Clough Hebrews Lesson 4
Christology and Heirship – Hebrews 1:1-2
… the foundation. The Christian faith deals with revelation, what it is, and you always want to think in terms of the foundation and that the Christian faith is erected on a foundation which includes the creation and fall. And any viewpoint that excludes creation and fall runs into some deep trouble. Just as an illustration, if you look at your sheet again on Revelation, under the human viewpoint view of revelation, you will note something called Eastern pantheism, that claims that the cosmos itself is God. Now in lesson 5, for those of you who are in the Framework training program, in lesson 5 we deal with the results of denial of these things. And if you deny creation you wind up with an impersonal God. And if you deny the fall you wind up with an amoral God and this is a law that is built solidly on logic and has got to happen, no matter how badly you may want it not to happen, if you give up ex nihilo creation and you give up a historic fall, you automatically have to have an impersonal God and an amoral God, that is a God who is both good and evil.
And no greater illustration can be given than the Oriental religions in this regard. And one of the most recent versions, Maharaja material from the Divine Light Mission, I was reading this, and this is most interesting, it shows you, by the way, the tendency toward synthesis, they’re going to build a divine city somewhere in the United States; central to the city will be the temple of truth surrounded by eight different temples and churches of the various major religions, giving people of all religions the opportunity to worship truth according to their respective cultural backgrounds. In other words, the differences between religions are not due to truth; truth is something deeper than just these surface differences. All the differences you see in religion are just surface differences and this is an irrationalism and so on. But the thing I want to illustrate, this point about denying the creation, the fall, why you wind up with this is another little tract they put out and very significantly entitled, The Energy that Moves the Atom moves You. And this is exactly what we’re talking about, I couldn’t have a better illustration of what I said last time and sure enough, you open it up and they talk about this energy that comes in knowledge, but then they refer to the power of energy… it’s a very good illustration, let me get the exact quote. “The energy that moves the atom moves you, it is within you, it is eternal, infinite, and has the properties of light, heat, and the feeling of inner calm.” Notice “it,” not “He.” It is impersonal. So it’s got to go this way and you could predict this without ever picking up the material.
Now don’t be snowed because there are a lot
of American students who buy this kind of thing and get wrapped up in some sort
of a movement like this and they screw it all up because they bring their
Christian words into it. And when an
American student, who knows 5% Christianity anyway, uses his Christian
vocabulary to try to explain this to you, he talks God as though it was a
Christian God, and it’s all wrong, he hasn’t realized what the Hindu has done
to God. He’s transformed “He” into an
“it.” You ought to know that anyway, you
give up the Biblical concept of creation you’ve got to have an “it.” And so “it” is within you and “it” is
eternal; attributes of deity, “it” is eternal, “it” is infinite. Those are the attributes of deity so you’ve
got the attributes of deity assigned to the same energy, the energy that moves
the atom moves you. Now what greater
statement could you have of pantheism than that? Our God isn’t the God that moves the atoms in
the sense that He’s the one that’s the energy in the atom. The energy in the atom isn’t God, He’s the
force behind the energy in the atom but He can’t be equated with the energy in
the atom. But this doesn’t say, it says
“the energy that moves the atom moves you.”
And so therefore what we have here is a pantheism, and also in this
tract they point out the consequences of the fall. If you have the fall you know something has
to happen, God has to become both good
and evil; He has to become amoral. And so what does it say, “the power
of energy is endless and can be harmful or helpful,” so there again you have
the morality of it. So you couldn’t have
a better illustration than this and in case you’re inclined to be impatient
over Christ’s return, if you go to
Now turn to Hebrews 1:2, we’re just part of what the author called “a few words” of exhortation. [1] “God, who at sundry times and in diverse manners spoke in time past unto the fathers by the prophets. [2] Has in these last days spoken unto us by His Son,” and we emphasized the last time with this “a Son,” and the emphasis, it’s anarthrus use of huios, meaning that it isn’t a particular son, it is one who is of the essence of Son, and therefore the Son is qualitatively different from the prophets. There is a contrast in verse 1; all prophets are different from the Son; all prophets. Now the emphasis here is our defense against those who would mesh Jesus, Buddha, Confucius and Moses all into one big basket. You can’t do that and the reason you can’t is because the Son and the prophets are qualitatively different. The Son is unique; He is not just a prophet. And here is a denial that this is possible in these verses.
