The Epistle to the Hebrews part III

Hebrews 1:1
"God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets."

Why does Paul admonish us to study the Old Testament. It’s just like the Epistle of Hebrews, there’s not a Roman Road to Salvation in the Old Testament. There’s not a plan of Salvation for us in the Old Testament (Genesis through Acts 9), there’s nothing of the Gospel of Grace in the Old Testament - but we study it, and we rest on it because it’s the building block that God has laid down just like a secular education. We’ve used this example many times; how far would a young person get if all of a sudden without any previous education in grade school or high school, you plunk him down in a calculus class at the university? How long would he last? Not more than 5 minutes. Why? He has not had the building blocks of education. Jesus is the bedrock upon which His Church is built and Paul was the master builder who established a true delineated or plumbed framework or skeletal system for this house, body, family or church. A spiritual Church which means that it is a restrictive or selective group of people who will enter into it. He (Jesus) said that many are called but few there are they, that will enter in.(Mat. 22:14) He also said that we are to count the cost to us before deciding to enter there in. (Luke 14:28)

Remember that Hebrews was written to Hebrew Christian people. Hopefully, most of them were believers, but also a lot of them were still on the fence; they just couldn’t turn their back on Judaism, and the Law with all its gala pomp and circumstance. And was a burden of restriction a heavy weight to them as there was no wiggle room within its corral fence. Now here we need to understand that the Law is not the Ten Commandments thou it is law but rather the whole system of Levitical Laws made up of statues and ordinances and the traditions of the Hebrew forefathers. They were also probably having some problems understanding Who Jesus of Nazareth really was, and so this Epistle is written primarily to lift up Who the Son really is. This letter is uniquely written to these Hebrew people who were having problems turning their backs on their past. And is carries over on those of us who have a problem turning our backs on the religious system of church, on mans religion, legalism and the spirit of the world, of this present darkness. So we can glean from the teachings of Hebrews as well.

Romans 15:4 "For whatsoever things were written aforetime (back in the Old Testament) were written for our learning,…"
If we haven’t an understanding of how all of this came about, it’s pretty hard to just step in and say, "Yeah, I can believe that." But we don’t think God expects that, so we use the Old Testament over and over as a background for our New Testament teaching, just as Paul did. Because the New is the Old revealed or exposed and uncovered. Its all foundational as it supports the cornerstone which is Christ Jesus the revealer of the Grace and Truth.

Galatians 4:4 "But when the fullness of the time was come, God (the Triune God, Elohim) sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law."( the law given by commandment to Adam Genesis 2:16-17, when this was violated by Adam it became a law as the commandment carried with it a penalty for its disobedience. It placed all of mankind under its curse until the fulness of times come. And Christ became the curse and removed it and this applies to both.)

What did He send forth? His Son, and He was made under the law and as a Hebrew in the line of David under the Law of Moses. We guess we could even look at some other verses, even in Paul’s writings, but this is how the Old Testament and the Four Gospel accounts, as well as Paul’s letters, are referring to this Person of the Godhead then, that we have to lift up as the Son. The Son is unique in that role of the Godhead. This now leads us into our next verse in Hebrews.

Hebrews 1:2a "Has in these last days spoken to us by His Son,…"

Now we're going to throw a curve at you. The first time we read that verse sometime ago, we couldn’t quite fathom it. It will take a long time to really have an impact on us. But in verse 2, the word "His" has been added by the translators, have you noticed that? We never did for years and years. That word "His" is not in the original, and neither is there an article in the Greek, so the Greek reads like this.

Hebrews 1:2a "Has in these last days spoken to us by Son,..."

We’d probably say, "Now that doesn’t sound right." Well it does after we really start thinking about it. Because you see, Son by itself can be a title. How many fathers haven’t we heard instead of calling their son by his first name, what do they call him? "Come on son, let’s do this or that." Son becomes his title, and that’s the way we're pointing this out for us to look at.

Hebrews 1:2a "Has in these last days spoken to us by Son,…"

The title! And the emphasis has to be just the way we're putting it. Now let’s go back and see if we can pick up a little bit by that. So come all the way back to the Book of Acts, when Christ was dealing with the Apostle Paul. We think a good place would be Acts chapter 22. But first....

Another phrase in this verse, concerning "the last days." This usually shakes up people also. When the Scripture speaks of the last days, we’re speaking of His first advent. The three years of His earthly ministry to Israel only, His crucifixion, His burial, His resurrection, and His ascension back to glory, as we see in Psalm 110:1. So all of that which took place in that first advent is considered in Scripture as "the last days." Because it marked the end of God's dealing exclusively with the nation of Israel (through Abraham and the priesthood of Aaron's line) as He had been doing from Genesis 11 through Acts 11. Now the second Psalm lays out the time line for all of this. As we show in our study in Galatians.

Now we know that sounds confusing at first, but we see this as the only thing that the Old Testament looked forward to, that, after His ascension, then would come the 7 years of Tribulation, and then He would return and set up His Kingdom, that was promised to David and his blood line. So, this first advent then according to the Old Testament accounts, was the last days. Also remember that Paul is in this last days period of time. It was just a matter of years from the crucifixion until he begins his ministry. So Paul, too, is considered part of the last days, because they had no idea that there would be 1960 + years of the Church Age. That was completely unknown to the Old Testament writers. Thou they had seen it in shadow form only and questioned what it was that they saw, not knowing its meaning. So they just spoke of it over and over as the "last days." There was no hint of an Age of the Church or the New Covenant of Grace, all they knew was the promise of God given through Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel in relation to a new covenant and endless covenant and eternal covenant.

Now here’s where we think we can jump in now and see various ways that the Son spoke now in these last days. Paul has now been out among the Gentile world, establishing his little congregations of Gentile believers, and has come back to Jerusalem, he’s always having a heavy heart for his kinsmen according to the flesh, the Hebrew people. Here again Paul goes before this great multitude of Hebrews to try to convince them that he wasn’t just a renegade, he wasn’t an imposter to the truth, he wasn’t a heretic, but rather he was proclaiming everything that the Old Testament had prophesied, and that Christ had fulfilled. So he comes back to Jerusalem, and he’s in the Temple. Now beginning at verse 17.