Hebrews Chapter One Part 3

1:1-2 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, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds

Christ is the heir of all things, and also the one through whom all things were made. Christ is the Creator. It is a simple confession of faith by the writer of Hebrews, one that he will assert again and again, that Christ is God and that we are His creation. To desert Jesus Christ, the living Word of God, after knowing such things, is not to honor God by reverting to Judaism for these Jews; it is to reject the revelation God vouchsafed them and apostatize. Judaism offered these Jewish Christians nothing any longer; going back to it meant that they preferred the physical, mechanical rituals of endlessly perpetuating sacrifice to the satisfaction of having that sacrifice for sin accomplished, and resting in that glorious truth. Judaism, as it were, was not meant to remain.

Paul explained that the Law (Judaism) was introduced to tutor Israel in readiness for Christ’s arrival, but when the Messiah had come that tutorship was abated, Galatians 3:24-25. The writer of Hebrews says the same when he writes “In that He says ‘a new covenant,’ He has made the first obsolete. Now what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away,” Hebrews 8:13. The term “obsolete” can be rendered “out of date, outdated, archaic, superseded, outmoded, etc.” From the first two verses of Hebrews the writer is addressing the real problem: these Jewish Christians (and too many professing Christians today) want ritual over relationship. Those in a right relationship with the Lord have peace with Him, knowing all that God has promised He will fulfill; He alone is capable of providing the salvation, forgiveness and confidence that we crave. Judaism had become an outward substitute by attempting to endow the adherent with these things by performance instead of faith in God.

We are given our first glimpse of Jesus as the perfect and final prophet of God, the heir of all things seen or unseen, and the Creator of all said things, seeing as how they were created for Him, Colossians 1:16. He received the promise of the inheritance with His incarnation as a man, Psalm 2:7-8. He shall enter into this inheritance and rule the nations when it comes time that He will subdue His enemies and make them His footstool during His second coming, Psalm 110:1, 5-7; 1st Corinthians 15:24-25. To the faithful Christian Jesus promises that they too will rule the nations beside Him during His thousand-year reign and have power over the nations, Revelation 2:26-27. A man can suffer no enduring loss by putting his faith in Jesus Christ; but to stray from Him was to enter into perilous territory. Being His you are a wayward subject among unconvinced rebels. There is no comfortable ground for such a saint. The writer of Hebrews begins by painting a portrait of Christ that he wishes to satisfy the searching hearts of Christians and the unconverted with.