So the other thing that you want to see, of
course, coming out of this is the fact that the Son is absolutely different from
the prophets, means that His words have absolutely greater authority, and
that’s the argument of the epistle. If
you paid attention to the authority of the words of the prophets, then how much
more ought you to pay attention to the authority of the words of the Son. The second thing about this verse is that
notice the contrast in time, “who at sundry times” in the past, and then in
verse 2, “has in these last days.” Now
in the Old Testament there was three ages that are commonly described and they
are just a simple dispensational scheme, they had the first one which was this
age, then the age to come, and then the days of the Messiah. And this is their simple three-fold scheme of
history. And this future one would
correspond to our millennial kingdom in our view, millennial kingdom into the
eternal state. This age refers to the
age of
So the various ways and the various “sundry times and diverse manners” in verse 1 us a contrast with “has in these last days” in verse 2. So there’s a dispensational view of history in the epistle to the Hebrews… a dispensational view of history. Therefore this also separates the Biblical message from Eastern religion that just kind of has an endless history going on and on and on and on. It’s not that at all in the Bible, there are definite stages to history, definite climaxes to history.
Now we come to the word “Son.” “Has in these last days spoken unto us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir.” Now let’s come to the sheet that we have on the Son. This sheet goes over the problem of Christ’s deity in a very summary way but it comes up right here with the word “Son,” a very important doctrine, in fact the central doctrine of the Christian church. And as you look at this worksheet which is designed to give you some background for the word Son, the first thing, that introduction, is important. And don’t you ever let go of that point in the introduction. Don’t you ever think that the doctrine of the Trinity is just something an old bunch of white-haired theologians thought up in a back room many, many hundreds of years ago. The formulation of the Scriptures in the doctrine of the Trinity is absolutely necessary or you must run into this problem. I don’t care how you try to get away from it, it’s just like denying the creation and winding up with an impersonal God; denying the historic fall you wind up with an amoral God; deny the Trinity and you wind up with an unknown God. It has to work that way; always has and always will. Any cult that denies the deity of Jesus Christ winds up with an unknown God. As I say in the introduction, tampering with the orthodox formulation of the Bible teaching always makes God the unknown one, special revelation insignificant and salvation unavailable. Let’s see how.
Here’s God manifesting in the Son. If the Son is not God then this manifestation doesn’t really correspond to God as He truly is and if the Son doesn’t correspond to God as He truly is, then the Son is not a significant revelation; He’s no more significant than the prophets are. [can’t hear some words] So you have God as the unknown one; if you tamper with the quality of the Son you make the revelation insignificant. It’s just so simple to see but you’ve got to see it; tampering with the deity of Christ forces you into a status of saying I do not know God and furthermore can’t know God. It’s a very, very powerful immediate and disastrous result of dropping the deity of Christ. It makes salvation unavailable because obviously if Jesus Christ is not God and my salvation link is with Him and He’s not God, then I don’t have a relationship with God, I have a relationship with something other than God and therefore I am not saved. You can’t be saved if Jesus Christ is not God. That was the argument of Athanasius in the 5th century, that’s the argument of us today. Denying the deity of Christ denies salvation.
Now in the course of church history there have been two tendencies on the Trinity. One is called subordinationism, it’s also called other names but let’s see what happens. Father, Son, Holy Spirit and Father Son and Holy Spirit. Let’s see how these two heresies operate. The first heresy, subordinationism makes the Father equal to God, then having done that the Son and the Holy Spirit become less than God. That’s one line of heresy and that’s the most popular form of heresy. There’s liberalism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, all of these people, from liberals to Jehovah’s Witnesses all believe in subordinationism. The Father alone is God and the Son and the Holy Spirit are less than God. That is heresy, it is a denial of the Trinity and anybody who believes that cannot be a Christian.
The other line of heresy is the modalism; let’s see what modalism is. Modalism believes that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are masks that the real God puts on. In some situations He comes to you as a Father, in other situations He comes to you as the Son, in other situations He comes to you as the Holy Spirit, but the real God you never see; you only see these three masks. So again, modalism leaves you with an unknown God. So whether you go the subordinationism route, you wind up with an unknown God. If you go the modalism route you wind up with an unknown God.
