Do you ever wonder if God could really love you? The things you shouldn’t do… The things you should... How often do we cut ourselves adrift from God because we think we’re too impure for him? But the writer to the Hebrews blasts our navel-gazing out of the water! God has given his final word to us: Jesus! Who he is and what he has done secure us in God’s love. 

The writer gives us seven pillars – foundations of our salvation – and they’re all about Jesus, God’s eternal Son. Can you see them in verses 2 and 3? The Son is the heir of all things – his is the supreme place in all the universe (v 2)! It was through him that the universe was created (v 2)! And when we look at Jesus, we see exactly what God is like in the brightness of his glory (v 3). Even more incredible: the oxygen we breathe, the molecules that make up our bodies, the whole universe, are only in existence because Jesus says so (v 3)! This glorious one humbled himself to purify us from sin (v 3). And now he’s sat at God’s right hand. His work is complete (v 3). 

‘In the beginning was the Word … and the Word was God.’¹ Allow these opening words of John’s Gospel to focus your attention on the eternal glory of Jesus.

In this glorious opening statement, the writer follows the standard practice of his time by setting out his purpose and the direction of his argument. His intention is to glorify Jesus and ensure that he is the readers’ unchanging focus; he starts with one of the most profound statements about the person of Christ in the New Testament. God’s self-revelation in the Old Testament was valuable and important but preparatory, his revelation through his Son so much better and more complete. The word translated ‘radiance’ (v 3) is rare; it recalls John’s statement, ‘we have seen his glory’.² The word behind ‘exact representation’ was used to describe the stamp for minting coins, suggesting an exact replica and recalling Jesus’ own words, ‘Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.’³ The focus is not only on who Jesus is, but on what he has done. Here at the outset is the reminder of his completed work of redemption, to which the writer will return; already we see both a priestly (purification for sins) and kingly (at the right hand of the majesty) roles.

In the light of such a supreme revelation of God, in the face of ‘so great a salvation’,⁴ why look for anything else? Nothing else provides the answer to the human predicament. The challenges we face are unlike those of the early readers, but the underlying message is the same. God is both Creator and Redeemer. The world is God’s world, created and sustained through the Son; the Christian cannot see it as solely the product of random natural forces. The world is redeemed through the love of God, demonstrated in the Son.⁵ The new relationship we have with God is achieved only through Christ; in a world of clashing ideologies and other attractions, there is no alternative – this is the central theme of the letter-sermon.

In the face of such glorious truth, there is no adequate response. Praise God in the way you feel most appropriate.

¹ John 1:1  ² John 1:14  ³ John 14:9  ⁴ Heb 2:3  ⁵ John 3:16