Sermon – “God has spoken” (Hebrews 1:1-4)

Central to our Christian faith is the conviction that our God is a God who speaks. The first picture that the Bible gives us is one of chaos and emptiness. And into that emptiness God speaks: “Let there be light.” And no sooner were those words spoken than the Bible tells us there was light.

So it continues over the six days of creation: “God said…”, “God said…”, “God said…” And each time we hear the refrain, “And it was so.” “And it was so.” And it was so…”

Our psalm this morning affirms that God’s voice, which brought everything that is into being—from the farthest reaches of the universe to the tiniest subatomic particle—continues to echo through his creation:

The heavens declare the glory of God;
     the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
Day after day they pour forth speech;
     night after night they reveal knowledge.
They have no speech, they use no words;
     no sound is heard from them.
Yet their voice goes out into all the earth,
     their words to the ends of the world…

The vastness of the night sky, the daily warmth of the sun: these and a countless array of natural phenomena all work together to reveal the God who is behind them. “Lord, our Lord,” we read elsewhere in the Psalms, “how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory in the heavens.” (Psalm 8:1)

John Polkinghorne, who enjoyed a long career as a theoretical physicist at the University of Cambridge, would agree. He has written,

The universe, in its rational beauty and transparency, looks like a world shot through with signs of mind, and, maybe, it’s the ‘capital M’ Mind of God we are seeing … an origin in the reason of the Creator, who is the ground of all that is.[1]

If John Polkinghorne observed God’s creation from a macro-level, Francis Collins has investigated it on a micro-level. He is the geneticist who led the team that sequenced the human genome. He has observed, “The God of the Bible is also the God of the genome. He can be worshipped in the cathedral or in the laboratory. His creation is majestic, awesome, intricate, and beautiful.”[2]

Is it any wonder then that Jesus used the things of nature to unfold the secrets of the ways of God? A mustard seed that grows to be the largest of garden plants, a measure of yeast that is folded into a lump of dough to make it rise, the buds on a fig tree announcing that summer is near, a cloud rising in the west heralding rain, the lilies of the field more beautifully arrayed than King Solomon in all his splendour…

Yet studying the phenomena of the natural world can lead us only so far. Job acknowledged this way back in the Old Testament. After reflecting on the remarkable works of God’s creation, he proclaimed,

These are but the outer fringe of his works;
     how faint the whisper we hear of him!
     Who then can understand the thunder of his power?
(Job 26:14)

So, as we move into the latter half of Psalm 19, we find that there is an additional, fuller, way in which God has chosen to reveal himself, and that is through the words of Scripture:

The law of the Lord is perfect,
     refreshing the soul.
The statutes of the Lord are trustworthy,
     making wise the simple.
The precepts of the Lord are right,
     giving joy to the heart.…
They are more precious than gold…
they are sweeter than honey…
     in keeping them there is great reward.

Classic Christian teaching has always acknowledged that God addresses us both through his creation and through his divine word. One of the basic formularies of the Christian Reformed Church is the Belgic Confession, written in 1561. Here is what it says about the ways in which God reveals himself:

We know God by two means: First, by the creation, preservation, and government of the universe, since that universe is before our eyes like a beautiful book in which all creatures, great and small, are as letters to make us ponder the invisible things of God: God’s eternal power and divinity… Second, God makes himself known to us more clearly by his holy and divine word, as much as we need in this life, for God’s glory and for our salvation.

Creator

All of which brings us to the opening verses of the letter to Hebrews, from which we read these words a few moments ago: “In many fragments and in many fashions in the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets,”—and here comes the critical word—“BUT in these last days he has spoken to us through his Son.”

Yes, God reveals himself through his creation. Yes, God has revealed himself through the words of his prophets. But it is in Jesus that we find God’s fullest and final revelation. Then the author (who is anonymous) goes on to list a series of astounding claims as to why this is so—why we look to Jesus as God’s ultimate expression of himself. I think we can summarize them under three headings.

The first is “Creator”. Somewhere along the way, as they walked with Jesus (and I suspect it was at a different point for each of them, or perhaps more accurately through a whole series of experiences) those first companions of Jesus came to the conclusion that this man, though made of flesh and blood as they were, was also something more—considerably more. Dare I say, infinitely more?