Now we come to an interesting council and on your sheet, on the history of heresy, here is one of the most famous heretics of all church history. The Council of Nicea in 325; every Christian ought to know The Council of Nicea; I’m finding out in our fundamental circles our people are very weak when it comes to knowing church history, at least the essentials of it and this is why we fight the wrong kind of battle, we can’t have intelligent conversation with other believers, we can’t make the points that ought to be made because we’re making the points that shouldn’t be made. Now the Council of Nicea is something you ought to know about. It’s not just something for church history class, it’s something that has to do with the way you are believing right now. The Council of Nicea was the council that laid it on the line as far as the deity of Christ against subordinationism. They threw out Arius. Arius was a heretic that advocated the first kind of heresy, subordinationism. Just so you think this is not theoretical I want to show you in the next sentence, this next part of the paragraph here, that there were definite political results from all of this.
One interesting effect politically of Arianism was that the Roman political rulers favored Arius over the orthodox because it reduced the majesty of Jesus Christ vis-à-vis Caesar. Arianism reduces Jesus as the truth and makes room for the almighty state to remain as absolute authority as men mumble about God. Now the Romans, who were unbelievers, saw the significance of this. Think of that; the government officials of Rome saw right away that the doctrine of Trinity must be smashed; we must elevate Arius into position because if they could elevate Arius into the Christian church, and the Christian church in 325 AD had gone the way of Arius then Jesus could not challenge Caesar. So this is a very, very important point and all the unbelievers that were worth anything in 300 knew exactly the issue. And the only people who are very, very foolish today, who don’t think, can’t see this issue; this is a very important issue, the deity of Christ.
Now here’s what Arius thought; here’s a quotation from himself and I want to let you see what Arius taught in 300 AD, let you see what the fight is about. God Himself, said Arius, now as you go through this watch for the logical result of denying the Trinity. Watch what Arius has to do here. Now before you start reading this you should understand immediately, what has he got to do? He’s got to wind up making God unknown. You can tell that before you even read it. So now watch what happens, and sure enough it shows up.
Arius says: “God Himself, then, in His own nature is ineffable by all men.” So the first statement right there says that God is unknowable. See what Arius has done; he’s made the Father God all right, but he’s made Him unknowable, you can’t know anything about Him, He’s ineffable. That’s got to happen, you don’t even have to read Arius to know that’s going to happen. “The unbegan,” he said, “equal or like himself, He alone has none,” there’s his essence, only the Father has divine essence. “The unbegan made the Son, a beginning of things originated. He has nothing proper to God in proper subsistence.” Do you know what that says, that’s the Son, the Son has nothing, has no bit of divine essence, “for he is not equal, no, nor one in essence with Him.” So Arius denies the divine the divine essence of the Son; you got it right from his own pen. “There is full proof that God is invisible to all beings, both to things which are through the Son and to the Son He is invisible.” See what he’s forced to do. If the Father is God, look at the laws of logic, work this out; if you make the Father God, the Son less than God, then the Son can’t know God either because the Son is finite, the Son is a creature, and therefore the Son cannot know the Father. Now that has got to happen. There is full proof, you couldn’t have it more clearly stated, that God is invisible to the Son, and then to make the point strong, “foreign from the Son in essence is the Father, for He is without beginning. So speak in brief, God is ineffable to His Son.” Now take the last statement and the first statement of this paragraph, tie the two together and you’ve got where Arianism always has to lead. God in ineffable to all men; God is ineffable to His creatures, God is ineffable to the Son. You’ve got to wind up with this, you’ve got to go this way.
Modern versions of Arianism abound, from liberalism to Jehovah’s Witnesses. Here’s a Watchtower publication. “The Bible shows that there is only one God, greater than His Son, and that the Son had a beginning; that the Father is greater and older than the Son is reasonable, easy to understand, and is what the Bible teaches.” So Jehovah’s Witnesses follow right in the steps of Arianism, except the Jehovah’s Witnesses are too stupid to realize what Arius realized; the logical result of this movement is to make God unknown. The Jehovah’s Witnesses are not well-educated like Arius was; Arius at least had the courage to carry his convictions to a logical conclusion. Jehovah’s Witnesses either are too ignorant or too stupid or too unwilling to do that.
