Two Days Late: A Fourth Year in Review

Missing the actual anniversary of my blog summarizes how this last year has been: busy.

My wife and I are one month shy of six years of marriage, while my son is a mere week shy of being two years old. My twin daughters rush toward their fourth birthday, of which they are both quite excited. This summer has been a flurry of activity already. I have recently launched book three in The Canticles of Andurun series: Dragonfyre. I'm working slowly on book six while I continue biblical studies on Hebrews and other areas which I shall later bring to light, God willing.

Hebrews Chapter One Part 4

1:3 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

Since the subject of verse 2 is Christ we know that the thought is carried on here in verse 3. To recap, Jesus is said to be the perfect revelation of God and the means by which He revealed Himself to us in these latter times. Also, Jesus is the heir of all things and the vehicle by which God created the universe. Following this train of thought we learn that Jesus is, more than these things, the sum expression of God. Jesus is the brightness of God’s glory (John 1:14) and the express image of His person, Colossians 2:9.

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.

Hebrews Chapter One Part 2

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

We begin our look into these verses with the simple declaration of the writer, who tells us that God had in various times and ways spoke to the Jewish fathers by the prophets. Not just to the Jews, however, but prior to the Flood He spoke to a sinful world through Abel, Enoch and perhaps other prophets (including Noah). His message of redemption and forthcoming judgment is hardly a new theme in the history of mankind. Halfway through the first 1600 years of mankind’s existence (roughly) Enoch was recorded having spoken of a time when the Lord would come with His saints to mete out judgment on the world that rejected Him and killed His prophets, Jude 1:14-15.

Hebrews Chapter One Part 1

The letter to the Hebrews was written by an anonymous author sometime prior to the destruction of the city of Jerusalem and its temple in 70 AD. This date is based on speculation regarding the writer’s silence concerning the temple’s destruction and the proof that would yield in that Jesus Christ fulfilled what the temple only foreshadowed. Mind you, remember then that the date is mere speculation.