We see it in the gospels when Jesus asked them, “Who do people say I am?” The answers quickly rolled out. “Some say John the Baptist,” said one. “Others say Elijah,” piped up another. “And there are others who say you are Jeremiah or one of the prophets,” added yet another. Then Jesus looked them in the eye. “But what about you? Who do you say I am?” It’s not there in the gospels, but I always imagine a long silence at this point, until Peter, who seems always to have been the first to speak, blurted out, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” (Matthew 16:13-16).

The events that followed Jesus’ crucifixion only served to heighten and confirm this growing conviction. “My Lord and my God!” were the astounded Thomas’ words as he gazed on the wounds in Jesus’ hands and side (John 20:21). And as Jesus met with his followers for the final time, Matthew tells us that they worshipped him (Matthew 28:17).

So it is that scarcely a generation after all these events the apostle Paul could write to the believers living in Colossæ,

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. (Colossians 1:15-17)

Radiance

We look to Jesus, then, as a participant with the Father and the Holy Spirit in the creation. To add to this, the author of Hebrews tells us that Jesus is “the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being”. That word “radiance” is found only in this one place in the New Testament. It is related to the word for dawn. So the picture we are given is of the clear brightness of the morning sun with its spreading rays gleaming over the eastern horizon, bringing light to a world that has been shadowed in darkness.

Yet even that image fails to convey anything like the fullness of the radiance that is found in Jesus. What we are talking about here is nothing less than the shekinah glory of God. It is what Moses witnessed as he stood before the burning bush. The Bible tells us that he had to hide his face because he was afraid to look at God (Exodus 3:6).

Many years later, as he met with God again on the peak of Mount Sinai, Moses made a bold request—that God would show him his glory. To this the Lord replied, “I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the Lord, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. But, you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live.” (Exodus 33:18-20)

Such is the indescribable radiance of the glory of God. And that is the radiance that we find in Jesus. “No one has ever seen God,” writes John in the introduction to his gospel, “but the one and only Son, who is himself God, who is closest to the Father’s heart, has made him known” (John 1:18).

Peter, James and John caught a momentary glimpse of that radiance as they stood with Jesus on the mount of the transfiguration. The gospels tell us that there Jesus’ face shone like the sun and his clothes became dazzling white, as bright as a flash of lightning.

The apostle Paul observed that when Moses returned from God’s presence to meet with the people, the change in his face was such that he had to cover it with a veil. “But,” Paul adds, “whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away… And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3:18). It is impossible to experience the radiance of Jesus and not find ourselves being profoundly changed.

Sacrifice

The picture of Jesus that the letter to the Hebrews gives us, then, is a glorious and exalted one: Jesus the mighty author and sustainer of creation; Jesus, the pure radiance of God’s indescribable glory. You might think there would be nothing left to say, but there is. And that is this: that this same Jesus came into our world for one purpose—to bring us purification from our sins.

Jesus, whose power brought galaxies into being, emptied himself of all power to offer up his life for you and for me. Jesus, whose radiance shines into eternity, willingly submitted to the ugly darkness of the cross. As Graham Kendrick has put it in the words of his powerful hymn, “hands that flung stars into space to cruel nails surrendered…”

This is the message that rings through the entire thirteen chapters of the Letter to the Hebrews. Indeed it has been described as the crimson thread that runs through the whole of the Bible. “I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” wrote the apostle Paul to his fellow believers in Corinth (1 Corinthians 2:2). And again, to the Galatians, “May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world” (Galatians 6:14).

One of the last pictures that the Bible gives us is of a vast crowd of people—women and men and children beyond counting, from every tribe and nation, race and language. They stand around the throne of the Lamb of God and together their numberless voices thunder,

Salvation belongs to our God,
who sits on the throne,
and to the Lamb. (Revelation 7:10)

Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain,
to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength
and honour and glory and praise! (Revelation 5:12)

From its opening words to its last, the letter to the Hebrews is a call to worship, but not just the formal worship that we offer here on Sunday mornings (although that is a vital part of it). It is the worship of a heart overwhelmed with gratitude to the Lord of all creation, who shines with the pure radiance of the uncreated God, and who has trodden the road of pain and death, and by his sacrifice to claim for himself the likes of you and me.

Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.

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[1]     Quarks, Chaos & Christianity, 25

[2]     The Language of God, ch 10