Now a humorous note on the end of dear
Arius. Here’s a story you’ll never hear
in a church history textbook but this was a story that was circulated for over
a century in the ancient church. Again,
those of you who have studied 1 Samuel can appreciate God’s sense of humor so
be prepared. “Arius, after Nicea,
regained power through political influences.
On his recall,” see, political influences, why did the Romans favor
Arius over the orthodox Christian’s?
Because if you deny Christ’s deity you make the tension between Christ
and Caesar less; politically it is more expedient to go with Arianism than
Trinitarianism. “On his recall,
Alexander, primate of
And so Alexander, as the column begins to move toward the building, prays this prayer, (quote): “If Arius comes to the Church, take me away, Oh Lord, and let me not perish with the guilty; but if You pity Your Church as You do pity it, then take Arius away, lest when he enters heresy enter with him.” (end quote) The next morning, I guess this was prayed in the evening before that, the next morning on his triumphant procession to the church to be formally and publicly reconciled on imperial authority, Arius stopped and left the procession suddenly because of a gastric pain. After waiting some time his followers investigated and found that the old man, Arius, and collapsed in blood and fallen head long into the open latrine. The orthodox party triumphantly recalled the words concerning Judas’ death, who, falling headlong burst asunder in the midst and died, Acts 1:18. Arius’ manner of death was used by the orthodox to discomfort the heretics and encourage the saints and it was declared an act of God. The heretics preferred to forget it, modern heretics have eliminated this and like events from history books as irrelevant. It was, however, a providential conclusion to the great intellectual battle of Nicea. So may all of Arius followers, die as Arius.
Now the deity of Christ. All of you should be familiar with the deity of Christ and you should know how to show the deity of Christ from Scripture. It’s appalling to know that some of you can come to Bible class after Bible class after Bible class and then somebody calls upon you to show Christ is God and you can’t do it. Now that’s ridiculous. So to train you we’ve got these points. You should know these, I’ve put them on mimeographed sheets so you can’t get away from them. Put this in your notes.
Point one, you should know the places in the New Testament where Jesus Christ is explicitly called God. It’s not true that Jesus is never called God, He’s God in at least seven places. (1) Romans 9:5 is a textual problem of interpretation. It could go either way. Turn there and I’ll show you the problem. Speaking of Israel Paul says, “Whose are the fathers, and of whom, as concerning the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, God blessed forever,” according to the King James, but it can also read: “As concerning the flesh, Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever.” So Romans 9:5 can be a specific reference to Christ’s deity. However, we don’t need that one.
Turn to 1 John 5:20, that’s another illustration of these passages. You see, when you’re battling for the deity of Christ you’re battling for what your spiritual fathers battled for in the third century so learn how to do it. “And we know that the Son of God is come, and has given us an understanding, that we may know Him that is true; and we are in Him that is true, in His Son, Jesus Christ. That one is the true God and eternal life.” So we have these explicit statements of Christ’s deity, they’re obvious, you can look them up for yourselves. The second point is again obvious; placed in the triune association with the Father and Spirit.
But point three is the one I want to
concentrate on. It is significant that
Jesus Christ allowed the issue of His deity to remain. Now in
Now point four, this is an important one we’re going to see in Hebrews. The best way to see this, probably, is look at Phil 21:10 and then Isaiah 45:23. This is an approach to the deity of Christ that is very, very… well, it’s just not very popular, not many people know about it but to me it’s the most powerful argument for Christ’s deity. Look first at Philippians 2:10, “God has exalted Him, … “That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth, [11] And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, [to the glory of God the Father].” Every tongue, by the way, that includes Satan, it includes demons, it includes all creatures are going to have to confess Christ as Lord sooner or later. People in hell are going to have to confess Christ’s Lordship, so really we have only one choice and that is whether we’re going to confess Christ’s Lordship or whether we’re going to confess Christ’s Lordship. There’s no other option… there’s no other option, it’s just a slight difference in circumstances under which we confess His Lordship, but there is no choice as to whether you will confess Christ’s Lordship. You will. Now that’s they way Jesus is placed in the New Testament, in Philippians 2.
