here but we see that Jesus Christ finishes prophecy. As the Bible was completed so was prophecy that was to come! 4

          So, let us sum of verse one before we start into verse two. We see, God is the one who spoke. He spoke in many ways over a long period of time. The message builds upon itself but the theme is and always has been Jesus Christ. He had people He used in the past to spread His message to the ones He intended to hear it and record it. Christ put an end to the need for any new prophecy or direct audible message from God as we have the entire and complete word of God.

Hebrews 1:2,3

Hebrews 1:2 says “Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds;”.

          This is a continuation of the thought we find in verse 1. This verse serves a vital function though. Verse 2 has a specific point in putting the focus on Jesus Christ. This verse points out that God has spoken by and through Jesus Christ and serves showing that Christ and God are one. This verse building off of verse 1 and building on the theme we will see again and again is based on one aspect. Christ! The fact Christ is better then all that came before and the importance He holds for all of creation. Verse 3 builds off of verse 2 directly so we will add it here as we look at them both together. “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 on the right hand of the Majesty on high”.

These verses show a few facts about Christ. (The following taken from the Dake study Bible. We see the following of Christ, He is the spokesman of God, appointed heir of all things, planner of the world, brightness of Gods glory, express image of God, upholder of all creation, Savior of the world, and His ascension and exaltation! All of these in these verses. It can not be stated enough how strongly the start of Hebrews points to the power and majesty of Christ. There is something important to see at the end of verse 3. That is the fact that Christ sat down! You know what this means? That the work was finished! There is no more offering or sacrifice that needs to be made for sin. Christ did it all and was able to sit down on His throne on high because it is finished! Lastly for this section we will take a look at verse 4 as it is the end of the sentence and thought for this section of verses.