Now turn to Isaiah; Philippians was taken from this passage, that quote and it’s God, Jehovah speaking, Isaiah 45:23, “I have sworn by Myself, the word is gone out of My mouth in righteousness, and shall not return, that unto Me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear,” and it’s obviously Jehovah. So if we have Jehovah in a passage, you have a passage of Scripture and you have Jehovah, then you have another passage of Scripture which is that quotation in the New Testament and in place of Jehovah you have Jesus, what other conclusion can you come to but that they are identifying Jesus and Jehovah. How can you come to any other conclusion. What are these guys doing with the Old Testament text? They’re not idiots, there’s a reason why they’re doing this. You ought to look up those other verses when you get a chance.
Point five, He takes over the titles of Jehovah. Turn to John 18:5, according to Exodus 3 in the Old Testament God said I AM that I AM, I AM the self-existent one. That’s from which many scholars get the Tetragrammaton of Yahweh, YHWH, because the Hebrew word for being is this.
Now, I AM is God’s title. In John 18:5 the police come to capture Jesus, and “They answered him, Jesus of Nazareth. And Jesus said unto them, I AM. Judas also, who betrayed him, stood with them. [6] And as soon as He said unto them, I AM, they went backward, and fell to the ground.” Now what’s happening there. When Jesus says this in the Greek, ego eimi, and that in the Septuagint translation is the name of God. So obviously John the apostle catches this and he notices, he observes, the police, everybody else just fall over. All He said was two words, I AM. And that shows you at that instant, for a split second, Christ’s deity flashed forth and it just leveled everything around. So Christ then claims identification with I AM. That is another evidence of His deity.
And then point 6 is obvious, it reveals attributes of God, and then He does acts only God can do and we’re going to see one next week in Hebrews 1:3.
Now we’ve got to deal with something that is a problem and that is why, then, if Jesus is God, does always appear underneath the Father? Why do we always have this kind of a relationship, Father to Son. It always seems like the Son is less than the Father. All right, it goes back to the third divine institution on your paper, the Father/Son relationship. It originates in the third divine institution as family.
Point one, the same nature is transmitted from father to son, contrary to Arius, both father and son must have the same essence. Now you see, if you just think back to the family it would get you around the problem. Doesn’t the son have to have the same essence as the father. If the father is human the son’s human, there’s your “kind” from Genesis. All right, if the son is the same “kind” as his father, then Jesus is the same kind as the Father, and that means He’s the same essence of the Father and if the Father is God, then the Son must be God. So it’s a simple analogy, there shouldn’t be any problem that there’s a change in essence here.
But then point 2 and this is the word that gave Arius a lot of trouble, it’s the one that gives Jehovah’s Witnesses a lot of trouble, in fact it gives many Christians a lot of trouble, and that’s this word “begotten.” What does this mean, “the begotten Son of God?” “Begetting” does not necessarily focus on beginning; those are not the same words. And what happens, you see this word, “begot,” and you immediately think of origin, that’s the way your mind works, you think of origin and then you think that there was a beginning to the Son and now therefore the Son is finite. Now that’s where the Arianism, that’s how subordinationism gets started. Let’s look at begetting. These two verses references, we haven’t got time to go to them but Romans 5 and Hebrews 7 both prove that from the Jewish point of view the Son was always in the Father. Before the Son was born the Son was in the Father. This is how a big argument is made about the priesthood; we’re going to come onto in the book of Hebrews. So it’s simply not true that begetting always refers to origins if in the Bible itself where term is meant you’ve got to interpret the term in the context… the context. And the context of the New Testament is that the begetting doesn’t mean origin because the Son is already “in” the Father in some way. We were already in Adam in the Garden of Eden. So it just isn’t true that the Jewish viewpoint and the Old Testament is that begat means origin. This term focus, rather, upon logical sequence. The best illustration is time. Time can be thought of as a flow coming from the future into the present and out finally into the past. Viewing God our attention moves from the Father to the Son to the Spirit and that’s what the word “begat” means. It means a logical relationship, not a chronological relationship. Got it—logical relationship, not chronological relationship!
Now next point, it is enforced by the office of King. Turn to Psalm 2, we’re going to come back to Psalm 2 in a little bit but Psalm 2:7-9, here is the Son as King. Now remember you start with the third divine institution, Father/Son, but then in the Old Testament we’re prepared further for Christ by looking at the King as the Son. So in Psalm 2:7 he says, “I will declare the decree: The LORD has said unto Me, Thou art My Son; this day have I begotten Thee.” Now the begetting here in verse 7 is the time of the coronation of the King. If, now look, just think, because what we’re trying to do is find out what begat means according to the Bible, not according to what western man says but what the people that wrote the Bible meant. And when they used the word “begat” what did they mean. All right, here’s a reference to it. Did the king suddenly come into existence on the day of his coronation. That can’t be. Did the king change his nature on the day of his coronation. That can’t be either. What changed on the day of his coronation? What was the change in? What does this begetting refer to? What happened when the king sits on the throne and the crown is placed on his head? What changes? His fingernails? What changed? [someone answers] All right, his general office, his power, his authority, his relationship. So you can’t get better proof than this, that the word “begat” refers to a relationship. It doesn’t refer to origin. There’s another point in Psalm 2. The king’s nature doesn’t change just because he’s begotten.
Now at the bottom of your worksheet is the classic formulation of the deity of Christ. If you come from a liturgical church you recite this; don’t be ashamed of it. We should be reciting it; it’s one of the most fantastic statements of Christ, the best doctrinal statement ever made. Here’s what Nicea did, because the Apostle’s Creed wasn’t strong enough, the people at Nicea said we’re tired of Arius misinterpreting it, we’re going to set it down once and for all what we mean by Jesus Christ is the Son. So this is what they said. Look at how they strained the language to get this across: “The only begotten Son of God, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God.” Now can you get any stronger than that? The people at Nicea tried every word they could get to convey the deity of Christ. “Very God of very God, begotten, not made,” see the difference, to show people that that word begat doesn’t mean origin, it means relationship. “Begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father,” think of what Arius said, he is not of one substance; Nicea says He is “of one substance,” the Son is the same essence as the Father, “of one substance with the Father;” and then “by whom all things are made” doesn’t refer to the Father, that refers to the Son, there’s a semicolon after the word “Father” there in the Nicene Creed. That “by whom all things are made,” I’ve heard people, when I grew up in a liturgical church we’d recite that and recite that recite it and it was always as though the Father was the one by whom all things are made. That’s not true; that clause in there, “by whom all things are made” refers to the Son, not the Father. And that semicolon makes the difference. So that’s the argument and that’s the fight over the deity of the Son and it’s foolish for us to be fighting that battle, that was fought through and ironed out about 1700 years ago.
Now let’s come to Hebrews and we’ll finish up one more little item. We got to the word “Son,” let’s see if we can get a few more words down. We might possibly be able to get out of Hebrews 1:3 some time. Now let’s see: “He has spoken unto us by a Son,” now do you see the force of that? Does it come across stronger? It should if you followed us in the last 15 minutes that word “Son” should hit harder now. It’s not a prophet, it’s a Son, and when somebody comes to you and says Jesus was just a prophet and we scoop Him up along with Confucius and Buddha and Bahiullah and a few others and put them all in one pail, Jesus was not that kind of a prophet, you’re doing violence to the text of the New Testament. This verse refutes you, this is not talking about a prophet, it’s talking about a Son. There’s an infinite difference.
Now, here is the beginning of a bunch of clauses. Notice first the order of these clauses; in the last of verse 2 and in the beginning of verse 3 you have two things said of the Son. “Whom … whom,” see those two clauses in verse 2, “Whom He has appointed heir of all things, by whom also He made the worlds.” And then in verse 3, “Who, being the brightness of His glory,” etc. So the last thing deals with His person, but these two clauses, “Whom,” depicts something that the Father does with the Son, and we’re going to study the next one now. “Whom He appointed heir of all things.” Now in the King James that reads “has appointed heir,” which would tend to think the original text was a perfect, it’s not, it’s an aorist, “whom He appointed heir.”
When did the Father appoint the Son heir? When do you thing. If the begetting in Psalm 2, remember as a result of the begetting of the Psalm He said everything is given unto you, [8] “Ask of Me and I’ll give the heathen for Your inheritance,” … for your inheritance! [7] “This day have I begotten Thee.” Now if Psalm 2 depicts the origin of a relationship that ushers forth into heirship, when did this appointing take place in verse 2? In time or in eternity? God, the Father, appointed Him heir of all…ALL things. Is that an eternal decree or a temporal incident? It’s an eternal decree; this is an eternal appointing. The Son, from our perspective as finite creatures in time was always appointed, never was a time when He wasn’t. [Tape turns]
“He is appointed heir of all things.” Now this is a very powerful doctrine and we’re going to spend the last ten minutes on the doctrine of Christ’s heirship. It has something very personal to do with every believer. The first point in the doctrine of heirship; heirship is rooted in the essence of the Son, not the acts of the Son. Heirship is rooted in the essence, not His acts in history. Jesus is called to be heir because Jesus is God, that’s the ground of His heirship.
Now let me show you from the Biblical
context how heirship was viewed. First,
Matthew
Another point under the same principle of heirship, that heirship is based on his essence, not on his acts, and that is Galatians 4:1, if God the Holy Spirit is moving in your heart to understand the Son further He will be moving in your heart to understand this doctrine of heirship because this heirship is going to give you a very, very enlarged view of Christ, much larger than probably you’re used to seeing Him. “Now I say that the heir, as long as he is a child, differs nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all.” Now doesn’t that teach the fact that he can be heir and not exercise it, not show it in any way? He is lord of all, isn’t he; he’s a child but he’s still lord of all, that’s what it says here in verse 1. His status as heir is constant; the manifestation of the status changes. What is constant? His heirship. What is the variable? The actual manifestation of his heirship, that changes but not the heirship itself. The heirship is a constant, it’s an eternal constant. Christ is the heir of all things; did you realize, then, that He is the heir of the entire universe. Jesus Christ is heir of heaven and hell, all are His. So the first point in the doctrine of heirship is that it is an eternal heirship. There never was a time when Jesus Christ was not heir of all things.
Said another way, to get this first point across more sharply perhaps to some of you still struggling with this, said another way this means that Christ has emanate domain. Emanate domain belongs to Jesus Christ and at any point He has the right as the heir to kick anybody off His property. It’s His property, the universe is Christ’s personal property, He is the heir of all things. Christ alone has emanate domain. And when the Caesars of modern politics argue that the state has emanate domain they’re usurping powers from the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.
The second point on the doctrine of heirship, turn to Psalm 8:5. “For thou hast made him,” talking about man, now there’s a subtle reasoning involved here so be sure you get to Psalm 8 before we start, “For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honor. [6] Thou made him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put ALL things under his feet.” Watch the word “all” because the whole argument is going to fall out of that little word. “…all things under his feet,” and then verse 7 and 8 refer to “the sheep, the oxen, the beasts of the field, [8] The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever pass through the paths of the seas.”
But the list of verses 7 and 8 is an incomplete list, isn’t it? Does the list in verses 7 and 8 include angels? Does the list in 7 and 8 include planets, other than the planet earth? No, the “all” of verse 6 refers to the fact that the heirship is cosmic, cosmic heirship. That’s also taught in the verse we’re studying in Hebrews; Christ is the heir of all things. The earth, apparently, now we can’t figure out exactly why but here’s the reasoning. Here’s man, here is the earth under his feet, just the planet earth. Apparently because of the relationship we have to this planet we in some way have a relationship to the universe at large. Our relationship is not directly to the universe; it is only to the universe through the earth. Through man’s dominion of the earth we have control of the universe. Why the planet earth should be the consoling point for the cosmos we don’t know, except geometrically speaking the planet earth is a control point, is the control point. This is where the battle is, this is what Satan wants, for some reason he wants planet earth, he doesn’t want the other planets, he wants this planet. For some reason Christ fought the battle of redemption on this planet, not another one. This planet has the key to the cosmos, it’s right under our feet; this is where the action is, so to speak, for all eternity. When God designed where He is going to dwell with His temple for the universe for eternality it’s not on Mars, it’s on planet earth. So the planet earth is the center, theologically, of the universe. And it’s not at all unusual now, understanding this, why the early Christians grabbed Aristotle’s concept and other that the earth was also the geometrical center, figuring that you had to be geometrically and spiritually congruent.
Now Psalm 8 refers to men, but Christ according to Hebrews sets up the new human race in Himself; He’s the second Adam, He does what men were destined to do. And so Jesus Christ is a cosmic heirship and by the way, man controlling the earth, controlling the universe, also controls therefore angels. Now why this proceeds this way we don’t know, but that’s the line of control. Whoever controls the earth controls the universe and whoever controls the universe controls the angelic powers of the universe. Now why it works this way, it’s just the way God has designed it, and that’s why this earth is the battleground. So the second point of Christ’s heirship is not that it’s eternal but the second one is that it is cosmic. It goes through His dominion over the earth to His dominion over the universe to His dominion over everything in the universe. Christ is the cosmic heir.
Now turn back to Hebrews 2 and we’ll see a third point on the doctrine of Christ’s heirship. The third point in the doctrine of Christ’s heirship is that it will be revealed in the final hour of history, so it is an ultimate heirship, not that it isn’t eternal but that that eternal heirship will ultimately be totally revealed. It is for the last hour of history when Christ’s heirship will be manifest to all creatures. For example, Hebrews 2:5, “For unto the angels has he not put in subjection the world to come, whereof we speak.” Verse 5 suggests something positive doesn’t it? Doesn’t verse 5 teach that right now who is in charge of the universe? The angels. Isn’t that the teaching of verse 5? The Son is the One who’s going to be in charge of the world to come, but right now the beings that control the universe are the angels. In the future it will be the Son controlling the world. So He has not, “the world to come,” see the phrase, “the world to come,” that’s the final age, the millennial kingdom and eternal state, the final era of history, the Son’s heirship will be clear throughout the universe.
Another verse, Hebrews 11:9, in that famous chapter on faith, Abraham knew this, “By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles [tents], … [10] And he looked for a city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God.” Verse 16, “God has prepared for them a city,” that is the inheritance and that is the ultimate heirship, the idea that in the final hour of history it will all be revealed.
So the three points under the doctrine of heirship, it’s eternal, it’s cosmic, and it’s ultimate. If you want a verse that summarizes all these three points, Ephesians 1:10. “In the age” or “the administration of the fullness of times he has gathered together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth, even in Him.” Christ’s eternal, cosmic and ultimate heirship is revealed in the last hour. Christ is heir.
Now application of the doctrine of heirship to the individual believer. If we are “in Christ,” having part of His nature by regeneration, that makes us fellow heirs. Turn to Galatians 4:5; “that we might receive the adoption of sons. [6] And because you all,” that is all of you who have believed in Christ “are sons, God has sent for the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, [Father].” In other words, this is the testimony of the Holy Spirit in the individual’s soul, that we are in union with Christ. Notice who it is that testifies that we are sons in verse 6; it is the Holy Spirit. And what does the Holy Spirit testify of? The Holy Spirit or the Son? The Holy Spirit testifies of the Son, doesn’t He. Who are we heir with? The Son. So the Holy Spirit in the believer testifies of our union with Christ and thence our eternal cosmic and ultimate heirship also.
Turn to Romans 8:16, same application of this doctrine. Again, very similar to Galatians. “The Spirit Himself” not itself, “Himself bears witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God, [17] And if children,” Paul says, “then heirs—heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ—,” that is part of your riches, given to you by virtue of your position in Jesus Christ. We share that heirship.
Now, that should mean something to you; we don’t usually write it on but I could put that in that top circle, our heirship, because we share an heirship with the Son. That should mean something in the way you live your life. What should be your attitude toward things, if you know for sure that all things are yours? If you are in union with Jesus Christ and that the things of eternity will be given to you, what should that have a psychological effect on how you view possessions in the present life. Hebrews 11 discusses that; it should have a profound effect, it should have a tremendous tempering effect on covetousness, the sin of lusting for things, of grabbing things, I’ve got to have this, I’ve got to have something else, when you are co-heirs with Christ for sure, for all eternity.
See, Jesus Christ is perfectly relaxed. Do you think He had a lot of possessions? Huh-un, He was one of the most relaxed people who ever lived. Why? Because He knew He was heir of all things; it didn’t bother Him who had it right now, it’s all His. So that should effect, this doctrine is just not a cold analytical theological doctrine. It has implications for how we operate as believers in the everyday life.
Father, we thank You…..